Dinesh Bhusal Our hike started great. Everybody was on time as we had planned. We left the office at around 7:30. We decided to stop for breakfast at chobar. After half an hour we left chobar and towards Dakshinkali. From Dakshinkali there were two paths that reached sisneri. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” -Robert Frost(1916) According to the locals, the road which we had planned to hike had suffered landslides and the road was in bad condition. Hence, we decided to take the road less travelled. At 11:00 am, our hike started. The road was great and everybody was happy for no one knew what lay ahead. Only 30 minutes into the hike and it had already started raining. We were prepared for the rain, we had brought umbrellas, plastics or raincoats. But let’s say we were not as prepared for the problems that the rain brought with itself. The leeches and the slippery roads were a couple to name them. As we hiked forward, we came to know that the road had suffered landslides and the road we were taking had no travellers recently. The path was blocked by landslides and wild shrubs like sisno. We had to make way as we moved along. Every minute or so everybody had to make sure there weren’t any leeches in our legs. Despite our efforts, most of us were sucked by leeches. We were extra careful for sisno and yet a couple of us came in contact with sisno. We finally arrived at a village at the top of the hill. Cloudy view at the top of the hill was majestic. There was a school, we distributed some copies and pencils to the students there. The happy faces of the children and the scenery made us forget the painful journey for a moment. I could see all the faces light up as we had crossed the difficult part of the hike. We had already hiked 3 hours at this point. There were beautiful waterfalls along the way. The fresh air made us forget the crowded and dusty roads of kathmandu. After hiking for about 3 hours, we finally arrived at sisneri. It was already 04:30 PM at this point. We had to return to office premises before 6 PM. According to the map the sisneri natural swimming pool was still 6 Km away. It was already late so we decided not to go to the sisneri natural swimming pool. There was a river in sisneri. We all sat in the river bank and enjoyed the cold water. Everybody was exhausted. Since we couldn’t return along the same road we hiked, we had asked babu dai to bring the Hiace from another route to pick us up. After having tea at the sisneri bazar we returned to the place where babu dai was waiting for us. Everybody was hungry as we had just hiked 5 and a half hours with just a light breakfast and some junk foods along the way. We arrived at siphal for dinner, the food had never tasted that good. Even though we couldn’t reach the natural swimming pool, the hike was adventurous and the places we reached were amazing. 

Bandana Bhandari September 08 was the day for sisneri hike. The plan was set, and the route was decided. It was a group of 14 members. All of the members gathered at Deerwalk Complex at about 7am, and everyone started their journey for sisneri Leaving Deerwalk Complex. But for me, the journey started from koteshwor. The excitement was of a different kind as it was my first hike from the Deerwalk. We started to leave chaotic city Kathmandu, by making the route through Balkhu, Chobhar, Taudaha towards Pharping-Dakshinkali. The weather of the day was perfect for hike so, all of us were pretty excited to start our hike. We travel for about 1hours in our vehicle and stopped at "chobar" , local restaurant to have our breakfast. As it was Monsoon, rain and muddy roads they are just perfect to trouble travelers which actually started to create trouble for us. As the route was set to start our hike was Dakshinkal, we came to know that the route of Dakshinkal was not good enough to travel because of landslide due to which we had to change our route. At first, we had a bit of confusion about the starting point of our hike but after asking around we found out our starting point. And finally, along with some confusion, our hiking started at 11:00 am from Fakhel with full excitement and we all were in the mood to enjoy each and every bit of the moment. The Beautiful nature combined with a change of weather was working perfectly for us. Varieties of trees, plants and mesmerizing mountains could be seen which made us really happy and calm. The excitement level started to increase when we all saw a tree of walnut full of edible seeds. We collected all the possible seeds and re-started our journey. After few minutes of the hike monsoon started to throw the challenges one by one for us, it started to rain ,though it was monsoon and we all were prepared for the problem, the hike continued avoiding this challenge. We all were not aware of the challenges that were yet to come. There’s a saying "Life gets exciting and audacious when we break the usual thresholds and get immersed into the serene lap of nature”. Likewise, we accepted all the hurdles. Another challenge came on our way while passing the jungles full of wild plants, animals were the leeches and we had to make sure that they didn’t bite us. Despite this, we didn't stop to Walk. And the biggest challenges that we went through was that the route which we were supposed to do our hiking was full of landslide and we couldn’t even walk over there. We crossed the way by making human chain, helping one another making a way to walk.It was one of the most difficult parts of the journey. Moving on, way was a little easier, weather was supporting us, beautiful landscape mesmerised us in each and every way it could. Travelling about two and a half hours we reached at one of the local government school.We distributed some copies and pencils to the children. Their cute little smile made us forget every challenges that we faced to reach over there. After hiking for about 4 hours, we finally arrived at sisneri bazar,time was about 4:15 pm and according to the map the sisneri natural swimming pool was about 5-6km away from the Sisneri Bazar due to which we had to stop over there in the river side of sisneri bazar enjoying panoramic views of mountains . After resting for an hour, we started our way back home even though we didn’t want to leave the beautiful place. We reached at around 6:00pm, where our transport was waiting for us which brought us back to Deerwalk Premises.