Down into smoggy India

It was a surreal experience to ride down off the Himalayan foothills, where the horizon changed from mountains and blue sky to a line of grey smog and blue sky. At times the visablity was less than 50 meters, slow going but then this is a crowded part of the world and my average speed to way lower than usual.

I then drove down to Varansi, Khajuraho, Taj Mahal and onto New Delhi. The whole time I have been under a layer smog and with the cold air from the Himalayas creating fog, this meant the sun only appeared for a few hours a day.

Maoists – red is ruining the country!

No matter how you classify wealth, Nepal ends up at the bottom, ie: GDP 163 out of 181 and per capita 55% leave on under US $2 per day. A small number who interact with tourists do well and the majority has a tough life, similar to many countries I have visited so far!

Unfortunately for Nepal, they have no products or resources that the world desires and their major income earner is tourism. Tourism is good but it is hard to distribute the wealth in a cash economy, affected by civil war and political uncertainty. The Transparency International 2009 corruption ranking for Nepal was 143 out of 180 countries.

Summarizing a complex issue, in May 2008 a new government was elected, a coalition between the Maoists (37%) and Unified Marxist-Leninist (17%)(you would assume the same ideals to be one party), with the Nepali Congress (18%) heading the opposition. The 3 main parties follow the UN negotiated peace agreement and agreed to write a new constitution within 2 years and after the abolition of the monarchy. The UN monitors the peace accord to ensure all parties stick to the deal. There were a few problems so the Maoists’ resigned from the government over 12 months ago. On a regular basis (twice a month between 1 and 3 days), the Maoists shutdown the country, block the roads with stones, logs and people. Then threaten violence to people who use the roads or businesses that are open for trade. Foreigners are exempt and I did drive several times through road blocks with some angry shouting and waving of red flags.

The Maoists are new to democracy and are learning on the job (they are use to pulling the trigger if someone disagrees) and democracy is all about compromise (Barak Obama will agree).
On a similar wave length, parts of the Islamic world educate the illiterate with an extremist view. In Nepal the Maoists tell the illiterate to ‘follow me and life will improve’ and very successfully people follow, who are un-educated from the country side, on mass to the major towns to block the roads and shutdown the country. When making a living depends on time open for trading, this impacts the majority and affects the earning power of individuals and governments, who need all the help they can get. The result of these strikes means everyone is poorer; country people are more frustrated with no change to their living standard, city people dislike being held to ransom by the Maoists and everyone is disillusioned with the Politian’s.

Is there an answer…yes...Maoists need to open their eyes and live in the real world, sure political agreement is difficult , change takes time but shutting down the country and stirring up the uneducated from the countryside is detrimental to Nepal and its people going forward.

Did I make the right decision?

I had always planned to go overland from London to Melbourne, once my time inLondon was complete. I loved the freedom my scooter provided in London so a motorcycle was the obvious choice, but after 3 months, temperatures upto 45C, constant attention from locals and meeting 4x4 overlanders with fridges, I had second thoughts.

Now in Nepal, about half way and the harder countries behind me, I have no regrets and still love to ride my bike. You may have noticed a few photos of the bike, that’s because I am in love with it. Many people have said you don’t need 1200cc for overlanding and they are right but bloody hell its fun to have 105HP (77KW) of power on a 300kg bike!!!

Taking a year off and travelling overland, the hours of riding has enabled me to do heaps of thinking, reflection and plans for the future. The bike has enabled me to meet and talk too locals and backpack travelling means I have met lots of great people and characters. The time has reinforced how fortunate I am!!!

So far so good, looking forward to travelling in South East Asia over the next 8 months.

Safari in the Jungle

On the plains at the bottom of the mountains, called the Terai, is the Chitwan National Park. It was here in the colonial days that the British came to shoot Rhinos, Tigers and Elephants. My guide was armed with a stick and the plan was to spend the day tracking down the animals in the park. First came a warning, if a Rhino charges, run in a zig zag and drop a piece of clothing. If a tiger attacks, look directly into the eyes and walk backwards slowly and for elephants... run for your life.

The two guides, two Kiwis, an Irish lass and myself crossed the river by dugout canoe at 7am in search big game. By lunch time we had spotted, monkeys, spotted deer, crocodiles, plenty of birds, butterfly’s and lots of Rhino’s poo.

Our guide was super confident, he has spotted Rhinos for the last 27 days and knows all the secret places to look. By 2pm we started making our way back and I doubted we would see a Rhino. Tigers are nocturnal and there are very few wild elephants left, the highlight was to be the Rhinos (3.5 tonnes which can move at 25km/h). The day ended with no spotting of a Rhino but it was a fantastic experience walking through the forest.

Luck was with us the next day on the elephant safari, spotted three Rhinos in the first 5 minutes!

Trekking – swapping two wheels for two legs

Of the many treks available in Nepal, I chose to walk the traditional expedition route from Jiri to the Everest region, where I crossed 3 passes – Kong Ma La (5550m), Cho La (5500m) and Renjo La (5450m).

The majority of tourists fly into Lukla, which was 5 days into my trek. This part of the trek involved walking through European type hills and forests, villages with no roads and the best part, only a small number of tourists.

Once I hit the tourist trail at Lukla, the track was wider and smoother, hotels and restaurants were everywhere and trekkers who looked down and did not know how to say hello!!

I started to notice the altitude at Namche Bazaar, 3400m, my legs were fine but my lungs just could not suck in enough air. The next few days I climbed only 400m per day to allow for acclimatisation. The day before my first pass, my resting heart rate was 90 beats per minute and I could not get it any lower, with no headache or nausea, I was a little concerned – should I go back down?? I took some diamox (acclimatisation assistance drug) and several hours later my heart rate dropped 20 beats - thank god for drugs!!

The next day I walked over Kongma La pass, it was tough but well worth it, I had great views of Makalu (8462m) and Lhotse (8516m). Now I was in the Khumbu valley with Everest at the end. I walked upto basecamp and Kattar Patel, then back down and over the second pass, Cho La. The pass was very narrow, so not much of a view, and I had to walk 500m across a glacier – lucky I carried an ice axe all this way!!

Down into Gokyo valley and across the massive Ngozumpa glacier. The most surprising part of the trek is the size, power of the glaciers and how the frozen river has carved its path out of the rock. By now I was totally over the menu in the lodges, so no time for a rest day – need to getout for a steak and glass of wine!

From here it was over the last pass, Renjo La, and downhill all the way to the Gold Coast town of the Himalayas, highrise Namche Bazaar.

I walked down to Lukla to watch friends fly off the very short runway but as is standard, flights were delayed by cloud. Now 4 days of walking to meet the bike and 6 hours drive to a steak and glass of wine.

A story to tell

First day into my twenty day Three Passes trek (which explores the 3 valleys around Everest), I met a Tibetan walking to Lhasa. There was a communication gap and at first I thought he was an exiled monk. After 3 days of walking and a Nepali interpreter one night, I learnt of an intriguing story.

Mr Free Tibet (no names required) now resides in Dharamsala, India, after escaping from a Chinese jail and I met him on his way to visit is family in Lhasa. It’s not a long journey, 2 days bus ride then twenty days walking over a 5500m pass, hiding from Nepali and Chinese authorities and bribing anyone sympathetic to the Chinese.

We will all travel to see our family... so why not catch a plane or a bus??

Lets start at the beginning, several years ago there was a Tibetan who enrolled in the Chinese army for many reasons but that is not the point. As a Tibetan soldier in the Chinese army there was propaganda around the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, ie: the Dali Lama on toilet paper. The younger soldier became disillusioned with army life and joined the Free Tibet movement.

The next step was to actively protest about the occupation of Tibet. Maybe a little more extreme action than you and I, my new friend threw some sort of petrol bomb at an important building in Beijing, first bomb worked as planned but the second somehow exploded near him and badly burnt his leg which caused him to be caught by the authorities.

After 2 years in jail his father paid the equivalent of €10,000, with assistance from the outside world, to the prison guards which enabled him to escape to Dharamsala. Now his family is persecuted by the Chinese authorities, sister has received a broken leg and he can only visit his family at night. After a month in Lhasa, its time to walk back to Dharamsala, India.

A mate from home

For the last month I have been excited and looking forward to seeing Giselle in Kathmandu. The advantage of travelling by myself is that I can do and go where I want, when I want – a change will be good. We had two weeks in Nepal, the first few days to fix the bike. Giselle brought the tools to remove the rear suspension’s broken bolt, original suspension and new back tyre.

After a few days in Kathmandu, we decided on a 7 day trek in the Langtang National Park. The drive to the start of the trek is 120km and it took us 7 hours on the bike – bad roads, a great introduction of motorbike travelling for Giselle.

Giselle was nervous on the back of the scooter in London so I was interested to see how she would handle a bike 10 times bigger. Giselle handled the crazy Kathmandu traffic, extremely bad roads to Langtang and the dangerous bus and trucks with the ease of a biker chick – I encouraged her to get her bike licence.

Two days back in pollution and dust filled Kathmandu was too stressful so we went to a 12-century medi-evil town called Bhaktapur. We explored the town, drank beer and chilled reading the book ‘Three Cups of Tea’ – which many trekkers were reading.

It was great to have a mate visit!!