August 10, 2005

Persepective

Butwhal, Nepal
Total KM 7013

"I don't care what you say about me, but make sure you spell my name right."
- P.T. Barnum

This story is entirely unrelated to the previous one.

How you look at things. Is your bowl of rice half empty of half full (sorry for the rice comparisson, I've been in Asia too long...or not long eough)?

A few inches to the right or left and, respectively, I could have come away without a scratch or I could have been killed .

The line I chose going past the 80M cliff took me down the middle of the road through a dip-down section of rough concrete (instead of the usual asphalt) which aides in the run-off of water from the cliff in the peak of the monsoon season. While I was barrelling through the dip at 30 km/h an Andre the Giant fist sized, pointy rock came plunging downward into my field of vision a few feet infront of me. The next thing I knew, it had smoked me in the shin and then bounced back up to hit the bottom of my pedal.

I swerved wildly and my trailer bounced (from the sudden return to downhill after the tiop of the drainage dip) causing my 2 litre water bottle, that had been loosely inserted into a bottle cage on the rear of my trailer, to hop out. I skidded to a halt - grasped my bleeding shin and shouted aloud in pain - and paused to watch another large stone fall from high above as well as to observe my bottle skid along the downhill section of tarmac. I was feeling quite relieved that it wasn't me who was grinding against the bitumen like a tin can behind a newlywed's car.

That was close.
How did that happen?

Natural rockfall? Not likely. Considering that the sope of the cliff, blasted out from the side of the mountain to make way for a road, was at an agnle at least 15 degrees away from vertical (away from the road). There is no way that it would have fallen so far away from the cliff to end up in the middle of the road. If it had fallen naturally it wold have bounced againest the cliff, fallen a bit, bounced again, fallen some more, etc. etc.

Maoist sabotage? Possible. This 35km section of road had been blocked and "boobytrapped" by Maoists a week ago, and was only cleared for travel 2 days ago. I had read that the road was boobytrapped, but I wasn't exactly sure what that implied. Was this it?

Kids being little brats? Maybe, but I didn't want to believe it. Most children in Nepal have been very polite, calling me Sir and asking me questions in perfect English with cute sub-continent accent. But some children have been really bad in this country - throwing rocks, begging, trying to steal things off the back of my bike. Not all kids, just the uneducated ones in small villages who don't attend school. But to do something as sadastic as hurl a boulder off a cliff at someone? You'd have to be one twisted kid to do that. That's "Lord of the Flies" kinda shit.

The forth possible scenario is that of a farmer, up at the top of the cliff collecting vegetation. I can't say he was picking his crops, because he wasn't. You see it all the time, they are just collecting big bundles of greenery, I think they feed it to their sacred cows. I contined around the bend in the road until it came back around and I was affored a clear vantage point of the area. I stood and watched for 10 minutes, there was definitely someone up there.

Perspective - a way of regarding situations or topics etc

How do you view the world and the events unfolding daily? Are they liberating Iraq or just causing unnecessary bloodshed? Was I extremely unfortunate to have been in the way of the rockfall at that exact mili-second, or was I really lucky in the fact that I wasn't a further six inches to the left?

Posted by tyler at 08:11 AM

August 02, 2005

Duty

Mungling (no, I didn't make this towns name up), Nepal
Total KM 6657

"Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation."
- Elizabeth Drew

I left the scene of the accident, hands and arms dripping with anothers' blood, shaking my head in disbelief. Why didn't I do something more? Why didn't someone else try and help?

The next few hours were horrible, I continued to beat myself up over the incident until, while sitting and smoking in the corner on the concrete floor of my crummy hotel room, I finally convinced myself that there was nothing that I could have done to help the situation. Whether or not that is 100% true is open to speculation, but it doesn't matter what you think, you weren't there and don't fully know all the circumstances surrounding the event in question. Even I do not fully understand the entire situation or all the cultural considerations that must be taken into account.

It was supposed to be a good day, I was finally leaving Kathmandu. Right from my arrival in the valley that is Kathmandu, things weren't exactly perfect- heavy rains, check points, traffic, sickness, annoying touts and government bureaucracy plagued me during my stay. I needed a long rest after my ride from Lhasa, especially so considering I rode the last 480KM with two bikes, but soon after arriving in the capital of Nepal I turned ill. Standing in line at the Indian Embassy for over 2 hours with a bad case of the runs is not a pleasant experience, I thought I had dysentery but then realized that it was most likely bacterial diarrhea. It was cleared up with the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin. About 4 years ago I had purchased some of the same stuff in Canada, I had needed a prescription and the medicine had cost around $20, nevermind what the visit to the doctor had cost. Here in Nepal, I just walked down the alley, dodging the massive pot-holes filled with water, and into a convience store where I found some Cipro next to the Tiger Balm and above the condoms. It was less than $2. When traveling in third world Asian countries, you can usually find most medicines are readily available for a fraction of what you would pay in the west, and without a prescription. But beware of the knock-offs and check the expiration dates - and of course, self-diagnosis can be danger and is not a substitute for sound medical advice blah blah blah. In Tibet I contracted Giardia and then bacterial diarrhea in Nepal, if this trend continues it means (drumroll please - dun dun da da dun dun) I'll get Amoebic dysentery in India! I'm just glad I've managed to fend off the insect-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever. See, you've always got something to be happy about if you look hard enough.

But that's all over now, I managed to put some weight back on and thankfully I can no longer count my ribs just by looking at my chest. My bike was all packed up and I had a very early start in order to complete the hilly 110km stretch with no accommadation (I've decided no to camp while in Nepal due to the current situation involving the Maoists). Climbing up and out of the Kathmandu valley I had the front of my shirt bunched up over my mouth in an attempt to keep from breathing in the ever-present exhaust from the steady stream of buses and trucks. Forget bottled oxygen on Everest, I coulda used some of that stuff during my escape from Kathmandu.

The other side of Kathmandu valley.

After breakfast, on a 10 km downhill, I ran into this mad-Indian cyclist who was pushing his bike up the hill that I had the pleasure of riding down. I had read an article in the paper the week before and I had hoped that I would see him on the road somewhere. And spot him I did! It was impossible to miss him and his massive 107 kg, single speed bike, which was loaded down with gigantic flags protruding from every available spot.

Click on the thumbnail to view the full sized version.

He is riding around the sub-continent for peace. With no shoes and a huge smile on his face he had been cycling for the past 3 years around India and had just entered Nepal the previous week. The energy and positive vibes that this guy was giving off were phenomenal. I'm not one to usually talk about that kind of stuff but I feel it must be mentioned, a freakin' brick wall could pick up on the peacefulness and positivity that was radiating from him. We did a quick photo shoot, he tried riding my bike and I tried pushing his up the hill, which I couldn't accomplish. Afterwards, we sat down, ate some biscuits and he started talking to me in Hindi and I to him in English, even though I don't understand a single word of Hindi and he didn't know any English. I departed in high spirits. "What a great day!" I thought. I'm on the open road, the sun is out, and to top it off - I'm going downhill.

Around half eleven, drenched in sweat and overcome with feelings of hunger and thirst, I stopped near a small waterfall and had a lunch of dry muesli and granola while reading a pocket sized "Wilderness Survival Guide" that I had picked up at a bookshop in Kathmandu. In particular, I was reading the chapter on mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing and CPR, my memory of the exact steps involved was a little foggy considering it has been over 5 years since I took a First Aid/CPR course. I believe my sub-conscious was taking the dangerous road conditions into account and telling myself that I should be thinking more about safety. It was right...

To Be Continued...I don't have the time (that's a lie), I don't have the patience to continue typing this all out at this moment. I'll paste the rest of this story up later.

Posted by tyler at 01:08 PM | 1 Comments

July 27, 2005

Kathmandu Pictures

Kathmandu, Nepal
Total KM 6531

I just spent way too much money on a new camera, a Sony Cybershot DSC-828, it's kinda big but it's quality. To celebrate I went out and took pictures of people with umbrellas when there wasn't a cloud in sight.
Please click on the images to display them at full resolution.

Looks pretty dry to me...

Posted by tyler at 02:03 PM

July 26, 2005

Heaven or Hell

Kathmandu, Nepal
Total KM 6531

Kathmandu - a noisy, dirty, bustling, little city with constantly congested roads and awful air pollution. The tourist haunt of Thamel is the place where trekkers, mountaineers, climbers, kayakers and mountain bikers meet, eat and sleep (not to forget those travellers who don't really do too much, those smoking themselves around the world). In Thamel, whatever you desire is no more than a crooked, twisting alley away. Backpacks, rare books on Tibet, yak-steaks, tacky hats, hashish or a sleeping bag - no problem, just make your way around the cycle rickshaws, taxis (constantly abusing their horns), hashish peddlars, tiger-balm sellers and freelance shoe-repairmen. This one guy has been stalking me for the past week, eager to fix my shoes. Yes, there is a hold in the bottom of one shoe and consequently my big toe now rubs the pavement, with me cringing everytime it gets wet (I really hope that was just water...) There's no question of the fact that my shoes desperately need some work, but I'm not going to be bullied into getting them repaired.

The Maoist situation in Nepal is driving thousands of tourists away, and it is really hurting those in the tourism industry. But it's great for really driving down the prices at hotels(!)

I'll be here for over a week, waiting for my Indian visa. In the meantime I need to tune-up my bike, replace some parts, thoroughly clean and repair just about all my gear, put the weight back on that I lost from all the instant noodles in Tibet, but generally I just try and relax and eat myself stupid.

Posted by tyler at 05:50 PM

July 16, 2005

Grief

Somewhere between China and Kathmandu, Nepal
Total KM 6481

Elevation 1800 M

"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
- Albert Einstein

This morning, while trying to cross the border into Nepal, the officer at Chinese immigration scolded me because my Alien Travel Permit has expired over a week ago and because I was travelling solo (without the requisite guide). I pleaded with him that bike problems at Everest cause my delay and as for the whole "must be on a guided tour" non-sense, I just kept repeating that I'm cycling and don't have the money to hire a guide, driver, Land Cruiser and all that.
He then questioned me as to where I had been in Tibet.

"Where have you been in Tibet?"

...Well, let me think, I rode here illegally threw East Tibet, going through all the checkpoints at night while handing out pictures of the Dali Lama to everyone who smiled at me. Then there was the illegal trekking in the Everest region... "Uhhh, I flew into Lhasa and then went to Shigatse and Everest Base Camp."

"You shouldn't be doing this. Next time get a guide."

STAMP

Me breathing a collective sigh of relief.

I was quite worried that he was going to try and fine me. Because of my spur of the moment purchase of an extra bicycle at EBC I was down to about $10 in cash at this point, and there was nowhere within 500km (besides Kathmandu, on the other side of the border) where I could use my ATM card of cash a traveller's cheque. A fine would have meant that I would had to have gone out in the street and try and sell some of my gear.

"Would anyone like to purchase a pair of used socks that haven't been washed in a week? They are actually white, I swear."

I would probably have better luck charging people to tug at my arm hair.

"Come stroke the monkey's arm hair for a dollar."

I hate it when Asians call me a monkey because of hair.
Have they never used a mirror?
That's not racist, I'm not racist, I hate everybody equally.

Posted by tyler at 12:05 PM