Ousted Autocrats Tour 2012

DiploSport

New member
The Ousted Autocrats Tour took place from Feb 4-Feb 18, 2012. The tour is named for the 3 ousted autocrats in the locations we planned to visit. 1. Kathmandu: Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, ousted in 2008. 2. Dharamsala: XIV Dalai Lama, ousted in 1959. 3. Lo Manthang: Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista, ousted in 2008.

The 30 second cheesy teaser video can be seen here:


A full length (7 min) video can be seen here:


Like any good tour we had custom t-shirts made:

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My wife and I’s vehicle of choice was a 2004 Mitsubishi Montero Sport nicknamed "The Bullpen" outfitted with custom front, rear, and side protection courtesy of Independent4X, rear ARB locker, rear OME heavy duty springs, ARB torsion bars, and 255/85R16 BFG KM2's. We used a Garmin Nuvi 2595 GPS.

It took a lot of planning and organizing, but on the morning of February 4th we were finally ready to leave our house in Kathmandu and set off on the tour. This was to be a 16 day trip. 4 days driving from Kathmandu to Dharamsala. 2 days in Dharamsala. Then 6 days to drive to Lo Manthang, 1 day in Lo Manthang, and finally 3 days to drive back to Kathmandu. We estimated it would be about 2,000 miles total. The plan included driving over some incredibly dangerous roads, including extreme off-road track heading up to Lo Manthang, the capital city of what until 2008 was the kingdom of Lo, which lies in the Upper Mustang region of Nepal – a unique place politically part of Nepal but geographically and culturally on the Tibetan plateau. (To see a great Aljazeera special about Upper Mustang click here)

The Drive from Kathmandu to Dharamsala:

Here we are fresh, happy, and ready to hit the road!

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Day 1 was a simple 5 hour drive from Kathmandu to a city named Butwal. It was on roads we have driven before and nothing particularly interesting happened.

Day 2 was a longer 9 hour drive heading straight west on Nepal's scenic and peaceful East-West Highway, ending in the border town of Mahendranagar. The day started with our first fill-up outside of Kathmandu. This started a trend that would last throughout the trip - paying for more fuel than we were receiving. This particular attendant came up with the story that the pump meter did not record the first liter that was pumped into our tank (stopping after pumping a few liters in to explain the situation). The amount of money - about $1.50 - didn't really matter to me, but the fact that there would never be any repercussions for his actions was upsetting. After a brief discussion and a growing crowd I agreed to pay for one more liter than what the meter showed. The attendant then happily filled the tank the rest of the way.

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Traffic on the East-West Highway...

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On the third day we planned to cross the border into India. In retrospect it was a bad idea to attempt a border crossing on the longest scheduled driving day (an estimated 10.5 hours). Given my status, border crossings - especially remote border crossings such as this - can raise eyebrows with local authorities. That was certainly the case here. Details aside, the crossing sucked 4 hours out of our day and we didn’t start driving again until 1pm. That put us way behind schedule. That also meant we would be driving at night in India, which was something we really wanted to avoid. Because of the extended night driving, it ended up taking 12 hours total and we didn't arrive in Chandigarh, India until 1 am.

The border itself is actually this one lane bridge over a small creek:

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And now we're in India:

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As the sun set the driving went from dangerous to downright absurd.

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Vehicles are supposed to drive on the left in India. It becomes immediately obvious, however, that people prefer to drive on the right and will do so at every opportunity. Heck, even if there isn't an opportunity. At night this becomes especially dangerous as all vehicles use their high-beams all the time. It is a never-ending game of chicken and to top it off everyone is blinded from the high beams. This can be particularly stressful on your passenger if you are driving a LHD vehicle…

Departing from Chandigarh at 9am, we set off on our GPS-created route to Dharamsala. Having just driven on some of the most rutted, pot-holed, and twisty roads I had ever encountered late at night while enduring constant death threats from buses, tractors, and cars I decided to change our route preference from “most direct” to “fastest.” The GPS decided to put us on what looked on paper to be a major highway heading northwest, connecting to another that went back straight east to Dharamsala. As we drove we started noticing more and more Sikhs. Then at some point we realized we were in the Punjab. Then the looks we were getting whenever we stopped at an intersection changed from friendly and inquisitive to more accusatory, suspicious, and glaring. After reaching Dharamsala I analyzed our route and found that we had in fact been less than 20 miles from the Pakistan border. Twisty roads suddenly didn’t look so bad. We decided we would be taking the direct route back to Chandigarh in a few days.

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In the Punjab we stopped at yet another petrol pump whose operators were less than truthful. Normally, as you can see here, the petrol pump fills up the tanks of motorcycles. In other words, the type of people who can tell when a liter charged is a liter received. After putting 19 liters in our tank the attendant stopped pumping, opened up the pump, flipped a switch, and then continued to pump another 50 or so liters (according to the meter) explaining that he had to reset a circuit breaker. More likely, the switch changed (just slightly) the ratio of petrol pumped to petrol charged. Again, the difference was probably only very slight, a few liters at most, but the audacity of the attendant to do it right in front of my face ticked me off. But again, there was really no option; we paid and were on our way.

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Our first view of Dharamsala, shortly after sunset:

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For the next two days we had a wonderful time in Dharamsala. We ate amazing Tibetan food and visited the various sights. It even snowed one night, which made for a beautiful morning.

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The Drive from Dharamsala to Lo Manthang:

On the day we departed Desmond Tutu was scheduled to give a speech. But the Ousted Autocrats tour waits for no one, and we pushed on – back to Chandigarh (after thanking the monks that let us use the monastery parking lot as our own). I correctly assumed that the extremely poor quality of the roads on the direct route would counteract the shorter overall distance.

On this drive we encountered our one and only tunnel on the entire trip:

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Thankfully it was not actually that steep...

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This was not an uncommon sight on the twisty mountain roads:

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Another normal sight:

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After being upgraded to the Presidential Suite at a 5 star hotel in Chandigarh and spending a relaxing night in luxury, we admittedly lingered longer than we should have. Hitting the road at 10am we immediately understood that we would again be driving at night in India. Soon it became painfully apparent that this would rank as the worst day of the tour. The drive from Chandigarh to the Indian border town of Pilibhit took a painful 13 hours.

Now, we live in Nepal. We are forever surrounded by poverty and all that other less-developed country stuff. But to kick off this drive were two beggar children who were extremely aggressive. Usually beggars will bang on the door / window and yell demanding money. But these two actually climbed up on to our rocksliders and began banging as hard as they could while screaming for money. Taking out the camera and snapping a pic confused them long enough for us to make our escape, but jeez, talk about aggressive!

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Aftermath of the beggar children:

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Now, I should mention, that for the most part the Bullpen received rave reviews everywhere we went. People from all walks of life were interested in the truck and were asking what it was. The best explanation I found was "just like a Pajero." to which the response would be "oooh, a Mitsubishi, nice. Where from?" These school boys in a Tuk Tuk outside of Delhi were particularly enamored. They were a bright spot on an otherwise hellish drive.

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Throughout the drive there were train crossings. And we never just passed over a crossing. Instead we were forced to stop at every. single. one. The first clue that we were approaching a train crossing was a line of trucks and tractors about 1/2 mile long all with their engines off lined up in a very uncharacteristic queue. The natural thing for the smaller cars to do, since there wasn’t any oncoming traffic, was to pass the line of trucks, stopping only when they reached the closed crossing. Therefore, at the crossing there would be four lanes of traffic all facing the same direction. Of course the vehicles on the other side had done the exact same thing and without fail every time the gates were opened after the train passed by there was nothing to do. This situation epitomized what we saw as the selfish short-sightedness of the driving culture in India. It was all so unnecessary. Everyone was stuck until one person from one side forced a path through oncoming traffic and then a tiny trickle of traffic began to flow. We always aimed to be at the front of that trickle, but it wasn’t easy. Later in the night, due to a navigational error on my part, we ended up inside a triangle of tracks and became trapped. We crossed one set of tracks and entered the triangle. Upon reaching the opposite side the gate was down. There was a wall on one side and tracks with no crossing on the other. So we turned around and headed back to the crossing we had just come from. But a train was approaching, so we stopped. Then the train stopped – directly in front of the crossing. We sat there for 20 minutes completely stuck until the train started moving again.

This night was also our scariest. We had four intense near-death experiences. I am, of course, not counting the “normal” ones where we were routinely run completely off the road by oncoming traffic, nearly miss rear-ending a tractor with no lights, or any of the other myriad ways one might die on an Indian highway at night. No, these were special. One in particular stands out. As we were driving down the pitch-black two lane highway out from behind a pitch-black tractor (no head lights) appears a vehicle with it’s high beams on coming directly towards us in our lane. I honk the horn and slam on the brakes. At this point I am still thinking this is a “normal” event. As the car swerves back to the correct side of the road just before impact we then see the headlights of the car just behind the first. Our tires are screeching, ABS is activated and there is nothing we can do but hold on while we look into the light…The second car again swerves just before impact to reveal a THIRD CAR who missed us by centimeters as it swerved back as we came to a screeching halt.

We were running low on gas. It was after dark. We had 4 jerry cans (80 Liters) in the back, but really preferred not to tap into those unless absolutely necessary. We were also out of Indian Rupees. The goal was to find a Petrol pump that accepted credit cards…or at least find an ATM. We stopped at every petrol pump for the next hour. Some even had signs that said “ATM” or “Credit card facility available” but the attendants responded with “cash only” and only vague “up the road” directions to where a some mythical ATM may exist. The low fuel light glowing strong and bright we finally spotted an ATM on the side of the road. We got enough cash for one more fill-up in India and headed to the next petrol pump. Now, I should mention that we spent a lot of time pulling in to all these pumps and driving slowly trying to spot an ATM near other businesses. I mention this because the pump we pulled into had a working ATM and accepted credit cards at the pump. It was really not our night.

After 13 hours on the road we finally reached Pilibhit. The hotel was dirty. I mean, really dirty. My wife and I have stayed in some pretty disgusting places over the years, but this place really took the cake. We took no shower, no breakfast, and had no direct contact with the hotel sheets. As soon as the sun rose we planned to head straight for the border…
 

DiploSport

New member
And we did head straight for the border. Before reaching it though, the last possible train that could get in our way did exactly that.

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At the border area we met this gentleman. There is a 35 rupee “fee” to enter the “border area” and this man sells the tickets. The man before me had exact change, handing over 35 rupees. But after handing over my 40 rupees the gentleman in the picture said “no change.” We went back and forth a bit about how the man before me had just given him 5 rupees and he would retort with “no change.” I finally said “fine, smile for the camera” and took this shot – the face of corruption in India.

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Sitting at Indian immigration at Banbasa looking back at the Bullpen.

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Once we were back in Nepal the roads were serene. The constant threat of death faded to just an hourly occurrence.

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We spent the night in Butwal again and felt refreshed and ready for the short (4 hour) drive north to Pokhara the next morning. As we walked past the hotel manager on our way to the Bullpen to put our luggage inside I heard him say something in thickly accented English and just as my brain deciphered the word “puncture” I saw it right in front of me – the rear passenger tire was completely flat.

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The repair was a quick half hour ordeal thanks to ARB’s puncture repair kit and under hood compressor. As always a crowd gathered to watch us work and though everyone was impressed with the patch kit, people darn near fainted when the air compressor kicked on and filled the tire back up. Unfortunately the puncture is on the sidewall, so the tire, after only about 5K miles, will be permanently retired to the spare tire carrier.

During the drive to Pokhara we crossed over the Kaligandaki river for the first time. This is the same river we planned to ford through a narrow gorge for several miles before popping out and onto the Tibetan plateau over a hundred miles north of here just 2 short days later.

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After spending a night in Pokhara with what we knew would be our last hot shower for a while, we hit the road at 9am, mentally prepared for the 8 hour drive ahead of us. Destination: Jomsom. The road from Pokhara to Jomsom was only completed about 4 years ago. It quickly degrades from fully paved, to broken, to a dirt track. Here are some photos of this (great!) drive:

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At one point there had been a recent landslide and these men were breaking all of the rocks by hand with a chisel and a sledgehammer so they could be carted off by hand. We had to turn around, go down into the gravel river bed and drive around this section of road.

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The last town before Jomsom is called Marpha. We were a little ahead of schedule so we enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the picturesque whitewashed village and took a photo to commemorate Valentines Day, 2012.

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10 more minutes down the road we reached Jomsom, right at 5pm.

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Upon checking into the guest house, “Ama” (mother) told us that this has been a very severe winter for the area and that for the past four days there has been no sun at all. All of the guest houses in town have suffered from frozen / burst pipes and there was essentially no running water in town. The severe weather had brought unprecedented snow fall and extremely high winds. We told her of our plan to try and drive to Lo Manthang and she relayed that reports had come back from Tsarang (the last village before Lo Manthang, sitting on the southern side of the final pass) that the pass was covered in deep snow and that even the big 4WD trucks could not make it all the way to Lo Manthang right now.

Not dismayed by the bleak news and reports of harsh weather, we asked if she could find out if a truck was leaving in the morning. Our plan from the beginning was to try and hook up with at least one truck and convoy our way north, following the experienced trucker(s) through the dangerous narrow gorge where we knew we would have to drive straight up the rushing Kaligandaki river.

Unfortunately she told us that just one day prior a truck had left from Jomsom headed north. It was the only truck in Upper Mustang right now and no one knew exactly where it was. Maybe it made it to Tsarang, maybe further, maybe it’s still in the gorge broken down, no one knows. There were no other trucks in town and therefore no hope of us leaving in the morning as part of a convoy. Despite everything being stacked against us, we decided we were going to go for it anyway.

The night was fierce. Winds howled and battered the stone guest house all night, threatening to rip the roof off or at least pick up something from outside and smash it through our window. I don’t know exactly how low the temperature got, but 4 layers of blankets atop long johns and fleece were barely enough to keep us from being uncomfortably cold. We were the only guests in the 40 room guest house. In fact, we may have been the only guests in the entire town. Mustang, upper or lower, is a formidable place to be in the winter. In fact, 60% of the residents of Upper Mustang head south every winter. Officially, they are engaging in trade and making their living, but I think that is a rather convenient excuse to escape the unrelenting winds, snow, and cold of this incredibly harsh high altitude dessert.

In the morning we hired a local day-guide ($25), shifted some things around in the back of the Bullpen so he could sit on the floor just behind the driver’s seat, and set out for the great unknown. Our first stop was the village of Kagbeni – where our guide had extended family and where we were required to get our permits stamped.

A local Idol in Kagbeni:

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At the permit checkpost:

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The guide’s nephew was the chairman of the local school committee. We sat for tea and popcorn in his kitchen while he regaled us with stories of large 4X4 trucks that had broken down in the gorge we were just about to attempt driving up. The drive entails driving straight up the Kali Gandaki river, which is always near freezing. The nephew explained quite clearly how the extreme cold of the water combined with the fierce and cold winds causes all sorts of strange problems with the trucks, at times forcing the driver and passengers to stay inside the truck until another one came a day or two later to rescue them. To which we replied “we will go as far as we can.”

This is an example of the large 4X4 truck he was talking about. The bottom of the front bumper is at the height of the Bullpen’s hood.

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He then brought us to the school house and showed us the damage that the severe winds had wreaked over the past week. Our favorite quote from him was “You know the beginning of that movie 2012? That happened here…last week.” Among other damage, the roof to the play house had been completely blown off.

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Now we were officially checked in to Upper Mustang. All there was to do now was drive north – straight into the near freezing 70MPH winds and snow flurries being whipped down the world’s_deepest_gorge

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And now it was time to really get down to business. I locked the rear ARB and we headed in.

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DiploSport

New member
Driving in the gorge was the most intense part of the entire tour and luckily I was able to, for the most part, see where the 4X4 trucks had driven.

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The river, as we drove straight up it, was getting deeper. It was flowing fast and the local’s warnings about how much the heavy snowfall this year had swollen the river were taking center stage in my thoughts. And then, during one of the many, many crossings (as you can see in the full video above – though those shots were all taken as we headed down stream) we dipped down, water came up over the hood of the Bullpen and we could feel the full force of the river trying to push us down and out of the gorge. I could feel the tires slipping on the rocks underneath the rushing water as I increased the revs just slightly to try and get us to the far embankment. We made it, but once out of the river the ARB compressor started running non-stop. “Damnit, must be a leak in the line somewhere” I thought. I shut the compressor off – there goes our most strategic asset.

We had already passed several points where the water had been wall-to-wall in the gorge. There is literally nothing to do but drive straight up the river. The river bed is made up of various sized rocks and the river was flowing fast. We had already had water come up over our hood – and the Bullpen was not equipped with a snorkel.

We came to this spot and again saw wall-to-wall water but now there was also a blind curve. There was no telling how far it went or how deep the water may be.

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Here is a side shot of the truck, where you can really see the scale of what were are dealing with:

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What the image doesn’t convey is the full reality of the situation. My wife and I were already starting to do the calculations, but as our guide saw it, the problem was simply “how deep is the water ahead?” and so without us asking he stripped off his pants and shoes and walked right into the freezing cold rushing river to check the depth.

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He was gone for a very long 10 minutes. The Bullpen’s drive belts were squealing like crazy – the only noise other than the rush of the powerfully cold wind whipping through the gorge. During this time my wife and I re-examined our risk calculations.

1. We are at the bottom of the world’s deepest gorge, in February, fording straight up a river flowing from the Tibetan Plateau during one of the most severe winters locals can remember.
2. As far as we are aware there is currently only one other vehicle in the entirety of Upper Mustang and no one knows precisely where it is.
3. We now had no guarantee that our rear locker would work. The squealing of the belts was probably nothing to worry about, but the failure of the locker and the constant squealing started to lend real credence to the nephew’s stories about how the extreme conditions affected vehicles.
4. The gorge is so narrow that if something were to go seriously wrong we would still need to walk out – the chance of our satellite phone working while we were down in the narrow gorge was slim to none. And walking out meant walking through sections of the gorge that were wall-to-wall water. Add to that the brutal winds and freezing temperatures and it is really a recipe for disaster.
5. Through the GPS we could see that we had at least 7 kilometers of gorge left before the exit and from looking at google earth imagery I remember there being more and more wall-to-wall water sections as you travel north towards the exit.
6. We both had gut feelings that this was it – if we pushed any further, any harder, nature was going to crush us.

We didn’t say anything to each other about a decision until after the guide returned, but it had already been made. After he reported that the water depth was OK at this corner but got deeper up ahead we both said “it’s time to turn around.”

We took a photo to mark the location / occasion and turned the ship around.

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After a two hour drive back to the hotel – down river – I popped the hood for an inspection. Sure enough, there was water in the intake box and the filter was wet. We really had pushed it to the limit.

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Now it was time to reassess. There was no way we were getting to Lo Manthang on this trip. We had gone up against some of the most brutal nature we had ever encountered and lost. But there were no regrets. That really was as hard and as far as we could have possibly pushed it. We decided we would stay one more day in Mustang driving around and checking out the sights before heading back to Kathmandu one day early.

We endured another intensely windy night, hearing things crash and shatter both outside and inside the guest house. The wind worked its way through every small crack and made any door not securely bolted shut slam against its frame with a loud crack.

The next morning we set out with two destinations in mind – a return to Kagbeni Village and a drive up to Muktinath - a Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sight at 12,500 feet, 3,500 feet above where we currently were. During breakfast Ama told us that even though there was snow on the road to Muktinath one jeep had made it all the way to the top the day before. That was all we needed to hear.

On our way…

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This is as far north as the road goes, roughly 12,000 feet.

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Another 500 feet up the footpath brought us to the temple. This is the view looking back.

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At the temple:

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On our way back down

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The winds were so intense that when my wife got out so I could take a picture she was almost blown right off the cliff!

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Back down at the river she completed her first attempt at fording

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We stayed one more night in Jomsom and then started the final leg of the trip.

The Drive from Jomsom to Kathmandu:

Day 14 was a simple back-track down the one and only road connecting Jomsom and Pokhara. The following day we set out on the bittersweet final day of the Ousted Autocrats Tour 2012 – the drive from Pokhara to Kathmandu.

We had made it 1,960 miles on some of the most dangerous roads in the world without an accident. Unfortunately the tour totaled 2,018 miles…

This photo is looking back at the sight of the accident on the final day of the tour. One motorcyclist decided to pass a truck, on a bridge (the white barriers are the bridge). Stupid thing to do right? Well, then a second motorcyclist decided to pass the first motorcyclist, who was already in the process of passing the truck. As I honked the horn furiously and slammed on the brakes, I aimed for as close to that tire stack as I could while the second motorcycle rear-ended the first and then tipped in our direction. The driver’s helmet smashed our passenger side view mirror as the bike crashed and scraped along the whole length of the passenger side of the Bullpen.

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The banged up passenger side of the Bullpen. Dents along the whole side, most notably in the front passenger door. Both fender flares ripped off, visor smashed, side view mirror smashed, etc. etc.

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Some part of the motorcycle gashed our rear tire.

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The police decided that "everyone should pay for their own damage." Blame was put on the large truck that the motorcycles were trying to pass (which, having not been touched in the accident, simply continued on down the road). No one, not one single person (other than the Americans) thought the motorcyclist should be at fault. However, we were lucky, it could have very easily been "they are foreigners, they have money, it was their fault." I won’t even get in to how lucky the motorcyclist himself or his passenger who was not wearing a helmet were…

Later that afternoon we were glad to be home. 2,018 miles, 15 days, two countries, highs, lows, and everything in between. It was everything an adventure should be.

429910_10100692323999053_10201132_56657859_720475102_n.jpg
 

HumphreyBear

Adventurer
Thank you, I really enjoy your trip reports, and envy your ability to travel such a wonderful part of the world.

Humphrey
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
Very Very cool...
amazing pics & write up..
Now please take this in the best way possible as I want to see many more videos of your treks..
put could you add some captions in the videos so we know where you are in various scenes and anything at all to help with the shake would make the video so much more watchable

I really like your perspective and writing style and kudos to both of you for your sense of adventure....not sure I could keep my cool with the corruption and hassles.
 

DiploSport

New member
Thank you for the comments.

There are many high quality videos being posted on the portal these days and I agree that ours is sub-par compared to those. We had the option of doing a nice quality video (GoPro cameras, various mounts, etc.), but it was lower on the priorty list for this trip and didn't get finalized before our departure. The video I posted was an attempt to have something rather than nothing for those that appreciate video.

We are always using GoPro cameras for our mountain biking videos here in Nepal. In October 2011 a couple friends and I went on an epic mountain biking adventure to Lower Mustang and made the below trailer from the hours of footage. Unfortunately one thing led to another and a full lengh cut was never completed (too many new adventures to bother with old footage). That trip, however, did help set the foundation for the Ousted Autocrats Tour, which is why I am posting it in this thread.

[video=facebook;10150327593331194]http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150327593331194[/video]
 

Ryan1975

Observer
What a very nice thread.

I'm currently a few countries over and I love the geography where I am. I often dream of a less tumultuous time when I can travel back to this region of the world and see many of the same things.

Thank you for the thread. I hope to see many of the same areas of the world some day.
 

DiploSport

New member
A video for Yeti Travels documenting the successful completion of the journey to Lo Manthang by 4x4. They encountered much lower water levels and warmer weather than we faced just over a year ago:

 

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