Countries visited: India, Nepal
Cycled mileage in November: 980.4km
Cycled mileage per country: 369.3km India, 611.1km Nepal
Total cycled mileage incl. November: 9,210.3km
Days per country: 9d - India, 21d - Nepal
Days cycling: 16d
Technical failures: 1 bent rim, 2 broken back racks, 1 snapped shifting cable
Link to this month's route
We finished last month in Varanasi and watched the Diwali celebrations there.
It turned out Sarnath was only about 15 kilometres away from Varanasi so we decided to go there once businesses had reopened after Diwali. Sarnath is one of the four Buddhist places of pilgrimage for it is the site of Buddha's first teaching after attaining enlightenment.
We could have cycled to Sarnath but we couldn’t be bothered with the Indian traffic and took a rickshaw. On the way we stopped at Varanasi's silk weaver community. We felt a bit bad to be shown around by one of the weavers knowing we wouldn't buy any of the products. We made that clear to begin with and offered payment for a guide but they wouldn't accept it. Obviously we were ultimately led to a shop where we were expected to buy some of the silk products and obviously we didn't as we told them beforehand.
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| Silk weavers in Varanasi |
Sarnath's archaeological park that was rather underwhelming. There were some ruins of Buddhist stupas but it required a lot of imagination to understand what the site once would have looked like.
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| Stupa in Sarnath |
On the next morning we were back on the bikes and cycled towards the Nepalese border. We were so glad to finally leave behind Asia Highway 1 but the smaller "highways" on the way to the border were even worse. Some of them were unsealed while others were paved with bricks. Seriously - bricks! The first day on the way to the border went by uneventfully.
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| Madness on India's streets |
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| Break in a village |
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| Struggeling with the dust on a semi-sealed road |
On the second day we were stopped at an intersection in a small village when disaster struck. A truck behind Simon started to drive, knocked him off the bike and came to stop right on Simon's rear wheel. Luckily he was not injured. The accident was so incredibly stupid and avoidable that we both flipped out. We pulled the driver out of the truck and were close to beating him up. In the end we received a compensation of 1,000 rupees (~€14) - probably a lot of money for that guy!
While most of the about 50 locals around were just blankly staring at us, some actually tried to be helpful. One guy spoke a bit English and with his help we carried Simon's bike to a repair shop. The Rim was completely warped but surprisingly there was no other obvious damage to the bike.
The owner of the repair shop tried his very best to fix the rim. He unlaced the wheel and sent two guys away with the rim. From what we understood they took it to a place that had some kind of a hydraulic press. When they returned the rim looked at least straight-ish. Obviously there were no spare parts available in the tiny village so this was seemingly our best option. The guys then tried to lace the wheel but struggled with the spoke pattern. Our wheels use a 3 cross pattern while these guys only knew how to lace wheels in a 2 cross pattern. The spoke pattern determines the spoke length so basically the spokes were way too long for the pattern they attempted to use. We tried to help them finding the right pattern but they kept refusing our help. India is so weird! After almost 5 hours Simon's bike was just about roadworthy again. There were only about 60 kilometres to Gorakhpur where we hoped to find a new rim. It became a loooooong ride in slow speed. We arrived just after nightfall and checked in to a random hotel.
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| Surrounded by locals after the accident |
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| Rear wheel removed |
The next day we spent almost 8 hours wandering around town looking for a bike shop that would have a suitable rim available. Quality spare parts are hard to find in India. There are ridiculously high import taxes so most parts are cheap crap. We didn't see a single Shimano product in any of the bike shops! Eventually we found a aluminium rim in the right size. It didn't look like it would be rim brake compatible and it had 36 instead of 32 spoke holes but it was the best we could find. According to some sources quality spare parts would be available in Pokhara in Nepal so the new rim didn't need to last for too long.
It was a mild PITA to build a wheel with the new rim. None of the shops would sell spokes and ours were too long for the new rim. We ended up creating a weird 4 cross pattern to fit our spokes in. Truing the whole thing was another problem. 32 hole hub together with a 36 hole rim meant that 4 of the spoke holes of the rim remained empty which made precise truing near impossible.
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| Unlacing the old rim |
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| Truing the newly built wheel |
Two days later and with a lot of patient work on the wheel we had a somewhat okay-ish result - just to discover a crack on Simon's back rack. After a bit of search we found a shop with an electric welding machine. The guy looked competent but he was seemingly used to weld truck parts. He didn't adjust the strength of the welding machine and burnt a massive hole into the tubing. We couldn't quite believe what had just happened and didn't even put up an argument when he led us to a shop next door. The guy there used a cutting torch to melt an old bicycle spoke and fill the hole in the tubing with liquid metal. After that he added a support using the same method. We were so stunned we didn't even take pictures of the process.
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| "Welded" back rack |
After 4 days in Gorakhpur we were finally good to go. Initially we had planned to go straight to the Nepalese border. But when we found out that another of the four Buddhist pilgrimage sites wasn't too far off the way we decided to go there first. Subsequently we cycled from Gorakhpur to Kushinagar the next morning. Kushinagar is the place where Buddha died.
The ride there was rather boring despite the usual assault of the senses on India's streets. We were pretty pleased to find a relatively quite and peaceful setting in Kushinagar. There were some stupas and a lot of temples that were founded by Buddhist nations.
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| Stupa in Kushinagar |
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| Unique statue of Buddha on his deathbed |
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| Remainders of a stupa |
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| Buddhist pilgrims |
From Kushinagar it was another 2 days of cycling to the border. We arrived there pretty early and were shocked about an endless line of waiting trucks. Then we remembered what an Indian lady said to us in Delhi - there are no traffic rules in India. So we just cycled past the 5 or so kilometres of waiting trucks. When we stood at the gate that marked the border there was nobody. No policeman, no guards. It looked as if we could have just cycled across without a problem.
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| Break in a village short of the Indian border |
We looked for someone in uniform and eventually learnt that we had passed the Indian border post some 500 metres ago. We cycled back and even then we nearly missed it. Getting stamped out of India was a matter of minutes. Same for the Nepalese visa on arrival once we were back at the border gate.
Crossing the border it felt like entering a different world. There was less honking, less trash and there was even a cycle way!
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| Bicycle lane starting right after the border |
We continued to Lumbini which was the third Buddhist pilgrimage site on this journey. Lumbini is the place where Buddha was born and there is a archaeological site around the complex with the actual birth place. Again there were dozens of Buddhist temples founded by nations all around the world. It took us 2 days to explore everything.
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| Lumbini - Buddha's birthplace |
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| Ashoka-Pillar |
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| One of the Buddhist temples around Lumbini |
From Lumbini we set off into the Himalayas. The ride was a slog. We kept cycling up and down but mostly up. By the end of the day we reached Tansen. For the last bit we followed a short cut our navigation system suggested. We will never do that again. Even if the route was slightly shorter it led over narrow and unbearably steep trails.
There are some historic sights in Tansen but we were easily done with sightseeing within one day. We had planned to leave the next morning when our hosts told us there would be a Banda the next day. A what?! We learnt that Nepal was regularly plagued with general strikes and that it was not advisable to travel during such a banda. So we extended our stay in Tansen by two days and leisurely strolled around town once more.
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| Setting off towards the Himalayas |
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| Stunning landscape on the way to Tansen |
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| Temple in Tansen |
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| Historic main square |
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| Picturesque temple |
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| Stuck during a banda |
Eventually we left Tansen and two more days of exhausting cycling took us to Pokhara. The landscape along the way was spectacular and totally made up for the hardship!
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| Between Tansen and Pokhara |
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| Morning fog in the Himalayas |
As soon as we had dumped our bags at a hostel in Pokhara we went searching for a bike shop. Simon's crappy rear rim had started to crack on the way and we wanted to sort that problem first thing. Surprisingly we found a very well stocked bike shop and for the equivalent of €20 we got a new quality rim.
We spent 3 days in Pokhara, strolling around, cycling up to the World Peace Pagoda and rowing on the lake.
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| Pagoda in Old Pokhara |
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| Sunset over the lakeside |
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| View from the World Peace Pagode |
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| Sunset in the Himalayas |
Next destination was Lake Begnas whih was recommended to us by another cyclist. And it was such a good recommendation! Dinesh Guesthouse in Begnas was probably the most peaceful place we've been to in quite a while! But not only did we enjoy the tranquillity and the great views - they also produce coffee there. Tasting a freshly brewed espresso while contemplating the coffee plants on the terraces below your feet and soaking up the stunning views of the Himalayas at the same time... How much better can it get?!
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| Himalayan coffee is best enjoyed in the Himalayas... |
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| Sunset at Begnas Lake |
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| Breakfast at Dinesh Guesthouse |
From Begnas we cycled on to Bandipur. We reached the turn-off to Bandipur in the early afternoon after a relatively short day. Looking at the map it appeared to be an easy 10 or so kilometres ride from the turn-off. We were so wrong! Actually it wasn't even too far to go but it was incredibly steep at a constant 15%. We had made it up halfway when the sun set. There was nowhere to camp near the narrow street so we swallowed our pride and waved down a car.
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| On the way to the Bandipur turn-off |
Bandipur rewarded us with stunning views of the Himalayas as well as a lovly old town and it required superhuman strength to leave after two days. We had been looking forward to the way back down from Bandipur but it was so foggy that we had to ride down the narrow slopes at walking pace.
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| Sunset view from Bandipur |
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| Old town |
It took another two days to reach Kathmandu. The traffic on the last stretch was a nightmare. The earthquake in 2015 damaged the only road into town and the construction work was still unfinished.
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| Traffic jam and a wrecked truck |
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| Uphill ride to Kathmandu |
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| The road deteriorated as we approached Kathmandu |
We spent 4 days in Kathmandu and it was such a fascinating time. There were small shrines and temples scattered all around the old town. And then there was obviously Durbar Square that was badly damaged during the earthquake. Still a lot of buildings remained intact or were being rebuilt.
Apart from the sightseeing we also had to face he fact that it would be impossible to continue our journey from Nepal back to India and from there via Myanmar to Thailand. Myanmar had recently implemented a new rule that meant travellers entering from India would have to leave at the same border crossing back to India. Over two evenings we developed a new plan that involved cycling from Kathmandu to Darjeeling in India and then flying out from nearby Siliguri to Bangkok. There was a direct flight with Druk Air that funnily couldn't be booked online. Eventually we found a Druk Air office and were able to book tickets for December 23rd.
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| Stupa of Swayambhunath Temple in Kathmandu |
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| Another stupa at Swayambhunath Temple |
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| Durbar Square |
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| Devastation of the 2015 earth quake is visible |
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| One of the numerous temples of Kathmandu |
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| Hanuman statue in the Patan Golden Temple |
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| Golden Temple monastery |
On our penultimate day in Kathmandu we got back on the bikes and cycled to Boudhanath Stupa. The stupa is one of the largest in Nepal and an important place of pilgrimage.
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| Boudhanath Stupa |
From Kathmandu we continued to nearby Bhaktapur. Despite the earthquake many of the historic buildings in the old town and on Durbar Square have survived and we could hardly get enough of strolling around.
We had only intended to stay one day in Bhaktapur but Dominik came down with kind of a stomach flu and so we finished November in Bhaktapur.
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| Taumadhi Square in Bhaktapur |
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| The 5-storey Nyatapola Temple |
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| Bakhtapur's Durbar Square |
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| Potters' Square |
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| Animal sacrifice at Bhairabnath Temple |
