Gallery of Jim Blilie's Photos:

World Bicycle Tour, 1990-1992

The Big Show

Part 9:  Nepal

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning

all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas

and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts

of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues

from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can,

begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."  (Often attributed to Goethe)

  This page is under construction.  I'm still working on a text for each segment of the

trip and scanning in some negatives and maybe a few more slides hidden here and there.

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These are THE BIG SHOW of my slides from my trip around the world with Jeff Mellor, 1990-1992.

There are many more slides in this set than on the main world tour page:  About 2600 total.  I spent

some time in late 2009 going through all my slides from the world trip and I selected many for scanning.

The results are on this page (slide shows).  Many of these have been seen only by me and many of those

I hadn't seen since 1993.  The trip itself is outlined below.

These are scans of my Kodachrome 64 (and a very small number of Ektachrome 100) slides

From Jim and Jeff Mellor's bicycle tour around the world from Nov-1990 through Oct-1992

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010 All rights reserved

I used a very nice, yet inexpensive scanner, the  Epson V500  I like it very much.

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Nepal, 18-Jun-1991 to 27-Jul-1991, no bikes

These are photos from our 5 weeks in Nepal.  We landed in Kathmandu and spent a week or so there,

getting trekking permits, collecting gear for the trek, picking up supplies.  Then we took a bus to Dhumre,

the usual eastern terminus of the Annapurna Circuit trek.  There we began to walk.  The Annapurna Circuit

has been continuously shortened by road building.  Word is that by the end of this year, roads will extend

all the way to Manang and Kagbeni, cutting the walk down from 3 weeks to 3 days.  This is too bad in

my opinion.  But you certainly can't blame the Nepalese for wanting the roads!

We were in Nepal in the middle of the monsoon, which all the books warn you against.  We found it just

fine.  The only real problem was the heat!  It was very hot and humid until we got above about 7000 or

8000 feet elevation.  We went from 100°F and humid in the lowlands to below freezing, cloudy, and windy

at Thorung La (17,700 feet).  We didn't get the continuous views that trekkers in October and November

get; but it was warmer up high and there were very few tourists!  We only saw 5 others westerners on the

entire trek, and two of them, traveling alone, decided to join up with us for company and security.  There

are our friends Kirsten from Germany and Bryn from the UK.  In many places you had to sign in a police

log of tourists.  We would sign in and see no other names for weeks before us.  Looking at the pages

for October, typically 100-200 people per day passed through!

The trek was amazing, everything we had hoped for and imagined it would be.  We traveled with full

packs so that we could be independent of the hotels if needed.  We were told most hotels would be

closed during the monsoon; and this was true.  But we usually were the only customers in the hotels we

stayed in and there was always some hotel available.  The only place we ended up camping was just

before the fording of the river below Thorung Phedi (the bridge was washed out).

The main villages we passed through included Dhumre, Besi Sahar, Bahudanda, Chame, Manang,

Muktinath, Kagbeni, Marpha, Tatopani, Kalipani, Ghorapani.

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For the slide show:  

Click HERE.  Then:

Click on the first picture (upper left picture) on the black photo album page and then

Click the "play" button at the upper right of the view panel to start the slide show.

Enjoy.

Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu
Hotel Buddha, Kathmandu	Permits, money, etc., Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu
Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu
Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu
Kathmandu	Kathmandu	Kathmandu	On the road to Dhumre to start our trek around the Annapurna Circuit (back in the day when you walked)
The 110km bus ride took 10 hours!	Arrival at Dhumre	Hotel Annapurna, Dhumre, not exactly deluxe	Start of the trek, me standin int front of the Hotel Annapurna	On the trail
On the trail	Rice paddies	On the trail	On the trail	On the trail
On the trail	On the trail	Two umbrellas	On the trail	Marijuana through the bridge
I did not enjoy being the bridge tester for the Nepal Highway Dept.	On the trail	On the trail	Pulling rice shoots for planting into the paddies	We're finally getting higher and cooler
On the trail	Amazing terraced mountainsides	Barley drying	On the trail	And we thought our packs were heavy ...
Water spout along the trail	Me crossing a high suspension bridge	Hotel on the far side of the bridge	A very steep country!	Jeff on the trail
On the trail	Lots of marijuana all over	Me on a trail carved out of the cliff	The canyon is pinching in and getting very steep-sided.  This happened when it was in granite or other very hard rock.	Washing up at the end of the day
On the trail	Police check point		Barley drying at a brand new hotel	Threshing barley
	On the trail	Ready for the trail in the morning	On the trail	Me on the trail
Boys who have caught some birds	Jeff on the trail.  This trail was one of the best I've ever hiked, very well maintained.	On the trail	Prayer stones everywhere	First glimpse of the high peaks:  Manaslu
On the trail	On the trail	On the trail	Trail carved out of the cliff
Om mani padme hum!	On the trail	On the trail	On the trail	On the trail
On the trail	Blue skies at last!	Me with Pisang Peak behind	On the trail	On the trail
Me on the trail	On the trail	On the trail	Salt and pepper	Bryn and Kirsten in Manang
Annapurna massif from Manang	Annapurna massif from Manang	Annapurna massif from Manang		Gangapurna
	Buckwheat field	Me in Manang	Carpenter, Manang	Manang
Hermitage high above Manang	View of Manang and Annapurna from the hermitage	Barley fields	Manang	Manang, yak herders
On the trail	On the trail	Manang and barley fields	Jeff, leaving Manang	The trail trough upper Manang ascends steps and across peoples' rooves.
Kirsten on the trail	Prayer stone the size of a car	Me in a herder's hut, Annapurna behind me	On the trail	Camp before the fording of the river
Annapurna before dawn	First rays of dawn	Fording the river early in the morning, before the snow melt makes it impossible	The trail to Thorung Phedi	On the trail
Me with Annapurna behind me	Jeff, on the trail; me on the trail	Thorung Phedi, the last stop before crossing Thorung La pass.	Jeff and Kirsten at Thorung Phedi	First thing in the morning, heading up to the pass
Thorung La trail	Thorung La, 17,700 feet elevation	Thorung La	Thorung La Me and Jeff clowning around	Bryn, Kirsten, Jeff, and me at Thorung La
Descending the pass	Several thousand feet down, Kirsten and Bryn	Terraced barley fields	On the trail, looking down to Muktinath	Moonset
Muktinath	Dhaulagiri from Muktinath	Looking into Tibet from Muktinath	Why you never eat all the way down to the plate ...  At Muktinath	Muktinath
Muktinath at the western foot of the pass is a major Buddhist pilgrimage site	Muktinath	Muktinath	Muktinath	Inside the shrine; Muktinath
Muktinath	Muktinath	Ripening barley	On the trail	On the trail
On the trail	On the trail	The village of Kagbeni	Kagbeni	Kagbeni
The Kali Gandaki river		I wonder what expedition brought that jacket to Nepal?	On the trail	Nilgiri North peak
On the trail	The deepest gorge in the world, between Annapurna and Dhaulagiri	Twin Otter on approach to Jomsom airport	Tibetna ponies	On the trail
Marpha	Apricots drying	On the trail	On the trail	Out of the rain shadow of Annapurna and back into the green
On the trail	Bridges on the trail.  I did not have to cross the one at lower right	Dal (lentils) and bhat (rice) the staple foods of Nepal, growing the same field.  Rice in the paddies and dal on the dikes.	Ghorapani; me leaving in the morning.	On the trail
On the trail	A stretch of 2000 vertical feet of continuous stairs.	Corn and chickens	Pokhara at last	Back to Kathmandu

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Outline of our trip:

From Nov. 15, 1990 to Oct. 6, 1992, with a five-month break for the winter of '91-'92, Jeff Mellor

and I traveled around the world through 26 countries, mostly by bicycle.  While in the "developed"

world, we bicycled 1000 miles per month, camping each night.  In Asia and Africa, we traveled by

train and bus and used guest-houses.  We encountered 16 different foreign languages, of which we

needed to learn at least the rudiments.  We rode a total of almost 11,000 miles on our bikes, camped out

at least 350 times, and climbed several mountains including Pt. Lenana (16,350 ft.) on Mt. Kenya in

Africa.  We took a three-week, 220-mile hike around the Annapurna Range in Nepal, which included

a 17,700 ft. high pass.  I took 13,000 photographs and wrote 1000 pages of journals.  No experience

in my life, except my university education, can compare with these travels for the depth and breadth

of learning or for the perspective gained.  It was one of the peak life experiences, up there with

marriage, children, university education.

Our trip was through these countries:

[Hawaii:  The Big Island, a 2-week shake-down within the US, started Nov 1990]

Fiji, about 10 days riding around Viti Levu from Nadi to Suva

New Zealand:  Auckland to Wellington via Coromandel Penn. and a loop around the Southern

Alps from Christchurch and back

Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra and Mt. Kosciusko, around Tasmania, bits and

pieces inland mostly bus to Darwin

Singapore

Malaysia, from Singapore to the Thai border

Thailand (no bikes; we sent our bikes to Denmark from Bangkok, not wanting to ride in Thailand,

Nepal, India, Kenya, or Egypt)

Nepal (no bikes)

India (no bikes; just passed through Delhi and Bombay since we were running way behind)

and then on to a long tour of Europe:

Denmark

Germany

Netherlands

Belgium

France

United Kingdom

Then a winter's break at home in the USA from Oct 1991 through March 1992, then we flew

back to Lisbon Portugal in March 1992:

Portugal

Spain

France

UK, we rode from Plymouth to Land's End then from Land's End to John O'Groats at the tip of

Scotland and via ferries to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and on to Norway over the North Sea (with a

detour from Holyhead in Wales over to Ireland and back)

Ireland

Norway

Sweden

Germany (former East Germany)

Poland

Czech Republic

Austria

Germany (Bavaria) and home in Oct 1992 from Frankfurt am Main

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

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Time and mileage table:

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Background image is Kathmandu, 1991

Last updated:  4-Sep-2010