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“Bike into the Danger Zone”
So after the night of sweaty camping, the manky dive that was Arunkhola, the steam room of Gorusinge, we seem to have hit a good run. Lamahi, where we last updated the blog, turned out to be a right wee metropolis. It had a hospital (one room, some ancient looking equipment and a doc sitting outside waiting for patients – and one turned up in an equally ancient ambulance, thankfully not in too bad shape), a couple of restaurants (spoilt for choice) and even an internet cafe (though lack of electricity meant is wasn’t working). After a nice evening, able to relax in a reasonably clean room (loo/shower down the hall did stink of poos and wees though) we had a yummy dinner in a place that seemed to have a ‘womens-sitting’ as Phil was the only bloke there. These gorgeous women, in their beautiful and colourful garb still manage to look a bit less elegant when eating in the traditional Nepali way, with fingers rather than forks. I was impressed with how much some of them manage to put away too given how small many of them are! The best part of the evening was the cool breeze blowing. Bliss!
The next morning, after the best breakfast we have had since The Last Resort, consisting of: Omelette with paratha followed by paratha with banana and honey, and for me some coffee made with boiled bottled water just to be safe, we headed out of Lamahi at a sprightly 8.30am and in fact rode all day in grey cloud and a slight tail wind. What bliss to be out of the sun for the day and to have some breeze. We were headed for a place called Kohalpur and there were few other towns in between. After a morning of small ups and downs on a road that amazingly, continues to be good quality, we found a great spot for an early lunch – a tiny village that was in fact marked on our map but had no proper buildings, just huts. We have now got to grips with where to find good food and asked a woman who was cooking over a traditional clay oven if we could get dahl bhat. No problem! Even better, she had some fresh samosas just made so we had a few of those as a starter too. All delicious. Given it was cool enough we sat and read our books for a few minutes before getting back on the road, given by this stage it was only about 12.45 and we have done 55km of our 112km for the day we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. The road was reasonably flat, a few gentle ups and downs but nothing major. We arrived pretty early in Kohalpur, a place marked as a wee dot on the map (the same as the place we had lunch!) but was huge by comparison, and saw a sign in English for the Hotel Central Plaza. Thinking that looked like a likely candidate we followed the signs where they existed and eventually found a hotel – under construction but thankfully finished enough for us to stay. It was pure luxury compared to all else we have come across. CLEAN BATHROOM!! CLEAN ROOM!! Wow. And a fan that works even when the power goes off thanks to a generator. We were in heaven. Oh AND, on the ground floor of the hotel, both an internet cafe and….an Ice cream shop!! No more lean mean cycling machines powered by dahl bhat for us! To top it off the hotel had a restaurant attached and after deciding we had eaten our share of Chinese, dahl bhat, momos etc, we settled on a dinner of pizza, spicy potato curry and fried garlic naan (pretty much as close as you could get to Pizza, garlic bread and fries though that was not our intention).
Our hotel hosts were really friendly and gave us some tips for our ride the next day. I didn’t hear anything other than “danger zone, tigers, elephants, 15km”. Eek! Apparently our road goes right through Bardia National Park and there is an area of dense jungle where it is rumoured that motorcyclists have been attacked (and eaten!) by tigers. Phil was quite keen to see a tiger in the park but I was not so sure that ‘seeing a tiger’ from a heavily loaded push bike was such a good idea. My eyesight is not that good that to see it would mean it would be close enough to close the gap on my and my Trucker pretty damn quickly. So off we went for another day’s ride, a bit of trepidation but mainly just enjoying the views.

 It was a gorgeous sunny day, hot but not too hot (though maybe we are just getting used to it?) and the road was full of action.

Lots of people out on their bikes, including a large number of young guys who seem to have no qualms riding bright pink girl’s bikes called “Beauty” (they all look quite new – must be the latest fashion), women riding bikes at a leisurely pace in their bright saris and all of them usually riding at least two to a bike! As usual on these open sections of road with paddy fields all around there are always goats and cattle being herded down the road and we are often chased by beautiful butterflies – bright orange or yellow or black and white, they nose dive around us as we cycle along. Apparently Nepal us loads of the worlds butterfly species and they are everywhere.

After much of this lovely open riding the road headed into Bardia. It was really steamy and jungley in the park with long grasses bordering the roads (perfect for those pesky tigers to hide in). Thankfully no tigers for us but as we crossed over a bridge we looked out at the river and saw a wild elephant having a wash in the river.

It was soo cool. He was quite close to the bridge so we had a good look at him as he drank and splashed himself. What a treat! (and not close enough to get us!). There was another one just further down river as well. We were the only ones on the bridge so it felt like our own private view of the gorgeous creature going about his day.

Just as we were about to ride off, we also spotted a massive crocodile in the water directly below us. Crikey. No swimming in the river for us today! It hit home that there really are wild animals all around us in the park (uh oh!!). We had not reached the 15km “danger zone” yet either. After another lunch of dahl bhat (we are sometimes not sure whether we are eating in a restaurant or just in someone’s home as we sit and eat at what could be their table and eat the dahl bhat that is already prepared on the stove) we headed off to the next section of the park, the so called “danger area”. Having prepared a ‘tiger attack action plan” and unstrapped our front panniers to use as missiles should we need we were of course greatly disappointed (Phil) and relieved (me) to see nothing but a giant lizard pop out onto the road. We were soon through the park and arrived at what we thought might be our stopping point for the day, Chisapani, marked on the map as bigger even than Kohalpur (wow!!) so we had high expectations. We are reliant on the map to gauge whether a town might be a possibility to stay the night. After Chisapani the next place was marked as smaller and was a good 50km away and then awhile further to the next town. Luckily our host at Kohalpur the night before had suggested there is a town only 10km on from Chisapani and which has a hotel. We arrived in Chisapani, looked around and realised that our criteria for accommodation is this: a proper concrete building with plumbing and electricity. Unfortunately, though Chispani offered a hotel, it didn’t meet our criteria (in any respect!). Thankfully, as our hotel host in Kohalpur had suggested, there was a town about 15km on, with many brightly coloured concrete buildings and much more of a town than Chisapani (which we have renamed Shitapani). We also have a new approach to finding a hotel. Look for the newest and most brightly coloured concrete building and ask if it is a hotel. Though there are some hotels signed they often look to be of Arunkhola standard so we don’t bother with that anymore. Though not to the standard of Kohalpur, here in Lamki we have a clean room and a decent bathroom (maybe our standards are dropping??). Most importantly, we are not in the tent! When some fellow cyclists in Tibet advised us not to camp in the lowlands of Nepal because of Tigers we laughed but now….no camping for us.
Oh and a couple of other things we saw en route to Lamki: A stylish looking dude breezing past on the back of a motorbike, extravagantly blowing me (I hope) a kiss; and more disconcerting, a ‘parcel’ being held down by two men and wrapped tightly in sacking and string, making distinct ‘squealing piglet’ noises. Still spotting lots of single shoes on the road and have many theories as to why there are never two. We did try to work out the mathematical probability of losing only one shoe but it all got too complicated in the heat and on the road. Elephants seem to poo on the side of the road so we didn’t have to shout out to avoid that. Generally the road here in Nepal has much less debris (minimal smashed glass especially) than China and also the cyclists seem better able to ride in a straight line and carry fewer hoes on their bikes. The buses and trucks still toot their horns but they are funky sounding horns and not as ear shattering as the Chinese ones. Hearing is recovering although we both have to repeat ourselves a lot when speaking to each other.
Tomorrow we are off to India (we hope!)
STATS:
Day 14 Lamahi to Kohalpur. Dist: 112km Avg: 20.4km/hr. Tim: 5hr 30 mins
Day 15 Kohalpur to Lamki: Dist 90km. Avg 20.4km/hr. Time 4hr 23 mins