Anjana Shrestha
It was a regular party at D2Hawkeye on Friday evening. Rudra dai was in town and hence just another reason for our gathering. Suddenly, Rudra dai came up with this idea of hiking and casually said: Let us start hiking in D2 and why not start it from this Saturday. To be honest, we did not care whether D2 would really start any hiking trend or not but we definitely opted for this hiking. It was indeed something new and thrilling, especially with your friends to go with. There were 9 of us including Rudra dai. It was Anil Khadka, Shankar Upreti, Prabin Subedi, Amulya Bhattarai, Sudeep Adiga, Manohar Adhikari, Sewa K.C and me. We all gathered at D2 on Saturday morning, i.e. July 23, 2005 – the day that hiking would set history in D2 with the 9 historians. We drove up to Budhanilkantha and started our hiking from there. It was monsoon time and the road was slippery and not to mention filled with leeches. The road was a steep climb. We first got the tickets to enter Shivapuri National Park. From others that I recall about this hiking is that we reached “Nagi Gompa” monastery after walking for about one and half hours. We rested there for some time and made our way to the top of Shivapuri hill. Our amateur photographers, Shankar U and Amulya B did enjoy capturing some pleasant moments on the way. The top of the hill was not as we had expected. It was just a small ground and as if the leeches were not enough, we were chased with flies everywhere. Nevertheless we gasped some breath there with a sense of pride. Our way back was even tougher especially after it started raining. I remember that Shankar U had sprained his ankle and how Anil tied his leg with the shirt he was wearing. A friend in need is a friend indeed! We all were so hungry by the time we were descending as there was no sign of any restaurants throughout our hike. We survived with whatever food stuff we had taken. However, I remember that I had taken some hajmolas. That was the only food left while we got down and needless to say, we all had one slogan with us then: je aaucha majja le pachaucha. We got down to where the van was waiting for us. We had ascended around 7:30 am and it was around 4:00 pm when we reached down. It had been indeed a very very long walk, especially for the new ones. We went for lunch at a Nepali restaurant in Durbar Marg. We hogged like anything. We all departed to our homes to crush into our beds. We had one of the best night’s sleeps – a very tiring yet unforgettable hike with memories to last till date.
