How to best describe riding in Khatmandu without a visual? Busy ants. Imagine four lanes of busy ants bumper to bumper, there is a right turn that needs to be made from the left side of the road, ( driving on left side ). Not only do you have to merge in to the far right lane you have to break through the four lanes of ants on the other side traveling in the opposite direction. How do you do this? Slowly…. you stick your nose out, the ants start to go around you, you creep across this highly energetic task driven stream of traffic as it now surrounds you from all sides. You are the rogue ant that is going against the pattern. But, this is not wrong, or disturbing to the other ants. This is just what you do. You must keep moving. Trucks, cars, bikes, people, rickshaws, buses…. We are all in this together. Not one persons position on the road more important than the other. Sometimes people let you go ahead, sometimes you let others in. It’s a real give and take, it is a chaotic purposeful dance.
Your clutch, brake, gas skills really come into play. Sometimes you are slamming on the the brakes, sometimes you are feathering the clutch to crawl, and sometimes you are gassing it to get into an open space. Something I have reflected on is in the states i am often looking in my rear view mirror to know who is behind me and where they are at; things move quickly and people do things that are impulsive and dangerous like trying to pass you at a dangerous time, or getting too close. Here we are anticipating the environment and each others moves in front of us. Drivers do not typically look in their mirror to see if there is someone behind them when they move around an object into your lane. This is your responsibility to be paying attention and act accordingly with clutch, brake, or gas. No annoyance, no disturbance. Just do what you need to do and move on.
Traffic does not move at the same pace, sometimes someone will just stop in the middle of the road to blow his nose or scratch his ass. There might be a family of four on a moped crawling along up hill and passing you going down. There could be a rickshaw overloaded with produce headed to market going at a slow pedals pace. Maybe there is some one on a moped with a passenger carrying a refrigerator. How about today there was a man and his goat; the goat was standing on the floorboard of the moped. And be careful with us tourists just opening doors right into traffic, that one almost got me.
The bikes are mostly mopeds, the cars small, the buses loud puking dark black coal, the roads dusty, the pollution thick….. it is Kathmandu. That beautiful ugly that i talk about. It is invigorating, alive, and it works, you get right sized. The bike i chose helps me to be a part of this without struggle. It is light, i can touch the ground and there is a familiar dirt bike feel. Not only is it good for the city it is great for the country.
We ( my bike and i, whom does not have a name yet ) did a 3 night tour around the valley. My first day i returned to a spot I hiked last time; it is in the national forest and follows a creek up to a high altitude where you can see Everest and the Annapurna range. Last time I stopped two dirt bike riders to ask them about their route, telling myself i would return to this spot on a bike, i though how epic it would be to ride. It was! Wet dirt, mud, rocks, twistiest, climbing…… I was so excited and a little concerned about how hard it was going to get, I did drop it climbing a boulder that kicked out and spun me around, she was so easy to pick up and get going again, No problem. My confidence was strengthened. I did break a piece of plastic though.
Reaching the top I had the same feeling as i did the last time when the Himalayas came into view. A sense of awe and respect. Like last time they were covered by a layer of haze that makes them difficult to photograph. Last time i stayed the night in one of, at the time, two available rooms. It was Very basic, cement room with a plywood bed frame and window with partial glass. The man who owned the room was hammered, i was a little nervous but had no other options. In the morning he apologized telling me there were very few tourists who came there. He didn’t want to charge me but i left money anyhow.
The earthquake had hit hard up there and took out half of the few accommodations. The hotels that were damaged still stood and told a story; the beauty of the mountain range and the destructive creation of them, moving plates of earth, resulting in earthquakes that uproot lives. Last time it was an unsettling feeling. Today they are cleared away and there has been nothing built to replace them, as if it never happened. I had a cup of tea at the place i previously stayed at, freshly painted and renovated it was a different experience, the father was not there but his daughter was, now 16. I didn’t want to bring up my previous stay, many Nepalis lost there lives and i do not know how it affected her.She helped me pick a different trail to my next destination; Nagarkot. Another popular place to see the Himalayas, my resting spot for my first night.
Moto and mojo go hand in hand for me. I got my mojo back, it felt really good to get out into nature, on the bike adventuring. There is more to this adventure but i am a few days ahead sitting at a coffee place in the busy popular tourist Thamel area in Kathmandu. I came here to get a few things that i need and can not get where i am staying. Like tape to fix the broken plastic on my bike.
This area caters to the westerner and is the infamous area where freak street became popular in the 70’s. I chose not to stay here because i wanted more of an authentic Nepali experience. And this is exactly what i have gotten, what made me feel uncomfortable, what i am now really starting to be so grateful for. An experience with the Nepali’s and Tibetans, and their culture. As i sit here i am grateful to have a bit of the comfortable, the familiar. But, i feel much more fortunate to be able to go back to Boudha, home, and challenge myself. And my home is quite a refuge.
