It's Not All Yak Burgers and Mountains, You Know

Or, the admin. The paperwork. The tedious side of cycle touring. Kicking around in cities, lurking around heavily-guarded embassies and shabby government offices, applying for visas while aching to get on the road again, negotiating with recalcitrant officials and curmudgeonly security staff, not to mention the waiting. The cycling is a simple freedom, but when I do fly free, it's upon wings pasted together with paperwork and application forms.

I'm hardly new to the myriad ways of foreign governments and the administrative puzzles they offer. In Erzurum, where I collected my Iranian visa, the internet offered three different addresses for the Iranian Consulate, not one of which was accurate, and when I called them to ask where they were, they ignored my question and asked me to provide information which I would only have when I had received my visa, from the embassy which I couldn't find. In Istanbul, my parcel of bits from home was impounded by customs; however, they didn't tell me that it had been impounded, not by letter, e-mail, telephone, carrier pigeon or telepathy. But in the same way that there are no hills worse than gratuitous hills, there's no admin worse than self-inflicted admin. This time, it was my own fault.

I'd already endured a week in Kathmandu to arrange my second Indian visa, which involved three trips to the embassy and two encounters with the Indian Embassy Official. I've met some miserable government employees in my time, but this guy takes the grumpy biscuit. Somewhere, there's a Finishing School for Obstructionist Government Staff, and he not only graduated with full honours, he was awarded the Surly Certificate for Outstanding Jobsworthiness, in triplicate. All I wanted was to get a second Indian visa*, and I did get it, and he was willing to listen to reason and wasn't entirely impervious to charm, but his ability to transform a simple request into an official appeal was peerless.

While on the Annapurna trek, I'd noticed that my passport was damaged. The ink on my ID photo had ran and the pages were crinkled with damp. This must have happened during my very wet run into Pokhara, and the waterproof case in which I kept my passport had proven to be only semi-waterproof: not so good at keeping water out, very useful for keeping water in. Thijs expressed surprise that the page itself wasn't waterproof, but you can't expect the Passport Agency to anticipate every idiotic eventuality. I shrugged with my usual fatalism and caught the bus to Kathmandu, hoping that the embassy could issue me a letter confirming that it was still a valid passport, and stamp the thing a few times.

The bus wasn't much fun. It was five hours to Besishahar, another three hours waiting for my bike to be sent down the valley by the hotel in Chamje**, two more hours back to Dumre, then another five hours and a massive fleecing from Dumre to Kathmandu. I should have seen the guy coming in Dumre. He probably overcharged me to start with, as we agreed a price of 1000 rupees for the minibus to Kathmandu, including the bike. I was too free with telling him about my passport woes, and he fed me a line about another strike being due, which would close the Briish Embassy in a couple of days, and another line about the local buses having finished. Still, I was keen to get to Kathmandu that night, as I'd already had an extra day off in Pokhara. Then he came and told me that only three other people were taking the minibus to Kathmandu, so I'd have to pay 2000 rupees to make it worth the driver's while. Naturally enough, when it arrived, the thing was chock-a. They were already strapping my bike to the roof, but I told them to bring it down as I was not paying 2000 rupees to be squeezed into the worst seat on a cramped minibus. He told me that these people were just going down the road, not all the way to Kathmandu, and in hindsight I should have asked the other passengers where they were all going, but the price soon came down to 1500, then 1200, when I weakened and agreed to pay, but I had a cunning plan. I only had 1000 rupees in my wallet, so I waited until I was seated and told him he'd have to take that. The bugger noticed my Indian rupees which I was trying to hide, and I did have to pay the extra 200. Public transport is one administrative burden I usually manage to avoid, but that does mean I haven't a clue about how much it's supposed to cost. And can you guess how many of my fellow passengers got off before Kathmandu?

I did get to Kathmandu that day, though, and I was at the British embassy before they opened the next morning.

Sadly, the state of my passport meant that it wouldn't be accepted. I would either have to get a replacement (and wait five to six weeks), or get an emergency passport, which would take about a week. The emergency passport, however, would tie me into a fixed itinerary with little room for manoeuvre.

The wait for a passport would be expensive, although I could go on the Everest Base Camp trek (twice!), but I'd miss the window for cycling through Ladakh and the Indian Himalayas. The emergency passport denied the possibility of changing my plans, but it does fit in with the plan I already had, which is to return to Europe when my Indian visa expires on the seventh of August, ride across the Alps and France, and return to the UK at the White Cliffs of Dover, which is the correct way to go back to England. I already had this as a plan, with only the dim possibility of being able to transit Burma as the last hope of continuing by land, rather than air. Even Tibet has become even more impossible, as the authorities now only issue visas to groups of no less than four, all of whom have to be from the same country. I did meet a couple of Scots in Kathmandu who offered to get bikes and help me shanghai another Brit...

I set out to cycle, not to take buses or trains, and certainly not to fly except where bodies of water left no alternative. This does put me at odds with the modern world, and I've had interesting times explaining this to other travellers who take flying for granted, but each time honesty compels me to tell people I had to fly into India, I know I'm already defeated, and to carry on to Australia, which would probably require another two flights, would just compound it.

So, although the embassy staff tried to discourage me, as it is very limiting, the same price as a new passport, and can create problems when crossing borders, I decided to get an emergency passport.

That was only the beginning of the paperwork. I had to check with the Indian and Nepali authorities that they would be able to transfer my visas to an emergency travel document. This was an exercise in patience, grit and determination in the face of practised opposition.

The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu is over the road from the British Embassy, so that bit was easy. Getting a straight answer to a simple question - "will I be able to transfer my visa to an emergency passport?" - was less so. The counter staff refused to say yay or nay, and referred me up to the Embassy Official.

He really is a classic. Short and wiry and bristling with outrage at being sent to this backwater post when he should be brushing shoulders with the diplomatic corps in Washington or Beijing, he takes his revenge by using what little authority he has to make everyone's lives a little more difficult. A bully. Asked any question, he'll grab the papers, peer at them over the top of his glasses, chew the corner of his salt-and-pepper moustache, and give the same answer: "No." He plays by the rules, and Rule One is to say "No" to everything.

A student from Mauritius was asking him a question when I was there, but since "No" didn't deflate the lad and he started to argue his case, the official was forced to engage Rule Two: Brook No Argument. He waved his hand at the student and said "there is no must, you will not tell me must" (this is a sub-clause of Rule Two, always throw the person's words back a them). The Mauritian student went off in tears, another supplicant was refused, then it was my turn.

I dodged Rules One and Two by continuing to talk while he examined the paperwork, and overriding his objections. This provoked him to enact Rule Three: Find A Different Problem. It turned out, nobody had countersigned my visa when I'd been given it at that embassy. I hurdled this obstacle and left with the vague impression that they might, possibly, consider transferring my visa, but that was the most I was going to get, and it had taken three hours. I planned to finagle that vague assurance into a guarantee when I returned.

I took a taxi to the Nepali Immigration Office, asked the same question of a chap at the counter, who immediately said that they would be happy to transfer my visa - I'd just need to go to the third floor admin section when I had my emergency passport. With the time spent pissing about at the Indian embassy, the British embassy had closed for the day when I returned with my forms and documents. I had to go back in the morning.

A week and a half later I was called back to the British Embassy to collect my emergency passport. A week and a half was about a week longer than I'd expected it to take, but the time had bridged a weekend and two public holidays, and all the embassy staff were busy with a missing persons case after a young lad had gone missing while on the Everest Base Camp trek. I understood the delay, and the British embassy staff were pretty good about laying out my options, telling me what to expect, and what documents they needed from me. I think an emergency passport is quite an interesting document to have, and I'd love to keep it as a souvenir, but as well as informing me that I may have some problems with border crossings where they don't meet that kind of thing, the embassy staff told me that it would be taken from me as soon as I return to the sceptr'd isle.

I dashed over the road to the Indian embassy. The same fucking arguments again. I did lose my temper this time, but some testiness was called for when the primary obstruction seemed to be that my visa hadn't been countersigned. As I was at pains to point out, this was their mistake, which I expected them to resolve. Perhaps it's just as well that I did ruin my passport, even if it cost £95 to replace - as well as the travel and accommodation costs and the 900 rupees the Indians had the gall to charge as a transfer fee, and the cost of yet more photos as the paperwork from my original Indian visa application was stored elsewhere, and I had to fill all the forms in again - as the thought of being turned back at the Indian border, 600 miles away from Kathmandu, doesn't bear considering.

The transfer took a full day, which left no time to transfer my Nepali visa. The next day, they only dealt with extensions, and I was instructed to return on the Sunday. Yet another day of waiting in Kathmandu, where I'd picked up my second grotty cold on consecutive visits to the place, and spent my days doing nothing except shopping, lying on my bed watching cricket highlights, and forgetting to eat.

Most people at the Nepali Immigration Office were friendly and helpful, except for another example of the type officialus grumpus. I went first to room 307, explained my predicament, filled out the forms, and was told to go down to room 206 for a 10-rupee stamp. There he was, marking the time until the next official tiffin break. I waited until he'd finished with a Chinese girl in front of me, and asked him for a ten-rupee stamp. He grabbed my passport and forms from me and starting pawing through them, while answering another call on his mobile. I'm not a violent person, but the raw frustration this official created was enough to have my hands clenching into fists. He didn't listen, though I must have told him ten times that I only needed a ten-rupee stamp. He told me to go to room 203 and complete the form which he already had in his hands.  He spent an age looking at my Iranian visa, which did make me raise my voice and ask if he spoke Farsi. He didn't once acknowledge my question about the stamp. The only thing that stopped me grabbing my paperwork back was the worry that I'd damage it.

Thankfully, the helpful folk at the admin section sent a henchman back down with me, a towering giant of a figure who grabbed the man in room 206 by the throat and lifted him off his feet, rattling his teeth until he apologised and agreed to become a better, more helpful person. Well, maybe not. But my companion was a tall lad, and he somehow acquired a ten-rupee stamp. With great ceremony this was affixed to my form.

Next, room 204 (immigration), room 104 (Cashier), room 105 (the Director), back to room 307, room 204 again and then the fifth trip up to room 307, where it was complete. I was free!

All of which means that I now have a timetable and an itinerary, which I've done quite well at avoiding so far. I have tickets booked from Delhi to Milan on the fifth of August, and I have to be back in the UK between the twenty-first of August and the fourth of September.

It would be easy to carry on, hop a plane to Bangkok and keep riding south, but as well as wanting this to be a cycling journey, I fear that I would start to take flying for granted. And I can do without the hassle of searching for cheap flights and wading through the various airlines' policies on carrying bikes. Riding my bike is simple. If I have changed in any way on this journey, it's that I don't think of this trip as a one-ff any more. I can come back, avoid cul-de-sacs such as India and Nepal, and just ride my bike. 

* Tedious detail #1: you have to have at least 60 days between your Indian visas. However, I'd only been gone from India a month, and the visa is valid from the date of issue, so technically they were entitled to deny me. However, I wasn't intending to return to India until the 60 days had elapsed, I simply wanted to get my visa while I was in Kathmandu to save me a return trip and to give me time to get into the mountains before the monsoons hit.

**Tedious detail #2: I couldn't simply go and collect the bike myself, as I had left the Annapurna Conservation Area, and I would have had to stump up another 2000 rupees (fifteen quid) for another permit, as well as paying the jeep fare twice.

Thunder Lightning Strike: Three Days from Kathmandu to Pokhara

Two hundred kilometres. That's two days, right? Unless it's extremely hilly, of course. I met a couple of Nepali cyclists while finding my way out of Kathmandu, and they assured me that it was flat, apart from a couple of big hills.



Good job I didn't believe them. I doubt there's enough flat in the whole route to make a passable cricket square. It probably is flat for Nepal.

I would have cleared it in two days, but I was still recovering from the chesty cold which plagued my time in Kathmandu. I felt increasingly spaced out as the days wound on and I found myself unable and unwilling to ride any further.

Maybe I should have had an extra day in Kathmandu, but there was a strike on, which was fabulous. The road was almost deserted, and I took advantage of that. I still saw half a dozen wagons and buses which had tipped over or come off the road. It's a notoriously dangerous run - I was pleased that I hit it when it was so quiet. The strikes are incredibly disruptive to travel as the roads are blocked and most bus services are cancelled. I'm lucky to have a bike, on which I can skirt around the roadblocks, smiling and waving at the protestors, who smile and wave back.



Not that I really appreciated it, but it was a beautiful route. After the climb over the lip of the bowl of the Kathmandu Valley, it followed the widening river, tending down through a valley surrounded by green hills and impromptu waterfalls flowing down the hillsides, fed by the overnight rains. The monsoons seem to be developing a little earlier this year - a day's weather follows a similar pattern, clear in the morning, clouds developing on the peaks through the day and heavy, thundery showers descending by four o'clock.



I didn't fancy riding on slick roads in those conditions so I only rode forty miles on the first day and stopped when I heard the rumbles of thunder. It was a convenient excuse to stop, which I'd wanted to anyway.

I cooked some noodles in my cheap guest house, just as the rain and thunder were at their fiercest. I heard a huge crash outside, and realised that it wasn't another thunderclap. I looked outside to the highway, and there was a wagon on its side, and people were rushing out to help. I've no idea how the driver managed that, on a straight road, but it confirmed my decision to get off the road in the wet, and a few minutes later the driver was lifted out of his cab, looking shaken but unhurt. It was still there when I left in the morning.



The road continued to follow the river valley down to Mugling, sweeping up the hillsides often enough to make me remember the "flat" description with a wry smile. The sun beat down. It was hot. I was quite bad tempered, especially after the second night where I stayed at the fourth guest house I checked, having rejected the others for reasons varying from horribly overpriced to death trap stairs. Shame I didn't realise the place where I did stay was mosquito hell. I hardly slept for scratching at the lumps which developed on my arms until they relented at dawn.

I didn't notice the second big hill, or it blended too much into the up-down pattern to register as a hill. There was a five-mile climb out of Dumre followed by a delicious descent. Maybe that's the one they meant.

I went on a quest for second breakfast, having started the day with coffee and porridge. I was unsuccessful. The first place I stopped, I waited twenty minutes before they had the courtesy to tell me they couldn't make two-thirds of my order, and at the second place it was thirty minutes before they brought out my alleged meal. I'd ordered a cheese and ham toastie. What they gave me was a paneer burger, which I refused to pay for. Hungry and frustrated, I left, and bought some cheese puffs and muesli bars at the next town. It was only twenty miles to Pokhara so I was happy enough to escape from the midday sun for a couple of hours and chat with a couple of Austrian cyclists heading the other way.

The clouds started to form again, and serious rain to fall. This took the edge off the heat, and I thought I may as well carry on. "Soft as shite, soft as shite, soft as shite", I sang at the motorbikers who were ducking into the bus shelters. Riding through heavy rain is a great experience. I was quickly soaked to the skin and wonderfully cool, my shorts and jersey were clinging to me and still the rain fell.

I found an optician's in Pokhara and bought some lens solution, my bottle having spilled in my bag the previous day. This coincided with me leaving my glasses in a guest house, and followed on from losing my wallet. There was a huge tear in the rear pocket on my shorts, and I was so out of it that I simply forgot, and my wallet probably ended up down the highway somewhere. It only had about a tenner and my Stockton Borough Council library card in it, but I was still annoyed at myself.

I found a guest house near the Lakeside in Pokhara, which was even more of a mozzie-infested fleapit than the previous night's place. But by the time I'd got in and checked the room, I was too cold and shivery and tired to go anywhere else. The shower was wonderfully warm.

Of course, the next morning I realised I was only a mile from the heart of the tourist district at Lakeside. I had a very welcome not-entirely-unlike-a-full-English-breakfast and found a much nicer guest house, where I slept the day away. There are times to be moving, and times to do nothing. These days in Pokhara, I've really enjoyed doing nothing.

Grumpy Cycle Touring: Across the Plains and Over a Mountain to Kathmandu

"Look, it's hot. I'm sweaty and tired and thirsty, I'm going as fast as I can uphill, and now is not the time to run alongside me grinning and trying to grab my panniers. Piss off, kid."

He eventually got the message. I'm not proud of snarling at a little boy, but the heat was getting to me. Not to mention the endless chorus of hallos, bye byes (for some reason, people shout "bye bye" as I go past, which I had encountered a bit in India, but it still strikes me as odd) and weird monosyllabic grunts which greet my passing. I usually smile and wave back. Usually. It's not exactly conversation, and the constant, energy-sapping heat sweated the patience out of me. Even the coolest parts of the day saw temperatures over 30 degrees, and at noon it rose above 40 degrees.

The Terai was the problem. Nepal is best known for its mountains and green valleys, but the Terai is a hot, dry plain, and the only east-west road across Nepal crosses the middle of it. It may be just as well that there isn't a road cutting across the mountains, as I'd probably still be out there instead of stuffing myself with cake and bacon here in Kathmandu.



The Terai is low and hot. It's not flat, though. The Mahendra Highway goes across the country from west to east, and crosses all the rivers that cut paths down from the mountains. They're dry in this season, waiting for the monsoons, but there are still ridges to cross from valley to valley, and in the heat I wilted on the climbs. I'd stop in any shady spot I could find in the middle of the day and try to drink the water in my bottles, which warmed to the point where I could make a passable cup of coffee at noon.

As I rode further east the traffic levels and population grew. The west of Nepal was under-populated and quiet, but the centre and the plains have relatively high population densities. It's still a poor region, with hardly any private cars, so people get around by tractor, bus or bicycle.

The buses were the worst, as the drivers have no patience at all, and I lost track of the number of times I had to swerve off the road onto the dirt-packed shoulder to avoid a bus coming the other way and overtaking without any regard for me, driven by a swivel-eyed lunatic on wakey-wakey drugs. Any time I held my line and made the bus wait for a clear road behind me was a small victory.

The cyclists presented their own problems, as well. Competitive isn't in it. I'm not without a strong competitive streak myself, but I wasn't trying to race anybody, I was simply trying to keep up a rhythm I could maintain for 70 miles, in the heat. I got so sick of Nepalis overtaking me as soon as I'd passed them, even when I gave a "Namaste" and a friendly tip of my cap.

One kid saw me coming and chased off before I could pass him - fair enough, I thought. This kid was wearing a baseball cap at a gangsta angle, grey shorts of the sort I refused to wear when I was six, he was so skinny that both of his legs wouldn't have made one of my arms, and he was putting everything into it on his Indian sit-up-and-beg job. He pedalled with his heels and his toes stuck out (as nearly everyone does out here) and his saddle was so low that his knees were nearly at right angles. He was bent low over his bars with his elbows working, and overall the effect was rather like a Wallace and Gromit engine in overdrive, elbows and knees and feet flailing in every direction like broken pistons.

I wasn't trying to overhaul him, but he slowed down so much that I was overtaking within a couple of hundred yards. When I got next to him I realised that this was a bloke my age, despite the outfit. He even had a little moustache. It was like racing one of the Chuckle Brothers. I nodded as I went past, but Barry Chuckle wasn't having that. Again he started pumping his joints, leaning over his bars and grinning as he passed. The same again, further up the road.

I rolled my eyes and decided I'd had enough. I overtook and put on a little bit more speed, occasionally glancing back to make sure that he was still there, then I shifted up a gear and added a bit more acceleration, then a little bit more, until he was ten yards behind me, when I chucked it into the big ring and rolled away from him. I never saw him again.

Not that every Nepali cyclist was as irritating. I was pleased to see lots and lots of Nepali girls out on bikes. Quite a contrast to India, where (except in the cities) the women kept to themselves. I was riding along and about twelve Nepali schoolgirls called "Hellos" and "Namastes" as they rode in the other direction. I smiled and waved back, and they all squealed. Still got it.



The other major irritation was the early morning wake-up I had in every cheap hotel where I stayed. Nepalis have a vile habit of clearing their throat and spitting, which is bad enough, but when it's a gross cacophony of sniffing, hacking, coughing and retching which wakes me from much-needed sleep at the crack of dawn... It didn't put me in a good humour for the day, ever.

I was glad to turn north away from the plain and into the mountains. At least there'd be clearer air and views. I took the southerly route from Bharatpur to Hetauda, as I'd be coming back the other way. A local I met told me to turn around and go back when I was twenty miles east of Bharatpur. There was no chance of me doubling back, especially when he couldn't explain why I should. "Very bad way" was all he told me.

Halfway up the mountain between Hetauda and Kathmandu, I found myself wishing he'd been able to explain himself a little better. I wouldn't have turned around, but it would have been useful to know that the road went straight up from 200 to 2500 metres in 30 miles. I had hoped to ride from Hetauda to Kathmandu in one day, but as I'd only ridden twenty miles at two in the afternoon when I stopped to cook myself some noodles and listen to the sounds of the forest (at least, until a guy on a motorbike chose that exact same spot to pull up, have an incredibly loud conversation on his mobile, then play some tinny music through it), I resigned myself to at least another day before I hit Kathmandu.

It was a beautiful road. Out of Hetauda it rolled along a wide valley, and I kidded myself that it might be a classic pass between valleys, crossing a col between the watersheds. It really wasn't. It looped up and up the hillsides, switchbacking up the slopes and curving around the valleys. Always up. I'd be grimping up a slope and see the trees open up ahead and think it was the top, but then the road would whip back on itself, leading further up the mountain.



The switchbacks were the toughest. A section called the Kalitar Twelve Loops danced up a slope which even a mountain goat would have balked at. I was riding so slowly that the schoolkids walking home could take the shortcut and stand at every second corner, grinning at me. At times I saw wagons or buses high up on the road ahead, and I could only plod on.



If I'd known how high it went, I would have found it easier, but riding up and up and, again, up, not knowing how far or high it went, made it a struggle. I even considered grabbing hold of one of the few wagons which came along to tow me up the slope, but that was too dangerous on such a narrow road, with steep drop-offs and few safety barriers. It's a measure of how tired I was that I even considered it.

I camped at 2200 metres, which I foolishly thought was over the summit. The road swooped down and around and east and north and south and west so much that I couldn't read the topography, and at my campsite I thought the road dipped down and around the mountainside.

It was a wonderful campsite, though. I fell asleep to the sound of a little owl hooting through the trees above me, and awoke to a buzzard's haunting call. A bright half moon and unfamiliar stars shone down on my meal, and the cool air was a benison after the sultry sweaty plains.

At least there were only two miles to the summit, and alleged views of Everest, hidden behind the haze. I had to force my way past a couple of wagons to take full advantage of the the first descent, into a green valley between yet more mountains. I looked around at the hills surrounding me on every side and thought "here we go again".

However, I hadn't descended very much, and when the road curved around the hillside and aimed for a gap in the mountains, I knew that there wasn't another fucking mountain in the way, and I was probably going to get to Kathmandu that day.



Over the pass, the descent proper started. It curved around the hillsides in an echo of the road from Hetauda, and only the incredibly lumpy road surface made it less than a joy. Every road in Nepal is so lumpy that I can't believe they've even seen a steamroller. I did pass a steamroller at some roadworks, but it's more likely to be a cunning ruse to hide baby elephants from poachers than a working tool.

I arrived in Naubise on the main Pokhara-Kathmandu road and realised how far I'd descended, as it was hot. I took shelter from the sun for an hour - it was only 15 miles to Kathmandu and that couldn't take more than a couple of hours, right?

The main difficulty was the traffic. An artic had somehow ended up side-on in a ditch, and there were mile-long tailbacks as the traffic manoeuvred around it, with little patience, least of all for a cyclist. I overtook the traffic when it was stationary, and even climbing up the hill over to the Kathmandu Valley I was riding quicker than the traffic was moving, but I didn't dare overtake. The van in front of me was actually trying to overtake, even though both of us could see that there was a solid line of slow-moving traffic all the way up the hill. He certainly wasn't giving me any space. I've often wondered if Nepali driving is as much better than Indian driving as it seems, or if the low traffic levels simply denied them the canvas on which they could truly express their talents. My ride into Kathmandu settled that argument in my head. I've never been cut up, pulled out on, left hooked or made to take evasive manoeuvres anywhere as often as during that run into Kathmandu.

The climb itself was fine, as once I had the sense to stop and let the angry traffic and the choking fumes from the wagons as they grunted up the steep slope get ahead of me. I had my side of the road to myself.

Thankfully, Kathmandu is much smaller and quieter than I was led to expect - people warned me that it was busy and crazy and you get hassled by taxi drivers and dope sellers, but I've been to India. Kathmandu's just an overgrown village.

I found my way to the tourist district and stayed at the first guest house I checked out. It's a lovely place, with a pleasant courtyard where other tourists were chatting and where I had a beer to celebrate my arrival. I'm not looking forward to riding back across the Terai in a couple of weeks, when it'll be even hotter.