Kathmandu to Nagarkot

A few phenomenal days in Nepal.  We spent most of Thursday figuring out details with Elliot's visa and the motorcycle. The 2 month clause on Indian visas that we were worried about can be avoided by getting a stamp at the Indian embassy apparently.  The guy helping us out also mentioned that I didn't need to fill out the forms (or pay the extra fee) because I had a different type of tourist visa.  Who knew.  We dropped Elliot's passport off for processing and grabbed a taxi to go to the bike shop.  After calling the bike shop owner to give the taxi driver directions (and negotiate a reasonable rate) we got to the "shop", which was actually the man's house.  Elliot finally got to rent his Royal Enfield, a newer 350cc model.  We rented from a very kind man named Gurung, and spent a bit of time talking about itineraries over Nepalese tea with him, his wife, and their adorable 7 month old baby. After vaguely plotting out of trip (which we immediately didn't follow..we're not really planners) we navigated our way back into the city, to Thamel, the area where our hotel was located.  We stopped for a quick bite to eat while the power was out (there's usually about 15 hours during the day where there's no power) and had some delicious "momo", a popular Nepalese snack.

Menu

Chicken momo.  We also got some potato cheese momo that tasted like the best gnocchi dough

We spent a great afternoon wandering around on the bike, picked up Elliot's passport from the embassy, and headed back to the hotel.  In the evening we met up with a good friend of Elliot's old college roommate named Surabhi.  We went out to a couple places-- the first of which we had some snacks and tried what was described at the local fire water, Aila.  The second place we went to was a spot known for cooking all the parts of a buffalo.  We had some little crispy bites of fried steak, tongue, and lung, which was a totally new experience for both of us.  The lung especially was surprisingly good  We had a great time catching up with Surabhi and quickly decided to hang around Kathmandu for another day.  After we left the restaurant we met up with some of Surabhi's friends who were have a pre wedding party.  We were invited to the 1600 person Nepalese wedding the next day, which we sadly had to miss because we were getting ready to leave on the bike the next morning.

Highlights included crispy fried pork, spicy potatoes, and really balanced chutneys alongside

Lung & tongue

Friday was spent preparing to leave on the bike-- after a long time searching for a good bike shop, we found one recommended by Surabhi and her biker friends.  We found some nice warm gloves and a great jacket for Elliot with biker logos all over it.

Awesome

Saturday morning we woke up a little earlier, consolidated our gear into one small back and checked out from the hotel.  We liked the place we were staying in Kathmandu and had a great off season discount, so we had them lock the rest of our stuff up in storage and plan to spend one more night there Monday.  We spent the day seeing some of the smaller towns and villages just east of Kathmandu-- Bhaktapur, Banepa, and stopped for a bit at the mountain view in Dhulikhel.  We then decided to back track a bit and head north to the small town of Nagarkot.

First glimpse of the mountains as we left Kathmandu

Others enjoying the view

View from Dhulikhel

The elevation got much higher as we heading almost consistently uphill to Nagarkot.  We stopped a long the way for a cup of tea and to enjoy the view.  As we've gotten higher and higher there's been an increase in large hawks, and we spent a bit of time watching 4 or 5 of them hunting from the rest stop.

Tea time

The view

I decided to switch to side saddle at this point in the ride-- muscles cramp up a bit faster in the cold and one of my legs was squished by our bag on the Enfield's side rack so it took a little bit of getting used to.  So side saddle is AMAZING.  I guess self consciousness has always made me avoid it, but on the top of these hills I fully embraced how dorky I looked because of the stunning view.  Seeing the mountains this way was amazing, and although it required a little more balance, I could really take in the 360 view we had.

Side saddle!

So many tiny goats speckled the sides of the roads

Nagarkot is a sleepy mountain town and has some amazing views of the Himalayas.  We played our game of finding a hotel (which is a much more challenging game at 6000 feet, and every hotel is at the top of a hill with no less than about 6 flights of stairs each... needless to say we felt a little out of shape after checking out the 5th or so place) and found a cozy place and picked it because the owner was so kind.  Because it was off season he essentially asked us what our budget was and gave us a 40% or so discount.

Outside Hotel Elephant Head

We settled into the hotel and then grabbed the camera to go to the top of View Point Hotel which is next door.  We watched to sunset over the Himalayas at the highest point we could find, simply amazed that we're actually here.

We had a quick dinner of chicken curry, dal, roti, and steamed vegetable momo and headed to bed early-- up to see the sunrise tomorrow!
(Great videos from the ride but haven't been able to upload them-- hopefully we'll be able to before the power goes out one of these days!)