The Route

The Route
It is a very long way.....

Saturday 30 April 2011

24th April - Nepalise Boarder to Kathmandu

Woke up early to get a jeep to Kathmandu at 7. I was a bit late because I did not realise that Nepal is 15 minutes ahead of India! Oops....

What a difference in the traveling experience in comparison to yesterday. The car was not as good as yesterday's car but the journey far more enjoyable. The driver did not appear to be on any mind altering drugs, did not beep the horn constantly, did not use the brake/gas as stop start buttons and would instead just ease off the gas when he wanted to slow down. The first 50km was pretty much flat but then after that we climbed into the mountains. I am really glad that we did not push on last night and do this journey in the dark from the boarder. The views were fantastic and if we had carried on last night we would have missed it all and not really got a feel for the countryside before arriving in Kathmandu.




I love the mountains. I have always wanted to visit the Himalayers and here I am. :-) I would have loved to be biking this road to Kathmandu but was very happy to have a bit off time off the bike (I was a bit jealous when I saw another cycle tourist going in the opposite direction). There will be loads of time for biking at a later point. I was very excited to be in a new country again. I feel like I am happy to leave India now and see other places. :-)

Johnnie is great company. We became good friends when I stayed with him in the Jungle in Tamil Nadu. He has been wanting to do some more traveling and to experience budget traveling. I wanted to have a rest from my bike for a week or so and we decided to met up and see Agra, Varanesi and Kathmandu together. I would have traveled in a different way if I was on my own. Sharing the cost of a car (rather than traveling by train or bus) has really kept the costs down and reduced the faff time of train or bus travel.

Nepal feels totally different to India. I was not expecting it to be so different just across the boarder. The people are far more friendly than the Northern Indians (in cities that is). Some of the younger women dress in western clothing and are quite happy to show their legs and shoulders. Many of the people speak really good English. Some of the population are of Indian origin (from when a large group migrated North several hundreds of years ago to avoid the Muslim invasion in North India) but many have more Chinese features and lighter skin. Their mannerisms are also very different.

Traveling through the countryside, we could see hundreds of villagers carrying wood and crops in baskets on their backs with a head strap. This way of carrying goods is even different to India. There is very little rubbish on the side of the road (as there is in India) and the mountains are covered in trees. The whole place just feels cleaner and not so stressful. However, maybe this is just my perception as I relax in the mountains :-)




We stopped off for a late breakfast at a little roadside restaurant. It was very different to the kind of restaurant you get on the side of the road in India. At first I thought that our driver had just chosen a place that westerners would like but as I am now writing this entry several days later I know that it is just that Nepalese restaurants are different. The restaurant was really clean with lovely views over the river. The people all spoke very good English. As we walked in we could smell chicken being roasted with lovely spices on a wood burning fire in the middle of the restaurant. We ordered some chicken and a mixture of other dishes that come with a Nepalese Thalis. It was all very tasty.




It was strange to see so many Nepalese men there drinking Signature Whiskey at 10am (particularly as they then road off on their motorbikes). Drink is very accessible at any time of day in Nepal. Although the women are dressed less conservatively than India, it was still interesting to note that there were very few women dining in the restaurant. It was mainly groups of men in their 20's. This photo is a picture of just one of the trucks we saw on the road that had been in an accident.... Maybe too much whiskey then driving!?




The road to Kathmandu from the Indian boarder runs parallel to a large river for much of the journey though the mountains. The river is fast following and we saw many people white water rafting and kayaking. Adventure sports are not really very popular in India (except in Goa) and I did not see anyone doing this sort of activity on my travels through the country. It got me very excited about participating at some point during my stay in Nepal.




There are many rope bridges across the river for pedestrian transport to the other side but I only noticed one road bridge. Nepal really does not have a very extensive road network! One of the more interesting ways of getting across the river is a cage/box structure where the passengers pull themselves across to the other side (like a manual gondola but with out any solid sides). It looked very precarious from a distance.....




I enjoyed the mountain scenery and the new sites very much for the first few hours but after a while I was just looking forward to getting to a hotel and stopping. It was supposed to take 6 hours but we where still climbing the passes to Kathmandu after 7 hours in the car. There were many buses and trucks on the road as this is the main road which traverses the country (in fact one of the very few roads in the country at all). The quality of the road is manly good though - with only a few stretches where it deteriorated to an unsealed section (maybe for 10m).




Kathmandu itself is a large city which sprawls for a long way and has engulfed many smaller towns and villages that used to be separate places. There is a stretch of about 20km which is built up along the side of the main road on the way into Kathmandu itself. The buildings are different in architecture to India. Many of them are multi-story and look almost like a mixture between a Chinese style dwelling and a chalet in the Alps (not the best description - I never said I could write, only pedal long distances). One thing that Johnnie noticed straight away was that there are no auto-rickshaws! There are many small white taxi's and cycle rickshaws though. Although the roads are busy and there is lots of traffic, the traffic is more ordered and not as noisey as they dont beep their horns like Indians do every other second. There is not as much rubbish on the side of the road as India.




Another thing that we noticed was the huge queues for petrol. There where literally hundreds of motor bikes queuing on one side and tens of cars on the other side of all of the petrol stations we past. Apparently the government subsidises petrol, which they mainly import from India. India has increased the price recently and the government has responded by reducing the supply rather than increasing the price. Some people that I spoke to seem to think that this is a ploy by the government to get people to accept the inevitable price rise when it arrives as it is a better option than the queues. The energy shortage does not just effect the petrol either. There are regular, planned power outages across different areas of the country each day to reduce the demand for power from the grid. There is a schedule so that each area knows the time when the electricity will be available. The more expensive hotels and restaurants have generators to get round this problem but the majority of places and domestic residencies just work round it and don't use electricity when it is not available.

I do not seem to be having the best of luck traveling with Johnnie right now. When we finally got into Kathmandu center and we were looking forward to checking into the hotel in the early afternoon and just relax we had to stop as our jeep was over heating. We got out of the car to find that engine coolant leaking all over the road. Another 40mins of faffing and we were transferred to small taxi and on the way again. The driver then took us to the wrong hotel on the other side of the city. It was about 5 or 6 by the time we arrived, thoroughly knackered, at the Gokarna Forest Resort.

The hotel is lovely but we were very disappointed to find that the hotel pool was not working. I had wanted a few days just relaxing by the pool in one place and not to go anywhere for a while. This was to be a treat off budget for a few days.




We had a short wander round the grounds. They have done a lovely job of the architecture. The property has been built recently but has employed Nepalese influence.

It was funny to see a security guard with catapult which he was using to fire at the monkeys and stop them coming into the garden/restaurant area. There are some really huge trees in the grounds and the monkeys easily jump from these trees on to the roof of the hotel.

I really enjoyed relaxing in a huge bath. We had a good meal that the hotel restaurant. Rare steak with pepper sauce - happy girl! :-)


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