Author: chrisingles

The morning after the night before, where I took up the role of The Tav, dancing to a Nepalese band in an Irish bar, playing Nepalese or Indian songs. Yes the head may hurt a little, but I was up at 5.30 and I found the keys !! Somehow they were in my jeans that I had not worn. Don’t ask! anyway, that wipes the 1 mark from our score. So we are still 3-0 up.

Today’s riding was a bit more technical and after our second petrol stop, Deadly Dom managed to hit a rock which turned him through 90 degrees whereupon he shot across the road and buried the bike into a deep drainage channel. The rear wheel was just sitting upright slowly turning. Luckily no injuries. But 4-0 to the Brits.

An early stop for lunch of Dal Bhat  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_bhat) which we were soon to get used to, set us up for the afternoon ride.

The ride was pretty much awesome, this had everything including a “washed out bridge” which had a bus full of passengers, in the end, a JCB levelled some of the sides of the bank and then pulled the bus through the water. After which a 4×4 got stuck and had to be pulled out.

Many motorcycles crossed, many stopped half way and one just fell over!It was now our turn and apart from a few feet in the water, we all got through safely. I managed to do it without putting a foot down.  However a few minutes later I hit a rock in a large mud puddle, this turned me through 90 degrees and also knocked me out of gear. Stuck in the middle of mud puddle my feet went down and uhrrrr not nice.

This is the easy bits …. the drop to the edge of the right ranges from about 50-foot sheer drop to maybe 200 feet.

We powered on through for another hour or so and arrived at our hotel. Well that’s being kind, all my room was missing was the cross above the bed and it was Monks quarters. I even had cold and cold running water !! And the light was from solar power.

Apparently, all electricity was off and we had to wait 15 minutes (but we did have free wi fi! ) … so we decided it was beer o clock and settled down to tell the stories of the day. As we had no hot water we thought we would go to the hot springs however one look at it and it appeared everyone else had the same idea, so don’t get me wrong I don’t mind the odd bit of communal   bathing but in a jacuzzi with champagne and this was not one of those moments, so we decided another beer was a better bet.

 

 

MoMo and noodle soup was again for dinner and a retire to bed at a nice and respectable 10 pm out like a light…

 

Another early start and this morning, shock horror I lost my bike key, I looked everywhere but could not find it, I felt that I had let the side down. It was now 3-1 (the French getting a point against them for Photo Phill somehow screwing his bike up causing us to wait half an hour on the mountain pass the day before).

The support team managed to bodge a key for me and so we could start out to the Hindu temple our first stop of the day. On arrival I noticed there were many steps but more than I had expected.

 

After a lot of huffing and puffing, we walked up the many steps with the locals. Some were carrying baskets with fruit, others live chickens and even a few lambs were being led up.

 

I didn’t feel good about this and when everyone was taking off their shoes and socks, I found out that they were to be slaughtered as an offering. Being the sort of guy I am I offered to stay outside and look after the boots and coats. After 20 minutes the group came out with red dots on their foreheads, they never told me why !

 

The ride of around 140km on normal roads till we arrived in backpacker central, the town of Pokhara. Dominated by the second largest lake in the country. We could also see the snow-capped mountains of the Annapurna range which gave an interesting juxtaposition to the palm trees we were standing around. This was the last chance to liberate cash before we headed into Mustang and it was also a good place to party. The brits rebelled and went their own way for dinner, this meant trying many of the local bars. After their dinner the French joined us, where over beers the group bonded, I was the first on the dance floor and a very good time was had by all. We managed to turn in at around 11.30 ready for the ride to Mustang.

You gotta love them ……..

After a days rest we embark back on the Bikes, the ubiquitous early 7 am up for breakfast resumes and we are off on the road for 8 am. Before leaving the hotel staff put a yellow scarf around all of our necks for a safe journey (in hindsight the french should have asked for their money back). This was a long 155k normally surfaced road single lane to our lunch destination. Of course, there were the usual local young Nepalese on the bikes overtaking us, trying to find gaps in the traffic that was just not there and then somehow there they were! it must be all the praying they appear to do.

 

Our lunch stop consisted of momo, a boiled mutton dumpling and chicken noodles, these dishes would not have been out of place in China, in fact, they are from China. After lunch it was off to the mountains, only a few Kms up the road and then a traffic queue, being on the bikes we managed to get to the front, the mountain pass that we were to travel on was blocked.

 

They told us a landslide and it would be a 3-hour wait! The news was filtering down that it was also a rock fall and 5 people had died. The mood amongst us was pretty sober and after about an hour they allowed motorcycles up to the pass. We went passed a totally crushed car and a lorry which had been decimated. Only motorbikes were allowed on the pass, and the riding was very difficult near the landslide.  Many ambulances passed us, and I saw at least one injured person being transported. After 5km the roads got more normal till we came off the blocked section of the pass. Here the motorcycles in the opposite direction were being held at a checkpoint with a barbed wire fence. We had to go through in a single file and then on to some lovely twisty mountain roads where there was no traffic coming in the opposite direction, after around 20 km we found out why.

 

 

All traffic had been stopped due to the landslide. The traffic queue reached almost 6 miles. Many thousands of people on buses and 4x4s were going to have to stay the night on the side of the mountain.

We reached our hotel as dusk fell but not before we went through what can only be described as an enchanted wood it reminded me of being in the Ardennes. The road twisted around the trees and the mist was coming in, it was truly magical. When we arrived at the hotel we were very wet, but all our clothes were stuck with the support vehicle so beers were had while we waited two hours for it to come via a different route.  

The hotel was the unremarkable Hotel Srinagar (http://www.hotelsrinagar.com/), it had hot water which was to later prove to be a luxury and plenty of room.

So a night in the monks quarters over, still no hot water and now I have a bit of a cold coming on so, I dosed myself up on coffee lemsip! Yes, you heard right coffee and Lemsip combined. When I asked the chief monk for some hot water, he filled up my half-empty coffee cup ( the purchase price of the cup was still on the side 67 rps) so I had a very weak coffee to put my lemsip in!

Electricity must have been on and off during the night as none of my gadgets charged up! We are supposed to be coming back to Monkville in a few days, but the French are already revolting ( they have a history for this or was that a revolution?) and it looks like we may bypass and go somewhere else, maybe a nunnery or a shrubbery ( for all you python fans).

Last night I took my drone out for a little fly, I am still not used to it but the young girl that lived in what appears a barn took a shine to it and thought she was controlling it when she said up, it went up and when it went down it went down… We met again this morning and I gave her some biscuits and then it appeared she was my best friend following me around.

The ride today was only 45km but was slated to be the hardest section all on rock and little mud with sheer drops of up to maybe 300 feet, so any slip-ups could prove fatal.  We encountered many rivers to cross (this somehow reminds me of my life and the Jimmy Cliff song “Many Rivers to Cross” but now I am not licked and I am back so I have no fear of these rivers, click here for the UB40 version). Luckily I decided to use overshoes to keep my lower legs and feet dry, they did work but due to the heat, I was sweating inside of the plastic bin liners!

We encountered several waterfalls one of which we stopped at ….. just look at the view …

The route after the waterfall was pretty hairy, we went alongside the mountain skipping over until we reached the river bed.

Phillip was crossing water, when suddenly he hit a rock, stopped and went over. He hit his head on a rock and his compressed air vest ( think life jacket for bikers) went off. Suddenly he was Michelin man. The joke was that without his vest he would have drowned. In all seriousness, the water was only a foot deep and Philipe was

And for those that want to see it closer and slower

 

So we continued at a pace of about 20km/hr and really this was the fastest we could go due to the conditions arriving at Marpha at around 3 pm. Marpha is a lovely traditional Buddhist town in the Mustang region with an abundance of apple trees and hence cider and apple pies everywhere. We found a couple of watering holes, were the first to play on the villages new pool table, where I managed to break a light! Dinner at 7 and bed at 8.30!

Our lodgings for the night was, as Maverick mark put it, straight out of the set of the horror movie Hostel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostel_(2005_film)), but there were no beautiful women. There was however many apples being dried in the sun lounge.

 

So after moving home the day before, I had a 5 am pickup to take me to the airport for an 8 am flight to Katmandu via Kunming. Both flights were pretty uneventful, both around the 3-hour mark with a few hours layover in Kunming, where I had the delightful choice of a Muslim or non-Muslim hamburger, basically, the non-Muslim one had bacon, ie in your local McDonalds, this would be called a double bacon cheeseburger, although it is debatable if a McDonalds hamburger has any real meat in it at all.

The approach to Katmandu International Airport is pretty spectacular, at around 1300 metres above sea level we fly between lush green mountains with hillside homes, to land on a wet runway. There are no airbridges so we wait to disembark and get on a coach that takes us less than 50 yards. The Chinese burst out laughing, for once there is something more unbelievable than a Chinese airport.

 

Immigration, Visa issue and payment quick and then we got into over an hour wait for the baggage. Oh, my word! The baggage conveyor belt resembled something out of the Generation Game, it was filled with various sizes of flat screen TVs, all being collected by the local Nepalese whom it would appear that the only reason they went away was to purchase a flat-screen TV…. well the late great Brucie would have certainly said “didn’t they do well?” because at this moment in time, this room had more TV’s than your local branch of Dixons.

After a good hour wait, my lift to the hotel finally arrives. Driving through Katmandu there was a total absence of motor vehicles, on enquiring with the driver it appears that the whole of Nepal are on a three-day festival where everyone leaves the city and goes back to their home village. Well, at least this meant a quick transfer to the hotel, a very nice period place called The Inn at Patan http://theinnpatan.com located near Durbar Square. A quick coffee and to unpack shower and woah … even at my 5’7″ I nearly hit the ceiling and had to duck to get into the room, no wonder the bed was on the floor.

So after a shower, I started to meet the rest of the group, in total there are 6 French, another will arrive tomorrow, and three Brits, including me. Peter and Mark from “up north” so at least I have someone to talk to in my own language.

I decided to join them in a beer and after we went into Durbar Square in order to liberate some cash from an ATM.

On route we saw large crowds in what can only be described as an inner courtyard to a large historical building, not being one to pass up the opportunity of being nosey we went in. There were crowds around young calves taking photos and making a lot of noise. On the other side of the square, there was a doorway, it was the entrance to a small room, which was a temple, outside there was red paint everywhere … well, I thought it was until Mark said “heck that’s blood, you can smell it” 10 meters away was a woman with a clever the size of Mike Tysons arm hacking at a calf with no head !!! We had entered into some ritual sacrifice, not wanting to hang around I legged it.

 

 

Money was liberated, then dinner was consumed along with a few Everest Beers and a good time was had by all. An early night ready for an 8 am breakfast and ride out at 9 am.