Kathmandu 27th May 2006

I had a great night at Jazz Upstairs last night, it’s a really cool bar and plays a great mix of jazz and Blues music, with some old rock thrown into the mix as well. Cheddup made us a lovely spicy tofu dish, some salad dish and various other dishes that were equally nice. There were about twenty of us in the bar, the drinks were flowing and the craic was ninety.

Cheddup has a newspaper article about Sting on the wall of the bar. Cheddup organises rafting on the numerous rivers in Nepal and Sting and his son went with him on a trip about three years ago. Apparently they were both really bad at it and they were thrown out of the boat at the first set of rapids and nearly every other set after that. In the photo two of Stings fingers are taped up – from an accident that happened on the river! Cheddup invited him out for a beer (as he usually does with people) and he told Sting that he knows a little jazz bar that’ll they’ll be left alone in. Sting agreed, so on his way to the bar Cheddup phoned a few friends to get them around there, unknown the Cheddup, his friends decided to ring their friends, who decided to ring their friends. So when they turn up for a quite drink, half of Kathmandu and the press are waiting for them, Cheddup had never seen the bar so busy.

The funny think is that when they walk in together, Cheddup's friends are practicing Police songs on stage! They tried to get Sting to play some Police songs, but he wouldn’t, but he did eventually agree to play some old blues numbers and Cheddup says that he was amazing. We didn’t stay late, as we had to be up early in the morning to continue our journey to the Last Resort.

I woke up this morning to the sound of very heavy rain and had a look at my watch to see what time it was: 05:00. I sort of dozed for a couple of hours as I wasn’t meeting up with the others until 08:30, but the rain didn’t ease off. I had a cup of tea with Mo and Rick and we decided that we’d go to the Kathmandu Guest House as arranged and wait for the others to turn up. It was only a three or four minute ride to KGH, but we got soaked through on our way there. Dessie turned up on time, but he was the only one. We decided to have breakfast and see if the rain eased off at all. It took about an hour, but the rain started easing off and people started turning up and we eventually set off at about 09:45. (Unknown to me, Raju had turned up and he had fitted my repaired foot peg and horn holder). The road out of Kathmandu was a pain, the roads were still slippy from the rain and there was a lot of traffic and there was about nine bikes riding along and it’s pretty easy to get separated and for someone to get lost.

I was riding at the front of the pack, just behind Cheddup (who was leading us out of the city), and once we got out of the town Cheddup took off like a bat out of hell (have to get the biking clichés in) and I followed along behind him. Cheddup has got a modern Japanese bike, which he imported from Singapore and it’s a KLR 200cc off road bike and it’s easily as fast as my 500cc bullet. He knows the roads pretty well and we were really flying, and we were using the entire road to get ourselves around the many many corners and hairpins. We stopped for Chai after about fifty minutes as we came to a junction and made sure that everyone took the right turning. We hung around for nearly ten minutes before the others showed up – we had been really riding hard! As we were all sitting there drinking our chai, Tony the NZ guy pulls up.

A lot of the Pokhara crowd are really pissed of with Tony, as he’s a pretty reckless rider. Know one minds others riding fast, but we usually slow down when we enter towns, villages, junctions, schools etc. Not Tony. He also has the annoying and dangerous habit of riding in your blind spot about two feet from your rear wheel. This means that if I have to brake suddenly for a cow / child / bus etc. that he’s more than likely going to crash into me. He’s also got the habit of riding in the ‘wrong line’, which means that when I’m coming out of a bend there is a chance that I’ll clip his bike and go down. Rick, who runs the motorbike club with Mo, went over and had a word to him about his riding and that it’s putting other people in danger etc. He was with him for about five minutes and after the conversation, Tony rode off by himself with the hump.

Cheddup and I set off again, although I soon fell to the back of the bunch as I was stopping to take photographs every couple of miles, as the roads and scenery were amazing. It was also good fun trying to catch up with the pack and I really was on the limit through some of the corners, I was riding along at about 100 smiles an hour. I managed to catch up with the group at the next tea stop and Cheddup and I soon set off again. The roads gave way to unsealed tracks, which gave way to deep unsealed muddy tracks, which gave way to deep pools of muddy water. Cheddup was having a great time on his off road bike and he was sailing through the mud and deep water. My bike was sliding all over the place when we hit the deep mud and I was fighting to keep the bike and me from falling into the deep sticky mud. The water crossing wasn’t so bad, I watched Cheddup go first and I followed his line and although I hit a couple of rocks on the way over, I was fine. All hazards cleared, no faults! We hung around the water hazards for fifteen minutes and had a good laugh at everyone negotiating their way though. Only one went down in the mud and everyone crossed the water.

The Last Resort was a further fifteen minutes ride down the road, but most of it was sealed and everyone made is safely. We couldn’t enter the resort when we got there though, as we had to cross a suspension bridge over a160meter gorge across the Bhote Kosi River. The bridge was closed when we got there though as there were people Bungee Jumping from it into the gorge!! We parked up our bikes and had a couple of beers as we waited for the bridge to re-open. It was a nice walk across the bridge when it did open and the view to the bottom of the gorge was stunning, not that I fancied throwing myself off it attached to a piece of elastic.

We were staying in tents and I was staying with Don and Wolf, which was ok, because there was no way that Wolf was going to find his way back to the tent at 03:00, especially as our tent was a bit down the hill from the bar. The bar was open on three sides and was well thought out and there were loads of sofas and crash out areas. One side of the bar opened onto the garden where a stage was set up and there was further seating, to the right of the stage and set back a bit was a massive BBQ area. The resort is all inclusive and the food was excellent and there was plenty of it, I couldn’t get enough of the BBQ chicken, actually that’s not strictly true as by my second full plate, I couldn’t eat anymore!

The live music was pretty good, it started off with a Nepali band playing traditional music, they did about three quarters of an hour and then brought a couple of other musicians and singers on stage and played a bit more. I missed most of the second band, but they sounded alright. The third band was a led by a reggae singer from Jamaica. If there is one type of music I can’t get my head around, it’s reggae. I’ve tried listening to it over the years and have borrowed stuff from friends, but apart from some Marley and Dennis Brown, I just can’t listen to it. Give me blues music any day of the week. But. But, this guy was really good, although I suppose it was because he was doing some good Marley covers. Reggae is pretty big here in Nepal and there are lots of guys going around in Dreadlocks (Cheddup included). I crashed out at about 02:30, Don got back sometime after that. Wolf slept in the bar.