Lucky me, I got a yes to my proposal to marry Fie. I “did it” on a houseboat in the backwaters of peaceful Kerela. India is a hard place to find the peace and quiet for a marriage proposal – believe me, this was the quietest and best place for thousands of miles!
I’ve wanted to propose for very many months now, it kept welling up in me and I wanted to burst out “marry meeeeeeee” quite a few times, whether it was on the bike or lazing around in Goa. The traditionalist in me wanted to do it properly. So I did, on my knees and everthing except the rose in the mouth (no roses in Kerala).
We have finally made it to Nepal and are in the beautiful Chitwan National Park – “one of the most incredible reserves in Asia” so the book reads. Off for an misty early morning canoe ride followed up by a jungle trek, then elephant safari in the afternoon, then tomorrow we get to wash some baby elephants! Then a short ride to Kathmandu to arrange flights for us and the bike to Thailand. Eight days from now we will be in Bangkok!
I have to admit it’s quite a relief to be in another country, in the last few days I felt India wearing us down a bit – probably due to the fact that we were just trying to cover many kilometers to get out of India before our visa ran out. Nepal’s hotels feel cleaner and quite a lot less chaotic than the holes we had found in our last days in India. It’s a shame that we only have 9 days here. It’s a bit nippy at night and will get cooler as we ride towards Kathmandu – I cant tell you how much I am looking foward to the culinary delights that await us there.