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Participants: SharadP, Bikesh, Sabin, Bikram, Milan, Shamesh, Namrata, Ravi, Manoj and Vishnu Route: Kavrebhanjyang to Darimbot to Teen Pipale Date: Sunday, September 02, 2007 Duration: 5 hours 30 minutes Trip Doom: 15-Kilo meters Report: Shamens, Milan, Bikram and NamrataP Photo: SharadP and Shamesh Creative Support: NishchalS Again entering the jungle ShameshBD Again Sunday, and it’s Monday tomorrow, oh how fast week rolls, thinking of Big day ahead, oh my hiking, oh god, again late, I woke up at 6 and had promised team to reach office at 6:30, what to do, same old habit. “Late to Bed and Early to Rise Can’t Help Those Sleepy Eyes”. I was thinking of those words and trying to be ready as fast as possible, but my snail pace made me to reach last of all my fellow hikers. Last but not least, our trip to Mother Nature begin at 7:30, an hour late (due to poor me). With the gang of 10, we first had our battery charged at Banepa, filled our tummy, packed our bags full of goodies (junk food) and hoped for a great journey ahead. Our actual journey begun at around 9:30 from Kavre Bhanjang. It was a chilly morning with mist all around us. It was quite welcoming environment. Hahaha. We asked a local Ammai (Old lady) the trail toward our destination, the ZeroKilo, quite an interesting name. She thought we were fooling her and asked if we were again entering the jungle ( I think we must have been misinterpreted of some body else….) . Okay, we must start our journey. Once a wise guy told me “Thopa thopa milera Samundra Bancha” it means it required small steps to conquer large distance, (I guess). Our path was interesting, Milan, the macho man demonstrated us that the rotten woods are too slippery. Namrata on the other hand showed us the inner strength; I must say she is one of the tough ladies in our D2 family. I was praising myself for being wise to bring jacket with me, as the climate was chilly, but as you know every happy moment has an end (am I being pessimistic), Mother Nature slam on my face as we move forward. My whole body was sweating. I want to put my load on something, please help me……. Any way the trail was quite exciting, we experienced whole lot of vegetation, from the Simal (soft wood tree found in tropical/semi tropical altitude) to the pine trees ( that of high altitude), we even crossed the paddy field full of lush plantation. I still remember guys (Sabin and Bikesh and every body else) falling on the muddy field, hahaha it was hell lot of experience. By the way, Manoj seems to enjoy the most. Being an experienced hiker, he was leading most of the time and Bishnu and Sarad were involving for the concern of the participants as long as they could. We went through various local places where hiking was only the means of transportation. Local children seem to love us, and proved to a great help. Once I and Sabin were lost (we were trying to catch up others) and local children rescued us (thank you boys). We were too busy admiring the beauty, the blessing of nature that we almost lost our troop. Oh what to say, whole scenario was marvelous, the hills, the paddy field, the corn fields, we even managed to cross the Danphe river twice, tasted wild Amala ( a kind of wild fruit) and pomelos that local people offered us. I must say to feel the variety of nature in a single trek was an amazing experience. And finally eating rice with local Kukhura at Sharmila ko Pasal (local restaurant) at ZeroKilo was even great. MilanS We started our journey from Kabrebhanjyang to Dhulikhel at 8:45 am. With lots of excitement our journey begun with stared stepping down the hill. The road was too narrow and slippery. It was me who fell down at first stepping over a wet log. Then next was Namrata and other followed the goes on. Finally we reached the base of the steeply hill and we were hearing the sound of Danphe khola. Everybody was excited to reach that river but in between the river and the place where we were, there was a large rice field which we had to cross. The rice field was full of water and there was very narrow path on the rice filed. We were almost lost in the middle of the rice field. Finally with great determination and patience we reached Danphe khola.We cleaned all the mud stuck on our shoes, sat on the bank of the river for half while. Then we resumed our journey stepping up the hill to Phusra Thumka. After an hour walk we reached Tinpipale. From Tinpipale we headed for zero kilo which was our final destination. Then we finally reached “Sharmila ko hotel” at zero point at around 4 pm. The food in Sharmila ko hotel was as tasty as Visnu has told us on the way. Bikram Guess who were leading Namrata or Bikesh. I told them; heroes win only at the end of the story. That's what happened in last week's hiking, our hero of the hiking Manoj won the race; and Bikesh, Namrata were at the end of the trail, with me :-( Right from the beginning of the hiking when we asked locals for guidance nobody believed we really wanted to take that route. People in chautara at Kavre Bhanjyang, teachers at the primary school in the middle of somewhere in the route, people at the Sharmila Didi oops Sharmila jee ko restaurant; some of them didn't believe us at all, thought we were kidding and rest of others thought we were crazy. One joonge-dai met while resting on the way even tagged us as YCL-members. To support his guess; I was in bright red t-shirt written something in complex characters (thank god no stars) and everybody were practicing throwing stones ;-) Yeah the route was crazy, or may be the rain of previous night. Right from the beginning of the journey people were starting to fall over. Milan; while checking if log gets slippery due to rain (he knows better now), Sabeen on every step he took in the Aali of the paddy farm. Those Aalis were not able to hold the weight of Bikesh. Ravi could not see the deep and wide-enough trenches while jumping and I don't think Namrata knows how to walk, she was falling and slipped at every 5/10 minutes. Hiking was tough; slippery path, hot sun, and continuous walking whole day. You could clearly hear the heartbeat. You feel even worse when you reach home, take bath and in the mirror you realize stupid sunscreen lotion did not work. But, all of such difficulties get lower priorities when you hear loud laugh of Bikesh, and jokes of Shamesh from misleading interpretation of every word, involvement in difficult to understand conversation with Vishnu and Sharad. You completely forget them when you get to ride on the open air-conditioned section of the local bus: roof top, when you lunch at Sharmila jee's restaurant with local kukhura and special daal. Those difficulties become of no value; when you return happily from hiking and get to know bunch of people trying to push my country in the direction to become Iraq. Actually it really hurts. Namrata After a tiring Saturday, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go for hiking the very next day. I couldn’t even postpone it for the next time or make any excuse as I had already backed off twice after had given the name. This was the time for do or die. The night was sleepless as there were mixed feelings about hiking first time. Even though, without a goodnight's sleep I was feeling fresh and very much excited in the morning. Unfortunately, I caught the wrong bus so had to walk a few kms in a hurry to reach office. My hiking had already begun. We started our journey by around 7:15 in the morning. There were 10 of us all together out of which 3 of us were rookies. We stopped for a breakfast in Banepa. Everybody stuffed themselves and was ready for a tough day ahead. After an hour drive we reached Kavrebhanjyang and decided to start our hike from there. We took help from the locals for the route to zero kilo, our final destination and they were quite surprised that we'd go walking all the way to zero kilo from there. But we all decided we'd make it to that place somehow or the other. As there was a heavy rainfall the other night, the path was very slippery. First was Milan who slipped after trying to experiment on a bark of a tree. And after sometime it was my turn and I was half covered in mud after that. Even others followed after that. There was something in Bikram's shoes as he didn’t slip even once. (Strange!!) I had no problem walking down the hill, but after resting for a while on the bank of river there came the hardest part, walking up hill. I needed rest after every two minutes. It had not even been half the distance. I was already tired. Every second step I used slip and I was breathless when we reached the top of the hill. We rested for a while and regained my energy back after some glucose water. We walked pass a school, Shree Bachhala Devi Primary School in FusraThumka, it was a pleasant school with all those free souls, the local children. We even visited a small temple of Matta (Devi); that temple was in the other hill and I was wondering how I could make it till there. We were blessed to for the friendly behavior of local. They even offered us Pomelos (Bhogate) and we all enjoyed having the big fruit together. Bikesh and I used to be the last ones most of the time... but slowly and steadily we were enjoying the scene, the beauty, our Nepal. Vishnu gave us delicious cheese that provided us energy and then we had to catch a bus to reach zero kilo. There came another adventure, the bus ride, we all were on the roof and the wind was blowing fast, even rain was falling hard, ahh how ironic!! But it wasn’t just a bus ride; there was a self satisfaction that I walked all the way from one hill to the other and to next. It was simply great ... a great way to end our hiking. It couldn’t have been better. We reached zero kilo where Vishnu introduced us to Sharmila, who prepared a sumptuous lunch for us. And lastly, we walked in the drizzling rain until Manoj picked us up to leave for Kathmandu. On the way, we heard about the bomb blast, but I was more worried about getting back home somehow as I needed a good nights sleep. The journey and news made me tired and scary but life still remains whole to accept the challenges and face the struggles. I think this is bliss of life to move ahead and have fun. 01 All that is normally required while you walking-Says Mr. Area Commander 02 Different Conditions 03 Shoulder to shoulder marching along 04 The Village at the South part of the Dhulikhel 05 The nine at even out 06 A movement forward to fresh and juicy 07 The Rani Pani- An act of directing the eyes 08 SharadP's a favorable judgement 09 Land Lord Gyan P., constructed in 4 months at the cost of 10 thousand and 50 years of OLD his house 10 Pomelos of the Darimbot 11 A view of the Okharbot 12 Pushing out of the corn field 13 The BIG boy ready and waiting 14 Flying Namrata and unblemished Guru 15 And being marked by a well-disposed outcome 16 Manoj's quiet posture, in the name ofNature 17 Gregarious move 18 MilanS trying to find different trail 19 The activity of contributing to the fulfilment of need 20 Obedient to nurturant 21 Khola ko chheu Bato Maya ko chheu Pako 22 Just for change resting at Danphe 23 Bye Bye jumper 24 Leaving Danphe river behind from here 25 Climbing up towards Phusra Thumka 26 Shamesh, Manoj and Ravi on top and infront 27 Shamesh 28 Bikram and Milan-first timer 29 Glycoside hold 30 Other side of this hill is Dhulikhel 31 White for CALM blue for ARMS 32 Togetherness at Phusra Thumka 33 2 Visitors Guided by 5 34 We need both 35 A walk here to pay honor to Bachhali Mai 36 The team at Mai's Place 37 Nice and clean walk beneath blue sky 38 We did not ask Manoj what he read there 39 Sharadp, Bikesh, Bikram and Namrata 40 Manoj watches us walking towards him 41 Not enough what to do 42 This reminded them school, college days 43 Thoughtfulness 44 Smart way of applying the colors 45 Two different offspring collectively 46 Fully occupied 47 Painstaking 48 The little red king 49 The art of pleasure and attracts 50 Good deal of Good soul 51 A place where people meet 52 Sabin at freedom from activity 53 Free of cost 54 Let's go body 55 Acrobatic Bikram 56 Swallows at hollow 57 Unexpected visitors 58 And mixing up quickly 59 Enjoying the views 60 Hey guys leave us alone 61 Gleeful fours 62 A bit of naughty walk 63 What made SharadP dancing 64 Lifel in Nepal 65 Let them cool i be alone 66 Nine are fine here 67 This could be good route for next one 68 Walking up towards Teen Pipale 69 A connection that fastens things together 70 Bit more adventurous on top of PublicBus 71 Shararara Shahili--that was fun 72 The lady of the day-climbing down 73 The wire breaks the rule 74 Meeting the van in the evening-that was leaving in the begining-for the day we concluded the hiking