Day 69 - Oh well hello there hills

After a refreshing four hours sleep we were up and ready to go by breakfast starting time at 7am, although it took ages to arrive so we weren't on the road until 8:25am. The motivation was we'd booked for two luxurious nights in a five star hotel in Kathmandu for some post-India recovery. It had come highly recommended by Emma's parents who'd stayed only a few weeks ago. When we told the fun employee from last night where we were going he responded: "Kathmandu by bicycle?! Oops!" 😂

Purity. That was the word of the day both in the air quality, and the feeling that we'd had enough of drafting lorries for a bit and wanted to do the whole thing under our own steam. The elevation profile for the day was a gradual uphill getting ever steeper until the first peak, then straight down, straight back up and finally down to Kathmandu. It's funny how smells can teleport you - in a very foreign country on the other side of the world I smelt a field of ripe rape and just like that I was 9 years old at primary school again. Made the Nepalese valley feel strangely homey! We blasted along the gradual incline for the first 50miles and then raided the town for snacks and lunch. After a quick feed the road really went uphill.

It was felt awesome to be cycling a pass in the Himalayas! The scenery was pretty and the air quality was much better, only spoiled by all of the vehicles going past burning bad diesel inefficiently! We split so I could race to the top, although that race rapidly turned into a fight simply for survival as the road got steeper, and steeper and steeper! This is the Himalayas and they don't play around. That's the message I got from the sustained average 17% sections, peaking close to 30% in the hairpins. It's a special moment when you're on a 14% section (which is about the highest sustained average you'd usually see in the Alps) and then you get a sign warning about the gradient! 😅.

You weren't without support though - a stall every 100m selling water and snacks, and small tea houses to wait in at the summit. By the time we were descending, despite our efficient day we were accepting ANOTHER dark finish (that's a 100% dark finish rate in Nepal now) and plummeted down. Are my brakepads worn? Ah wait no it's just hyper steep! Just as I was wondering if the up was a route error we came around a corner and the up was very very much there.

I had some energy to burn before our rest day and wanted to reach the top in the last of the light so went up and then came back down to meet Emma. I got to the top just as the light was fading and it was a pretty awesome view out over Kathmandu.

It was still a further 300m on the "descent" to Kathmandu before our route hit Kathmandu. You wouldn't see people leaving the front of their houses open while going about normal business, nor having fire pits or playing badminton on an average weekday in London that's for sure! We used to think "oh blog content" when we were navigated through a deep muddy track past a lorry loading bay complete with (very helpful) rough sleepers until blocked totally by a parked lorry, turned around and went back through the roadworks, into a block of flats through the courtyard and then dismounted on the tunnel out, but now we hardly notice the "normal cycling" 😂. We popped out in the old town full of cool temples and then FINALLY we were at our destination. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but we revelled in the luxury and feeling of accomplishment. Made even better knowing we had a whole day to enjoy it tomorrow.

Food spend today: 64 euros

Tea consumption: 5