Lost in the Himalayas
Location: Pokhara, Nepal
Local Time: Monday, Oct 24, 2005 - 9:49pm
We rented motorcycles today and spent the day riding around Pokhara. It was wild. The bikes are small around here, anything from 100cc - 200cc displacements can be found. I had a 180cc bike, and it worked really nice. We spent the first half of the day riding the winding 1.5 lane mountain 'highway' that goes south out of Pokhara. Then we turned around and came back and went up to Sangkok, a local high point that allows a nearly 360 view of the valley where Pokhara is located, and a nice view of the nearby 8000m peaks. That is, the view is nice when it isn't clouded in as it was today.
Still, the ride was wild. The last 10km was on some of the roughest rocky dirt road I have ever ridden on. Normally it seems that people park their bikes and walk up some stairs that takes about 30min to get to the peak. It took nearly that long to ride the bikes up the switch back rocky road, but it was a great ride. I only dumped it once.
On the way back down, I picked up a couple of school kids and gave them a ride for a couple of km.
The motorcycle as the family vehicle. You often see a 125cc bike which holds 4 people. Two parents, two kids. Only the operator has a helmet.
It is perfectly legal and expected to pass anywhere, any time there is space. The invisible 3rd lane (right in the middle of the road, between the two passing vehicles) is in constant use. The military checkpoints are not too frequent, we only went through 2 or 3 today, and usually they just wave motorcycles through.
You ride on the left side of the road here. I almost got run over by a taxi in the morning when I pulled out into the road. Later I made an incorrect turn and ended up on the wrong side of a divided road. Fortunately the divider wasn't to hard to get over.
Most importantly, since you ride the left side of the road, your hand nearest oncoming traffic is your right hand. For those of you who don't ride, that hand operates your throttle on a bike, which means you can't give a friendly wave to oncoming motorcyclists as is the custom in Canada.
That is just wierd.
On a sad note, this will probably be my last post for about 3 weeks. I'm going trekking. Everyone comes to Nepal to trek, so this is quite ordinary. I'm doing the Annapurna Circuit, which takes 16 - 18 days to complete. So, wish me luck. Getting airlifted out costs $1000 USD / hour, so if I need to be rescued, my vacation will come to a crashing and nearly immediate halt. Hopefully that doesn't happen.
Local Time: Monday, Oct 24, 2005 - 9:49pm
We rented motorcycles today and spent the day riding around Pokhara. It was wild. The bikes are small around here, anything from 100cc - 200cc displacements can be found. I had a 180cc bike, and it worked really nice. We spent the first half of the day riding the winding 1.5 lane mountain 'highway' that goes south out of Pokhara. Then we turned around and came back and went up to Sangkok, a local high point that allows a nearly 360 view of the valley where Pokhara is located, and a nice view of the nearby 8000m peaks. That is, the view is nice when it isn't clouded in as it was today.
Still, the ride was wild. The last 10km was on some of the roughest rocky dirt road I have ever ridden on. Normally it seems that people park their bikes and walk up some stairs that takes about 30min to get to the peak. It took nearly that long to ride the bikes up the switch back rocky road, but it was a great ride. I only dumped it once.
On the way back down, I picked up a couple of school kids and gave them a ride for a couple of km.
The motorcycle as the family vehicle. You often see a 125cc bike which holds 4 people. Two parents, two kids. Only the operator has a helmet.
It is perfectly legal and expected to pass anywhere, any time there is space. The invisible 3rd lane (right in the middle of the road, between the two passing vehicles) is in constant use. The military checkpoints are not too frequent, we only went through 2 or 3 today, and usually they just wave motorcycles through.
You ride on the left side of the road here. I almost got run over by a taxi in the morning when I pulled out into the road. Later I made an incorrect turn and ended up on the wrong side of a divided road. Fortunately the divider wasn't to hard to get over.
Most importantly, since you ride the left side of the road, your hand nearest oncoming traffic is your right hand. For those of you who don't ride, that hand operates your throttle on a bike, which means you can't give a friendly wave to oncoming motorcyclists as is the custom in Canada.
That is just wierd.
On a sad note, this will probably be my last post for about 3 weeks. I'm going trekking. Everyone comes to Nepal to trek, so this is quite ordinary. I'm doing the Annapurna Circuit, which takes 16 - 18 days to complete. So, wish me luck. Getting airlifted out costs $1000 USD / hour, so if I need to be rescued, my vacation will come to a crashing and nearly immediate halt. Hopefully that doesn't happen.
posted by Jaye | 9:31 PM
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