The gateway to hell ... 30km to move to another world

If we ever thought we did some adventurous off-road trips before our "roller coaster ride" to Kathmandu (e.g. the so-called most dangerous road of the world from La Paz down into the jungle...) we were DEFINITELY WRONG. During the 30km between Nayram (or as the Tibetans call it: "Gateway to hell") and Zhangmu (the Chinese border town) and the following 120km in Nepal we were probably closer to heaven than we wanted to be!!!!
For the road which goes from Tibet to Kathmandu dangerous is not the right adjective... it is as muddy and slippery as it can get, the width is a few cm more than one 4WD (with much road work going on on the Chinese side, and the poor workers sleeping there!!). It is taking you under waterfalls with no hard shoulder and through fast flowing rivers which go into nowhere ... always 10cm away from the border which drops a few 100m into the steep valley. Thanks god we didn't know that more than 30 people died on that road just a few days before, or we wouldn't have been so easy at driving down...

Besides that, the scenery was unbelievably beautiful with sudden deep green tropical forest (after weeks in deserts and high altitude areas a feast for our eyes!!) and humidity going up to 95%. Sleeping at the border was not what you call glamorous and we had to take a few beers (even went into a shabby discotheque to kill time!) before we dared to climb into our damp and dirty sheets.

Crossing the border to Nepal gave us straight away the feeling we were in a different world. The people (dark and colorfully dressed), the smell (spicy and sweet), the culture (Hindu, Buddhist), the chaos (dirty, noisy) and also the weather (monsoon every day a few hrs) - it couldn't be more different to Tibet.. The Indian influence is more than obvious. It exciting on a different way and not at last brings great dinners and relaxed traveling atmosphere.