Above: The traffic way out in the Terai, on the way to Chanauta.

This little stunt, as you can imagine, nearly came to grief, for while it's fine to kick back in the saddle, gaze about and feel at-bicycle-one with everything, remarking quietly, and humbly, to one's self how fortunate one is to be cycling along with narry a care in the world, it's another thing to court danger blindly.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Pumpy?" I screamed, just after the speeding bus (background centre-left), whose rate of distance contraction was deceptively quick, blew its airhorn at (believe me) an extremely surprised Mr Pumpy, whose inner compass, owing to a surfeit of idiot induced lunacy, had gone awry, and who, at the time, was about to turn back towards the left-hand-side of the road from the centre line.

I tell you, it's never a dull moment, which doesn't necessarily mean it's all good, as the Americans are so fond of saying.