Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Diary: Mahendranagar

I always wanted to ride a major long distance trip, but somewhere I was always meddling with my work and time. With the passing of time, my wish was awarded, this time I am going to Mahendranagar and back. We planned the trip on very short notice and just packed off. We left Kathmandu at the dawn so that we could get the best of the day. The trip has to cover 100 bridges, uphill, slopes, off-road, the wild dense jungle, long stretch, and much more exciting view to be glanced.  We got started at around 3:30 AM with P-220 as “the ride”. We took the opening 25KMs very steady as this was the most annoying part at the start.  The speed was reduced and we cruised at relatively slow speeds to avoid any crash or potholes. What this meant was we lost some valuable time right at the start of the journey! I wished for free road ahead. But heck, there were some traffic especially the trucks coming to valley. We were literally doing the Zigzag mode. Finally we passed the first irritating phase and revved at our cruise speed to meet the timing we set for. After 70KMs of ride we took a butt break at Malekhu, checked the tires, wiped the visors and lamps and continued on.

The next spot was towards Mugling, that’s 110KMs down of Kathmandu, we did not stop and kept on riding till Narayanghat. It was 5:35AM in the morning and the city was already startled with people boarding vehicles to their respective destinations. The pack men were busy with peoples around and streets were already opened with shops, selling tea and regular stuffs. We stopped for 10 minutes and got our self over the big Narayani River. Now that we were on plains we decided to cover as much as we could before the mid day as this part of highway maximum traffic in first hours, vehicles from short distance and around going to Kathmandu is a usual part. We passed Naranyanghat in no time and headed straight to Kawasoti which is like 40KMs. We were riding and enjoying the every single part of until we were welcomed by this huge mist and fogs. We could hardly see what’s in front and our attire all soaked with early dew. We again stopped and cleansed our primary essentials. The mist around was induced of Arun River and we were close to it. 

Now when we stopped this time, we detected a problem. No, the bike is in good order, it’s the bag pack. The bottom part of the bag pack had made little bit of scratches on the top of tail-lamps and we could not take it lightly. We arrived to our habituĂ© gas station and re-fueled. Since we started in early hours we were covered with heavy duty clothes on. Time to get rid of it as the weather was mild and we could ride with simple Tee. Washed, changed and got back to the track again. We made it in Butwal at around 11AM, searched for accessories shop, got a smiley red sticker and patched. With many beautiful scenarios across, i was simply having the best of my times on the road and suddenly we had to take this uphill road. This part of road was quite similar to that of Hetauda-Daman-Naubise. We noted that the vehicles on this part were very low and got ourselves in off-road. The track was incubated with thick layers of fine dust particles of the rocks and recent landslides. We had hard times but finally we passed thru this rigid mountain of dust and rocks. We took our lunch at 1PM, well the food was OK type, but as we were hungry we took it as much as we could. We decided to ease ourselves for awhile. 

Back on the road again cruising thru one of the most beautiful country side I ever came across. The shiny green meadows at one side and tress at the other. The cattle’s grazing and very few people walking. At a point, I just thought to reside at this place. It was such a beautiful place and with amazing view and resource, but thoughts are always a part and not a reality.

As we kept on riding, we traversed many small towns and villages, kids waving, people smiling. The gesture itself was so warm and comfortable. We were moving ahead, we saw a group of foreigner stucked. They were planning to go to Pokhara.  There were 10 of them with their Indian No registered Enfield’s and one of the bike had issues with crank shaft, though they had a mechanic but I found him quite dumb and these foreigner looked pretty annoyed. We suggested them to head Nepalganj, 70KMs ahead and get it fixed; it was near and could be restored easily as of availability of resource then to head Butwal which was like 170KMs from that spot.

Eventually we came to the much awaited place in the middle of jungle. Arrowhead roads for more than 20KMs, this was the place we decided to test our Bajaj Pulsar 220 to its last resort. Butt-break for us and time out to the bike. We tested the P220 for its max speed, the rpm, vibrations, tires and few more test. Results were simply awesome; we headed back to what we were there for. After cruising for few hours, we ultimately found ourselves in front of Bardia National Park. With big bushes and long grass on the side of the roads we were cruising like anything. The dawn at a side and destination still hundreds miles far now, we had to rev a bit more then the rest of the day and thanks to all those photography shoots. So, finally at 9:15PM we reached to the most extreme point in west and of Nepal, Mahendranagar. We checked in a hotel had our dinner and dived on beds. 

We were planning to head towards Dharan, a city in east which was 1100KMS far from us, we had our breakfast and headed straight towards but ended ourselves in Dhangadi, which lies 50KMs south to Mahendranagar. We met my uncle and since India was few minutes away, we decided to drive in there. So we went to the border, got a ticket for next 15KMs. Once we crossed the border we found ourselves in an Indian National Park named Dudhwa, it was amazing, though we had seen all of those in Nepal, the only difference was the International Border line and Indian Language. While coming back to where we belonged we saw a male antler, it almost rammed me. In the end at 3PM we were back to Nepal and we had a long distance to cover up so we canceled the trip to Dharan and headed to Kathmandu, Which off course was 700+ away. Riding for next 3 hours was fun as we had decided to be at Chisapani at 6, no matter what for few photo shoots and for the change of attires. We made it at 6:10PM, good light for photo shoot and time to change. We now had to cross almost 90KMs which was through the dense jungle of the National Park. We were advised to be alert for wild elephants and few animals. We heavily relied on the projector lamp of the P220. So, now we had no option then to gush ourselves through. This was one of most thrilled ride I ever been to, riding at the speed of 80+ wrapped with the essence of a dense jungle area with two souls. I was eagerly waiting for few thrills but my bad luck. Few security check and we were out of the jungle in 2 hours, no encounter with any wild animals, just a blissful ride. The night was calm and really beautiful, the twinkling of stars and cold air trickling my face was one of the best thing. The road was good one, no potholes, no hinder and very less traffic. 

We stopped for another butt-break but then we found a small mishap, we had to escort this guy to near by town as he had a minor misfortune. This guy was on Pulsar 200 and as we started off, he was still speeding. So we thought why not try as its in middle of clean highway with less traffic and seriously this guy had to be tamed (I know, its not a good idea but then we just let go off our essential guide lines for a while). With the difference of 20cc I could see him being lost at RVM (Rear View Mirror) many times. We arrived at his town, offered a tea and then we set off again, riding all the way long on a solitary night we finally reached Butwal at 5AM.

We were now eased as we knew this part of highway pretty well. Had some omlettes and tea, laid back for a while and then finally set off. We reached Narayanghat at 9AM, now the traffic was high as this city is a major hub for the flow of transportation across the nation. You can go to any part via this city. We were pretty much reduced with our energy level, its almost 24 hours that we been riding. We barely had enough of energy to take us to Kathmandu, which was still 200KMs away. We took it slow and steady till Mugling, as we enjoy our travel food on this very spot. We were starving from last night dinner, so we just could not wait longer. Finally the food’s here and we could not concentrate anywhere else then our delicious Thakali- A Nepali Cuisine. With the short hand of the watch perfectly at 1PM we headed back to Kathmandu. With flowing of rivers, children on streets and people busy with their schedules we moved along the highway. Slow and steadily we drove through the town on the highways, sometimes for a tea and sometimes just passing them with a smile. We were making our self back to where we were few days back and to the same old routine but hey we had much of fun and a ride to remember for life.

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