Chitwan to Tansen then Pokhara

We left Chitwan feeling a bit rough, the delights of Nepalese cooking aren't going well with us at the moment, the first 50 or so Km's were busy congested and polluted then it got greener and straighter which although boring made me feel like we were progressing, we entered a town then took the mountain road to Tansen, huge potholes covering  the road and a myriad of trucks and buses made it hard work then half way overtaking a truck with a bus coming the other way my bike died, much swearing and back in luckily then a while later it done the same. I stopped and told Ravi I had a problem, the mechanic soon appeared and both of us thought it was electrical and lo and behold the positive battery terminal was slack and frayed. That issue fixed we all set off again but after 500 yards its was obvious i had another issue, another stop then but half of the team rode ahead to find some shade as it was scorching hot and no shade where I broke down.
The fault was diagnosed as a fuel pump and changed quite quickly, we set of again then within 100 yards one of the French guys bike died, another fuel pump! Luckily the mechanic had 2 but now no spares (They arranged to get 3 posted to our hotel in Pokhara where i'm writing this)
We stopped with a local family for lunch, very nice and rustic but i was feeling a bit wabbit, however it was nice then set of the final few Km's to Tansen, the tour leader was taking us to a temple a few km's past the Hotel but Fi and I decided we needed the beer temple more so opted out and had a refreshing beer in peace on the Hotel terrace.
Today (Thursday) was so far the best day, the roads were in reasonable condition (for Nepal) and we had a few nice stops along the way with nice scenery, we saw monkeys, a wedding and a cremation! i feel today we started riding better as a group no doubt helped by the road conditions. We had a nice lunch and made it into Pokhara at a reasonable time. Tomorrow we start the more difficult stage to Tatopani, the last 40km's will be unpaved roads but considering how rough most of the paved roads are I'm not sure it'll be any more challenging. I suspect wifi will be poor or non existant over the next few days as we ride into the Himalayas so not sure when I can post again, i will try to update the Twitter feed when possible.

 

First fuel stop

Nice temple

These brightly coloured things are what we are always trying to avoid!

BBQ time at breakfast stop

Nice river on pothole hell

Mechanic fixing my battery lead

And now fuel pump

Water stop

The French bike being fixed

Lunch with the locals, rustic, super nice family

Feeding time at the zoo

Super view from our lunch host's house

The road to our hotel and temple

The view from our temple!

water stop

Tea stop with our new friend

Apologie for the poor qual but the monster camera is too heavy to carry on these roads...checking for nits

Checking fo tourists

In the foreground, local women doing their washing, in the distance a cremation

Cremation service

Very pretty and orderly in this part

PM water stop

Locals hard at work

Fi chased after them and sked if she could help

Fi hard at work

Our base for tonight Pokhara