The border was relatively low trouble; even with the rickshaws. The only hiccup came with a local man - clearly a Daily Mail reader - prophised doom and the impossibility of traversing Nepal in under 20 days (we needed to do it in 5). This is due to the Maoists strikes that flaired up shortly before we arrived, apparently due to the death of one of their leaders. The Maoists are rebel fighters with Communist ideals, comparable to the Tamil Tigers or Shining Path.
Nepal, as a very brief overview, is amazing. First there is the beauty - of the Himalayan foot hills and the people. With all due respect to India, racially the Nepalese are very distinctive in their strong, symetrical warrior like features - which makes the men handsome and the women beautiful. (And speaking of being distinctive, they are the only place I know of that uses a 15 minute time difference to subtlety state ‘we are not India’). Personality wise, the country is far more relaxed and extremely friendly. In short, we love it.
Sure enough, we stumbled upon Maoist blockades; generally employing trucks, buses, trees or mobs to block the road. Initially, this was great fun - doing hard off roading to avoid the blocks and benefiting from no heavy traffic. There was only one alarming incident, where a very angry mob surrounded the rickshaw and their leader attempted to smash our windsheild with a bamboo cain. Unfortunately, as we were in convoy, we could not simply charge through (we might have succeeded, but others would not). On the flip side, the convoy probably saved us; as that many tourists could not be discreetly ‘dealt’ with. The agitator waved his willy a bit and gained the approval of his friends; then begrudgingly let us on our way.
In the night we decided to stop on a nature reserve. We drove 3km down a dirt track, pulled up under a big sign that said ‘Nature Reserve’, and were promptly confronted by a soldier with a gun. You see, unbeknownst to us, the Nepalese army had taken control of the Reserve for training purposes, shutting down the tourist part. Fortunately - or maybe just for the money in our wallets - they were accomodating. They dusted down dorms and slayed a ‘chicken’ (quotes for meat of dubious origin) so that we might sleep and drink in a very idyllic back-to-basics locale, surrounded by all manner of animals - including 5 elephants!
In the morning, to return the ‘favour’, we were rather forcibly coerced into giving 3 Nepalese teens a 80km lift to be reunited with their family. After a shy start, they quickly warmed to the minor celebrity that comes with travelling in this bizarre convoy, and were beaming and waving at everyone we passed (interestingly enough; the effect was reversed for us, and with natives on board we were given slightly less warmth than normal - someone even threw a rock at us - most likely for transporting locals during the strike).
We ended up in Hetauda, where we could not find a restaurant for love nor money; although we did find two other teams who had driven through the night to catch up. Why had they caught up? Because one team had two days in dashing distance of a latrine; and the other team had serious mechanical malfunction due to a crisp packet in the air filter…