Towards the return…

June 30, 2022

After 4 days in Kathmandu I prepare my luggage to move to India, hoping to have better luck in finding a way to reach Thailand at an affordable cost.
It rained heavily all night, but now it rains less, I pack my bags with a sequence of well-established and almost automatic actions, it takes half an hour to do everything.
Unfortunately it is still raining, I decide to leave anyway, hoping it will stop.
I set the navigator for Raxaul customs, it’s only 140 kilometers, but the navigator tells me 5 hours of travel which, recalculated for my Vespa, means 8 hours.
The road climbs up the mountain, it continues to rain and the road surface is increasingly bumpy. I fear landslides, but I see that holes, mud and floods are also increasingly frequent and insidious.
I continue, I am not calm, even though it is two nights that I think about it, India does not convince me.
It’s one o’clock, better stop and eat something,
the Vespa gives me some carburetion problems, every now and then it goes out, but nothing serious.
60 km from the border, the road is interrupted, a river of water and mud crosses it transversely. Someone tries to pass, but only a few large vehicles make it, the others remain in the middle of the ford. A bulldozer arrives, fixes the bottom a bit, does what he can. I wait again and after an hour, with the help of some guys, I try the passage. Done!
I continue and the long straights begin, the streets and suburbs come alive, I feel that I am approaching the border. I realize that India is near, the confusion is growing a lot, cars and motorcycles abuse the horn and the driving directions become only a general indication, absolutely discretionary.
Knowing that the usual three hours of customs bureaucracy await me, I look for a place to stop and eat something. I find a kiosk that sells stuffed fried dumplings, the ones that then turn you around for hours in your stomach, but they are good and in any case there are no alternatives.
I try to sit down but nothing, then I sit on the Vespa and think, I’m not convinced.
I ask the little man with fried dumplings if he has a bin to throw out garbage, he beckons me to throw them on the street. Here, he too gets into it.
I try to rationalize, giving myself a method. The main problem is always only one, then there may be other collateral ones, but what matters is the main one. What is my main problem?
“I’m going to India and then? How do I get to Thailand without fainting? And then how do I get to Australia, even here without fainting? I miss the stimulus of the goal to reach by land, as I have had up to now.”
Comparing myself with other travelers, I come to the conclusion that to complete the whole tour, no less than € 25,000 is needed for air and naval expenses. For me it is too high a figure to bear, I can not detach myself from this fact and live the present peacefully.
And then, among the many things I learned, thanks to friends Jean Michel Lopez, Heike Lupa and Michael Muller, known as “Michel-Impossible” with whom I shared some good times in Iran, is that the ideal trip, at least for me , is the one that lasts between two and four months. You stay away, you immerse yourself in your new world, but your affections, your things, your city … it’s all there, almost at your fingertips, a few months and I laughed at it. It is like running on foot, there is no “right distance”, but one for which everyone feels inclined, some at 100 meters flat, up to those who prefer the 100 km ultra marathon.
I feel that if I were to continue it would become a stretch, I would not have fun and without having fun it makes no sense.
Here I finally understand what I really want to do:
“I come home, I enjoy the summer, my dad, my dog, Conwgliano and I do many rides on my Vespa. In October then, before winter arrives, I leave again, maybe until March, choosing carefully the route (in the warm ) and means to get there. “I like it!
If the assumptions change, I think we must not be afraid to change your mind, even if many may not like it or it may be a reason for criticism and evaluations. My motto in everything has always been “the first defeat is not to try” and today I live it just like that.
I get dressed, reverse the direction of travel and head to Hetauda, ​​the only slightly lively town I met when I arrived, about thirty kilometers away. It is now 19.00 and it starts to get dark, it is better to find accommodation for the night.
Another sleepless night, to think about the choice made. I fall asleep at past 3.00 and at 5.00 am already awake. I decide to leave immediately, to cross, before the rain resumes, that river on the road that was so treacherous yesterday.
At 6.00 am already on my Vespa, I choose a different route, so as not to repeat the bad one of the day before. I am happy to have decided what to do, I enjoy with different eyes the Nepal that wakes up: the children beside the road waiting for the school bus, the soldiers in training go for a run, the women clean the cobs … everything starts well in a muffled environment, almost in slow motion.
As soon as I slow down, a child jumps onto the rear luggage rack of the Vespa. At 2500 meters above sea level I stop for a rudimentary breakfast and all the children waiting for the school bus make me party. For a moment I think “but man, why am I leaving?”.
This return trip to Kathmandu is an opportunity to sum up this experience:
I learned to travel alone and get to know myself better ..
I understood how to manage a trip to difficult countries, those to understand where, for example, the credit card does not exist or you travel 200 km without seeing a house.
I appreciated the beauty of countries like Iran and Nepal and its people
I found friendly, open, helpful and generous people everywhere.
I have repeatedly seen the expression of poverty refusing a tip.
I have never been afraid and I have learned to manage emotions in challenging moments.
I have met fearless motorcyclists from many countries.
I re-evaluated the phenomenon of strays …
I have learned to appreciate the beauty of small things more.
I learned so much …

The Vespa continues to grind kilometers, invincible to obstacles and adversities of the terrain and traffic. From the quiet of the mountain villages, I approach, to the point of being absorbed by it, the chaotic and noisy traffic of Kathmandu. I do not notice it, my mind is traveling in his world .., the one of the summer that I will enjoy in my land, Conegliano and the new autumn journey, on whose preparation I believe I will jump into it very soon and in which Lorenzo will continue to keep me company.
I am happy for the journey I have made, for how I have told it and for how, perhaps, I have managed to excite many of you.
Heartfelt thanks to those who have tenaciously read up to here and thank you for keeping me company with your thousands of comments. Social networks, so demonized, if well managed have their usefulness and function … how many good moments we have shared in these two months.
In the coming months I will also dedicate myself to putting my writings in order, trying to make sense of them.
We hope to read you soon, a hug.

PS: today my Vespa has been stripped to the bare essentials and in the next few days she too will embark to go home … After two months of total sharing, a week without her will be tough.