AND WHY IT IS SUCH AN UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE
This is me. And behind me are the High Himalaya’s. More specifically the Northern Nilgiri range of Nepal’s Mustang district. This is a place of enormous vistas, tiny Tibetan hamlets, and temples completely lost in time. Most of the few people who venture out to experience Mustang, do that through their feet. Personally, I believe there’s no better way than to do it riding a motorcycle. Putting it another way, this is – by far and large – the best road trip you can ever take.
Period…
Having stated the above, there few things you probably should know before venturing out yourselves.
“F*** off mom, I’m a biker!”
Remember that scene from Raiders of the Lost Arc? The one where Indiana Jones walks into Marion’s Nepalese Bar?
Now think about it again but this time with fewer Nazis. That’s pretty much what we entered to after a long day of riding all the way up to Jomsom. Greeting us were a bunch of local Tibetan folks who I can swear have never ventured anywhere below 2,500 meters, and semi drunk big “bloke” with a thick Northern English accent and a wooden peg leg. I’m not making this up. The broad shouldered guy looked and sounded like Long John Silver, only the latter was better dressed and not as portly.
He was one of those characters who would love to have a pint with you, but could as easily break the glass over your head on such important disagreements as your favorite brand of motorcycles. We immediately agreed we liked the same brand as he (I think it was Honda) and in exchange, he briefed us on his life so far.
He loved super-sports motorbikes, hated the “fuzz”, and lost his leg in a bike accident while trying to evade them. When his mother begged him to stop the madness he told her “f*** off mom, I’m a biker!” He was very proud of this fact. By the way, he still has three Hondas back home which he claims to ride “right and propah”.
How exactly did he manage to ride his bikes right and proper? We didn’t dare to ask. He had a glass of beer in his hand.
They say “you meet the nicest people riding a Honda”. We rode a little known Taiwanese dual-sport bike called Hartford 180, so I guess we got to meet the others.
It’s not just about people
If you have been following this blog, you’d know by now that I have mixed feelings about Nepal. A Combination of love and loath. The Nepalese are the nicest people you can find. Yet, they live in one of the worst cities you can imagine. A Hell on Earth which they have created.
This post will describe the other side of this poor yet magnificent nation. The side that makes places as horrid as Kathmandu almost bearable, and certainly worth the sacrifice.
These are places best explored on a motorbike. Even if that motorbike happens to be a light, underpowered 180cc rental from a manufacturer you’ve never heard off before.
The only reason I have not put this adventure on the “bucket list” of things to do before you die, is because it’s really not for everyone. If you do however in for some adventure, this is one thing you should never miss.
Just don’t miss the below six rules
1. It’s your time or your money
You just can’t have both.
The romantic image of the lone biker is still valid. You can still brave it out alone on one Nepal’s outback with a limited budget, a backpack, and a load of spare parts. What the romantic image doesn’t show you is the wasted time.
To start with you’ll need a motorbike big and strong enough to carry your stuff. Unfortunately, these are rare and hard to come by in Nepal. Most dealers will only sell and serve small and light bikes. You’ll have to bring your BMW GS or Yamaha Super Tenere from somewhere else. But this is not the only hurdle. What happens if something goes wrong?
Unlike India for example – where even the tiniest village will have at least one Royal Enfield repair shop that could set the popular bike back into service in no time – Nepal remote pathways are not geared to bikers in general and to your rare big adventure bike in particular.
If you get stuck in a middle of nowhere in Mustang, it could be days before you’ll be able to ride again. It’s not that the locals won’t try to help. With time, a pickup truck might appear and stop to load you and your bike to a nearby village. But without the infrastructure to service, you may find yourself forced to transport your broken two-wheeler down the road to a major city before restarting your journey from square one.
The alternative would make your life easier, at a cost. If you happen to read the previous paragraph and say to yourself “Hmmm, this sounds like fun,” you can skip now to the next chapter. All else, stay tuned.
The idea is simple though not cheap (at least not in Nepalese standards which are pretty low). You rent the motorbike with a guide and mobile service station. The latter comes in the shape of a beaten old Hilux pickup truck fully laden with spare parts and driven by a mechanic.
Quite a few shops offer these services in Kathmandu and Pokhara. The prices may vary from store to store, based on the type of motorbike, the route, but most of all by the number of participants. The less you are, the higher the cost. This is one shop selling these services. Look up Google, and you’ll find more.
All you need to do now is throw your backpack in the back of the Hilux and ride light. But not too light!
Read the next chapter.
2. Don’t skimp on safety
Unless you live in places such as Texas, Utah, Illinois, and a host of other “helmet-free” states, this may sound like a no-brainer to you. It’s ok. It means you’re a sensible human being. Then again, sensible human beings don’t choose Kathmandu as a holiday destination and normally would not traverse the Himalayas on a small two-wheeler of unknown origin.
So, for the rest of you out there, bring proper safety gear with you. A proper, full-size off-road helmet is a good starting point. Make sure to also include the following equipment list BEFORE you board the plane to Nepal. It will be hard – to put it mildly – to find them once inside:
* Proper off-road riding boots.
These should have a metal case covering the toes. When hitting a large pebble at 30kph, you would want the boot to break the pebble – not vice-versa.
* Chest and back shields.
Make sure these include built-in shoulder protection.
* Elbow and wrist shields.
* Knee and ankle shields.
Because you don’t want to wind up like that Wooden-pegged nice English Gentleman from Jomsom.
* Riding Goggles
* Full riding gloves
Ventilated if possible.
* First aid kit.
Don’t count on that 1980s’ Hilux to have one.
Check out this site, or similar for more information.
Don’t be too concerned with the fact that very few in Nepal bother to wear any helmet, and that you’d very well be the only person in the country to wear full gear. Just remember that the locals value their lives by Nepalese Rupees which are about 100 to the Dollar.
3. There’s no replacement for displacement
Back in the 1960s, when life was simple, oil was cheap and emissions controls were still a strange concept, the larger the engine under your hood – the faster your car went. Needed more power? No worries. Just add another liter or two to that big V8 and off you go. Oil prices, climate change, and technology had broken that equation long ago by introducing turbocharging, direct injection and ECUs to almost every modern car sold today.
Motorcycles, for many reasons, remained naturally aspirated. So while bike technology has skyrocketed since the 60s’ the basic old engine equation hasn’t changed. Nowhere does this come clearer than at high altitudes, where your engine starts losing power because of lack of oxygen.
We found it out the hard way. Read below, so you don’t.
Just to briefly clarify the simple physics; the higher you go, the lower the air density around you. Since both you and your motorcycle engine need oxygen to operate, and since none of you come equipped with an integral air compressor (a.k.a. Turbo Charger), lower oxygen levels will mean lower performance. The difference is your body can slightly adjust to the altitude, while your bike can’t. At 4,000 meters a motorcycle will produce slightly more than half the power it did at Sea Level. But it will still need to carry the same weight.
The following example will hopefully help in clarifying the point. At 4,000 meters a BMW 700GS engine – originally measured at 75hp – will scale down to about 40hp. Enough to carry its 200kg curb weight plus your fat ass with some degree of dignity. Take a humble rented Hartford 180cc, on the other hand – whose small 180cc engine produced, when new, about 13hp at Sea Level – to 4,000 meters, and you’ll find that remaining 7hp may not be enough to carry you on top of its own curb weight of about 100kg.
To put it bluntly, unless your bike had some serious power reserves to start with, you should be prepared for some rough climbing to altitudes higher than 3,000 meters. We found our own light and agile Hartfords starting to struggle already at about 2,500 meters. We did reach 4,000 meters, although “dignity” was not a term I’ll choose to describe our final ascent.
4. Watch your head(ache)
Speaking of altitude (and unless you happened to grow up on the shores of Lake Titicaca, or just came down the previous week from Mt. Everest), your bike will not be the only one struggling as you climb up.
Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), more commonly known as Altitude Sickness, will start to affect as you climb higher. When will AMS affect you, and how hard changes from one individual to another. All else being equal, AMS will likely hit you harder since you’ll be climbing much faster than the average hiker. I’ve written a full guide to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in which I described AMS and all the standard methods to reduce its impact. You can find it all here. As for me, a slight headache appeared when I reached Muktinath. It went south from there. Luckily some Advil and a good night sleep in Kagbeni had solved the issue.
5. Hug the cliffs (or else…)
Officially Nepal, like India, drives on the left side road. That doesn’t mean much in the chaotic traffic of Kathmandu, let alone on the narrow, unpaved paths of upper Mustang. Surprisingly, this general lawlessness can actually make you safer – here is why.
First, you need to realize that the flip side of having very high, steep mountains is having some very deep, vertical drops. With the laws of gravitation and Nepal’s general lack of road maintenance, being what they are, you better keep clear of the abyss as much as humanly possible. That means driving closest to the cliff whether it is on your right or on your left. Since the traffic is light, and since nobody’s expecting you to abide by the traffic laws anyway, no one will be too surprised to find you on the “wrong side” of the road after a blind turn.
See? lawlessness CAN work to your advantage!
For the sake of accuracy, this rule does not apply on Nepal’s few paved roads where the on-coming traffic will do its best to kill you regardless.
Stay focused (though it’s hard to)
The Himalaya highlands offer what must be the grandest, most dramatic scenery this world has to offer. No road trip on earth can ever match the overwhelming panorama, nor the crisp – pollution free – air of the high elevations.
I’m not aware of any other route that takes you – in a single riding day – through tropical India, the Canadian Rockies, and the high deserts of the Peruvian Andes.
Nepal’s off road paths offer all of that, and much more. With very little traffic to look for, it is only natural to lift your gaze away from the road. Do yourself a favor and stop your bike before you do.
Keep in mind that on top of all the obvious distractions, you will be fatigued from lack of oxygen and sheer driving exertion. What you do need to look at is the road in front of you. Keep in mind that it doesn’t require more that a medium sized rock, or a muddy patch to throw you off.
I discovered that myself on the outskirts of a remote Tibetan village some 3,700 meters high up. I was tired and a little dizzy, when my Hartford suddenly hit some mud and swerved to the wrong direction. Lucky for me the drop wasn’t steep, and since I was wearing full gear (see point #2), and our mechanic was not too far behind, we were able to recover swiftly and continue the journey to our planned night stop.
Pictures in this post were taken by my good friends, Alon, Ran, and Yoav. Thanks guys!