Some final thoughts leaving Nepal

Nelli the Elephant

This is why I love it

Thoughts on Nepal

After India,  Nepal was a real treat, quieter, less people, better roads and just simply a place to breath.  I don’t think either of us had realized what stress we were under in India riding on those roads and in that traffic.  In Nepal we were able to pull over to the side of the road and stretch, relax have a cookie or two and no one bothered us, it was nice.  Their mountain passes are beautiful a real work of art with their terraced farmland, unfortunately though, this is not good for the environment as they are taking out too many trees for more farmland and thats reducing the oxygen levels.

The people of Nepal are poor but even so still have smiling faces and seem happy, the kids playing at the side of the road, little ones selling you bright red rhododendrums in a bunch that grow wild high in the mountains, very cute.  Their homes seem more structured than the Indian people, they just seem more organized and even though it is said that they are generally poorer it didn’t feel that way to us.  They seem to have more respect for themselves and the environment, hardly any garbage around.

The most exciting ride todate

I wonder what she was thinking?

We love the Tibetan Guest house and the family that runs it in Pokhara, this is a lovely village with lots to do, great restaurants and trekking to be had here.

In Kathmandu we stayed at the Mandap Guesthouse in Thamel, it was really great, nice people, a great bakery, free good internet, great location.  We saw more garbage and more pollution than we had seen anywhere else in Nepal but still not as bad as India.  We met up with our shipper Suraj and his wife and family, that was a real treat, he was such a happy guy and not only did he do a fabulous job of shipping our bike to Bangkok but more than that we became friends and he spent many hours chatting about his country and its culture, all very interesting, some hard for me to swallow as a woman but none the less, fascinating. His wife and family made us dinner at their home and we met his 3 year old daughter too, lots of energy that one.

The views are stunning

The gals work so hard on the farms

We are definitely coming back to Nepal, we have friends to see here again and trekking to be done!

The Himalayans are beautiful and it is so cheap to be here, less than $25 each per day, gotta like that.

Our route through Nepal:

Lumbini for two days

Pokhara for a week, thru the mountains, beautiful ride, handgliding and trekking to be had here

Chitwan National Park for a ride with the elephants for a couple of days

Kathmandu for a week to ship the bike, lots of shopping meet new friends

Onto Thailand.

Accomodations in the range of $13-$30 per night, beer $3., dinner usually $6.-$10 for both of us, gas $25 for a fill. We could manage quite well on $50. Day all in for two of us.

We highly recommend Nepal.

One more thought on Nepal that needs mentioning
Nepal is the first place we have been to were electricity is in short demand.  To combat this problem they do a thing called Load Sharing  which means that you only get power for four hours in any given twenty four hour period and it rotates through the country All hotel have a schedule posted and after a while it is something that you check each day so that you know when you can charge your gadgets Most large hotels have generators for minimal lighting and all rooms have a candle and matches as they will not run the generator all night. The system works but as for trying to buy something on the streets it makes it a little more difficult as most the time the store is in the dark. This problem only exists during the dry season as there is not enough water behind the dams to drive the turbines.
So every body just deals with it. and they seem to manage quite well. I have to wonder how that would go down in our part of the world?? 

This guy is probably carrying more than he weighs

All photos by Chenty