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Title: Babas' hike Hiking Route: Chautara-Maidain-Chautara Date: August 15-August 16 2009 Duration: 11 hrs out of 13 hours. Distance: 6 Kms – 8 kms Altitude: 2450 meters Hike Coordinator: Vishnu Kshettri Participants: Rudra Pandey, Bhuwan Shrestha, Charan Pradhan, Surendra Adhikari, Nishchal Shrestha, Subash Devkota, Sharad Pokharel, Lava Kafle, Ganesh Thapa, Vishnu Kshetrri Photos: Nishchal Shrestha, Subash Devkota, Surendra Adhikari Caption: Vishnu Kshetrri Report By: Vishnu Kshettri Geolocation: Babas' hike - Vishnu Kshettri If we take some time out of this busy and hectic life style sometimes, we get an opportunity to peep into the insight of different meanings of life. I learnt this from the adversity that we faced on Saturday night stoppage at Maidan, many many miles away from home and from this busy, materialistic yet scintillating world. The stoppage let us share the commodities with equal mind and soul of ten different individuality. The whole journey is still lingering in my mind, and keeps poking out in my mind as one of the many mysteries of life. This was only possible because of the journey that compelled us to go through the equal hardships while we were measuring our inner empathy together last weekend. Chautara, the head quarter of Sindhupalchowk district was a starting point, where we reached in the midday on Saturday. With the starting altitude of 1420 metres we began to hike up. One hour of ascending, we reached at a place called Bench Pani. Another next one hour of stride took us to a place called Shyaule, where locals were curious about this bunch of urban dwellers. During the chit-o-chat, they offered us with a handful of pears. Some of them generously peeled off the skin of pears for us. In exchange, Rudra handed them some money.

pleasant air soothed our skin and mind, entered us into a pleasant state.

After having those freshly picked garden pears, we continued our journey. Next couple of hours of stiff climb, we arrived at Sano Okhreni. One small tea shop owner, a Sherpa family was keen to hold us for a while. But we still continued our half known journey. As we kept climbing, the pleasant air soothed our skin and mind, entered us into a pleasant state. But as the dusk approached us, it was clearly indicating the dark night that we had to go through. We kept pushing hard and got into a place all hovered with clouds. The walk through this village led to narrow jungle trail, with low visibility due to the cloud and upcoming darkness. The trail was really challenging for one and half hours of struggle, with the plenty of leeches’ to keep us busy, raining and slippery trail. With drained strength, the exhausted body finally happened to be at one of Sherpa house, the place called Maidan had only 3 houses of Shepa inhabited. They offered us with some corn pudding (dhido) and the raw radish which had come straight from the fields. They left us to celebrate our dinner. When we finished our dinner, they fitted us inside cattle shed with 6 small blankets for ten people and hay weaved mattresses. Our back pack, we used as pillow. On the way back to Kathmandu, we stopped at the Zero Kilo, had lunch with city taste. Deep down, a thought crossed my mind that the lunch of Zero Kilo let go the diversity in us with option it offered yet it missed the harmony and contentment and the magic unseen tie that held us together in Maidan. It is said that mind is like parachute which works well only when it is open. It became more apparent to me last Saturday with all those new experiences of its kind to last for days and days to come. Please click on the image to see its large version.

01 Brekkie	02 Limbering up
03 Not commonly encountered	04 Younker`s lead
05 District Headquarter- Chautara	06 Leaving Chautara behind
07 Seasoned pace	08 Sharad`s combat-ready
09 A short halt	10 Nature is a volume of which God is the Author
11 Lava is well equipped	12 Gaurati Bhimeshwor Temple- one hour from Chautara
13 Bench Pani	14 One has Bench another has Pani
15 Here, Lava has Kakro and Ganesh pours pani	16 Gateway to Kamikharka
17 Beautyful rock trail	18 If knowledge leads wisdom then someone may have kingdom
19 Just to feel chill	20 Where there is fear there is no religion
21 An open wallet tempts a Saint	22 Tall hill on the left is Kamikharka
23 There you will spend the night	24 Friends are thieves of time
25 Under the clouds not inside the mist	26 See and name it
27 Affection binds reason	28 A Sherpa`s potato curry
29 A generous hand preparing corn Porridge for us as dinner	30 Maidan Bar
31 Dinner time	32 This is almost life time meal of the people of Maidan
33 Decoration by leeches	34 Rudra`s club floor
35 This was the shed that accommodated 10 of us	36 Bed time Subash on right
37 And Charan on left	38 Thinking of past
39 Ready for RYoga	40 Bye bye Saturday`s home
41 The grinder	42 Ready to move
43 Lava and Ganesh treasuring the place in mind	44 Closeness of the beds
45 The place where we spent the night was behind this hill and under the cloud	46 Men are in action
47 Slowly down the Sano Okhreni	48 For the cool and clean morning
49 Lava is in cautious move	50 Just think of walking here with this climate
51 Charan and Surendra	52 Subash thinking of LUMLE
53 Surendra will dance this time too..	54 A walk in the night
55 Rudra, Bhuwan and the naughty one	56 Back from Maidan early in the morning
57 Sherpa jee did not allow us the big house	58 I can dance while i walk
59 Moving back	60 Just above Shyaule
61 NIKS`s on Break Dance	62 Just cannot delete
63 Time off for cucumber	64 Chaba bhaire chaba
65 This one for someone s. one	66 Looking at back once again
67 Yonder you can have tea	68 Oh my God i walked through
69 Happy time	70 At the Sano Okhreni
71 Just a wonderful path to walk	72 Boys are fun
73 A field are green	74 That was EASY OOOph
75 Sharad leading here	76 This is for his leadership by Subash
77 On the way back to Shyaule	78 Charan and Subash over log bridge
79 Colorful house of the Syaule	80 See i was not worry for the 4 millions tender
81 Connections of Suburb and an Urban	82 In reference to pic no 32
83 In the name of the soccer players!	84 ART is LONG - LIFE is SHORT!!!