Riding time! Kathmandu to Pokhara

September 22^nd, 2026

Pokhara, Nepal

Woke at around 6:00 AM, alarm was set for 6:30, so just went ahead and took shower and got dressed.

Went up for breakfast and sat out on the patio again as cool morning air was refreshing.

Ate a bit smaller meal today since we will be on the bikes today, did not want to feel stuffed.

Came back down to the room and completed the packing, trying to fit everything into the single bag and the tank bag was a bit more challenging than I had hoped, but it all went in eventually.

Sat in the room for about 30 minutes then to relax and play around online, then grabbed the bags, checked over the room, then left and went down to the lobby.

Checked out of the room and paid the bill for the 1 night and the laundry (though when I looked at my email for the charge later that day, the amount seemed very low, so not sure what happened, but will sort it later if need).

I then waited in lobby for just a few minutes till the guide arrived, he had been bringing the bikes over to this hotel.

We went out and spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out a way to strap on the large bag and getting the tank bag attached (that posed some challenges as well, and while on, it’s not ideal).

Then mounted the camera and phone mounts on the handle bar as I forgot to bring the smaller mounting inserts to put it on the mirror stalk, but it should work okay where it’s at.

We then hit the road in Kathmandu.

Was a bit slow going in the central part of the city with the narrow roads and heavier traffic.

We stopped after about 5 minutes to fuel up my bike as it was nearly empty.

Then we got out of the city center and to the main highway and slowly made our way out of the valley.

Once we reached the valley edge the traffic decreased some, mainly due to a tunnel that bypasses the pass going over the mountain.

We went up and over, going at a slower pace due to some mechanical issue with the guide’s bike.  He will resolve that tonight, so hopefully we can keep up speed better in following days.

We stopped at the bottom of the pass so he could check the bike out, and we also could use the toilets.  I also grabbed a cold drink at the shop here as well.

But we still managed a fair rate until we came to the more deteriorated road sections.

This middle section of road is narrow, and older, and due to years of heavy traffic, constant landslides, and in a few spots the recent flooding along the Trishuli River, things were a mess.

Lots of road works to repair damage, cleanup debris, or a few spots where they were still working on widening or other improvements.

Then of course the broken down or stalled vehicles that always seem to pick these roads to fail.

This creates long lines of vehicles, mostly trucks and busses, to fight for that single lane left open to get by.

We spent a few hours going through this section, many times barely moving until we could squeeze the bike through between some vehicles and get around the stalled truck or very slow-moving vehicle.

We stopped briefly at another road side café, though just used the toilets and sat in the shade.  I guess the road was temporarily going to be closed ahead for some blasting, so we waited it out there instead of in the line of cars ahead.  We only spent about 15 minutes here before guide said we could continue.

A few times we even sat there waiting, though I did see spots we probably could have gotten through, and other bikes were using them, but perhaps the guide was concerned using his crippled bike in them, or was not sure if I would follow.  Probably lead all types of riders, so might error on the side of caution, though I was more than willing to push through and never felt in any serious risk.

We eventually turned off onto the road heading northwest toward Pokhara, and the road improved a bit here, and soon after it became a mostly divided 4 lane highway, though a few sections still came together, and in some the lines were not painted.

And like other places, trucks and busses just broke down or parked in one of the lanes, so still had some passing to do, but only had to deal with one direction of traffic, and it was not too heavy at this time.

A few spots we had to detour into the other lanes due to land slides or some kind of road works, though oddly the other lanes never came into ours.

We stopped for lunch at a road side café and took a rest.

Had a few bottles of water and some spicy chili chicken mo-mo’s.

After a few minutes resting and watching the two busses full of people that stopped to use toilets and buy drinks, we got back on the bikes and continued down the road.

Easy going from here till we reached the edges or Pokhara and the traffic increased by a factor of 5.

Mostly bikes, so was not stopping anything, but became a game of dodge-bike, trying to weave through the mass of bikes, each going a different direction it seemed.

Of course, still cars, busses, and trucks, but those were the easy things to get around usually. 

Had quite a few stop lights as well, something we did not see as often in Kathmandu,

We soon turned off the main road into the narrow side streets, and wound down a few to reach the hotel.

Parked up in the drive and went inside.

I checked in and the guide explained the location and a few things, and we setup plans for meeting tomorrow. (Guide lives here, so he will just go home tonight).

He took care of parking my bike before he left and I went up to the room on the 4^th floor.

View looked nice, but was still too hot to go sit on the balcony.

I took a cold shower (hot water was not doing too good) and put on street clothes and then sat down to work on uploading the footage taken today.

Once done, I checked a few online things and started to write the blogs.

I completed the previous days entry and started this one, but was suddenly very tired, and could not even keep eyes open.

I did not sleep very good last night, so thought perhaps a short nap would help, so laid down on the bed to do that, and would go out and explore later.

So I thought…..

Ended up crashing so hard I did not wake up till much later, and even then, only to use toilet.

Needless to say, I did not go explore, did not have dinner and did not finish this till 4:00 AM in the morning when I finally woke up and felt rested.

I will end this hear and put the rest of my super early morning in the next entry.

Catch ya down the road.