ALL THE WAY UP!

One of the things I never noticed was when John pointed out the poles filled with wires in Nepal. When he was taking pictures of the poles, I was making fun of him but now when I see the picture, it all makes sense!!

 

As we left for Ramche, We stopped at Dolalghat for Lunch. Dolalghat is very well known for its fried fishes. We got Dal Bhat for lunch with fish. It was John’s second time ordering Dal Bhat. The night we landed on Kathmandu, he had ordered it. In Dolalghat however, it was his first time eating it with hands. It was awesome food. Rumors suggest that the fishes were not from the “river” but it was farmed fishes in a land.

We got to Sukute and picked up 2 more tents from a resort. Bibek and his parents have been residents of Sukute for a long time, and he had convinced his friends at the resort for us to lend the tent for a couple of nights. We loaded up the vehicle again and off we continued.

It was total of 11 people going to the village and it would be asking for too much to stay at someone’s house and to eat dinner there at village. We had planned to cook our own food at the school ground, but borrow utensils from the villagers to cook and eat such as pots, pans, plates, cups, etc. We stopped at Lamsag and bought all the needed items to cook food such as tea, sugar, salt, biscuits, noodles, dal (lental), onions, etc. We loaded up the vehicle again and off we went.

As we hit off road from Barabise, it was a tough ride. John had switched from the vehicle to the motorcycle ride with Basu. They lead the way while rest of us followed in the back. As we got a little bit further one 1 km or so, the vehicle wouldn’t go forward due to over load and the steep hill. Bibek, Binod, Subash, Saroj and myself had decided to walk to the school and let the guys go in the vehicle. Funny thing is Binod and Subash love hiking and on the ride, they were wanting to hike. Their wishes came true. It was very tiring but AWESOME hike. As we were walking, we received a call from Saradha Miss and Bimala Miss. It was past 4 PM and time to dismiss the school. They weren’t sure if we were going to make it to school prior to the dismissal. Saradha miss walks roughly 1 hour everyday one way to the school to teach and we didn’t want to hold her up. We explained Saradha Miss that we will see her tomorrow morning when the school opens. The school was gated and was locked, so she had said to pick up the keys from Bimala Miss on the way.

After hiking for roughly 45 minutes or so, and we intercepted Bimala dd. She immediately invited us to come over her house. Once we got there, she fed us milk and yogurt. Bimala DD is one of the sweetest person ever. She is the reason I had originally come to the village. It funny now I remember when I was very little, I had attended her wedding in Thokarpa. It was the night wedding I still remember because I was having trouble staying up. We left for the school and thanked Bimala dd for the food.

After hiking another 20 minutes or so, we got up to all the others. They were off loading the vehicle and were waiting for us with all the kids and Amar Dai. Everyone was carrying something. Kids were carrying sleeping bags, paint, backpacks too. We had finally arrived at the school.

Once we got there, we borrowed utensils from Amar Dai and started cooking dinner. We also got rice, tomatoes, vegetables etc from the Amar dai’s farm. It was all fresh and organic. Subash was cooking dinner, and other guys were cutting vegetables, and some of us were setting up tents. Everything was going really smooth.

We had to mix the group so we threw random sleeping bags at different tents. The designated person with their sleep at that tent. It turned out really well. In the mean time, all the kids were following John and asking him to take pictures. lol Below are some clicks.

In the meantime, Bibek Bhai, Binod Dai, and I proceeded to make a rough outline for the next day. We knew a lot had to be done tomorrow so with plans in hand, we ate dinner and went to sleep. It was a great night!