mountain biking - April 2008

Mountain biking round the Kathmandu Valley

Kathmandu 1400m lies in the middle of a large valley surrounded by mountains of up to 2700m. The surrounding area is made up of small towns and villages, farmlands terraced fields and forests and there are quite a few temples and monastaries dotted around and unless you are on a major highway to Tibet, Pokhara or other large towns in the area- the roads become very quiet once you leave Kathmandu and there are also many untarmacced roads and trails between the villages which make excellent mountain biking terrain! Not only does the mountain biking here give you some good exercise as it is rather hilly - but you also have the opportunity to meet local people and have a look at how they live, stop off for local food, explore villages and places of religious or cultural interest and have some amazing views! One of the first things I did on arrival in Kathmandu was buy a 1:50,000 mountain biking map of the Kathmandu valley and take off to the hills!

Trip 1 - Tokha and Kopan Monastary

This was a short leisurely trip I did when I first arrived in Kathmandu. The trouble with biking in the Kathmandu valley is getting out of and going back into Kathmandu - so an early start is reccommended to beat the traffic. The other trouble is that once you cross the Kathmandu ring road the map seems to suggest that you are in open countryside - however you are not- Kathmandu spills over the ring road and seems to be growing and growing! Having said that once you are out of the bits that are growing you get very quickly into open countryside and the traffic disappears.

So on my first trip after leaving Kathmandu I headed off north up some gentle hills through the fields past a few farms to Tokha.

Tokha is a little Newari village in the foothills of the Shivapuri watershed forest area with an intersting highstreet of little shops selling everything you might need, a Hindu temple and lots of little ducks wandering around. It would be a shame if Kathmandu ever expanded this far! After I left Tokha I cycled East along little paths through wheat fields with women working in them, past temples - (most villages seem to have one - just like ours have churches), through little villages with cows, buffalos and sheep, there were fragent flower smells in the air, butterflies and you could hear lots of birds singing - Nepal - including smelly Kathmandu is bird land - sparrows and other birds make their nests in every nook and cranny in buildings that that they can find! I was only a few kilometers from Kathmandu but felt miles away. Progress was slow on my first bike ride as it was all new to me I was keen to take photos of everything and everyone! And as soon as I pulled my camera out lots of children would suddenly appeared. I also got a bit lost and ended up in a nice posh hotel for a drink and a rest by the pool - it was quite hot work! Finding the way could be a bit challenging at times too there are no road names street signs or village sign posts so along with looking at my map I was constantly asking the way. As I was doing this bike ride on my own I also selected a route with lots of villages to pass through. People were generally friendly or too shy to speak to you / had no idea what I was trying to say to them - and I felt totally safe. For the last part of my bike ride I headed off to the Kopan Monistarty a Bhuddist Retreat on the top of a hill with great views over Kathmandu and the surrounding countryside, an ornate bhuddist stupa and hall, lots of flowers and a good cafe! There were monks of all ages in the monistary. After my tea I headed back down into Kathmandu - As I cycled down the hill I went past lots of Bhuddist monks (and nuns)who were out shopping and making phone calls etc. It felt like a long cycle ride from the monistary on the hill in the countryside back to my guesthouse in the centre of kathmandu - but it only took about 45 mins.

Trip 2 - Kelkani and Shivapuri national park

On the 1st day of 2065 I headed off on a bike ride to the edge of the Kathmandu valley! As it was the first day of the year it was a holiday and the roads were very quiet. (Ok Nepal has a different calender to us!) As I was going a lot further this time and into the Shivapuri Forest (more leapords and bears there too!) I thought I'd better take a guide - none of the other new volunteers have been on a bike yet - and I don't think that they would be into big hills even if they had! There are some existing volunteers I may be able to persuade to join me on a long bike ride in the future though! We headed out North west from Kathmandu past the forested area of Nagurjan National Park on the road to the Langtang Himal. As we left town we had stunning views of the bright white snow covered himalays. This view is only usually available october to march and less so now adays than 20 years ago apperently due to the pollution. The road was a quiet road that snaked its way up 700 meters of mountain side past villages, steep rice field terraces and provided wonderful views of distant hills. We stopped to buy isaloo berries (yellow raspberries) from local children at the road side and to watch an old man and his buffalos plough the steep terraced fields. Although it was a long climb the road most of the way did not get too steep as this was the main highway that buses had to negotiate. We saw a few buses travelling the route - crammed packed full with people on top - as petrol is 80 p a litre here and bus fairs are minimal as people cannot afford to pay - they are always packed full! We also saw the the odd motorbike - but mostly this was a fairly traffic free journey. At the top of the pass we turned right to Kelani and then stopped for lunch in a small village catering for Nepali picners and day trippers coming to admire the view from Kathmandu. Unfortunately the langtang Himalayas had clouded over some what but the view from the top of the valley rim over Helambu - a low level trekking arae and the snowy mountains peeping through the clouds was still quite stunning. On the way I chatted with my guide mostly in Nepali - and he called me Ma'am!

After lunch we headed off to the national park entry post ready to do the 'Scar Road '- a mountain bike route recommended in the Lonely Planet - this route would give us excellent view over the Kathmandu valley - but the National Park warden suggested we do the route to the North that gave us views over the Langtang Himal as it was more scenic - so we did! It was a lovely hour or so bike ride along a narrow muddy trail - that went up and down gently and hugged the side of the mountain - we rode through lush forests with lots of ferns, big trees, lots of butterfleis and flowering bushes - but only a few red rhoddedendrums - as the season for them in the lower hills seemed to be over. It was quite hard work, muddy and the path was a bit over grown in places so we couldn't get too much speed up. As our path drew to an end and we started to head back to the Kathmandu valley side of the mountain - I stopped to have a final look at the view and take some photos. - Whilst doing this my opportunistic little guide asked me if he could have a kiss! How dare he! I had already invented an imaginery boyfriend who was who was sick at the guest house in Kathmandu - and couldn't join me on the trip - I quickly elevated my imaginery boyfriends's position to 'husband' except as I was thinking quickly and I was speaking in Nepali - it came out as 'wife' - my guide said he understood (though not sure what he understood) and that was the end of the issue! - So this is what we girls sometimes run the risk of having to put with in order to have a bit of freedom adventure and to go out exploring off the beaten track -blokes you are very very lucky not to have to put up with this! and whilst this particular situation may be slightly amusing due to my guide's size and age - if he had been bigger or more bolshy it could have been quite an unpleasant situation for me! To some extent it defeated the object of taking a guide - to feel safe - (it also turned out I could find the way we were going better than he could too! )After that incident even though on this ocassion I didn't feel threatened - I wasn't so keen to stop and admire the view again either as the situation then felt uncomfortable!

So back to the bike ride.... we started a long decent through the forest - my guide was keen to go slow in order to make a safe decent- so I held back so I could get a fast decent in - after all that is what mountain biking is all about ! On this ocassion however it turned out to be a bad idea - as whilst I was shooting down the hill there were lots of sticks that caught up in my wheels - and some how I ended up at the bottom of the hill lying on the ground with my bicycle on top of me! I was fine - but my guide still dashed to my rescue. The forest road became quite wide and we headed down out of the forest and back down inside the Kathamdu valley. We passed through wheat field, villages, through little streams and eventually passed back through Tokha where I'd been on my previous bike ride. As it was New Years day there were a lot of celebrations happening in the village - music playing and people out eating bright coloured fried sweets (we're talking luminous pink and green here - they really can't be good for you!)and ice creams - so we stopped for a Neplali ice cream and then haeded back to Kathmandu. We'd covered about 70km that day.

Trip 3 Bungmati and the Lele valley returning via Badhikel

This time I headed South out of Kathmandu - on my own -as I didn't see myself getting far away from civilization. My first stop was Bungmati a few kilometres south of Patan (the south bit of Kathmandu). As the road started to deteriate and the traffic disappear I took the turning off to Bungmati a tradditional 16th centuary Newari village (Newars are the people that inhabit the Kathmadu valley and are crafts people that do a lot of the beautiful wood carving) . What I like about cycling around Nepal is the opportunity to stop off and have a look at interesting places - I headed into Bungmati and stopped on a square at a little shop for a drink just to sit down and soak up the atmosphere of the place - ginger and something that looked like wheat were out drying in the square, kids were playing and peeping out of their doors at me and hundreds of birds were darting around. After talking to some of the locals a lady came out of the shop and put a sparrow in my hand! It was terribly sweet! I opened my hand -the bird sat there looking dazed for a moment and then it flew off (But I immediately thought I'd better wash my hands incase I'd caught bird flu!) The family then introduced me to their baby goats! After a photo session with the children and the goats I went off to look for the old temple in the village centre. I headed off up narrow streets with more crops drying in the sun, woodcarvers and people going about their general daily business. There was no traffic not even a motorbike - it was lovely and peaceful. After walking round the temple I headed off towards Chappagon along an undulating unmade road - with views of distant hills and people out working in the nearby fields. As it was getting near lunch time I was keen to reach Chappagon which I could see on a ridge across the valley. At one point the road forked into two and the guy I stopped to ask for directions told me that as I had a mountain bike I could take the shortest and most direct path to Chapagon across the valley rather than going the long way round. I'm not really sure if he understood what the capabilities of a mountain bike were as the route he sent me involved me carrying my bike down rice terraces and up a steep rocky path the other side of the river that you might normally want your hands to scramble up too! It was a challenge! After lunch in Chapagon ( a busy little town with lots of traffic )- I followed the lonely planet guide book suggestion and headed further south for the Lele valley as it says that 'the peaceful Lele valley seems a million miles from Kathmandu and is untouched by the 20th and 21st centuries' - the road there was a bit remote so I felt a bit nervous but it was fine - much of the remote bit involved shooting quickly down hill into the valley. It was lovely and peaceful- I'm very gald I went! In the valley there were a lot of cultivated fields a small village and a few other hamlets along the road and forested mountains - it reminded me a bit of Switzerland. I rode along the valley floor enjoying the views and totally missed my turning - but was stopped by some people on a motorbike who told me that I needed to be going back up hill to make my return journey to Kathmadu. I was going off the map- there were lots of little trails and villages that I wanted to explore so I will have to go back some time soon and buy a map that takes me beyond the Kathmandu valley! I headed back up the hill past some hamlets along a peaceful wooded road - some local children accompanied me part of the way to the top of the pass back into the Kathmandu valley. I had a lovely long decent back into the Kathmandu valley through forests and rice fields back into villages that became bigger and bigger and noisier and noisier - and then I hit one of the main roads back to Kathmandu which was built up all the way. Going back I noticed part of the hill I had just ridden down was on fire - forest fires seem quite common here! Nobody seemed particularly bothered. I went back to Kathamdu and into the noise and bustle in time to meet my friends for a quiz night at the local pizza joint.

Future trips

There are a lot more trips that I plan to do in the Kathmandu valley and beyond - though I think I may now need to encourage people to join me for some of them! Anyone fancy exploring Nepal on a bike let me know!