West Nepal: Mahendranagar – Jogbuddha – Budar – Saule Bazaar – Silgadhi – Mangalsen – Manma

Pushing up to Manma

This is an interesting but sometimes difficult cycle through West Nepal, a poor area very seldom visited by tourists. The roads have little traffic, but the region is heavily populated so you will often attract a lot of attention and receive little time to yourself. The smaller roads on this route (Mahendranagar – Jogbuddha – Budar, Mangalsen – Manma) are in bad condition and there is a lot of climbing to do, which makes for some tough days. However the bigger roads (Budar – Mangalsen) are mostly paved and make for easy cycling. We cycled this route in early October, when many of the roads still hadn’t been repaired after the monsoon. The small road from Mahendranagar to Jogbuddha was especially badly affected – we spent an afternoon pushing/carrying our bikes over landslides on the descent to Jogbuddha. We met quite a few drunks on this route, and (for the first time on a cycle trip) in a number of places we didn’t feel 100% comfortable, so we never camped. There are many villages along the way, so it is not difficult to stay in basic accommodation every night.

Here’s our blog post for this route.

Total KM Stage KM Comment
0 Mahendranagar (240m). Large city with ATMs, internet, accommodation, etc.
10 On main highway. Paved. Completely flat.
10 Turn off main rd, in a small village.
21 Climb to pass. Surface often bad, steep. Pushed 2km.
31 Lipna (1,120m). Small village with very basic shop.
15 Reach Lipna pass (1,223m) after 2km. Then 5km of landslides which required lots of pushing and carrying bikes. 8km of rideable, though bad, surface to Jogbuddha.
46 Jogbuddha (420m). Friendly village with basic shops, restaurants and accommodation.
33 Unpaved, sometimes steep road.
79 Budar (1,350m). Join paved highway, turn L.
31 Paved, not much traffic.
110 Bahtkada pass (2,263m).
21 Descend 14km to Bahtkada (shops, restaurants), then a further 2km to a nice hotel, then continue 5km to Saule Bazaar. Still paved.
131 Saule Bazaar (1,770m). Shops, restaurants, didn’t see accommodation. Turn R at the jn in town.
49 Descend to the Seti River, then follow it, through many villages with dhabas and shops. Good surface.
180 Low point (540m).
29 After 5km reach a bridge over the Seti River, then climb 10km to a jn at the start of the town of Silgadhi (1,170m). In a further 14km reach the Silgadhi pass.
209 Silgadhi pass (1,560m).
10 Descend to Shaghat.
219 Shaghat (920m), small village with shops, dhabas, possible to find a room.
41 Climb 16km to Duni (a village that’s also a pass – 1,887m), then descend 25km to Sanfe Bagar.
260 Sanfe Bagar (650m). Town with shops, dhabas, accommodation.
41 Cross main river 2km from Sanfe Bagar, then climb 17km to a Pass (1,385m). Descend 11km to a bridge (620m), then climb 11km to Mangalsen.
301 Mangalsen (1,300m). Town with shops, dhabas, accommodation.
48 Take the small road towards Binaek, climbing 12km to Binaek pass (2,093m). Some bad surface. Descend 10km to a village with dhabas (1,790m). Turn L in this village and in 10km reach Binaek (1,450m). Surface not very good. Descend a further 16km to the Karnali River. Surface awful.
349 Karnali River (640m). Some basic dhabas in a small village here. No bridge over the Karnali, so have to take a canoe over the river to the Karnali Highway on the other side. At the Karnali Highway, we turned L to Manma and the road to Jumla. (If you turn R, the road goes to Surkhet/Bihendranagar which is more than a day’s cycle away.)
42 (Going L on the Karnali Highway.) Pass through a number of villages with dhabas, basic shops and basic accommodation possibilities. The first few kms are paved, enjoy them while they last. After 29km cross a bridge over the Tila Nodi Khola (820m), then climb steeply for 13km to Manma on an horrendous surface.
391 Manma (1,750m). District capital of Kalikot. The part on the road isn’t very nice, but walk to the old town and it’s very pleasant. Shops, dhabas, accommodation.
84 We walked this last section from Manma to Jumla, a distance of 84km. The first part is on an awful surface and would be a tough cycle. The last ~35km to Jumla the road surface is better. There are many villages with dhabas, shops and basic accommodation along the way.
475 Jumla (2,360m). End of the road. Big town with internet, accommodation, shops, dhabas.

 

Route Summary
Total amount climbed 10,400m (from Mahendranagar to Manma) in 6 days
Traffic Very little
Difficulty 3
When we cycled October 2012
How much we had to push 11km

 

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