Topic: East Asia
After all the delights of the Indian immigration system (system is probably to nicer word), it was nice to finally get to Nepal. Line up at the counter, brief glance at the visa/passport, stamp. Down to the baggage hall where lots of Nepali's are waiting to get there bags x-ray ed. Guy looks at me and waves me through the metal detector with my bag. I'm in.
Clare has organised a car for me, so I find the guy with the Himalayan trails sign and jump in. Kathmandu has changed a fair bit in the last couple of years. Last time I was here there was a civil war and a general strike on. Mick and I had to walk a couple of KM's into town. There was a night time curfew. Now I'm in a new car with air conditioning. Buildings are going up everywhere, the traffic is kaos. If your not on a bike everything moves about two miles an hour. Road rules are arbitraryand every light pole has a "road safety is no accident" sign which is universally ignored. I rock up to a cup of tea at the house and spend the next couple of hours trying to stay awake, before we head off to a nice Japanese restaurant for dinner. I sleep like a log.
Next day Mez and I head up to his Hill House. He's turning it into a weekender for guests but he's also going to move up there with Clare .First of all though there are a few electrical issues to sort out. We head off to the shop to grab a couple of lights,switches, and other things. Then it's on to Mez's Bike, a new copy of a 1950,s Enfield. The factory was shut down in England and moved wholly to India where with minimal change there still made today. It has a great throaty note, compared to the little mopeds popular around here. Riding a bike here is not for the fainthearted. You spend most of the time on the wrong side of the road racing frantically to pass slow moving traffic, horn blaring while hopefully finding a gap to miss the oncoming bus. Mez's main modifaction is an extra loud horn. Trying to do this with a backpack full of tools, a couple of 4 foot fluro lights and a panicking pillion passenger is a bit of an art. Finally after what seemed like an hour but really only about 10 min we got out of the traffic and into the hills. Another 20 min of steep winding road and we come to a military check point.This is a quick stop to buy a pass to get through the National Park. Nepali's10 rupees foreigners250 about 4 bucks. We go to the parks office and fill out a form with the usual passport, nationality,etc stuff. pay our money then we go back to the check point, about10 feet, and fill out all the crap again while showing the guy our ticket. Eventually the gate is lifted and where off. Another fiveiminutes and where there. The view is spectacular, a bit like being in Muholland Dr and looking over LA. At least it is most of the year, now its Spring, so the Fog,smog and burning off hide most of the city in a cloud of haze but you can see just enough to get the idea.
Mez's house is more of an estate. Leased from the local general and comes with a big house, a guest house,a drivers/gate house, a caretakers house, a couple of sheds and some fields. There is also a caretaker/groundsman/cook and his wife included , all for the grand sum of about $500 month. We hook into to the reno for a couple of hours, it would have been quicker but we have left some tools back in KTM so everything takes twice as long. The local fittings are pretty badly made, and the shop keeper looked at me dumbly when I asked for a wire connectors. Twist wire,put tape,no need connector.There obviously not a big seller. We are only interrupted lunch, a great potato curry with rolled rice, cooked and served to us buy the grougroundsman's lovely wife. Mirrors hung and lights fixed we head off for a quick walk around the village, then it's on to the Enfield to brave the traffic again. We get back and take off for Pizza with a bunch of Mez's mountain biking friends in the centre of town.
The next day one of the bikers, Chris and I go and check out the old royal palace. It has become a muesum since the crown prince chucked a hissy fit and shot the whole royal family and himself, over some minor disadisagreement. Perhaps I can pick up an AK for Prince Harry on my way to England? The whole palace is decorated in what I would call 70's op shop. My local Red cross would pass on most of the furniture here. There is the odd gold nick nak, and a couple of tastefull plates with Liz and Phill the Greeks pic's on them from the 50's, but the rest would go straight to the dumpster. Every now and then there is a stand with a number noting the point at which one of the royal family met there demise, the only thing missing is a chalk outline of the body. Chuck a tour of this in with a breakfast of sheep testitesticle's in back ally cafe, a cup of tea at the monkey temple, and dinner at the North Korean Embassy resturestaurant, and you have almost the perfect day of tackiness.
More Pizza for lunch, then to the artist friend's of Mez,s to check out some paintings. Chris buys 7. We head back up the hills for the first official tryout of the accommodation Conversation drifts around mountainbiking, Nepali air (good/Bad) and what was the appropriate wine to drink with Dhall Bart. Not that it mattered we only had rose. A few Bourbons and beers later it was off to bed. The guys got up early the next morning to ride single trail back to the city. They where joined by Steve a bike mad Sth African and a few Nepali's who had ridden up the mountain from town at daybreak, a fair feat in it's self.
The leftovers Dean, Claire and myself wandered back down the road to the nearest village to get the taxi back into town. Tomorrow its Hollie a crazy festival where everyone throws dyed water bombs at each other, and generally gets covered in colour.. Utter ,madness ensuies I think I'll have a quite night.
Check out Mez,s and Clare's Websites especially if you want to come to Nepal or go mountain bike riding.
http://himalayan-trails.com/
http://www.uniquetrails.com/
Pic's here
