Into Nepal

Despite the best efforts of the road users in India, our last few days there were without incident, and after overnight stops in Faizabad and Gorakhpur we hit the border. After the corruption at Kolkata airport, we’d expected trouble and were ready for a fight. We’d stopped for the night only a couple of hours from the border, and had set off early.


The Faizabad ghats




A tyre whalla's hut


Our last views of India.

The border turned out to be very busy and chaotic, and we’d ridden through it before we’d realised what was happening, so I walked back, and after asking around found the Indian customs and immigration offices. They were very helpful and friendly, sorted the bike’s Carnet efficiently, and didn’t want any money whatsoever. I changed the last rupees for Nepal rupees, then tried the Nepali offices. They were even more friendly and helpful. They wanted dollars for the visas, but nothing under the table. After just 90 minutes we were on our way and India was behind us. Hasta la vistsa.


It took only an hour before we were in beautiful scenery and amongst smiling, happy people. The relief was like stepping from a heat wave into an air-conditioned room. India was a fascinating experience that we really wouldn’t have missed, but we were glad to leave. We know that there are parts of India that would have suited us better, and huge areas still left to see, but we did what we did, and felt that we‘d had a good taste of the madness that is India.

There have been, and there will be people who ask why we didn’t do this or visit that, but our journey isn’t a game of darts hitting as many must-sees as possible. We enjoy sights, but we prefer just soaking up the culture of countries by travelling through them and making connections with anyone who is friendly enough to smile back. We’ve met some lovely people and have a lifetime of memories to mull over.

Talking of which, Anita has a new hobby, as her ‘photographing people asleep at work’ fizzled out in India. The poverty there meant that anyone asleep in public most likely had no home or bed.

So, the new hobby? Getting in on tourist’s photographs. It’s a bit like the old ‘Where’s Wally?’ pictures. When she sees a tourist pointing a camera, she gets into the back of the shot pulling a face that would win a gurning competition. Her best one was when a large group of americans were having a group shot with the Taj Mahal in the background. She ran around to a lower level and stood between two people’s legs pulling her best face. I just stand back shaking my head as the photographer walks away happy, not knowing that Wally has struck again and will appear when the pics are printed. She’s going straight to hell for this.






A school surrounded by rice paddies

Our first stop in Nepal was going to be the second city, Pokhara, but it would have been dark when we got there, so we stopped in Tansen, a small town in the hills. A very friendly lad on a motorcycle took us way up a hill to a big hotel that was cheap, clean, quiet and had great views all around. It actually rained a bit that evening, but before it clouded over we got our first glimpse of the Himalayas. What a sight.

Into Pokhara the next day via some great mountain roads, and we rode almost straight to a hotel with very friendly owners. It’s very clean (Indian hotels generally were dirty, and quite often bloody filthy), it’s quiet, and it’s affordable. The power is off 50% of the time, but it’s the same all over town. It must be a long-term problem as most places have dual wiring with big lorry batteries powering small lamps.


We decided early in the trip that even though we’ve had rabies inoculations, we’d keep away from animals as the innoculation only buys you an extra day if you’re infected. So, bearing this in mind, when we came across a couple of sweet dogs tied up in a café all day, we ignored our own best advice and took one out for a long walk by the lake. It was a challenge as you can’t just take one dog for a walk here; most of the strays want to tag along to see if there’s any food going. The dog (bizarrely called Germany) enjoyed it though. Sadly both dogs died while we were there, possibly from eating poison.


Pokhara is next to a large lake which is perfect for a bit of a paddle and fishing. We didn’t catch anything.




To make sure that we were exposed to the maximum rabies risk, we next headed to a cave full of bats that are within hand reach. The guide told us not to disturb them as they could scratch us if they flew around. What he didn’t say though, was that getting out of the cave was a major mission in human origami. Having climbed slippery rocks in the dark, getting out was through a long, narrow tunnel. Health and safety be damned…


Pokhara peace pagoda


Pokhara is surrounded by hills, and on one is one of the 80 or 90 Buddhist Peace Pagodas around the world inspired and sometimes built by the Japanese (there are several in the UK). The original aim was to build 100, and I’ve no idea of the current exact number. It’s a commendable effort at world peace.


Anyhow, we’d hired a small bike for Anita and made it to the top up a long, steep and very rough dirt track. This poor lady had climbed a long way from her home to go to market with this basket of vegetables that neither Anita or I could lift. It must have weighed 40Kg.


Kids are great


The view from Sarankot


Anita's aged a bit...






There’s one other good viewpoint near Pokhara (Sarankot) that is used by paragliders, and we took a trip up an even steeper, rougher track the next day, meeting some locals when we stopped for a rest. The off-road practice paid off and we didn’t drop the bikes.


Carying goat food


The long track up




One ex buffalo




These kids were full of fun and desparate for chocolate




More steps....


Someone had made some funny mud models. Bizzarely, one of them was wearing moss for pubes when we left.


This is a hermit's stone hut at the very top of the mountain, reputed to be 1000 years old


The guys at the mountain hut managed to cook with very basic gear.


So, the one thing that just has to be done when in Nepal is to trek in the mountains. Surprisingly, Anita agreed to a 2 day trek up to 8,330 feet. It was a fascinating walk mostly along ancient stepped paths that connect remote villages. The route up was in cloud the whole way unfortunately, and at the top all was damp, very cold and very basic. After a night in a brick hut on a very hard damp bed, I got up at six to watch the sunrise. The cloud had cleared at our level, and we had a good view of the Annapurna range with several mountains over 20,000 feet. Looking down on the billowing cloud, haunting songs of two jungle birds calling to each other echoed through the trees, and was the only sound as the sun rose over the clouds to light up the snow peaks and the prayer flags swayed gently around us. It was a moment never to be forgotten.










Then the long path down

Breakfast of rice pudding and millet pancakes (that looked exactly like cowpats) was at a farmhouse an hour’s walk down into the mist, and tasted great. The walk after that became something of a nightmare. The uphill was relatively easy, if exhausting, but going downhill on widely spaced uneven stone steps became dangerous after 3 hours as the steps got steeper and our legs got more wobbly. The young girls skipping down carrying baskets of rocks on their backs just stared in disbelief as these two strange people walked through their village like zombies. Despite all this, we managed to have some fun with the kids along the way giving them the crayons, pencils and paper that we’d picked up the day before. We made it down eventually with numerous stops, and realised how far we’d pushed ourselves when walking was still painful 5 days later.


The day we got back was Holi (Fagu?) day in Nepal, celebrating feats of the Hindu godess Holika. The festival also marks the coming of spring, and is celebrated wildly by throwing powder paint and water over each other in the streets and dancing until late. We were virtually incapable of walking, and were asleep by 8, completely paint-free and oblvious to the pandemonium outside. For days afterwards we laughed at the local dogs with their multi-coloured fur.

Maybe it’s the spirituality that we’ve witnessed along the way, or maybe it‘s sitting on a bike for hours pondering, but either way, our reading matter is changing. Eat, Pray, Love, The Snow Leopard and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a fairly heady mix and gives a lot of food for thought. Are time and space linear? Is our destiny pre-ordained? Is there such a thing as enlightenment or Karma?

Who knows? Religion seems to revolve around faith, which is a subtle way of saying ‘these beliefs may seem ridiculous, but it suits me to ignore reality and go with it, so leave me alone‘. We tend to belive in things that have a logical reasoning behind them, and anything that our senses tell us is there. ‘I think therefore I am’.

So it was goodbye to the people that we’d met in Pokhara and off to Kathmandu. The intention was to get there on the Thursday, sort the shipping details on the Friday, then head back out to Gorkha (the origin of the Gurkhas) in the mountains for the weekend. The reality was a bit different.










The road to Kathmandu

The road was filled by a succession of lorries, and the last 10 miles (and 1 hour) on the outskirts was solid traffic and punishing the clutch behind slow lorries on hills. There was no way that we were going to go through that again. Instead the bike’s now flying to Istanbul on Monday, and we fly out on Tuesday to meet it. We’d decided not to ride through Pakistan and Iran partly as visas are difficult to get, but also because we just didn’t want to. Maybe another time.


Something that we did both really want to do was a mountain flight, which turned out to be quite fantastic, with views across the eastern Himalays, including Everest. What an experience, especially as it was a little 16 seater twin prop plane.


Having asked Eagle Eyes Cargo about freighting on Friday, the bike was crated on Sunday and flies on Monday. The whole shipping experience has been really easy so far. We just rode up, and within an hour I’d strpped the bike down and lots of willing hands had helped to crate it and manhandle the crate onto scales then through the x-ray machine. Even the Customs examination was easy, concentrating on whether we had any drugs stashed. Despite being asked at least 40 times recently whether I'd like some hash, the luggage was clean.


To clebrate, we called into the local Celtic bar which was empty. Within an hour, a Geordie musician called Tommy (above) had arrived and we had a full bar with a sing-song going. It was great fun, and I woke up with bruised fingers from playing a drum and skin missing from playing guitar without a plectrum.

Next stop Istanbul.