Nepal

30/11/16

We woke early (6am) to watch the sunrise at our hotel. We were marred by the cloud which prevented us seeing the Himalayan range but it was still worth a visit.

For breakfast we had tea, toast and jam (very British) and then garlic greens, curried potatos and omelette. Tbh couldn't deal with the things with flavour but gave them a try.

Once we had packed we re-commenced our trek through the Himalayan villages starting from around 2500m and working our way back down towards 1500m.

We passed through rural villages with a lot of livestock including goats AND BABY GOATS, chickens AND BABY CHICKENS, ducks AND BABY DUCKS, dogs and BABY DOGS, cows (no baby cows) Basically it's like spring even though it's like 3 weeks away from winter where the villages will be snowed under from weeks on end.

SweetCorn, parsnips, chillies, greens and other stuff which we didn't know was all being dried for the winter to make soups. Fire wood was being stocked by many women who were out foraging and these were bundled outside the houses. Also, we saw a man carrying sacks of dried fish from Pakistan to substitute the menu. Hummed!

We couldn't really get to the bottom of what the blokes were doing during all of this work except carrying dish but meh.

There are still a lot of temporary buildings erected as a result of the earthquake generally formed with tarpaulin or corrugated steel. Roofs have as few fixings as possible and are generally weighed down with spare building materials including bricks, timber (trees) and rocks. Houses are being re-built but our guide Dipak tells us the government have not paid out the disaster relief funds to the Nepalese. Apparently 300,000 rupees (£2200) has been promised to the residents of the 14 districts devastated by the earthquake. To date non of this has been paid out and the British government and rotary club asked for the donated money back. The Nepalese government said we will soon but around 2.5 years later non has still been paid.

Anyway... The villages operate on super old school principles but the you people 6.5-16 go to state funded secondary school. The kids wear uniforms and look very respectable and are just kids.
This is particularly nice considering only around 10 years ago girls were getting married at 9 ish to ensure she hadn't started her blobbing yet so she was super pure. She could be married off to someone 30 years her senior and was removed from school and expected to be like a wife. Then, when her husband died (many years could be 30) before she did she had to wear black, no nail polish or happy colours, no re-marrying...... For the rest of her life!!! WTF!!!
Dipak told us the story of his grandparents who were both married at 9 to each other. The husband was always meant to have more respect than the wife. However, they were playing one day as friends (married ones) and his grandmother slapped his grandfather. The boys mum went skitz and demanded the marriage be terminated because it was so dis-respectful.... It wasn't and apparently they all laugh about it now!

So anyway.... We walked for around 4/5hours, Then we went to the temple, which is the oldest temple in Nepal. Built around 500 years ago. This had very intricate timber carvings but had again been badly affected by the earthquake. So the facade retention was the standard Nepalese 4x3 restrained by some road pins. Classic.

We then got a bus back to Kathmandu which is literally mental. Everyone crams on, the driver sounds his horn to let the village know he is leaving and then you're off. There is no maximum capacity for the busses and as long as you can hold onto the side your in and paying full rate 20rupees about 15p! There is a fella who helps the driver by shouting to passers by asking if they want to come onto the bus and who sounds like the guy off that auctioning show storage hunters then there is money flying past your head towards the drivers helper as you can pay when you're on or when u get off. No idea how this works!!

So we get back to Thamel after a short hop in a taxi and meet this family (talk to us for tales of this) and we end up staying at theirs having the national dish of Dhat Bhal which is like soup on rice with pickle and coriander and chicken pretty good and not as spicy as it sounds.

Donkey: holly for reading that under no circumstances should you eat with your left hand and then an hour later in front of a whole family spilling yogurt and using her left hand to eat it off the table.

Man: Noblet for completing trek.Read more