Today was the first day of the bandha – the national strike.  The Maoists had called for a general strike as they want the PM of the current government UML to resign.  There is a whole political fracas going on over the years – too detailed to write about here – but it coming to a head with the need for a new constitution having to be written by May 28th.  So – basically when the Maoists call a strike everything – we mean EVERYTHING shuts down.  ATM’s close, banks, shops, cafes etc etc.  They were only ‘allowed’ to open between the hours of 6 pm – 8pm.  We had to make sure that we were fed and watered by 8:30pm at the latest because at that time shop owners were getting a little nervous – they needed to close up.  The boards would go up – even when we were eating in a small, cheap but very good Tibetan café near the Inn the owner moved us into the back (where his small motorbike was parked) and put up the shutters.  They are afraid of reprisals from the Maoists.
No one knew how long this was going to go on – the word indefinite was banded about a lot.  We heard that last year the bandah was 19 days long! 
We saw on the news that thousands of demonstrators had gathered in Kathmandu – it looked fairly peaceful initially.

We took a few walks through the deserted streets of Pokhara – very strange. Only bicycles and pedestrians.  No cars allowed no motorbikes.  The only vehicles allowed were tourist ‘vans’ and only a few of those.  No motorbikes only those with press stickers and only UN Human rights people.  Some of the other Enfield riders and Nico were out on the roads on their bikes but after hearing a few stories of a group of Maoists grabbing their keys out of their ignitions and shouting at them to get off the road we thought it best to keep off the roads…we are not exactly inconspicuous!

So – due to the strike our tyres are still being held by the FedEx office in Kathmandu.  .  The planes are running however, they cant use any transport to get them to the airport.  We will have to wait.  Based on advice we are going to stay at the guesthouse for the time being. 
Sat and worked. Watched films.  It rained.  Went out a few times but there were demos going on.  Didn’t get on the bikes at all.

OK – so now the shopkeepers are getting depressed. You can tell in the way they are lackluster in opening up (hardly worth the effort and electricity) for just 2 hours.  Not many smiles.  It’s hard enough for them to earn a decent living but with this strike even that is being taken away from them.  Everyone is stuck to the TV and the news trying to figure out just how long this is going to go on for.  Tourists are leaving Nepal in their droves, and the amount coming in has gone to an almost all time low.  This can’t go on like this can it?  How will the normal people survive?
Apparently the support for the Maoists has not been as blanket coverage as they thought.  There have been sporadic fights and retaliation of the governments supporters against the Maoists, plus some rural villages have taken to ignoring the bandah.  If this carries on will it turn into civil war?  Let’s hope it won’t get that far.
We still haven’t been out on the bikes. Too many young Maoist supporters waving big sticks for my liking.

Friday night and we have just heard that the strike is off!  Everyone is really happy. Al the staff in the guesthouse- the shopkeepers – everyone is smiling.  What a relief.  Our tyres will arrive now and we can get on the road and go see some things J

Today – first day after the strike-we started the bikes…..mine was fine.  Simons didn’t start – nothing, nada.  The battery was completely dead.  How was this?  Was it something Simon had altered in his electrics the other day?  But it had been fine for around a week.  After borrowing a trickle-charger from Rangus (bullet workshop) and leaving it on overnight he started it after trying for a few times – but it sounded like a bag of nuts and blots!?  I have never ever heard it like that before.  He had been adjusting his throttle bodies – can it be that?  So we spent the whole day at the workshop.  Simon looked at the fuel mix, draining the tank, then the spark plugs, got some new ones, then finally the coil.  Oh no – it looks like it’s the coil. 

10th Still no tyres. Went and walked Sarangkot.  At 5500 feet hight the viewing tower is easy to see from Lakeside in Pokhara- it takes around 3 hours to get up to it ….but boy! It was harder than we thought it would be.  It was almost straight up via a series of small steps all the way – yep! 3 hours of stepping!  There would have been a time (around 10 years ago!) that this would have been easy – a small warm-up, now however we were both feeling it right at the end.  Simons outer thighs cramping and my knees and hips aching – not enough muscle support anymore.  What a state to be in.  We realize that we are very fit for riding hour and hour off road but hiking – that’s a different thing all together. We must do more whilst we are here. 
After puffing our way up the hill we reached the top and the clouds had just covered Fishtail. L Ah well – another day but the next time we come up we will come on the bikes.

11th – tyres eventually arrived!  Yippee.  But as Simons bike is still not sound good and so we have now had to order a new coil from the USA!!  Sigh.  We will however put the new tyres on my bike as we want/need to have a few days back in the tent for our sanity! 

So we have decided we will go and visit Sanu.  Both him and Kamala have invited us to have a meal with them.  The both came along on their small motorbike and  we all headed off together. However I was on the back of Sanu’s bike whilst Kamala was on the back of simons!!  This will be interesting as we will ride on out around 13km to Sanus house, which is near Pokhara lodge.  Sanus’ little bike did really well with me on the back – even though he is ued to the much lighter Kamala!!  The small road up had quite a few twists and turns – steep in places – and Kamala seemed to be having fun on the back of simons bike!! 

We arrived and parked the bikes up just outside the gate leading to his house – well, the house is a small long concrete block separated into two areas.  One is the area where Sanu and kamal have their bed and personal items and the other is where Sanus mother (and now Kamala) cook and I think where the mother also sleeps… - we were treated like honoured guests and Sanu had even gone and got some light larger in for us! The meal was fantastic.  Dhall, lamb cooked in a rich sauce, rice and some local veg.  Fantastic.  The mother had come up from the rice fields (they are prepping the land now for replanting) to cook and help prepare the meal.  It was interesting that she sat in the background and only ate after we four had finished.  She then cleared up and washed up in the bowls of water that are stored near the house, whilst we went up to Tiger lodge to see where Sanu works.  My parents had been here a couple of times before and stayed at the lodge which is how they first came in contact with Sanu and made a strong connection with him.  I must say it IS beautiful but expensive to stay there!!  As we wandered around Sanu introduced us to the manager who had been in contact with my parents on and off since they had stayed here.  Nice guy. 

We were keen to see if there was an area we could camp at some point as staying in the guest house all the time is OK but not cheap and we dearly miss our tent!!

So we saw a few potential areas but that would mean leaving the bikes further down the hill and hauling everything up…possible but we shall have to have a think about the practicalities and how happy we were leaving the bikes not within eye sight. 

“…YUUUUCKKKK!  We had left the bikes covered with a huge tarp for a few days whilst we heade into the hills around Pokhaa for trek, nothing fancy just us and a map.  With the bikes covered we had not really checked them whilst waiting for Simons spare parts …the moist air, heavy rain etc. had allowed the bikes to become someone elses home!

We had swarms of ants everywhere and a rat had made a nest under simon’s fuel tank and eaten through the red power cables leading from his battery, it’ll all need replacing.

The ants were everywhere, only after a few days!!  We found them all under Simons seat, inbetween the front lights, in the indicators……in the exhausts (they all got a fright when I started mine! Hehe) it was disgusting.  As I was riding my bike I found them running along the handlebars.  We kept finding them days afterwards.  These little buggers get everywhere.  They had also laid their eggs all over the place.  It looked like rice.  I even found them inside the BMW roundel on the side of my tanks!  Gave me the willies!!

It took ages to give them a good clear out!  Days afterwards we kept finding ‘nests’ – wow they really are clever little things!!   

Now we needed to camp and so we are going to try to take all the camping stuff and both of us on my bike. Yeah – I know a lot of other riders do do that!  But we never have…it will be interesting.  This will be a difficult repack for me.  The rest of the stuff and Simon’s bike will have to stay here in the guesthouse until we get the part.
It’s strange to be on the back of my bike….I don’t really like it.

Well, we went up to the large open field – that was on a steep slope – not too far away from Sanus and camped right at the top- at around 4600 feet.  We had an absolutely amazing view over the valley and on towards the Annapurna Himalayas.  What a view to wake up to. 
Sanu brought us some water in a large container and milk (buffalo milk – very tasty).  Our home was up J  and we were also trying out the new large tarp from Hilleberg.  WOW – it really makes a difference as it gave loads of shelter from the hot and pounding rays of the sun…no shade up here, just a bit underneath one of the trees but nothing that we were able to get the tent under.  After putting up the tent we just sat for a while with Kamala and Sanu – took photos and then I cooked and we had a meal together looking out across to the mountains.  There really are no words to describe the beauty and even though it was hazy we managed to get quite a few great photos.

The local headmaster of the school (the school that Mummy and Daddy had been to and donated money for books and pens) came with s gift of coffee!  In this area a lot of the locals grow their own beans and then roast them.  First they laughed at how much coffee we used to make one cup – then he was astonished!  They apparently like their coffee really weak with plenty of buffalo milk…well, for us it’s completely opposite and this coffee had a great taste.  We commented that we had never seen Nepal coffee for sale on the shelves anywhere in Europe.  We then had the ladies come to visit – they were aunts and cousins of Sanu’s and with them they brought the handmade garlands of Nepal’s national flower the purply coloured rhododendron that flower in abundance here.  It’s so beautiful.  (I understand that its correct name, for all you botanists out there!! Is rhododendron mucrondulatum!)  These beautiful garlands were placed around our necks and tikka was once again placed on our foreheads.  (The tilak is a mark worn on the forehead, and sometimes other parts of the body.  The tilaka symbolize the third eye, or mind's eye, that is associated with many Hindu gods and the idea of meditation and spiritual enlightenment.).  Most Nepali’s have the tilak every day.  
When Sanu and kamala left it was dark.  It had been a good day.

The following morning we woke early (mainly due to a very noisy bird above my head who kept landing on the tent and running up and down chirruping loudly…argh!) .  The view…oh so wonderful.. I could sit and look at it all day.  Well – in fact that’s almost what we did do!  Half way through the day the kids came to visit.  They were very interested in our ‘home’..In factt everything we did.  Which initially was fun as we chatted (or tried to chat!) to them and they sat with us.  However then, after around 4 hours of intense scrutiny, it got a bit much. 
The following day we woke to another glorious day but the clouds rolled in fast.  We watched a storm build up over the mountains.  The rain coming in fast in big thick black sheets blanking out the various ranges of mountains as it headed towards us.  So – we had loads of warning and started to ‘batten down the hatches!’  We were in two minds as to whether to take the tarp down but in the end we decided that we would just alter its height and bring down the main front pole as low as possible.  This would mean we still get the protection on the front door of the tent and could sit with the door open which would mean we’d still get good ventilation.  The storm hit hard and battered us for around 20 mins nonstop.  A huge deluge of rain which had massive drops with wind that tore at the tent and tarp.  We were unsure as to how things would hold up as we were very exposed to all of the elements.

Emerging slowly we were surprised that the tarp had withstood the entire storm and was still in place!  So all we had to do was to extend the front pole again and alter the guy ropes.  The funny thing was that the whole village started to come down and see how we were.  First off there was an old man who, I think, was a little disappointed that all was fine…and then the young lads came running down the hill.  After running around us and looking at the bikes – they too seemed disappointed not to find us or the bikes flattened! 
The day had now cleared and the mountains were so clear that we managed to get a few good shots and also panoramic ones- although we don’t think they will ever get across just how magnificent this view actually is.

After a couple more days, with Sanu and Kamala visiting we decided that we could stay no longer.  Yeah – it was a paradise but the one problem was the kids all the time.  Ok for a few hours…but hour after hour after hour, day after day…it began to get a little too much.  And so we had enjoyed our time and now we needed to head back to the guesthouse and go and check on Simon’s bike!!!  Make sure that it’s still there and not been eaten by ants again!  
The days in and around Pokhara were filled with us getting up really early (no!! really we did!) and going to the rooftop of the guesthouse and doing a circuit-type of exercise routine.  To start off, it practically killed us, but by the 4th week things were going good.  Inbetween this we both had bouts of really bad tummy’s.  mmm.  Taking some Ciproflaxcin we thought it would go but after the 3rd course of tablets we realized that we had something more than just a ‘bug’.  We realized that  ciproflaxcin may not be the best as its generally used to treat a variety of infections but it is apparently good for gastroenteritis and other infectious diarrhea...however, for us it wasn’t working!!

What we actually had was giardia – a feeling of nausea, not wanting to eat, or thowing up what you’ve just eaten – now that mde us feel better for a short time afterwards!! – feeling like we had a cold – terrible diarrhea and sometimes explosive!!!!  That panic when you know you need a loo….right now and tummy gripes like you wouldn’t believe.  Like the food poisoning I had had in Mongolia.  The problem is that it wouldn’t go away.  We took the meds  that we could get here (cant remember the name of them!) but had to take them for around 5 times before we began to feel better.  We would last a week and then it would come back and so on. 

Needless to say with cutting down on our food (we just didn’t feel like we wanted much)  the excercising (yes,we were still doing that despite feeling crappy) and the giardia….we were loosing weigth fast!  Just like when we had malaria!  Look on the bright side – I could get into a much smaller size of clothes now!  Haha.

We left Pokhara quite early in the morning. It was strange to think that we would not see this place again.  We had been ready to leave for quite a while; however, with all the rain it had been a good idea to stay on.  We had also been able to do a lot of work, updating the entire diary on the website, (as we had been behind for a while!) dealing with photos etc.
The road out was quite quiet and it looked like we had missed a lot of the traffic – however we knew that the mountain/valley road to Kathmandu was going to be busy in parts.  With all of the rain we had heard that there had been a few landslides and that only the other day a bus had been wiped out and landed in the river below.

However, the ride turned out to be good – we didn’t stop to take many photos as we really needed to get into the city before traffic built up in the late afternoon.  Andy told us that they were working on the road about 15 km out from the city and that this backed up traffic.  The large trucks would block most of the ‘road’ as they were working on it and of course there is no system of traffic  lights allowing each side to take turns in passing …now that would be too organized…. Noooo, here it’s just who dares wins. Ha-ha.

Around 25km out it started.  The road had been washed away, trucks were everywhere, buses overtaking buses on the wrong side of the road…big holes…big holes full of water…..rubble  and with the heat a lot of the road had also dried out so then we also had the trucks kicking up loads of dust in certain areas……ah such joys!  There was then a solid traffic jam about 15 km out from the city, and so we hopped in-between the vehicles as we leap-frogged our way out of the mountain and into the valley where Kathmandu sits. 

We had been thinking about why on earth you would build a city (ok I know it’s nearly 2000 years old!) at 4600 ft surrounded by 4 major mountains in a bowl-shaped valley  with 8 rivers flowing through it!!  And they wonder why they have so many floods……

As we rode in past all of the trucks belching out black gunk our eyes started stinging.  The cloud over the city showed that air pollution is a serious problem.  It’s nowhere near as bad as some towns and cities in India…but it’s still quite bad.

We made our way to Andy’s – he is just round the corner from the zoo.  We had a place to park the bikes, a bedroom and a kitchen.  We were going to be here around 2 weeks??  Maybe longer.  We shall see.

I think the first time I took note of Nepal and Kathmandu was learning about the Gurkas.
But then more recently hearing about Kathmandu’s turbulent history and political instability…outbreaks of violence and protests….the ‘royal massacre’ in June 2001 where the Crown Prince shot his family….the Maoist party protests and associated demonstrations.  We had already experienced some of these (not the violence I hasten to add!! Just the demonstrations!).  Now we were going to be able to walk around this amazing city…I couldn’t wait.

In the following few days we went in and out of the area known as Thamel, which is Kathmandu’s ‘backpackers’ ghetto.  It’s stuffed full of guesthouses, cafes, restaurants, bookstores and so on….caters only to the ‘farang’.  (white tourists)  There is Freak Street, which is the original traveler's haunt made popular in the 1970’s by the hippies J  some of them are still here by the looks of it. Ha-ha.

We wandered around Thamel – struggling sometimes to pass the tiny streets crammed with touts and stalls….it wasn’t as bad as India, but some of the selling ‘techniques’ were high pressured.  Looking up, we saw the usual mash of wires, but some of the overhanging balconies are unusual and really quite beautiful. There are tiny hobbit-sized workshops everywhere looking like they’d leapt out of the Middle Ages...  God! I can imagine being a tourist here coming straight from Europe or the USA – WOW – your senses would be bombarded and you’d feel totally out of your depth!
We were used to this and it still hit our senses.

Sanu had told us that Kathmandu is also known as "Land of Gods" and (not quite as ‘catchy’) …’Land of the largest congregations of magnificent historical monuments and shrines ever built’- He had told us that the city is filled with sculptures, pagodas, stupas and palace buildings and stuffed full of monasteries.  The detail I later read is that there are 106 monastic courtyards! On walking from the main market (Thamel Chowk) – it’s quite true!  Everywhere you look there are temples.

After a couple of days settling in and wandering around the local stalls and shops of the area where Andy lives, we decided that it was time to visit Durbar Square, right in the heart of Kathmandu. In order to get there we walked from the main Chowk, past the vegetable and spice markets of Asan Tole, one of the busiest intersections in old Kathmandu, wandered past the octagonal Krishna Temple and then on through Indra Chowk. 

I really couldn’t resist.  I had to buy some material.  I knew that the brides in Nepal wear saris of red and gold on their wedding day.  The materials were wonderful, so colourful but I couldn’t resist the red and gold.  I bought 2 metres for me and another 2 for my mother.  Not too sure what we will do with it, but it really is so beautiful. 

We had heard that tomorrow there was to be a festival on but no one could give us much information….so we will wander around the old town tomorrow to see what is going on…….