Stage 6 Tansen to Lumbini

I wake up feeling slightly better and have an appetite at long last so proceed to do the BRAT diet at breakfast. Anything beige without fibre or taste it seems. I’m still not able to muster of a solid turd so I know riding today is a risky thing but hey it’s all downhill….literally. It’s the last day of this ride and it would be a real shame to miss it. 

We take the obligatory team photos in the race kit and we drop off the mountain on this windy road through villages and small towns. We are warned the traffic is dangerous on this road and that is the case. Trouble is we’re faster than almost everything down this hill so we have to overtake. 

Chris  has some choice manoeuvers. He’s leading from the front and squeezing into gaps that make me have 2nd thoughts. I’m almost taken out twice by a scooter joining the road from the side with absolutely no look over the shoulder to check if there’s any traffic coming. They just barge on. 

We play chicken with buses and trucks down the hill.  The worst thing is to be stuck behind is it ancient truck hauling rocks or gravel because the dust and the diesel fumes are choking. Chris loses his chain a couple of times and so we’re rushed to try and get back on the road before we’ve just passed catch us up again.


After about 50 K, we’re off the hills and we say goodbye to the Himalayas totally and we’re on the Ganges plain. We spin on through small towns, villages, rice paddies and farmers fields on dusty tracks. It’s pretty rural and rustic here. 

Usha our guide seems to be the cause of much rubbernecking by the local men especially. I don’t think it’s very usual to see a lady tapping out a good rhythm leading a bunch of men on a bicycle in this part of the world   She is a bit of a monster uphill and will compete in the national championships next week. She has left us trailing in every hill so far. But we do have the advantage downhill…20 to 30 kg of it. 


There’s a funeral taking place on a river bank with a big cremation fire and a crowd. This is the second one we’ve passed in two days. In upper Mustang people practice ‘sky burial ‘ where  they chop the the body up in small pieces and take it to a high location and the vultures recycle the remain. Up there, wood for cremation is scarce, burial is not a good solution in the cold rocky soil so dealing with the bodies this way is a practical.

At the feed stop at 50K I’m already feeling a bit uncomfortable, but it’s warm and I need to drink so I load up. 5K later this has consequences. My guts are roiling. Another hour of butt clenching in store for me. My energy levels are low from yesterday and the day before so it’s a bit of a grind to get to the finish. 

We arrive at the outskirts of Lumbini on this pretty dreadful road then turn left onto a dual carriageway of all things. The hotel is 1 km to go and I know I’m going to make it. I turn into the gate and head straight to the bathroom. Just about in time. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kathmandu to Pokhara

Image
After a late night cobbling together the Bikes and re-packing our luggage we wake up in the international guest house finally meet everybody we’re going to ride with for the next week over breakfast.  The view from the guesthouse window is splendid but the noisy cacophony of beeping horns is less so. With warnings about dysentery and other gut related ailments ringing in my ears from people who visited here 20 years ago I stick to the old staple of beans and a pancake and black tea.  The bikes are loaded and strapped onto three 4x4 pickups and are dispatched by road  to Pokhara some 200km away.  As the journey can take between 6 and 12 hours driving, we are privileged to take a short 30 minute flight so we jump in a minibus and enjoy the madness of the Kathmandu morning rush hour.  It’s curiously chaotic but it seems to work. Road markings are completely redundant, the difference between your lane and the oncoming traffic lane is very arbitrary and roundabout ...
Read more

Stage 1 Chosang to Ghami

Image
We leave Lomantang in the 4x4s and drive up the valley to the nearest point we can get to the Chinese border. Before we leave, our hostess blesses us all with white scarves. At Chosang, you can see some Chinese buildings on the mountain top  in the distance but non Nepalese are not permitted to get any closer.   We prep the bikes, take a last pee and the Trans bit of Transnepal finally starts. It feels like I have been on this trip for ages just to get to the start point. It has been nearly a week and we have already pedalled uphill for 3 days.  We line up across the road, take one last pic and we are off! Or some of us are at least….Chris and I wait for the organizer of this event go go back to the truck to take off his down jacket.  Downhill and with a following wind, we set off under clear blue skies. We soon catch the early starters and pull ahead as we get near Lomantang and the first hill of the day bites. It’s not big but it reminds you that you need to respec...
Read more

Ghami to Lomantang

Image
Today we are trying to get to Lomantang early so we can see the town and visit some ancient cave houses. It will be a short ride after we take the sting out of the trail in the 4x4s as we continue acclimatisation.   We head off up the valley to some amazing sights. The giant cliffs are scarred with canyons and fluted gullies everywhere. This area gets very little precipitation but when it comes, the water washes everything away including the roads.  The road for the past 2 days has been nothing but rocky gravel and yet this is a main route to china from Nepal. It’s incredible to see trucks and busses creating clouds of dust as they blast past.  We get to the jumping off point for cycling at the oldest Buddhist monastery in Nepal. It’s no longer occupied by monks but the caretaker lets us in. We have to take off our shoes to enter the temple a there are sandals provided. A chunk of ice falls out of one as we don them. Oddly serene atmosphere inside the temple. Very peac...
Read more