Back to the Heat, then back to Kathmandu
Trip Start
Aug 03, 2007
1
9
Trip End
Oct 15, 2007
Kathmandu, Nepal
Monday, October 15, 2007
Rested and re-provisioned, we started the week ride back to Kathmandu via the Terai, the flat hot plain which leaves the Himalayan foothills and slides into India, across an arbitrary border drawn up by the British Raj in the mid 1850s. From Pokhara to Butwal, the first town out of the hills in the Terai, there are several major ridges to cross, and as we cranked our way up the first one, already dripping sweat in the early morning heat and humidity, we realized that what with the volunteering and bike problems, we had only biked 3 days in the entire preceding month. And the leg muscles were definitely letting us know. At least we're back to good fresh samosas and such to break up the pain. We also started to encounter Maoists, or at least, we assume they were Maosists. Mostly kids, not armed, no uniforms, but they'd set up a simple, informal road block, and collect a "small, voluntary contribution". The first set of kids told us the money was going to the town football team which had made the play-offs. This was accompanied by a rather lot of giggling however, and later excuses were less creative, so assume they were simply doing some fund raising for the Maoists.
That night was spent in a small hotel in a very small town; a small enough town we figured this was probably the only hotel, and didn't bother to look further. The hotel restaurant seemed to be cooking up really good food on arrival, but when we went down to eat an hour later, there was nothing being served. So we got out the books, and the headlamps - the electricity being rather on the spastic side, and read, and waited, and read, and after a while a bunch more people showed up, and we were served some good daal bhaat. This sort of thing happens a lot in small restaurants which serve a (single) dinner, and expect us to understand what time that is. Leaving town the next morning we were chased down by a British chap named Ian. Turned out he was also bike touring, but heading to Pokhara having been able to come in from India. He and his wife had spent the night at the other edge of this small town, also under the impression they were in the only hotel in town, and spotted us biking away as they finished breakfast. We traded contact info, found their website (http://bigbiketrip.whereareyou.net/) and actually met up a week later in Kathmandu to swap bike stories. Day two was a lot more hills, up and over the next ridge, and finally dropping into Butwal. At this point, the words "Hot", "Really F*ing HOT" and "holy sh*t it's HUMID" start showing up in my diary on a rather regular basis. Our hotel room included a swamp cooler, but I have NO idea why they even sell these in a climate where the humidity rarely drops below 98% Food was good though, being close to India, and there were even with some southern Indian dishes. Of course, there are some down sides to being back in "India"; horn abuse has increased, as has the number of homicidal bus drivers, especially since the Terai highway is actually smooth enough for the buses to get up some speed. But we applied the old Indian maxim "Looking before stepping into traffic is a sign of weakness" and fit in just fine.
From Butwal it's 200km across the Terrai to where we head into the hills again, and I was determined to simply hang on and survive in the heat, humidity, and noise. Easier said than done; our clothes were completely sweat saturated within minutes of getting on the bike which lead to some pretty nasty chafing. Then too, I had figured that the Terai would at least be flat as a pan, but wrong again; someone parked a 1000 ft climb in the middle of the first day. Somewhere in there I sweated out my last electrolyte and figured that this couldn't possibly be healthy. We were biking past the Royal Chitwan National Park (sorry, scratch the Royal, they've been trying to eliminate that word), supposedly a great place to ride elephants while looking for tigers, but we had little interest in spending any more time than necessary down in the heat and pressed on. Passed a long, low-sleep night in Naryandgarh contemplating some of the great questions of Nepal such as "why must the trucks blare the @#!#$! horn going through town at 3AM??" Another day across the Terai in the heat and humidity, but no big hills, and met 2 Swiss bikers just out for a few weeks. This day went much better; we treated ourselves to the nice, quiet hotel just outside of Hetauda, and, for the second day in a row, arrived shortly before the heavens started dumping water.
Finally it was time for the climb we'd been dreading since reading up on the topography in Lonely Planet: 2100m (6900 ft!!!!) of climbing straight up and over the pass - the most climbing we've ever done in a single day! Fortunately we rose ahead of the heat and stayed that way. The terrain was quite beautiful, sparsely populated, and, as a very nice change from the past week, there was very little traffic. We stayed ahead of the heat but no such luck on the rain this time and spent the last couple hours of climbing getting intermittently soaked, biking in and out of rain and dense clouds. Crossing the top we were supposed to be in prime location for "best panoramic view of the Nepali Himalaya", but it was solidly socked in the entire time, visibility as low as 50m, so fantastic panorama of .... white. But we made it to Daman before dark, and stayed in our most basic Nepali hotel this trip; a small room, outhouse out back, bucket for washing on the end of the porch, and simple, cold daal bhaat for dinner - hardly the way to reward ourselves after the climb.
Daal bhaat is the standard Nepali dish; white rice, watery dal soup, and some sort of curried veggie on the side. It's easy to fill up on, and they keep refilling your plate as much as you like, but it's hard to get fat on daal bhaat.
One last day of biking to Kathmandu, lots of down on the usually crappy asphalt; I've reached my limit for this trip of roads which have the right frequency and magnitude of bumps to feel like I'm getting punched in the kidneys, and will be sorely disappointed if the roads in Japan aren't very very smooth. Speaking of which, we, met a Japanese guy coming up, very lightly loaded, and who insisted on taking a picture of us. A few km we met a Swiss couple grinding up, with even more gear than we have! Traffic was mostly light and going the other way; the holiday of Dasain had just started, a 15 day festival in which Nepalis leave the cities droves to be with family in the country, and on day 10, there are great sacrifices of goats and chickens. Down down, back into the lush heat and rice fields, until we reached the main highway to Kathmandu. Sadly our optimism for the highway being "not that busy" was based on experiencing it with the road blocked by a strike last time, and it turned into a final 3 hours from hell in stinking exhaust, blaring horns, grinding back up to the Kathmandu valley. Ah well, always need to have something to put on the "never every need to do that again" list and my lungs should recover by Christmas. 2009. Somewhere in that climb a big SUV went by with the "Heifer International" logo. Heifer is an aid organization which embraces the "teach a man to fish" philosophy by giving out not money, but animals. That said, it's gotta be pretty tough to be an optimistic Heifer representative in the midst of festive goat and chicken sacrificing.....
We were psychologically beat at this point, too much noise, confusion, heat, humidity, etc. but determined to see Kathmandu. We had two long days in Thamel, Kathmandu, stocking up, and trying to see the sights, but in the end were just too burned out on noise, crowded streets, more noise, touts and more noise. Have to go back to appreciate all the temples and such in Kathmandu. At least the air was clean since the "extra late and wet" monsoon season was still cleaning the air.
Given our burned-out-on-this-area problem, it was only fitting that our final departure was a bit of a boondoggle. It started with the hotel; we pointed out the bicycles, how they took up lots of space, how we needed a BIG taxi to the airport, and how their hotel airport shuttle van would be perfect, and how we'd love to use that at 11am next morning. They said fine and wrote that down. Next morning comes, van is gone. We grumble, point out bicycles, and tell them to find a cab. They find the smallest micro-hatchback they can, without even a roof rack; NOT going to work. We start to get worried about missing the flight - traffic around Kathmandu is unreal. Note to Nepali drivers: the road is NOT the same as a parking lot. Yet they all come to a halt in the middle of the road, leave the truck there, the traffic piles up, everyone honks, and then repeats the process when it's their turn. Anyway, much flailing of taxi finding, flaming of tempers, escalating time and prices, and eventually we end up in a pickup truck, our stuff in back getting drenched in the downpour. Meanwhile, a bystander in the lobby has pointed out that I need a LOT of Nepali Rupees (and only rupees) to pay the airport departure tax. Shit, I just used those up except for the now very expensive cab fare. Taxi driver speaks no English, so after some mostly-fruitless gesticulations, I jump out when we're passing a few blocks from an ATM, sprint there and back, catch up to the taxi in the traffic and off to the airport. (Note: I knew there was an ATM at the airport, but didn't count on it, and, sure nuff, it was broken, score one for the cynic). The fun continues at the airport; departure tax paid, we try to check in and area told that e-tickets are not used at all in Kathmandu. We point out that their computer was stupid enough to sell us an e-ticket, so that this is not our problem, and we most definitely will NOT be buying new tickets. Voices raised again, managers summoned, and after a half hour of arguing we're foisted off on another airline, with a baggage surcharge, but no other damage. Arriving in Delhi we knew we were back in India almost immediately after de-planing. We're wayyyy out in the middle of the ramp, acres and acres of empty concrete as we all pile into the bus. Soon as the last person is not quite in, or the door closed, the driver guns it, the bus lurches off nicely timed to hit both potholes in the ramp, and cut off the luggage truck - the only vehicle in sight. Arriving at the terminal, the doors are now on the wrong side of the bus necessitating a full turn around. With acres of empty concrete still available, the driver cuts the turn too close, has to back and fill, but at least manages to cut off the same luggage truck again! Welcome back to Delhi! Enough of that, on to Japan!
MK
