World Wittering

As the early morning sun struggled to penetrate the grey clouds hanging over the drab concrete blandness of Zhangmu, we trudged to the last restaurant before the border to break our fast. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds, despite being only a couple of hundred yards from our hotel, as we were forced to battle our way through a horde of desperate money changers clamouring for our business and who couldn’t understand that we wanted to use our money to pay for our meal before availing ourselves of their services.

The scene inside the restaurant was equally comical, the tables filled with western tourists and a large party of climbers returning from an Everest expedition, a crowd of money changers loitering nonchalantly at the door trying to catch their eyes and, the moment the waiting staffs’ backs were turned, creeping over to tables to solicit business. As soon as one had struck up a conversation with their prospective punter, a dozen or more others would pile in to grab a piece of the action in a desperate frenzy, thereby alerting the staff to their presence and earning them a shooing out into the street, from where they would begin their tiptoeing progress back inside in a constant cycle of repetition that resembled a classic Loony Toon in its ridiculousness.

We stocked up on sustenance and made a connection with a couple of Israeli girls to share a car from the Nepali side of the border to Kathmandu, then I ventured back outside to exchange the last of our Chinese yuen for Nepali rupees. The moment I flourished my unwanted currency I was surrounded by a thronging mass of desperation, calculators were thrust into my face displaying conversion rates, I shouted at them to shut up and demanded their exchange rate one by one in turn. Finally alighting on the most advantageous rate, business was concluded, obviously not without a blatant attempt at some slight of hand rip-off, but this was conceded with a mild sheepish grin and my correct conversion was handed over. I returned inside to collect Lee and make our way to the border crossing. Despite having conducted my business a mere matter of moments earlier, as we exited the restaurant we were immediately surrounded again by the same crowd and followed the final few yards to the queue to cross.

Alas, during the commotion, absolutely everyone else from the restaurant had beaten us to it and the queue now contained about fifty people ahead of us. Bearing in mind our previous experience of Chinese bureaucracy, we settled in for a long wait.

Eventually we were waved through with only a mild moment of concern when Lee’s passport was taken into a back office for further inspection, presumably because they’d found out about her widespread denunciations of the occupying regime in Tibet, or maybe she just looked dodgy.

Next we had to pile into a minivan for a twenty minute ride down a winding mud road through no-man’s land, before a final passport check from more grim faced Red Army personnel and then a final tramp over a bridge into the chaos of the Nepali side. Fighting our way through the crowds of colourfully sari-ed women carrying unfeasibly large loads on their heads, we arrived at the immigration office where the contrast with the rigid order we had just left was rammed home as we entered a complete free for all of clamour to attract the attention of an official to sell us a visa and let us in. Fortunately, the mountaineering party we’d crossed behind was partially composed of Germans and they quickly reverted to stereotype and began imposing a queuing system.

Documents in place we emerged from the hands of officialdom to find that the sun had finally won through and the Israeli girls had managed to procure a car at reasonable price to take us to Kathmandu. Best of all was the fact that this entire shambolic episode had literally taken no time at all, with Nepal being two and a half hours behind Chinese time, it was still nine am.

Our driver was classic Nepali cool, stonewashed jeans, vest and mirrored aviator sunglasses. He led us to his car and my heart soared, we would be arriving in Kathmandu in proper style – a classic lime green beat up Toyota Corolla at least twenty years old, resembling a Nepali equivalent to a Ford Capri and pimped to the max with zebra seat covers and Buddhist icons adorning the dash.

We got in and surveyed the road. Cars and trucks were parked on both sides, leaving barely a single vehicle’s width between them. Horns blared, chaos reigned, nobody moved, we got back out to wait for an opening.

A couple of hours later, having made tortuous progress the mile or so to the main road, we were finally on our way and would arrive at our destination in a mere three hours, our driver confidently predicted above the tinny blare of Indian pop music. Alas, but perhaps not surprisingly given the day we were having, a combination of having to stop every ten minutes to top up the radiator and try to cool the engine and a couple of Maoist insurgency roadblocks meant that this prediction was more than doubled and we finally disembarked in Thamel, Kathmandu’s backpacker ghetto, in the early evening, but in high spirits after such a surreal day.

Naturally, it was time for a cold beer and we deposited ourselves in the nearest restaurant and set about refreshing ours tired souls. A pleasant local gentleman befriended us and Lee was soon whisked off to look at hotels of his recommendation. This mission was a success and we were soon esconsed in a fantastic top floor room with excellent views from a terrace over the whole of the city. A gorgeous dinner and further refreshment was partaken in an atmospheric old restaurant. Back in the street, a tipsy Lee insisted on commandeering a rickshaw but the rider had never heard of our hotel and we were unable to remember the way, eventually deciding we would be best attempting it on foot after several minutes of fruitless pedaling. I decided to strike off into the night and was promptly hit squarely on the head by a plastic bag hurled from an upstairs window which seemed to contain vomit. A fitting ending to the day.

The following day was taken up with administrative business, we wandered up to the Indian embassies to begin the visa application process, arranged air tickets from Pokhara to Jomosom and secured the ludicrously cheap rental of a fantastic looking Yamaha Enticer, Harley Davidson style, cruiser motorcycle. We rewarded ourselves in the evening with pizza and beer and obtained some final essential supplies, before retiring for some well earned rest and, oh yes, satellite TV.

Leaving Lee asleep, I was back out and off to the local Irish pub to take in the 12.45 am kick off of the Champions League Final. As I strode into the bar, proudly adorned in my lucky Chinese Liverpool shirt, my heart sank. In one corner of the bar sat less than a dozen football fans huddled around a TV which was hardly the big screen I’d been promised. Worse than this, there was a full scale Indian disco is full swing, dominating the bar and drowning all commentary from the match. Suffice to say, the flukey deflected handball goal, which ultimately proved decisive, seemed inevitable and appropriate to my bizarre viewing situation, I skulked home through the deserted streets and promised myself I’d think no more about it.

The next morning we set off on our motorcycle tour, a planned two week jaunt taking a circuitous route to Pokhara, where we would fly to Jomosom and take a week to walk back, before riding back to Kathmandu.

The first day’s ride proved eventful, indeed finding our way out of Kathmandu was hard enough, the traffic chaotic and the sun beating down mercilessly. A few miles out of town we had to negotiate our first Maoist roadblock, a demonstration of several hundred insurgents burning tyres and holding up the traffic in a generally good natured manner.

Then we were finally back out into the countryside, an expanse of beautiful green mountains as far as the eye could see in every direction, all neatly terraced by their farming occupants in defiance of topography. We rode a fantastic winding road which steadily deteriorated in quality as the day wore on. This was accentuated by the fact that the Enticer’s seemingly comfortable padded seat proved to be an illusion and within an hour our rear ends were in agony.

Things could, of course, only get worse – we hit a bend with a loose patch of gravel and an adverse camber, I instinctively dabbed the front disk brake, absolutely the worst thing I could have done in the situation, and we found ourselves eating dust as the front wheel slid from under us. Fortunately for Lee, I proved to be an adequate cushion for the impact and we had been traveling too slow to cause any serious damage, the price of my mistake was a few cuts and bruises to my left forearm and leg and the only damage to the bike was a large dent in the fuel tank left by my knee as the full weight of the bike landed on it.

An hour or so later, I looked down to investigate a wet feeling on my arm and was horrified to see that the oil filler cap had worked itself loose and the whole right side of the bike, including my boot, jeans and arm were covered in thick black oil – arse.

We finally reached our evening’s destination, Hetuada, just as night was falling and quickly checked ourselves into the wonderful Motel Avocado, such a lovely place, such a lovely place. I nursed my injuries with room service, satellite TV and some lovely cold beer. Alas, the day’s tribulations were still not over, the beer was well out of date, tasted appalling and had a habit of exploding out of the bottle upon opening. Replacement beers were obtained and consumed without further mishap.

An early start saw us making time on a lovely smooth, straight road, heading west through the picturesque Chitwan National Park before reaching the town of Bharatpur. Just when it seemed that the day’s only downer was the constant need to take breaks to revive our tired posteriors, I was taken out by a schoolboy error and we were forced to find shelter, I was chronically dehydrated after riding through the heat of the midday sun and my stomach was cramping badly.

Despite being, essentially, a very small town with, seemingly, only one reasonable hotel – Hotel Global – no one we could find seemed to be able to tell us exactly where the hotel was. We spent, what seemed to me, an age riding round in circles before finally locating it and Lee ran in to investigate. In urgent need of facilities and without any visible signs of progress, after ten minutes I decided to unload the bags and head for reception. Here I met Lee who scolded me for my haste and informed me that the rooms were $70 a night, way over our budget. It was too late though, my spirit was broken, “We’ll take it” I shouted over my shoulder as I ran for the gents, just in time to avoid a major fouling of the underwear.

I decided to invoke our standing rule that, at the first sign of sickness, we check into the best hotel in town and wait it out, and so we stayed two nights, spending almost as much on room service as the room charge itself and watching a plethora of terrible movies on the wondrous satellite TV.

Suitably rehydrated, covered in large scabs from the accident and with some terrific rainbow coloured bruises starting to show, it was time to continue the journey. The next destination was Lumbini, birthplace of cheap, sweet white wine for teenagers, er, no…Buddha, which we managed to reach in good time and without incident, despite the fact that the, normally crazy, traffic was even more manic here, so close to the Indian border, than normal, with huge and overladen trucks and buses overtaking three abreast on blind corners, all the time spewing out thick clouds of dense black smoke. Perfect motorcycling conditions.

In Lumbini we walked through the tranquil ornamental gardens and visited a temple built on the exact spot where the birth is said to have taken place. The peacefulness a wonderful respite from the hectic chaos of the morning’s ride. In the evening, with the town hit by a power cut, we found the only restaurant in town and ate traditional thali by candlelight.

Our final day’s ride saw us reach Pokhara in early afternoon, having passed through yet more stunning mountain scenery and scary driving. Lee took the opportunity to look up old acquaintances at the Banana Garden Lodge, where she had stayed on her previous visit 14 years earlier, then we secured a pleasant room in the quiet end of town, overlooking the lake. Next we procured our trekking permits and then headed for the Moondance Bar, Lee’s favourite hostelry from before, where I was forced to endure her bemoaning the development of the town from it’s previous humble quaintness into, what seemed to her, some kind of Himalayan Benidorm. I quite liked it.

Moving down to the lakeside to take in one of the best sunsets of the trip, more refreshment was taken, before ending our evening at another lakeside establishment with a candlelit dinner and the finest vegetable pakoras we had yet encountered.

It was a ludicrously early start the next morning, a taxi to the airport to check in for our flight. We were ushered onto the tiny propeller powered plane at 6.30, having been frisked by security in the absence of metal detectors/X-Ray machines – alas, having only hand luggage, I was forced to relinquish a lighter I’d bought in Lhasa which featured an incredibly well endowed young lady in a bikini, damn those increased terrorist security measures. The 7.00 am flight took off shortly thereafter and we arrived at Jomosom at 6.45.

Arriving in Jomosom was like arriving back in Tibet, the small town composed of similarly constructed low, square buildings and with none of the lush greenness we’d come to associate with Nepal. First things first, I hadn’t shaved in a week and had, ahem, neglected to bring shaving kit purely in the interests of keeping baggage to a minimum. Lee was having none of this and marched me straight to the nearest barbers for an old fashioned shave. While she waited, my barber’s father took rather too much pleasure from giving Lee a back, shoulder and head massage.

With a rudimentary map/leaflet procured from the tourist information office and eschewing the offers of guides and porters, we strode off into the morning sun, following the clear icy waters of a river down the valley, surrounded by the huge and beautiful snow covered peaks of the Nilgiri, Annapurna and Dhaulagiri Himalaya. We stopped for some brunch in the cute little village of Marpha, drinking in the spectacular mountain scenery and then continued down the valley in the face of a strong wind whistling up in the opposite direction. Finally, around 4.00, we reached the village of Kobang, where we found a wonderful timber guesthouse and hunkered down in time to watch a violent electrical while we ate delicious home cooked curry in bed and were asleep by 8.00.

Another early start followed and we soon found ourselves at Kalopani where, once again, we had our breakfast staring up at the peaks from the roof terrace of a tiny cafe. An Australian couple and their guide arrived soon after and we were able to consult their detailed map. Lee decided that our overnight destination, Lete, was close enough to take a two or three hour detour to see the wonderfully named Titi Lake, I concurred after being accused of laziness.

The route up to the lake was our first serious uphill trek and was tough going, but rewarding. Having been following an established vehicle track up to that point, it was nice to be hiking a much smaller path, through forest and climbing several hundred metres. We reached the village of Titi around three hours later and then caught our first glimpse of the lake, described in guidebooks as a valuable breeding ground for many bird species.

Personally, I would have described it as a small pond, surrounded by some marshy bogland and the birds must have been off flying about somewhere at the time. The sense of disappointment was palpable. We trudged onwards into the muppetry.
Reaching the start of a descent, we were faced with a fork in the track, the more minor trail appearing to be a shortcut towards a settlement we could see in the distance, Lete perhaps. I led the way and we strode off purposefully through the tough terrain, reaching the group of houses after an hour or so. The locals were very friendly and took great delight in seeing Lee’s photographs. When we asked if this was Lete they laughed in our faces and pointed further down the mountain where we could now see a larger group of houses with a schoolyard and children playing.

We carried on down the steep track and past the school until we reached a T-junction where some local types sat staring at us. We attempted to ask for directions but were met with blank empty eyes and so, forced to make a decision, I plumped for a right turn and we made our way through the village.

After another ten minutes we happened upon a couple of men leaning against a wall, one of whom was able to confirm we weren’t in Lete. Alas, he was unable to confirm the name of the village we were in, nor to point at it on our map, which, it was becoming increasingly clear to us, was obviously sub-standard. The best we were able to get was a vague wave of the hand in the general direction we had been heading in and so we carried on up the path.

The path started to ascend and we realised it was going to take a circuitous route back to the fork near the lake. Losing patience, I dragged Lee up the hill cross country to try and save time but ended up requiring us to climb up steep banks and through some dense bushes. This obviously improved her humour no end and, when we reached the summit, pleasantries were exchanged.

We were then confronted with no other option but to follow the major fork back down the hill and hope that it split again to take us away from where we had just come from. Inevitably, our luck remained consistent and we soon found ourselves back walking past the two men who’d waved us off some half an hour earlier. They stared impassively as we trudged past, I concentrated on retaining my dignity and suppressing the urge to teach them a wide range of English expletives.

Back in the centre of the village I noticed a turning we hadn’t investigated before and left Lee waiting while I took a look. A man tending his garden confirmed it was the path to Lete and we strode off with renewed enthusiasm convinced it couldn’t be far. Foolishness, of course.

An hour or so later, having cut across a dried up expanse of rocky river bed, passing the stripped bare bones of dead cow, we reached another village, larger than the last two. Once again we were denied our goal and pointed onwards, across a couple of suspension bridges and back onto a major trail. After a further hour, we reached another T-junction with a much more major track. By this time we were exhausted and our tempers were wearing thin, walking in virtual silence and ignoring the, still majestic, scenery.

An old man resting at the junction confirmed the right turn to be for Lete, the left for Ghasa, the next village along. I was half convinced Ghasa must be nearer as we had walked so far but he was unable to understand my questioning and provide a helpful answer. I left Lee at the junction and set off to investigate the Lete option and, after ten minutes, was rewarded with the sight of the village. I quickly went back for Lee and we limped into town completely drained of all energy.

Which made it quite mind boggling when we then decided, rather than immediately checking into the first guesthouse we found, which was clean, warm and had a restaurant with a decent looking menu, to spend a further forty five minutes walking the full length of Lete and inspecting seven other, inferior, guesthouses, before returning to the first one. Dinner and beer followed as we scrutinised the detailed map hanging on the wall of the restaurant, trying to work out where we’d gone wrong and just how far out of the way we’d walked. The guesthouse proprietor took pity on us and gave us the map.

The next day’s walk was back on the original trail and mostly downhill, thankfully. We had another roof terrace breakfast in Ghasa and then a fantastically scenic lunch in a terraced garden overlooking a beautiful waterfall. Alas, the day’s spirits were tempered by the wear and tear beginning to show on our feet, blister plasters were applied and boots laced tighter.

The afternoon’s hike seemed never ending and involved some scrambling over rockslides where crowds of labourers worked with only rudimentary hand tools to clear the path of huge boulders. Finally, around 5.00, we reached Tatopani, the largest village since we’d left Jomosom. Here we lucked out with the best guesthouse yet, some fantastic food and the bonus of a natural hot spring pool where I bathed with the locals beneath a vista of Himalayan mountains and stars as bright as street lights, the perfect way to end the day.

The first task next morning was to tape up our feet, which were now quite badly blistered, not a good sign with three days of trekking still to come. This done, we set off, leaving the relatively easy path we’d followed since Jomosom, which would have had us in Beni and at the end of a Tarmac road in a day, and instead taking the route towards Ghorapani. This choice would see us climbing a massive 1700 metres but would, we were emphatically told, be worth it for the awesome views.

Within a couple of hours it had dawned on us what we had let ourselves in for. As the sun blazed down, precipitating torrential perspiration, we trudged slowly onwards without seeming to make significant progress. We were now on the classic Nepali trail, endless stone steps conforming to the maxim we’d seen emblazoned on T-shirts all the way from Kathmandu “Nepal – little bit up, little bit down”. While our net ascent was supposed to be 1700 metres, we were climbing way more as, after each stretch of up, we endured a heartbreaking descent just as far. Indeed the down stretches were tougher on our aching legs and battered feet, as well as requiring more concentration. There was truth, however, in what we’d been told, we were passing through some of the most beautiful scenery yet with panoramic views of vast mountain expanses stretching into the distance in every direction.

Exhausted and demoralised, we finally stopped at 6.00, having walked for eight hours, at Chitre, still some way short of Ghorapani. Here a kindly guesthouse owner plied us with hot drinks and delicious food and raised our flagging spirits from the doldrums. We slept soundly.

In the morning, the owner’s wife gave us a hearty breakfast and then enquired as to our destination. Had we made Ghorapani the previous day, we would have been aiming for the village of Tadopani, but we were now unsure we’d be able to make up the shortfall. The lovely lady brightened our morning, telling us she could show us a shortcut, bypassing Ghorapani altogether and saving precious hours to reach Tadopani that afternoon. Too good to be true?

She led us down a muddy path, through dense undergrowth, to the far end of her village and pointed us off up the valley. For the next three hours we followed the tiny trail as it wound its way ever upwards through thick forest, never once seeing another soul, with the nagging thought ever present in the back of our minds that we’d made another terrible mistake. Once again though, the landscape seemed to make it all worthwhile, the woodland path making a refreshing change from the endless stone steps carved into the mountainsides of the previous day.

Eventually, we crashed out of the foliage and into the yard of a small restaurant. The owner informed us we were in Dewali, which seemed impossible as our map seemed to have the place in the opposite direction. Much confusion followed and we eventually realised that the map appeared to be wrong. We munched some lunch and set off once again, back on the stone path, back to the steps.

It was only 3.00 when we finally made Tadopani and collapsed on a guesthouse terrace atop a ridge with amazing views out over the Himalayas. We briefly considered carrying on, but by this time Lee had devloped a nasty head cold which had been steadily building over the previous few days. An early dinner and straight to bed was the prudent course, with the reassurance of the owner that we could definitely reach the end of our trek the following day.

And so with lifted spirits and renewed determination we were up and out at 6.00 am, hitting the steps with a vengeance and by mid-morning we’d passed through the next major village, Ghandruk. The evidence of approaching civilisation was building as more and more Nepalese passed us going in the opposite direction weighed down with ridiculously large and heavy loads strapped to their foreheads – the only way to supply the remote villages we’d passed through. Every time we saw another hardy man or woman struggling to put one foot in front of the other under their outrageous burden we gained a little more perspective on our own situation and were thankful to be nearing the end. We were also passed by a large number of people who had started their trek that morning, tackling our route in reverse. Many of them were overweight, drenched in sweat and bright red in the face. The thought of what they were to endure in the days to come amused us no end.

Finally, at around 4.00 we made Birethani and then the short, final stretch of path that brought us to our goal – Tarmac!

Naturally, it was at this moment that the heavens opened and we were soaked in moments by torrential rain. We couldn’t have cared less as we trudged up the hill and found a bus waiting to take us back to Pokhara. We just had time, and funds, to buy a solitary celebratory beer and then spent two blissful hours enjoying the luxury of motorised transport.

We were deposited by the roadside in the midst of a flood, located a taxi and negotiated the fare back to our guesthouse via an ATM. Refunded, we directed the driver to our lodgings and then had to endure his pathetic attempt to increase the fare as he”hadn’t realised quite how far” it was. We got out of the car in disgust and watched contemptuously as he pleaded for the original fare, then we made him plead some more.

After a hot shower and a change of clothes it was back into town to celebrate with a huge dinner and alcohol. I kept a promise I’d made to myself during the six day marathon and splashed out on a bottle of French red wine, very satisfying. After the restaurant, we hit the town, moving onto mojitos and then gin and tonics on a bar crawl, ending the night to the accompaniment of a terrible local covers band banging out mispronounced versions of 70’s rock standards.

We spent the next couple of days recovering in Pokhara – sleeping, eating and, yes, drinking large amounts and buying a job lot of multi-coloured socks made by a local women’s collective for every member of our families, our recuperation only marred by the erroneous decision to watch Spiderman 3 – truly awful.

All too soon it was time for our return to Kathmandu. At six in the morning, in heavy rain, we eased ourselves back onto the trusty Enticer and set off. Fortunately, the rain eased and then stopped fairly soon, however the seat hadn’t become any more comfortable and our rear ends were soon rivaling our legs and blistered feet as the most painful parts of our anatomy.

After fifty kilometres, roughly a quarter of the way there, we stopped at a roadside cafe for breakfast. As we ate, we were treated to the surreal sight of a retired military man, evidently the security guard, but still in full Gurkha sergeant major uniform, fastidiously cleaning our motorcycle.

Then it was back on the road, once again dodging the buses and trucks as they hurtled onwards in their seeming twin quests for violent destruction and maximum environmental savagery. The closer we got to Kathmandu, the crazier the traffic behaved as the road became more and more densely jammed. At times we encountered tailbacks several kilometres long for no apparent reason, always grateful to be able to wind our way past on the bike.

Finally, we reached the outskirts of Kathmandu, bypassing the same Maoist roadblock of burning tyres we’d seen nearly two weeks before. Then we merely had to negotiate six more roadblocks set up by disgruntled taxi drivers who had parked their cabs as barriers to the main routes into town in protest at something or the other which was never made clear. And then we were “home”, back at our lovely peaceful hotel with the same comfortable room and the panoramic views of the city.

The day’s final hurdle was returning the bike and obtaining my passport, which had been left in lieu of a deposit. At first all went swimmingly as I parked up, the owner gave the bike the most cursory of glances and then went to the desk to get the passport. Just as he was about to hand it over, the peace was broken by a mechanic who had noticed the knee shaped dent in the fuel tank.

Intense negotiations were instigated as I tried to offset the cost of some bloke knocking the dent out with a hammer with the damage to my “expensive designer jeans” and “top of the range” hiking boots, which had been irretrievably stained by the engine oil which had, ahem, obviously only leaked because whoever had checked the oil before I took the bike hadn’t properly replaced the filler cap. They weren’t having any of it and I finally agreed to hand over the equivalent of fifteen pounds and skulked off with my tail between my legs.

The next day we went back to the Indian embassy for the next stage of the visa application proceedings before taking a ride down to see the ancient Dhurbar Square. Here I wandered around impatiently while Lee took hundreds of photos of the impressive temples and crazy-eyed sadhus, dreadlocked holy men, who, in turn, demanded money and gave us blessings. One of the temples reputedly houses an eleven year old “living goddess”, a poor child held in virtual captivity since birth, worshiped but never allowed to leave. Then it was back to the embassy to finally collect our visas before taking shelter from yet more torrential rain and enjoying a cheese fondue, of all things, in a rooftop restaurant.

The following morning we hired a taxi to take us on a quick tour of the Monkey Temple and Buddha Nath, a pair of impressive temple complexes, though by this time, particularly after Tibet, I was completely “templed out” and unable to fully appreciate their beauty. Lee then made for the post office to get our latest couple of packages sent while I arranged bus tickets to the border for the following morning.

Schedule adjustments were subsequently made upon Lee’s return, complete with packages and the news that the post office was shut – we would have to stay another day.There was only one thing for it – exorbitantly priced cocktails.

We used the extra day to do little of note. While Lee returned to the post office, and not knowing when I would next be able, I took the opportunity to get some series TV under my belt before a major blogging session, dinner and an early night.

At seven am we met our trusty travel agent who had promised to escort us to the bus. We followed his motorcycle in a taxi but eventually lost sight of him as we were stuck in a horrendous traffic jam. After not moving for ten minutes we asked the driver how far the bus station was and he indicated it was just up the road. Despite the ubiquitous torrential rain, we decided to get out and walk, making our way through the traffic chaos and, eventually, to where huge numbers of buses appeared to be causing the jam by parking in the road to take on passengers.

Bus touts clamoured for our business but we fended them off and told them we were searching for our travel agent, whose name we had handily forgotten. Finally, one tout claimed he worked for our guy and, miraculously, this proved to be true as he delivered us to our waiting bus. We then sat on the bus for two hours watching the chaos as the driver waited for an opportunity to pull out into the solid traffic, before finally departing.

Our decision had been to take a bus to Birganj, by far the least popular crossing point for foreigners into India. The reasoning behind this had been that we had covered the route to the main crossing on our motorcycle trip days earlier and we didn’t want to cover the same ground twice. Imagine then our delight as, instead of taking the direct route shown on our map, the bus followed the road half way to Pokhara we had only just come down, before turning south and coming to Bharatpur, home of the elusive Hotel Globel. It then retraced our steps in reverse to Hetuada and it was only then, a mere seven hours later that we finally hit a road we hadn’t previously travelled.

It was a mere three hours later that we finally pulled into Birganj, and rolled our aching bodies off the bus and onto a couple of waiting bicycle rickshaws. We directed them to a hotel recommended by our travel agent close to the border. I went in to investigate, was shown a couple of filthy roach-pits, quoted a ludicrous price and left.

The rickshaw drivers helpfully pointed out that the border was still open and so we decided to bid a fond farewell to Nepal and make the crossing. We were soon sat in a small hut with the border guards watching our “exit tax” follow several of our nice American cigarettes into their pockets and then we were gone, pedaling over the border into the arms of Mother India.