"Highway Banda! Riding Across Nepal On An Empty Highway"

Riding solo on Nepal’s arterial east west Mahendra Highway recently, from Kathmandu to Nepal’s western border, revealed a country in desperation.

The highway had been closed for 9 days due to a Banda called by Tharu political activists - protesting a recent inflammatory government statement regarding their ethnic origin.

People I met on my journey told me in varying degrees of the hardships they were suffering.

Food scarcities, one man hadn’t worked for days, little or no petrol at the pumps, violent mobs controllers of the highway, lawlessness was plain to see.

Alone for 750kms, beautiful jungles, crossing huge rivers, pushing the 500 all the way, a hot breeze in my face; twisting Himalayan foothills, ‘straight as a die’ across the Terai and not one beat was missed.