TRAVERSE 85
TRAVEL- NEPAL
LEIGH WILKINS
BUY THE BOYS A BEER
A loud pop, a fart, and then a last attempt to remain in motion. It had been happening for a number of days and now the final breath, one of our ageing Royal Enfield Himalayan’ s came to a halt, its electrical system finally giving up, not the first time these Indian built bikes had given us issues.
We were somewhere along the Nisi River, in central western Nepal, a truly remarkable part of the world, but it was getting late in the afternoon, and we knew we had to reach a town before it got dark.
Within minutes of stopping two young guys on a bike I couldn’ t tell what manufacturer it had come from had pulled up, the riding immediately set about trying to diagnose our problem. I laughed, it had been a similar occurrence with every mechanical stop we had encountered.
The first had been well over a week earlier when we’ d left the city of Hetauda and headed for Chitwan. The rear rack on my bike had snapped, my roll bag had been sent on a ride that dragged it along the road for around a kilometre. The bag had been sliced open and some of the contents along with it. There was nothing I could do but shrug it off and wonder what sort of cheap materials Royal Enfield had built these bikes from.
The upside was, first a truck driver had slowed enough to discover if we were all right, then a motorcyclist heading in the opposite direction offered to turn around, we waved him off suggesting we were fine. It was a glimpse into the psyche of the Nepali road user and the population in general.
Chitwan had been wonderful but somewhere along the road from there one of my fork seals decided it had had enough. This wasn’ t just a fix with a piece of thin plastic to remove dirt or grime, no this was a
TRAVERSE 85