You'll be pleased to know that we've made it to Nepal. In fact for most of you it's old news! Our friend Nick has said that our blog is fast becoming a historical document - apologies again! The drive here was mammouth - I think we've clocked up almost 3000km between us. To try and maintain some sort of chronological order to the blog, I'll deal with the journey first and then Nepal. I hope it's not too boring - it's better when it's fresher!
We last left you when we had departed from a very wet Goa. We visited our old camping spot in Agonda and found everything closed. The restaurant and bar owners had dismantled nearly every beach hut and in the permanent structures the hatches had well and truly been battoned down. It was wet, deserted and wild. Nothing like the winter idyll we'd grown to love.
The monsoon is all pervasive. Everything feels damp all the time and it takes 3-4 days to dry any washing! We had thought to spend 2 days relaxing before we left, but it really wasn't the weather! So we set off; gently at first, only doing 200km on our first day and setting off at 10 and finishing at 4. We had thought to drive through the centre of India but heard that the roads were bad. Time wasn't really on our side so we decided to go on the highways. The four major cities of India; Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta) and Chennai (Madras) are linked up with a quadrangle of pretty good highways.We decided to head for Dehli and then cut east towards Agra - where the Taj is - and then over to Varansi before heading north into Nepal. After a day's driving we had reached the highway and our lifestyle for the next two weeks was established: up at 6-7, coffee, drive for two hours, breakfast, drive until just before sunset, 6ish, stop at a motorway services, eat, wash and in bed asleep by 8!
The motorway services are not quite what you may think of at home. They are usually pretty close to the road and most nights we needed earplugs to sleep. We swap driving every two hours so that neither one of us gets too tired. We quite liked the sense of purpose that we got from being back
There are few things about the drive that are of interest here, but some are worth mentioning. We stopped at Pune on the way up as we had concerns about the tyres. The tread was wearing unevenly and after we had spotted it we decided to stop in Pune in case we needed to change them or something. Pune is just east of Mumbai and is a city of 3 million. It has a huge student population and is a really nice city. Its also famous for the Osho Ashram - Osho was deported from America after they questioned some of his methods -
Anyway, we stopped on the outskirts of Pune by the race course as it seemed quiet and had space. A couple of people had told us we may have problems as there was a military base nearby and they patrolled at nighttime. After the third person stopped and spoke with us we thought we maybe we should move. Fortunately for us the third set of people to stop were Tushar and Nita who lived not far away and said we could park near them.
We followed them home and parked outside their apartment. They were on their way to the hospital where they do voluntary work with burns victims. They left us to it and invited us for breakfast the next day. Such hospitality - can you imagine meeting two foreigners on the street and taking them home and making them breakfast?!
The breakfast was lovely - Nita is a great vegetarian cook. Both her and Tushar are Jains (pronounced jay-een). Over breakfast we were educated about Jainism and learnt about the voluntary work that they do in the hospital. The government hospitals are, by all accounts, underfunded and in a poor state. The burns wards are some of the worse. Many people here cook with kerosene stoves- many of which are faulty - and are consequently burnt - badly. Tushar and Nita decided they wanted to give something back to their local community and decided that every other night they would visit the ward and help people. Great people whom we were very fortunate to meet.
Tushar showed us the way out the next day and we were on our way towards Mumbai. I couldn't possibly do that city any form of justice by describing driving through it, so we'll leave that one til after we've actually stopped there! We headed on past Mumbai and towards the next state of Gujarat. As we were heading north the temperature was starting to climb and it was becoming more humid. The night times were the worst. The days weren't so bad as we were heading north and only had the sun in the cab in the early morning. We also had a constant breeze pouring in through the windows. But, when we hit Jaipur in Rajasthan and started heading East towards Agra the temperature was very uncomfortable. We lay in bed sweating as if we'd both been out for a hard run!
It was around this time that we started to question the wisdom of visiting Varanasi. We changed plans and headed towards cooler climes. Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh was our final two day stop in India before heading for the border. Lucknow was a major centre for the British Raj, has some great architecture and is a typical busy Indian city. We picked up provisions there as we had heard that most things in Nepal were more expensive. We also needed, so we thought, American dollars for the Nepali border. This proved impossible to organise as the Indian government says that Nepal takes Indian Rupees and has forbidden the buying of dollars in India to go to Nepal.
Rupees in hand we headed north. After 14 days of solid driving we crossed the border into Nepal at Nepalganj. We had no real problems getting our visa once the guy realised it was Rupees or nothing! We slept that night just across the border and it was definitely cooler. We were so looking forward to a good night's sleep but a young Nepali guy had other ideas. He was a very well educated and clever young man who was desperate to practice his English. He knocked on our van door every hour from 6 to chat with us!
Driving in Nepal felt like a walk in the park in comparison to India. We hardly saw any trucks on the road, in fact hardly any traffic at all. We actually said it was like driving through Longleat safari park - without the Lions! We were following the base of a set of hills below the Himalaya that run from west to east. Pokhara was our destination as our friends Amelie and Til whom we met in Goa were there. After a few days driving we had only seen low lying hills, but as we started to head north towards Tansen we started climbing. The scenery was beautiful and we hadn't even seen any big mountains yet!
Pokhara is the second largest town in Nepal and boasts a stunning backdrop; the Annapurna himalayan range. We, however have seen these mountains once in 6 weeks! The monsoon clouds are keeping an almost permanent curtain infront of the mountains and we eagerly await the opening night - or day, as it were! Pokhara's mountain backdrop and its huge lake make it a really popular toursit destination, but again the monsoon has kept most toursists away. So, what can you do during the monsoon? Walking and cycling have been the two things keeping us most busy, as well as using inner tubes to float on the lake.
We spent the first week camped in the town next to the lake and got some little jobs done on the van and met some of the few travellers and tourists left in the Sun Welcome restaurant. You couldn't cook for as little as the price! We also met some paragliders here. Pokhara is one of the capitals for paragliding -you can imagine the views. Mark had his first flight, which he may come on here and explain - brilliant! I'm waiting til October when everything is just a little clearer.
After a week our friends Amelie and Til arrived from Kathmandu and we drove 10km around the lake to a small village called Pame where, based at the end of the valley is an overlanders campsite. However to reach it we had to do our first river crossing - again we'll put the photos up later, but suffice to say we made it. Although we did wonder whether camping in between two rivers at the base of the valley was the wisest thing to do in the middle of the monsoon!
We spent 4 weeks camped here in our very own private bog! The ground was so wet and muddy from the perpetual rain. But, we had many days where it was sunshine - in fact most time the rains came it was in the night. So, we took inner tubes and floated down the rivers nex to us and walked back (thanks Rob and Sagar), cycled in and out of Pokhara, washed in the stream running next to the campsite (Mark said he felt as if he were in an advert for hair products - leave you feeling fresh as a mountain stream!!), walked up the closest mountain - Sarangkot with our bikes and then rode down the other side, walked to the world peace stupa and got the boat back accross the lake, and shared great food and lots of fun with Amelie, Til, Ole and Ford (two dogs!).
After 4 weeks Kathmandu was calling, but that can wait for the next instalment.
Back sooner rather than later - promise!
Jo and Mark xx
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