Kamal and I made the journey to his village, Jaubari, in Gorkha District. We woke up at 4am, grabbed our bags, and walked in the dark for 45 minutes to the bus stop. There, we caught the 6 hour bus to Gorkha Bazaar. We tied our bags on the roof of the bus, and jammed ourselves into the seat behind the driver. We stopped half an hour later on the side of the road for a pee break. I, of course, didn’t have to pee until right after the bus started up again. We drove on the scary, winding road for another 5 and a half hours. Often times, the road was only wide enough for one bus, so we completely relied on the 8-toned horn of the bus when going around a corner. There was a sheer cliff on almost every turn, and one wrong move would have resulted in certain death.
We reached Gorkha Bazaar, put our bags in the hotel room, and climbed the hill to one of the oldest temples in Nepal. Nearly 500 years ago, Ram Shah built a giant fort-like temple, from which every peak and valley in the area can be seen. He developed Nepal’s first measurement system, and devised a way to tell time with dripping water. After Kamal did his worship, we returned to the hotel to eat daal bhaat and sleep.
At 5am we left the room for our 7 hour walk to Kamal’s village. The path was destroyed in many parts by landslides. Most downhill parts of the trail were made out of the slipperiest red clay that you could possibly imagine. All of the hillsides had been made into amazing step-like terraced rice paddies, complete with irrigation systems. While crossing a run-down suspension bridge strung across a raging river, we saw the white, bloated corpse of a careless pack mule, bobbing down the river.
Immediately after arriving at Kamal’s house, his mother began the daunting 2 hour task of cooking daal bhaat over an open fire in the unvented kitchen. She would poke her head out frequently to catch her breath, as the kitchen was completely filled with smoke. After eating, we chatted in Nepali on the porch until we got too tired, or the bugs became too annoying – I forget which came first. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, while squeezing my legs, Kamal’s uncle would remind me of how strong and fat I was, the whole time not believing that I was only 20 years old. We crawled under our mosquito nets and slept in – until 5:20am.
After waking up and drinking tea, we walked down to an unused field, where Kamal’s uncle was plowing with two bulls. I tried to plow, but obviously didn’t do a good job, because his uncle had to re-plow my section. Apparently the best way to get those stubborn bulls to do what you want them to do is to beat them as hard as you can with a bamboo stick – something I didn’t do very well.
After the field was plowed, we walked to another field at the other side of the village where many people were tilling the soil (by hand) and planting millet. We were bent over all day, sweating with the villagers and thumbing millet shoots into the soft soil. While returning home, I carried a load of grass for the water buffaloes - with a head basket.
We ate daal bhaat, chatted, and went to bed. I woke up in the night to Kamal yelling. Apparently, a giant rat had fallen on his face. We woke up early and walked for 3 hours to catch the 6 hour bus back to Kathmandu with the giant garbage bag full of popcorn that Kamal’s mother had popped for us in the middle of the night – she didn’t want us to be hungry on the bus ride home.
We reached Gorkha Bazaar, put our bags in the hotel room, and climbed the hill to one of the oldest temples in Nepal. Nearly 500 years ago, Ram Shah built a giant fort-like temple, from which every peak and valley in the area can be seen. He developed Nepal’s first measurement system, and devised a way to tell time with dripping water. After Kamal did his worship, we returned to the hotel to eat daal bhaat and sleep.
At 5am we left the room for our 7 hour walk to Kamal’s village. The path was destroyed in many parts by landslides. Most downhill parts of the trail were made out of the slipperiest red clay that you could possibly imagine. All of the hillsides had been made into amazing step-like terraced rice paddies, complete with irrigation systems. While crossing a run-down suspension bridge strung across a raging river, we saw the white, bloated corpse of a careless pack mule, bobbing down the river.
Immediately after arriving at Kamal’s house, his mother began the daunting 2 hour task of cooking daal bhaat over an open fire in the unvented kitchen. She would poke her head out frequently to catch her breath, as the kitchen was completely filled with smoke. After eating, we chatted in Nepali on the porch until we got too tired, or the bugs became too annoying – I forget which came first. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, while squeezing my legs, Kamal’s uncle would remind me of how strong and fat I was, the whole time not believing that I was only 20 years old. We crawled under our mosquito nets and slept in – until 5:20am.
After waking up and drinking tea, we walked down to an unused field, where Kamal’s uncle was plowing with two bulls. I tried to plow, but obviously didn’t do a good job, because his uncle had to re-plow my section. Apparently the best way to get those stubborn bulls to do what you want them to do is to beat them as hard as you can with a bamboo stick – something I didn’t do very well.
After the field was plowed, we walked to another field at the other side of the village where many people were tilling the soil (by hand) and planting millet. We were bent over all day, sweating with the villagers and thumbing millet shoots into the soft soil. While returning home, I carried a load of grass for the water buffaloes - with a head basket.
We ate daal bhaat, chatted, and went to bed. I woke up in the night to Kamal yelling. Apparently, a giant rat had fallen on his face. We woke up early and walked for 3 hours to catch the 6 hour bus back to Kathmandu with the giant garbage bag full of popcorn that Kamal’s mother had popped for us in the middle of the night – she didn’t want us to be hungry on the bus ride home.
