Thursday-Friday-Saturday September 26-27-28 - Three days on the bike from Bardia Park on to Lumbini. First day started out backtracking to the main road through the park which meant going through a few small villages and getting offered a really fresh chicken.
Then over the same under-construction bridge as before. The alternative was to do as the vehicles and drive through the river. The day we came in, as a result of the heavy rain in the morning, the river level had been up two or three feet making it impassible for a while for vehicles.
TDA uses orange flagging tape to mark the turns on the day's route. Shortly after getting back on the main road, we found these two lads happy to pose with some flagging tape that they'd liberated from the turn from the sideroad.
Today was relatively short at 70 km and finishing in sunshine at a modern hotel with hot showers and swimming pool the picture is taken the next morning). We took advantage of that.
The next day was long at 140 km - a long day. The route mainly agricultural...
...but also passing through some forest / wildlife preserve land. One of the other ladies took Ursula's picture here, then Ursula went on ahead, riding a bit faster. Too bad, because the other lady spotted what was almost certainly a tiger crossing the road a couple of hundred metres ahead of her - all the profile, size, and movement was consistent with tiger, but not quite close enough to distinguish the stripes, but what else? That's the only tiger sighting we've had - lucky lady to see it.
A funeral about to start on a river bank...
...and ladies combing through water between the fields and the road to get tiny fish...
...some of which we had that night at dinner...
...to which Ursula's reaction (they weren't that bad !)...
The hotel itself was pretty basic... a bed in the middle of the floor (thin foam mattress on plywood), one seat and small table that you can see was all the furnishing in the room..
There,s a TV, air conditioner that isn't hooked up, ceiling fan, a couple of bare light bulbs on the wall, nicely finished ceiling and walls although it looks like they changed paint halfway through.
Bathroom tiling is put on the wall with no finishing. No shower head. No hot water.
Inside of bathroom door is bare sheet metal - I guess that makes it waterproof. Drain from the sink just empties into the floor drain.
At least the room was fairly clean. In the reception area is some of the electrical and electronic stuff...
...and this immature Common Crane in a field almost let me get a photo...
The third day was just over 100 km. Some moderate climbing in a forest in the morning, also rain. Roadside was unbelievably muddy - must have been more rain the previous night. After lunch, after we left the main E-W highway and headed towards Lumbini, we got into what appeared to be a slightly more affluent area - that doesn't mean cars in driveways - everything is relative - and Rae got fascinated by the gates and doorways on many houses. There were some quite striking gates and fresh colourful paint on many houses, and not necessarily fancy houses.
 |
| the door was closed when I got the camera out, then the kids had to be in the photo |
...before I got caught in another rain shower and then a stretch of slimy mud before getting to the hotel with a dirty bike (fortunately there was a hose to clean it before it all dried) and of course dirty me. Ursula had arrived a bit earlier, hadn't got quite as much rain, but was equally mud-spattered.
So we're in Lumbini, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the birthplace of Lord Buddha and an important pilgrimage site for the Buddhist faith... that's for the next post.
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