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We left the UK in the summer of 1973. We had been married two years and had been talking for several years about a trip to India and Nepal as soon as we had finished College. We had saved for a few years and had around £800 to our name. We bought open date tickets on Air India from Delhi to Manchester at a cost of £80 each. We took £250 in travellers cheques and left the balance in the bank in UK.
We packed rucsacs and got a lift by road across Europe in a Bedford van. I actually did the driving and we passed through most of Europe into Austria, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria and into Turkey. It was in Eastern Turkey that we parted company with our lift and got onto public transport. We crossed the border at Bazargan into Iran. |
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There were a surprising number of young people in the small town of Bazargan, all heading east. Some of them had nothing more than an M&S plastic bag as luggage. Every day there was a new batch of 30 or 40 waiting for the afternoon bus to Tabriz and Tehran. There was a great exchange of information about routes and transport and hotels and visa requirements. This was when we really started to find out about how to travel overland to Asia.
We were all decanted from the bus at a traffic island somewhere in Tehran in the middle of the night and made use of the information received from fellow travellers and found a hotel. In the morning everybody went to the railway station where there were many faces from the bus and many new faces, buying tickets to travel across Iran to Mashad.
We took a few days going across the top of Iran and we got Afghan visas in Mashad. Mashad was where the public transport sort of ended and from Mashad to Taybad at the Afghan border was by whatever local transport, including donkey carts, was available.
One of the problems was that there was no public transport of any sort in Afghanistan. There were local buses but generally, travellers like us looked for an alternative. We came across three Bedford bakers vans from England, they still had the sign writing on the side and were full with Pakistani families who were travelling for holiday in their villages in Pakistan.
We managed to arrange a lift through Afghanistan but I had to fix one of the vans and drive it through Herat and down to Kandahar and up to Kabul. We stayed in a hotel in Kabul and then drove to the Pakistan border. The Pakistan border town is called Torkam, it very much a frontier town and had some suggestions of Kipling and the British Raj. It was late afternoon when we arrived in Torkam and by the time we had got through the immigration formalities, the Khyber Pass was closed. It closed from sunset to sunrise every day. The Khyber Pass has some spectacular scenery and it was interesting to see that the various regiments that had served there had left their cap badges carved 8 and 10 feet high in the rocks at the roadside.
We parted company with our baker's vans in the city of Peshawar and we now had the great Indian railway system available to us. We bought tickets from Peshawar to Lahore and broke our journey half way at Rawalpindi. We had met a guy on the train who was the chief clerk at the Star Brewery in Rawalpindi and he urged us to stay at his brother's hotel and visit Rawalpindi and Islamabad. We remember well the visit to the brewery, which presumably now is no longer operating.
After a couple of days we boarded the train again and went down to Lahore to investigate how we were going to get into India. Pakistan and India were at war at the time, so although we had useful information from our fellow travellers we were a bit concerned that this might be difficult. In fact it turned out to be very easy, except that we had to walk a couple of kilometres across no-mans-land at Wagga. The Pakistanis were very anxious to be of assistance and to see us off properly ensuring that we left with a good impression. The Indians were waiting at the other side to welcome us and equally anxious to give a good impression.
We took the train from the border down to Amritsar and then on to Delhi. We spent several weeks in Delhi living in hotels in what was called the Beggars Bazaar, immediately opposite New Delhi railway station. We were paying approximately 50 to 75 pence per night for a room and we were eating in the local restaurants which cost us about 50 pence a day. We travelled around Delhi on foot and using the auto-rickshaws, visiting the tourist places. Eventually we carried on our journey by rail across northern India to Kanpur, Lucknow, Alahabad and Muzaffarpur, until we reached the Nepal border at Rauxal. Here the railway line ended and we had to find transport over the hills into the Kathmandu valley.
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We were told the best way to do this was standing up at the back of a truck, and we saw some people who had taken this option. We decided against it and got tickets on a bus. It was a full day trip during which the bus climbed to several thousand feet before starting its descent into Kathmandu. At the side of the road, you could see a cableway which carried flat pallets containing goods up over the hill to Kathmandu. I wonder if this thing is still working. |
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We spent several weeks in Kathmandu. There was very little motor traffic in the city. There were only a very limited number of first class hotels, not that we were looking for those, we were staying in "Super Lodge" which was the other side of Ratna Park. The building behind the old bus in the picture is Superlodge.
There were no shopping centres or anything like that. I understand that now there are even supermarkets with escalators and serious traffic congestion in the city. There is even a new Yak & Yeti Hotel. When we were there we visited the original Yak & Yeti, which was still being run by Boris of Kathmandu. The place was straight out of the Raj and starting to fall apart, there was talk about this new tourist hotel, but I think to us at that time, it seemed a long time off. |
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On the left are copies of the cards from Superlodge and Hotel Conti. Click on the image to see a bigger version and also the reverse sides of the cards where the tariffs are shown. Remember that at the begining of the 1970s the exchange rate was less than 20 Rupees to the Pound.
The way to get around Kathmandu was by bicycle. We went along to one of the small rentabike shops. Neither of us had ridden a bicycle for a few years. Susan particularly wanted one with a good loud bell. She tested all the bells till she found one suitable. We went out into the narrow streets and bazaars, me in front and Sue following. It was like being 10 years old again, weaving around the people. I could hear the constant 'ring ring' behind me and Sue shouting 'look out', 'excuse me', 'hey-up'. |
We were getting more confident and seemed to be doing well then the 'ring ring' became sort of frantic. I heard 'Hey-up, oh shit!' and a thump and smash sound. I looked behind and saw a heap on the floor. A Nepalese businessman, smartly dressed in jacket, traditional Nepalese cap and jodhpurs was sat in the middle of the street. He was clearly bewildered and was looking up at the buildings in front of him, he seemed convinced that someone on a balcony had thrown a bicycle at him. Then suddenly he became aware that he was sharing the wreckage with an Englishwoman. He started apologising and began to disentangle himself. Still apologising, he lifted the bicycle upright and helped Sue to her feet. He continued to apologise and even bowed slightly as he hurried away down the street.
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We travelled through Nepal by bus to Pokhara where there is a mountain lake. We stayed several days in Pokhara which is overlooked by Annapurna, Machapukare and Dhalgiri mountains. You could rent a hollowed out log on the lake and paddle around in circles. Circles were the only way you could go because the logs were all bent! The lake was totally still and the only sound you could hear were the bells from the monastery on the mountainside.
We spent a few more days in Kathmandu before going back down to India to the city of Patna, and then on to Delhi. |
We flew from Delhi back to the UK just in time for Christmas and with enough time to pack for our departure to Zambia at the beginning of January.