Tag Archives: kathmandu

Bicycle Touring

Day 34: On a motorbike

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no cycling but biking,  distance: I don’t know,  somewhere in between 70 and 100 km

So this morning I finally got to rent a motorbike. After some negotiation I got a bike for 1400 NRP (11,94€) fuel and helmet included. It was something with I think  125cc.  Good enough for renting and driving the first time a motorbike😀 Afterwards I understood why they went so down with the price. The display for the speed wasn’t working,  so it always showed 0 km/h and kilometers weren’t counting too😂 But I didn’t care about it.

I asked for a good place to ride and went of. Out of the touristic place into the main road into the direction I was told to go. Police told me that the road is blocked by… they couldn’t tell me,  so I went around. Slowly I got out of Kathmandu, some waiting at intersections which were handled by traffic police. Out in the nature and little villages it was a beautiful road up the hill with lots of curves, I git used to shift gears up and down. Really great.
As I had my camera in my backpack it took me lots of time to take it out,  so I didn’t take that much pictures today.

The road to come up☺️

a good part of the bad road to go down

Same as on the bicycle,  always were a helmet, especially if it is a cool one

After reaching the top,  the asphalt disappeared and going down on the other side was more hard and slow work but still nice. Somewhere more down in the valley the asphalt came back and I started to get faster again (not too fast,  normal speed) Eventually there was some water on the road, because of a river I think,  I break with the front brakes and then… I kissed the floor… my front wheel blocked and went into another direction, me sliding on the ground next to my bike. Immediately some people came to help me,  got my bike off the road and stopped the engine. Really nice,  I was back on my feet in no time. I checked,  just some little abrasions and bruises. Luckily I had long cloth and my helmet on☺️ Just my gloves were in my backpack as they got too hot even when riding. One guy told me to get checked up in a medical place 1 km away. So I did, I got into an examination room and the guy packed out clean working equipment,  didn’t touched anything with his fingers,  just with clean pincers until he got out some glows and started cleaning my wounds. He just charged me like 100 NRP (0,85€ 😯) for his work. 

I continued to get back to return my bike. On the way there were even more traffic jams than on the way out. At the renting place they didn’t even noticed anything that the bike had a crash😂

Grabbed some dinner with Jimmy the Australian guy of my dorm and now I am relaxing in my room.My shoulder starts to hurt a little bit,  but I will be fine.

Will I ever ride a motorbike again? Hell yeah,  it was awesome,  I learned from it and now I know better😀

Originally I wanted to rent a motorbike again tomorrow, but I don’t know if there are any more cool roads near Kathmandu and I have to check how I am feeling tomorrow.

Bicycle Touring

Day 33: Sending a package

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no cycling

Todays task: sending a package contains my tent,  stove, water cleaning system,  isolation mat and cooking stuff back home as I will never use it. I will keep back my sleeping bag,  as it can be useful when the blanket isn’t that warm☺️

So I informed myself first: price,  opening hours, required documents. First I did a copy of my passport as they need one. Then I organized my stuff so that I could send home my front panniers home too as I don’t need them anymore. I packed everything to send in my front panniers and everything to keep in the 3 back panniers. Outside the guest house I just wanted to know how much a taxi would be to get there,  because walking half an hour with the panniers isn’t the best method. The taxi drivers I asked all seem to don’t know the official post office,  so I decided not to take a taxi but walk. Just out of curiosity I checked out one of the many places, where they offer cargo service. After he got me a price of 8$ I was curious because I know that 10kg cost around 80$ in the post office. Then he told me that it is 8$ per kilo. After weighing my luggage (8,2kg) he tried to calculate the price and always started with 8*8,2+?-x±y=price. You see what I mean,  then I went out to go to the real post office.

Arrived there it was 12 o’clock so I had 2 hours left before they close. Yeah you need at least one hour. Here the procedure

  1. Fill out the form,  which is only available in nepaleas language. On the table there was a form taped,  where the required filed were explained in english,  but still I needed help from a women sitting there (I think she was a post employee). I wrote down sender,  receiver and content.
  2. Bringing the filled out form back to the guy who gave it to me,  he checked it and told me which fields were missing,  so I filled them too.
  3. leaving the form there I needed to find a carton box (they had many of them there) were all my stuff would fit in. Eventually I found one with the help of an employee.
  4. That employee closed the carton with tape and sewed fabric around it.
  5. On this fabric I then wrote the receiver’s address (my father) and my own name and phone number.
  6. By another guy the seam got sealed with wax.
  7. Then I needed to go to one desk who send me back to the first desk to get my form I left there which I needed to pay for (5$).
  8. Finally somebody behind a counter accepted my package. But again I needed to fill out another form with receiver, sender and content. This form was then taped on my package where the address was already written on😂
  9. They weight it (9 kg, the carton box and fabric make the difference hopefully). I paid 6135 NRP (52,69€)
  10. I received a sheet and was told that there is a tracking number on it☺️

20 to 30 days should it take for the package to arrive.

My package is the next to be sealed

As half of the day was already passed I decided not to rent a motorbike today. Instead I visited some more temples and places of worship on foot as yesterday. Originally I wanted to visit 2 places marked on my map but I got stuck in the first place as I had to pay an entrance fee and got a free to pay guide (at the end I could give him whatever I want). So he showed me the temple called Pashupatinath. It’s a place where people are cemented after death. He also explained me a little bit about the hindu religion. After more than 2 hours of going around,  seeing fires where bodies were burning,  I went back to the hotel as it was already 16:30 and the sun started going down.

So and from now on there will be dead bodies on the pictures!

Tomorrow I will finally rent a motorbike (hopefully) 😂

But first I have to drink rum with my russian roommate in my dorm 😀

Bicycle Touring

Day 32: Doing some tourist stuff

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no cycling

EDIT: I don’t know what my blog has now,  but it is showing images taken in portrait as landscape, when you download it or open it in a new tab it’s orientated the right way.  Also in my editor it is orientated the right way… I am trying to fix this…

So today on the program were the bigger temples (e.g. the monkey temple) a little bit outside of the touristic center but still in reach of foot distance. So I just marked the points on my map and started walking. By walking through parts where less to no tourists go,  I could see more how life is here☺️ Lots of pictures not that much of text. And it isn’t even everything I saw☺️

sometimes there is a really nice little green park in the middle

While walking some people started to talk to me. On of them then showed me a little bit around and told me a little bit. I forgot his name🙁

Finally there are some people in my dorm at the guest house. With Jimmy,  an Australian guy, I will go for dinner with some more people from Belgium (not Kim and Nathalie),  Netherlands and Japan😀 We went to this one place, where they have the best fries. As far as the guide book is right,  the cook went to Belgium to learn how to make good fries. They were good,  but didn’t have my sauce Andalouse!

Tomorrow I will either go to post office and check how to send some stuff back home as I don’t need it (tent,  stove and water cleaning system) or I will rent a motorbike and drive out a little bit☺️

Bicycle Touring

Day 31: trying to get a new handlebar bag

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no cycling

This morning I walked in the touristic streets. First to get some breakfast then to see a little bit of everything,  there are lots of little temples, but I didn’t went out to the big once, that is something for another day.

Then I saw the consulate of belgium:

In front of which was a climbing wall

with one of the coolest training boards I have ever seen

I am amazed of the graffiti and wall arts which are sometimes here

Work security? He was painting the wall. Actually there is a second one sitting behind him also painting

In the afternoon I spend like 5 hours to get a handlebar bag as my old one doesn’t have the impression to last the whole trip. I went to the Vaude store, as they told me on the phone they would have some, but they misunderstood me. When I arrived there they gave me a bag for my rack, where my red panniers are hanging. When they finally understood what I needed, they told me that they sold the last one some time ago… But they called a guy who is asking around and he is currently my last hope. After I left the store I checked out some decent bicycle stores, bu they only sell mountain bikes and no bags… Otherwise I will try to stabilise the bag a little bit.

As I still want to do my motorbike touring, I will probably rent one in the next days, as it was already an idea in Pokhara.

I was just informed that some images are turned the wrong way, you can tell me that , then I can try to turn them the right way.

I also added the video of me juggling 3 rocks at Annapurna Base Camp at day 19

Bicycle Touring

Day 30: Even more beautiful

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Distance: 52,59 km Time: 4:48 Total distance: 1432 km

WUHUUU one month on the road. I will probably write something,  a little review of the first month,  when I find the time. For now just my day:

I expected the sunrise to be more beautiful,  but the view was a little bit in the wrong direction,  so only a few mountains had this red color,  but still beautiful.

For breakfast I had spicy curry potatoes,  with omelet and homemade bred😀 The production of the bread:

After 5 km of going down, I got to a junction,  where I had to decide: good road with asphalt,  which all the jeeps were taking and was 80km or the road without asphalt,  40km and no jeeps (remember trucks and busses weren’t on that road). I choose the more silence shorter one. Right decision. The climbing started again (on the other road I would have had to climb too). But it wasn’t as steep as yesterday and there were all the time more flat parts in between. Also the landscape… amazing. I don’t know if it was because of the less traffic (still some motorcycles and few jeeps) or if it really was even more beautiful than yesterday.

Around 12 o’clock I got over the last hill,  to finally see: KATHMANDU

while I was enjoying the view,  taking this picture,  some dogs decided to guard my bike (okay the one on the left looks like he is sleeping)

From now on the road has asphalt again. Really it started on the top of the hill. Going down I finally saw a temple with some monks in it

To arrive closer and closer to Kathmandu




As in Pokhara I had to have lunch with my 2 belgium friends Kim and Natalie,  as they happen to still be in Kathmandu😀

I am not decided yet what to do tomorrow, because I have still some stuff to do before fighting out on 9th December. For example find a box for my bike.

Bicycle Touring

Day 29: valley of carrots

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Distance 33,90 km Time: 4:32 Total distance: 1379km

Sadly the wifi is too slow and I have to leave the restaurant where the wifi is,  so I will add all pictures to a later moment In Kathmandu the internet was great, I uploaded and added the pictures☺️

The reason why it is only 33km is the climbing,  I started at 345 m in Hetauda and am now on the top of a hill at 1875m, so I climbed 1530 m,  which is an average steepness of 4,5%,  which wasn’t there at the beginning,  there it was nice to climb. 10 km after Hetauda then came the junction, where I had to choose between,  continuing on main road or take an alternative route with less traffic. I choose the one with less traffic,  so no more trucks,  no more busses (except 2 school buses). Just Jeeps transporting people. Later on ai understood why,  too steep. But in the beginning everything was okay.


This morning when I went for breakfast:

At 11 I met a british women with her land rover and telling me,  the road will get worse. Why do people always do that?😂


Shortly after I met her,  I came into a town with a toll booth or police check point and every car had to stop. I didn’t have to but I wanted to have lunch,  as I didn’t know, when the next place would come and I saw that the road would get steeper. So I asked a guy there,  where to get some food. He turned out to be a little crazy😂 the one with sunglasses:


We ate some chicken chowmein together and then went off. I ate a second plate, bought some more water,  as I had no clue where the next place for anything would be. The road started to get really steep afterwards. At the exit of the town,  I changed to granny-gear (the smallest gear there is) and started pedaling. Just 7 km and 800 meters of altitude ahead of me, but they were really taking everything off me. I even pushed my bike a little bit…

I am constantly complaining about how hard it is,  but the reason why I do this is simply the landscape,  it makes everything worth it😀 Sadly I couldn’t do a picture of every nice spot as I then would spend too much time taking pictures. On the other hand,  I can’t always stop in the hill as I have to somehow block my bike,  while I take out the camera and take the picture and sometimes the bike with the panniers are their own creature and move into directions you wouldn’t have guessed…  So here you can see a result of everything I got today.




me😀


After the last town where I ate for lunch,  people started selling carrots. I was a little bit irritated why suddenly,  but okay.

Still one of my favourite stuff being transported here are goats. The are just placed on top of a bus or a van. A rope to kind of fix them (?) and then they roll. It gets funny when the vehicle goes around a corner,  then they sometimes fall to the side and get up again😂 I always saw them passing by so I newer could take a picture. This time it was placed right in front of me😀

Arrived at the top I went into the first place I saw with “Hotel”  written on it to get a price. “No room here”. It was 4 o’clock,  it couldn’t be. Actually they don’t have rooms,  they are just a restaurant with “hotel”  in their name… But there was one place of the 6 houses up here which actually has rooms as is so a hotel😂 So currently I am here: 27°34′11.22″N 85°08′48.84″E

Tomorrow I will start with a nice ride down into the next valley,  from which I then will start climbing again to get over the last hill before I can see Kathmandu and hopefully arrive there. Alternatively I could stay another day on the road I don’t know yet.