North into the land of Mustang

September, 23^rd, 2026

Kalopeni, Nepal

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I had fallen asleep really early and slept all evening and way into the night.

Upon waking up at 4:00 AM, I decide at that point I felt pretty good, so just stayed awake and worked on the blog entries you have read before this one.

Once done with those, I played online a bit, then as the sun started to come up, I went ahead and took a shower and got geared up.

I finished up all the packing that still needed done, then around 6:30 I went down for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

I arrived and they were still setting up (which was odd as I thought I recalled the lady saying it started at 6?

However, they had a few things out, so sat and ate a few small things and had a fruit infused water till the finished putting the food out.

It was an odd breakfast lineup.  While they had a few pastries and bread to toast, and some fresh fruit, the hot stuff was samosas, potato wedges, a few local things I was not sure what they were, and pasta with marinara sauce!  Also, a think of chicken sausage and last thing put out was small pancakes.

As with most places, they had an omelet bar as well.

I was alone in the place for the first 30 minutes, then lots of people started to come in and eventually the guide arrived as well and joined me.

We finished up and he went out to get his gear and I went up to the room to use the toilet one last time, and grab all my stuff.

Checked out of the room and then went outside after the lobby full of people loaded onto the bus for their trekking trip.

Guide brought up both of the bikes and we strapped my bag on again, and I put the tank bag and camera on.

Guide then started loading up his bike and while that was going on another tourist approached and started to ask me where I had gotten the bike.

British from the accent, which he confirmed as we talked.

I explained my path to the bike trip and we started talking about riding in general and travel plans.

Turns out he works in same field that I just retired from, but plans to keep working a bit longer.

After 10 minutes or so we exchanged WhatsApp contacts and then he and his friend went off and the guide and I did our last checks and got onto the bikes.

We headed back to the main road and back tracked a bit to a north bound route.

We followed this till the fuel station, and then went north again till we reached a turn to take a small road up the mountain side.

This road was fun.  Very steep in places, and several areas of switchbacks going up, up, and still farther up.

We got some views of the valley below a few times, and even stopped at one point to look out over the edge of town to where you can see the peaks of Annapurna South and Machapuchare.

Sadly, they were covered by clouds, you could see just the top of Machapuchare, and only the sides of Annapurna.

We figured we might get better views later, so continued on the road.

As we went up more, the clouds moved down, and soon we could see nothing beyond the nearby edges of the cliff.  Just clouds.

Road kept going up and we soon reached the top, then started the long ride back down.

About half way down we stopped off for a coffee at a small roadside café that was just an old shipping container with some patios built onto the side.  Really cool concept and use of material.

I decided to have a coffee, a cappuccino, and it was really good.

Once done there, I used the toilet, and then we got on the bikes and headed down.

We eventually reached the bottom and soon joined back up with the main highway heading west.

We stayed on this for about and hour or so, and then turned off onto the road that would take us north and into the Mustang valley.

Not too long after the turn we pulled off to have lunch in a small village.

We parked and went up to the 2^nd floor dining area and I had a nice Chicken Biryani (other than having to pick the chicken off the bone, which was a bit messy).

Once we finished eating, the usual toilet break, and then we hit the road again.

Not too far after this we came upon a huge waterfall just off the side of the road, so stopped and walked up the short distance to get some good photos.

Then we headed back onto the road, which now was getting worse by the minute.

While the paved sections were pretty good, just the usual series of pot holes and uneven paving, there were many sections where the road turned to dirt/gravel, usually in areas of road works, or where landslides had been bypassed.

Many of these sections were also wet from the water coming off the hillsides, turning them in to large muddy obstacle courses.

Add in the car and truck traffic which we found on about half those sections and things get a bit crazy.

The trucks and cars move all over the road trying to find the best path, which even we do on the bikes, however, that makes it difficult for us to pass the cars and they are always changing direction.

But they also are barely moving while they do this, and we can keep up a pace 4 times faster if we can just get around them.

Made it through most of the spots with only a few wheel spins or slips, and in one section did have to tap my foot down to the ground to stop the bike from leaning too far, but did not have to walk the bike through anything.

I did manage to soak myself from the mid-thigh down when I had to just barrel through a huge water hole as the small van would not let me around.

We did get stopped a few times in the middle of the muddy sections waiting for a larger vehicle coming the other way.  We also got stopped once for some road work that was blocking the road in the early part of the ride, but once they loader picked up the last load of dirt, a few of us bikes snuck around the dump truck while he was being loaded to get a head start on all the cars.

Another time we got stopped part way up a rough muddy section of road under a rock over hang which was dripping water on us the whole time.

The road did have some nice paved sections though, but usually broken by rough sections every mile or so.  Some sections were small, few bike lengths, others could take 5-10 minutes to get through.

At roughly the half way point of our ride we stopped at another water fall, this one even larger, though not as steep, and was multiple cascades versus a single drop.

This was Rupse Waterfall.  It drops 300 meters (about 984 feet).  Was quite amazing, and according to the guide, it flows nicely year round and does not dry up like some falls will in mountain areas.

We then continued onward until we had to stop at the first checkpoint to enter Lower Mustang.  Guide took care of the permit stuff while I waited, and then we were back on the road.

Not long after, we arrived at our stay for the night in the Kalopani area.

We pulled into a nice gated parking area by a lodge/restaurant and parked.  Our rooms though are in the other building across the road.

We walked over and I got into my room on the 2^nd floor with some nice views of the mountains around us.  Sadly, the clouds were still coming down low, so could not quite see the peaks.

I got out of the riding gear and took a quick shower, then dressed and went down to sit with the guide who was waiting for his room to get cleaned.

Had a hot tea and then after he left I sat and played on the phone and kept an eye on the mountains.

Finally the clouds cleared briefly off Annapurna.

But the other too big peaks nearby stayed covered (Dhaulagiri and Nilgiri)

The guide went over to work on somethings with his bike and I went upstairs to change into my pants, as the temperature was dropping with the sun, and shorts were not doing it anymore.

Also put on my light jacket.

I grabbed my Kindle and went out on front of the room on the balcony/walkway and sat in the chair to read.

I am reading “Ghost Rider” by Neil Peart, the drummer for the rock band Rush.  He went on a long motorbike ride as a healing exercise after losing both his daughter and his wife in a single year.  (not to mention having his dog put down and his best friend arrested and jailed while he was on the ride).

While still in the middle, it was interesting to watch how he used the travel to keep mind off the tragedies and try to find himself again as he no longer felt he was the same person.

It will be interesting to see where he ends up by the end of his journey.

The guide finished his work on the bike and came up to ask me when we wanted dinner.

Figured we would go down about 6:00pm, and we spent the last few minutes checking out the large space behind the hotel which you can see from the 2^nd floor balcony.  They were having a festival tomorrow, but was all kinds of activity going on tonight setting up tents, chairs, and testing the sound system.  Dozens of people had come down to help out, some carrying flags and marching down the road.

At 6:00 we went down to the restaurant and I ordered my meal, just a plate of mo-mo’s and some mushroom soup with a soda to drink.

We then sat and talked while I waited and while I ate.

Just before 8:00 PM he went off to have his own dinner (not sure why he did not eat when I did, unless prefers eating later.)

We had already lined up the plans for tomorrow and I ordered my breakfast to be ready at 8:00 AM as well to speed things up.

We will depart again around 9 and only have about a 4 hour ride with several interesting stops along the way, and will enter Upper Mustang tomorrow as well.

I came back to my room then and sorted a few things, put some stuff on the charger and then uploaded the footage taking today to the laptop.

Then it was time to type up this blog entry.

I was going to upload this tonight, but the Wi-Fi is no longer working, so either the heavier rain outside has caused an issue, or they shut it off as some point.  Will just put it online later.

I will finish the night out reading as I am getting a bit tired and not feeling like doing any video work.

Catch ya down the road.