The morning was a pretty relaxed one with everyone (especially Kamal) being tired and hungover.

Started the morning with Breakfast and then to watch Phil and Michele do the bungy/canyon swing. The viewing deck was right outside my tent.

 

Then it was back onto the bus and down the mountain roads. It didn’t take long before we found the landslide we were warned about. A few weeks out from the start of my trip I was told to take 400USD as a safety incase the road was closed due to a landslide in October. Upon Arrival we were told the road was “fine” and that the bus could go through.

Well that was a stretch.

We started seeing people walking down the very bad road, which wasn’t a good start. We all got out and found out a truck had broken down that morning and it was going to be a while so we were started walking and the bus would go the long way around.

The locals were fixing an axle in the middle of the road. And buses were trying to turn around it was just insane.

We later found out the landslide we saw wasn’t the main one, the one the swept a whole village away. Our guide found us a ute to hop in an slowly wind down the road as anything else was too big. Adam and Stephen, this is all the advertising Mahindra needs. Got us out of the dust and made us realise that the bus would have never got down here, don’t know why they thought they could.

After a bit more walking through the dust we got the the main landslide and it was intense. This was very undersold in the email we got sent, much bigger than I could have ever realised.

 

We got through the otherside, got some water and all we hear is a bus sitting on its horn not slowing down at all. We were sure it had lost it brakes, but at the last few metres it came to a screaming stop and carried on its way. I guess he was in a hurry.

Wandering down the road we knew our proposed 4-5 hour trip was going to be alot longer as we havn’t seen our bus in a while.

The rest of the day seemed mundane compared to that morning. We had a few more hours driving till Kathmandu and most people fell right asleep. I for one cannot sleep on a cramped bus driving down Nepalese dirt mountain roads. Stopping off at the assigned Intrepid restaurant for our last meal as a group we said our speeches, eat our pizzas and shared some jokes.

 

We arrived at Hotel Marshyangdi right in the middle of Thamel. This was supposed to be our starting hotel instead of the yellow Pagoda. We all settled down, had a shower and started our goodbyes.

Our last night together a bunch of us went out in Thamel to a New Orleans themed bar (which had the worlds slowest staff). Followed up by an Irish pub. Finishing up the night in Phil and I’s room with left over pizza, some beers and we said goodbye to Victoria, Amanda, Kamal and James that night.

This is the end of the Intrepid part of my trip with a few days to spare to relax in Kathmandu before Germany.