THIRTEEN

INDIA

23 January – 16 February 2004

Shirley: Keen to avoid the horrendous Indian roads, we cross into Nepal in the far west of the country at Mahendranagar. Around 20 young soldiers watch us ride past without interest. We are warned that this part of Nepal is Maoist territory. Nepal is in the grips of a civil war, with Maoists fighting against the monarchy and the army. A ceasefire collapsed a few months ago and the death toll continues to grow. From all reports, the Maoists don’t bother the tourists but do encourage donations to their fighting fund if they meet you on the track. They even hand out receipts to show that you have donated to the cause. If you meet more of these freedom fighters, you just show them your receipt and then don’t need to give another donation. We are not at all concerned by these reports. We are not trekking and shouldn’t have any problems, but the same can’t be said for people travelling through Nepal by public transport.

While we are having breakfast at the hotel in Mahendranagar, we are intrigued to see the army pull a public bus over. All the passengers get off and walk through a checkpoint with their luggage. Some of the soldiers check paperwork and search luggage while their comrades in arms search the bus. It is a long process.

When Brian and I come up to similar checks on the highway, we are waved through. The authorities are keen not to disrupt the tourist industry. Because of safety fears, some people have stopped visiting and that can only harm the locals.

The difference between India and Nepal is striking. Roads in Nepal are better. There is very little traffic and the countryside is lush and green. The villages are neat and tidy and there isn’t the sea of empty plastic bottles that India seems to be drowning under. The road east is surprisingly good, apart from the odd pothole large enough to consume the bike. Luckily, Brian is on his mettle this morning.

We head to Royal Bardia National Park. We’ve been told the road deteriorates a bit when you leave the highway. That is a real understatement once we have crossed the Chisopani suspension bridge. This is a modern monument to international aid that was built by the Japanese with funding from the World Bank, and seems incredibly out of place. With its towering suspension it looks like it should have been built on a modern freeway.

The road is very muddy and bumpy. We are only on it for a couple of kilometres when we come to a river crossing, and it is a beauty. The river is about 25 m wide where the road disappears into it. It comes out at the other side. It is really hard to tell just how deep the water is. Brian has the perfect solution to gauging the water level: he gets me to walk across the river! The water is pretty deep. It comes over the top of my boots and runs inside. Brian mounts up and goes for it, and gets across with no trouble at all. Now we just have to pray that there won’t be any rain. If the river rises and the track gets muddier, getting out of the national park could be a problem.

The roads go from hard-packed gravel to mud and slush and back again. As we ride through small villages, children run out of houses yelling ‘Bye, bye!’ They seem to think this is a greeting. There are naked children being washed in the creek and women are doing their laundry, smashing their clothes on rocks. It is a lovely scene.

The Bardia Jungle Cottages are rustic, to say the least. The floor in ours is hard-packed dirt. There is no glass in the windows and no running hot water. We can get a bucket of hot water if we give the staff an hour’s notice. But the rooms are clean, as is the bedding, and the beds have enormous doonas. For less than $10 a night, we can’t complain. The accommodation staff double as park guides. Prem and Indra will take us for a day-long walk through the jungle park tomorrow.

Before we settle for the night they tell us to shift the bike because they wouldn’t like to see it damaged when the local rhinoceros visits the camp. They are not sure if the rhino would actually try to mate with the bike, but it’s not worth the risk. We think this is fanciful. As if a rhinoceros would come into the camp. Brian shifts the bike just to humour our hosts.

While we are having dinner, the dogs start barking. We have a visitor. Sure enough, an enormous female rhino wanders through the camp. Indra grabs a torch and we follow the unwanted guest as she wanders around the cottages. They reckon she weighs 300 kg. She ignores us and ignores the barking dog. She even ignores the wall at the back of the cottages, pushing it over to get into a field. It is amazing. We don’t need to go to the national park – it comes to us.

The sun is warm, but once it sets the temperature plummets. After dinner I am determined to have a shower with a bucket of hot water in our ice-cold bathroom. When the hot water runs over my body, it’s lovely. While I fill the jug again, I freeze. The Bardia Jungle Cottages are definitely a location for summer and not set up for the cold Nepali nights.

Early morning is the best time to visit the national park. Our guidebook and commonsense say that walking into a jungle that is known to have rhinos, tigers and wild elephants is a rather foolhardy venture, but it sounds like a wonderful experience. This morning, the area is shrouded in fog. It’s cold and misty in the dining room! Breakfast is a little late because the cook has slept in, but he throws together some terrific banana pancakes and sandwiches for our picnic in the jungle.

Prem and Indra arrive armed with long bamboo poles and present us with one each. I can’t help thinking that a gun would be a bit more useful than a stick against a wild animal. The safety briefing doesn’t lessen our apprehension: ‘Don’t turn your back on the tigers. If you see tigers, just stare at them and make a lot of noise. If you see an elephant, run like crazy. If you see a rhino, climb a tree, if there is one nearby. If not, find something big to stand behind.’

I look across at Brian and wonder if he would be big enough to hide behind. I don’t have to speak. He knows what I am thinking and doesn’t seem to appreciate it. Prem assures us that there shouldn’t be any problems unless we have a chance encounter with an animal that neither the animal nor we were expecting.

Armed with our sticks and a lot of hope, we start down a track that disappears into the heavy fog. Our first sighting is of a spotted deer. They proliferate here as they did in Kanha. And, of course, we see monkeys – langur monkeys at first and then rhesus monkeys. We plod along a bit further without meeting any animals. It must be too cold for them. The birds are abundant – pied hornbills, eagles, forest tits, kingfishers, peacocks and, the most wonderful sight, woodpeckers. We hear them tapping away on trees before we see them.

As the sun breaks through, Prem thinks the animals will come out onto the riverbank to enjoy the sunshine after the cold night air. No such luck. The only large animals we see are domestic elephants out for a morning walk with their mahouts.

Prem starts tracking a female rhino and her baby. We walk through grasses one and a half metres high – I’m just about disappearing from view. Now I think it is ridiculous to be searching for an animal that won’t be happy about being found, particularly when we are armed only with sticks. The rhino is elusive, as is the tigress and her four cubs. Everyone but the deer and monkeys are keeping a low profile today.

Just when we give up hope of seeing anything interesting, there is a noise on the other side of the river. To my untrained ears, it sounds like a gunshot, a loud crack. With trousers rolled up, we wade across the river and go in search of the culprit making all that noise – a wild elephant ripping branches off trees.

We follow the sound through the bushes and come onto a track. The elephant is on the other side of it and should cross in front of us. We wait and wait. The whole time we can hear the elephant having a lovely time grazing in the jungle. Prem becomes concerned that if the elephant crosses the track and sees us, he might charge, so he signals us to move back and around to the other side of the animal. We can still hear the cracking of more trees and branches and even see the leaves waving in the breeze from the force of the elephant’s munching, but we can’t see the elephant.

It is getting late, and we have a good hour’s walk back to the park gate and have to leave before nightfall. Just as we are about to give up, he comes into view: a colossal bull elephant. From 20 m away, we can see his back, his head and ears. He continues to eat, oblivious to our presence – for a few minutes. Then he senses that we are nearby. He turns and runs. For such a big animal, he has incredible speed. Thank goodness he chose to run away from us and not towards us. The experience has been terrifying and wonderful.

There is no fog the following morning as we leave the park and the track is a bit dryer. The small wooden bridges over the creek are slippery, though, and our new back tyre isn’t that good. As the bike mounts the bridge, the back tyre gives way and we do a very stylish 180-degree turn. We are lucky we didn’t spin off into the stream. With the help of a bemused local, Brian manages to get the bike upright and off the bridge. We assess the damage: bike – check; Shirl – check; Brian – bruised shin and ego, but both will recover.

The lack of rain has seen the river level drop and we have no problem getting across. I still have to walk, just in case Brian drops the bike. This time the water doesn’t seep over the top of my boots. Just as well, really. My socks have only just dried from the drenching on the way over.

We need cash and in Nepalganj in central southern Nepal there are no ATMs, so I have to go into the bank armed with credit card and passport. Brian waits across the road with the bike. It is a long and slow process. I have to meet the manager. He introduces me to his assistant, who takes my passport to photocopy it. The manager then gets me to fill in the form and sign it. Nothing is done in a rush.

When I finally get the cash I go outside and can’t find Brian. There is no sign of him at all. Then he appears, riding up the street. He’s not happy. The local police told him to move on because he was creating a traffic hazard – the crowd around the bike was spilling onto the roadway and no-one could get through.

Riding along the highway we pass a cyclist carting so much luggage he has to be a traveller. We pull over and wait for him to cycle up to us. Cornel is Romanian and he’s been cycling around the world for six years. What a character. He looks like he hasn’t had a shower for days and has a very laid-back attitude. I can’t imagine travelling for six years by myself. While we talk about the joys of travel and the pros and cons of push-bike over motorbike, Cornel eats a lemon with sugar on it for energy. He’s hoping to cycle through Myanmar. We wish him luck and head to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha.

In Lumbini, we encounter a crisis. After more than 5000 photos, our camera decides to stop working. There is only one solution: to travel straight to Kathmandu to see if we can get the camera fixed. If that fails, we will have to buy a new one.

Lumbini is shrouded in fog, which adds to the mystery of the place (pity about the camera). The local Buddhist temple is a very plain concrete building on the outside. Inside, it is a house of worship, with golden Buddhas and Thangkas telling the story of Buddha’s life.

A monk introduces himself. He is the senior monk, and the oldest, he says with pride and a smile that lights up the room on this bleak morning. He is a joy. He shows us the story of Buddha’s life and the stages of life fulfilled by all Buddhists.

A man from the visitor’s centre takes us for a walk around the area – no fees, no tips, just free information. In the centre of the property is the sacred pool. It is now a concrete pool, but in 623 BC it was a pond and Buddha’s mother, Maya Devi, bathed here before giving birth to her son under the shade of a nearby tree. The spot where this tree stood is now under the temple. This is a sacred site for Buddhist pilgrims.

A few people have told us that the road to Kathmandu is dreadful, with a 36 km stretch that is potholed and badly damaged by landslides. We hit the bad section and realise everything we have been told is an understatement. The road is corrugated and littered with large rocks and the potholes are a metre deep. In some places it is wet, muddy and slippery. And being a major highway, there are lots of trucks and buses. They seem to travel faster here than in India, and for me this road brings back all the nightmares of life on a bike in Iran and Pakistan. It is up there with the worst. At one stage, a bus is right on our tail. If we slip off, it will be disastrous. However, just as soon as the poor road conditions start, they end, and it is a clear run through into Kathmandu.

On the outskirts of the city, the traffic is heavy and the air is thick with smoke. We have to constantly ask for directions, and after a stressful hour or so we find our hotel tucked away behind the tourist shops of Thamel.

Lyall Crawford, the consul at the Australian embassy, has an important parcel for me – my new credit card – so we get a taxi to avoid the traffic. Lyall looks an unlikely career diplomat. He has a beard nearly to his waist! While he might not look the part, he is certainly very professional. In the boardroom there is a certificate of appreciation from the Victoria Police to the embassy staff for their endeavours in bringing home Paul Carr, who perished on Tibet’s Cho Oyu mountain. Without Lyall’s expertise, contacts and determination, Paul’s body might still be on the mountain. Today Lyall is being presented with his Australia Day Medal, an award he was nominated for by the three surviving climbers. Ambassador Keith Gardner invites us to stay for the ceremony. It is an honour. It is a simple ceremony in the ambassador’s residence with just us and the Nepalese staff present. Keith asks Brian to speak, and he tells of Paul’s love of mountain climbing and their friendship.

Over drinks after the ceremony Lyall tells us that the bad road we travelled yesterday wasn’t damaged by landslides at all. The Maoists landmined the road a few weeks ago. They planted the very rudimentary landmines, waited for an army truck to pass by and then detonated the devices with maximum effect. More innocent lives were probably lost in this internal battle.

From Nepal, we plan to fly to Thailand, avoiding the road through Myanmar. We don’t have the permits or the time to take the overland route and, anyway, we’re not sure taking the bike through would be possible. We’ve been recommended a cargo agent and, as luck would have it, his office is just around the corner from our hotel. Many overlanders have used Eagle Eyes, as they know what has to be done and how to accomplish it. They even bring the carpenter to our hotel to measure up the bike for the crate. It’s not cheap. All the following figures are in US dollars: we have to pay $1.37 a kilo for the crate and seven cents a kilo for insurance. Add to that local charges for making the box, handling fees, taxes and our air tickets to Bangkok, and the total comes to more than $1000.

It is frustrating being without the camera in a city like this. Kathmandu is living history. Walking to the camera repair shop, we pass a Buddhist temple and one for the worship of the sun god, with tiered roof and burning incense outside. And that’s before we go to the normal tourist spots such as the Monkey Temple and Durbar Square.

But there is plenty to do – shopping (and, of course, Brian can’t complain after the Enfield purchase) and eating. The food is brilliant. After the curries and rice of India, we are thriving on the international foods available. All the weight we lost travelling through Ramadan and avoiding meat in India and Pakistan is getting stacked back on here – plus some. We go from Mexican for lunch to Italian for dinner and have some delicious French pastries for afternoon tea. And then there are the delightful Tibetan mo mo (dumplings) made from buffalo.

Then we receive some bad news: the camera is dead. We were told that we won’t find digital camera gear in Nepal, but that is wrong. We pick up a four-megapixel digital Canon for about AUD$535 – around a third of the price we paid for ours a year ago.

Brian: Armed with our new camera, we take to the skies to fly over Mount Everest with the appropriately named Buddha Air. I’m anxious to get there and I’m not too proud to admit that I’m also a bit emotional. I really want at least to see Cho Oyu, where Possum died. I know Mick Harvey, Nick Farr and Jack Carmody, who were with Paul when he died here, stuck by their mate and would not leave without him. That Aussie spirit is what makes us special. Now, meeting Lyall and learning what he did for them and the lengths he went to in order to bring Paul home, I can hardly wait. Possum, as the boss of the Special Operations Group, and I as ranking officer at different crime squads, did a lot together. We planned many successful arrests and early morning raids on crooks over the years. When we decided to take a stand against the reduction of police numbers and services in Victoria, we stood for election on the same ticket for the Police Association. We didn’t agree on everything, but had the same ideals of improving the working coppers’ lot.

I have felt Possum’s loss even more than I thought I would; I think it is because he set out on his mountain expedition when we set off on our journey of a lifetime. His adventure was his last. Now, here we are about to take a flight over the area Possum loved so much.

Our takeoff is delayed due to fog, but eventually we board and taxi to the end of the runway. In the 18-seat plane there are about 12 Americans whose constant mindless chatter and gratingly loud voices start to get on my nerves. The hostess comes down the aisle to tell us the view is not good, with only three peaks visible, but all the Yanks want to go so we are going. Now I’m pissed off. I would prefer to wait a week if need be to get a good view.

We head off over Kathmandu and in less than 10 minutes we are over snowcapped mountains, which disappear into the clouds. Buddha Air allows passengers to go up to the cockpit one at a time and have a look out the front windows. When it’s my turn, I tell the pilot and co-pilot about Possum and the efforts of Colonel Madan KC, the Nepalese Army helicopter pilot, to bring him back. They tell me that usually Cho Oyu is visible and they promise to try their best to get below the cloud to see it. Still, we do get to see Everest peeking through the clouds and Makalu, with its dramatic sheer face and snow whipping off the surface. I have to admit it is spectacular and I can see what attracts adventurers.

On our way back, the co-pilot beckons to me to come up to the flight deck. He points out the vicinity of Cho Oyu and the town from which everyone leaves to trek up there and to Everest base camp. On my way back to my seat, I look at Shirl and her eyes are misty.

The flight is only about 45 minutes, and before we know it we are back over Kathmandu and landing. I’m a little disappointed we haven’t seen Cho Oyu, but I’m glad we made the effort.

Shirley: It had to happen. Brian is crook and we must leave Kathmandu today. The Maoists have called a general strike, or bandh, so no-one can travel on the roads tomorrow. Well, that’s not quite true. You can travel, but you are likely to have your vehicle set alight! Shops and businesses close whether they agree with the bandh or not. When the Maoists call a bandh to reinforce their position against the royal family, everyone obeys. Some restaurants in the tourist areas remain open – discreetly, behind shuttered windows.

I jump into a cab to drop a bag of souvenirs at the embassy. We can’t fit it on the bike and Lyall will look after it until we return to Kathmandu. The roads are closed because of a student demonstration, so we take another route. The driver gives me a completely different slant on the Maoists. He tells me how corrupt all the politicians and public figures in Nepal are. By way of example, he explains why the fuel is so bad here – it’s topped up with kerosene. The petrol- station owners get away with it by bribing the officials to say their petrol is clean.

When I return to the hotel, Brian is no better but insists we leave for Pokhara today. We ride through the countryside of central Nepal, which has wonderful terraced gardens and the first clean river we have seen in months flowing through green pastures. We get to Pokhara and the traffic is far less hectic than in Kathmandu. We only get one set of wrong directions and find our way to the lakeside. Our hotel is set in a lovely garden and would be in the shadow of the Annapurna Range in the Himalayas, if you could see the mountains, but they are hidden by cloud this afternoon.

As soon as we get to our room, Brian goes to bed and falls asleep. He is really very ill and running a fever. I organise another blanket, turn on the heater and decide to read the paper in the garden to give him some peace and quiet. Instead of doing that I throw myself down a step, landing heavily on my knees and shoulder and banging my chin on the concrete, jarring my jaw. Three English people having tea in the garden stop talking and look, but not one of them even asks if I am all right let alone gets up to see if I need help. I hear footsteps and one of the Nepali men having tea in the garden comes running up to make sure I am okay and offers to ring the doctor. No need for that. I think my pride has suffered the greatest injury. I am now sporting sore knees, an aching shoulder and a grazed chin.

We’ve arranged to meet Bernd and Heidi at the Lhasa Tibetan Restaurant. Between the three of us we devour a wonderful Tibetan feast of cheese balls, meat balls and fish and vegetables cooked in a soup with rice noodles. It is delicious and only surpassed by the good conversation.

The next morning, Brian is still not well, but the cloud has gone and the Annapurna glisten in the sun. While Brian rests, I wander around the lake spending some time with Bernd and Heidi. The Tibetan women are selling trinkets on the roadside and it is hard to refuse them.

T-shirts embroidered in any design are available everywhere in Nepal. I order a couple of custom-designed ‘Aussies Overland’ shirts in town and get talking to the embroiderer. When I tell him Brian’s symptoms, he asks if Brian could have malaria. Oh shit. I hadn’t thought of that. It dawns on me that Bettina picked up malaria in Bardia National Park and we have just come from there. He offers to act as interpreter and ambulance if Brian is no better in the morning. The friendliness of the Nepali people is heartwarming. This guy doesn’t know us from Adam, but he is prepared to shut up shop and look after Brian. Luckily, we don’t need to take up his kind offer, as Brian only has the flu.

Our spirits lift when the cloud that has descended again breaks. The setting sun sprays the most incredible pink light across the snowcapped peaks.

Sunrise over the Annapurna is said to be a sight to behold. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see it. After dragging ourselves out of bed super early, we drive to the lookout and can’t see anything but cloud. The locals try to convince us that the cloud will lift in time for sunrise so we sit and wait, freezing to the core. The cloud and fog just gets heavier, but some Japanese tourists have the right idea. They buy a poster of the Annapurna at dawn, hold it up to the sky and take photographs of it. I can’t resist taking a photo of them taking a photo of the photo.

Bernd and Heidi have been here for days and have a favourite restaurant that Brian and I try for breakfast for the first time. It’s owned by a family of nine, who live in two small rooms at the side. There is a woman, her two children, her sister and her four children and their mother. It is a hand to mouth existence. The only time the woman’s husband turns up is when he needs money for drink. She is having so much trouble getting the money she needs to pay the electricity bill, she asks Bernd and Heidi if they would like to pay for their meals for the next couple of days in advance. Generous souls that they are, they agree.

Nepal is a wonderful place and the people are friendly – if only they could sort out their political problems, so more visitors would come and enjoy the scenery and the people. Every day we read more stories in the paper about Maoists killing and being killed, kidnappings and strikes. Amnesty International is here trying to get the warring parties together for discussions without much success.

The snake charmers not only charm the snakes out of their baskets, they charm the money out of your wallet by embarrassing you until you pay up. Decked out in brightly-coloured clothes and turbans, they sit for pictures, then they want 100 rupees per camera for their trouble. During the tourist season they must make a killing!

Bernd and Heidi have a surprise for us – Ingo has arrived. We didn’t expect to see him again. As he is studying forestry, he plans one day to come to Australia to see our wonderful forests. He will spend a couple of months in Nepal before heading back through India and home to Germany to continue his studies.

The five of us take a paddle around the lake. I admit to being very uncoordinated and happily let Brian paddle our canoe, while Bernd and Ingo let Heidi chauffeur them across the lake. Our leaky little canoes aren’t state-of-the-art but the new paint job seems to be keeping the water out. The same can’t be said for the public water taxi that jams 15 on board to make the journey from the island temple back to the shore. The taxis are just above the water line, the driver and passengers oblivious to the catastrophe that could befall them.

Brian and I say goodbye to Ingo again and turn south to the Royal Chitwan National Park. Not keen to travel over the landmined road again, we arrange to meet Bernd and Heidi down there. We head across the hills past fields of green. Above us, eagles soar in the sunlight. It is the perfect day for a ride. We even pass a wonderful smiling seated Buddha, about 3 metres tall, to add to the pleasure of the scenery.

A modern bridge takes us over a creek; then we end up on a goat track again. Why they didn’t pave from the bridge through to the roadway is a mystery. After more bumps, slips and slides, we end up at our hotel on the banks of the river running though the national park. There aren’t too many guests. There is another bandh in Kathmandu and those who were expected can’t get through. The troubles make it very difficult for the traders to survive.

We sit by the river and have a cocktail at sunset. Here one of the locals joins us – a one-year-old rhino. This young lady stands a metre tall and would make a mess of your foot if she trod on it. She was found wounded in the jungle and has been raised by the rangers. She has no fear of humans, but will be returned to the jungle before she gets too big to handle. Only yesterday a local woman was killed by a rhino on the edge of the jungle.

Brian: Being on holiday is hard work! Today is a tough one: we drag ourselves out of bed at 6.30 for breakfast at 7 to meet up with the others at 7.30 for our day in the jungle.

The river looks eerie in the early morning mist. Dugout canoes are lined up to take tourists for a paddle. Each dugout sits eight on very rudimentary homemade wooden seats with small back supports. The ‘canoeist’ stands up the back with a bamboo pole for propulsion. The waterline is, at best, 10 centimetres from the lip of the dugout and it is unstable. The river is flowing fast and filled with logs, rocks and debris. I plan how to keep the camera dry if and when we come to grief.

The canoe trip lasts about 45 minutes and, once we get used to the idea of impending disaster with every push of the bamboo pole, it’s quite enjoyable. The mist is very thick and it is difficult to see the bank on the far side. We pass villages coming to life and fishermen going about their work. We hear men talking and see huge black shapes appear out of the mist – elephants coming back from the jungle laden with grass. They walk straight towards us in the water, their white tusks standing out against their black bodies. Such a magnificent sight makes the early morning chill worth putting up with.

The Rapti River is wide but not very deep at this time of year; still, you can see the huge cuts it makes into the riverbank during the monsoon. Our guide explains that this river is a tributary to the Ganges. The fast-flowing water keeps this part of it fresh and clean.

Our river pilot heads towards the bank on the jungle side. I can’t see where we will land, but I know it will be fast and hard. The dugout is pushed into the sand and the current quickly spins it around its full length. We all scramble out and clamber up the steep bank.

We have two guides, little Nepali men carrying bamboo sticks, to protect us during our walk through the jungle. Such wild beasts as tiger, rhino, wild elephant and sloth bear are all aggressive to humans. It is shades of Bardia all over again. The safety briefing goes along the lines of: if you see a tiger, stare him in the eye and back off slowly; if it’s a rhino, run in a zigzag, not straight line, and climb the nearest tree; if you see an elephant, run like crazy; a sloth bear, crowd together and don’t climb a tree – they are better climbers than us. With these words of wisdom at the forefront of our minds, we head off into the jungle.

We don’t have any encounters with wild beasts, but we do encounter an army patrol. Four elephants lumber up the dry riverbed, each carrying two heavily armed soldiers and the mahout. They are on patrol looking for poachers.

Shirley: It’s not all work for the elephants. Each day, at lunchtime, they come to the river for a bath. It is such an incredible sight to witness the bond between man and beast. The elephants loll about, thoroughly enjoying the attention and the scrubbing. They try to splash their mahouts and get shouted at for their trouble. It is all part of the theatre. One mahout takes a young Asian tourist into the river on the elephant’s back. Before long the inevitable happens – the elephant dunks his passenger. He takes it very well and is still laughing when he emerges and lays all his money, his airline ticket and passport out to dry.

After lunch, we again pile into the dugout and cross over into the national park with our guide for a jeep safari. Our ‘jeep’ is a 1940 Russian open-top four-wheel drive. Ten of us cram in.

After our poor luck on foot in the jungle, we don’t expect to see any animals of interest other than deer and monkeys. We couldn’t be more wrong. We travel only a short distance when we spot our first rhino. By the end of the afternoon we have seen seven, a bit of a record for this time of year. We also see mugger crocodiles basking in the sun and kingfishers diving into the water with lightning speed. We are blessed. We spy holes dug by sloth bears looking for termites, but not the creatures themselves. On the way back to the river, our guide just about falls out of the jeep in excitement. He has spotted a bison. It is a rarity in these parts, so our guide takes off to get a close look, leaving us in the jeep wondering if he will ever come back. When the bison loses interest and wanders off into the jungle, our guide returns only to discover that one of the canvas things they call tyres is flat. In no time it is replaced with something similar, but this one has some air in it.

It’s my birthday. I’m a long way from home and I’m homesick. For a special treat we take an elephant ride into the jungle. Our elephant is a 35-year-old female called Pon Colly. Colly is the family name for all female elephants and Pon is her pet name. Pon Colly pushes her way through the undergrowth to get us close to the animals. She pulls branches aside with her trunk and then moves closer to some deer. They just stand and stare, unfazed.

A rhino grazing in a clearing is also undisturbed by our presence. It is as if the animals see the elephant and don’t sense our presence. Some monkeys and another rhino just go on with their lives, ignoring us and giving us a chance to see them at close range.

On the way back to town we pass a pair of sunglasses on the roadway. With one indecipherable command from the mahout, Pon Colly picks up the glasses with her trunk and gives them to him.

At dinner Bernd and Heidi produce two bottles of French red wine they have carried from Pokhara as a birthday present. I am very spoilt – and loving it.

At the elephant breeding centre the elephants are chained and this seems terribly cruel until we are told that every day from 10 to 3 they are taken into the jungle to walk about and graze. And when visitors come they get extra rations, because they feed them bananas.

The babies and the mothers love the treats and want more. One of the young elephants wraps its trunk around my hand, hoping it is a banana. I am surprised by its strength. It’s a real photo opportunity and we get Bernd to take a shot of us with the baby, who wraps his trunk around my leg, dragging me closer. I have to hang on to Brian to stop myself from falling. It is an unusual photo.

Brian: The ride out of the village is interesting. Everyone waves at us as I take the lead with Bernd behind and Heidi tailend Charlie. When we get to the river we can see the brand-new bridge, but the road doesn’t lead there. It takes us to a fragile-looking old wooden bridge about one and a half metres wide. It slopes precariously in places and it looks as though there is nothing to stop us from sliding into the water. Bernd and I stop and look at it closely before deciding to have a go. The planks are loose and rattle ominously under the weight of the bike, but we make it and scramble up the slope back onto firmer ground.

We take the scenic route back to Kathmandu. As we get above 2000 m, the road deteriorates to a gravel-and-rock track. With the not-so-good back tyre, we slip, slide and clutch-slip our way to the summit of this range, at 2480 m.

As we come down the other side, the views are spectacular, with the Himalayas laid out in front of us and not a cloud in the sky. I go quiet for a little while and think of Possum and how much he loved this place.

The closer we get to the Kathmandu valley, the more testing the roads become. They are very narrow, and the constant threat of trucks and buses careering around blind corners on our side of the road keeps us on our toes. Twice I come to a standstill and pull over towards the edge of the mountain to let trucks squeeze past.

The broken road stretches the suspension to the max. Finally, we bump and grind our way down to the main Kathmandu–Pokhara road. The traffic pollution is almost stifling. Trucks and buses spew black smoke all over us, but we make good time to the Kathmandu ring road.

We find we have to be aggressive to get through the traffic here. Heidi does a great job keeping up, and we find our way to the Courtyard Hotel. Pujan, our host, greets us like long-lost friends. He invites us all to a Nepali welcome feast with his friends from the US embassy and a local band.

Shirley: Before flying out of Kathmandu for Bangkok, we need to pack the bike for shipment. Putting the bike into a crate seems like an easy task, but ours is a big bike. To squeeze it into a small crate, we would need to take off the front wheel, nose cone and instrument panel. To leave it in one piece, we would have to have a huge crate, but when we do all the calculations with varying sizes and weights it will cost us only about $40 more to leave it together, so we opt for that. The size of the crate comes to 561 kg in volume – they make us pay for the actual weight or volume weight, whichever is larger. This means we pay $1.07 per kilo plus 7c per kilo for the insurance. Then we add all the extras – $2 for the airway bill, $20 for the dangerous-goods certificate, $55 to make the crate, $34 for the company’s handling charges and $8 in government tax. Then it’s another $225 for each of our one-way tickets to Thailand – it’s a total of US$1205. Now we have weight to spare, so we load our gear into the bike to save carting it on the plane with us to Bangkok. With the bike safely lodged at the airport, we have a few days sightseeing before our flight to Thailand.

We bump into Cornel, the Romanian biker, again and catch up over dinner. He has some Irish backpackers with him. Cornel shares with us his experiences of fleeing Romania and his life on the road. The solitude and peace of cycling has a certain appeal, but not as much as life on two motorised wheels. Cornel lets us into his health secret: garlic. The restaurant serves up clove after clove, which he just munches on – raw! He says this is why he doesn’t get sick, but adds that it is also why he doesn’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend!

We get the usual directions to the Monkey Temple: go straight! Walking through Kathmandu, we realise just how poor these people are. And while the rivers in the country flow freely, the river in town is clogged with rubbish and filth. The stench is overpowering. People defecate in the river, because there is nowhere else for them to go. There is a makeshift plank bridge across this swill and we make the perilous journey over it, hoping we don’t slip in.

Most of these homes in this area don’t have even the most basic sanitation, yet the people are clean and they work hard to get their kids to school. Sadly, though, 48 per cent of Nepali children leave before they finish primary school.

The steps to the Buddhist Monkey Temple are guarded by stone elephants, lions, horses and peacocks – and live monkeys. These bad-tempered and mischievous creatures lord it over the temple. They steal the offerings that have been left, try to light-finger trinkets from the tourists and take the food from the restaurant and cafe tables. They swing off the prayer flags and generally put on quite a show.

The golden stupa dazzles in the sunshine. The Buddha’s eyes watch over all that happens here. The sounds of Tibetan Buddhist chants emanate from all the souvenir stands and the pleasant aroma of incense permeates the smoggy air. It is crowded with people, monkeys are everywhere, and yet it has peace and serenity. It’s that Buddhist thing again.

We meet up with Bernd, Heidi, Cornel, Linda and Michael (the Irish backpackers we met last night) to go to the New Orleans Cafe to hear Full Circle, Pujan’s friends, play. It’s a modern cafe where visitors and expats come to enjoy the music and the ambience. Here you can get Nepali food or burgers and fries. For us it was burgers. There is a big surprise waiting for us. Ingo has arrived. We are delighted – we thought we’d said our final farewell in Pokara.

The open-air bar is warmed by huge bins of fire scattered around the tables. While this form of heating clearly works, you get the feeling it would be banned in Australia because of the dangers. The band plays Nepali blues and jazz. The music is terrific – just flute, guitar (acoustic and bass are played at different times), African drums and, in the finale, a didgeridoo-type bamboo tube.

Today there is a bandh in Kathmandu. When we get up for breakfast, the gates are locked and outside the streets are unusually quiet. The narrow streets on the way to the Durbar Square would normally be choked with traffic. Today they are empty. The going is certainly a lot easier without having to dodge hundreds of rickshaws and cars.

The Durbar Square was once the royal palace and dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There are temples and shrines to Hindu gods. Some of the temples have towering golden spires, and many have magnificently carved windows, roof supports and doors. And there is the palace of the Kumari, Nepal’s living goddess. This prepubescent girl is selected to be the living goddess and will live in the temple with her family until she reaches puberty, when she becomes a mere mortal again and she and her family will go back to their home. The temple pays the Kumari a dowry when she retires. Local legend has it that it is unlucky to marry a former Kumari. It is just another intriguing part of Nepali culture.

We spend a couple of hours looking at the temples. There is a small one built under a tree. The tree has now overtaken the temple, nearly obscuring it, and has grown around it – it must be more than 100 years old. Others have brightly coloured effigies of the gods and lions to guard the entrances. There are also areas where goats and buffalo are sacrificed during special festivals, even today. The constant badgering by touts selling everything from Tiger Balm to flutes is very wearying. It isn’t long before we are all fed up with it.

Today is ‘B’ day, the day the bike begins its solo journey to Thailand. We meet Jaween, the cargo agent, at Eagle Eyes and follow him to their airport. This is a prize target for the Maoists, so we are all searched before we can ride into the freight terminal. We have learned to live with these inconveniences.

Brian: Inside the customs terminal, I find a quiet corner and start dismantling the bike. The screen and fairing comes off, and the top box. The customs official comes over to inspect what we are shipping. He empties out the top box and looks inside both panniers. He even checks out the inside of our bike boots.

The audience around the bike continues to grow. The people are intrigued when I take the tank off and drain the fuel. We disconnect the battery and let some air out of the tyres. Then it is time to build the crate. Here, every member of our audience becomes an expert. They have advice on how to get the bike in, how to tie it down, even where to anchor the tie-downs. Eventually it all fits in and the actual size of the crate is a bit smaller than we anticipated – 532 kilos, so the total bill is US$1178.

Life is simple in Nepal. In the customs hall they don’t have forklifts, so our audience comes in very handy when we have to push the crate into the holding shed. Here’s hoping it will arrive in Bangkok in one piece.

Shirley: The local cinema is showing the latest Lord of the Rings film in English. The tickets are cheap – only 135 rupees (AUD$2.50) for back stalls and you get an allocated seat. We are searched on the way in, but the staff member who does so is more concerned about us smuggling in food we haven’t bought at the cinema than she is about us concealing a bomb.

While there are warnings to turn off mobile phones, they are not heeded. Throughout the movie, phones ring and people conduct lengthy conversations. There is even an old-fashioned interval. When the subtitles are on the screen, a hush falls over the audience. When the action begins without dialogue, the chatter starts and it gets louder and louder.

We have dinner at the restaurant Kilroys of Kathmandu, which is an institution in this town. The chef specialises in desserts and good old-fashioned Irish food. The liver and onion is wonderful, but it is the desserts we mainly came for. Brian’s apple crumble is delicious and the lemon tart is to die for.

Brian: Another day without the bike means I have no excuse to stop Shirl vying for the ‘Tourist of the Century’ award. She maps out yet another day packed with the sights and sounds of Kathmandu. She has her heart set on visiting the cremation ghats near the temples on the riverbank at Pashupatinath, the holy place for the Hindus.

Like Varanasi on the Ganges, this is the place to be cremated. There is a brick structure with a veranda where the poor and infirm lie under blankets, waiting to die. I find this heartbreaking. It’s as if they have nothing left to live for, so they come here and wait for death to take them.

We walk down to the river and the stench of acrid smoke hangs in the air. Fittingly, it has started to rain and the area is very grey. In front of the temples, there is a stone-terraced area that leads down to the river, where stone platforms are placed at intervals. As we cross over a bridge, we can see at least four funeral pyres burning remains. The ashes are then washed into the river.

Outside the main temple a body is being prepared. It is wrapped in white cloth and festooned with bright-orange floral leis. A crowd of hundreds is gathered here. The deceased man must have been important in the community, judging by his obviously distraught wife and family members. We watch as clods of grass are laid on the stone platform, then a large funeral pyre is built. Next, the men lift the body onto the top and rotate it three times, presumably to confuse the spirits. Then, everyone is invited to gather water from the river and sprinkle it over the corpse. The ‘funeral director’, for want of a better name, makes sure a linen screen is put up so the grieving family do not see him remove the bamboo supports holding the body over a litter. We are on the other side of the river and see it all. Then a young man stands next to the body and gives a speech before the fire is lit.

Meanwhile, the resident monkeys vie for position to steal the food offerings placed at the foot of the pyre. Interestingly, some men give the monkeys the food. Going by the number of cremations that take place, the monkeys don’t have to venture too far to be fed.

I have seen enough – I see plenty of dead bodies in my job and don’t really need to witness others’ grief. I know the ceremony fascinates Shirley, but she also finds it disturbing. We are not used to these rituals and have coffins to hide the realities of death.

After this trauma it is pleasant to visit the Tibetan enclave of Boudah. The exiled Tibetans have built a gigantic stupa, which is painted a brilliant white and festooned with prayer flags. The Buddha’s eyes seem to follow you around the temple.

The circular courtyard is a jumble of tourist shops selling everything Tibetan. The prices are high, but I am in the mood to barter. I know Shirl really wants a Tibetan singing bowl, a metal bowl that resonates with an impressive tone when rubbed with a wooden stick. We find a little shop selling properly engraved singing bowls rather than the painted ones. They are heavier and give a wonderful, deep tone when they sing. I do a deal and Shirl gets the woman to throw in a small string of prayer flags. Her bartering skills are getting better. God help the butcher and greengrocer at home – I can just hear her now: ‘A leg of lamb thanks, Brendon … is that your best price? How about throwing in a couple of lamb chops?’ Look out, fellas!

Shirley: It is our last night in Nepal. Pujan is putting on a dinner to farewell us and has invited our German friends. We feast on traditional Nuwari food of potatoes, beans laced with too much chilli and garlic and mo mo – and that’s just the entree. The main course consists of a dhal and chicken dishes over boiled rice. Delicious!

It is an emotional time, sharing our ‘last supper’ with Ingo, Bernd and Heidi. We’ve experienced a lot together since meeting up in Iran. Ingo heads back home to Germany now, and Bernd and Heidi continue their journey at a much slower pace than Brian and me. We plan to meet them in Australia next year.

We always seem to be saying goodbye to too many good people. While we wait for our taxi, Pujan presents us with traditional Tibetan farewell scarves. There are more tears and more promises to return to Nepal.

Brian: There is an email from our friends Nikos and Judy in Athens. Nikos tells us they had an accident on their scooter. Judy is recovering from her injuries and Nikos has a new Piaggio 500 scooter. Nikos has a great line: ‘Life without a motorbike is worth nothing.’

Shirley: Flying out of Nepal, we pass the Himalayas. They are nothing short of spectacular. The mountains are breathtaking in their rugged beauty, and awesome in their danger. We leave Nepal with fond memories.