Luckily, unlike most people, I didn't come to Nepal for the mountains. If I had, it would have been a pretty unfulfilling trip, as, upon every opportunity of glimpsing a spectacular Himalayan view, the sky was duly blemished with a thick, impenetrable fog. Still, that minor detail did nothing to dampen (excuse the pun) my time here - there were still the hordes of dancing girls, the Indian mafioso, squashed dogs, good old-fashioned rural life and dal bhaat to keep me entertained.....

SQUASHED DOGS:

Nepal, for me, started with a bang, splat and a very high-pitched squeal - after so many near-misses, I finally ran over a stray dog. It unfortunately got caught between myself and a truck I was overtaking and, quite sensibly, it decided that my bike was the better of a bad choice. There followed a bump (luckily it was only small), I think a crunch of some sort, and an ear-piercing squeal. Remarkably, it had hobbled off by the time I looked back so hopefully it got away with just a limp.

MAHENDRANAGAR BORDER POST:

I entered into Nepal via Mahendranagar in the Western Terai, an extremely quiet border post due to the periodical Maoist attacks in the area (I'd asked around and been told it was safe when I was going to head through). I arrived on the Indian side as it was getting dark and went through customs etc without a problem. I then rode on to the Nepali immigration which was bizarrely 3km away across what was either India, Nepal or just no-man's and. When I finally got to the Nepali immigration I was shocked to find it was closed, leaving me stranded for the night on this desolate 3km stretch having left India and unable to enter Nepal. Having already resigned to the fact that I'd have to pitch my tent in the immigration car park, I related my problem to a border guard who, after a little persuasion, allowed me to ride 15km into Nepal to the nearest town to sleep for the night, before returning first thing in the morning to get my passport and papers stamped. I therefore spent my first night in Nepal completely off the official records, with only a verbal promise that I'd return in the morning to go through immigration. If only I was a fugitive of some sort it would have been perfect!

THE WESTERN TERAI:

Even stranger, as I came to a stop, I was suddenly closed in upon all sides in an efficiently coordinated pincer movement. I soon realised, in a state of utter bemusement, that I was completely surrounded by a small horde of giggling young women, wearing flowers, sparkling jewelery and bright saris. I muttered a very confused 'um...hello', and after a moments awkwardness one of the girls took the initiative and began to sing, triggering a chorus of singing and clapping that suddenly rang up all around me. 

A drum and tambourine appeared from nowhere and the prettiest of the bunch was thrust forward and began dancing around my bike, soon to be joined by the whole crowd. I remained perched on my bike throughout, contemplating the strangeness of hurtling down the road one minute, the next, enjoying having 30 pretty girls dancing around me. After a few minutes performance, I was confident that I'd got my money's worth and paid the obligatory fee, and then, just like the parting of the red sea, the road opened up and I rode off to the sound of drums, singing and clapping.

THE FOOTHILLS OF THE HIMALAYA:

Having crossed the western regions of Nepal (and encountered one or two more road blocks on the way), I turned northward towards the mountains to the medieval town of Tansen, a romantic hilly settlement with a labyrinth of steep, narrow streets. As soon as I'd gained a little bit of altitude, however, a blinding fog descended, obliterating the spectacular views and, on these precipitous mountain roads, making the riding quite dangerous. I was even forced to stop a few times for want of seeing the road.

From Tansen I continued squiggling round the hillsides towards Pokhara. Every so often the fog cleared for a moment revealing a beautiful picture of small, overhanging mountain villages, bright green terraced farms, and, deep in the valley, a wide, glistening turquoise river, bordered on all sides by lushious paddyfields. At one point when the mist cleared I parked on the opposite side of the road to take a photo of one of these views.  Then, completely day-dreaming, I continued riding along the wrong side of the road (it's easy to forget when countries keep switching it round), until, about five minutes later, I was suddenly confronted with a lorry coming head-on at me round a blind corner. After a moments panic and confusion, I swerved back onto my side of the road. Luckily, the lorry driver held his ground and didn't swerve (or push me) off the cliff. This shock certainly woke me up and I endeavoured to double my concentration.

POKHARA:

Pokhara is very tourist-tailored, the lakeside being a mass conglomeration of hotels, restaurants, internet-cafes and travel agencies. I spent my time here trekking up to the Buddhist Peace Pagoda which overlooks the mirror-like Phewa Tal Lake and, apparently, the majestic Annapurna Range. I decided to try the 'scenic route' through the forest. It wasn't long before I'd lost the trail and was cut and muddy, forcing my way through the thick undergrowth, wondering exactly how I'd handle a Blair Witch situation (- find a river and follow it downstream to avoid going in circles). Anyway, I luckily wasn't forced to follow my well-thought-out survival plan and soon found a path that continued up to the stunning Peace Pagoda, which was well worth the walk even if I couldn't see the views. 

BANDIPUR:

After a very pleasant morning spent rowing on the misty Phewa Tal, I set out for beautiful Bandipur, described in the Lonely Planet as 'draped like a silk scarf along a high ridge above Dumre'. The town certainly was a 'living museum of Newari architecture', and fascinating to stroll around.  Not to be discouraged by my difficulties on the Peace Pagoda trek, I set out on a quest to find Mukundeswari, a Magar shrine atop of a distinctive twin-peaked hill about 7km NW of Bandipur. Unfortunately, my sense of direction failed me from the start and, as I later discovered, I set off in a SW direction.

Women carrying grass on
the Pokhara-Bandipur road

A few hours into my trek, I found myself deep in a dense forest, having lost any trace of a path, and cursing my stupidity for not bringing any water. After a few more hours of trying to retrace my steps, my hopes of finding my way and getting a drink were rekindled when I bumped into a peasant collecting wood. However, after asking him for the direction of Mukundeswari, he only kindly informed me that I was in 'tiger-country', before bounding off into the forest at a pace that I was too tired to follow. Ten hours after setting out, I finally arrived back at my guesthouse in Bandipur where, after drinking a gallon of water, I collapsed on my bed, exhausted.

KATHMANDU:

A cold morning ride brought me to Kathmandu, starkly contrasting the rest of Nepal with its many people and crowded, polluted roads. I headed straight for the tourist district, Thamel, where I immediately began searching for a cargo agent who could help me ship my bike to Bangkok. - [after researching into every possibility of getting to Thailand overland (through Burma or Tibet/China), I'd found, for various reasons, that it was absolutely impossible, forcing me to use air freight. Failing being able to take the bike, I tried to find a way I could avoid flying myself, but found that this too was impossible - India/Burma border was closed, only group visas were issued for Tibet and the road was impassable in the winter anyway. Also, there are absolutely no passenger boats or ferry routes to SE Asia from India, Bangladesh or the Andeman Islands.]

Because it's a dead end as far as overland travel east is concerned, Kathmandu is full of cargo agents and I made the appropriate arrangements for my bike without any hassle.

On my first night in Thamel I was put to shame when I met a Swiss guy, a year younger than me, who had done basically the same route as me but on a Vespa scooter. It made me realise just how lucky I'd been with my bike when he told me stories of only being able to ride in the early morning and evening and still having to stop for ten minutes every quarter of an hour to allow his tyres to cool down so they didn't burst from the heat (which they frequently did anyway).

I also had quite an odd experience here, surrounding two guys I met just as I was walking up the steps to my cargo agent's office. These guys approached me and we started chatting. They were obviously quite wealthy as they were smoothly dressed with black leather jackets, slicked-back hair and sunglasses. They said they were from Goa but worked for a very internationally established family business that took them all over the world, with family contacts in just about every industry. They asked me to join them for a cup of tea, and I said I couldn't at the moment, but they gave me a phone number to call them after I'd finished my business with my cargo agent. When I met my agent he said he'd overheard my whole conversation and urged me to stay away from those people, as he believed them to be members of the Indian mafia and responsible for luring tourists into gem scams etc, sometimes drugging them with doped tea before getting them to sign papers and hand over money in their drugged state. I thanked him for his advice but didn't really believe what he said.

When I left the office half an hour later, one of these guys was still lingering outside and came up pretending to be surprised to see me, saying he knew a good place for a cup of tea. Interested to test my agent's theory, I followed this guy to what turned out to be a jewellery shop

Prayer flags at Swayabunath
Stupa, Kathmandu 

journey to Japan, he mentioned that he needed to export some jewellery to a familiar office in Tokyo. He had a problem though, he had a lot of goods to export but if he went over the export limit he would be charged 250%. Then he proposed that, using my tourist visa, I could legally take a certain amount just with my luggage. He offered to pay for a return plane ticket to Japan, and when I got back, said he'd have 10,000 pounds cash (or in whatever form I liked) waiting for me. My instant reaction was to say no but he was still confident that I'd accept his offer. After continually refusing to have anything to do with it, and him gradually becoming more and more forceful and irritated with my stubbornness, he finally relented, adding before I left that I shouldn't mention this to anyone, as, if I did, it would cause him problems, and problems for him meant problems for me. 'Are you threatening me?' I retorted, and he replied that I should make my own judgement on that. Who knows, I could have made an easy 10,000 pounds and begun a fruitful career in the Indian mafia - when I think about it now, I can't help thinking that I may have been a little too hasty in refusing him.... 

KAVRESHTHALI VILLAGE:

I was originally planning to go on a solo, 8-day trek in the mountains (which may have been foolish going on past experiences) but my plans completely changed when, eating breakfast in a Kathmandu cafe one morning, I met Rufus (real name Briana, although, for some reason she insists on being called Rufus), an American gap-year student from Wisconsin. She was a member of 'WWOOF' (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) which is basically a volunteer organisation where you're given the contact details of member-farms who are willing to take on volunteers to help on the farm in return for food and lodging. Rufus needed to get to a farm in the village of Kavreshthali, about 10km outside Kathmandu, so I offered to give her a ride.

Just on the point of giving up we finally found the place, hidden down a very picturesque little valley of terraced paddyfields. Absolutely taken with the beauty of the place, the friendliness of the people and the idea of getting a taste of Nepali rural life (and perhaps a little worried about my impending trek), I asked if I might be able to do a couple of weeks work as well, despite having no farming experience whatsoever. They happily agreed so all of a sudden I was going to be a farmer for a couple of weeks.

Nepali rural life was characterised more than anything by the friendliness and generous nature of our hosts, Nirmalla and Udaav, who, from the start, welcomed us as new members of their family. The work itself consisted of weeding (for those, like me, who really don't have a clue, this basically involves hacking at the ground with a sort of miniature pick-axe, trying to avoid onions etc). Manual ploughing, which is as tiring as it sounds, involving me, being the man, doing the exhausting, explosive work of chopping up the densely packed earth into big chunks with a kodaalo (double-handed spade), for one minute bursts followed by 5 minute rests.  Rufus, being the woman, would do the different, but equally exhausting, breaking up of these chunks of earth, but, as this second job is more time consuming, she naturally wouldn't be afforded rest time (the women seem to work exceptionally hard here, not that the men don't too...).   Other duties included shovelling large quantities of fresh, stinky manure into buckets for Rufus to lug to the manure pile, every so often stumbling into ankle deep shit to provide some light relief for us all. Operating the Chinese-made mechanical tiller (I say operating, although I actually only used it for enough time to pose for a couple of photos), the most cumbersome and out-dated machine I've ever seen, was an experience in itself, made all the better by a continuous supply of freshly boiled potatoes, found in the mud and then cooked in the vent above the machine's water coolant.

I found my farming skills to be, perhaps, a little lacking. Numerous onions and young cauliflower were hacked to pieces in my efforts to protect them from weeds. I discovered, when I came close to losing a toe, that I didn't really have the hand/eye coordination for chopping wood, and I suppose the same was true for my attempt at milking cows, when I missed the bucket. For me however, it was not the work which posed the greatest challenge, it was my twice daily portion of dal bhaat that I feared most.

With the village children of
Kavreshthali

On the first night I was starving and enjoyed my meal, but perhaps had a little too much (it was hard not to with Udaav constantly piling up my plate). Breakfast in the morning was of similar quantities, served up before I had the chance to politely object. I spent the day in quite an uncomfortable state, praying for at least some variety. But alas, I had to wade through another monstrous portion of dal bhaat that evening, which, for the sake of politeness, a struggled with until the last grain of rice, desperately refusing any hint of a second. The damage, however, was already done. After a good deal of tossing and turning in bed, I found myself frantically trying to release the stiff bolt locking the front door, but, as I finally yanked it free and burst the door open, I'd gone past the point of no return. I projectile vomited all over myself and the doorway before managing to release a second batch in a conveniently placed pile of cow manure.

Now, the funny thing about dal bhaat is that it looks, tastes and smells exactly the same mixed up on the plate as it does when its been churning round your stomach for a few hours. Six hours later, breakfast was no longer a meal, but a brutal test of mental strength.

The farm work itself was actually quite minimal due to the fact that we'd arrived in what happened to be the quietest season. However, from early on in our stay, Rufus and I were under no false impression that our primary duties lied in farm work, but rather as entertainers for the village girls. On our first day Rufus introduced them to the card game 'Go Fish', interestingly pronounced 'Go Piss' in Nepali, and from that moment on they were incurable addicts. Our popularity as general 'entertainers' meant that it wasn't long before we were both being initiated into the exclusive clique of village girls and given our Nepali names, mine being 'Prakash', meaning 'sunlight', and Rufus' being 'Bile', which, as far as I know, means 'stomach acid' (probably a more appropriate name for me). Part of the initiation was also to give a solo freestyle dance in front of the crowd, unfortunately mine was made all the more embarrassing when it was witnessed by the village lads, who were coming to ask me if I wanted to play football, shattering the awe and respect generated by my motorbike.  As well as being given a

privileged insight into the activities and amusements of a group of village girls, we were also included in some fascinating religious festivals and on one occasion visited a remarkable Hindu temple, hidden in a cavernous opening between three enormous boulders resting on a high, forested mountain ridge. We were taken deep into the heart of the cave, into the holy of holies, where we made offerings of food, flowers and spices to a shrine consisting of numerous red-stained iron tridents, lodged into a mound of black rocks.  When the time came to leave, Rufus and I said a sad goodbye and were given a ceremonial tikka and necklace When the time came to leave, Rufus and I said a sad goodbye and were given a ceremonial tikka and necklace of flowers.

KATHMANDU: again!

I got on with sightseeing, it's a city positively crowded with temples and monuments, and organising the shipping of my bike. Remarkably it all went relatively smoothly, even when I had to dismantle it - I just hope I can put it back together again in Bangkok!

It has been strange travelling around without Tom, I have missed him and I think he's very jealous of me continuing east (although he's got another trip of his own lined up). However, I did find a very adequate temporary replacement in Rufus, who was not only much better looking and more intelligent, but also, quite strangely, not as much of a girl as Tom. It was also probably only her immense skill with the weeding tool that kept us so popular on the farm.

On to Bangkok now which I imagine will be quite a culture shock after life in rural Nepal, they certainly didn't have ping-pong shows amongst the paddyfields....