Day 72 - Yep, the hills are still there

Our plan from yesterday requires a lot of miles every day from now until Christmas, so it was the first of many early starts, especially as we knew we still had to actually plan and book things before we could leave. The hotel (a third of the price of the last few nights) turned out to be very pleasant (once the shower had randomly decided to go hot), had a reasonable fixed breakfast and super helpful staff so that was a nice way to ease us back into normal life from our previous luxury!

Then we went to pick up the surprise I've been teasing the last few days!

We knew from Emma's parents that there was a very skilled embroidering place literally metres from the hotel and so we planned to get team t-shirts! It has actually been quite a lot of work the last few days back and forth, making the designs and getting them tweaked but the result is SO GOOD!

Knowing how steep the hills are and how far we still have to go we had an even more vicious cull of our gear and posted it home along with a pile of other souvenirs! Then we got two SIM cards for Nepal, went via the t-shirt shop on bikes to show them the mascots they've sewn and were finally on the road.

It's always hard getting into the cycling after starting late, and even harder after a break so I wasn't really feeling the riding. We were also somehow down on sleep (although this time more from being busy than talking would you believe it!?) but we actually made good progress out of town, had a quick lunch and then got into the riding when the road started blowing straight up and then straight back down very steep inclines.

A lorry crawled up one incline, I have no idea how, exhaust acting like a leaf blower - that engine was working hard, and for that matter, so were we!

We stopped at the top of a bigger hill to take stock of where we were and realised we just so happened to be at a famous Buddhist monastry, Namobuddha, which we'd marked to see and then forgotten about. Seeing such a place, with the Himilayan vista in the background is a bucket list item so we cycled up, locked up the bikes and went to explore. It's known as the compassionate monastry because the Buddha, in a past life as a prince, sacrificed himself to feed a starving tigress and her three cubs on this site, where now stands a temple, monastry, school and hospital. It sure is a beautiful spot.

Once we'd finished a quick look at the sun and lack of upcoming accomodation encouraged us to decide to stop here and add another overnight at a religious site to our roster - there is a small hotel for pilgrims and visitors, tonight empty except for us!

Food spend today: 20.78 euros

Tea consumption: 4