The owner of the hotel gave me a ride to the bus stop on his motorcycle.
I only had to travel 3 hours on the bus to Dumbre where I got off and found a minibus that took me to Barnipur. My destination for the next few days. I found a seat and was waiting for some 30 min as the minibus was slowly filling up. it seemed full to me already, but not to locals, they kept finding spots, some taking the premium seats on the roof. Now there was about some 100 people inside the minibus and the driver was still waiting for more.... finally, we took off, climbing steep hill, going on first gear most of the time, on a narrow road with serpentine. As we were climbing the view got better and better, with the Himalayas peaks showing in the distance.
We made it to the top of the hill and I saw the little village set in the hill and knew I am in love! This little town has no cars, main street has old Newari style houses on both sides and there are little outside restaurants and cafes everywhere. That all with flowers blooming and old temples in the village and that all with amazing views all around. And the bonus : there are maybe only 10 tourist in the whole town. I think I will stay here for a while.
I found a nice hotel, in one of the original buildings, with nice decorations and I have my own wood carved window to look from. There is a terrace on the roof, perfect spot to watch sunset over the Himalayas.
I had dinner in town with two Danish girls I met in the bus and we strolled around the little town watching people and taking pictures.
The sky turned all the shades of orange for the sunset and you could hear music from the wedding in the neighborhood.
Day 2,
I woke up early this morning, the music still going on ( what a party it must have been!), I got dressed and headed out to climb near hill to watch the sunrise.
I am updating my blog while eating breakfast in a cafe with view ( how else..). I am excited to be here and can't wait to go explore the hills around.
Evening: Today was a lazy day, I spent lots of time reading in the sun, on the main street, people watching.
I went for a walk in the afternoon and saw 2 old grandmas peeling corn and I was about to ask if I could take a picture of them with the pile of dry corn, when what I did was asked if I could help instead.
So there I was, sitting with old ladies, cleaning the corn. Their granddaughter came to hang out too and translate, since my Nepali limits to Namaste and big smile..... We had good time, neighbors stooping by to look at me helping and everybody laughing as if they never saw such a thing... They fed me with Nepali meal and I was happy to spend the evening doing something unusual.
Day 3
Today was a nice day. I went for a long trek to the biggest cave in Nepal. The trail-head was north from the village and I followed the ridge line for little. The valley bellow me was all covered in fog and the peak were being all majestic above it. The trail was steep downhill, the rock steps very slippery. I was getting closer to the fog line and once I got into it , it was humid and cold.
I made it to the cave after one and half hour. I bought my ticket and got a guide. They teamed me up with older English ladies. Armed with bright flashlight we entered the cave. It was huge. Getting deeper inside, we had to be careful as the trail was bit tricky and again slippery. Lot's of " hold on to the rope and put your feet here and hold on to the rock.... very undeveloped.
The ladies chickened out ( they were in their 60s) in the last part of the cave, where you had to climb down a ladder, I am not sure why I was not too scared, I usually freak out about heights. Maybe the lack of light, made it all look just dark and not too scary. I made it all the way down and climbed to the next cave. There were some bats hanging from the ceiling.
Now I only had some 1000 steps to go up to, no big deal. The fog was gone and I could see the river and road on the bottom of the valley.
I made it up to the ridge line and found a nice looking field. The sun was warm and the view amazing. Perfect spot to lie down in the grass and read a book.
