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2003-09-05/ 9-06 - Birdia National Park - Nepalganj (Day 143-144)

The rain has kept on through the night and morning. We were planning to go but remain undecided until 3:00pm, which is getting close to make or break as the next town is still 150 km away and due to the civil war, there is a curfew at 8:00pm with everyone off the streets.

The rain lets up and we head out back through the mud to the river crossing. Nothing is ever as worrisome the second time and the big problem before we cross is who is going to take the pictures and from what angle. (Noam / Gal - when you read this - you have the only pictures of the crossing, send me a copy!) We all make it through without too much trouble, one bike was stuck in the middle but a local boy waded in and pushed it forward, and we are off back onto the highway.

Its only 30 kilometers or so before the rain starts to pour again and Noam with a watchful eye leads us under a bus stop we had passed not far back. There are already several kids and a couple of men hiding from the rain when we pull in and drive the bikes into the bus stop, which almost fills the whole place side to side. We are all staring at each other but unfortunately, only one man speaks a very broken English. He is determined to communicate with us though and with a pen, drawing pictographs on his hand we manage to get the main details.

We ask about the Maoist insurrection, the man describes with hand gestures, and drawing on his hand that he expects the king will be killed in the next 3-4 months! Oh! Well that is a bit serious. Another man comes in at this point who speaks a bit better English and I ask him if I understood the first man correctly, he talks to the first man for a minute then looks at me, very serious and says, "I can't comment on that", turns and leaves very abruptly. I was later to learn this was one of the Maoist enclave areas...

We are stuck in the bus stop for more then an hour, but the rain finally lets up and we are off through the gorgeous Nepalese countryside which is simply some of the best riding roads I've ever been on - except for the goats and oxen.

We make it into Nepalganj just a few minutes before curfew cleared the streets. The hotel is another truck-stop dump so there is little good to say about anything after curfew. Just another night on a hard bed with no water for a shower.

I'm way behind on getting the journals online as there haven't been any internet cafes around for days so the first thing I do in the morning is make a stop at the café. We have loaded up the bikes to take off but we are in the café only 30 minutes before the rain starts to pour again and we give up the possibility of going anywhere today. Its HBO and photo cleaning for the rest of the day though not hard to endure since we switched hotels.

Since everything is locked down at night, one amusing thing is the hotel owners generally ask us to put the bikes inside at night - our three Enfields manage to pack the entire hotel lobby when the gates are closed. A picture of something similar - a bunch of Royal Enfields packing the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Taipei it quite amusing.

The next morning the rain is still pouring and we arn't going anywhere so its turn over and go back to sleep time.

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