En Route to Lumbini
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Tue 10 Apr 2018 22:47
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En Route to Lumbini – The Road
IS Hell to a Building Site, Temples and Mosquitos
  I was so excited when I looked out of our window after
breakfast to see a 4x4 sitting in the drive. No that
lives here, oh, and then a small car appeared. Once our bags were
settled Ishwor (out host) performed a traditional
‘farewell’ on Bear and me.
  Formalities and pictures done, we bade fond farewells to Ishwor and his
family. Beds settled in the back with his lunch and
off we went at ten o’clock.
 We set off far
too quickly down the steep, unmade bit, our driver not taking into account our
luggage and us. We hit a big stone and a terrible noise beneath made us think
this was going to be an arduous journey. We made it to the bottom and up a steep
sealed road and eventually to the edge of
Pokhara.
 Plenty of terracing and the hint of hillside
scenery but I was struggling to keep the camera still.
 Some time later our driver must have
taken pity on the camera keep clonking the window and we stopped at Donkey Lookout.
    We took in the views left, right, a terraced village
and after a precious few minutes we were heading back to the Kia.
  One final look at
the view and a shrug of resignation at the road
ahead.
 All too soon the road became a ‘work on progress’.
   When we overtook
the coach in the first picture on a blind bend, horn blaring, it was only
by the Grace of God that the lorry coming the other way managed to stop just in
front of us as we skidded to a halt on the shale (this was not to be the last
such experience). New cement gave way to more clay with stones ready to be size sorted.
   The odd
view, once carefully owned villages and puddles the size of small ponds became the
norm.
  A town but
no change in the road condition but this time with silver
bunting.
  Playing chicken
with a bus. Guess who had to stand on the brake and send me flying into
the back of Bear’s seat. People still went about their
business.
  The worst
bit but it was nice to see an old Singer at
work.
  Once more in the
countryside.
   Man with new
table, perfectly hand-graded stones to yet
another sharp end.
   Promising start to
a town, then we blinked to more mud, oh and a
resting JCB.
  Amazing how many times we could see
across a valley to the road we had been on or the
road we had to get to several miles away. This motorbike
didn’t have a good day.
 Right on a narrow corner, soon after
yet another experience of seeing an oncoming lorries eyelashes, these ladies were sorting out their
wheat crop.
 All getting very tedious now as we bumped through yet another town.
  A lovely
valley and another long road
ahead.
  Well hurrah, we stopped at the Ramdi Angara Hotel at Syangja for lunch. A welcome sight
was a little lady sitting on her nest.
  Opposite was a nest with four contented chicks, a flurry of activity when mum dropped in.
  A very forlorn
looking cow with a dodgy hip on the opposite side of the road, saw me
taking her my apple core to make a small change from trying to chew the very dry
leaves, I felt guilty I didn’t give her my whole apple. We watched some monkeys
being chased away by a dog as a man appeared on his bike
sporting a fitted washing line........
  As soon as we got going again we
crossed the Kaligandaki Bridge. After so many dry
beds it was nice to see a bit of a
river.
  Although our spleens ached we took
comfort that we could have not only been on a bus but
the journey would have been a few hours longer. So sad, in all this beautiful
countryside we kept seeing piles of rubbish and many
waterfalls of plastic where villagers continually tip in the same place,
straight into the valley below.
  Smooth mud
made a nice change, but it’s clearly been like it for ages as even the workman’s shed look old.
  A final mountain
scene and village that also used one place to
tip their rubbish (just beyond this picture) before we descended to the flat
plain before Lumbini.
 This one hundred
and five mile journey felt like many, many more, and after six hours we
still had another bone shaking hour before we got to our
digs........
ALL IN ALL NICE VISTAS SHAME
ABOUT THE KAMIKAZE PILOT
PHENOMENAL SCENERY BUT SORE
BUM |