So here we are; the second and final Nepal update.
After returning to Kathmandu after trekking to Everest Base Camp I decided to head to Pokhara because I heard they had some good extreme sports there and some good off-roading too.
The ride was about 200 miles or so I think and it was then that I really got a feel for the Nepali style of driving, which is well just a bit crazy really to describe it in one phrase.
Once in Pokhara I booked myself up for some paragliding (which I’d never done before) and it was awesome, although not as Extreme as I thought it would be. Once you’re up in the air it’s all a bit samey really and you just look at basically the same view untill you land. But it was an experience and I’m glad I did it.
After that I then decided to head off to see if I could follow part of the route that Rod Gilbert and Greg Davies followed in the BBC2 series “World’s most dangerous roads” up to Muktinath. It was a 5 day ‘off-road’ ride up there and back. There were no petrol stations on the route which meant buying fuel was tricky but not impossible. In the end I found the best method was to just pull up outside any shop/hotel and point to the petrol cap. Eventully someone would come out with some petrol in some sort of vessel, be it lemonade bottles or just a milk jug. God knows what the quality was like but the 90 never seems to care so I just kept on plodding uphill.
Then the road turned into dust, and I mean about 6 inches of the finest powder dust that luckily the 90 would float on top of but sometimes she’s sink and then it’s basically like riding in icing sugar, much slidier than sand. (Is slidier a word? lol)
Poor old DC trainers 🙁 they’ve had a hard a hard life but they keep on going. P.S. if anyone reading this works for DC, can you ask if I can have a new pair when I get to the UK? 🙂
This is 90 parked in the courtyard of a hotel I stayed at in Jonsom. The crumbling sandstone cliffs were beautiful to ride under, if a bit worrying.
The highest point I reached was at over 4000m (3 times the height of Ben Nevis, the tallest mountains in the UK) and as I got higher and higher the 90 was starting to lose a lot of power. I could tell there wasn’t much air because the exhaust was giving out black smoke which means she’s getting fuel but not much air. After 4 days I finally got off my arse and adjusted the fuel/air settings in the carb and she was running a lot better. This was brought on by me helping out a French guy who flagged me down to help him because his bike had no power. I adjusted his carb for him and he was much happier with the power he now had again. That was my good deed for the day 🙂
I also made my C90 the promise that I would ride her high enough to ride through some snow. It wasn’t very impressive but it was snow all the same.
I rode across some of the wire suspension bridges and they were a bit nerve racking to say the least. The sides are only chicken wire that isn’t well secured, and with the really strong side winds it was a constant battle to not get blown into the side of the bridge and fall though to a very quick death. If my bike had been any wider or taller it would have been a lot more difficult due to the width of the bridge and the extra side-on wind resistance. Once again, the 90 was perfect 🙂
So after going up to the mountain and back to tarmac again it was time to head back to Kathmandu to say goodbye to my friends I made there. On the way my gear lever snapped off for no real reason so I was stuck in second gear. But of course being the most popular bike in the world, I stopped at the first bike shop I found and had a brand new gear lever fitted within 15 mins of the failure and it only cost me £7.
From Kathmandu it was time to head to the Indian border. Nothing much happened on the way except I saw my first wild monkeys, my first C90 in Nepal (that’s one in every country so far) and the driving was getting notably worse the closer I got to India…..oh dear haha
As a side note I’ll take this oppertunity to give a special mention to “World Heritage Trek & Expedition” who organised my trek to Everest and helped out with so many other things I’ve lost count now. When they were organising anything I didn’t need to lift a finger, they all speak very good English and genuinely want to help.
Below are two maps to help anyone find where they are (Kathmanu can be quite confusing sometimes)
The above and below images are the location of World Heritage Trek & Expedition
This is the alleyway to their office
This is their office on the first floor
I didn’t recieve any money or anything like that to say this. I just think that if people put a lot of effort into giving a good service then they deserve some free advertising.
