But once the hilly roads came to an end and the long stretch through the jungle near Narayanghat approached, it was time to say good bye to the fast riders in the group. Though I had my KTM 200 Duke completely revved to the max, the Ducati’s and Honda easily disappeared into the horizon at the blink of an eye. Having already seen much of Narayanghat and Chitwan on previous visits, we didn’t bother to look around and continued to ride ahead. It was a relief to see the mountain roads again as we ascended towards Daune. Keeping up with the big bikes was easier on these stretches as it offered very little road space for them to go full throttle. We then stopped by to regroup for a quick break at Daune, a 65km ride from Narayanghat. After the brief ride around the hills through the well laid twist and turns, it was again time to speed through the plains for the last leg of the day’s ride to Butwal. With minimum traffic movement on the road through the jungle and clear vision stretched till the horizon, most of us made the best of the rare opportunity and raced ahead on full throttle, closing on our bike’s respective top speed figures. We made it to Butwal before sunset and rode through town attracting a huge bunch of enthusiastic on-lookers.
After checking into our hotel, we freshened up and headed out to the Nanglo West outlet for a heavy dinner. A mild session of drinking followed and we called it a night. The next morning, we started for Pokhara. After the pre-ride check rituals were done and the bikes refuelled, we got moving. We decided to grab our breakfast en route at Tansen, Palpa. My first long distance ride a few years back had brought me to Palpa, and ever since I have always enjoyed the fine mountain roads that lead to this popular hillstation. So it was really gripping to be charging through these corners yet again. We reached Tansen in about an hour and after riding through the town’s maze of steep, narrow and winding alleys lined with Newari style houses, stopped by for breakfast. The usual crowd generating session followed with on-lookers inspecting the powerful motorcycles. After a fine breakfast at the local Nanglo West cafe, we continued on the 125km ride to Pokhara through Syangja.
superbikes
“With the riding ahead, there would be people from nearly every household popping out to see what mayhem was rumbling towards them so fast.” 64
AUTOLIFE May 2013
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