“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
- Alain de Botton
After the first day's hellish ride from Kathmandu to the border, we stopped for the night at a small hotel just a few hundred meters from the Friendship Bridge. Although the next day's ride to the scenic little town of Gyirong would only be about 40km, stopping on the Nepal side of the border for the night was necessary, although I wouldn't understand exactly why until tomorrow.
"Hellish" is an apt description for the first day's ride. The surface that some referred to as a "road" was little more than a path cut alongside cliffs and massive boulders that wound up and down through various mountain passes, over creeks, and across narrow bridges. The path was barely wide enough for one lane in most locations, but that didn't stop truck drivers from aggressively fighting for turf at every turn. I was reminded of my first enduro race over 25 years ago. It was to be a friendly ride through the west Texas canyons with regularly scheduled snack stops. Nothing in any description prepared us for the terrain we would face on day one. I thought getting out of the Kathmandu city limits earlier that day was stressful. I quickly realized that the only thing trying to kill me in the city was aggressively-driving people. The clear and present danger on the route from the outskirts of town to the border was nature itself; unforgiving, unyielding, and unapologetic. I figured it couldn't be any worse than the shit roads I traversed on my way to Alaska riding my 800 pound Harley in 2011. I figured wrong.
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| I Learned I Would've Made a Lousy Bombardier. I missed my Squatty Potty! |
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| The Tibetan Border from my Hotel |
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| Electric Cars from China Awaiting Transport into Nepal |
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| Even the "Strays" Were Decorated |
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| Riding Up in Dry Weather Was Easy. Down in the Rain, Not So Much. |
Unlike my Harley Davidson Road Glide that I rode to Alaska, my rented Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle was an appropriate bike for the terrain. But, it needed serious suspension work and it had a carburetor instead of fuel injection. The odometer read 40,000km. This bike had been there and back. My conditioning for the trip allowed me to dampen the brutal bumps and potholes with my ankles, knees, elbows, and shoulders. I essentially became a bio-mechanical extension of the Himalayan's suspension. Still, I knew I was in for a world of hurt once we climbed above 15,000 feet. That train of thought would have to wait as I focused solely on the immediate challenges.
After each mountain pass, we would ride into small towns with roads wide enough for two vehicles. Unfortunately, the "extra" space was typically occupied with livestock; goats, sheep, cows, yaks, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, and even some strange variety of deer. Every town was an E-I-E-I-O experience. We were forewarned to beware of free ranging livestock and to avoid them at all costs. Hitting a chicken was easily a $200 payment to its owner for the chicken, and all the eggs and chicks it might produce over a lifetime. A goat was $500. It was as if they had a published price list. So, any respite from the mountain terrain we might have enjoyed in the small villages was negated by pedestrians and livestock. The locals easily spotted a tourist mark and would stand directly in front of our bikes trying to sell us trinkets. Some would send their kids up to beg for money.
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| Beat Up and Wondering What I've Gotten Myself Into |
After seemingly countless mountain passes and small towns, we found ourselves rattling into the border town of Syabrubesi and into a small hotel for dinner and a much-needed shower and bed. By western standards, this hotel was a dump, but it was clean, the staff were friendly, and it had surprisingly robust Wi-Fi. In the coming days, I would learn that this would be the last usable Wi-Fi I would see until we departed China. The doors in this hotel had outside deadbolts so they could lock "guests" in if needed. I was on my best behavior, just in case.
Dinner was served around 7:00pm, and while we were starving and ready to eat, we were all still tweaking from the ride in. The Tweaking didn't stop us from cleaning our plates though and we began to relax as the beer in our bellies absorbed the spicy hot food. I was silently praying I wouldn't need a fire extinguisher in the bathroom.
We knew the hardest part of the trip in terms of terrain was past, but we were keenly aware of two facts: One, altitude sickness would be a real threat in the coming days as we passed through the northern part of our route towards Everest, and Two, We would have to traverse the same hellish route we had just completed twelve days from now on our way back to Kathmandu.
Those facts didn't sway our collective enthusiasm. Our little group came back to life as the evening passed. We were one step closer to realizing a shared dream of gazing upon Everest, and the next step would be crossing into China tomorrow.
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| Dinner! I Brought My Own Fork and Spoon |
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| Door Latches Outside the Room |
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| I Was Glad I Ate Before I Saw the Kitchen |