SuzyBlue goes east 2019: Nepal part 2, with a Royal Enfield Himalaya exploring the countryside; 11.- 26.10.

After one week I change my location and stay for 2 nights at the "Elbrus Home", a hotel just some minutes away from Thamel. There had been many tourists around Bouddha Stupa as well. But Thamel is like another world: you find some hundreds of trekking-, shirt-, jewellery-, expedition- and souvernir-shops door-to-door. All famous outdoor brands are available.... I just hope that the tourists are aware that most of the products sold here are fakes. October and November are trekking-high-season months and therefor you see people from allover the world; mainly in the evening Thamel is really crowded. Not what I really like. I prefer to stroll around in the morning when it is still nice and relaxed.

 

On Saturday the other 5 bikers (4 men and 1 woman) I will spend the next to weeks with arrive from Germany. A funny group and we get along really good from the really beginning. During the first dinner Stephan, our tourguide, gives us instructions and tips how to drive here (honking, honking, honking!) and what to expect the next few days. We are quite excited the next morning being introduced to our bikes, Royal Enfield Himalayan's. After tightly packed our backroll on the bike we already start to our tour.... yeeeahaaaa

 

"Thanks" to the visit of the Chinese Prime minister the evening before, 3 of the 4 main roads leading out of Kathmandu are still blocked by militair and police and Stephan already has to change our route completely. But he's doing that for many years already and is able to adapt to any problems that might occur. On a main road - together with all the other vehicles driving out of Kathmandu - we ride down to Sauhara, a village in the Chitwan National park.
Wow, the traffic is really a challenge. I'm used to the crazy driving style from South America but the way they drive here is no picnic even for me: the roads - if tarmaced - full of sometimes huge potholes, overtaking motorcycles all the time - of coursing honking; the trucks and buses (most of them "Tata"s) drive like hell and take as much space as they need. If you don't get out of their way it is your problem, not theirs! The only possibility to survive is to be always very alert and try to adapt their driving style, of course far more defensive. And soon it's really fun riding with the bike here - at least for me; although I'm still quite often astonished of how risky they overtake. The crashed buses and cars lying some hundred meters down in the riverbed speak a clear language. Massive accidents are nothing uncommon here.

 

 

 

The next days we experience and ride through great landscapes, villages and cities like: 
Chitwan Nationalpark, Janakpur, Salleri, Balthali, Namo Buddha, Nagarkot and Bakthapur. Within 200km width Nepal offers dschungels at 150m up to the massive Himalaya range with 8848m. Incredible and absolutely impressing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stay alternating in great resorts, a sherpa-guesthouse and at the river in tiny tents. During the day we eat in street restaurants, at the campfire, at a farmer's home and enjoy the great local food.
The program gives us enough time to relax, be part of a dschungle walk or go on a hike trying to get a glimps of Mt. Everest. I'm not used to travel like that but it is a nice change not be responsible finding a place to sleep or think about where to ride next. And of course it is really great to share all the things and places we see and experience with other travelers.

 

                           

 

Riding-wise it is never boring; not a second! Meanwhile we are used to the left-side-driving and to the driving style of the Nepalis. But the roads are often quite challenging and it happens again and again that for example there is a bridge missing. That's exactly what I was looking for: steep gravel roads, water crossings and unforseen difficulties we had to solve together.

 

 

 

It's incredible how fast the time passes. Already 12 days after leaving Kathmandu we return sound and safe. Friday we use doing some more sightseeing and of course souvenir shopping and on Saturday the 5 Germans fly back home. We spent 2 great weeks together and got along really good - although being of quite different characters. We had lots of fun and encoured each other in tricky situations. Once more I got to know some nice travelers and I hope to keep in touch at least with some of them.

After another night at the "Elbrus Home" I change back to the ROKPA guesthouse. I have sort of a task to accomplish there before going on my trekking at the end of my time in Nepal

But again more of that in my next post "Nepal, part 3" .... stay tuned my friends ;-)