Clips from the road to Jomsom

Some clips all fancily edited together from riding through the mountains. The transitions are bad, I still have to learn how to use this software but you need power and internet which are in short supply here!

I saw in the news today that there was a flash flood triggered by an avalanche along this road.

Lumbini

Updaing where I've been. I would have thought Internet access was a little more freely available in India but it's been hard to get somewhere where I can get the laptop online.

So the first part of the last week or so is, Lumbini!

Drew and I set off from Pokhara late morning, attemping to get to Tansen that night. Only 120km to cover... However 5km into the trip drew started to have problems with his bikes suspension. He pulled over and said it was probably broken again... So the Vespa was pushed onto its side, the and the old suspension removed. Then, he produces his spare suspension... I'll also noted he was carrying a spare wheel, and another spare tyre. Lucky he had the spare suspension.

For the rest of the day it was lots of riding through valleys again, semi-decent roads (better than Kathmandu-Pokhara). And then racing the sunset up to Tansen.

The landscape changed a few times. Pokhara is very green, the roads winding up and down the hills outside of town. Then you get into a dryer part of the land, more rocks, but more impressive valleys. At one point the road dipped down to the river about 20km out of Tansen, there was a nice little town there and it would have been good to stay but the accommodation options were somewhat, limited. We pushed on to Tansen at the top of the range overlooking the plains to the south where everything got a lot browner.

When in Tansen we just followed the signs to one hotel, no idea what it would be like. Once we arrived we found a moderatly fancy hotel (to my lowered standards anyway) but they were charging $30US/night for a room. Far too much. He offered 20% discount at first, then we were about to leave and he then offered 50% discount. That's more like it! There were meant to be views from the hotel but the air is still full of dust still.

The view from the hotel in Tansen

A temple in Tansen, we found it while trying to navigate out of the town.

A carving on the temple.

Please, shoes, belt, hear...

In the morning we set off again, this time the goal was Lumbini, the birthplace of Bhudda, and next to the border with India.

When leaving Tansen drew let me know he needed petrol, so we headed down the road a bit, found a petrol station but they were out of fuel. We tried asking them where the closest fuel was, and they pointed back up the hill to Tansen. Right. We went back into Tansen, found an ATM (one of the requirements for the morning) and then asked around for fuel. We eventually stumbled on the place everyone mentioned, but they were also out of fuel. Drew asked around some more and got some confusing responses about a petrol pump a little higher up the road. We road up, couldn't see one, asked again and they said it was back down the road a way... When we were riding back we saw the pump hidden behind a building. We filled up and then were set off from Tansen for the second time today. And wouldn't you know it, at the bottom of the hill not much further was another petrol station with fuel...

Another of them valleys.

A river running away from the road.

Awesome bike, and a little red Vespa that made it this far.

The valleys were impressive again, then once we got to Butwal where the plains started the traffic increased A LOT. Cows, goats, kids, cars, bikes, trucks, more cows, more bikes, everywhere. We had to dodge a lot of traffic on the straight road. I was getting tired (still sick sort of), and then we hit a small town where we had to turn off to Lumbini. The traffic there was even worse, smaller roads, more animals, bikes. Once out of it though the road settled down until Lumbini.

We picked a place to stay that I'd recognised the name from Wikitravel, I'd already traded in the lonely planet for Nepal. At first the water didn't work (they needed the generator on to power the pump to get water in the tanks on the roof), and then there was water over the floor in the room, and it was noisey, and I got to listen to someone throwing up all night.

The next day we set off to have a look at Buddhas birthplace. On the way in someone called out to us to buy a ticket, but I guess we thought it was a scam, but once we got to the main temple (a long walk through the heat) they asked for our tickets, which we couldn't produce... After some discussing and shoe removal we eventually got ourselves in without tickets.

Monasteries in the towards the northern part of the park.

A temple close to the birthplace.

That's how you carry stuff.

There are old ruins scattered around this area but with the dates marked on them I'm not sure how the old ruins can look so new. Compared to Angkor Wat or the temples in Ayuttha these old ruins looked like brand new bricks but were at least another 1000 years old according to the signs.

In the middle of this section is a white building which was built by a Japanese engineer to help preserve the temple around the spot where buddha was born. When we were in we got in line and waited to see the market stone which is under bullet proof glass in the center of this building. And yes, it was there, it was stone. There were police there, and lots of people who were there for religious reasons, and us two tourists to have a peek at this rock.

A quote.

Some of the disturbingly new looking ruins...

More ruins.

The temple that was built over the old ruins of the birthplace.

Outside of the temple is a tree around 20 meters away, confusingly this tree is also where bhudda was born. So who knows where the exact spot is...

The tree that Buddha was also born under...

Not sure what this was for. But the ground was hot here.

After a hot day in the sun it was back over to 3 Fox's restaurant where we got chatting to some other people who had met the two Canadians I met back in Kathmandu. Everyone keeps running into everyone else in these places.

Next story time: Crossing to India and not dying!

Some Pokhara Sights

Yesterday I felt well enough that I could get one the bike and have a look around some of the sights around Pokhara.

This is the view from the guesthouse. On he left is Annapurna II I think, the middle mountain in the foreground is Sangrakot and on the left is the Fish tail.

On the left of the above Photo is Annapurna II (I think) about 8000m high. The middle mountain has a town called Sangrakot and is a lot closer is 1595m high. And the one of the right is the fish tail, which is again around 8000m high. It's amazing that they're 20-30km away and so tall that I still have to look up to see them from here!

So seeing it was find weather this morning I decided to heat up to Sangrakot to get a better view of the mountains. However, by the time I had got up there...

 

The clouds had rolled in...

There's been clouds every day, they seem to appear about 10am. Maybe I should try get up there earlier. Sunrise is the time to be there, but that sounds hard.

Panorama looking south from the top. Pokhara and the lake are on the left, up the valley is the campground I was at.

Para-gliders overhead.

Next I headed back down the mountain to Devi Falls...

And this is them.

The disappear into the ground here.

The falls disappear, and then you have to go across the road to the cave entrance, which goes down some steps under the road and almost back to this point!

The caves are very wet of course, and very smelly. During the monsoon seasons it's not possible to go in because it fills up with water. There's a small temple at the start of the cave where you are not allowed to take photos, after this point you are allowed to though.

Rock stacks!

The falls entering the cave!

I'm not sure where the water goes from here, I think it keeps going underneath this cave somewhere.

More lit up.

Another view.

It was very difficult to get a photo in there. It was dark of course so I sat my camera on my bag and tried to get a longer exposure. But there were lots of big family groups walking past, I have heaps of 10 second exposures with someone looking back into the camera for half of it, or just walking past. A lot were ruined by other peoples flashes going off too. I think I spent about half and hour there just waiting for a gap between all the people moving through so I could get some photos.

The walkway back out.

All the little bugs and moss collecting around the light.

And then that was all I looked at, time to go back to the hotel and find my toilet again (it's not disease anymore, but it's still rather uncomfortable...).

Pokhara lakeside just after sunset.

I'm contemplating heading up to Jomsom tomorrow. It's 160km of bumpy rocky roads cut into the side of mountains... 

A few more Nepal Stories

Some more left over stories that don't fit anywhere else.

Traffic

Here is the worst section of things coming from every direction in Kathmandu. I've got video of riding through Kathmandu twice which I'll edit down a bit later.

So far here is what I can figure out about Nepali Traffic:

• Trucks are usually the best drivers. Small tourist vans and motorcycles are the worst
• Indicators mean "Pass on that side", not "I'm turning this direction, so don't pass"... Very confusing.
• Three toots of the horn means I'm about to pass. One toot means look out for me.
• Flash of the headlights means I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, if you get in the way that's your fault. This is usually the follow up of using the horn.
• A few flashes of the headlights means... I'm not sure, but I saw one person doing it in oncoming traffic and they stopped, but also the person in front of me stopped because of it.. No pulling off to the side of the road either, just stop on the road.
• Most people leave you enough room on the road (except for tourist vans) even when two trucks are overtaking. On the mountain roads I've seen one bus trying over overtake a truck, they saw me then the bus pulled in behind the truck. I do not expect that to happen in India.
• Buses will stop anywhere to pick up people. Mid corner, middle of the road, it doesn't matter.
• People don't look when they merge. I think it's up to the moving traffic to use the horn to let them know they're about to hit you.
• Don't wait for a gap, just nudge forward until someone gives in.
• Watch for people throwing chickens/goats/kids in your way. This hasn't happened to me, but I've heard it happening. Same thing happens in Laos.
• Headlights in extremely bad visibility (ie: a storm or night time) are optional.
• Overtaking a bus in the right lane, while going around a left corner is acceptable and not risky, as long as you use your horn.
• Cows have right of way, but also get killed on the road (how much negative karma does killing nandi get you?). Be ready to avoid dead cows.
• Ambulance sirens are quieter than car horns.
• Anyone who says the roads are bad in Nepal hasn't been to Laos.

Gas Bottles

Gas bottles are delivered to businesses by tractors towing a trailer. In Sauraha I watched them unload the bottles by throwing them over the side of the trailer onto the rocks or previously thrown out bottles. This of course dented them all, some of them around the valve. I remembered the gas bottle I saw which was rusting in the shower and wondered just how weak all these bottles are now.

The stupidest part of watching this was that after he was done unloading-by-throwing, he then moved the remaining bottles from the back of the trailer to the front... Why not just unload from the back?

Spitting

There is SO much spitting in Thamel. Constant spitting, everywhere. Sometimes you have to dodge people spitting out doorways who didn't see you walking past (maybe they did). I followed one guy who was spitting at least every 5 seconds, surely he must be dehydrated. In other towns it's not such a constant rain of spit. Pokhara for example is much better, but it's still there.

Garbage

Garbage just gets thrown on the street in towns. I watched a shop owner just throw his rubbish out the front of the shop onto the street. The rivers in Kathmandu are just garbage dumps because after rain this is where it ends up. The river in the north west of the city was just mountains of trash with some water running through it. I'm actually not sure that the people realise this is why the rivers are full of crap. Australians do this to of course but there's an army of people to clean up after the messy ones there. I've seen people cleaning out all the garbage from the drains on the side of the road but I think the task was "clean the drain" and not "clean up the rubbish".

Begging

In Pame Bazar I had two kids watch me while I was at a shop, there was a short discussion between them and then they came up to me and said "give me 1000!". I laughed and asked how often that actually works. I was met by blank stares as I quickly learnt the extent of their English skills, just enough to ask for money and nothing more. And also 1000? That's a huge amount! It's like someone asking for $50 in Australia (1000Rs gets you about the same as what $50 in Australia would). In Thamel there's a lot of it, hasn't happened to me in Pokhara yet but I've seen a lot of other tourists giving money to them. I was told by someone that people buy/rent kids to beg from tourists because they can make so much money that way. This person also told me that they purposely injure the kids by cutting of an arm because it gets more money, but I'm not sure I believe that. But it all works of course (not on me! I'm on to your scams!).

Touching Game

I'm not sure what this is. I've seen kids run up to tourists and try to touch them with one finger. I assume it's a game and I'm not sure of the rules. It happened to me in Tatopani where two kids were racing to try and touch me first (I think). I've seen it happen here in Pokhara but mostly to female tourists.

Bonus one line story: The 'Hero Honda' is a type of motorbike here, 'Hero' is the brand, 'Honda' is the model (it's not a Honda, in case that's confusing). I was told a lie!

Chitwan to Pame Bazar

After having most of my fuel stolen from the guesthouse in Chitwan, I headed off to Pokhara. My plan was to find a shop somewhere to buy food, and then go out to the overlander campground just near Pokhara.

 

Sunset on my last day in Chitwan/Sauraha.

I headed back out through the valley north to the Mid Hills highway which goes to Pokhara. This section of road was quite busy with traffic, lots of trucks and busses, but once I got onto the Mid Hill highway it was rather quiet.

This is what I was riding through for half the day...

50000km! That would mean something if it was accurate.

And just after that I got stung in the neck by a wasp I think. It hurt a lot whatever it was...

After that it was mostly boring road until I got to Pokhara where the traffic picked up again. I missed any form of shops that look like they sold anything decent (I've since found cans of beans in Pokhara!). I followed the road west along the edge of the lake to Pame Bazar where the campground is.

Welcome to Pame Bazar.

Pame Bazar...

The Overlander camp ground.

All my camping gear still works!

The view north of the campground.

The camping was cheap, 60Rs/night for me to set up my tent. Motorhomes/caravans have to pay 100Rs plus 50Rs per person. There's a few sites that mention how rough the road is here, but really it's not that bad. It's a bit rocky in places but no worse than anywhere else in Nepal. There's also a bridge that looks like it has broken or never been completed so you have to ride over a dry rocky riverbed to get to the actual campsite, took me a while to figure out how to get over there from the road with the sign on it (you have to go just past that road!).

At the campground were mostly French and Germans (because this is about as far as you can drive from Europe without problems). There was a French family in their van, another French 4wd camper thing, a German couple in their more than off-road capable camper, another French couple in a small van who'd been traveling for 2 years, and then yet another French couple in a big van that had been parked there for a couple of years.

There is power and filtered water available, and there's a toilet and a gas hot water shower you can use which is next to the house. Pretty well set up campground.

I set up my tent far to close to the house though. The family gets up about 6am and from then until 10pm there's loud talking and arguments, with short breaks as they hit the daughter quite hard for some reason so she runs off crying.

They have wifi now which costs 100Rs/day to use but they put a stupid level of security on it. On the check-in form there's a section to put in the MAC address of the wireless device you want to use (so they only allow devices they want to connect), so I gave them my phone MAC address. And then on top of that they use WPA2 which is really not worth the time to break here but it's still perfectly fine for the rest of the world. And then on top of that they don't use DHCP so you have to set up everything manually (now that's just dumb). Ridiculous amounts of security for a place where there are no other houses close enough to be able to steal the wifi. It took the guy about 30 minutes to set up my phone because he had to do it his way. When I asked what he was doing he told me that was just the way it worked, I just kept quiet and recalled everything that makes it so easy to connect to a wireless network everywhere else.

You have to bring your own food too, but in Pame Bazar there are a few places to eat at. I had Dhal Baht at one place and they charged me the "stupid foreigner" price of 300Rs. At another place I had small fried fish and one beer, again at the "stupid foreigner" price of 450Rs. It's cheaper to eat western food in the touristy areas! There was one shop where I bought biscuits and things at nepali prices though, which meant they actually charged the MSRP written on most items rather than inflating it. But one of these places gave me food poisoning AGAIN.

Being sick again I decided I didn't want to hang around and listen to the family argue all day and decided to head into Pokhara and find a room with a toilet to be close to. I packed up all my gear very slowly as everything hurt and I also had to take frequent breaks to rest because I was very fatigued this time.

I was all packed up then I went to pay my bill of 320Rs for two nights so I handed them a 500Rs note, which of course they didn't have change for so they had to run into Pame Bazar to get some. What kind of business will charge you an amount like that but doesn't have change for the closest value note? The answer is every Nepali business, I notice it's very common for them to never have change for anything. It's very difficult to get rid of the 1000Rs notes that the ATMs give you.

Once I got on the bike I felt ok though, for a while. I went to the Butterfly Lodge as that sounded like the best place. Once I asked if they had any rooms he then took me over to look at them, showing me a 1500Rs/room which was rather nice and clean, but well over my budget. He said they had the same sort of room on the ground floor for 1200Rs/night but on the ground floor, and again I said that was too much. I told him my budget was 800Rs/night and then he went on a big long rant about how the room he would show me may not be to my liking for that amount, and that by adding the 10% service charge then it might be worth just paying an extra few hundred Rs to get a better room. I said that was fine but let's actually go look at the cheaper rooms rather than standing round in this 1500Rs/night room. And the cheaper 800Rs/night room is perfectly fine, it's actually quite clean and it's just an old room. On the door of the cheaper room is a sign that said that the 10% service charge will be added to all bills, and I queried this, but he assured me that this room will be 800Rs including service charge.... We'll see how that works out later.

Once I unpacked though the sickness finally hit me and I just collapsed in pain and tried to sleep the rest of the day away. Thankfully sleep worked even better with the dodgy cheap codeine tablets you can buy here.


Here's a timelapse I made of the clouds over the campground:

 

Kakani to Chitwan National Park!

After being sick at Kakani I decided to give Daman a miss as there was still a lot of dust around, no visible mountains anywhere. Instead I would head towards Chitwan National Park, the inspiration for the Jungle Book (apparently). In the morning I could still hardly move properly but I packed up everything and got ready to leave. I ate some Sukuti (dried buffalo meat in spices) and managed to keep it down so I at least had some food in me.

The only good photo I got at Kakani. Everything else was just dusty air.

In my foolish non-thinking sick state I decided it was best to head back down the hill and go through Kathmandu as that looked like the most direct easy route. The other direction was more unknown, and possibly unsealed. So I had another day travelling through that horrible place called Kathmandu. It went on forever along the highway too, it wasn't until the Police checkpoint along the road that the buildings really died off but there was still constant traffic. I saw some Germans on a tandem bike that were still smiling, but they had come from the direction of Kathmandu. I guess they were happy to be out.

I rode through this valley west for hours. On my way I was overtaking many trucks, and being waved through many police check points (how many police does Nepal have?). I was still not quite with it with sickness. Eventually there was a turnoff down another valley which headed south towards Chitwan. This valley was far nicer to look at but I didn't take any photos that day, It was getting late in the afternoon and I was being slowed down by buses crawling over little bumps in the road.

Once I got through this new valley I saw some lightning in the distance, and then I felt raindrops. And I don't know why, but I always leave it too late to get my wet weather gear out. I put in the waterproof layer for my jacket but after that the rain stopped. The sky got much darker once I got to Bharatpur though. I needed to get more petrol too so I tried one fuel stop but they didn't have any fuel, and just as I was leaving there some light rain started again. And oddly enough the road was much better to deal with in the rain, all the local motorbikes dived for cover like they hadn't seen rain before and this left hardly anyone on the road.

I found a place to fill up just before the turnoff to Sauraha (the town that services Chitwan) which was heavily guarded by the army. Not sure why it was so secure as none of the others were. I filled up but just as I was about to leave the actual storm started. It was very dark now, like night time dark yet people were still driving around without lights. And the rain and wind had picked up. I had to keep turning the backlight on for the GPS so I didn't miss the turnoff to Sauraha (there are no signs here). After dodging mysterious unlit objects (buses or trucks) that moved past a black background I managed to turn down the road to Sauraha.

Along this road there were a lot of tractors with lights up high so I couldn't see anything, at one point I stopped to let one past, but they stopped right infront of me and kept their lights aimed at my helmet. I risked falling into a massive ditch by the side of the road I couldn't see and went around.

Eventually this road ended up going through a large field (from all I could see in the dark) and then I noticed that there was lightning very close now... Being on an object mostly made out of metal I thought this was not the best place to be so I pushed in through the hail and wind, trying to see the road through the very dark rain ahead. Eventually I saw a tree, which is not a smart place to be in a storm, but next to it was a small shop which had a little overhang for me to get over to. I parked there and waited for the storm to die down and some of the sunlight to come back.

I figured I did not want to be trying to look for accomodation in this weather, so I picked one that sounded good out of the Lonely Planet and gave them a call. They hesitated when they said they had a room, but they had one, and that's all I needed. Once the rain died down some more (it was still very heavy) I headed in the direction of the Chitwan Gaida Lodge. Once I got there they showed me to the room, and then told me that they had three people coming that night and only one room left. Whoever got there first would get the room and the others would be put in a place down the road. I only called because I didn't want that to happen, but I did get the room, who knows what happened to the others.

Finally I made it through that storm, still feeling slightly unwell too!

The next day they of course started trying to sell one of the tours they offer, I told them I'd like to do a full day jeep tour to see more of the park and then maybe do another tour after that, and that I'd rather share the cost of a full day tour with others ($100 by myself!). So for 5 days I wandered around Sauraha, eating, looking across the river, watching the nightly thunderstorms, and watching my blood pressure go dangerously low and stupidly high, all while waiting for other people to want to do a full day tour. I gave up waiting and asked to do a half day tour where they throw you in the back of a jeep with several other random people. But later that day others had arrived who wanted to do the full day, Success!

We were told to order breakfast the previous night, have it at 6:30am and we'd leave by 7am. But in the middle of the night a VERY big storm hit. The storms here have a lot of lightning with flashes every second and a constant rumble of thunder. This one however was very windy and the lightning was so frequent it was almost stayed light outside. So after breakfast the next morning they told me they they had to wait until they were given the all clear by the national park. That wasn't until 8am, and then we were off!

The couple who were doing the jeep tour with me were from Australia, but very much into their birds. So for most of the morning we stopped to look at many birds, which are OK, but I was there for the rhino (and tiger).

Bird.

Monkey.

Peacock.

Strangled.

This is what we were travelling through most of the morning.

Bird.

Crocodile. 

At this lake there was a tower to climb up, so we went up and in the distance we could see one rhino! Very far away, but it was there!

Tiger footprints.

While driving through the Sal forests someone happened to look behind the jeep and saw a small black shape moving across the road. We turned round and tried to catch up, which is where we saw this:

A Sloth Bear.

The Sloth Bear is one of the more rare sightings in the park (along with tigers). This one looked like it was injured, it really didn't like us following it. After that we went further down the road to where there was a small waterhole and a tower overlooking it. We went up the tower and waited in silence for 15 minutes because this was a good spot for tigers. But today there were none. So we pushed on a little further into the forest, up a small track to where we were going to have lunch, but instead we found this:

A rhino!

It was facing the other direction at first, then noticed us, and wasn't too happy. The driver of the jeep had tried to get a bit closer to it but then the rhino turned and started to charge, to which the guide said "it's charging! get to the jeep!" so that's where I went. But the guide and one other person had stayed by the river as the rhino stopped. Oh well. I think I'll stay in this tiny non-protective jeep.

After that we headed to another spot, hopefully away from any other large animals.

This is where we ate lunch.

When the jeep stopped the guide told us to stay in it, and he scouted around to check for any dangerous animals. Once we got the all clear we were out and started to eat lunch. The guide was telling us that at this spot he has seen a family of rhinos in the river a few times. Just not today.

After lunch we head out again, I was totally lost because I kept forgetting the sun is in the South in this hemisphere. We ended up in more grasslands though. There were more rhinos out here, this is what they looked like though:

Hiding in the grass.

In total we saw 7 rhinos. We didn't see any elsewhere in the park. A tour came back the day after and they had seen about 25.

Eagle.

We stopped by another lake which was supposed to be good for tiger spotting.

Lake.

Bug.

More lake.

Eagles nest in the tall tree.

But again, no tigers. We did see the army doing a patrol though here looking for poachers. Then it was a lonnnnnnggg bumpy drive somewhere, nothing to see for about an hour, not even any birds. We ended up back in the grasslands again:

Countryside like this.

Here we saw some domestic elephants, they're used by the army for some patrols.

Muddy road.

We went down a small muddy road to have a look, which is where the jeep got stuck. After trying to rock back and forth to get it out the driver eventually put it in 4wd, but this still didn't help. We had to all get out, and help lift it across to a dry part of the track. This got it out of that spot, but then we had to push it again when it got stuck in the next muddy spot.

On the way out some Bison were spotted off in the distance. I've no idea if I was looking at them through the binoculars or if it was just a tree stump. The others were pretty confident they were looking at five bison though.

More mud.

More grass, Bison were somewhere in there.

Spotted deer.

The road just next to the river.

Jeep parking.

Sauraha on the other side of the river.

Incoming storm? It didn't arrive that night :(

Waiting for our ride across.

And that was it for the national park! I stayed another day to get some laundry done, and also to look at the wildlife display which was next door to the the place I was staying. Some very strange stuff in there: rhino and elephant fetuses, various skulls, bones, skin, and genitalia...

My bike was parked at the guesthouse for a week, and during the week I saw people sitting on it (and twisting the throttle grip more so it's even looser now) and just generally looking at it all the time. Mostly it was the staff of the place I was staying. Most days I just check that everything is still attached, but the night before I left I checked the fuel to see if it was all there and it was still full. The next morning it was mostly gone... Someone had taken 15L of fuel from my bike in the night. I had just enough to get to the armed petrol station again, I think the only reason why there was some left was because they had no more room to take it. The worst part was they left it on reserve. I make a habit of checking before I get on the bike but if I hadn't I would have run out a lot sooner and then not have any reserve. First time that has happened this entire trip, or even when it was back in Melbourne for a year. The cap doesn't lock, but then it's very easy to take the fuel hose off the tap and drain it out that way. I usually try and leave it so I fill up the next time I ride it, but it's not so east in Nepal when I don't know when I'm going to get fuel.

It's rapidly adding up that Nepal has a high concentration of Jerks...