A Game of Two Halves

How I missed the turn I have no idea. I left Kathmandu at 7am to begin my two week cycle to Delhi. The plan was to take two days to get to the Royal Chitwan National Park; Chitwan is the largest safari park in Asia. Looking at the map I saw a load of switch-backs on the map heading towards the town of Hetauda. I decided to go this way as it meant a fierce climb which would be a good test and it would also mean that I would avoid the busy Prithvi Highway, which I had already cycled on before. The incessant honking and stream of trucks and buses is fairly stressful. I'm much happier off the beaten track than on the tight-rope that riding the highway entails. The map indicated that if I continued straight then I would arrive at the foot of the pass to Hetauda. There was a right turn to Pokhara and indeed I saw a sign which confirmed as much. Travelling on the left-hand side of the road meant that if I simply kept to the left then I should not miss the turn. How I missed the turn I have no idea. I asked about twenty people and they told me to keep going and I would see a turn-off for Hetauda. It seems that there is as another turn for Hetauda a long way up the road where once again there is a right-hand turn for Pokhara. I can only gather that the pass I wanted to take is impassable and that is why buses and trucks continue to the next turn even if it ultimately means arriving in Hetauda having driven in a 'U'.  I'm not certain but needless to say that I was absolutely fuming, which was inevitable due to the following reasons. Firstly I was short on sleep as I had been out the night before although not too late. Secondly, the juice bar where I normally have breakfast was too busy serving tea to make me my toasted cheese omlette and granola with yoghurt and fruit (all for €1.25). Nepali's have two meals, Dahl Bhaat Tarakari at noon and Dahl Bhaat Tarakari at sun-set. They simply have tea for breakfast. Mark, on the other hand, has three meals a day (and sometimes more). As I'm not a morning person, unless I've had my nine hour quota of ZZZzzzs, I'm typically mute until I get both breakfast and lunch into me. After that I'm fine. If I've eaten well during the day then dindins is more about not letting my dinner spoil my dessert. I can't quite fathom how a cup of tea constitutes breakfast. I realise that an espresso or a tea for breakfast is not that uncommon in the west but no-one will ever manage to convince me that this is anything other than masochism. Naturally, having not eaten and having not slept too well it didn't take much to make me cranky. I was absolutely bullin'. This was the fourth time I had missed an important turn-off. There are so few highways outside of Kathmandu that I've only ever had to turn four times. I've missed them all. No doubt if I had been cycling backwards I would have seen the signs that they always seem to have for people travelling in the opposite direction to me. I was already too far down the mountain I had been travelling on that no amount of boiling blood was going to make me bubble back up to the turn-off.

So that was that, I was tracing over previous steps on the Prithvi Highway and taking the alternate route to Chitwan. I was so mad that I seriously considered doing a massive ride to the Indian border so that I could just get the hell out of Nepal. I kept staring at the tarmac when I realised that I was passing a rafting centre. Lady Providence made me spin around and I decided to stop for lunch. It was 11.30am. I had been on the road for four and a half hours and it made sense to stop to fuel up before the heat of the sun decided to make my day even more difficult. Next thing I knew I was eating my vegetable fried rice looking over the river I had been snaking all day and eyeballing some tents on the opposite side of the bank. This is where rafters on their two-day rafting trips spend the night. I checked the map and I was half-way to Chitwan. Decision made. I decided to rest-up for the day on the beach and pitch my tent for the night. It was exactly the kind of oasis I needed. In fairness, I had already clocked up 90 clicks having done everything by the touring hand-book; I rose with day-light and I arrived at my destination before the sun had reached it's highest point. Needless to say I had a great day by myself swimming in the river, lying in the sun-shine and reading my book. Of course, the honking trucks was never too far away (the other side of the river) but this seemed to me to be as quiet as Nepal gets. This was exactly what I had hoped travelling through the countryside would be like. I also hoped that rafters would arrive to organise a camp-fire and some beers but this was not to be. Instead, I spent the evening under the stars reading my book floodlit by my head-torch. Ironically it was the full-beam of the moon and not bright city lights that limited my star-gazing view. I had the croaking cicadas and my bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk for company (and of course the not so distant honking trucks). Life was great.

It was quite a remarkable turn-around to my day. I'm not a Liverpool fan but I'm sure the emotions were close to the despair and triumphalism that an LFC fan felt on that fateful day in Istanbul; a game of two-halves indeed.

Beach-view from the Big Fig