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| Our Trip routemap |
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| Stopover at 50 KMs from Nepal Border (Bhimdatta) |
You really need some motivation at work and planning a bike trip and waiting for it to start works pretty good for me. When I started the planning the first thing to decide is to "where to go". That's tough part of planning as this is the time you need to select a candidate from those thousands of CVs. Though the initial plan of ours (we are two riders) was to go to the Lahaul spiti valley the plan got changed fearing wether extremes. So we decided to venture out crossing the border on our motor bikes (royal Enfield) and fixed the destination as Nepal. Tried searching in the net for some blogs and found few useful but not many were written. So decided instantly to contribute information back to Internet as soon our trip ends...
So some facts: We are two bikers with one riding 500cc Desert Storm and the other one with Thunderbird 350cc. Both of us are working in Bangalore and quite enthusiastic about travel especially on motor bike. Though there are many clubs or biker groups, we prefer very small group for ride as bigger groups snatch flexibility from your plan and we want to keep it that way. Also, this is not our first bike trip as we have done quite a few earlier including Himalayan range.
Quick info on what are essential on a bike ride:
1. Equip your bike with Tank bags and Saddle bags (You get such reasonably in http://www.cramster.in/).
2. Put those things in your tank bag which is frequently accessed (like e.g. sun screen lotion, sanitizer, extra pair of gloves, Rain coat, Cooler glass etc)
3. Put all your bike spares like extra tubes, throttle/clutch cables, Oil can, funnel, ropes, multi utility knife, Hand pump for emergency need of air for tyres, extra paiirof shoes and flip flops, some extra bungee cords etc
4. Secure luggage at the pillion seat with bungee cords and ensure that they are hooked to a safer place and they don't come out. Also, carry a thick plastic sheet to cover your luggage and put it on before every journey if there is a possibility that it will rain.
Now coming back to the trip information. Our itinerary is below. The plan is for 15 days trip.
DATE From TO Travel Mode
13-Sep-2014 Bangalore New Delhi By Flight
13-Sep-2014 New Delhi Rudrapur (UK) On Bike
14-Sep-2014 Rudrapur(UK) Kohalpur (Nepal) On Bike
15-Sep-2014 Kohalpur (Nepal) Pokhara (Nepal) On Bike
18-Sep-2014 Pokhara (Nepal) Katmandu (Nepal) On Bike
21-Sep-2014 Katmandu(Nepal) Chitwan National park(Nepal) On Bike
24-Sep-2014 Chitwan Siliguri (West Bengal) On Bike
26-Sep-2014 Siliguri (WB) Kolkota (WB) By Train
27-Sep-2014 Kolkota(WB) Bangalore By Flight
Bike transportation:
Since we are in Bangalore and planning to travel to Nepal and days are limited and it is obvious that we need to transport our bike to some point where we can start our ride. So Delhi is the obvious start point as we have decided to cover West -> East Nepal stretch. So used Indian railways cargo service for "Bangalore -> New Delhi" for the first travel leg bike transportation. It costs about Rs.5555 per bike. The bike reaches its destination safely for sure, but you need to deal with many idiots and blood sucking leeches who just live, I guess, by sucking your hard earned money. We were told in Bangalore railway station by these "so-called-loaders" that if we do not pay them their unofficial loading charges our bikes won't reach in time and also they can't guarantee the health of bikes. Anyway, we paid at the end. Couple of things worth noticing is that the petrol needs to be emptied (those guys who pack your bike will do it anyway) and rear view mirrors are to be taken out. It will take couple of days for bikes to reach from Bangalore to Delhi. We put our bikes on train on 10th of Sep from Bangalore and it reached Delhi on 12th Sep 2014.
Bangalore => New Delhi
Rail official charge- 4300
Loading bribe - 350
Packing - 350
Bike unloading at Delhi bribe - 375
Bike demurrage - 180
While coming back from Siliguri, we used Gati KWE (http://www.gatikwe.com/) service. This is pretty smooth as those guys come and pick your bikes from place/Hotel directly. No hassles. It costs around Rs.6000 per bike including insurance.
Transport - 5400
Packing charges - 600
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| Nepali Border near Banbasa village (Uttarakhand). Cross the bridge and you are in Nepal |
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| On our way to Butwal from Kohalpur |
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| Pokhara: Himalayan range view from Sun rise point, Sarangkot |
Documents that are necessary to cross Nepal border with a bike:
- Driving License (This can also act as Identity proof)
- RC book (or card)
- Valid bike Insurance (though my bike insurance did not cover any incidents in Nepal. But check with your Insurance company while taking an insurance to cover the other saarc regions if possible)
- Travel Insurance
- Passport (Optional; Not Mandatory; But we carried it)
- Keep a backup copy of all the above (preferably soft copy and sent to your emails)
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| Sun set point, Chitwan, Sauraha |
Border formalities:
- At Nepal border (immediately at Banbasa) first you will see Indian customs office and then you cross the border. Crossing the border means crossing the bridge here which is around couple of kilometers distance from Banbasa village
- The amount as on 14th Sep 2014 for a bike is 250NR (which is Rs.156.25 Indian rupee) per day. No bribe required to pay anywhere here while you are making this traffic permit. Those government guys are good and they accept Indian currency of any denomination
- As son as you come out of this office, you will be called by another traffic police and he will make some entry of this permit in his own register and will ask you for some details. There you will be asked to pay Indian rupee 50 per bike and that is w/o receipt. Don't mind and just pay :-)
Forex/Money matters:
The indian banks issued credit and debit cards claim that those cards can not be used in Nepal and Bhuthan. At least I found my standard chartered credit card working well in Nepal even though it carried the tag "Not valid for payment in foreign exchange in Nepal and Bhutan" behind the credit card. However my citibank debit card did not work. My friend's ICICI debit card worked in ATM with ICICI bank charging Rs.400 per transaction.
- Legally only Rs.100 denomination is allowed. Rs.500/Rs.1000 denomination is not entertained. But to our positive surprise all places accept this 500/1000 denomination. In our stay of 12 days in Nepal, only once in Kathmandu Rs.500 was rejected. Though we did not have too many currency notes of 500/1000 denomination, its worth a point to note down by you and not to panic if you are left with Rs500 denomination
- Btw one Indian rupee is 1.6 Nepali rupee
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| 20000 lake, Chitwan, Sauraha |
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| Mount everest peak: Taken from mountain flight we took from Kathmandu |
We entered Nepal from Bhimdatta (Mahendra nagar) side and the last village in Indian side was called Banbasa. The majority of our ride was on Mahendra highway and I would say this road is decent. The tarmac is not smooth but slightly coarse and some maintenance ongoing in some stretches. Our first stretch of Mahendra highway was till Butwal from Mahendra nagar. This is devoid any traffic and very difficult to ride once the sun sets in. There is no light whatsoever in this highway, and, in all the villages, people are mostly standing on the road or on their bicycles. Kids play next to this high way and mostly no supervision by elders. So be extra careful. Our second experience of Mahendra highway is when we started from Chitwan national park and started towards Siliguri. This stretch is carrying relatively higher traffic than the western stretch as there were many trucks and crazy buses with their's crazy drivers. The mountain roads are better maintained (not smooth though) with some potholes mostly in the curves. But no complaints from me.
By default Nepali people do not honk, unlike India, and mostly they are more patient. Sometimes, especially when we were riding through those curvy mountain roads from Butwal to Pokhara, I really wondered why these guys are not honking even on a blind curve. There is no way to find out who is coming from the other side :-(
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| Dark clouds looming over Kathmandu valley: Pic taken from Swayambhunath templa |
Language and Script:
You can manage very easily in Nepal if you speak Hindi. Also, they strictly follow Devanagari script even for numbers. We are from south India and both of us could read and write hindi but found some difficulty in numbers as that was written in devanagari script. All receipts that we received were written in this script in almost all places except those famous tourist places (like Pokhara, Kathmandu, Chitwan etc). In tourist destinations people speak English as well ( not so perfect) but definitely with some non-Indian accent. Only one place near Pathlaiya (100 KMs from Chitwan national park when one of the bike had a flat tyre) we found ourself in a fix as people whom we interacted did not speak Hindi or English. But you could always interact using your body language ;-)
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| Annapurna mountain peak: Taken from Sun rise point, Sarangkot, Pokhara |
Nepali people:
I found Nepali people as humble, hospitable and honest. Kathmandu is slightly an exception as the crowd is like any other big cities. But still if somebody asks me to generalize my experience about Nepali people i would say still say the same as my first statement here in this section. Tourists are treated well and you as a tourist feel safer in most of the places. Btw, I also believe that Nepal can't screw with the one industry (tourism) which is contributing heavily to their GDP :-)
Food/Beverages and availability:
Dal Bhat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_bhat), is Nepali's staple food. Being south Indians who are used to eat rice, we did not find Dal bhat difficult food rather liked it. In small stopovers we made during our ride for lunch, most of the places were offering non-veg food and we specifically needed to ask for vegetarian food. Most of these stopover places (small villages in highway) were not hygienic and not clean and eating there is not very pleasant experience but we need to look at our survival. So if you are travelling in Bike or Car with your family in the same highway, its worth to consider packing some food earlier or buy some fruits which can last till your destination. In tourist places (like our visited places Pokhara, Kathamandu, Chitwan), you have many options (Indian, continental, Nepali etc) for food and also places are clean.
When it comes to drinks and if you like beer (or any alcohol), you are in heaven. Virtually every small or big shops sell alcohol and I was surprised not to see this trend in pharmacy :-)
Our ride experience:
- Ride around Kathmandu: I would say the our journey from "Pokhara to Kathmandu" or from "Kathmandu to Chitwan national park, Sauraha" is decent and only the negative part being the traffic condition as soon as you are around 30-40 KMs from Kathmandu. The roads were very dusty and there are not many enjoyable moments. In fact we found that there is more traffic from Kathmandu towards east part of Nepal compared to west.- Last leg from Chitwan to Silliguri: Once again apart from traffic and rain rest part was really enjoyable. There were few stretches in this leg of the Journey where we really could zoom at 90-100KMph for more than half hour. Rain is something which is a biggest negative contributor to the distance you plan to cover and also increases the risk factor. You need to extremely careful when it rains.
Police checks:
There were random checks that traffic police make on road and we were also stopped by the police few times and they generally check your journey details and, one time, they also checked the validity of the traffic permit that we had obtained at border. All the time all of them spoke to us nicely and were really intrigued by our appearance and also by the fact that we were on road from so many days.
When we crossed Nepal border and entered India at Kakarbhitta, we found really surprised and shocked by the border checks at Indian side. It was night around 7:30PM when we crossed the border and entered India and there were some simple questions by our border security officers like "what are you carrying in this bags?" (and they did not check anyway) and asked for an identity proof. We complied and it took 10 mins overall for us to be in India. But at the same time, there were hundreds of people crossing and entering India in small carts, two Wheeler, by walk etc and I don't think everyone was being checked.
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| Pic from our Juncgle walk: Chitwan National park, Sauraha |
What did we do/Visit apart from riding:
Pokhara: roamed around city, Phewa lake, Sarangkot sun rise point (Annapurna mountain range visible), Paragliding
Kathmandu: Pashupatinath Temple, Swayambhunath temple, Darbar square, Mountain flight (Yeti arilines), Shopping in Thamel
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| Swayambhunath Temple |
Kolkota: Victoria memorial hall, Kalighat
Some words on the cost of the trip:
It completely depends on your liking and preferences. In this blog I also mentioned what kind of hotels that we stayed in below. And, when it came to food and beverages, mostly we refrained from eating in very small places (owing to hygienic reasons) unless it is for survival :-) Below is a cost break up. This cost break-up is completely end-to-end for two people. End-to-End means all the cost from Bangalore => overall trip routine => Bangalore.
Type Sum of Amount (Indian Rupees)
Entry-Or-Adventure-Fee 30176
Food-Drinks 20531
Hotel-Stay 38810
Travel_And_Petrol 66854
Grand Total 156371
Entry-Or-Adventure-Fee => Entry tickets, Paragliding, Mountain flight etc
Food-Drinks => Self explanatory
Hotel-Stay => Stay Tips
Travel_And_Petrol => Bike petrol, other taxis that we used,Flight tickets, Bike transportation
Places we stayed and a quick rating:
Date Place Hotel Rating out of 5 Stars
13-09-2014 Rudrapur (UK) Hotel Ginger ****
14-09-2014 Kolpur Humro guest house **
15-09-2014 Pokhara Hotel Lakefront ****
18-09-2014 Kathmandu Hotel Nepalaya, Thamel **
21-09-2014 Chitwan Souraha Jungle Safari Lodge, Suraha ****
24-09-2014 Silliguri Hotel Apollo, Pradhan Nagar ***
27-09-2014 Kolkota Hotel Astoria, Sudder street *
Hopefully this blog is helpful in someway to you :-)
Ride safe!!!
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| Victoria Hall, Kolkota |
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| Village in Chitwan, Sauraha |
