take me to the river.. :P

Oh man.. this was just not my day! ..I left for a loop out from Hile to Hile and I totally, but totally blew it in the end.. I already figured out on the way that I wouldn’t to that stretch again, because  there were many really tough parts on the way. The front wheel blocked because of all the dirt. Then dropped the bike in the mud, burned my leg (a thing that I forgot about the last couple of hours) and afterwards I dropped it in a water hole, what was also pretty shitty. So putting it together, I was riding already for very long, didn’t stop for food, just wanted to get back to Hile and there was this river in my way. I managed to get to the middle of it and stopped to unload my bike (smartest thing of the day!!) and they continue with the bike only to the other side. Dude.. there was a small bamboo bridge and it’s only made for walking across and carrying bikes across, what would have been the correct way of crossing this river. But there was no one to see (had all siesta) and cocky me took the attempt. Very bad mistake!! The bike went down to the handle bar and then choked, just to get swept away together with me from huge water masses.. so I was floating down together with the bike (yes.. this really happened..) and got ahead of it.. there I realized how bad this could end, if 150kg get stuck on me in a flowing river :P I climbed over it and almost lost it for a moment below the water (I thought that’s the end of my bike journey). Then it got stuck 30 meters below and I climbed out of the river. This was nearly as dramatic as it sounds! :) Only one handlebar was still looking out of the water and surely it wouldn’t stay there forever. Shouting for help, running to the next house, where only a drunken guy was to be found. I stayed polite (thought might be my only help), but was incredibly desperate and realized shortly that this guy was of no use.. so I ran across the small bridge to cross the other side of the river through the water and ran to other houses close by. Some ladies told me there would be a man sleeping in a house and on the first floor, there was indeed a man sleeping. Waking him up, repeating the words “motorbike cello nadi” what means about, the river took my bike. He got it and came down quickly, shouted for help (I thought the drunk guy ;) but then about 10 workers (working on the bridge) popped up and saved the bike from being taken forever by these ravaging floods! ..phew.. at least.
unfortunately there are no pics of that adventure, because my camera was amongst the victims. (I thought today about getting a new one, but decided to “no” but I guess it’s a “yes” after all ;)
so.. hooray.. I live! :) and hooray, my stuff is safe and sound (and dry). This would have been very costly and annoying. But still.. it sucks a bit. I’m paying money for recovery and repair and the re-sell value dropped drastically I guess.  But this is just money and things are the way they are. What I most got out of this experience, was how surprisingly relaxed I’m all taking this. Well.. at a certain point I was impatiently waiting for a randomly passing tractor to bring the bike and me away from the scene and I’d have wished for my carefully elaborated plans to come through. But all in all it’s no big deal.. so end of the story (almost, because it’s still going on). I gave the workers some tip (hope was enough) and a tractor passed, taking me and the bike to the next settlement.. what took about 2 hours of shaking, suffering with the bike in the back that banged in agony against the metal of the trailer.. brr.. well.. then now I got a room with a family and some awesome guy is fixing my bike. Before I heard the motor running again, what is totally amazing, considering that it was taking a bath for a couple of minutes.. there was water in the tank, the gearbox, piston, airfilter, carburizer.. just everywhere.. there was a liter coming out of the exhaust and another liter when draining the oil :P too bad.. I had such a flawless driving record on this trip. But well.. I guess Ilam is not an option anymore and I will get that bike running again, then making papers, back to Kathmandu, Service it for real and do the India Visa thing. It has still to happen all of it and as there is this nice evening bike fixing session going on, I’m very positive about all this! :)
what I learned so far in my life is that conditions are just temporal and are changing all the time. Broking things will be fixed and worries from today are long gone tomorrow. So it’s best to not give all the time fully in to these emotions, but look at things from a distance and do whatever has to be done.

So the synopsis is as followed.. the bike runs again and with all the oil to clean out the engine and fresh petrol, including the transport and tips it was about 40 bucks so far.. pretty affordable ;) furthermore it took only 8 hours from the moments when it was completely sunk to up and running again :) well.. there are some more parts to be changed and tomorrow I will head straight to the Hero dealership not too far from here and get full service done! (this I wanted to do in Kathmandu, but it seems to be an appropriate moment ;) then Ilam is cancelled and definitively is the bumpy dirt road to it! :P but yeah.. didn’t delay me for too long (bike probably has to blew up for this ;) hehe
so yes.. riding here is more than I can take (should mean something ;) and even if I got spared by all the rain, the roads are still in the very bad shape as they have been left by the rainy season! I was more sliding down on steep basalt passages than I could climb up and the bike was cooking! Would be fun on a 250XT 100% dirtbike, but not on my fully loaded touring bike and finally it was not a flat tire that stopped me, but a little bath in some treacherous river :P ah well.. we’re getting smarter I guess :)

addon: the service in the Hero shop wasn't as good as expected.. guys just cleaned and washed the bike (and it was already pretty clean after the river ;) but then I found a workshop around the corner and they had some spares (because the Hero shop didn't have anything in stock! :P ) so some parts are put back on, others have been superglued and all in all, it's pretty OK again. Just have to live with the broken headlight (still working though :). would have been a good episode for NatGeo.. people love this shit! ;)

to the eastern end - days 1 to 4

Day 1:

this was so far the only day I could make the trajectory that planned. I stayed the last night in a nice hotel on a steep flank of a hill with gorgeous view! From Dhulikel, I took the long road around to Charikot and Manthali and from there over a bridge for pedestrians back to the main highway and after some more endless seeming Kilometers to Sindhulimadi (took me all day to get that name straight ;). The place to stay was pretty OK.. even wi-fi and nice balcony, just a smelly bathroom, but can't have it all out here ;) just a few raindrops, but mostly sunny and awesome to ride! :)

Day 2:

From where I stayed, I had to go down to the Highway running from East to West through the plains (and being extremely boring!). I went over to Choharwa and took the turnoff to Katari and from there to Halesi. Wanted to reach Diktel, but was impossible. Arrived late, because the pavement stopped early and it got bumpy and dusty and there were two ridiculous river crossings on small bridges with other pedestrians. The last part was extremely bumpy (dirt truck track) and it was hard to take the eyes off the road. When it got dark, I finally arrived in Halesi and had no other choice to take the only hotel available. Overpriced and without TV, what made me do some Yoga, what is a good thing ;) I really get the idea of how impassable these mountains are. Is really tough to get out here and people wonder what I'm doing here. Me actually too ;)

Day 3:

I started really early to have all day to get where I wanted to go.. Diktel and then down to Gaighat. But when I had a very simple breakfast consisting out of puff rice and beans and nuts, someone told me that this road is not yet cleared and the other one to Bhojpur is not suitable neither (this one isn't even on my map). So I decided to listen to this advice and not to try it, for it took me forever to do a couple of Km on this "good" road to get to this place. So I looped back going another way out that I came in.. what made me cross three brides and one counter traffic (people bringing goods over from the other side). Horrible! :P I managed to pass the very moment when they came along with mattresses strapped to their head.. had the size of a big fridge and made it really tricky to get to the other side...
felt a bit defeated, but had to take the same road back to Katari, where I arrived also pretty late. Got a nice sunset on the roof, but during the night the mosquitoes got me badly :P

Day 4:

from here I could take another road short-cutting over to Gaighat, but I somehow missed it and ended up at the highway again (where I turned over two days before). Didn't figure it out before and didn't want to turn around.. so I drove a part on that highway and then turned in to Gaighat (coming from South now). There someone told me that apparently there is a boat to cross the river on the way to Diktel. So it might have been possible. But he also told me that the roads to Chatara are good (they were very OFF-road) and there is a boat to get over. and there was of course no boat.. when I drove to the end of the road, down to the river (a path that only a bike could go, but hasn't been driven for long time), then I just found an old, inoperable rusty ferry boat, stranded on the shore :P took me quite a while to turn around.. a shitty road with insanely deep river crossings (gave me wet feet for the rest of the day). Had to get back to the highway again to cross that river (only one bridge down south). and from there I managed to get to the place that I wanted to stay for the night. Was already dark when I arrived here (really hate to drive at night). but now having found a nice place with good service :) ..was a good day, but also a very long day and as usual I end up shattered and looking forward to crash ;) ..tomorrow shall be a short day to Hile (only 40km) and then off the bike and rest my buttocks (by hiking around ;)

Back to Nepal and some thoughts of mine.. :)

WOW! ..I'm back in Nepal and it's just wonderful! Lovely weather and loving to come back to all these places.. I'm staying in the same guesthouse as last time. same good vibes! :) I know where to find parts to fix my didgeridoo, what ATM givesmoney to me and where to eat a good Yak-steak (what I will definitively do tonight ;)
today is national strike.. so the streets are free of motorized vehicles and most of the shops are closed. it's gonna be a relaxed day :) I already did my Yoga flow on the roof of the guesthouse, watching Annapurna peak while twisting into the Triangle ;) Yoga is just sooo vitalizing and I got a lot better since I started one year ago.
After breakfast I'll get my sticks and balls and go to the likeside and do some excercises (dancing and jumping around ;) yes.. my Kung-Fu got also a lotbetter. Looks actually pretty bad-ass and soon it will be tested of it'seffectiveness in the Philippines :)

since I left Rishikesh I was riding hard! first crossing Uttarakhand passed the point where I turned off to Auli four months ago. Arrived in Gwaldam when it got dark and stayed in a beautiful place with balcony, big ged and huge flat TV.. it's to bring a girl along for a stay like that ;)
the nest day I rode north along a beautiful river to Almora, got gas and made it through the mountains to Didihat (little detour to see how the landscape looks ;) , where I stayed in the only place I found. Wasn't exactly nice, but the guy organized me some food from the market and I did some Yoga in my room.
Then I headed all the way down to the boarder crossing in Banbasa. Managed this very day to cross the boarder, do all the paperwork, find an extremely nice and fairly cheap hotel in Mahindernagar and got a new battery for the bike, because the old one died completely.
From there a very, very long day.. 430km to Butwal. Only possible, because so flat and straight (allowing a high average speed). but mostly not so much to see.. this is the fast way to Pokarah.. on the way back, I'll go offroad through the mountains :) ..saw a ?monitor lizard? crossing the road.. the didn't want to be pictured though ;) after the flat road through the jungle there are some smaller mountains and finally Butwal, where I arrived pretty tired. Had a beer, tried to do some Yoga, but was definitively too hot :P
here every place has wi-fi, what is extremely convenient! heard accidentally about Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha and checked it out the next morning. Well.. not too stunning.. Best about it that it's free and that you can take your bike in and drive through it ;) pay 2USD to see a carved rock and a pilar (didn't do that, because I've seen thousands of carved rocks and millions of pilars already ;). There are temples from different nations.. German, Chineese, Korean and so on.. but they are all buddhist temples in the end and I've seen dozens already of those in India. On the free map, the place looks like a huge, nice garden, but it's pretty wild and overgrown, fenced area and for he has been born 2500 years ago, they would have had time to make that place a little nicer ;) anyway.. it was very inspiring to be there. thought about all the buddhist stuff and came to my own conclusion:

There are no Gods, no Soul, no Self, no Reincarnation and no such thing as complete Enlightenment. Sounds pretty provoking to everything I know and believed in so far. But seems to make sense to me now.

no Gods:
well.. if you hear all the stories about the gods around the world, you figure out that it's pretty fancy stuff. Would give a good fantasy tale, but is not to be taken literally but only metaphorically. The divine is within our self. and there is no other seperate entity as all the gods are defined on this planet. It just seems obvious to me as there are different languages, cultures, rituals that there are also different religions in this world. They can been seen same as the languages: different words to describe the same thing. What I believe in is Energy that by definition is omnipresent and undestructable. Can only be transformed, can and does shape it's form all the time (sunlight together with earth and water to life for example). I believe in Big Bang and that everything was one and connected (and still is). Creating Space and Time in order to experience and to allow the existence of this Universe. All of this is created through four basic forces: electrical, magnetical, subatomic and gravity. This is what holds it all together. I like to think of the cycle of this universe as a big pulsar, where everything would be in one place (big bang) and then expand to almost infinity in almost an eternity and then contract in the same amount of time to just explode again and shape all anew. But I don't know if the reversal of the Big Bang would be possible.
Anyway.. even if this is a one time shot (and we are in a marble that some alien plays with ;) doesn't matter. We can't know what was before the Big Bang and when our sun used up all its fuel, then we will cease to exist and won't be part of this universe anymore (probably quite some before that ;)

no soul:
I believe that no thing exists out of itself, but dependently from other things. Every object is made from atoms and and atoms out of other stuff. Same to come alive, there need to be a mating act and in order to live, we need food, that grows because of sun, earth and water. The concept of soul is very comforting in many ways. It explains what part of you goes to heaven (another invention of mankind's mind) or how reincarnation works. But it also separates us.. this is my soul and there is your soul. Buddha realized that and by trying to find his soul, he found that it does not exist. Why? because there can be no such thing as permanence in this universe. Souls would have to be existed from the very beginning (Big Bang) and they would not change. But everything in this universe follows the law of change. The law of cause and effect. While I believed in an eternal soul, I put many questions aside that arise with the concept of soul. First of all.. how many souls are there? does a dog or a monkey have a soul? do Insects have a soul? if so, we talk about trillions and trillions of souls only in one of the many rainforests on this planet. These souls would have a very quick reincarnation cycle, right? but mostly being insects, otherwise there would be too many human beings on this planet. What happens when the sun explodes and takes the earth with it? (this would mean to the Buddhists, that they finally are free of Sankara, the cycle of reincarnation ;)
if there are souls and life is a one time shot and then you go heaven or earth, how does god do that? let them life their lives staggered? ;) and what was before Jesus came and talked about god.. the thousands of years where humans lived without religion? doesn't really add up to me in the end.. The conclusion I came to is so simple that it wonder why it took me so long.

no self:
In a certain way, of course there is a self and you can't deny it. but it is nothing that exists out of it's own. It's entirely made up by your mind. To me came the analogy of the heat of the flame. it's there and you feel it, but you extinguish the flame and the heat is gone. That's what happens if you die.. sorry.. that's the way it looks to me :) Your self is constantly changing and this is what makes you grow in life. A very good thing to have our mind, but we should know how to use it and especially know all it's tricks.
When I look inside myself, then I can understand who I am through what I experienced and lived in this life. I actually don't need the explanation of past lives to understand what I do and why I do it. It seems that we are mainly conditioned through how we got raised and the mix of genes from our parents we got (a good thing! evolution means to take the best from two parts and form something new!). You can see how beautiful people are that have parents from two different places on this planet.
This also why it suddenly means also a lot to have a family. Because this is the way consciousness changes in our society.
I believe that every single cell organism has a primitive form of consciousness that allows her to separate and reproduce. Multi cell organism as us for example consist out of different organs that work together. So I claim that the liver has a consciousness of it's own allows her to reproduce it's cells and knows what's its job. So in our brain there is this part "cortex" that creates our ego. Just one part of many parts but having a very important task. Reconditioning ourselves, reprogramming you to adapt to life and to find a prosperous way of living. And why does all of this exist? Simple, because it CAN! if there is room for live, it will find a way to come alive. But still.. this planet will not exist forever and everything is bound to perish, so something new can come to life. So yes.. this might very well be a one time shot, this life. The more, Enjoy It! :D I find being alive the biggest gift ever given to me and the least I can do is return the favor by doing what I think I'm expected to do. To Evolve, to find a new consciousness that leads to inner peace and happiness. Buddhism says it very clearly, find the right view to overcome your own suffering and help others to free themselves from the suffering they created around themselves. I find it very true to say: make your life meaningful! use it to do good for others! Karma is just a word, but it works very well for me. Maybe it's good to have good Karma when you die, but for sure it's good to have good Karma when you live. If you are honest and trustworthy, people will just see and treat you accordingly to it. It makes us feel better when we act like this (and it fills us with emptiness when you strife for material posessions).

no reincarnation:
Personally I'd wish for it, because I like this life and thinking of all the next ones are getting even better.. why not? :) but then the Buddhist took a huge effort to explain reincarnation without soul. It's called "Karmic Impulse" and the concept is interesting, but doesn't makes sense to me all the way through. And then why not reincarnating on other planes, other universes or even other dimensions? I think the Karmic Impulse is like a reflection of the collective consciousness of the existing society (this collective consciousness is what we have to change in a more loving and caring way for each another). So every next generation is a bit more civilized and grows to be more open minded and understanding. Still a very long way to go, if I look at the things as they are at the moment But still.. it's possible. Whether we can do it or we will perish. So when did the reincarnation start? when we became self-aware? (then dolphins reincarnate too ;) or all the life does this all the time? what is with the extinct species? where are the dinosaur-souls? was this us long ago? ;) ..to me again very simple: life happens through the sexual act. No more mating, no more babies. Extinction within one generation ;) we don't do, because having a family is vital for surviving in many places and still desirable in other places and having sex is just fun! ;D but this is how nature works.. there is no supernatural power working, just biology :)
still isn't too bad to accept that I wouldn't come back. Makes me living this life more and being more aware of everything. If there would be reincarnation, it would apply anyway to all of us, despite if you believe in it or not ;)

no enlightenment:
I think we can grow more and more "enlightened" every day. Become wiser in other words. But there is no Bit "Enlightenment" that can be " = 0" or set to "1". You can loose a lot of your ego, but will always be have a part of it (we need it to get along in this world). So Jesus and Buddha where very wise and gave a wonderful message to this world, but it's not they had some shiny Aura around them ;) One main aspect with the Buddhist way is that if there is no self, how can you overcome it? you can just overcome the illusion of self, but what would that change? if there would be reincarnation, wouldn't it be part of the cosmic laws and meant to be? if being here is so bad, why would we be here in the first place? and then how does reincarnation work between animals and humans (it doesn't, because a worm consciousness would stay worm consciousness and can't do any Karmic actions whatsoever).
and finally.. when the white giant (our exploding sun) consumes our tiny, little, insignificant planet, where to reincarnate anyway?
so the idea that enlightenment frees your from coming back (inhibits the Karmic Impulse or so), doesn't make sense to me. More I find the more insight you get, the more you understand this universe (or multiverse) and it's people, the more happy you become in your life. Not creating dramas anymore or causing suffering, but doing the right thing because you know it's the only thing to do.

there is also no past (just memories that though make what we are) and no future, just infinite possibilities and we make the things happen.
We were and are and will always be part of this big thing called Creation! all is interconnected and will ever be and all is the way it's meant to be. And it's still going on.. creation. It hasn't finished the sixth day.. it's fully ON! :D
even if we think about what time is, how we time perceive and that we can't perceive most of the things happening. All the small little processes and electrons jumping around, all the change, we just got a blink at it. We're looking up in the sky, seeing stars that exploded millions of years ago and light from other new stars is still on the way, but will never reach the human eye, because we are just of temporary existence. And it doesn't frighten me at all.