Nepal

Nepal

With two hours of the legendary Indian bureaucracy behind us, we cruised, with comparative ease, through Nepali customs onto the newly laid and obstacle free Mahendra Highway. We had set off from Delhi at 5am that morning with Dave, who was travelling with us as far as Bangkok. Dave had travelled from the UK across Europe and the Middle East on a Honda Dominator. Most of the trip he had done with another biker, George (riding a BMW GS1150) who had ridden ahead and was now waiting for us in Katmandu.

Despite having already been on the road for an arse-welding ten hours we decided to press on. We wanted to reach the Bardia Royal National Park well before nightfall and we calculated that if the roads remained good, despite being 130k's, the journey should be fairly swift. The scenery was stunning; the highway snaked its way through dense green forest, mountains and grassy tree-dotted plains all canopied by cotton-wool clouds. It looked a bit like North Devon on a particularly good day.

Jungle Book

We made excellent time to Bardia - just 3 hours - what a joy to be back on decent, empty roads. After negotiating 15k's of dirt track and (a fortunately low) Geruwa River, we found 'Forest Hideaway Cottages', which was located true to its name deep in the Nepalese jungle. The air was still and the humidity relentless, even a peculiarly ice-cold shower failed to fight off the sweat for more than a few minutes. However, tucked into the dense, sup-tropical fauna of the Cottage's beer garden, it was easy to relax and wind-down from what had been a physically and mentally demanding day - we had been on the road for over 13 hours and most of it had been in steam-room humidity - even our well-vented 'Savanna' suits couldn't deal with that level of heat. How Dave coped was hard to say - he was wearing leathers!

Next morning we had a guided walk through part of the Bardia Park and along the banks of the Geruwa River - a tributary of the mighty Ganges. Bardia claims to have 90% of Nepal's tigers and although Shere Khan, Hathi and Baloo were avoiding us today, we found some interesting paw-prints! Crocs, deer, birds and monkeys however were abundant and we returned to our 'Hideaway' satisfied tourists.

Floods and Landslides

We had heard various reports of landslides and flooded roads along the route we had planned to take to Katmandu. Although this information proved correct, we encountered no seriously blocked roads - the Nepalese are particularly efficient at road clearing. Floods and landslides are regular events at this time of year but nonetheless, we were impressed by how quickly several tonnes of dirt and foliage can be removed from the road. The winding route through the Chure Hills did, however, present frequent 'boulder falls' - a two metre high rock right in the middle of the road can be an unnerving surprise on a blind bend! The road tightened as we travelled higher giving us plenty of opportunity to lob the bike around. Our frequent stops in little hillside villages always created a stir amongst the locals of a nation justifiably labelled as one of the most friendly in the world.

We were having so much fun on this section of the journey that time flew and we arrived in Tansen, a medium sized town about 1000m A.S.L. - cool and no humidity! - much sooner than we expected. We decided to hole up for the night. Apparently on a clear day - which it wasn't - the Himalya are clearly visible and our hotel balcony has a 'spectacular' view over the valley. Today however, we could just about see the hotel next door!

From Tansen we headed to Pokhara, a small town popular as a tourist destination because of its lake and the trekking opportunities in the surrounding mountainside. We found ourselves a 'lake-view' hotel and set off for a small pub-crawl along the bar-infested lakeshore. Heading home some time later we encountered our first bit of serious rain since Botswana! Fortunately the shelter of another bar wasn't far away and we sat watching the rain pour down until eventually the barman offered us his umbrella so he (and we) could go to bed!

Partly because of the rain and partly because of the relaxed atmosphere of the town and its surrounding countryside, we decided to stay for another day before heading off to Katmandu. We were told that, because of the heavy rainfall over the last few weeks, the road ahead had been closed for the last six days and had only just re-opened. On the morning we set off the rain was light but the roads were badly flooded on the way out of town - which made for some interesting riding. Every garden gate and front door was barricaded with sandbags - and this was only the beginning of the wet season!

Enjoying the scenery

We decided to take the journey slowly, partly because of the road conditions and partly so we could enjoy the scenery and the pleasantly cool temperatures. Our route took us past stepped rice fields, thick jungle, rocky valleys, endless roadside waterfalls and several muddy landslides. By early afternoon we had arrived in Muggling and decided to stop in a hotel just beyond the town, which overlooked the valley and had a rather impressive waterfall behind it.

We were now only 150ks from Katmandu and so at breakfast the next morning, we decided to spend a couple of hours going up in the cable car that we had seen from the hotel veranda. This took us so high into the hills (and clouds) that there wasn't that much to see when we got to the top but the views on the way up had been most impressive.

Katmandu

We set off after lunch and were in Katmandu in a couple of hours. We had made arrangements to meet up with George at the Katmandu Guesthouse where he had booked a couple of rooms for us. Katmandu is fairly small for a Capital but we could tell that we had hit a major city because the driving suddenly became a bit erratic! We joined in the local horn-blowing competition as we weaved our way through the narrow streets to Thamel - Katmandu's answer to Earl's Court. Suddenly we were in tourist-ville. The streets were lined with souvenir shops, bars and restaurants and everywhere there were travel agents offering guided tours into the Himalayas, horse treks, white water rafting, paragliding, rock climbing and any number of other energetic ways of enjoying the great outdoors.

George met us at the hotel and we quickly cleaned up and headed off to check out the nightlife. George had made quite a circle of friends in his time here so we had a sociable few days enjoying good food, live bands, pool tables and cold beers. It took a couple of days to organise the freighting of the bikes. We spent a wet afternoon with the carpenter working out crate dimensions and another half-day taking the bikes apart and packing up.

Once all this was done we had one day left for a bit of sight-seeing before heading off to the airport for our flights to Bangkok, happy in the knowledge that this time the bike was on the same flight as us - unlike when we freighted it from Nairobi to Amman. Nepal had been a particularly beautiful country to travel through. The only thing we had not been able to see - because of the weather - was the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Flying out of the Katmandu Valley, however, we climbed above the clouds and there, rising above them was one of the most impressive sights we have seen on this trip. The rocky mountain tops jutting out of the clouds gave you a real sense of the challenge of mountain climbing. It was also quite awe-inspiring to realise that one of those peaks - we were not sure which one! - was Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Nepal really is an amazing country!

Photographs

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