09/08/2023
Here is an update from Haydn and Brad, after completing their Nepal to Kathmandu trip earlier this year. Well done to you both for completing the journey, and good on you for donating the 2 Kickbikes to a school.
Haydn wrote
"When Brad and I travel, we try to choose a new method of self-powered transport. We find that it slows us down, and forces us into greater proximity with local people and culture. The challenges/exhaustion associated with self-powered travel recalibrates your appreciation of the little things. Beer tastes better after 90km on a longboard through a 35deg Sri Lankan day. A hot shower is more appreciated after months of washing in snow-fed rivers on the Mongolian steppe.
It’s been about 6 months since we arrived in Kathmandu, having Kickbiked a little over 1000km through India and Nepal. We met at a cheap guesthouse in New Delhi in early January, our two second-hand Kickbikes (kindly donated by Bruce and Kickbike Australia) in tow. We both carried small backpacks, each holding a change of clothes, sleeping bag, journal, deck of cards and toothbrush. The direct route on Google maps dictated that we would need to average ~45km p/day for around 4 weeks to arrive in Kathmandu in time for our return flights to Australia, but we were both unsure of how physically demanding such distances were likely to be. As with our previous self-powered cross-country trips, prior training was heavily frowned upon - each of us viewing preparation as tantamount to cheating. Consequently, our first time riding Kickbikes was amid peak hour Delhi traffic. Horns sounded constantly. Amidst the swarming vehicles cows roamed, or lay, their eyes closed sleepily. Tuk-tuks brushed us as they rushed by. It was an adrenaline filled day that neither of us is likely to forget in a hurry.
We scooted 120km over the first two days, our bodies were both painfully feeling the sudden change in routine. Our legs ached, and our feet stung from repeatedly slapping the asphalt. Over the coming weeks, however, we adapted as life on the Kickbikes normalized. The kilometers passed more and more easily, except for the occasional day worsened by food poisoning or the sampling of too many local beers the previous night.
The 300km to the India - Nepal border was filled with tasty food and incredibly friendly locals. We followed major, 6-lane highways for nearly the duration of our time in India. Occasionally we would be granted a half day on pot-holed backroads, that allowed us momentary reprieve from the never-ending stream of trucks / buses, who would buffet us with their slip stream as they screamed past, the drivers smiling with one hand waving and the other glued permanently to the horn. Despite being stuck on major highways, you could hardly say the route was uninteresting. The whole country was bursting at the seams with life, and two eyes weren’t nearly enough to take it all in. We found that if we were stationary for longer than 5 minutes, we would be surrounded by a couple dozen people, eagerly welcoming us to India and checking if we were being well treated. People would regularly flag us down (or even run us off the road) for a picture with us and the bikes. ‘Just one selfie bro?!’ seemed to echo around us as we passed. Swarms of school children rode with us while they made their ways home from school. While we took breaks to feast on dhal and curry and roti, the bikes would remain hard at work, trialed by every passer-by who stopped to say hello. Smiling seemed an unavoidable symptom of proximity to the Kickbikes. I remember one heavily bearded temple guard set down his spear for his turn on one scooter, and soon had his previously stern face split into a large grin.
We crossed the Nepalese border at Mahendranagar and felt someone had turned the sound down. While we loved our time in India, Nepal felt slower paced, and less chaotic than its southern neighbor. We scooted primarily through the Terai region, which are the low-lying flat lands south of the Himalayas. We followed the major highway, which led the way to Kathmandu. Unlike India’s massive multi-lane roads that passed through heavily populated cities, Nepal’s highway was a narrow double lane that meandered past farmland, small villages, and large swaths of jungle preserved as national parkland. Through one such section, 30 locals had been killed over the last 3 years by the growing tiger population. Tigers had been known to run down motorcyclists along this stretch, and there was a 15km high risk section bordered by military checkpoints, through which we were forced to hitch a short ride. Locals encouraged us not to camp through these areas. In the end, we never had need for our camping gear, as most days we had very little difficulty finding guesthouses to stay the night. Mostly, accommodations offered showers from waist height taps, and beds so hard, they felt like they were made of pure titanium. Both seemed luxurious after the sweat and dust and muscle aches from a day on the Kickbikes.
As we edged towards Kathmandu, scooting became increasingly difficult. Around 200km of road between Butwal and Bharatpur has been demolished, in preparation for a new highway. This meant that for a couple days we were struggling and bouncing along rocky dirt tracks. Brad cut off more than one conversation while kicking, saying ‘I can’t think, my brain is shaking too much.’ The dust covered our clothes and made our teeth gritty. The Kickbikes handled the hard conditions much better than their riders; miraculously, they didn’t have so much as a flat tire the entirety of the trip.
The road begun to rise and fall as we struck the foot of the Himalayas. There were hard climbs, which earned spectacular descents through the mountains. At times, Strava clocked us at over 50km/h. I’m sure such speeds are child's play amongst you veteran Kickbikers, but were a real thrill for a couple novices. And made more exciting as erratic trucks / buses flew past, or the mountain road opened up onto some steep plunge into the valley below.
Fortunately, the road was mostly sealed from Bharatpur. One of the last days it was closed for roadworks, but we managed to slip on anyway and enjoyed the only 20-30km section of the trip where we weren’t sharing the road with countless other vehicles. This coincided with the most picturesque stretch of the entire trip; we rode sandwiched between mountains above and the Trishuli river below. The odd bus we saw would have vomit marks streaking from the passenger windows; it seems the endlessly winding road was more enjoyable to Kickbike than drive. The entirety of our last 130km were through the mountains, the road growing steeper the closer we got to Kathmandu. About 3000 meters climb all told, the last 15km particularly stiff. From there, it was an easy downhill into city traffic and the end of the trip.
The whole month was a blast. We love travelling in weird ways, and this was one of the weirdest yet. Challenging at times, but a hell of a lot of fun. We’ll enjoy reminiscing over stories of Kickbiking though India and Nepal for a long time, and are incredibly grateful to Bruce and Kickbike Australia for supporting us in making the trip a reality. The bikes, we donated to a NGO in Kathmandu, who has passed them along to a local school to be enjoyed by the children there. After seeing how happy they made kids who got the opportunity to try them, we are pleased to think they will continue to be enjoyed, perhaps for many more thousands of kilometers.
Cheers,
Haydn + Brad."
