Up at 5.30 to go to breakfast with Johnnie and see him off to the airport. He has been a really great friend over the last few months since I met him in South India. I will miss his company and his ridiculous "toffness" (oh so very English)....I had a nap after breakfast and then spent about 1 hour re-organising my bags and left my 2 front panniers at the hotel with equipment that I do not need over the next couple of weeks. It was great to organise and throw away all my rubbish and just be carrying the bare minimum again. Emma has kindly taken some of my things that I had in India back to England with her so that I do not have to post them home. I am only about 20kg on my Kingfisher Flight to Hong Kong and so it will be a real problem to not get charged any excess on this flight - I will just be carrying what is absolutely necessary.
I checked out at 12 and then went for a swim for 1 hour in the lovely pool before getting on my bike. It took a while to get across town and as I was passing close to Thamel I popped in for a salad at the Northfield cafe one last time.
It was a miserable day. The sky was gray and I got rained on several times. The pollution in Kathmandu is terrible and with my cold I really did not feel great. 3 weeks ago in India I was really fit and healthy and biking really well. Leaving Kathmandu I had a bad headache and no strength in my legs. Spending the last 2 weeks with chain smokers and terrible pollution did not do me any good even though I thoughily enjoyed their company and for the first week or so it was great not to be moving on to a new place every day and to have some down time.
It took 3 miserable hours to get out of Kathmandu into the countryside in the rain. I was too pissed off to even take photos of how gray and wet and built up it was. I do not recommend getting out of Kathmandu this way. On the way back I will take a bus through this area.
However, it was lovely to get back on my bike again as it was so well tuned and clean and I am not carrying very much equipment to go to Pokhara. I was not going very fast though even though it was manly downhill most of the way. Kathmandu is at about 1400m and I dropped to about 500m this afternoon.
Fortunately by about 5 the weather turned sunny again and put me in a better mood. I found a guest house at about 5.30 and decided to stop as several locals told me that it was about 30km to the next lodge and I was not in the mood for pushing. I had only done about 70km by this point. I still had a headache from the pollution and the oppressive weather. The guest house that I stayed in had a lovely little garden but the room was very basic and just had an outside swat toilet. There was a power cut too. I did not care as I just wanted an early night. The family cooked me a Nepalese Thali and I was in bed by 8.30.....
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