We were told we could ‘ride as much as we liked’ today. It was 30km to the start of the jeep trail, where we had lunch on our very first day. The idea was that we would leave a couple of hours before the Jeeps, which would pick us up one by one as they caught us. If we rode fast enough, we could make it all the way to the end without pick up. That was enough motivation for many, just to avoid repeating the not so memorable bouncy jeep ride.
The trail meandered through steep cliffs along a river, which offered some incredible scenery. It was very rough riding, with big rocks and ruts to plough our way through. Most of us were picked up along the way, when we’d had enough riding. Corbin, Scott and Tomas were the only riders to complete the ride, meeting us at the finish.
After lunch, we would say our goodbyes to Sean and Antoine, who were heading to Kathmandu, whilst the rest of us would transfer to Pokhara. It was a fun journey, with our vehicle alternately playing Nepalese folk music, Britney Spears, and some random pop music, whilst we sped through the countryside.
When we arrived at Lake Phewa in Pokhara, we were taken to a boat ramp and ferried across to an island. It turned out that Nicola and Natascia were getting married, Nepalese style, at the island temple. It was one of the fastest wedding ceremonies on record, as it was getting dark and we had to get back to shore!
After a hot shower at one of the fanciest hotels on tour, we proceeded to finish our celebrations at a local restaurant. It was time for more farewells. We said goodbye to our guides, Ankit and Dawa, as well as the group who would be leaving on the extended tour with Blair. They would fly out to Jomsom the next morning, where their tour would have finished had we managed to get over Thorung La pass.
For Jason Williams, it may be his last unicycle tour as our tour leader, after selling Grasshopper Adventures to his business partner last year. It has been an incredible partnership over the last decade: it included The Laos Unitour 2006, Uninam 2008, Induni 2009, Monguni 2010, Yunnanuni 2011, Unistan 2013 and now Unipal 2015. We have had 7 successful unicycle tours thanks to my chance meeting with Jason back in 2004 (Vietnam to Cambodia), when I joined his OXFAM charity cycle challenge on a unicycle. We wish you all the best and hope you can join us on a future tour (as a rider)!