Bandipur, Nepal
After recovering from our mountainous exertions, we needed to leave Pokhara and head east towards Kathmandu. This journey can easily be made by road in a day. We were still in no great hurry so thought we’d break up the trip by visiting some spots on the way. This plan rewarded us considerably as we found the road to be awful. Not awful so much in the badly-made-and-potholed kinda way, but more in the overused and rippled tarmac style. It is clearly the most touristed road in the whole of Nepal and everyone’s driving is a little pushy. Throw in some mountain hairpins teetering above Nepal’s largest river and you might start to get the idea.
Our first tangent was to a little hilltop town called Bandipur. Once we had climbed up the 8km toll road, our first priority was to find somewhere in this pedestrianised town where we could safely leave the bike. Once we had secured that aspect of our stay, we wandered around this old Newari trading town enjoying the views and the sleepy animals in the doorways.
A pre-dawn climb provided us with some wispy views of the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna ranges before we packed up and headed across the valley again.
What a pretty little place! That poor boys parents have a sick sense of humour though…