Riding Everest Diary:
26th Nov 2011 – Volume 7
Everest to Nyalam:
We stayed up in the monastery restaurant as long as we could last night as it is the only place with a fire. None of the hotels in Tibet we stayed in had heaters and I’ve no idea how we managed to keep warm. We had a bit of a tinkering with the bikes in the morning to patch them up enough to get us to the Nepalese border. The ride from Rongbuk to Tingyi was fantastic, like a Dakar stage. It was sunny and as we got lower we warmed up a bit. We hit the tarmac at lunchtime and rode over what must be one of the most spectacular views in the world. We were riding in the peaks of huge mountains at 5,000m. Our guide asked us to stay on the road but it was much too tempting and after losing the truck we went off on an amazing mountain top trail ride. When we caught up with him he was very fed up with us – The Chinese are really strict with the Tibetan guides and if they do anything wrong the can get in real trouble. Luckily we didn’t get caught! Rode downhill for what seemed like hours through beautiful mountains and ended up in the ugly town of Nyalam nr the border.
Nyalam to Kathmandu:
Our guide suggested we rode to the border in the truck (think he was worried we’d ride off again). They could not go through the border due to Chinese restrictions on Tibetans travelling and had to take the bikes in the truck back the way we came. We would be met the other side of the border with different bikes and a different guide. We agreed and left early in the dark at 7.30am – to avoid the traffic they said. The passenger door wouldn’t shut so they tied it shut with a seatbelt.
As we left the town the road narrowed and was literally on the edge of a cliff with no barriers. The driver put on a CD and started chanting – we asked our guide what he was chanting for, he said that the road was very dangerous many have died on it. What!! Within in 10 minutes we saw what he meant – landslides are common and we had just squeezed past one. Craig and I turned Buddhist very quickly and helped the driver out with his chanting. As we looked down we saw many destroyed vehicles which had been off the side. When we arrived at the border there were miles and miles of trucks that apparently can wait more than a month to get across the border. As tourists we got right to the front and we said goodbye to our fantastic guide and driver.
After a short wait we were in Nepal and crossed the friendship bridge between Nepal and Tibet. We had asked some local porters to carry our bags and after a big scrap they sorted out the two who would carry our bags. Unfortunately the bikes hadn’t turned up but they had arranged a 4x4, this gave us ample opportunity to check out the views, landslides, cliff drops and carnage – This road featured in the Most Dangerous Roads in the World that was recently on the TV. We were happy to get back to our hotel in Kathmandu that had hot water. YEY!!
Day on XR’s:
As the bikes didn’t turn up at the border they had arranged for us to have some XR’s the following day which we had to pick up in Kathmandu. We had our first experience of riding bikes in the city – Crazy! Everyone goes for the same space from all directions whilst holding their horns on. There are no road signs and you have to kind of guess where you are and which directions you’re going in. We had decided to try and ride a mountain bike route I had found in the Nepal travel guide and see what happened. It was nice to be on some decent bikes with suspension which worked and once we got out of the city we had a fantastic day in the beautiful surrounding mountains of the Kathmandu valley.
At lunchtime we had reached the summit overlooking Kathmandu and sat in the sunshine with some locals playing footy and cooking up a feast on little fires. They invited us to have some curry and told us they were a Christian group. What a nice bunch of people, they fed and entertained us all afternoon. One was a Ghurkha who had trained in Brecon.
After a fantastic day we headed back to the city and the markets of Thamel which were overcrowded and chaotic.
Chitwan National Park:
We had 2 days left in Nepal and decided to visit Chitwan National Park which we were told was 4 hours away. We had tried to hire the XRs to ride there but they were not available, all they had were Royal Enfield’s – One really old one and one relatively new one. Craig reluctantly agreed to take the old one with the gears on the wrong side. It took us ages to get out of Kathmandu, the directions we got were to go straight but there was no straight in the little lanes and confusing road system. We eventually found the way which was jammed with trucks.
Craig’s throttle cable snapped, which we managed to get fixed at a local garage but he also had the problem of his bike jumping out of gear and the back brake sticking on. We wanted to get to Chitwan about 2.30pm but at 4pm we still had a long way to go and again it was a dangerous road on a cliff edge with no barriers. At one point a monkey jumped out in front of me and I just managed to swerve to avoid it – I don’t know who was more startled me or it.
As it got dark we were still on the road. Craig and no lights and I only had full beam which I had to hold on with my thumb. I pulled over – we’d been on the road for 8 hours. I was actually quite scared, we had passed the border to the National park where there were no fences keeping the animals in or out. The area was full of tigers, rhinos, sloth bears and elephants and I imagined us sleeping in the bush when we couldn’t find out hotel. We saw a sign ‘Jungle Lodge’ 7ks. This wasn’t where we were meant to be staying but we thought we’d head there and then decide what to do.
The 7ks took us off road, my bike had the only light and we had to cross some bamboo bridges – One was so badly damaged we had to back track go through the deep river (they also have crocodiles). Eventually we found 2 guys in front of a fire, as soon as we stopped the whole village came out and we were surrounded, they told us Jungle Lodge was closed – I could have cried, but they pointed us in the way of another lodge. On the way we met some boys on mopeds who said they knew where the place we were meant to be staying was and they’d take us to the road leading there.
They were pretty fast on the peds and I was trying to keep up with them, with my thumb on full beam, whilst remembering Craig had no lights and we were on some tricky terrain. I looked behind at one point to see Craig launching out of a ditch he had gone in as he didn’t see it. This was getting dangerous.
The boys lead us to a road and told us it was 10k back where we’d just came. 10k no-one really seemed to know what a kilometre was and it probably meant it was 20k. We asked the boys to take us and said we’d pay them, they asked us for $500 and we told them where to go! Eventually we got to the hotel 5 hrs late – The 4 hr trip had taken 9 hrs. Tired we turned in to be kept awake all night by music from a wedding and a barking dog!
We had a great morning riding on elephants and visiting the elephant orphanage. One of the workers told us at least 4 guides are killed each year on jungle walks by rhinos or Sloth Bears. He showed us a scar on his head where he’d been attacked by a bear. He asked whether we’d like to go on a jungle walk to see some Rhino but we decided to give that a miss.
The ride back was a little smoother apart from running out of fuel and the chaotic Kathmandu traffic. We were glad to be back and glad to be flying back to the UK the next day.
What a trip and what an adventure. Two weeks felt like two months as we’d packed so much in. Tibet and Nepal are such diverse places and our eyes have been opened to many different cultures, religions and people. The extreme weather in Tibet had really tested us as we had never been so cold and they chaos of Nepal had also tested our patience.
Again we’d like to thanks all our sponsors and people who supported us throughout the trip – especially Jason who kept you all updated on Facebook and the blog etc.
Craig & Tams
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