Author: Garry

Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is cycle touring in Nepal on Saturday, 12th-November-2016, in Butwel. Felt lazy today, so I didn’t bother moving! Besides, it’s Saturday, a day to sit around and drink beer all day! Also, the sooner I get to India, the sooner I’ll be going home! The other main reason for not moving is I need to wait as long as possible before getting to India to let some of the chaos die down that’s going on there at the moment!

You may have read or heard that the Indian government scrapped the 1000 and 500 Rupee notes. Literally overnight, and they are no longer legal tender! Which by all accounts is causing chaos at the banks, with people queuing all day to exchange their notes and long queues at all the ATMs.

That’ll Teach You

I thought that I was being Mr smart arse and didn’t exchange my Indian rupees when I crossed into Nepal because I knew I’d be going back, now I’m left with about 3000 unusable rupees unless I want to spend all day queuing at a bank to exchange them, but considering it’s only about £35, it really doesn’t seem worth bothering with, but £35 in India can go a long way!

On my last night in India, I was going to get some more cash out from the ATM so I wouldn’t have to worry about it when I went back to India, but the queues were really long then, just as well I didn’t!

Another reason for delaying my return to India or rather Delhi as that’s where I’ll fly home from is the pollution. Apparently, it was so bad the other day that they closed all the schools for 3 days!

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Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is cycle touring in Nepal on Friday, 11th-November-2016. Pithauli to Butwal. 55 miles. Turned out last night my “Jungle Island Resort” was all-inclusive apart from the beer and was actually in the jungle!

There were only six other people staying last night, four Americans and a couple from France.

After we’d all had supper together, everybody retired to bed (was it something I said? I had had a shower, so I’m sure I didn’t smell anymore. But maybe I did!) It left me to drink beer on my own and talk to the staff, who were much more interesting anyway!

After the obligatory couple of pints, I, too, went to retire to bed on the way back to my room which were all individual buildings like huts in a village. I bumped into a member of staff with a torch who told me he was looking for rhinos as they entered the resort grounds at night! He asked me if I wanted to see them. Of course, I said yes and off we went in search. We went down to the river that ran by the resort, and although I never saw them, I could certainly hear them. I think if I’d waited longer, I might have seen them, but I was getting bored, and my back was starting to hurt, so I retired to my room.

Managed to find my way back to the main road this morning, although that took me nearly an hour on the rough track, and it was only about 5 miles!

Once back on the main road, it was a very good smooth surface, which made for good cycling. There was only one fairly big climb today, but at least I knew how far it was as there was a sign saying sharp bends and steep hills for the next 14km! Luckily for me, it was only 7km up, then 7km down!

I think today must be the first day in a week when the roads have been relatively good, and I’ve not arrived somewhere at the end of the day covered in dust!

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Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is cycle touring in Nepal on Thursday, 10th-November-2016. Mugling to Pithauli. 49 miles. It was a really hard ride this morning for the first 25 miles or so, the road surface was non-existent and it took me until lunchtime to complete!

After those initial hard 20 miles, I’d had enough, and by the time I’d reached Narayangadh I was going to stop, but it was only 1 pm, and I thought that was just a little too early, so after stopping for something to eat and drink I continued on.

The roads improved a lot after Narayangadh, also all the mountains disappeared, and the terrain was a lot more flatter now!

I continued on for a while longer, but I’d really had enough, so when I saw a sign for some “jungle island resort”, I followed them. Something I very rarely do; I normally just wait until I see something on the road I’m on!
And I could see why I don’t normally deviate from my route! 4 miles later, down some track, I found my resort! The trouble was the road started off ok and just got worse; the trouble is when do you stop and say no, enough is enough and turn back; it could just be around the next corner, so what do you do? You just have to keep going!

Watch Garry’s YouTube video of the Narayanghat-Mugling Highway.

Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is cycle touring in Nepal on Wednesday, 9th-November-2016. Kathmandu to Mugling. 60 miles. I was hoping to get on the road really early today to try and beat some of the traffic. But it just seemed to be one of those days. And instead of being really early, I was really late. It must have been nearly 8 o’clock by the time I left the hotel! But hey, that’s life. No point getting stressed about it! Anyway, the road out of Kathmandu wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. Possibly because I’d psyched myself up for it to be really bad! I always find that if I psych myself up for something, it usually works and isn’t as bad as you expect!

Had my first puncture this morning. Funnily enough, just past the place I’d stopped the night before arriving in Kathmandu, as I went around one of the twisting corners, I could feel the back of the bike starting to slide out, so I immediately looked down at the back wheel and sure enough the tyre was going down or rather by now it was flat!

I pulled over to the side of the road, took all the panniers off, turned the bike upside down and took the wheel off. Past experience has taught me it’s always easier to take the wheel off to fix a puncture rather than try and do it whilst still on the bike. Annoyingly, I couldn’t find the puncture, and I had to replace the inner tube with a new one! Which is a pain, but it’s always a bit worrying that I never found where the puncture was as there could still be something stuck in the tyre and could give me another one after checking the tyre thoroughly to make nothing was still stuck in the tyre I put the new inner tube on, put the wheel back on the bike and loaded my panniers back on.

That Went Well, Not!

I wheeled the bike two feet, and bang, the rear tyre blew! I was sure that there wasn’t anything still in the tyre, but obviously there was! Once again, I took all the panniers off and the wheel, took the inner tube out, and this time I could see the puncture. It was a massive hole, but at least I knew from whereabouts on the tyre it came from so I could check for things still stuck in the tyre. But I still couldn’t find anything, then I noticed that there was a split in the side of the tyre and that’s what caused it!

Luckily, I carry spare tyres, and after fitting a new tyre and another new inner tube (the whole was too big to fix) and loading everything back on, I was on my way.

What with my late start, and I must have wasted a good hour or maybe two trying to sort that puncture out, I ran out of light and had to stop a bit before I wanted to!

At least I’ve not been going uphill all day today, and it’s probably been more downhill than up. Been following the Trishuli River down the valley all day.

Watch Garry’s YouTube video cycling along the Trishuli River on the Prithvi highway.

 

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