The morning started with a pleasant surprise as the hotel staff kindly washed our bikes for us. we gladly gave the chap who washed them a healthy tip as a result.

The boarder crossing was only a couple of hundred meters away from our hotel making an easy start. Steve had to educate the local Nepalese customs guy on how to complete the Carne paperwork, after which it was a simple case of getting through immigration and off to India. Once in India we had to do the same thing again before we were allowed to proceed. The process was a fairly quick, only taking 2 hours to complete the crossing.

Shortly after we got underway it started to rain very heavily which certainly makes for hard going. Typically we simply don’t bother with wet weather clothing as the temps are so high its easier to just get soaked and hope to dry off as if the weather eases.

I noticed that a support strut on the rear of Steve’s bike had broken and was hanging down. The strut was part of his pannier frames and was critical to their support. I flagged him over and we then had to work out how to get it fixed.

Fortunately an old traffic cop was standing by and took Steve with the broken part off to a local firm and 1/2hr later they were back with it nicely welded and ready to refit.

We were soon back on the road and the rain had not stopped. We were now faced with extremely dangerous traffic conditions due huge pot holes and buses and trucks swerving into our path to avoid them.  At one point while riding behind Steve I witnessed him having to drop his right shoulder in order to miss being hit by an oncoming bus!

One other incident that occurred was a car pulling out in front of Steve which was an extremely concerning moment. This resulted in a heated discussion with us explaining to the driver, the errors of his ways.

It was after this we decided to get off the roads early as we spotted a hotel and headed straight for it. The hotel staff were very obliging and made every effort to assist us in drying our clothes.

We were glad to be off the road and dry at last.