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

Kathmandu o Chitwan National park

Finally we got our bikes, the whole group is here now and yesterday (Monday) we left Khathmandu at 7am, not early enough though to escape the madness. Khathmandu is a very busy and congested city with poor road infrastructure, unfortunately my go pro battery died so I never captured the insanity however I'm sure it'll be waiting when we return.
The road south out of the city is very congested, stop go traffic, insane overtaking and ll the trucks and buses belch out blsck fumes, it took us 2 1/2 hours to clear the worst of it and have our first stop. A roadside eatery of dubious cleanliness, i took tea and nothing else! Our guide Ravi is from India so he is well used to these places, despite my extensive travelling I still struggle especially with the toilets!
After the stop we rode a mile then done a u turn and headed up over a mountain pass to avoid the traffic, the roads were as expected full of potholes, some you could lose a small car in! Interesting though to observe Nepali life as we wound our way up and over the mountains, families eeking a living at the side of the road, growing what they can to eat and sell and herding goats, well behaved goats though as they didn't bother us. At one point we saw a couple of women doing their dish washing in the rain culvert at the side of the road which meant that Nepali stomachs are obviously stronger than us Europeans. The "short cut" seemed to go on forever and Fiona and I struggled with the group riding concept, at one point the whole thing did seem to be a testosterone led charge and at our break i tried to point out I had seen bugger all but the bike in front and none of the scenery, the couple of stops we did have were poor photo opportunities and we were wondering if this is for us.
Lunch was late, very late at around 2 pm considering we had been on the bikes since 7am and by now it was hot, very hot! Another bit of faffing around to find somewhere to eat didn't impress me, I thought all of our stopping places would have been checked out beforehand but apparently not.
After lunch we allegedly had 60 km to go, we left at 3 and set off stopping to watch a wedding (which we then got invited to) we declined and set off again, I noted the riding getting more and more erratic as fatigue set in, we then had to do a u turn and retrace our steps for a few miles as our guide said the road was closed due to the elections? Basically he was lost and then started asking people at the side of the road for directions, Fiona rode alongside him and told him to phone the support van which seemingly was already at the hotel, he did and we got there just after 6pm, 11 hours after we left, hot and tired and sore.
Sore because the Royal Enfields are not really suited for these roads, little suspension, wooden brakes and zero comfort throw in the fact that the heel and toe gear lever means when you get thrown out of the seat hitting potholes you inadvertently change gear, the seat is uncomfortable as well, everybody agreed so its not just me being a moan.
On the bright side the Nepali people are super nice, the hotel we are in today is excellent and the group and tour leader all seem nice . Being positive hopefully we are back on track and have a better idea of what to expect tomorrow when we set off again.
        

Religious thing

Holy man ( I think)

Team meal before the off

"Well that was interesting" our first stop out of Khathmandu

Heavy work

Not sure our breakfast stop has a hygiene certificate

Fi getting organised

Happy face

Water stop, mist stopped play for photos

I didn't finish mine!

Our tour guide with Peter and Neil

wedding guests

wedding guests

bride and groom

Random guests

end of the day, tired and dusty

A beer before we go to our room

Khathmandu

We had the usual terrible passenger experience at Edinburgh airport, i have for a while now hated flying, not the flying itself but the experience. All the changes made to security at Edinburgh are obviously to make sure the passenger cannot miss the vast array of “duty free” shops selling nonsense the average punter doesn’t want or need! The first leg to Doha was just over 7 hours, the Asian family in front had no control over their kids, one of which cried loudly most of the way and the other banged things and generally made as much noise as he could, the Asian kid behind me spent at least half of the flight kicking my seat with no interruption from his parents so no sleep and a measly 2 alcoholic drinks offered in the whole journey time.

Leg two from Doha to Khathmandu was busy, i tried to get some sleep but just snoozed really, I woke up at one point and the Nepali guy sitting next to me had obviously changed seats with a very strange looking Transgender person, around 6ft tall and at the point i woke up was dressed in only a black bra, fishnet stockings and a mini skirt. She/He  went on to have at least 3 outfit changes , swapped the sim card in the cellphone at least 5 times and break at least 4 sets of earphones on the 5 hour leg.

Arrival in Khathmandu was hot and dusty, we made our way through immigration and got our visa’s which was more efficient than i thought it might be, the baggage reclaim area was chaos but eventually thankfully our bags came through and after changing some money we exited. The company we booked the tour through provided transport to get us to our hotel in the Patan area of town. First impressions were pretty much as i expected, the area still devastated by the recent earthquake and the roads infrastructure needing some serious investment.

Most of Friday was spent trying to sleep and then a short walk around town, temples everywhere many ravaged by earthquakes, the people are a friendly and happy bunch, the traffic a nightmare as we expected and the roads and smells assaulting the senses are something else.

Some photos to give you a flavour of the first 2 days, we get the bikes tomorrow hopefully and then it seems set off on Monday which is a day later than we thought.

Patan former palace, now mueseum

Nice carvings

Guards

The main square (£8 to see this bit)

Interesting face but it cost me 80p for the photo

Busy place near our hotel

The beer, everest, of course

Friday nights dinner

According to our new friend Nigel who showed us the way to the supermarket this morning for whisky and gave us an interesting tour this is the only 2 sided wooden window in Patan 

Always temples

The gte out and in of Patan

repairing damage, this used to be a main source of drinking water to the homes around, it looks pretty green just now. Later in the day we watched the same guys netting this and catching a few fish 

Motorbike shop, work probably stops when it rains1

My own translation was throw shite in the street and a guy with a moustache will lock you up

Strange name for a foundry company?