Nemaste Nepal - Top of the World

We entered Nepal on November 21st almost walking by the border without a Visa. The western border of Nepal is a relaxed dirt road along a canal with migrating Indians, Nepalese and various assorted farm animals walking to and fro, country to country. Nepal is in the middle of a cease fire with Maoist rebels which will be ending shortly but may be extended with talks from both sides. December 2nd there is a large manifestation being organized to demand democracy at the King's Palace. They are expecting upwards of 1 million citizens. This could be the beginning of a new era here in Nepal. There has been increased pressure from the US and UN demanding the King to listen to the Parliament, the Maoist movement and the people. There are many military checkpoints that we are allowed to pass freely on our bicycles. All buses and other transportation is stopped and searched at each chekpoint for rebel activity.

The locals are friendly and the children ring out "bye bye" and wave very excitedly as we pass them. In the western region there is not much food variety for us and our ferocious apetites. We have been living on biscuits, rice, dal, curried potato/cauliflower and a mustard green of some sort almost EVERY DAY! We decided to spend a couple nights in one of the National Parks named the Royal Bardia. It was amazing, we saw rhinos, leopards, two varities of deer (tiger food) but no tigers. The guide has never seen leopards in his 13 years in the park so we were very lucky to see these predatory cats. We could smell the scent of Tiger pee and saw fresh scratch marks on the side of the trail travelling to the next lookout tower. We then heard an Elephant roar to warn that there was a tiger in the immediate vicinity. We then met up with the Elephant that made our guide turn and almost run for a tree until he looked again and noticed it was domesticated. Our guide was armed with a bamboo stick and his wits. What an exciting day, seeing these large mamals roaming in there natural habitat and not in some zoo. It was $25 dollars for two days and a Jungle trek with lodging and 3 square Cycle tourist sized meals. What a deal!!!

The last few days we started to make our ascent from the southern plains of Nepal into Pokhara. We stopped in the city of Butwal a major hub in Nepal where we finally had a selection of food other than the Nepalese standard (good food but you can only each so much of it). We saw the mountains to the north as we prepared our tummies for the hills ahead. All I can say is we spent almost half our time off of the bike seat stopping to take pictures of utterly breathtaking views of valleys, moutains, forest and river. We arrived in Pokhara on the 29th. Just a few kilometers north of Pokhara is Annapurna the 9th highest mountain in the world WOW!!! (Picture of Annapurna above)

Kathmandu here we come, lets hope the King will do the right thing and listen to his subjects! The next few days will prove to be very interesting as we will be in the heart of the matter.

Stev-0