Before I left in the morning to catch one of the ever so enjoyable local busses here... not.. the kids tried their best to play some tricks on me to try to get me to be the fool of the day, with no luck though. Vibeke came from Denmark as a surprise on March 30th and staying 22 days. Her and Karna were going to get 2 more kids from the village of Gorka where all the kids are from. So before they went on that journey I had to take 2 days off, my first since I started. I decided to go to Nagarkot 30 km outside Kathmandu. Arjun took me to the bus station, if you can call it that. He found me a bus that went half way, which was to the Historical City of Bhaktapur where I had to transfer, which was pretty much, the drivers helper,( they have young boys helping with collecting the money from all the people getting on the bus, since there are so many the driver couldn't possible deal with that) telling me to get of the bus and walk 5min up a street to catch the next bus, so just walking along clueless as to where to go but by luck the only bus I saw after a 10 min. Walk was just leaving for Nagarkot 2 min. later, my destination, so couldn't be more perfect, of course it all was the same as my trek bus, apart from it only being a 2 hour drive, but with a ton of people again getting on and of, packed inside and on top of the bus, along the dusty road..I arrived around noon and found a place to stay, named At The End Of The Universe with a view over the mountains. I went on a 3 hour hike up to a view point at the top of a mountain, where supposedly you could view Mt. Everest from, but all I could see was a vague outline of the mountains in the distance. I got back just in time before dark after walking through a small village, followed by a great dinner and a much needed but way to short hot shower, that I had to wait for the power to come on before I could enjoy.
Next day I decided to get up at 5:00am to see the sunrise, at the same view point but got a ride up there,
behind the mountains, the sun came up but the mountains were covered in a fog, so all I saw was a tip. Unfortunately not the right season for clear skies here, it is too hot and hazy now. After a hearty breakfast I started out walking back to Baktapur through the mountains and a lot of little farm villages,
that is so neat to observe, the endless mountain slope terraced rice, potato, wheat and vegetable fields, love to watch the people and all the animals, the little goats, big buffalos, chickens with their little chicks, dogs of course they are everywhere, which was great, not the dog part but hiking in the beautiful mountains, I didn't meet any other tourists so I just enjoyed every step of the way, hard as it was in the heat of the baking afternoon sun, but being out trekking in the mountains again was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears. Just kidding there was no blood and tears just sweat, a big blister on my big toe and the appreciation of being out hiking in the clean mountain air what bliss!! There were so many cute little kids along the way, a lot of them with their runny noses and dirty clothes.
On the way I saw the Changu NarayanTemple which was one of the 4 spectacular Historical sites of the Kathmandu valley, and then walked back to Bhaktapur with it's own temples and the famous Durbar Square. By the time I got there, 7 hours later, still carrying all my gear that I brought with me. I was really tired, sweaty and dirty after a well worth it hike, but decided since I was there still an hours bus ride from Kathmandu I would wander around to see Bhaktapur so another couple of hours before I had to find a bus to go back home. I told the helper to tell me where to get of closest to Thamel, and now after dark fell he said, you get of here, which was on a big road where the cars were zooming by and he expected me to just jump into the traffic in the dark, so since I hesitated the driver just started to drive again, I really had no choice but to get off in a hurry, the things I am forced to do at times are very uncharacteristic for me, but most of the time fun and exciting. I then had to cross the big road which was a challenge on it's own, to catch a taxi since I had no idea where I was, and most taxi drivers have no idea where you want to go, so you pretty much have to lead the way yourself, which could be a problem at times. Back to Hotel Lily where they were kind enough to give me a room where I had my first really long hot shower in a month, wow that was soooo amazing, these days it takes very little to feel appreciation for the small things that I used to take for granted.
Yesterday was new years day, it is now January 2, 2067 here in Nepal, so at this moment I am way ahead of you all, but still as young :-), so we took the children on a picnic to a park close by, thanks to the money I raised we were able to make some nice food to bring, we played scavenger hunt, they had never played that before so they took great pleasure in that, the park is called Balaju water park, so lots of water but of course very dirty by our standards and then we could go into the forest as well, I meet a group of locals that had music playing and they wanted me to dance, so I did that to humour them, some of the kids came by and had a great time laughing at me while watching, one of the boys joined in as well, so a fun day, but tiring after spending the day in the hot sun. The walk there and back was rather interesting or should I say disgusting, first along the sewage trench and then along the river which is so filled with garbage and sewage that it looks like a dump more than a river, the people living along there in houses or more like sheds must be immune to the smell I guess, other wise you couldn't possible live there. After all that said I still love it here and the kids are still amazing. That is it for now.
Namaste Inger.
