thread tape . When not out riding , Chandra is a helicopter engineer , a few comments were thrown around about how he repairs helicopters . As we headed off , I spotted a distance marker to Pokhara ( one of the infrequent signs in English ) and realised that we had only covered about 80 kilometres . I was feeling more confident on the open road and starting to enjoy myself , able to look around as we were cruising along . Then it happened …
About 100 metres away , a large fully laden Tata truck , coming towards us ran wide on a corner and rolled onto its side , throwing bags of flour and sundry everywhere . The road in front of me disappeared in a cloud of dust , I took evasive action and came to a panic stop .
The other guys all pulled up . Before we were able to render assistance , local villagers swarmed over the cabin and extracted the three occupants , all appearing not too badly hurt , but have lost a bit of skin from rolling around in the cabin . There are no seatbelts over here ! One of them has a head wound and with blood flowing everywhere it looked nasty .
Coincidentally , an ambulance taking another patient to hospital pulled up and the bleeder was bundled into the back , the ambulance continued .
Apparently , the truck crew were from India and the long hours on winding roads together with a drop of local firewater had been too much . Reflection from our group on karma , fate and what would have happened if we ’ d been 15 seconds earlier .
The truck crew were fortunate that they didn ’ t go off the side as it plummeted at least 30 meters into the Trisuli River .
The average speed riding along this part of the Prithvi Highway was about 60 kilometres per hour . The road very windy around the side of mountains , much like Australia ’ s Great Ocean Road . Riders often have to contend with rockfalls that block half the road .
At all times as a rider you are on the look out for oncoming traffic , overtaking in the most inappropriate places . The main offenders are the brightly painted trucks and buses that use their horns as a sort of early warning siren . They pass whenever they feel like it and if you hear a horn being used around a corner it may mean that two trucks are side by side and heading your way . It makes life interesting and certainly develops your horn antenna . The whole country uses this system of horns very effectively and therefore the horn is a very important feature of any vehicle . It just takes a while to comprehend the concept and frightens the daylights out of you until you realise how the system works .
There is another issue that also
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