Day 54: Bandipur

Today we were supposed get an early start, grab some gear, and LEARN how to drive a motorcycle. I have a moped back in the states, but a motorcycle is such a bigger machine than a moped, can't compare. When my friend and I are usually together, we are always late, so we were able to do nothing we wanted except watch a YouTube video on how to ride a motorcycle to prepare us. I am laughing now thinking back on it. When we got to the rental place, my friend test drove the motorcycle first. Absolutely hilarious; he crashed it into the wall right off the bat. Somehow we were able to still rent our bikes. Once our gear was strapped down (around 11:30am), we headed off. Traffic in Kathmandu was very high, so driving outa there was difficult. We still had no clue how to shift out of first gear!! We got to this massive traffic circle and I asked my friend, "do we take a left or go straight?" He responded, "I'm taking a left because I have no clue how to go straight." (Nepal also drives on the left.) We eventually pulled over and asked some guy how to switch out of first, once we had that down, we were set.

The drive was absolutely amazing. From what I have learned in business school, with high risk comes high reward. This is hands downs the stupidest thing I have ever done. They have classes that teach you how to drive a motorcycle for a reason, but today was the best day of my trip thus far. Winding down to the bottom of the valley of Kathmandu and then driving between the curves in the mountains and river was indescribably amazing. Such a beautiful countryside. We stopped off twice to grab some food and chat with the locals, who were always extremely nice and always willing to point us in the right direction.

We were hopping that we would be able to get to Pokhara by tonight, but our slow start and our inability to drive a motorcycle at first definitely slowed us down. We got to Bandipur about thirty minutes before we lost the sun to the mountains, so we decided to stop in for the night. The town doesn't allow any vehicles inside, so the streets are perfectly quiet. The drive up the mountain to the town was even better than the drive to this area, a windy steep road with breathtaking views.