Ben and the art of Motorcycle Mumbling...

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Riding out of the Kathmandu valley and on the road to Pokhara has been amazing. Breath taking views all day, thup thup thupping along through endless valleys. Nepal only really has one or two main highways running across the country so the roads are actually pretty good and reasonably well looked after. Everything is green and lush although a haze of dust and pollution still hangs over everything, and the sickly sweet smell of burning rubbish and decay does start to stick in the throat a bit. I've only been riding a couple of hours but already I desperately want to go for a swim in the river that tumbles down the valley next to me not because I'm particularly hot but simply because it reminds me so much of the rivers I love to swim in back in New Zealand.
Again, most of the traffic isn't moving too fast so you've usually got time to get out of the way of racing buses over taking each other, however I have had a couple of near misses, one where I was almost squashed between a bus and an oncoming taxi, just slipping through at the last second with about a foot to spare. But its still exciting, a kind of sick pleasure in it all.
Mostly it just feels fantastic to have an engine between my legs again, I'd really missed it in India especially seeing al the beautiful old Enfields around. Just pottering along, not a care in the world, look at that, look at that, mountains, valleys and Stereophonics keeping me company.
It takes a while to get where you're going though. On my bike 900cc monster back home I'm used to chewing up 600 – 700kms a day, where as here this wee bike will only do about 60km/h top with me and my gear, but the regular lumps and potholes stop you going a whole lot faster anyway, and although not so many, they're the kind of potholes that would bend your front wheel in half and flip you over the bars if you hit them at serious speed.
After 240km and about 6 hours I was almost at Pokhara when the bike just conked out. Bugger. Right, check fuel – plenty. Engine turning over so not a battery problem. All cables and leads secure. Hmm, petrol leaking from the bottom of the carby.
Pushed the bike back to garage a couple of hundred meters down the road (lucky or what?) and within about two minutes the guy diagnosed the problem – blocked carburetor. Out it came, stripped, cleaned and back thup thupping away in about 30 minutes. And all for 150rs (about $2.15 NZ). All happy again I pottered the last few minutes to Pokhara found a hotel and crashed out.



29/11/12

Sick as a dog today. Woke up at 5am with massive stomach cramps and have barely been able to get out of bed all day. Its not nice at all being so crook, alone, a long way from home and I'm feeling pretty lonely.
5pm: I've managed to get out and get some really garlicky veg soup so that might help a bit. I hope (with the amount of it I ate in the next couple of days, maybe its better that I didn't have a room mate at the moment). Feeling super weak and the two minute walk to the café has put me back to bed and asleep for another hour. Apart from that, all I've done all day is sleep and shi- purge. Getting a bit tender and not so keen on sitting on the bike at the moment.



"An ant in a land of giants" – 30/11/12

Feeling a bit better today so out and about with me. I really saw the Anapurna ranges for the first time this morning and just stood and stared. The enormous peaks, some more that twice the size of our tallest mountain back home, dominating the skyline. Like Hillary said when he first climbed out of the ice fall above basecamp on Everest, I really do feel like an ant in a land of giants.
Rode the bike up to the local peace pagoda and up to Sarangkot to see the mountains at sunset. Most of the roads are pretty good, but these steep hill roads are a little different. Dust, sand and rocks the whole way up, rough as guts in places, pretty knarly stuff and I figured my bike wasn't quite up to this, being a long slung cruiser so I parked about half way up to the peace pagoda and started walking. Next thing a bloke comes bumbling past with his wife of the back of a 180cc Pulsar (a slightly sportier more upright bike), bumping away up the hill. What the hell, I'll see how far I can get.
Back on the bike, 1^st gear with a little bit of clutch and I start bumbling my way up the hill. After a while a started to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea, and at the top decided it was a really dumb idea. It was pretty rough and steep coming up but going back down would be a whole other story, and this was really some of the only of road riding I've done, and on a bike defiantly not designed for it.
The view is great, but my stomachs still playing up so I'm quickly into the bushes then back down the hill. It turned out to be not as bad as I thought, just 1^st gear, no clutch and very light on the brakes. Not too much of a problem. Just plodded the whole way down and the same at Sarangkot where I saw the mountains catch fire with the setting sun.
Looking at these roads and then looking at the bike you'd say "Nuh! No way", but it took it all in stide and I've now ridden some pretty crazy rough roads and this little devil has done it all. Even when I was trying to ride to Jonsom (I only made it about halfway in the end, those roads really did get too rough), just when I thought I was mullered only 2km from Beni by a two foot deep stream, it still just pottered through and kept going.
"Two feet? That’s nothing!" I hear you say, but remember, the exhaust on this bike is only just over a foot off the ground and I wasn't keen on seeing what this tiny little cylinder thought about a lung full of water.
But to Beni and back to Pokhara, more rough roads, crazy drivers and above all stunning, stunning scenery. Every so often the mountains would pop out from behind a hill and my breath would catch every time.
I did have one slightly interesting moment just before the previously mentioned stream. I was pondering whether I could actually get the wee bike across, whether I should carry my gear over first to reduce weight, and noticed a little restaurant. Better to think on a full stomach, I thought, so I waddled in. I was a bit in need by now, the old "Purge" light flashing warningly, and alas with no loo paper my trusty journal became a few pages shorter.
Sitting down again I got chatting to a couple of locals who assured me that Beni was only a couple of kilometers further, the road good and no more river crossings.
With that in mind I tucked into my chicken friend rice while they polished off a small bottle of whisky each. Fair enough.
Eventually they got up to leave and while one of them settled the bill the other walked out to a big off road bike, threw a leg over, pulled a huge donut, then his mate jumped on the back and they wheelied away cool as you like with hands in the air and whoops of laughter.
Nice to meet you guys, but in the nicest possible way, I hope I don't meet you again out on the highway, pickled to the high heavens.



Tears in my helmet

Part of the reason I cam away overseas was to try and work through the events of the last couple of years. Ongoing struggles at work and unfulfillment in my job, realizing that I'd been struggling with bouts of depression for a long time having previously thought I'd sorted all that and the passing of some close friends. A lot of it I had purposely not dealt with, not dwelled upon so I could just keep getting through the days, but just being here, away from all the day to day stuff and having so much time to think and pray I feel like so much of it has been lifted from my shoulders. That in a way, it's been dealt with and I can lay most of it to rest. Its not turned out to be the emotional struggle I thought it could well be.
I have had my moments though. At one point on the road from Beni back to Pokhara I was overwhelmed by the scent of flowers in bloom, like a strong heady perfume and I don't know quite why it triggered but the tears just started flowing. It was such a beautiful smell, combined with the majesty of the mountains and the valleys, for some reason it reminded me of so many people, places and things that I missed and I was just riding along having a really good old blubber. But it felt good to get it out and I thanked God for this wonderful world he's given us.



Vanish away like midnight smoke…

I still find it a little strange, moving from place to place everyday, always moving on, not really leaving a trace behind on the land. Nothing to show that I've passed through except a name in a book, often made up when my passport wasn't required. If you look back through certain hotel registers you might be surprised to see that Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman, Bear Grylls and Han Solo had been slumming it with the rest of the tourists passing through.
However, this land and its people have left deep marks on my heart, and I vow to return one day and do it properly; hike the Anapurna and struggle up to Everest base camp and really get properly amongst the mountains.
Another night, another town, and I slip away into the cold morning fog, droplets condensing on my sunglasses and my fingers freezing to the handle bars. Its cold, very cold, but as I climb I finally slip above the fog as I ride away from Pokhara for the last time, and the hill tops look like islands in a billowing white sea.
The road from Pokhara to Butwal is one of the best I've ridden so far. Constantly climbing lush green hills, then plunging back in to deep dark valleys. I don't even mind that its taken 7 and a half hours to ride 165km. Its all been worth it.



I'll not leave my mark here either…

Although it appears many have before me. A collection of unidentifiable stains on the bed sheets, and a few that are identifiably blood, so tonight will be a sleeping bag night I think. The momos are good though, and the staff pleasant.
The hotel in Butwal is nothing special, a bit like Butwal itself. Just another blip on the map, a place to stop for a night on the way to Lumbini. With locals drunk and shouting till the late hours down stairs, and someone being noisily sick down the hall till the wee small hours I'm not so sad to leave this place.
I do have one pleasant moment though. One of the lads who works at the hotel comes to chat with me while I'm on the balcony sipping some coffee I brewed up in my room.
"You are from?"
"New Zealand" I reply.
"Ahh! Edmund Hillary, the great climber. You have been to India also? Which you like better; India or Nepal?"
"I thought it was India, but I think I like Nepal better now, it reminds me a lot of home."
The smile almost splits his face in half and he gives me a huge thumbs up.
"I like to hear. I like you my friend. Good night, Mister Solo."

Traveller out.

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