DAY 24 (Saturday 13 August 2011)

Well today I was up at 0600hrs to get sorted ready for our bike ride, there was only 3 of us in the end, there was me (of course), Marion (our nurse practicioner) and Capt Mark Dennis (he’s leaving in a few weeks).  Anyway, we set of just before 0645hrs, the first part of the ride took me along the normal route when I go out on Thursdays with the Everest Runners, but instead of turning off at one particular spot, we carried straight on, now I know Mark said he was going to take it easy and he did, what you have to remember, is I have only been out here 3 weeks and I am still acclimatising to the physical activity side of life, I manage to get up most of the hills without having to get off, but there was this one particular hill near to where we were headed that was a bit of a killer, well me and Marion ended up walking most of it.  Mark did however come back down to check to see if we were alright, so looking at it, he actually did more distance wise than me and Marion.

Marion getting her camera out of her bag.

Mark and Marion with the local dog outside the tea house (well shack)

The one thing that kept me going when going up the hills, is the plus side, we were going to go back the way we came when we had a break at the tea house we were heading for.  So going back was going to much easier and my god it was, we set off and I decided to see how far down the hill I could get without having to pedal when I came to a flat bit, let’s just say it wasn’t often I had to pedal, I even managed to overtake motorbikes on the way down, (they turn off their engines when going down hill to save on their fuel).  Being on a small bike and only having me on the bike (not like the Nepalese people where they can put a whole family on a motorbike) I was able to build up speed and momentum and get around the corners better, the only thing you had to watch out for was anything coming the other way and overtaking, as they really don’t have much road sense out here.

View from the tea house (shack)

Another view from the tea house (shack)

Mark had to stop at one point because the excessive use of his back break had made it cease up (he has disc brakes on his bike), so to cool them down he pour some of his drinking water over the disc, well you should have seen the steam that came off it, it was really that hot.

I’m not entirely sure on how far we actually rode today, but I know one thing, it took us just under 2 hours to get to the tea house at Hattiban, but coming back down and getting back to camp, it took us only 1 hour total, all I can say is ‘I love going downhill’.

Well other than that it has been a relativity quite day, and if Charlie is feeling better tomorrow it will be out for on of our walks, so until then........