A week into our trip , the kilometre started to pass with relative ease . Settled into our machines , we bobbled over high passes and through deep and verdant valleys , stopping periodically to patch a punctured tube or rest in the shade . Our route took us through the districts of Jajarkot , Rukum , and Rolpa , places where villages and villagers have not changed in a dozen generations . In all my wanderings through the western districts I have never seen a foreign face — not one . It is another world , either forgotten or undiscovered . Maybe both .
In pursuit of authentic adventure , I seldom visit the same place twice , the exception being the hilltop community of Thulo Lumpek in the Gulmi District . Our home away from home , the quaint cluster of traditional dwellings scattered throughout the hills is the epicenter of our give-back program and the reasons I spend half of my time in Nepal . In the last year , our travellers have provided long-term drinking water solutions to more than 15,000 people , many of them in Thulo Lumpek .
When our tired crew trundled into the village center it marked the culmination of hard-won miles and six months of anticipated buildup . Their fundraising efforts made safe water accessible to a dozen local schools serving more than a thousand rambunctious kids . Kids who otherwise face an onslaught of waterborne pathogens , the kind that claim the lives of 14,000 young Nepali chil-dren each year . This was the long-awaited chance for our team to meet the people they helped , to look into their bright eyes and know they did a good thing and it was well received .
After a quick tour of water installations , and one more elaborate welcoming ceremony , it was time to party — Magar style .
Of the many peoples of Nepal , the
Magar are one of the most colourful and diverse . Within their population they speak five unique dialects between a complex layer of castes or septs . For the people of Thulo Lumpek , they are Nepali , but they are Magar above all . This , I have learned from Vishu , himself a proud Magar . Long before we could unpack our things and set up camp , we heard the first rumblings of drums . This time the revelry extended well into the moonlit hours .
For a group of seasoned travellers on their first trip to Nepal , the week had been mind-blowing and almost too much to absorb . There was , however , one more thing they needed to experience — colossal mountains .
If there is a route in the Nepal adventure riders have likely heard of , the Mustang is probably it . First used 600 years ago , it was the main corridor between Tibet and India where salt and silk traders made their fortunes . Today it is one of the most popular overland routes in all of Asia , often hosting hundreds of wide-eyed motorcycle tourists from around the globe . Although it isn ’ t the most original route , and in some ways a bit of a tourist trap , there is no denying the magnitude and scale of the Mustang .
After a few hours of rough terrain leading into the high Himalayas , we arrived at an inconspicu-ous but significant point shoved deep within steep walls . There were no signs or markers to indi-cate we had just plumbed the depths of the deepest gorge in the world . Below us , a raging tor-rent of rapids sliced a deep canyon between peaks so far above we couldn ’ t see them . To the east , Annapurna . To the west , Dhaulagiri , the 7th tallest mountain in the world . The drop from its summit plunges a whopping 5,571 metres , a trivial number at the time until we pushed on to see the two peaks jutting into the upper troposphere .
TRAVERSE 130