Day 74 - It's Bumpy!

We had a hyper efficient morning and left our very rugged but authentic guest house after a decent breakfast of omelettes and chapatis. It's good having our sleeping bag liners to sleep in for places like this, although the cold water and lack of sink is still curious - you get wet legs trying to wash your hands!

Out of the door we turned left and immediately started our first pass of the day, which makes a nice change from having it looming for 60-90 miles all day! Initially in the fog, we soon climbed above the clouds and into a stunning, stunning day above the cloud inversion. I kept thinking "man it's a nice day" and wondering why I was feeling it so strongly. The answer - it's the first time we've had clean sunlight with no smog in nearly a month!!!

At the top we had a really nice stop looking at the view, watching the chickens running around and making up for the tea count yesterday. The lady's eyebrows nearly left her head when we asked for the third cup...

The top third of the climb was rough gravel and we were really hoping it would be sealed on the way down... Alas, our prayers were not to be answered and we rattled down the seemingly endless descent. That's not endless in a good way, that's endless as in "please make this stop, I'll take anything else" as both bike and rider got annihilated! Eveeenttually we were down and stopped in the first bigger town since Kathmandu for cash and lunch.

So far we'd had a beautiful day and some nice stops, but still a lot of miles to do since the gravel descent had slowed us so much, so it was time to get grinding. I'll definitely enjoy not having a pile of miles and the threat of dark hanging over me the whole day when we've finished this tour! In "normal life" it's easy to not worry about the time when you have headlights and a known bed!

After another climb we were treated to a cracking road descent to remind us what it can be like whizzing down through the trees. On good roads, the scenery once again completely different and our now well-trained heads down, we made good progress and reached a larger town just as it was getting dark. About 3km out from that town, both of our fuel lights pinged on as we realised we were both starving. After some brief discussion we decided to reward the focused day and stop without dark cycling so we made a quick diversion into town to load up on snacks for tomorrow and then checked into the hotel. Since the room wasn't ready it was straight to the restaurant (obvously) while we waited!

No hot water, but at least a sink, so I had a cold shower and Emma a bucket wash with the kettle! We had a fair bit of admin to do tonight, from clothes washing to life admin to Emma dealing with her protein powder blowout but thanks to our "early" arrival we were still in bed on time for another long day tomorrow!

Food spend today: 30.23 euros

Tea consumption: 11