Charity Motorcycle ride in Nepal


Advertisement
Nepal's flag
Asia » Nepal » Kathmandu
December 2nd 2010
Published: December 4th 2010
Edit Blog Post

Total Distance: 0 miles / 0 kmMouse: 0,0

Nepal MC Trip


Nepal motorcycle Trip



"Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ... holy shit... what a ride!"



Nov 20 - Dec 5



Well, this is the final phase of the Nepal/India trip. We are doing a charity motorcycle ride through Nepal. The goal is to raise $20,000 for the Sewa Kendra Leprosy Relief Hospital in Kathmandu.

The group met for a meet and greet welcome dinner. There are 5 people that also participated in the Edge of Seven project, as well as 3 new additions. The group consists of;

Phillipa Saxton - owner of Saffron Road motorcycle tours (New Zealand)
Kelsey Bray - a partner in Saffron Road, also from New Zealand
Mick Brown and Trina Mitchell - New Zealand. Trina will not be riding with us as she is still suffering from her injury on the project site
Murray "Muzz" Scott- New Zealand
John Carter - San Francisco
Stefan Schaefer - San Francisco
... and myself

Our support team from Sacred Summits Himalayan Adventure Company are Rabi, Ashim Pradhan, Mahesh Pakhrin, Ram Paswan, and Arvind.

We are riding the Royal Enfield 500 Bullet, a British motorcycle, originally designed in the early 50's, and currently built in India to the original specification. There are a few peculiarities about the Enfield. The two most notable being that the foot brake and gear shift are on the opposite sides than most bikes, and the gears are one up, three down, whereas most bikes are one down, and the rest up. This was the most difficult thing to get used to. We all had issues with this, but no one wanted to admit it.

Nov 21 - Kathmandu



The first day is spent in Kathmandu, getting acclimatized and visiting some of the sites. The highlights being:

The Bodnath Stupa - a Buddhist place to pray. It is, in fact, the largest Stupa in Nepal and the second largest in the world.

Pashupatinah in Kathmandu - Set on the bank of the sacred Bagmati river is the Nepal's holiest Hindu site. The temples are dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. When a Hindu person dies they cremate the bodies at designated spots on the banks of the river. The family gathers and mourns their death, then they burn the body on a funeral pyre. It takes about three hours for the body to burn in its entirety, then the ashes are dumped in the river. We happened to be there to see funerals at each of the various stages.

The Hospice at the Basmuti temple - We visited an old palace that was converted to a hospice accommodated about 300 impoverished people over 70years old. The patients really enjoyed our visit. Lots of handshakes, photos, and smiles.

The Sewa Kendra Leprosy Hospital

The Khokana Lepersarium (basically a Leper Colony)

After our sight seeing expedition, we went back to the hotel to see and try out our bikes in the parking lot. Most of us went to our room to get our helmets and protective riding gear. Kelsey, however, decided to just hop on in her street clothes and go for a short ride. Bad decision! As I mentioned earlier, these bikes are very difficult to ride because of the unique operation of the gears and the brakes. Kelsey, while moving at a relatively slow speed, stalled the bike and fell off doing some minor damage to her bike and some serious damaged to her arm and shoulder. However, Kelsey is a trooper. She got bandaged up, put on her proper gear, and away she went.

Rabi, the local tour operator invited us back to the Handle-Bar, a bar-restaurant with a definite motorcycle theme. On of the performers from the Nepali blues festival, Owen from Australia, is a friend of Rabi's and performed some awesome Blues in the courtyard, while we ate momos and drank Everest beer.

Nov 22, 2010 - Kathmandu - Bandipur



Clutch out at 8 am (Nepali time). Finally we are on our way. It took about 3 hours to do the first 25 kms. The was the result of a combination of traffic, bad rodes, broken down bikes, and our inexperience. It is hard to describe how bad the air pollution is in the city. Most of the bikers have a bandanna on to try and filter out the dust and diesel fumes.

We finally get out into the countryside and open up our Royal Enfields (top speed comfortably is about 70 kms, or 45 miles an hour. On these roads you wouldn't want to go any faster. There are lots of trucks and buses, and no one seems to think twice about passing on mountainous turns. They seem to think they are invincible, however they are not, as we saw at least 5 very serious accidents. Our midday stop is at Manakamana...., a temple on the top of a mountain, accessible by a very modern cable car apparently built by the Austrians. The Swiss built a cable car up there about 12 years ago. Many locals to there to pray and some choose to sacrifice a chicken or goat. Hindus believe that the goddess Bhagwati has the power to grant wishes. They take the like offering to a special area, where the head is cut off and offered to the gods. The body is put in a bag for the individual to take home for a feast and hope there wish comes true. Unbelievable.

We rode another hour following the Trisuli River, then turned up a single track mountain road about 5 kms to the village of Bandipur, which was on the trade route between Tibet and India. After they put the new Pivthi highway in, Bandipur became run down. A company,from Kathmandu, Himalayan Encounters, saw an opportunity to "revive" the town through investment and involvement of the local community. The village now has many beautiful Inns, hotels and cafes. In the morning, you can see the Himalayan peaks in the distance.

Nov 23 - Bandipur - Pokhara




We have a 3 hour ride to Pokhara this morning, about 90 kms. One of the bikes broke the chain causing a half hour delay. Once we reached the city of about 200,000, on a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, We stopped for a late lunch in an are called Lakeside, which caters to tourists. We probably stayed there a little longer than we should have, as it was getting dark and traffic was very busy. At one of the roundabouts, we lost Mick in all the congestion. It turns out that a new minivan clipped him, or visa-versa. The van chased him and pulled him over, getting out and about 30 locals surrounded him demanding compensation. Our mechanic, Ram, came to his rescue and got caught up in the melee. The police got involved and took the keys to their motorcycles. In the end, Ram talked their way out of it. Meanwhile, not knowing what happened, the rest of us were waiting for Mick and Ram to catch up. We made contact by cell phone, and agreed to meet them at our luxury hotel, The Furbare.

It was dark, and our guide, Mahesh, didn't seem to know exactly where we were were going. The road was probably the worst road we have been on so far. I couldn't help but think, that if the 5 km road in is this bad, what is the hotel like. To our surprise, we arrived exhausted to a beautiful, Japanese built hotel, that was spectacular.

Nov 24 - 25, Pokhara



Today is a supposed to be a highlight of our trip. When the skies are clear, Pokhara is one of the most beautiful places on earth. There are lots of activities in the area. Three of us chose to go "para-Hawking". It is a variation of para sailing, (tandem) except that a falcon or hawk leads you through the thermals, and then lands on your arm so you can feed it 2000 feet above the ground. We booked for 2 pm, however, when we woke up it there was major fog. As the day progressed,it became apparent that it wasn't going to clear up, and the flight was cancelled. very frustrating, especially when you get all psyched to do something like this. Instead we went to the Boomerang restaurant in Lakeside, then rented some boats and went paddling on the lake. Not the same level on the adventure scale, but we had a great time just the same.

There were three of us on our boat, Mick, Kelsey and myself. Mick made it interesting when he saw a dead bird floating on the water, picked it up on the end of his paddle, and tossed it onto a boat with about 16 passengers. Bulls-eye. It land right in the middle of the boat on a passengers lap. Omg, they were shocked. It was immediately tossed back in the lake, and we all had a good chuckle.

Nov 26 - Pokhara - Tansen



This turned out to be our best day of riding so far, It started our foggy and overcast again, but it cleared up by about 10 am. We really had a chance to get comfortable on our mighty Royal Enfields. The roads were excellent for Nepal, which means the pot holes weren't so bad, and there were only small sections our dirt and gravel, randomly dispersed as we maneuvered through the windy mountain and valley roads. There were a few incidents. Murray was not feeling well and had to pull over for a while. Stefan had a flat tire. We had been riding together, when he pulled over to take some photos, and I kept going. After he got back on his bike he was coming around a corner and his rear end started sliding and wobbling. Fortunately, he immediately realized he had a flat tire and pulled over to wait for the support vehicle to come along with a spare tire.

While we were waiting for Stefan, we also got word by cell phone that Phillipa had become very sick, to the extent that she couldn't travel any further. We weren't certain what happened, but she did have a bit of a cold and had been taken some very strong medications. She eventually met up with us at the hotel in Tansen, and was not much better, so they immediately took he to the local hospital.

Nov 27 - Tansen - Lumbini



Lumbini is the birthplace of Buddha. Obviously a very religious place and the destinations of many Buddhists from around to world. The surprising thing about this place is that they actually developed a master plan for the area which consists of three distinct areas; Tactual Birthplace, an area for International Buddhist Monasteries, and a park area. Very impressive for this country!

Nov 28 - Lumbini - Chitwan National Park



Thanks to everyone for all the Birthday greetings!

Our next destination is Temple Tiger lodge, located in Chitwan National Park, Nepal's first National Park. Its a little difficult to get to. After a four hour ride on good roads, we arrived at our destination. We park our bikes and walked to a a place where we transferred to a row boat, which took us across the Rapti River and then took a land rover which took us to the the lodge itself.

After settling in we went on an Elephant Safari. My expectations weren't high, since I had been spoiled in Africa. However, it was spectacular. After about 15 minutes, we came across a One-Horned Indian Rhino, which is one of 5 species of Rhinos in the world (and probably the most distinctive looking). It was a male that had just been in a fight with another male, and was covered with serious flesh wounds. After taking lots of photos, we moved on, and over the next hour and a half saw wild boars, spotted deer, 2 kinds of monkey, the rhesus macaque and the larger languor,

The next day we had a full agenda, that went something like this:

6:00 am - wake up call
6:30 - Elephant Safari
8:30 - Breakfast
9:00 - Jeep Safari
11:00 - Boat Ride
12:30 Lunch
2:00 - Elephant Briefing and tour of stalls
3:30 - Nature Walk
6:30 - Nature Talk
7:00 Dinner

Sounds like a lot, but when you only have one day in this beautiful part of the world, you have to take advantage of it. And it was worth it. Some of the highlights included:

- tiger hunting in the grassy marsh area
- many unique species of birds
- close up of rhinos
- viewing Gharial crocodiles on the river
- and just enjoying mother nature at her best.

Nov 30 - Chitwan to Daman



We are up early for our ride to Daman. We took a land rover from the camp to the river, a boat ride across the river, then a van to our bikes. It is 105 kms (65 miles) to our destination. It doesn't sound like far, but with the road conditions, and busy roads, it takes us all day. It is always interesting riding in Nepal, passing through many small villages, watching beautiful children walking to school in their school uniforms, observing the women working in the fields and carrying wood and water to their homes, keeping an eye on the road traffic - goats, cows, bicycles, motorcycles, overcrowded buses, and large transport trucks. It appears that their is no real system, but somehow it seems to work.

As we start to climb to Daman, a small village at 2400 meter (8,000 ft) above sea level, the roads get steeper and twistier through the mountains. We had spread out to give each other space for maneuvering through these mountain roads, and to allow people to take photos. I came around a sharp bend and one of our group, Kelsey, was standing on the side of the road signalling for me to slow down. I immediately noticed a bike upside down in a ditch and smashed up against a rock face, It was Kelsey's. Fortunately she was alright. Somehow she had lost control and came off the bike. Thank goodness we all wear full body armour and full face helmets, as she escaped without serious injury. Shortly thereafter, our support vehicle, and our trusty mechanic, Ram, showed up at the scene. We up righted the bike, and they pieced it back together, and before you know it, we were off again.

We arrived at the Everest Panama Resort about an hour before sunset. The scenery was stunning. They saw that this is the absolute best place in Nepal to view the Himalayas. We can see clearly 400 kms of the majestic mountain range from Annapurna to Mount Everest. We had a little competition finding a spot to take photos as there was a group of Japanese men on a Photo vacation with their tripods, Nikons, and multiple lens and other accessories shooting the scenery from every possible angle. That night we were all ready to let loose after a long and hectic day. We took out ipods, imacs and ipads and speakers to the restaurant, and played music, danced and sang songs.

Dec 1 - Daman to Dhulikhel



At dinner the night before, Mahesh had presented us with 2 alternatives for our trip today. Plan A, which was in our original itinerary, was to basically get back to the main highway (if you want to call it that), and ride 112 kms to our destination. Plan B was to take a short cut through on a dirt road through the mountains, and hook up with the highway further along. After a short discussion, we all agreed Plan B would be more interesting. We left Daman at 9 am and proceed down to mountain on a very twisty, turny, steep, mostly paved road. We were all a little cautious after the little incident yesterday.

After about an hour we cut off on to our dirt, short cut road. We all rode at our own pace, and consequently got split up, and essentially lost. Mahesh, John and Kelsey took a cut-off and encountered an extremely bad road that was partially flooded. Stefan stopped for photos and had a mechanical problem with his bike and stopped in a small village to get it repaired. Murray, Mick and myself got split up and eventually came back together at at an army base in a secured area that we weren't supposed to be in. Miraculously, we all came back together at a small lunch area. We set out again on a 20 km stretch of the worst road I have ever ridden on - gravel, water, sand, single track with 2 way traffic. We made it through this part without incident, however, once we got back an a paved road,we had another incident. I was following behind Mahesh when we came around a corner and a jeep was coming the other direction. He didn't leave enough room and he squeezed Mahesh off the road into the ditch. Mahesh bailed from his bike, hitting the road and skidding to a stop. Once again, thanks to protective gear he was OK. We pulled the trusty Royal Enfield from the ditch, and sure enough it started up right away.

To get to our hotel for the evening we had about 2 more hours of what some people would say was the most difficult and exhausting part of the day - riding through Kathmandu in heavy rush hour traffic. We made it to the Dwarikas Himalayan Shangri La Hotel at 5:15pm, once again drained after a long day on the road. The highlight of this beautiful hotel is the view of the snow capped Himalayas.

December 2 - Dhulikhel - Tibetan border town of Kodari 100kms



We left the hotel about 10:00am on route to the Nepal - Tibet border town of Kodari along the Arniko Highway (a loose term!) which runs through the gorge form by the Sunkoshi and Bhote Koshi rivers. The road drops to 634m with many changes of scenery en route back up to arrive at Kodari. The road was extremely bad in places, made worse by the truck and bus traffic. It is actually hard to believe that these vehicles could make it given the road conditions. At the border we parked our bikes and walked to the middle of the Freedom Bridge joining the 2 countries. It was like being in a different world - armed soldiers everywhere, Nepalese people carrying massive loads on their back bringing goods from China to Nepal, huge line ups of trucks waiting to cross the border, and just overall chaos.

We road bake down a few kms to the Borderland Resort, a beautiful tent resort on the Bhote Koshi river. Apparently a Canadian, Wade Campbell, developed this adventure based resort about 12 years earlier. It was our last night on the road, so after dinner, we cranked up the tunes and had a great time, before heading back to our tents for the best nights sleep on the trip.

December 3 - Borderland - kathmandu 100kms



Our last ride back down the Arniko highway for a very enjoyable ride with nice easy turns. We stopped at the outskirts of the city where most of the riders decided to park their bikes at a storage area and take a van back to the hotel. Mahesh, Stefan and myself decided to ride the bikes in. Traffic in Kathmandu can be very stressful and dangerous, however, it is also very challenging and interesting. We made it back to the Yak and Yeti hotel in one piece, celebrating with high fives, hugs, and photos. Quite a feeling - satisfying that we completed the trip safely, but sad that it is all over.

Our last dinner was at the 1905 restaurant/bar, where there also happened to a battle of the bands outdoor rock and roll
We made it!We made it!We made it!

Back row - John, Stefan, Mahesh, Mick, Arvind, Muzz, Ashim Front Row - Ram, Kelsey, Mike
concert. Everyone was in great spirits, reflecting on our adventures over the past 2 weeks. There were presentations and speeches, in particular, thanking the staff of Saffron Road, Phillipa and Kelsey, and Sacred Summits (the local tour company. Rabi, Ashim, Mahesh, Arvind and Ram.

I am so fortunate to be able to live my dreams, to meet such wonderful people, and, at the same time, to be able to help people that are less fortunate than us.

I am looking forward to returning to my home in Aurora to see my wonderful family and friends.

Bye for now.

Mike









Additional photos below
Photos: 60, Displayed: 35


Advertisement



4th December 2010

great adventure, great blog!
4th December 2010

Life and living is an Adventure- Enjoy the ride
Mike, Just returned from two weeks in India, travelling predominately between Mumbai, Delhi and a side trip to Nashik in the mountains. Words cannot describe the place, the people, the pulse of 20 million people (Mumbia) living in an area 1/2 the size of Toronto. Going to a business meeting 30 k from the hotel in rush hour takes 3 1/2 hours. Thank goodness for having a car and driver! On the other hand you and Shelly driving a rickshaw through that insanity, says something about...... (which I would not put into print)! LOL :-) And to add to the Chaos India is one great big construction site. Everywhere one goes all one sees are massive infrastructure projects! Look forward to hearing more on your return to Aurora! Warm regards
4th December 2010

Wow!
I just love the photos of the mountains! What a place. And I'm so glad you made it in safely. See you soon! xxoo
4th December 2010

Awesome
Once again you have provided us with a wonderful commentary of your adventure. Enjoyed it very much.
4th December 2010

Amazing - Motorcyle Ride?
Hey Mike. This was absolutely your most fascinating mortorcyle trip to read. It looked more like a motor cross excursion! Take care and have a safe trip back.
4th December 2010

Nice
More beautiful and exciting adventures! Very nice! I love the photo titled Captivating. Love the quote about the manner in which we should go to our graves. Enjoy! Stay in touch, Hugs, Deidre
5th December 2010

I'm constantly amazed at the fantastic vistas you get to witness, and your remarkable resilience through so many difficult conditions. Kudos, man. I especially love the blue boats against the foggy body of water. I'd love to paint that. Hope to see you when you get back to Aurora! Have a safe trip back.
7th December 2010

Thanks, Back in Toronto now after 2 months in Asia. A little weird with all this normalcy! Where are you now? Mike
12th December 2010

Great Ride
Hi Mike, It is great knowing you and it is great pleasure riding with you. Went through your Blog… great write up and very interesting incident you have highlighted…. I have re-lived those glories 12 days of ride with the group again….. Thank you… for everything..Hope to meet you some day again… Mahes Pakhrin The Road Captain
24th December 2010

Your travels
Rick and I enjoy seeing your travels. COmpleted the MOroccan trip ourselves in Sept. Not keeping up to you tho!!
11th August 2011

Great read! What an inspiration!

Tot: 0.192s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 8; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0682s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb