A cry for Help from Cambodia

This is a supplement to my blog brought about by the harrowing experience I have just been through in Cambodia.    Having flown in to Phnom Penh to visit our charity I was aware of the fact that much of Thailand and Cambodia is flooded.   Indeed on Friday when Kate, our country manager, and I flew up to Siem Reap for a fund raising event we could see that huge areas of central Cambodia are under water.

This coupled with seeing the Siem Reap river over it’s banks and on the adjoining roads made us realise that the flooding is the worst Monsoon disaster to befall South east Asia in more than a decade.

Several of the guests at the fundraising had driven from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, some 3 hours normally, but the road is so crowded with animals and people that they were unable to drive at the normal speed.

All this seemed somewhat distant as we sat in Raffles sipping Gin and Tonic over the weekend but today realisation as to just how bad things are here came my way in a big way.

Having arrived back from Siem Reap yesterday the plan was to visit various slum areas around Phnom Penh to see if the ISFD could replicate it very successful education program in another needy part of the city.   Having visited two areas within the city which by the way is not openly flooded we headed off to a community on the banks of the Tonle Sap river just East of the centre of Phnom Penh.

It was obvious as we approached that some of the commune was affected but the full horror of the situation was unveiled when a local boatman persuaded Vicheka, Seenna and I to go for a trip in his dug out.  

Seeing a flood from 10,000 feet or passing it in a taxi is not like being in it and experience the true horror of fetid water or children, parents, pets and animals all perched on pallets just above the water.

I have posted a number of pictures on the Blog site but as I wanted to email this to as many people as possible I only include one here in the text.

The water varied from a foot deep to what must be 8 foot as only the power lines and roof tops were visible.   Most of the houses are completely inundated and the families have built makeshift mezzanines just above the water level.  

What  is extraordinary is the fact that they all great us with a smile and seem completely nonplussed by their predicament.   Vicheka later told me that they are resigned to their fate and hence just accept it.   But to see children in their spotless school uniforms rowing tractor inner tubes with a bowl in the middle, little rug outs and rafts to school shows amazing resilience to me.

I am not yet sure how we can help, I think there will be a major disease problem within the next week and this may be an area we can directly focus on.   Certainly, even if the rain ceases, best estimates is it will take two weeks for the flooding to subside.

If you feel that you would like to help, can I ask that you place a donation on our website www.indochinastarfish.org and just enter FLOOD RELIEF in the comment/message field.

We will make sure we do not waste the money I promise.

Paul Markland

17^th October 2010

Down we go to Calcutta

After Everest it has been difficult to get excited about the remaining few days travel, however, Tibet was not finished with us in regard to awesome sights.   As we continued across the plateau we stopped at a hot spa hotel for a swim and from there got a fantastic view back over the plateau to Everest probably 100 miles away, in fact that day was the clearest of all and we could see Everest for miles as we travelled on towards Nepal.

If that was not enough our last 5,200 metre pass took us to a viewing point of the Western Himalayas and once again we could see numerous 7 and 8,000 metre peaks from the top of the pass, again not a cloud in the sky.

This however was the last of Tibet and we descended through a forest lined gorge all the way down to Kathmandu, passing through the border at Zhengmu.   The most notable features of this gorge were the 2,000 feet plus waterfalls cascading down the sides from the Himalaya peaks just out of sight above.   The road was atrocious and so only Pippa got to see the most impressive waterfalls as I struggled to keep the car from dropping into a gorge !

Kathmandu did nothing for us, dirty, hot with poor roads but the surrounding area has breathtaking beauty and unlike Tibet is deeply wooded and cultivated.   The Yak and Yeti Hotel was fun if only because of it’s name and the fact it is the most famous hotel for mountaineers in the world although the cockroach in my rice was definitely not a celebrity.   Most Everest climbs seem to start and finish here along with the thousands of trekkers who walk the foothills.

A final super drive south from Kathmandu through more passes and valleys saw us arrive at the southern East/West highway that transects Nepal.    This was the end of our mountain adventures and the beginning of a dreadful 1100 Kms three day drive to Calcutta.

Nothing can fully describe the bone shaking, car wrecking roads of Northern India and to say we made it was an achievement all in it’s own.   The Bentley suffered terribly and arrived in Calcutta badly damaged from the shocking potholes that saw us abandon the exhaust on the road side, empty the boot onto the track leaving a 12V Car Battery and wheel spanner (probably or maybe hopefully through the radiator of some careening bus).

The last we saw of the exhaust after I had demounted the remnants from under the car was two little men running off down the road with it, presumably to be fitted to another car later that day.

Pippa and I were so relieved to get into and through Calcutta that we hardly even remembered to congratulate one another on completing the rally !.   I determined that I had seen enough of India on the three day drive, that it hasn’t changed since I worked here in the early 80’s and that the best place to stay was inside the Oberoi Grand hotel until my flight home two days later.

To say we disliked the last three days of the rally is an understatement, having nursed the Bentley all the way from London it was sole destroying seeing it being wrecked just as we completed the 15,000 km drive.    Ironically, the tyres which we had not expected to last the whole route did with tread to spare and so the 4 new old ones I shipped out never left the roof of the Landrover.    However, thank heavens we also shipped out the inner tubes, as the heavy duty Michelin ones saw us drive from Bishkek to Calcutta without any repeat of the earlier daily punctures.

The charging system did come back into it’s own during the last days when, in order to ensure the horn and lights worked, I bypassed the regulator completely and stuck a nail in the charging circuit fuse.   This kept the second hand Pamir battery fully charged the whole way to Calcutta and meant we could lean on the horn as much as the next man !

Pippa was a star in the last two days when I was feeling so tired after driving for 10 hours continuously in the most manic traffic conditions imaginable when she took over and drove for a few hours to give me a rest.   All worth it when ‘big hands Bruce’ was waiting at the Oberoi as we arrived having wooed her all the way from Australia to Kashgar !   Hope it all goes well for you Pippa.

So the end of an epic adventure, probably the hardest drive I have been involved in and one that had two or three monumental highlights – Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Everest.  

It’s off to Cambodia for me now to meet up with our charity country manager, some contrast that is going to be.    If you have enjoyed the blog and would like to know more about the ISF or make a donation then please go to www.indochinastarfish.org.

Paul

To Everest and beyond

Well what an incredible few days it has been.    The two days in Lhasa were interesting but a bit clinical.   The old town has been largely demolished by the Chinese and replaced with new buildings, streets and parks.   Only one Temple, the Potala Palace and a small shopping area remain.   The hotel we stayed in, the St Regis, was fabulous but also new and run by Sheraton.   Of course the people were the same and they are so friendly it is a joy to wander the streets or drive around in the car which guarantees a mobbing.   In fact so many people tried to see the Bentley outside the palace that the police came over and insisted I move the car into the palace entrance rather than block the 8 lane highway outside !    The most common descriptive being ‘Cool Car’.

So although I got to see the outside of the Palace, I never saw the inside !   I did no work on the car in Lhasa as I did not want to miss anything happening there.   As it so happened most of our issues are at least stable so there was no real necessity to do more than giving it a wash.

During this stop the politics of the rally reached a crescendo with the Grieves demanding a three night stop in the hotel, Phil and Lorette, lost in China, expected to arrive at any moment – our guide, ‘One’ or (Won) trying to get our exit document couriered from Urumqi to Lhasa involving him meeting one of his colleagues in ChongChing and the rest of us, all five, trying to get a guide sorted out to take us to Everest !   What a carry on, anyway eventually Tensing joins us, most auspicious name we felt, and he is to guide the Bentley and two Land Rovers to Everest North Base Camp.   Leaving the others to sort themselves out whilst ‘One’ is away.

So of we go, broadly together for the two day drive to Old Tingri from where we can take the track to Everest.   The drive over the Tibetan Plateau is straightforward, the road is excellent and the scenery brilliant.   Much of the way we follow a river through the town of Shignase and onto Lartze.   A stop in the former to look at a small version of the Potala Palace and to see a traditional Tibet dance routine at the famous temple there.   It is the midst of a Tibetan Holiday so the streets are full of families enjoying the time off.

Latze is fairly unremarkable but our small hotel is adequate and we find a good café for a meal.

I should update you on my new navigator.   Pippa is the rally doctor, same age as my daughter Ayesha, and a very suitable driving companion although I wonder what the locals must think !.   She volunteered for the duty even though she hates being cold, so armed with all the clothes she possesses along with David’s sleeping bag she has taken over the navigator’s seat in the Bentley.    Considerably better looking than David, I can find nothing to complain about !

Luckily this side of Lhasa is much warmer and besides the first hour or so in the morning we have been stripping off clothes all day as the sunshine has raised the temperature to that of Spain or Italy in the summer.  

Our second day on the road to Everest consisted of a run of 120 Kms to New Tingri to drop the Bentley off at a small hotel there.   I had already decided after much discussion that, although it would be fabulous to have the Bentley reach Base Camp, it was likely to do considerable damage as the road is a hard rock track and not even gravel.   So, discretion being the better part of valour, the car was left to cool it’s heals on the main road.

We had to get various passes and permissions to go up the track but having secured these we are finally on our way for the 104 Kms run to base Camp at 5,200m (17,200 Feet).   The rally Landrover, which has been running on 4 out of 5 cylinders for weeks, creeps up the hill with Conrad, Pippa and I on board.   What a wreck, reminded me of the 100 reasons I had listed some months ago as to why I should never buy another Landy !    Anyway we crept up the hill at 25 KPH , first we have to scale a 5,000m pass from the top of which, on a good day you can see Everest.   We made it up but there was too much cloud to see the big peaks.   Undaunted we then went down a 1,000m or so to the valley below and an area of outstanding beauty, lots of small farms dotted everywhere, all cultivating wheat.   This is the harvest season so whole villages are out in the fields working together as a community to get the crops in.

We stop at a small town, no idea of it’s name, half way up to Base Camp and have a Sichuan lunch in a small café next to several army soldiers, guarding heavens knows what.   In fact the whole of Tibet is full of Chinese army, seems like for every citizen there is a Chinese soldier, talk about paranoia !   Anyway, lunch is excellent  and include my favourite condiment, Soya Sauce, or in this part of the world ‘Jung Yo’   Not only have I got this written down in Chinese characters but can now confidently order it all over China and be understood, a major achievement alongside ‘beer’, ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ !

On up the mountain we go, second major hill climb to the entrance to Everest area, just as we are slowing to go through yet another checkpoint, I spot Everest, peeping over a hillside ahead of us.   ‘Stop the Car, let me out’, not willing to risk missing the only sighting we will have of it if the weather closes in, I jump out and take the first photo.   I need not of worried as the closer we got to Everest the more we see of it.   Although there was cloud around it was fair weather cumulus and was only blocking small areas of the vast horizon.

On the road up we have met dozens of cyclist, yes, daft people who like to ride uphill for days at a time, breathing the exhaust fumes of passing 4x4’s and suffering from being thrown over their handlebars regularly on the nigh on impossible road surface.   Most have ‘only’ come from Lhasa but there is the odd one who has cycled from Parsons Green !   We take our hats off to them well done team leader David !, hope you have the energy to read this !

Finally we approach the Rombok Monastery, the highest on Earth, Yaks, Monks, Tourists, Cyclists, and us all at one of the highest and most awesome spots on this planet.   All the time Everest looms larger and larger preceded by the Rombok Glacier touching the track in front of us.

It is time to pause to reflect on the enormity of our luck, Everest in full view, only happens 9 to 15 days per annum, a Yurt awaiting us, all are full but we bought the vegetables which gets us special treatment (the yurt owners rarely see fresh vegetables due to the difficulty of getting them there, so our Doma kicked out her sitting tenants and sold our veg to her mates we think for a vast profit.)    These yurts are not Mongolian round ones, they are basically a rectangular steel frame with a plastic sheet walls and roof.   As such they hold no heat and the moment the stove goes out the temperature plummets to sub zero inside.    However, at least we have one and are not sleeping outside in our car like some.   With our guide there are six of us which just so happens to fill our yurt !

But first, what of the base camp, we jump in our Eco Bus, that’s what they call it ! and travel 8 Kms up the road to the Base Camp itself belching fumes as we go.   Everest all before us, small amount of cloud, but the North Face and the Glacier clear as a bell as we reach the highest point we are allowed to go without a mountaineering licence.   Atop a small rise we can see right up the Glacier to the peak above, doesn’t look far or even hard to walk but unfortunately we really do not have time to press on to the summit.

Conrad and Bernard spend 30 mins helping adjust my camera for the perfect shot as setting the thing to ‘Auto’ does not do the mountain justice.    Pippa who had some reservations about coming up the Everest has now changed her mind and is madly looking for the shot to send home to mum or big hand Bruce as we have named her potential beau, yes he is Australian.

100 photos later it is back to Base Camp, wow, stop the bus, I spot a wolf with a mountain hare in it’s mouth loping up the slope 100 yards from us.   After a struggle with the Eco bus window and doors, we finally get a photo of the back end of the wolf with it’s mouth full.   Conrad whilst opting to walk back from the view point, hears said wolf and wonders whether it has eaten well as he dashes for safety.

Back at camp we get inside as the temperature drops.   Having persuaded Doma to light the stove, full of yak dung and rabbit droppings, we sit back and enjoy a Tibetan Brandy, Cointeau (c/o Bernard) and Chai.   After a meal of Yak and our vegetables, much diminished after the sell off, we head for bed in all our clothes plus two duvets a piece.   The end of the most epic day of this rally.

Sunrise, no sign of Everest, cloaked in a band of stratus and cumulus above, well we have our photos but just maybe the clouds will lift if we hand on.   Breakfast is terrible, a stodgy pancake washed done with warm sweet coffee from a three in one pack.   I break out the Himalaya stove and fire up some real tea and coffee for the troops, much better !

After breakfast we see signs of improvement, slight outline of Everest in the cloud, we are going to wait.   An hour later we are certain that patience will pay off,   the mountain is shaking off it’s mantle and reappearing in all it’s glory.    Click, click, click, many more photos for me, one for Conrad (he is extremely fussy what he uses his 35 mm 24 shot camera for ).   Composition, Composition goes up the cry and I am struggling to get the small temple in the fore ground without whiting out Everest behind.   Eventually I turn to the camcorder, set it up on a tripod and leave it running for 10 minutes, capturing the tranquillity of the place interspersed with Chinese chittachatter, the damn Eco bus and the flutter of passing doves.   All done it is back to the Yurt to pack up, load the Landy’s and set off down the hill again to rejoin the main road and collect the Bentley.  

As we mount the first ridge above the road, the cloud clears and we can see 5 of the big 8 mountains of the world all in front of us,   cannot get all in a single photo but the view is breathtaking.   Conrad even uses up one of his 24 shots, the second in so many days !

As I drive us down the last few miles to the road we are all very quiet in the car, this has been a very special two days, you can say what you like but seeing the highest point on earth is definitely one of the 500 things to do before you die ….

Up the Hill

We depart Dunhuang for the three day drive up from the plains of Xinjiang to the capital of Tibet, Lhasa.   We are expecting a difficult three days mostly revolving around the roads, however this is not in fact the biggest challenge David and I face.

The road surface is in fact pretty good tarmac with the exception of large dips and ridges which force the Bentley suspension to bottom out and rattle the whole car.   During this period we break one of the fuel tank guard brackets again and due to a parking mishap in Na Qu knock the exhaust pipe through into one of the silencers.   Besides this the charging system remains erratic but controllable with the nightly charging of one of the two batteries we now carry.   Most positively the inner tubes held out and we have had no further punctures or flats, fingers crossed this continues.

The second surprise is that the Porsche comes up the hill with us, our guide was unable to get them on the train due to permit restrictions and they were forced to take to the road.   Although it was a struggle for Chris he managed to coax the car over the 17,000 foot passes where the Porsche became truly gutless.   We did some work on the timing and found the points barely open on the first night, sorting out these issues made quite some difference but the car is still very erratic.  

On the first day we drove over the initial high pass, this day took us up through barren countryside until we reached a plateaux at about 14,500 feet.   This grassy high plain was surrounded in the distance by snow capped mountains rising to about 20,000 feet and along this plain we saw our first glacier heading down towards us.   Although the scenery was exhilarating to begin with one soon became accustomed to it and was looking forward to the next big view !

The day was marred by a bitterly cold wind which made sitting in the Bentley a very uncomfortable experience.   After the loss of our clothes in Osh, Liz Grieves had bought us both a Russian fur hat and a scarf along with a thick jacket for David.    Thanks heavens she did as over these three days we wore just about everything we owned.   The cold coupled with extreme altitude made doing anything strenuous extremely tiring and we arrived each afternoon frozen and exhausted.   Luckily neither David or I suffered from AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) and were able to avoid the dangers resulting from that.   In fact although some of the group had mild affects we largely avoided any serious problems even though we ascended so rapidly, the most likely time AMS will be acute.

After three days at heights over 15,000 ft one becomes fully acclimatised but unfortunately nothing can prepare you for the bighting cold of sitting in an open car in sub zero temperatures.   We even experienced snowfall, freezing rain and hail, luckily for only short periods !

However, back to the scenery, on the second day it became truly amazing when we went over a 17,400 ft (5,244m) pass in snow and completely surrounded by towering peaks, the real Himalayas had arrived with a vengeance.   Again however, much of the drive was on the high plain which, except for the cold reminded us of the Alto Plano of Bolivia.

It was on this second day that we seamlessly entered Tibet, without even knowing it.   However, we arrived in Na Qu ahead of the guide and this was a major mistake, within minutes of reaching the wrong hotel we had the Police swoop down on us to find out who we were and why we had no guide with us.   They were very pleasant to us and even helped us find the other Na Qu hotel but they took our guide to bits when he arrived so much so that for the third day we had to suffer a convoy system the last 350 Kms into Lhasa.

The hotels we stayed in, if you can call them that, are the worst we have seen, freezing cold, no food and a non existent breakfast so we are both looking forward to warmth and a big juicy steak in Lhasa !   However we did manage a really good Yak stew in Na Qu which although a bit tough was warming and full of vegetables and potatoes.

David was finding the cold all too much and has decided to abort the rally in Lhasa.   With the prospect of another week at very high altitude and in freezing weather it is just not good for him.   So from Lhasa I struggle on alone, hopefully with one of the support crew as a navigator.   This is really disappointing but neither David nor I had really expected quite such cold and, to be honest, were not well prepared for it.   However, we have had a good time up until now and I shall miss my astute navigator and fellow adventurer.

Worst still is my trip to Everest is up in the air, since our guides roasting in Na Qu we have to travel in cars together and getting everyone to agree to stop below Everest so some can detour up to it is proving difficult.   Chris and Liz want to get home to the World Cup, Bernard and Dina have booked unchangeable flights for the day we arrive in Calcutta and that leaves just Conrad and I who are dead keen to visit Everest North Base Camp.   Who knows, watch this space.

Anyway the trip up the hill has been memorable and we have met a lot of Tibetan’s and Chinese along the way which has been fun.   Given out lots of sweets to kids and taken some breathtaking photos which I hope to get on the Blog shortly.

As we arrived in the St Regis hotel in Lhasa, David and I sighed with relief to be over the cold for two days and into a warm hotel….