Nepal Expedition for Clean Water

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Contributor III

473
Nepal
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Christophe
Last Name
Noel
Hey everyone,

I thought it would be fun to share in our latest overland trip in Nepal as we delivered more safe drinking water systems. We just expanded our fleet of Royal Enfield Bullet 500 motorbikes to include two Defenders. One is a 1994 110 with a TD5, the other is a 2008 Defender with a TD4 engine. Both are pretty great.

For this fall we delivered more than 25 community-sized water systems in very remote corners of the HImalayas. The work is actually ongoing. Tomorrow I head deeper into the Himalayan district of Gulmi to reach 9 remote schools. To date we've provided water to more than 12,000 students and villagers. We hope to break 16,000 by the end of the year.

We couldn't do what we do without these amazing vehicles, both with two wheels and four. It's a very rewarding lifestyle. I spend roughly 5 months in Nepal each year doing this work, and it's made easier with these new trucks.

Thanks for checking out the thread.

Christophe

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Contributor III

473
Nepal
First Name
Christophe
Last Name
Noel
By the way, there are still places in the world where foreigners have yet to visit. This month marks our 9th trip into the remote parts of the Himalayas and in the last 200+ days of travel I have seen exactly TWO non-Nepali visitors.

Stay tuned and I will update the next phase of our expedition into lower Rolpa in a few days.

This is one of our porters and good friends, Rabindra Pun Bhai. Great young guy from an extremely remote part of western Nepal.
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This is a great shot. This is Owen Mesdag, a product designer for MSR in Seattle. Few people know MSR has the most advanced water science lab in the world. Owen joined us to see first-hand how their community water purifiers are used in the field. Here we delivered nearly 50 systems to regional school administrators in the very remote Jajarkot District. This is a part of Nepal were western faces have rarely if ever been seen. Pretty amazing. We're still fighting to get to everyone we can in that district, but many villages require days to access on foot. But, progress with humanitarian efforts is always tough to measure and impossible to do quickly.
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Ashton

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How can one get involved, as a casual adventurer that would love to help folks and experience this project and this part of the world?
 

Contributor III

473
Nepal
First Name
Christophe
Last Name
Noel
How can one get involved, as a casual adventurer that would love to help folks and experience this project and this part of the world?
Hi Ashton,

We specialize in turning "casual adventurers" into legit expedition travelers. And best of all, we guarantee you will save lives, make Nepal better, and have the trip of a lifetime. Our travel teams are pretty great people and most return home feeling like they're changed forever. That's me tooting our horn pretty loudly. LOL. But, I genuinely believe my entire life as a professional adventurer has lead to this period of my life when we can bring people on these HUGE adventures and make it a positive for thousands of people.

So, the whole reason we do this, beyond just the water initiative, is to get people off their couches and away from their local campgrounds to be a part of a legit expedition into the Himalayas. It's essential that our teams experience people and places no other Western travelers have ever seen. If you ever wanted to live a story as seen in a National Geographic...that's what these trips are all about.

Shoot me a note if you want to join us.

Here are a few shots from just a few days ago. To give you an idea how remote some of these places are, I left Pokhara, a rather large and nice city in central Nepal and rode my motorbike for two full days to get to this remote village. The first day I rode for 7 hours on gnarly roads. The second day I rode for 9 hours over goat trails, through mud, dust, all on roads with no signs, markers, or even listed on maps. Then our team spent 10 days placing water systems for more than 700 students in 5 schools. Pretty amazing. And doing some of our trips in our two Land Rover Defenders is even more fun.

From this week:

We hired some extra fire-power to help us get some supplies into our project area this week. Seven of these Mahindra Balero trucks helped us haul water tanks, concrete, PVC pipes, water containers, and other supplies into the hills. That's the Annapurna Range in the background. The peak to the far left is Dhaualgiri, the 7th tallest mountain in the world. Pretty rad.
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Every school we reach get's a variety of different packages. The smallest "kit" includes a 500-liter tank, at least 6-12 classroom water dispensers, and an MSR SE200 Community Chlorine Maker to purify thousands of gallons of water every year. Our local facilitators (Passang pictured with the medical kit) work on the ground with local teachers (in pink) to ensure long term results. Pretty fun. Super rewarding. We're literally saving lives via overlanding.
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We have a fleet of Royal Enfield Bullet 500 motorbikes. This is my personal whip. It's a work in progress and needs spoked wheels, and a few other tweaks, but it's essential to access remote places quickly. I can ride foot bridges and narrow trails that we can't access with our Defenders. That is Annapurna and Annapurna II in the background. Our base of operations is about a mile from this spot. Pretty sure we're the only foreigners to ever visit this part of Nepal. Not unusual for us. 1.2 million tourists visit Nepal, always to the same spots. We go where no tourists have ever been. In fact, no NGO or outsider ever goes where we go.
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Here's why we do what we do. Every year 16,000 kids in Nepal die from waterborne disease. We're going to put a huge dent in that number. These kids are great.
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I hope more people like you join us! We need more "casual adventurers" willing to take the adventure of a lifetime to change lives. I promise, it will change your's as well.

Shoot me a message if you want more info.

Christophe

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Ashton

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PM sent. And if you just offer the pay for a rewarding adventure stuff and less of the opportunities to work with you stuff, I'm all ears for that info too.

Thanks.
 

PapaDave

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Christophe this is AMAZING! I’ve been to India/Nepal three times but always on the Karkarvitta side. How is it organized? Do you have adventures/missions available for people to join where the cost of the trip includes being able to come and to fund the clean water outreach and participate in the water system placements? When I was there years ago I remember how much it impacted me to go into those remote villages, it was like stepping back in time.

@JakeandhisTJ @DocTaco @Kent R