Travel Day 1014 – Extended Langtang Trek, NEPAL
05/15 Timure via Tibet Border and Briddhim to Khanjim (2240)
Luckily today my stomach was feeling better again, but instead of heaving breakfast in the morning, we had something better to do anyway: we walked as early as possible to Rasuwagadhi, the border with Tibet…
Tibet Border at Rasuwagadhi, Nepal
Two years ago when I drove from Kathmandu to Tibet, there was only one possible road border crossing at Kodari, which was connecting Nepal directly to the brand new, Chinese built “Friendship Highway” to Lhasa. Now, so we had heard, there was a second road border crossing between Nepal and Tibet since the new road, which we already walked on yesterday, had been completed all the way to Rasuwagadhi…
Since there always seemed to be a Chinese iron curtain around Tibet and one never actually knew the truth of what was happening inside the occupied country, we were curious enough to get up early and walk the 45 minutes along the road, only to have a look what was going on at the infamous border with Tibet. Actually there wasn’t a whole lot going on, at least on Nepali side and there was not really much to see, but there was still a lot to be observed…
Chinese Military and Welcome to Tibet
First of all the road was in much better condition than any other Nepali dirt road I had ever seen and then we realized that all the construction vehicles we passed-by along the road had Chinese writing on them. This made us believe that the new road within Nepal was in fact built by the Chinese and not by the Nepali people. But why would China have an interest in building a road in Nepal? One possible reason seemed to be that China needed a second access route in preparation for its gradual Chinese Invasion of Nepal…
This was a terrible thought, but it grew inside of us as we reached the actual border. There was not a single person to be seen on the Nepali side while on the Tibetan side of the river a lot of Chinese people were running around like busy ants, trying to complete the last missing link between the two countries, a solid concrete bridge. It was quite a grotesque sight, especially because on the Nepali side of the border there was still an old stone defense wall standing with the opening for gunmen to protect Nepal from a previous Chinese invasion…
Nice Views at Lingling Village, Nepal
Nowadays big money seemed to be talking even louder than guns and so we left this haunted place rather quickly after we took some photos. It had really been an interesting morning and once we were back in Timure we had to talk about the border situation and Tibet’s misfortune while having an extended breakfast. There seemed to be not much one could do to change the situation of Tibet, besides being vocal about the personal experiences. And so after the breakfast, we were hitting the newly built Chinese road again and walked in the dust of passing trucks until we finally reached the hiking trail towards Lingling…
While Lingling was only a very small place with a few scattered houses, the views and air quality was finally good again since we were able to leave the dusty road. From here on we had another steep and sweaty climb up many stone steps towards the nice Tamang village of Briddhim. As it appeared, Briddhim also looked quite similar to Gatlang, only that the houses here were more spread out and a lot of new guest houses existed…
Tamang Houses in Briddhim, Nepal
We stayed for tea in Briddhim and then walked about another hour on a level path to our final destination of the day and the last village of the Tamang Heritage Trek, Khanjim. As it appeard, Khanjim too was a nice small village with an elevated Gompa and a rustic but cozy family guesthouse where we ended our 5th day of the trek. Once more it had been an eventful day and we were already excited to see what the Langtang Trek had to offer tomorrow…
Find all Day 05 – to Khanjim via Tibet Border Photos here.
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