Bhanu Chalise

Participants : Rashmi, Babi (rashmi’s younger sister), Charu, Hitesh (R rookie), Prashanta, Bimal, Rajendra, SanjitP, Bhanu, Kapil, BinayA and Vishnu Route : Swayambhu to Ramkot to Nagdhunga Time : 7 hours Distance : 30 km (Appx) Date : Sunday, Mar 18, 2007 Report : BhanuC Photos : BimalK Captions : BinayaN, VishnuK Creative Support: BinayaN A phone call broke my sleep. A friend called me to get ready for hike. I had little time to reach office so that forced me to leave bed. I woke up and hurried towards office. This is the only thing that makes me a little inattentive about hiking; it deprives me of long sleep on holiday otherwise I enjoy as always. We met on the way and reached D2HS a bit earlier than others reach there. We enjoyed coffee and couple of table tennis games while waiting for others. The proposed hiking route changed without any notice as some of hiker mates had a camping plan for Saturday night and meet rest hikers on the way on Sunday morning then hike together from Sisdol, which is a place of Surendra’s village. After half an hour or so, we were on office-van hailing towards Swayambhu. The route was to begin from Swayambhu to NagDhunga via few hills of Ramkot and monasteries When we finished our breakfast at starting point, we marched toward west at 8.30 am. Our first destination was a monastery in hill towering parallel to Swayambhu. The trail taking us to the peak was sharply ascending in that hill. When we reached the Pal Nges Don Osel Ling monastery, we saw some young monks staying there for study, which would further be devoted to Buddhism. We took some snaps there and departed for towards another monastery. We came across 3 monasteries in a row, one of them was under construction. We enjoyed while passing through all of them. Climbing down and climbing up on the trails, made feel us being of adventurous. We even climbed a wall in one place like thieves. A French Buddhist financed the second monastery, without name, under construction, that we learnt from the workers there. We left for third monastery, named Amitabh, which was biggest of the three. Monks from Dalai Lama's tribe in India have been staying in that monastery. We were surprised to find that they only understood Hindi. I cannot say about others but my impression of austere life lived by Buddhist monks, was smashed by the monks' life I felt there. I had respect for the self-restrain that I thought they maintained. After observing the open spaced and luxurious monastery, we walked down through pine forest. Being careful not to loose foothold in the pine forest, and then we moved further through lovely vegetation after while. Last Sunday, was local holiday for school for local festival (“Ghode Jatra”). Therefore, we needed to collect some schoolchildren for distributing D2’s notebooks and pencils to them. From this point, walking further was our real hike of the day. We strode on narrow trails in the midst of green fields. Once we were scolded for trespassing in the fields (“khaneko bari”). When you headed towards hills, it makes you feel that you never reach to the peak, because of nature’s puzzle that you encounter with another one. Chatting and increasing stress to our feet, we continued our hiking. We crossed the hill where Necon Air's plane had hit television tower and crashed. The fold of hills seemed never ending. It was not until we saw our van waiting in NagDhunga from a peak that helped us to build confidence of our direction. After that, the hike seemed to have an ending destined properly. We met a local boy in a Dadhikot, who accompanied us up to Nagdhunga. He told us the story of Bir ghost once lived there and troubled villagers from time to time. With his interesting, but difficult to believe story we reached NagDhunga at about 3.30 pm. By the time we were tired I supposed. To get rid of this Manoj droved us to a Thakali restaurant in Sanepa for revitalizing. The mannerly served, delicious late lunch satiated our hunger and refreshed us. Thus, we came to an end of awe-inspiring hiking and already back home before 6.30 pm.