It’s around 7 am and as usual I am up and about before Prem and Bulram. It is a cool morning due to the torrential downpour that we had last night. I was extremely happy that we were dry and cozy inside sitting by the stove in the tea house dining room. It was a full blown thunderstorm including lightning and wind driven sheets of rain. It would have been miserable to be hiking in that kind of weather. The dining room at this tea house is the first instance I have seen where it does not double as a living area too. While it is a stand alone dining room I found out last night it also functions as something of a hallway or passageway. The geometric configuration of this tea house is such that the dining room bisects the building with the family quarters on one side and the guest quarters on the other, kind of like a “T”,  There are two doors on either side of the room that constantly have people going through them to get from one area to the next.

The passageway is multi-purpose. Last night Prem and I were sitting in the dining room waiting for the stove to be lit and talking about something or another. I was facing him, away from the doors, when I heard a series of really loud clomps, like someone was repeatedly stamping on the floor. I glanced over towards the door on the right, the guest side, and what do I see? One of the young men was herding two cows through that door and straight away out the door opposite- yep, right through the dining room. It was absolutely hilarious and totally worth the day’s four hour walk to have had this experience. Really, who herds cattle through a dining room??? (They do, apparently….)

The cows marched right to left in the picture. Too bad I did not get them crossing, but then, who expects cows in their dining room?

It turns out that the courtyard on the guests’ side of the complex consists of some very nice tasty green grass. Indeed the cows had been out there most of the afternoon wandering around nibbling. But, on the other side of the dining room, the family side, is where the cow’s shelter is located. And the only path from one to the other lies through the dining room. I checked the back of the building in the morning because I was curious why they did not drive the cattle that way, but the structure is right up against the hill. Chalk it up to the consequences of living vertically. Awesome!

The road switchbacks illustrate the consequences of vertical living. Don’t let the scale fool you- these are large. They were a fascinating geometry from high up.

We strolled out at around 8 am with the goal of getting down the mountain by lunch time. We had to re-trace our steps a bit to pick up the path that would lead, more or less diagonally, towards our destination. It was another day of a lot of “down”. But the path was smooth most of the time, strewn with pine needles, and hence quite comfortable to walk on. The only real issue is that it was a steep incline, necessitating many switch backs. Definitely another knee work out. But the scenery was wonderful, the forest peaceful and we meandered slowly down the hill. We probably lost about 2000 meters today, minimum. As we were walking I shuddered to think what it might be like to climb that path up to the village carrying a load of stuff. It would require lots of rest stops! This path did not seem to be used much by animals- it was relatively clear of dung.

The path we were walking along today. Peaceful (and very green).

As we drew closer to the village and the road adjacent to it the sounds of civilization started disturbing the peace of the forest- cars honking, motorcycles roaring, people yelling. All the sounds that were alien to the environment I had been in for the last week, suddenly reappeared. As we crossed the bridge and climbed to the road, the fragrant pine scent of the forest was replaced with the acrid odor of dust mixed with exhaust fumes. Yay…

The village is a pretty good size town, actually, with lots of markets, and almost any service that the surrounding countryside may need. I saw two tailors, a butcher, several fruits and vegetable stalls, a hardware stall, a couple of barbers, a bank and lots of tea houses/lodges. The tourist bus to Kathmandu departs from here every morning. It has to depart early (as we will tomorrow) because part of the road is blocked off from traffic between 11am-5pm. That means that if you don’t get beyond that point by 11am you are sitting around at the roadblock, waiting for it to lift. So you go early. Consequently most hikers get into town in the afternoon and hang out waiting for the next morning to depart. Hence the large number of tea houses in the village. Like everywhere else, vertical living is the norm as the town is set against the hill. The river bounds it on one side so they can only go up. After settling into our accommodations, cleaning up (yay, more hot water!) and eating lunch, Prem and I went out for a short walk to explore. Again, here the theme is “construction”. There are bricks, rocks, cement bags, sand, and re-bar everywhere strewn about.

Remember that picture of a tiny village at the bottom of the hill from a few days ago? Well here it is.

Speaking of construction, there was a road crew digging a ditch alongside the road for whatever purpose. It was interesting to watch. They were set up in three man teams. One had a long thin pole that he seemed to be using to dislodge rocks. Another was shoveling dirt and debris out of the hole. The third had a rope in his hands that was wound around the shaft of the shovel and he would pull on it to help the shovel operator pick up and toss the load out of the hole. I had never seen it before- it looked like a way to split the back breaking work of shoveling dirt across two people. Like construction crews the world over, there was a lot of standing around, but checking in on them later, they did make progress.

A series of three men teams make up this construction crew. They did make progress- slowly, but this is hard manual work.

The late afternoon rain was threatening and we cut our walk short and hurried back to the hotel. As we reached the steps to the hotel we passed what is the equivalent to a hardware store.  Out front they had some bags of what looked like rocks (one was tore open and rocks were tumbling out).  As you can see from the picture, these are special rocks- ISO 9001 certified.  Now, can anyone tell me what being ISO certified means for a bag of rocks?  Also, with rocks all over the place, why bag them?  Who would buy them?  This mystery will likely bug me the rest of my trip.  Prem had no clue either.

These are the “special” rocks….

It will be an early night as we have to leave at 6 am to head to Pokhara. It is about a six hour drive and we have to get through the “road close” spot as well. We’ll spend the rest of the day tomorrow in Pokhara and the day after head out for phase two of the trekking adventure- the Annapurna Base Camp circuit. Prem tells me that the scenery there is completely different and I am looking forward to it.