Nepal 2

NEPAL

The ride to Katmandu was fairly easy and we even managed to find the guest house where Sean and Adrian were already staying, The priorite was to get the shipping of the bikes organised, so the next day we went to see the travel agent that many other overlanders have used and started to get the details sorted out, once the carpenter had been out to the hotel and measured the bikes up for the packing cases and our flights had been booked we were happy that we had done as much as possible, it was now a case of take the bikes to cargo at the airport on Monday morning and strip and pack them there. In Katmandu we had met up with one of Seans old school friends, a guy named Rupert, who lives in Chang Mai in Thailand but also has a place in Katmandu, Rupert proved to be a bad influence as we stayed up late and drank far to much, The sort of thing that we would never do !!!!. Rupert had organized for us all to ride the bikes out to Nargacot on Sunday and to meet up with a couple of ex-pat Americans and a guy who used to be the Czech ambassador (or something like that), unfortunately when we dropped by his house on the way he was unwell and so was not up to riding his Enfield up to Nargacot, so after having a beer with him we rode on up to Nargacot, following our American guide (Charles and .........................), We went to the fort hotel at Nargacot as this has the best view, on a clear day you can see Everest but we're not convinced that we could see it but you can see many mountain peaks from here, a nice place to relax but the hotel was empty.

At the Fort Hotel with Rupert, Charles, and .........

The view of the Himalayas from the Fort Hotel, Mt. Everest is out there somewhere ??

On Monday morning we went to the airport to pack the bikes, whilst customs checked through all our stuff the carpenter arrived and laid out the bases for the packing cases Cliffs bike was the first to be put on the base and have the front wheel removed, having removed the front wheel Cliff and Adrian lifted the front of the bike up to move it on the base and in doing this Cliff put his back out, This was not good as we had only just started to pack the bikes, thankfully there was plenty of help available but it put the main work load on to Sean, Adrian and Jenny.

Jenny's bike with the front wheel out and ready for the rest of the packing case.

It took until about 4pm to finish packing the bikes and then we said a sad fair well to them as they were wheel away into the bonded warehouse, we all felt sad that this was as far as we could ride, it just did not feel right to be flying the bikes and ourselves to Bangkok.

Weighing the bikes on a very dodgy set of scales, this meant that they were heavier than expected and thus more costly to ship.

Once the bikes had been packed we had two days to kill in Kathmandu, so we finally got round to seeing some of the tourist sites, though this was limited by Cliff's bad back. We looked at Temples and Stupas and the old Royal Palace before returning to the hotel to rest, thus ensuring that we had enough energy to get out for a beer in the evening !!!.

The old Royal Palace and Temples in Durbur Square.

We were glad to be at the airport and on our way to Thailand where we could be reunited with our bikes and get on with our travels, Kathmandu itself was pretty good really, though we did not do the place justice, (to much else to do, and we did not feel sufficiently inspired to traipse around the place). South East Asia here we come !!.