To Atariya: yes, same same: hot and smokey

May 1, 2016

"All this shaking is shaking snot out of my nose, can I have a tissue?" Patrick asks halfway back to the main highway. As with most cyclists, we don't like backtracking roads, especially bad roads like this one. But we are happy that we did and highly recommend making the effort to Mr. B's Place near the entrance to Bardia National Park.

Back to the main road, the road profile continues much the same except with more flat hills over the course of the day. But first the road goes east-west, then north and there is a headwind. We are still in the National Park the road surface good yet with fresh chipseal taking revenge to bus windshields. Throughout Nepal we have seen many a bus with windshields taped over cracks or missing completely. Today we passed a bus where the windshield is broken and bus driver and conductor are barehanded pulling all the broken glass out on the ground. The next few kilometers we see three more glass piles, so we bet a few more buses are without windshields.

At Chisapani, we cross the suspension bridge and we take our first break. The samosas don't set well with Patrick, too greasy for so early in the morning. The road turns South and we almost have a tailwind for awhile. We follow what looks like a delta, the river with braided channels and much activity in the river bed of piling sand and harvesting river rocks. We are passed by tractors pulling wagons loaded with rocks and throughout the day see how the rocks have been piled up along the side of the road. Patrick thinks maybe either an irrigation canal, roadside ditch or widening the road is being built. This road as with many other Nepalese roads, are built high like a dike to prevent washouts and flooding.

As the day progresses and the temperature rises, we go fewer kilometers between breaks, stopping for cold drinks. We reach Atariya and check out one of two hotels that are shown on Google maps. "It's a dump", Patrick says, "the first two rooms, he couldn't open and the third room hadn't been cleaned for a very long time." The manager does tell Patrick there is a hotel by the hospital. We go in search back to the round about and find the Hotel Redsun, not listed on GPS, and is by the hospital and we are very happy.

We are about 50kilometers to the Indian Border and five days to Rishikesh, getting closer to the mountains and cooler weather and cleaner air.