Photos of our Fabulous Adventure
Up at 5:30am and feeling sad that we have to leave this beautiful area, and the reality that our trip is coming to an end 😢.
Prem is right on time and we say our farewells to the hotel staff that have been so kind to us. They give us a parting gift of beautiful Khata scarves, a traditional scarf used for ceremonial occasions including departure of guests. With a little sadness we get in to the van and we are off for our 180km ride on Nepalese ‘highways – yes, highways!’
We bumpity, bump our way back to Bharatpur dodging cyclists, farm machinery, cars, you name it and make good headway until we start to climb back into the hills. It is, once again, a hair raising experience weaving and winding through crazy traffic of motorcycles, buses and transport trucks all vying to get that one space ahead. Roger comments ‘quite a contrast from our tranquil river safari in Chitwan!’
We have a great tourist refreshment stop and carry on to get to Kathmandu before the traffic gets too heavy – ha ha. We make reasonable time, close to my estimate of 30km per hour and by noon we are in the outskirts of the city. Prem knows a shortcut that will avoid the congestion into the city – sounds good to us. If we only knew what was in store for us!!
We are clipping along quite well, past greenhouses growing tomatoes, peppers and other veg, and I think wow, this a breeze. And then, we hit a road block, part of the ‘shortcut’ has a detour. OMG, and what a detour it was. We turned this way and that, sharing streets that were barely wide enough for the van, let alone the multitude of annoying motorcyclists (remind me of mosquitos) buzzing around everywhere. With each turn, Prem confirms with a local which way out of this maze. Some of us say, ‘no we are not going that way, no, no, oh yes we are!’ I don’t know how Prem did it but he managed to manoeuvre our way out of the labyrinth unscathed. Other than one faint scratch on the side, not any fault of Prem’s – an over zealous motorcyclist couldn’t wait 2 seconds for us to pass and was stuck between the van and a corrugated fence. Roger and Shane were howling with laughter and their laughter helped to ease the apprehension of our situation. Finally we reached a full sized street and within a few minutes we were in Thamel and at the hotel – we were shocked. WOW, WOW, amazing driving!
Needless to say the balance of the afternoon was spent relaxing or shopping and didn’t venture too far from the hotel. At 7pm we met up for a final dinner together at the Third Eye Restaurant, and the food was fantastic. A wee bit anticlimactic after the stellar dinner last night, but a lot of fun regardless. It has been such a great group and we have had a great time here.