Manishaa ahikari
On the chilly morning of 12th December 2022, 8 of us gathered at the DSS complex at around 6:30 am to head towards a newly viral destination ‘Latarambeshwor Mahadev’. We had to start early, as our destination was quite far away from usual.By 7 am everybody on the way boarded the vehicle too. Our destination was new and filled with a lot of unexpected turns and twists. We lost our way at least 3 times and had to turn back. This was the result of depending upon the response of the people on the way, who weren’t always truthful. This made us question the choice of destination.
Our spirits rose again and the vehicle was filled with squeals of laughter when our colleagues started asking ‘brother where is the way to Jagalteshwori Mahadev’. All of us kept getting the name wrong again and again and called it Jatteshwori Mahadev. Everybody cheered and shouted when we reached Lapse and were confirmed that we were finally on the right path. It was already 9:30 am when we stopped at Teenpaane for lunch.We were pleased to munch down local egg,malpua,curry and tea.
The road was bumpy and tough, but our hearts were thrilled as we kept talking about an amazing video of a lush green hillock surrounded by mist with a hazardous, narrow and steep staircase which we watched the day before.We passed through Kalchhe, Baguga and crossed Bagmati Bridge at 10:52am, it separated Latitpur district from Makwanpur. We left the Fasttrack to Hetauda at Mahadevtaar and started our journey on foot. Everybody was overwhelmed to hear the locals and armies saying that the journey uphill takes just 1.5hours. Once we started our journey along the steep, wooded hill and our heart started to thump like a loud drum to facilitate increasing oxygen demand of our otherwise lazy muscles all our hopes of ever reaching the top vanished.
Some of the team members kept on motivating us by saying that they can see the top and we will reach there in another 20 minutes. Our calf muscles gave up on us but suddenly we came out of the wooden canopy and could view the top of grass covered hillock with Trishul of Mahadev around 25 minutes away. We rehydrated ourselves and ran all the way till we reached the almost vertical one way staircase. Our elevated excitement finally got over our acrophobia and we started descending it slowly while our team member barely made it as she got a panic attack due to it. We finally stepped on the coveted top at 2:45 pm, did some prayer, made a tick tock video, enjoyed the apple amidst the chilled wind and started our way downhill.
The journey downhill was not as easy as we imagined before. Some of us slipped more than once on the way.Now we were troubled by hunger and there was no way we could reach the village before sunset. Luckily our driver Dai called and we could place the order of Local Bhale and rice. It was already 6pm when we reached a local hotel for our lunch cum dinner. We stuffed ourselves with way too much ‘Masu Bhat’ as everybody was too tired to realize how much they
can eat at one sitting.Our vegetarian friends took an omelet. Everybody was too tired and sleepy to play Antakshari like our morning time journey.Once the vehicle started someone realized that she left her coffee mug at the restaurant in Teenpaane. We called the owner and although the restaurant was already closed he was decent enough to leave it outside the shop in the table for us to collect. We arrived back at 8:45 pm.
All the hardships endured during the trip and hike made it more worthwhile and memorable.The total number of steps that day was 30,000. I can still feel the pain in my thigh and calf muscles while writing this report and a small cry escapes out everytime i try climbing stairs which brings back the cherished view from Latarambeshwor Mahadev
