We got up in a leisurely way for our last day to Kathmandu. Had breakfast downstairs where we had had dinner, endured lots of stares on the street while we packed, then rode out of town.

We went up and down a lot all morning. We knew The Big Hill would be comingm, so every time the road climbed, we thought "this is it," only to reach a summit and go down again.

While we rested in the shade of a tree beside the road, a cycle tourist came zooming up the hill from behind us. He wore dark sunglasses and was just pounding up that hill, staring just ahead at the ground. We yelled "hello" but he didn't stop, or even look up. We felt offended. We were certain he had seen us.

About 20 minutes later two other cyclists showed up. These ones stopped. We came to call them Team Zurich. Even though one, Duncan, was born in England and the other in Italy, both were bike couriers in Zurich. They explained that the guy who passed was another bike courier working in Zurich. So we had met four bicycle couriers in 24 hours.

Duncan was especially hilarious, like a guy from Monty Python. We talked for about 20 minutes, mostly just about how glad we all were to be out of Tibet. Duncan joked that he realized why the Chinese had moved into Tibet - to civilize the people who didn't wash, eat lousy food, and only have stones. Antonio said, "I don't know about politics, but Chinese food is way better."

Eventually we met the cyclist who had passed us without stopping. His name was Ernesto, and he was also a Zurich bike courier. He had indeed not seen us. Like a lot of cyclists on that road, he had a one track mind at the time: "Get to Kathmandu, Get to Kathmandu..."

We had dinner with Duncan and Ernesto in Kathmandu a few days later. They weren't nearly so hard on Tibet with full stomachs. (Then again, neither were we).

Finally we reached the base of the big hill Ben had described. There was no doubt about it when we saw the switch backs far above that this really was it. A heavy truck passed us very slowly as we started climbing. Guys on the truck waved and smiled and motioned to us to catch up. So we both reached out and grabbed handles on the back and let the truck pull us about 200 meters up the hill. After that my arm started to hurt and I worried that I would lose control of the bicycle so I let go. We later learned the Duncan and Ernesto managed to hold on to a truck for the whole 12km up.

At a pleasant rest stop near a creek about half way up, I said, against my better judgement, that my bike had held up pretty well. When I tried to start riding again, I found my rear wheel wouldn't turn. Another bolt had sheared off, this one holding the bottom left side of the rear rack (the other bolt broke on the top left).

Like the last one, I fixed this with rope. Fortunately the road was paved the rest of the way. The fix worked. Later Sonam, the Nepali probiker, drilled out the broken bolts and gave me new ones, all for no charge. He also had a good suggestion: he said in the same conditions, strips of innertube rubber work even better than rope for holding pieces together.

Eventually we reach Dhulikhel, the town at the top of the hill, where we ate lunch and watch over-loaded buses come and go.

I had convinced myself of a great descent into Kathmandu but it didn't happen. The road went down a little then levelled off. Then the traffic got thick and irritating, though not downright dangerous like east Java traffic.

Joan: Eric's mood deteriorated with the traffic. As for me, I was in heaven. It looked like we were going to actually make it, without hitchhiking, and we knew from emails from friends who had been to Kathmandu that vast quantities of excellent food awaited us there. Also, it was October, the month of my birthday, and Eric and I like to start celebrating our birthdays early. So the whole time Eric was griping, I kept singing the Beatles' birthday song to myself. It was kind of surreal.

We asked directions at every intersection, reaching Thamel, the tourist district of K'du, just before dark.

We got off the main streets into these little alleys and things got pretty crazy. I felt like I was in a surreal dream. The tiny alleys were packed with people busily zipping from place to place. We had to walk the bikes just to get around. Now and then a car would try to get through, which seemed ludicrous.

The alleys wound around at strange angles. We started to get conflicting directions. But the crowds started getting more and more white faces so we figured we were in the general area.

When we reached the heart of Thamel, many touts accosted us, trying to get us to go to their hotel. We already had no less than four recommendations for hotels (from Ben, Team Zurich, and others) so we didn't want to bother with touts. Though resisting them was a big bother in itself. I wanted one of those shirts, "What Part of NO don't you understand?"

We picked up a note from Ben and Sarah at the Kathmandu Guest House. That was exciting for me. Way back in Chengdu we received an email from them telling us that they had left that note. At times over the past month it seemed like we would never get it. It was a note of congratulations, with a business card for the hotel they'd stayed at.

We had a long hour or so trying to find that hotel. Both of us were tired and hungry and a little irritable. And we both had our own ideas about how to find a hotel. This sort of tainted our triumphant arrival.

Next: Nepal

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