The skin on my face is stinging and prickling with the salty water that beads from every pour. The heat built up behind the buff pulled over my face is unbearable. My t-shirt is wet and sticking to my back where the trickling sweat pools. It all feels disgusting. I jump at a honking horn from a truck as it speeds past on the sharp bend, the dust cloud in its wake showering me with dirty yellow grains.

Heaving to breathe, my lungs burn as I keep my legs turning. I dare to look down at my Garmin screen and my heart sinks. We’ve only covered 15km since leaving the Yoga Academy. I daren’t look over my shoulder in case I can actually still see the little sanctuary we called home for the last month on the opposite hillside. How on Earth did I used to be able to do this? How have I supposedly cycled half way around the world? Now I can’t even make it out of the Kathmandu Valley. Has a month off the bikes really meant I’ve lost every shred of fitness I built up over the last 15 months? Will every day be this exhausting and slow going? Was it always this hard? I’m determined not to cry ‘It’s only day one, it’s only day one’ I repeat to myself.

I feel such a mix of emotions. I’m sad to have said goodbye to the girls, proud to have completed my yoga teacher training, excited to be on the bikes again, and filled with a nervous curiosity about what our ride across Nepal will have in store for us. But mostly I feel exhaustion. I don’t remember being this exhausted this quickly before. It feels like starting day one all over again – a day when even a pedestrian bridge over a stream in the Netherlands felt like a mountain to climb, nevermind this 700m climb into the foothills of the Himalaya. But despite all the exhaustion, and all the emotions, I find I’m happy to accept that where I am and how I am feeling is enough. To realise that of course day one in Nepal will be hard, especially when we have had a month off the bikes. It feels pretty simple to just accept this feeling, to not beat myself up about it, to not think that I should be faster, to not expect that I should be covering more ground or somehow be more sprightly, less exhausted. It’s a simple kind of acceptance and it feels so freeing. It feels new to me and I make a point of noticing it so I remember how good it feels. I wonder why I have found this acceptance so hard to comprehend in the past, but before I have had time to attach any kind of self-judgement to that thought, I let it float away – Thanks yoga!

Our first day back on the road and we manage a mighty, or should that be measley, 25km. A laughable distance, but it was a great day. We headed North East out of the Kathmandu Valley on a backroad route that would see us meet the Mid-Himalayan High Road. Immediately the hills reminded us of the endless climbing in Peru. But in contrast to Peru’s love of the hairpin bend, here in Nepal they preferred to go straight up, which meant steep inclines that went on forever. It seems these mountainous countries share a lot of similarities – the terracing of all mountainsides for farming, the mountain villages providing a warm welcome and the smiley mountain people. It felt good to be back on the road again. 

We decided to call it a day in a small mountain village and despite there being no obvious guest house, a local in the bus stop pointed us in the direction of the village tea and doughnut shop that also offered rooms for the night. Yes that’s right – a tea and doughnut shop you can sleep in!

That night we had our first experience of real Nepali culture. And our first experience of not really knowing what is going on, but just rolling with it – something we would experience much more of as our time in Nepal progressed. Firstly, when asking whether they offered rooms for the night the lady just smiled at me and gave no verbal response, but she indicated to a younger lady who then walked out of the door. I followed as she then went to talk to an older guy. He waved me to follow him, and he walked me to a small shed, a bit confused I wondered if this is where the rooms were, and as he opened the door to show me the straw covered floor I really hoped it wasn’t. He could obviously see the confusion on my face as he then said ‘cycle’ and I finally twigged that our bikes could be stored in there – great! Quickly enough we were settling in to our basic room.

After braving the cold shower, the smiley lady served us up some veggie chowmein. We sat downstairs in the tea house, bellies full, watching the locals (all men) coming and going, drinking their tea, eating their chowmein and playing a board game on one shared smartphone in the middle of the table. The host asked us if we wanted food, but we indicated to the empty chowmein plates explaining we had just eaten. A little confused, the guy seemed to insist that we needed to eat something. He offered roti, then vegetables, then rice, then spinach. We finally relented and said we would have one portion of roti and vegetables, so off he went into the kitchen. 

An hour later we were still waiting, and the guy kept tottering in and out of the rooms but there was no sign of the food. Had we actually ordered anything? Did he understand that the chowmein had been enough for us so decided not to make us the extra food? Then the guy appeared and asked if we wanted hot milk. Hot milk!? I thought we had ordered food. Was he not preparing the food? We declined the hot milk.

We kept waiting and by now we were pretty tired and also confused. Another 30 minutes and still no food but more confusion. Eyes heavy, struggling to keep them open, we wondered if we should just go to bed and forget the conversation about extra food. But we didn’t want to be rude, so we kept waiting.

The roller shutters on the tea house came down. The door was locked. We were still waiting. But we figured we would give it 5 more minutes then shuffle off to bed. At 8.30pm, a good two hours after our confusing conversation, a plate of roti and curried vegetables appeared. It was delicious but we were now well past the point of hungry. Thankfully, as is well established by now, Ted can eat as much as a small family, or a horse, or maybe even a small family with a horse! So he dutifully finished the roti and veg, and as is customary here in Nepal, when you have a clean plate, you are offered more, so of course Ted, being British, didn’t want to be rude by refusing, so accepted more – It’s a slippery slope of contrasting cultural nuances. Struggling through his second serving Ted ploughed on, and in true English fashion dutifully left a clean plate only to be offered more. This time he really was too full and he kindly declined, but then the hot milk we thought we had declined also appeared for both of us. We laughed to each other – so much confusion. We couldn’t remember the last time we had had warm milk – maybe childhood – so we sipped it down, trusting the old-fashioned wisdom about it helping a good night’s sleep were true.

So after a day that involved more time being confused than riding bikes we climbed up to bed,  laughing to each other about how one short evening could be full of so much confusion. But little did we know that this would soon become our norm for our time in Nepal.