Distance Travelled: 156km
Driving Time: 5.5 hours
From 10am, we rickshaw drivers gathered in Durbar Square in Kathmandu, surrounded by temples and large crowds of people. The Nepalese army turned up to give us 10 litres of petrol each as there is currently a severe shortage in Nepal. We also had a full tank so we had 18 litres in total - hopefully enough to get us to the border. Some of the other teams have fantastic names: She's a Goa, Pirates of the Currybean and our personal favourite, Raj Against the Machine.
We were due to set off at noon in a long convoy and escorted out of Kathmandu. Amelia decided to tackle the first roads and as launchtime approached, we were both feeling increasingly nervous. The rickshaws started, Amelia stalled (four times), panicked and Joe heroically stepped in to tak the helm/handlebars. The convoy was off. It completely disintegrated within 2 minutes as the rest of Kathmandu traffic cut everybody up and we lost sight of the rickshaws ahead of us. As Joe manfully wove his way around the bikes, motorcycles, cycle rickshaws, cars, trucks, cows and pedestrians, Amelia made liberal use of the backseat horn, purchased specially for nervous passengers, and gave out some serious scaldings to children who jumped on our rickshaw to hitch a lift. We eventually spotted a couple of other stray 'shaws and we joined up to find our way to the ring road using a compass and guesswork. I kid you not about the cows - traffic was flowing in 6 higgledy-piggledy lanes and there were cows lying in the middle, placidly chewing. One team, getting a bit carried away, decided to overtake us but the misjudged it slightly and we now have a dent in our wheelguard.
After about 20 mins, we somehow bumped into most of the rest of the convoy and found our way out on the road west - at which point, the fun began. We were on a winding mountain road with a sheer drop at the side and large trucks thundering in both directions. The Nepali system of overtaking is that, whatever the road, the faster vehicle ALWAYS overtakes with lots of cheerful honking to let the overtakee know that something is passing them. All very sensible although overtaking occurs regardless of oncoming traffic. We passed two overturned trucks and one full-on smash on this one stretch of road.
Auto rickshaws are outlawed in Nepal so we were something of a novelty for everyone we passed (or who passed us, at speed) and the vigorous waving from other vehicles almost caused a few accidents. The convoy of brightly painted rickshaws streaming around the mountain did look quite impressive though. Amelia eventually took over the driving and after some initial loud revving, finally made it into first gear and then almost got mown down by a lorry. Fairly early on, we decided to stick with another team - The Raiders of the Last Chapati (who conveniently have a map of India painted on their rickshaw), and we eventually ended up in a medium-sized town where we chose to stay the night. The moment we stopped the rickshaws, we were surrounded by curious people, all wanting to know what we were up to.
Anyhow, we survived the first day on the road and we were feeling extremely pleased about it.
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