What a difference a day makes

A pleasant surprise. We are camping in the yard of a tea house and took a walk to small mountain hotel


that has wifi. So I'm offering this special edition of the blog. I doubt I will post another one until next Wednesday.

Promod, our leader, is a wonderful man. He is 42 (he says he is 16 when he rides 😊), has two children, a boy three and a girl almost nine. He has worked at Himalaya Expeditions for 18 years. His wife Sujata must be a saint. Promod does six trips a year, some two weeks long, some three. In addition to this Pokhara to Katmandu trip he leads one Lhasa, Tibet to Kanthmandu. Part of that trip goes to Everest base camp. It's not for the feint of heart. It's not technical but you have to be strong and incredibly fit and able to handle very high altitudes.

Promod also occasionally leads trekking trips. Management just asked him to do Upper Mustang in a few weeks. Amazingly high altitude and steep terrain. Incredible. The online reviews about this trip are all very positive about Promod. Dersvingly so. He is terrific.

Today Promod led us from the hotel on a busy paved road for seven kilometers east out of Pokhra where we turned left on a obscure dirt road and then headed up a steep hill that continued for many kilometers. It was a challenging test to our fitness, but with a few stops along the way, we made it up the 4,000 ft. incline without incident.

The decent was about 15 kilometers, mostly on dirt roads and single track. There was one kilometer stretch along a newly paved winding road which was a great change of pace and provided something more within my comfort zone. I really flew in that section and enjoyed it immensely. The accompanying vista was to die for, so to speak. Miles and miles of different shades of green dipping into valleys along a bunch of placid lakes and peppered with colorful shacks and shanties.

We traveled through a number of small mountain villages, all with little children waving and yelling to us. Their excitement doesn't get old. These villages never have western visitors, certainly none on high-end mountain bikes. I feel like a celebrity when all the yelling begins. Hi, or I should say hiiiiii, echoes through the streets when we arrive. I return with a hi every time, without fail. I love it. Such joy in the kid's faces.

What a difference a day makes. I was so much more comfortable on the down hills today, even the technical ones. Tim provided a number of helpful tips. Lower my seat, sit way back, keep my eyes further in the distance, relax my body, let my bike do the work. I was even enjoying it. I kept my pace at a comfortable one, rattling over the rocks like a skier does moguls, letting my body rise and fall to the rhythm of the bike.

There was one segment at the end when Promod announced again that we were entering a tricky technical section but this one had stairs. He mentioned it so casually that I thought I would be able to do it. Well, only Tim could follow him and even he couldn't do the whole thing. It was a rocky decline that finished off with a steep 200 meter set of stone stairs that took two 90 degree turns, the first one right and the second one left. Promod is a fit (you should see his calves), fearless wild man. He had done this trip 40 plus times. In fact he spend four months specking it out himself. He know every nook and cranny of the 250 mile route. He is a wonderful man but he needs to be reminded that he is in a league of his own. I would think few people on this earth could take the route he just led us down.

Thanks it now. Namaste!

George



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Location:Nepal