12/10/2010 Friday Day 23 Kathmandu to NZ via Singapore

The taxi ride to Kathmandu airport.

Mt Everst and Mt Lhotse below the wing tip

Revenge is best served on sushi trains

11/10/2010 Thursday Day 22 Kathmandu

Woke up and started reading my book, whilst Ollie got bored and went to get some money and came back with warm apple strudels, yummy. I ate mine still in bed finishing of the chapter that I was on. Once I was up we began today’s adventure by walking west through the streets of Kathmandu in search of the famous monkey temple.

On the way we passed through streets that were filthier than rubbish tips back in NZ, the filthy grim was unimaginable. We watched people simply empty sacks of rubbish next to river.

We ended up crossing the polluted river on a bamboo bridge spanning some 10m. We continued on the path of filth until we reached a main road, we went west until the road began to climb, too far so we headed south towards the hill with the fancy temple on top.  Little did we know this was the monkey temple. We asked for directions from an armed police officer who had an old Chinese assault rifle that looked as if would shoot as far as you could throw it.  We realized that we were on the right track when we saw locals crowd around tourists trying to sell them all sorts of nic nacs.

It only took a few steps up the hill to spot our first monkey busily feeding away on raw rice. I tried to get Ollie to sit close to the monkey for a photo, but the monkey was quite protective of rice dish, and gracefully showed his teeth when Ollie neared. We watched the monkeys for an hour and headed back to the hotel. It took a while to find the hotel again in the crowded streets.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning our bikes to perfection for the NZ customs. I ended up needing a mechanic for an enlarged allen key as my pedals wouldn’t come off. A motorbike repair shop helped sort this out. On the way there I got hit by a car in the back of the leg, but only at low speed, I didn’t even bother to turn around.     

Once we had the bikes packed we treated ourselves to some more backed goods then headed back to our hotel for some R and R until hunger brewed. We ended up having a set Tibetan menu which was our first dish we couldn’t finish off. I enjoyed an Everest beer whilst thinking about the adventures of the past few weeks. I was glad to be heading back to NZ tomorrow, but somewhat sad that our Himalayan holiday was at an end.    

10/10/2010 Thursday Day 21 Nagarkot to Kathmandu

Explosive diarrhoea this morning and again before breakfast, this had all the makings for a shitty day. Our expected views of the Himalayas also failed to show themselves through the dense haze. I enjoyed a good bowl of porridge for breakfast, and was climbing the four stories back to our room to get the last of the gear and began to feel queasy, I wasn’t sure from which end it was going to come from!

A few deep breaths and I began to feel better, we got on the bikes rode 300m and went the work way this was going to be one of those days.  As Ollie was adamant we were again on the wrong path we ended up riding back past the hotel we were in to an intersection to get our bearings. We then rode past our hotel again as we were on the correct path. We followed the track for a while, things were looking good to get us to Jinuv, but we mistakenly took a left which lead us in another half hour dead end.

We finally got to Jinuv and where a local man guy pointed us in the wrong direction, which we unknowing followed for yet another 30 minute detour.

This track was at first quite nice single track but then just vanished in the midst of rice terraces. No good back we go.  We finally got on the correct track some 3 hours after leaving Nagarkot.

An hour later we were at Chispani having lunch and cokes. We bought some permits and headed on, this leg of the 4wd track had not been used for quite some time and was covered in plenty of growth.  I felt like Indiana Jones but much cooler smashing through the dense vegetation on the bike. After two hours we came on top of ridge, as this made no sense and we were totally sick of the continued back tracking we used the compass and the watch to confirm that we were facing south and south we went back to the comforts of Kathmandu, somewhere in the distant valley below.  We descended through the nice jungle and broke out in the mess and filth of the outskirts of Kathmandu. We rode back into the chaos and finally got back to the hotel.

Of to the ‘Rum Doodles 40000 and ½ ft’ bar and restaurant for pizzas and lassis, yummy.  This restaurant is one of the best known restaurants in Kathmandu as the all Everest climbers have their names signed on small plaques hanging all over the restaurant walls. 

9/10/2010 Wednesday Day 20 Kathmandu to Nagarkot

Woke up this morning tried and wanting to go back to sleep, but the urge to empty the bowels was much stronger.  Diarrhoea again! Oh well off to breakfast. We ate our cooked breakfasts at the top of a hotel overlooking the Thamel skyline. We finished our breakfast and headed back to our hotel, Ollie went in search of an ATM machine I went and paid for our hotel room and found myself getting started in Ollie’s book “Running with Scissors”. An hour later Ollie finally found his way back to the Hotel after paying someone to guide him.

We got on our bikes minus the dry bags as we were going to travel light for two days riding around the Kathmandu valley. We headed south of Thamel and ended up in the south of Patan in the southern part of Kathmandu, another wrong right turn lead us into the south eastern foot hills of the Kathmandu heading towards Godawari. We looked at the map realized our mistake and headed back up north. We quickly got back on route and onto the main drag, which contained four lanes of chaos. We noticed a few flattened dogs on the road and hoped that wouldn’t happen to us.   

Riding up to Nagagrkot

We continued towards Bhaktapur and once there we found a way in the general direction of Nagarkot. I soon felt tired and struggled with any descent pace. Ollie powered off ahead, but routinely came back to check on my progress. We ended up riding the ridge route up to Nagarkot view tower. We enjoyed a coke and mountain dew, before viewing the tower. A lot of local couples were up at tower most likely taking their girl friends for a romantic afternoon outing to the rubbish littered hill top. It seems that the higher class produces a lot of the litter as they don’t show any respect to their environment. We descended down the sealed road towards Nararkot almost took out a mob of youth walking up the road.

We checked out the club Himalaya hotel but found it was a little out of our price range at $100US a night. We then ended up getting a penthouse suite at another Hotel more in our price range at the Himalayan Heart Hotel. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching BBC world, snoozing and showering. We then ended the day with a steak dinner.    

8/10/2010 Tuesday Day 19 Pokhara to Kathmandu

 No breakfast for us this morning, up at 6:30 packing our bags to catch the bus back to Kathmandu. We did however stop by the German bakery to buy some snacks for the journey. As I was purchasing the Danish pattie, cheese and chocolate croissants I noticed a roach or beetle walking over some of the produce, oh well what else can you expect.

We biked around to what we thought was the bus park and waited patiently eating some of the baking. It was nearing 7:30 and the bus guy yesterday told us to be there by 7:00, but there was no sign of our bus only passing local government blue and white buses. I asked a passerby where the bus park was and he said “down there, must go quickly”, so off we went and sure enough we just got there with enough time to get the bikes on the roof, tie them down, and away we went. Ollie and I initial had the back right hand side to ourselves whilst two Asian girls had the other side, luckily they got off after only a few hours and then I had the whole back row to myself as Ollie move forward a row.

Ollie's attempt at drinking from his bottle left him pretty wet, due to the bumpy road. 

Our last view of the Annapuranas.

The bus ride was hot, noisy and extremely rough, but it did allow one to get a good grasp of rural Nepal, without having to sweat and pant as if you were on a bike. The bus stopped at the bottom of our detour hill before Dumre for breakfast. We had some Sprite, as I was still avoiding coke due to my binge a few days earlier.   We again nearly missed our bus as they said they would give us 40 minutes, but seemed to roll away after 30minutes.  

Shortly after we were in a traffic jam outside Mugling. This was due to only 1 vehicle being allowed on the suspension bridge at a time. Once through that we drove on until 1pm where the bus stopped for lunch 67km away from Kathmandu. We only bought some biscuits and Sprite as we thought we could have lunch once back in Kathmandu. An hour later we were stuck in gridlock at the bottom of the hill that leads into Kathmandu valley. About 3 hours later we were finally over the hill but traffic was barely moving. So we got our bits together, explained to the driver that we getting off, even though he wasn’t going stop  more than he had too, ok by us. Next halt we got out, I climb up on the roof and began untying the bikes and dry bags. I passed the bikes down to Ollie as he ran along next to the bus. 

The long chain of traffic slowly creeping up the hill

With bikes down, lights on, we were on our way weaving the evening traffic. This made for some exciting riding in the heavy chaotic traffic with both our lights fading to blue dots. We had to watch out for monster potholes and vehicles coming from all directions. We stuck together in our dual player video game of dodging allsorts with only 1 life remaining.   

Surprisingly or simply just our awesome navigation skills got us back to Thamel quickly, only once back in Thamel did we back track ourselves only once and with simplest ease we found our Hotel as Ollie simply saw it as we rode by heading in the general direction of it.

We checked in, dropped of our gear and like our ancestors from millennia ago went in search of food. The ‘Cozy Restaurant’ was our choice of the evening, with burgers and momos and double banana lassi. The lassis were amazing still thinking about them now, maybe for breakfast I’ll have one or two. 

7/10/2010 Monday Day 18 Pokhara

Well having drunken 2L of coke does not help one’s sleep! It was past midnight before I finally was able to get some sleep.  Morning came and we were down by the lake front in front of our Hotel for breakfast. I enjoyed some sort of Mexican dish which went down a treat, we then went into town to do some emailing, buy some Oakleys, (warranties to come in the mail) and pick up our washed clothes. 

We then got our clean shorts on and headed up to the world piece monastery on the bikes. The climb up was hot and very sweaty, I almost drowned in my own sweat, but once we got there the views were rewarding, but only one or two of the distant Annapurna peaks were showing themselves through the fluffy white clouds.  One would imagine the views to be breath taking provided the clouds would only vanish. 

We headed back down to get lunch, this also let us get away from some really annoying kid that had followed me up the last part to the Pagoda and pulled at us for 15 to 20 minutes whilst we were up there. Ollie found a way down which turned out to be 100m descent of kidney bashing stairs only to find out by some locals that the track went down to the lake and we would need a boat to get across. So we climb up an old track that brought us back to 100m of where we dropped in from. I knew the way down this time as I had mistakenly taken the route on the way up.

Bakery food was had once back in Pokhara followed by some Sprites as for some reason I had no lust for coke. Back at the Hotel we showered up and headed back into town to find the Babylon cafe of which no one seemed to know about to catch up with some Swiss girls whom we had met at Thorung Phedi. We were just about to give up looking for the cafe when we ran into them on the street. We took them out to the Everest Steak House for some good steaks, I had an onion mushroom sauce on mine tonight and it was nothing short of delicious. A bit of parting was on the cards and we dance in the crazy Pokhara laser lights. Deserts and back to bed to catch the 7:30am bus back to Kathmandu.     

6/10/2010 Sunday Day 17 Jhinudanda to Pokhara

 ‘The day we ate like kings’.

The day started like most others, a bowl of porridge and Tibetan bread with generous coating of jam. We left Jhinudandu at a leisurely hour of 8am this morning .

We then made our way down the steep stairs to the valley floor some 100 to 200 metres below. We crossed the bridge and climb up the steepest bank we had come across on the entire trip. Once on top we finally got a bit of saddle time traversing the rice terraces on our way down the Modi Kola towards Nayapul the end/start of all the treks in the region.

We fought away at the rough trekking tracks for most of the morning. Ollie would often power off ahead at his world smashing pace. We passed numerous small villages preached on the steep hillsides. The slopes were mainly covered in bushes and trees with openings being made into terraces for growing crops. The vivid greens remained vibrant throughout the day even in the bright midday sun. Just before Syauli Bazar the single track broke out into an old 4wd track that provided a fast  means to get some progress under our belts, but this was shorted lived as above Syauli Blaza a local pointed me down the hill, which meant a bike carry down the steps to the village Syauli Blazar.

I got to call it and we ate a king’s lunch of momos and cheese pizza, with a 500ml coke. After finishing the feast we set out in the heat of day and quickly got back to the 4wd drive track, which was often reduced to single track due to wash outs and the likes.

We quickly made it to Nayapul in about 30 to 40 minutes; from there we got back into the mainstream Nepal, crowds and rubbish everywhere. We checked out of the Annapurna trekking region and began the long hill climb to Pokhara. 800m of climbing in one gear, awesome single speed training. Turns out that gear number 4, that I had set 3 days earlier was the correct choice.  One hour fifty minutes it took to conquer this last big climb, which went rather well as the gradient was nice and consistent and the temperature did not get as hot as I had feared. Also the affects of high altitude from the previous weeks was once on our side.  Ollie with his new found lungs was able to attack passing buses and managed to draft in behind them up the hill climb.

Once I finally crested the hill I change Rohloff up to number 11 and began coasting down the hill, the road crossed over the head of Pokhara valley which allowed for some great views. We continued our great descent for about 10km and then followed the less steep valley floor into Pokhara. Back in Pokhara we got back into the Nepalese road rules of just hold your line and go for the gaps. We rode for 20 minutes past the airport and headed west; Ollie got a bit anxious and wanted to see the map, as he didn’t thrust my gut instincts. But only a minute after our heating discussion we made it into the tourist area on the shores of Lake Pokahara. We found a hotel called Mikes hotel down on the lake shore for 25US a night.

We washed up in the best shower since Singapore and headed into town with a bag full of washing each. After buying some cheap T shirts, we strolled along the looking for places to eat. I still hadn’t had my coke fix, so walked into the next diary and bought a chilled 500ml coke; it tasted so good, just what I had been craving for.  We proceeded in our search of finding the best steak menu in Pohkara, and to our luck after strike three we found the Everest Steak House, which boasted over 20 different ways of enjoying your steak.  I ordered up the Vienna steak with onion sauce, at a guess the steak was over 500g, at a cost of 657Ru, not bad and tasted awesome. We also shared a 1.5 litre coke for the table of which I drunk the lion’s share as Ollie’s stomach couldn’t handle the sugary goodness.

Pulp Fiction was playing next door so we finished up and watched the movie free of charge on the big screen in the neighbouring bar. After that icecream was enjoyed. I had my banana split which I had talked up for days and then back to the hotel for some sleep or maybe not as I had consumed over 2L of coke today. I’m still not feeling sleepy yet.

Travel time today 7hours   

   

5/10/2010 Saturday Day 16 ABC (Annapurna Base Camp) to Jhinudanda

I had the worst sleep in days last night, a combination of being too hot in my sleeping bag, Ollie’s night terrors and the constant opening of the door into our room by the lodge operators getting blankets, as our room was the store room.  When morning finally came around I was glad to get out into the sunshine and view the surrounding mountains dominating over me.

Porridge for breakfast as well as our usual lemon tea and we were off at 7:35 back towards Chhomrong, the downhill made the journey somewhat faster than yesterday’s trip in. We got into Chhomrong at 13:15 after 5 hours and 40 minutes. We had a cheese and tomato pizza in a restaurant 100 or so metres before our hotel where we had stashed the bikes. After our pizza and second/third beating of Ollie at chess we got to our bikes and did a quick repack and headed down the steep hill towards Jhinudanda. We planned to get to Jhinudanda to re-live our hot pool experience of Tatopani a few days earlier, however after arriving in Jhinudanda and finding a nice hotel the hot pools were still a 15 minute walk down to the main river of Modi Khola.

Making the walk down only further built my anticipation of getting into the hot pools and drinking a nice cold coke. However when we got there the pools were not quite the boutique pools we had imagined. The pools were smaller, colder and were packed with tourists; and worst of all no drinks for sale, BYO was available but I wasn’t going to walk for 30minutes back up the hill to get a drink.  Oh well we still soaked it up, first in the colder pool which would have been in the mid to high twenties and then in crowded hotter pool.  This pool also had a couple of pipes coming out of the ground  with heated water, this proved to be very nice to sit under as the power shower it was would massage your back and shoulders. 

We then made the walk back up to the hotel and finally got my cold can of coke that I had been craving for the last few days. This was quickly followed by a second refreshing can. I enjoyed the rest of the evening watching the sunset through the broken climbs and reflected on my time spent in Himalayas.  I felt somewhat sad as tomorrow was our last day on the track and tomorrow night we would be back to third world civilizations.  

Statistics: 4130m to 1780m 2350m descent.

5/10/2010 Saturday Day 16 ABC (Annapurna Base Camp) to Jhinudanda

I had the worst sleep in days last night, a combination of being too hot in my sleeping bag, Ollie’s night terrors and the constant opening of the door into our room by the lodge operators getting blankets, as our room was the store room.  When morning finally came around I was glad to get out into the sunshine and view the surrounding mountains dominating over me.

Porridge for breakfast as well as our usual lemon tea and we were off at 7:35 back towards Chhomrong, the downhill made the journey somewhat faster than yesterday’s trip in. We got into Chhomrong at 13:15 after 5 hours and 40 minutes. We had a cheese and tomato pizza in a restaurant 100 or so metres before our hotel where we had stashed the bikes. After our pizza and second/third beating of Ollie at chess we got to our bikes and did a quick repack and headed down the steep hill towards Jhinudanda. We planned to get to Jhinudanda to re-live our hot pool experience of Tatopani a few days earlier, however after arriving in Jhinudanda and finding a nice hotel the hot pools were still a 15 minute walk down to the main river of Modi Khola.

Making the walk down only further built my anticipation of getting into the hot pools and drinking a nice cold coke. However when we got there the pools were not quite the boutique pools we had imagined. The pools were smaller, colder and were packed with tourists; and worst of all no drinks for sale, BYO was available but I wasn’t going to walk for 30minutes back up the hill to get a drink.  Oh well we still soaked it up, first in the colder pool which would have been in the mid to high twenties and then in crowded hotter pool.  This pool also had a couple of pipes coming out of the ground  with heated water, this proved to be very nice to sit under as the power shower it was would massage your back and shoulders. 

We then made the walk back up to the hotel and finally got my cold can of coke that I had been craving for the last few days. This was quickly followed by a second refreshing can. I enjoyed the rest of the evening watching the sunset through the broken climbs and reflected on my time spent in Himalayas.  I felt somewhat sad as tomorrow was our last day on the track and tomorrow night we would be back to third world civilizations.  

Statistics: 4130m to 1780m 2350m descent.

4/10/2010 Friday Day 15 Chhomrong to ABC (Annapurna Base Camp)

I had a good night’s sleep last night, and woke up to a beautiful day around 6:30ish. We got our stuff packed into our Henry Cactus packs and had our typical porridge and Tibetan bread whilst enjoying views down the Modi Khola valley.  We left by foot this time at 7:20 and set off with a blistering pace. We first had to descend 300m or so down to a bridge at the bottom of a tributary river. We passed numerous tourists battling away with awkward use of trekking poles.  I laughed to myself when I saw breast stroke style of trekking pole being pulled off.  Ollie and I thought we would place a bet to see when we would pass the annoying English group that stayed in our hotel. We thought we would pass them by at Bamboo, a reported 4 hours away, but we passed them 15 minutes into our hike, they supposedly had a half hour head start.

We climbed back up side of the valley and got into our rhythm. The track was mostly at a steady gradient but often would have steep climbs followed by steep descents to get around small streams or slips.  We got to Himalaya and ate some muesli bars and pressed on to Deurali at 3200m. 

Ollie bet me to Deurali good and proper. For lunch we had fried potatoes, lemon tea and a pizza to share. Wow what a pizza, this pizza had a generous coating of cheese, with tomatoes, absolutely delicious!  We continued upwards with the goal of getting to ABC. 

Around lunch time the orographic clouds began to fill the sky and soon we were in complete overcast. This had the benefit of keeping the temperature nice and cool which help us at our fierce pace. We got to MBC and then an hour and half later reached the clouded in ABC. 

We ended up having to share a double bed in the store room as this was the last room left at ABC. An hour after arriving the afternoon cloud dissipated and we were spoiled by 360 degree views of surrounding mountains.  I watched the spectacular sunset over Machhapuchhre and Annapurna South. Annapurna South was still covered in cloud which was refracting with a brilliant mix of red and orange.   

Back inside we got our dinner. I only managed a few momos so ended up sharing the rest with Ollie as I was still full from lunch and ABC celebratory chocolate that I had been carrying since Kathmandu.  Dinner was good and I’m looking forward to getting tomorrow finished off, hopefully we get back our bikes and drag them down to Jhinudanda and finish the day at the hot pools with a glass of coke.  

Chhomrong to ABC was a climb from 2170m to 4130m ~ 2000m over 20km,7:10 hours walking.