October 19th, 2019
We got up early not wanting to spend any more time in the bug room. Plus, we learned riding early in the morning was our favorite time. Our next and last stop before going back to Pokhara was a town called Bandipur. It is between Pokhara and Kathmandu and is supposed to be quite charming. It was only a two-hour ride from Chitwan and was our nicest ride in Nepal. The roads were in the best condition that we have seen and it was quite scenic. We got to town by midmorning and found a nice little café for breakfast. This is by far the cutest town I have seen in Nepal. The streets in the main part of town are only for walking, and it is so nice and quiet without the constant blowing of horns. The main street is lined with 18th century Newari (indigenous people of Kathmandu Valley) architecture and there are many guest houses and cafés. There are many tourists here but it feels very laid-back and is a nice change of pace. We found a hotel and took a quick nap before going back out to explore (we hadn’t slept well in four nights).
When we got up, we walked around town and went to a couple parks and viewpoints. There is not a whole lot to do here besides walking around and eating/drinking masala tea, but it really is a nice little town. This is a great place if you need a day or two to do nothing, or read a book and relax. I love the masala milk tea here so I had several cups throughout the day at different cafes while I filled out some post-cards and worked on this blog. It was a really nice, relaxing day.
It must be hard to top previous adventures after you’ve had so many! I have no idea how you stood the back of the scooter with no foot pegs for so many miles! I wonder what your feet did (drag along on the ground, or be held up in a perpetual core strengthening exercise). The whole expensive rhino tour sounded equally as dreadful with the heat, leeches, biting bugs, tall grasses etc! God bless the Guide that really wanted you to SEE a Rhino and wouldn’t stop till you did. Not the first time you’ve suffered thru something to the end to make the person you paid “feel better.” That’s great that your relentless endurance had a happy 3-Rhino ending! So sad about the chained elephants, what a paradox with their stated mission.