TRAVERSE 89
and then tooling around some more !
Eventually Bijay rounded us all up and pointed us in the direction of Jhong , population 450 people . We ripped through the mountain tracks on the way to Jhong but kept having to pull over to take photos as the views were just too spectacular to pass up . When we got to Jhong , it felt like a ghost town . We didn ’ t see a single person . Not one . So , the census of 450 people seemed to be wildly exaggerated . We quickly passed through the village and continued through Jharkot to the Vishnu temple and Buddhist monastery at Muktinath . We parked up the bikes and went to explore the temple and monastery . Although there were lots of tourists here , they were mainly domestic tourists from other parts of Nepal or from India . We spent a couple of hours exploring the complex and taking in the views of the Annapurna range from the temple ’ s vantage point atop a hill .
After an exhausting day of riding , we got into Tatopani just before sundown , checked into our hotel and showered the days dust off us . By the time we were cleaned up , Bijay and the team had lit a fire in the hotels garden , ordered some beers and were soon playing some music by flamelight . The whole crew gathered around the fire and debriefed about the amazing journey we ’ d been on together . This was the last real day of riding . Tomorrow was just a fivehour shot back into Pokhara across some tarmacked mountain roads . What a trip it had been . Drinks and stories went on into the night until the fire eventually burnt out and everyone went to bed .
TRAVERSE 89