On Tuesday Dad and I decided we wanted to go to Nagarkot, which is a beautiful place to view the mountains and find nice hiking trails. We asked the kind front desk man, Ramesh, to help us arrange this. He was able to find a car to take us there and back for 5,000 rupees. This is equivalent to $50. In normal situations we might consider that a bit expensive, but it was 1,000 rupees less than the other car that was found. Another way to look at it is that that's only $25 per person, and we would have the car for aroud 4 hours. In my opinion, a great deal!
The first tourists thought to have visited the area were Punjabi mercenaries recruited to defend the valley against Prithvi Naryan's troops. Stationed at the now vanished ridgetop fort, they quickly succumbed to the "mountain air," proving to be drunkenly incapable when the Gurkha invaders finally arrived. There is a view tower atop the highest southern point of the ridge located at 2,164 m. Dad and I planned to have the be our first destination of the drive, followed by lunch at a hotel in Nagarkot itself. From the top of the tower (which I'll tell you about soon) it's easy to see why Nagarkot has been the site of a fort since Rana times. This hilltop controlled the eastern entrance to the Kathmandu Valley as well as the vital trade route to Tibet.
Our great driver, Rajkumar, picked us up in his car at about 9:45, and we set off along the highway back towards Banepa and Bhaktapur. The fuel shortage is so severe that buses are beginning to park along the roads leading to fuel stations, forming massive queues that take up an entire lane. Raj navigated these lines with no problem, and we soon reached Bhaktapur where we turned onto a tiny, obscure looking dirt road. Right after we began driving on it, Dad looked at me and said "I say we have 50/50 odds that this road doesn't go the way he wants it to." I laughed and agreed whole heartedly!
Fortunately for us, the road did in fact go where Raj wanted it to! We bounced along the dirt track, over ditches and an ever narrowing road. In the beginning we were still on the valley floor, weaving our way amongst houses along the sides of the road. We began to climb higher, gaining elevation and winding up through the terraced hillsides, which grow rice paddies and potatoes along with other crops. Dad and I really enjoyed watching the countryside this way. Raj was listening to a very eclectic mix of music, first traditional Nepali and then some Indian rap (in one of the songs the rapper just seemed to be saying phrases that the American rappers all use - until he started saying "we are all family, rest in peace man, rest in peace!"), then American pop. The Nepali music was great, but the rap and pop seemed to oddly placed in many ways! We saw such great views of small village life on this drive.
I am having such a major fight with my ipad right now!!! Every time I try to save this blog it deletes it. I've decided to do an overview of the rest of the time in Nepal because I am getting TERRIBLY behind!
Dad and I made it to Nagarkot - the view tower sat atop a hill and had tremendous views in every direction. I conquered my minor fear of heights to climb to the top of a tall and rickety watch tower via a steep metal ladder - that set my toes tingling from the height for sure! Dad did not climb it, so I took photos and happily made my way back down to him. We walked back down underneath the prayer flags towards Raj and the car. When we got there we saw he had the hood up - the engine had overheated from the difficult road we had climbed to the tower. Dad and Raj happily tinkered under the hood, and got the truck running again. We drove into Nagarkot proper and had lunch at a lovely hotel with a stunning panorama of the Langtang range. Nagarkot was hit quite badly in the earthquake, and its a region that relies almost entirely on tourism for hiking and biking. We were happy to do our little bit to help the local economy!
We had a gorgeous drive back to Dhulikhel, and when we had said goodbye to Raj, I walked into the lobby to thank Ramesh for helping us find such a great driver. Ramesh got a huge smile on his face and said "he is my brother!" and told me that they bought the car together and it is their side business! What a great endeavor and such nice men.
After a rest and a shower, we headed back up to the lodge later in the afternoon. I ordered a gin and lime, and Dad and I ordered some momo to share! Momo are like gyoza - steamed dumplings filled with a mixture or either vegetables or meat cooked in spices. We had 5 veggie and 5 chicken and they were AMAZING! This was around 4:30, and we happily decided that would suffice as dinner. Before heading back down to our rooms, we stopped at the desk to get our laundry that we had dropped off that morning. The front desk attendant, a man, handed me the bag with my laundry, but I could see one of my underwear in someone else's bag. Thus ensued a very difficult conversation about needing my underwear in a country where women do not even expose their shoulders or lower legs! I don't think that I embarrased him TOO badly, and with all of my underwear in tow I headed back to my room to pack.
Wednesday morning we all left for the hospital around 7:30. I was really excited as I would be in the Operating Room with my mom all morning. I haven't been in the OR since Peru in 2009 and I have missed it! When we first got to the hospital the staff had a little thank you ceremony for the hospital team, which was really nice. They also recognized Dad and me which was really above and beyond as we had not been involved at the hospital on this trip! The team all trooped into the OR, and the surgeries began. There were to be two gynelogical surgeries and two hand surgeries. It was really interesting to see the OR's there, and observe the differences in equipment and procedure. They are really well organized and so smoothly run. Halfway through the morning Mom came and asked if I'd be willing to go back to the hotel and make sure that everyone's bags got loaded onto the vehicle that would be taking us to Kathmandu. I gladly obliged, and went back to the lodge. The porters got all of the luggage loaded up and we headed back to the hospital, where Claudia (a nurse and the wife of the hand surgeon) invited me to go to the school located at the hospital to see the children and the school itself. I went down there with her, where we saw such adorable children!!!! The school fees run them $325 a year. This is such little money to us, but such a large amount for them - not only in the amount of money but in the amount of change it brings to their lives. Claudia and I are now sponsoring two brothers (also named Raj and Ramesh) whose family lost their home in the earthquake. They are such sweet little boys!
After this the whole team loaded up on our bus and we took off for Kathmandu! When we arrived in Kathmandu we headed directly to our hotel for the next few days. My parents have stayed at Dwarika's quite a few times, and always told me how wonderful it is, but I was unpreprared for the splendor that greeted us. Dwarika's is absolutely the most amazing hotel I have ever stayed in. Beautiful refurbished buildings, amazing ancient woodwork and art, and large, comfortable, luxurious rooms. I happily would have stayed there forever! Perhaps next time I'll be able to stay forever Haha! After some down time to relax and refresh, we all met for a delicious traditional 16 course Nepalese dinner. Everything was so yummy! I've lots of photos but due to the fight that my blog and I are having I'm currently unable to upload photos to it. Suffice it to say that all of the food was really splendid and we all had such a great time. During this dinner my Dad started a debate about - of all things - apple crumble! He claims that the hippies of the 70's brought the recipe and tradition of apple crumble over with them during the backpacking era and that now it is one of the most treasured desserts in all of Nepal! I don't doubt that they brought the desire and perhaps even recipe with them, as its quite common to find apple PIE, but as for being able to easily find apple crumble as well as it being a Nepalese favorite I call extreme SHEANIGANS! So he tried to get some of the members of the team on board with this idea, all of whom looked extremely skeptical - smart people! I have a feeling that this will become quite the debate for the remainder of our trip. Should be FUN!
And now I'm going to let you all know that I'll be blogging the last two days of Nepal at the end of the India trip. I'm having an absolutely TERRIBLE time wiith writer's block, which I partially attribute to the issues with the blog itself. It's awful to have to rewrite the same things multiple times due to it getting erased! And I'm getting extremely behind on India while trying without success to finish Nepal. So please check back in soon for the beginning of our India trip!
Thank you all so much for reading, and I'm so sorry that I can't upload photos right now. It's unbelievably for me to not be able to share the amount of photos with you all that I would like. Hopefully that situation will resolved and I'll be able to share soon!
Love from me to all of you!
Your writer's block does not show at all.
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