no cycling

After getting up late at 7:30 and waited very long on our breakfast, we were perhaps the last one to leave the lodge😂 But we are fast,  as at 12 o’clock we passed some people who started at 6:30 at tha same lodge and they haven’t even arrived here where we are now. Everybody should take their time. I would stop too,  in case I would get any symptom of altitude sickness like headache. But I feel fine.

To explain the title of todays post. Next to normal shoes I saw some carriers (the local people carrying stuff up and down as there are no roads for cars and trucks) and locals wearing these types of shoes and I was amazed about that.

One of the carriers even fell over with a gas can on his back,  he was still laughing but I think it was empty😂

Today we trekked 11 km in 6 hours and we got up to 2500 meters into the little village called Dovan. Amazingly they have warm showers here and it is great😀

Tomorrow we will try to get up earlier and reach one of the two base camps. Machhapuchhare or Annapurna Base Camp. Machhapuchhare would be the first one and on the way to Annapurna, so if we feel good enough, we can continue up to Annapurna Base Camp, otherwise we will stay there and go up the next day without our luggage.

Sadly as I don’t have mobile internet here and only expensive wifi,  I will not be able to publish this post today… 

No cycling

Instead we had a really bumpy bus ride. At 7:30 in the morning Tomaz and ai were ready to start. Some friends from my hotel got a jeep to drive them up to a trek. As they still had 2 places free,  to give us a lift to the local bus station. From there we got a bus to get us up to Ghandruk. First time in a bus during my journey. We were sitting in the back. Sometimes we needed to grab the seat infront of us to not fall off our seat,  it was a little bit funny. Arriving at Nayapur we decided to get out of the bus as the road had no asphalt anymore and it would be getting even more horrible. So we started walking at half past 10.Beautiful valley. I took some pictures, but I left my cable (on purpose) down in the hotel, so I will upload them in some days. 

We did 17 km today and arrived  at Jhinu Danda ▲1720m 😀

Now we eat here and will probably go to sleep. If everything goes good we will be up in 2 days. 

I don’t know if this post will be uploaded today or some other day. I will try it now. 

Again no cycling today.

Today was nearly all about preparing for hiking to the Annapurna Base Camp. But before I left the hotel I tried to get my pictures of the paragliding from the CD to any other device. The women at the reception was so kind to let me use the laptop and upload them to my cloud,  so they are save. Sadly the movie was too large,  so I could not upload it,  but I saved it to the USB-flash I have on me,so more save than a CD,  as it doesn’t break that quick😀 I  uploaded some of them to the post of yesterday.

After the upload was finished,  which took me nearly a whole hour. I went into the city to met Tomaz. Together we went to get our permits to be allowed to enter the area of the Annapurna at the official office. I forgot my passport in the hotel, luckily they only wanted the number,  which I have, as I have copies of all my documents in my cloud. 😀 We needed to pay extra as we don’t have a guide with us, but we are save,  as we are hiking together, the trek is not that hard and many people are in the trek.

By chance, a guide who Tomaz had 2 years ago,  was just coming down from a tour and on the way back to Kathmandu, but he had some time for us,  so he told us even more, how we could do it all😀

For some relaxation we rented a boat and paddled a little bit on the lake. One of us even went into the water…

I still had no suitable backpack,  so we started to negotiate again and I got a used fake one for 10$, it will last the trip😀

Back at the hotel I prepared everything for the trip and placed my bike and panniers into tha luggage place for the duration of the trip.

I wanted to pay for my room and got the invited to have dinner with some guests of the hotel😀 It was nice to see some of them a last time before everybody goes on a different hike tomorrow.

So now that everything is ready for the hiking tomorrow. I don’t know if I will be able to write a blog post every day depending on the internet and electricity.

Distance: 61,29 km Time: 3:49 Total distance:

In the morning Tomaz left even early then usual,  but this time for his hiking. So I slept again. Start as usual around 8 after I did my stretching,  which ai try to do now every morning.

I didn’t want to take the main road to get out of Tansen as I then would have to climb again a part I did already yesterday, so I choose to take another way. As it turned out,  that way turned around and ended up at the same junction as the main road. But it was a lovely road through the village. So be it,  I climbed again. After little less than an hour, I reached the restaurant, I ate yesterday. From that moment on,  it went down for 14 km. I put some cloth on with long arms,  as it got really cold.

While descending, I realised that there were no vehicles on the road. The only vehicles I saw were from the army. I also passed some solders in the villages,  I thought,  that it would be the normal presence.

After a while I met a german cyclist going in the opposite direction as me.  He immediately saw that I have a german bike,  so he asked to talk in german. He then told me,  that today there would be something of general strike,  that why most shops would be closed,  no vehicles on the road and military presence to ensure that no roads would be blocked. This is as far as he was informed. I asked the people in the hotel, but they couldn’t really tell me why. I don’t know and I don’t care,  because I don’t think that anything further more will happen here. After a longer talk and a nepaleas joining us, even though we were talking in german, we separated again. He went to Tensen and I to Waling.

It was really nice to enjoy everything on the road without any engine noise or honking in the background.

When I entered Waling,  a man stopped me to talk to me. He invited me in for a tea,  so I accepted. Again an english teacher,  so he told me, but again, his english was so bad,  that I was unable to understand him all the time. After some really strange questions from him, I decided to leave again.

In the middle of the town I found a hotel where I will stay for tonight,  and collect my last energy to finish the last part to Pokhara, where I will be staying for some days.

After eating lunch in the afternoon,  I went for a walk up the hill and toke some pictures. Upload when wifi is good,  here it is really bad…

Did I’ve already mentioned that I passed 1000 km on the road? 😀 I did

Oh and when you are passing nepalese kids,  they don’t say “hi”, ” hello” or “namaste”, no,  they just say “bye” 😂 There exceptions,  but often it’s like that.

@Steffi: Hügel + leere Straßen

Distance: 66,49km Time: 5:32 Total distance: 942 km

So the day of the big climb. I started at normal time. I still needed to get into the city as the hotel was at the beginning of Butwal. When I got in the center and I turned left on the main road to Pokhara, the wind started to blow into my face. I thought it would be really hard to go up. But soon after I left the city and enered the valley the wind was gone. From there on it started to climb. It was hard,  because my behind was hurting a lot and I always needed to figure out a position which was comfortable. It was so beautiful that I forgot the pain and just kept ridig and taking pictures.

The traffic was also not that much as an australian guy and a swiss girl on a motorbike told me yesterday. Perhaps there is less traffic because it is saturday. I don’t know.

So after some cycling, I didn’t even care how far I already went,  I saw a bench made out of bambus. I decided to take a break. After a while I checked out my GPS: 1007 meters of altitude. This was worth a selfie😀

I continued my climb,  but it did not go up that much anymore. It always rises and falls again and you always get a nice view down into different valleys. 

I was passing the junction of the town Tansen, but I contined on the road as it was only 11:50 and I had a good run. After some more kilometers I found some place to eat. Relay nice women with her daughter. We were talking a little bit about the road,  and that I would check with Tomaz where to stay and I always refered to him as my cycling friend. Tomaz had written me that he would stay in Tansen. The lady from the restaurant also suggested that I should stay there as the next town is far away. So I decided to go back. But before I paid , the women said: “look your frined”  and pointed out to a guy with a trailer on his bike,  but who wasn’t Tomaz. I quickly went out to talk to him. It was Carlos from spain. Tomaz met him some days ago once,  now I met him but only by chance,  because he stopped right infront of the restaurant I was eating in😀 He didn’t even saw my bike. He is also going to Pokhara, but he is faster,  so he continued. I payed and decided to ride backe like 16 km to get into Tansen.

Half way back I was really pissed on my self, because of my decision but I thought I would be again a really bad idea to turn again so I forced myself to go to Tansen… Arrived there, after some pushing my bike up a heavy hill on foot I arrived in the town center, where again by chance met Tomaz while he was going for a walk up to the top of thw mountin. He gave me the key for the room. I quickly droped my luggage and bike,  grabed my camera and went up myself. Half an hour walk and I could see the big mountins with snow. tomaz later on told me the names but I forgot them again,  as usual. I only remembered fishtail,  which is the closest on to Pokhara.

After the walk I took a quick shower and then went for dinner,  we found a nice restaurant at the back of a house. We ate a nepaleas speciality called Mo-Mo. Really great stuff. Afterwards they started singing. I will upload the video😀

Now we are back in the hotel. Tomaz and i will splitt again tomorrow as he wants to stay here for another day. I want to come to Pokhara.

Oh yeah on monday,  you should look at the moon,  as it should be very big as Tomaz told me,  hopefully I will then be in Pokhara and see it from there. Supposing Tomaz is right.

Ohh and this is Tomaz in case you wonder who this crazy man is:

Pictures will follow, as the drunken man in the reception couldn’t give us the password for the wifi…

In summary: great day expect for the part where I was turning around and going back,  but the to the view over the mountains made it worth it.

Distance: 125,75 km Time: 6:19 Total distance: 876

The first few kilometers today after the start at 8:15 in the morning were flat. After that part it went up into some hills. They were really beautiful,  less of traffic, beautiful nature nice curvy road.

After a break from going up,  I met Sanam. He owns a restaurant some way back on the road,  so we should have pasted it yesterday. After some talking,  we separated again. He was even able to meet Tomaz,  who was ahead of me as he started earlier. Oh yeah it was one of the only ways I was riding without a helmet as it was a climb, but the next climb I had I on again.

I was always checking the GPS to see when I would pass the 500 meters altitude, as the website told us yesterday, but I never saw it on my GPS… So I missed the summit of this hill and of todays route, but it was only 500, so nothing compared to what I will do the next days😀 And It was still very beautiful, see the pictures.

After the curvy and nice downhill, the road got straight but still in the forest so okay. But not for long. Then there came villages,  one after each other and only straight. So the last 60 km were kind of boring road,  but necessary to get to Butwal. From there it is only around 160 km to get to Pokahra, but with a climb of 1000 meters,  so I will probably not do it in one day. Tomaz advised to probably to it in 3 to 4 days. I need to see how well I am doing a real mountain.

As always I met Tomaz by chance on the road, I was a little bit wondering,  when I would meet him,  as I was only 13 km away from Butwal. When I just finished writing him a message,  he was passing me. So perfect timing.

We took a hotel a little bit outside the city and then went into the city via TukTuk for dinner. There we found out that it is the festival of night. The only thing we saw were kids running around coming to stores and restaurants, singing and getting money for it. Kind of like “Lichtmesdaag” in Luxembourg but without the lights.

So after a little walk in the city we wanted to take a TukTuk back,  which was really complicated, as all of the drivers were like: “no,  no,  it is to far away”. We then took one to get over the bridge,  where we then got another one,  which brang us to the hotel,  where we are now.

Oh and it is totally normal that there are lizards in a hotel, I don’t know if there is one in our room today,  but this one in the hallway did not run away when I was trying to take a picture of him😀

And now a little bit of beard trimming with a swiss army knife, as it starts to grow over my mouth…

Distance: 112.09km Time: 6:17 Total distance: 750 km

Yesterday evening I was able to meet up with tomaz,  who rode with me the first two day in india but then got sick. Now he is back on the road and was in the same city as me,  as it was the last city before the big jungle. For today we had the same plan as there was no other option: doing 111 km through the jungle,  as there is no other city on the way.

My night was kind of less sleep,  as there were people running around the hallway until 1 in the moring and I woke up at 6 in the morning. At 7:30 the kitchen opened and I could order breakfast to be on the road at 8:30.Tomaz stayed in another place,  so we decided to meet up in the next city.

After one kilometer on the road the jungle began. You can always see the start by these army checkpoints.

But as I found out during a talk with one of them is that they are not to control the people but to protect the people as they warn if there is any problem with animals in that section. There are some checkpoints on the road of the jungle.

In the beginning there were 2 really boring parts where the road goes strait. I don’t like that much.

After that the mountin climbing started. Often it went up some meters,  which i took really slowly, in order to manage the 111 km. At the end we even got to an elevation of 340 meters.

There were even monkeys on the road,  but the monkeys in the jungle are really scared of cyclists, as they don’t run away if there is a truck,  bus or car passing by, but if there is a cyclist approaching, they immediately run away in the bushes.

30 km before the finish city, Tomaz turned up behind me, I overtook him while he was doing a break and I did not see him. So the last kilometers we were riding together. I found out that if there is somebody riding with me,  I am able to ride faster. But it is also nice to ride at my own speed sometime.

Now we are in Lamahi and tomorrow we try to do again 116 km with a big hill of 540 meters. For dinner we went into the city and ate some noodles. When we were finished, we took a tuktuk to get back to our hotel. The driver was so happy to drive foreigners,  he put nepalese music on and was kind of dancing and screaming while driving. I was a little bit scared, but we arrived fine. We talked for a while in front of the hotel, but his english was bad. Now I am chilling in my room and going to sleep soon, to get up early in the morning to do another long trip to Butwal.

Here are some more images of today:

@Steffi: war sehr hügliger Abschnitt aber schön

Distance: Time: Total distance:

After a romantic night with my bicycle, I started fresh in the morning with a good breakfast. If you ever come to this area I can only recommand this place “Nepal Wildlife Resort”, the people are nice,  the food is good (it feels good to eat some continental food) and its clean. ☺️

The outside of the hotel this morning:

So to get back on the main road I need to ride the 13km bumpy road of yesterday back. The more I ride such roads I get a better feeling for them, so I can better and faster ride. Today I was even able to ride 20km/h, but it still depends on the road. After one hour i have reached main road again, it is like heaven to ride it😀 After some kilometers I also left the national park,  so the landscape got back to more farms and shops instead of forest. The national park I was in:

Nearly at the end of the bumpy road I needed to cross this river,  good that my paniers are water proven. No panic this place is ment to be crossed as shown on the picture

Multiple tasks for today:

1. continue riding
2. get fuel for my stove. Since I am in Nepal, I was checking many gas stations, but all they always had was diesel, which I can’t use.
3. get cash as I am running out of it.

Solvings:

1. yeah done 75 km,  not so far as expected but okay,  tomorrow I want to do more

2. Done,  I actually found a station which had petroleum. After they hade made fun of me, because I am a cyclist at a gas station,  they gave me petroleum with a big smile on there faces.

3. Not quite yet done,  but soon,  the ATM next door of my hotel is in maintenance mode for one hour.

So the lack of money and power lead me to the decision to stop cycling for today and get a hotel. Currently I am in Kohalpur Bazar.

Some days ago,  I straped a little red lion flag on my top pannier,  so that people won’t ask the question anymore where I come from😂 Who would have know,  they are still asking

As I have good WiFi here I will try to upload some pics to older posts, but as I am still doing it only with my smartphone, it is still hard,  so don’t expect too much.

@Steffi: Erfolgreicher und schöner Tag