December 24 2004
Hello All,
this is what happened to me yesterday.
Day before yesterday Roy ( a friend of mine whom is
traveling on a motorbike in India and Nepal) and I
left Katmandu to go to the Royal Chitwan National
Park, where we were planning to spend some days before
heading back to India. We left Katmandu at about 10
oclock and drove towards Hetauda (a village on the way
to the park), the drive was beautiful as from here we
could see the Himalayan Range from distance, at about
4 oclock i have a flat tyre ,so we lost 1 hour in reparing it and so
on, so we were obliged to sleep in a small house just
in the middle of nowhere. The morning after at about 9 we started driving again,
just 7 km away from were we slept the Maoist (the
rebel group fighiting the monarchy ) had put mines on
the street so we were obliged to stop and try to
understand what to do ... suddently 2 maoist came out
from the jungle, and in nepaly made us understand that
the road was blocked (we didnt need much explanation
for that) and then they told us to go back , we said
ok we sat on the bikes and suddenly they took out 2
granades (bombs) from a bag they were carring and told
us to get down from the bikes, we were confused and
got down from the bikes , then they told us to walk
back to Katmandu (100km) and wanted us to give them 1
liter of petrol, we were more confused. We hesitated
since we did not understand why they wanted the fuel
and of course we did not even think of leaving the
bikes and walk, but just then we realized that they
were trying to put the bikes on fire .. so we started
argueing and telling them what are u doing ?? Suddenly
they started threatening (sorry for the spelling) us
with the granades, but we still resisted from letting
our bikes put in fire .... then they told us to move
away and togheter with them we walked some 10 mt. form
the bikes, at this stage one of the guys opened one of
teh granades and throwed it to the bikes , the granade
landed about 4 mt. from the bikes and exploded, we
were unhurt but the bikes suffered some damage ... we
were now in compleate shock and started begging them
not to do it so lots of begging and they were shouting
and so on .,.. then the other guy opened and throw the
second granade which landed just few centimeters from
the bikes , we were speachless ,with our eyes full of
tears from the anger and waiting to see our bikes
compleaty destroyed.... but the granade did not
explode, and this point THEY were shocked and i dont
know for which reason they just left, maybe to go and
fetch more granades or fuel, but as they dissapered in
the jungle we runned to our bikes started them and
drove for 5 hours NON stop to Katmandu. We are not
hurt but very very ANGRY .... So Richard if u are
planning to come to Nepal with your AT, think twice,
seriously this guys are mad !!
Anyway we are now stucked in Katamandu as the rebel
blocked all the majour roads, the distroyed the main
bridge that takes to Pokara which takes also to India
, in Katmandu there is not much fuel (u see km long
lines), people dont know when this strike will end so
i dont know when to i can go back to india ..... is a
pitty becouse Nepali are really nice people and Nepal
is a wonderful country but the situation now is no
good , no good at all ... other tourist are flying
somehow out, but we (Roy, Neil another Guy with a
motorbike,) and i are stuk here.
Today i passed the day in a workshop to fix the bike,
and the nepali mechanic did a great job.
This was my x-mas in Nepal.

Mauro on a AT round the world ...

Mauro

So sorry to hear your news and thankful that you and your friend were not injured.

Unfortunately, the situation in Nepal has deteriorated to such an extent that we recommend travellers avoid the country if at all possible, and otherwise exercise extreme caution.

I have moved this post to the Travellers Advisory forum, as it is important to get this information out to travellers.

Susan

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Susan Johnson

Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Hi Mauro

What an incredible story. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences, I'm glad you, your friend and the bikes survived.

What an amazing sory and best of luck in getting out of Nepal safely.



[This message has been edited by Fuzzy Duck (edited 01 January 2005).]

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Fuzzy Duck
(I\'m quackers about bikes)

So sorry to hear your news. we are (were) only weeks away from freighting from Bkk to Katmandu, as are Hanka and Erik from Germany and Andrew and Wendy also from Australia. Guess we will now replan all that. Either direct to india or perhaps Dakka in Bangladesh. Where are you now????Are you out and safe. Or even in Nepal and safe????? We are desperate to hear the rest of your news.
Cheryl and david.

Hi,

last week i tried to go anyway from kathmandu to the west. the week before i met Mauro in kathmandu (hi) , heard his story but decided to give it a go as far as possible. I know nepal quiet well,spend there last year 4 months, and tought maybe i could go afther the blocades were finished. the way to pokhara was okay, to butwal also, but i couldnt proceed from there to the west because of new blocades. the mayor of nepal, a friend, told me it was to dangerous..so no other choice of going down to sonauli into india.
a few days later maoist leaders admitted that they dont have control over all their troops (teenage kids) who plunder and rape all over the country..
conclusion:beautyfull country but it is in civilware. stay away with the bike.

greetz
niels
ps; hanka& erik, i am okay, i will send you how it went with the shipping to kolkatta.

Hanka and Eric are in Laos at the moment. We are also interested in how you got on with freight to Calcutta as it is an option that we may have to use. Perhaps ask them to forward your report to us as well, as we contact each other from time to time.
So very sad about Nepal.
Cheryl and David.

Cheryl & David,

Suggest investigating shipping to Dhaka/Bangladesh. I have read several times here that Indian bureaucracy is a nightmare to deal with and Dhaka is said to be much easier/quicker.

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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.

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Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10

Bangladesh would be our choice over India for that reason. An there is a guy there who used to help on HU Bulletin Board who i am sure would help if things got too bad....

hi there,
To david and cheryl and to all it concerns

The bbk-Kolkatta shipment story:
(I try to keep it short)
In bbk on 4 november, they promised me that i could clear my shipment in just 2 weeks. Confident i left the office with my prepaid cargo documents...
they made me a metal skeleton for my bike (wooden crates have to go in quaraintine), wich i could later sell in kolkatta. total price: 10000 bhaat. not bad i tought.

2 weeks later- the day before my cargo should arrive i called and mailed my clearingagent in kolkatta who mailed me back the following message: sorry sir, i dont know what you mean, but your bike is not on this boat..we check for you. maybe its somewhere lost in singapore..
and lucky for me it was. only one week delay. then there was this festival, followed by a weekend, a strike and fire in the docks...
again lucky for me, my bike was not destroyed..
so almost 3 weeks later i went to the docks to find out i needed another cleuringagent (who i already payed 100 dollar for my deliverybill) and a costumagent to clear my goods. price: another 200 dollars and 3 days in the kolkatta costumoffice running from desk to desk.
BUT I GOT IT! :-) it was 10 december....

so do i have to say more..

good luck & greetz
niels

Why are we not at all surprised at your story.......that is exactly what we would expect in India.
Bangladesh is looking good......not that it will be a bed of roses there either.

hi,

i dont now the situation in dhaka, but like you said, i fear also that its not going to be easy.
maybe you should consider flying.. i met a britisch couple on a triumph in kathamndu (dont have the adress) who were going to do that. they mentioned the price and it was not that expensive.
good about flying: the bike is on your plain..and you (only) have 5 clearingdays to arrange your paperwork with the customs, wich are much more organized at airports.
the only thing is that if you cant clear it in 5 days, you will pay the 6th day for all the 5 days before for stocking it. and that costs money...

good luck
niels

David & Cheryl,

I know you've experienced India before, but it's not always a nightmare. We had several people stay with us in Delhi while they cleared their bikes through airport customs and all of them had their bikes within two days of arrival - a couple even got them cleared in one day. India can be a headache, but it's not always if you know who to speak to and how to deal with them.

Although I have no personal experience of Bangladesh, we met an Australian guy in Nepal who'd shipped Singapore-Dakha and it had taken something like a month to get the bike cleared and cost him lots of money in baksheesh. Added to that - I understand that Bangladesh makes India look clean and tidy, so it must be pretty bad!

Harvey




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no pipe, no slippers
www.chasingthesun.org

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no pipe, no slippers
www.chasingthesun.org

I am now in India, thanks for the concern, but when we left katmandu towards Sonauli after the strike was over, we reached a place where the army was just ambushed by the maoists and there were some shootouts, we had to wait for 1 hours or so at 1 km distance from where an army Armed truck (i dont know how u called them, those tanks but with rubber wheels)and lots of soldiers lying on the gound with their weapons aimed to the jungle around ...
Better to stay away from Nepal. I am happy to be back in India. Neil i saw your registration at the sonauli border, but was not sure it was u .. where r u now ????
cheers
Mauro

hi mauro and to everybody it concerns,

i'm in pakistan for the moment. when i was in Tansen (near sonauli border) somebody told me that there was another banda (strike) later that day. did pass for that so i went down to india and followed the route kushinagar-ayodhya-kanpur-agra-delhi-amritsar. not very special, to flat afther the beautiful rides in the nepali Mountains.

Here what i heared about nepal the last weeks:
- There were riots and fights in kathmandu because of the high price of petrol (means:the maoist are succeeding with their bloccades)
-many casualties among goverment troops in the west.

'my' opinion is that you can still go but you can only enter/leave in sonauli (upto pokhara-NOT hetauda, as mauro told us before) or kakarvitta in the east (did that 6 weeks ago). The WEST is NOT POSSIBLE, to dangerous!
ask locals for the news, daily! maybe it can happen that you end up in a banda,wich means you have to stay put for a few days.
here in lahore i met quiet a lot of overlanders (without own transport) who are heading that way.

Good luck and be carefull
greetz
niels

ps another thing: its right what grant says, my story about the shipment is a horrible one, but i think i was quiet unlucky and unexperienced there. you have to know the right people..dont let it discourage you.good luck

I am now in Varanassi planning to ride to Katmandu for airfreighting to Bangkok. They claim the blockade has been lifted and the roads are safe. Does anyone have current information? Also, what is the best route from here and what are the estimated travel times?
Thanks,
Glen

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