Krishna Bhatta
Title: 2007 Jun - D2Hawkeye Hiking from Telkot to Nagarkot via Sudal Participants: BhaskarB, Hitesh, Kapil, Bimal, Sharad, Roja, SudeepS, Krishna, Manindra, PrabinS, Vishnu and RajuM Route: Telkot to Sudal to Nagarkot Date: Sunday, 24th June, 2007 Trip Doom: 10.62miles Report: Krishna and SudeepS Photo: Hitesh, Krishna Creative Support: BinayaN, DovanR My first hike with D2 hikers-KrishnaA Early in the morning at 5:30, my mobile knocks me. My friends were excited to get together for beer party (They know very well that I usually have Sunday off). Unfortunately, I was unable to follow their plan. Anyway, I thanked them a lot for getting me waked early in the morning. An exciting day for the first time after 1999 was waiting for me. This is the first hike I ever had after my last trekking (45 days long trekking to Manang, Mustang and Myagdi for a research related to Trekking Route). I entered into D2 premises at 6:47. Only PrabinS and Raju were there; we were informed to be on or before 6:45 though. D2HawkeyeServices exercise books and pencils were packed with a hope that we will meet children in the schools on the way to our destination for the day. Some hikers were bit late to be here. So we left D2 premises at 7:30. D2 van headed towards Bhaktapur where Roja was waiting on the way to Telkot. Before 8:30, we were at our “breakfast station”, Hawa Ghar Restaurant. I could see very unique stuffs there; “Home Made Woofer” made using clay pots and a couple of speakers and steps inside the restaurant built with tyre rubber. Wonderful breakfast set (beaten rice, chicken curry, fried potato, yoghurt and tea) was enough to get ready for another adventurous day. We headed for Sudal, a village on the way to Nagarkot from Telkot (Hawa Ghar Restaurant) at around 9:00AM. Suddenly, we had to change out path since Nepal Army cadres were on war practice near to our pre-planned way. Our real adventure began as we took the way going inside the jungle. Hiking inside the dense jungle was a fun but more risk at the same time. The challenge was to find the right direction to our destination. After about an hour we stopped for a short break. I was eager to see some wild animals but we seemed not to be fortunate enough. The path led to even thicker jungle. Some drops of rain had already warned us. Gradually, heavy rain came to be problematic for the hikers. All of us were completely wet. Moreover, Leeches and the slippery way going to unknown direction added more perplexity whether to move forward or not as we already had faced 2 dead ends of such trails. Roja proved to be really tough hiker. She led almost all the way. “Wish I was more like her in hiking”. Unlike other hiking as I heard, I could see the team spirit in this one. Nobody was left behind. We were very happy to see the tower of Nagarkot after 5 hours of continuous walk in such a heavy rain inside the thick jungle with leeches. We were at the summit at around 3:15 PM. After spending some time there our run for lunch started. At 4:15 we were at the restaurant (Berg House Café) where we had DELICIOUS lunch of the day at 6:00PM, it was too late though. We left Nagarkot for D2 at 7:00. Finally, we were inside D2 premises at 8:15 leaving the exciting day back. Although this hike turned to be tough for us, I enjoyed a lot. This hike will remain as the topic to talk about in the days to come as an adventurous one. “ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH”. My debut in D2 Hiking-SudeepS It had been four months since I joined D2 and I thought that I should participate on the Sunday Hiking, organized by the office. I was a bit reluctant but participation of Roja inspired me to be in and I decided to go for it as well. My mom kept telling me that it might rain but since we did not experience raining for quite few days, I hoped it would not rain on Sunday either. As Manindra was going too, we decided to wait at Naya Baneshwor instead of coming to Bishalnagar. The D2 micro arrived a bit late but it didn’t matter much as we were a bit late also to be there. From this point, we went to Bhaktapur and picked up Roja and she was the last member of our hiking team. We had breakfast at Hawaghar. I was expecting Hawaghar would be a grand palace, full of airy rooms but it turned out to be a modest and interesting place to have breakfast. The wind operated made of plastic bottle fans and “Gyampa” (huge earthen pots)-woofers were very fascinating. We began our hike from Telkot soon after we finished our breakfast and entered in paddy field to go through. I was on the lookout for angry farmers might chase us. After a walk through the field we ascended the hills of Telkot. Well we were not alone. There were many army men walking uphill too for the training. Turns out they were there practicing jungle warfare. They were setting up positions along the hills with their guns ready to fire. Hell, I was afraid one of those guns might misfire. As luck would have it or might I say as bad luck would have it, the army was practicing shooting at human shaped targets and firing to meet the aim on them. Moreover, these targets were placed along our hiking route, we on the army officer’s advised to another route up the hills to Nagarkot. Our troubles seemed to be begun. The path we took kept getting smaller n smaller and after a while, there was no visible trail. Since we were already a few hours down from our new path, and there was no returning. This turned out to be a big mistake. We happened to be at dead ends for several times, but kept searching to what looked like trails n following them. We walked through slippery slopes, leech infested, ditches n dense vegetation. After a while, there was no trail. We were definitely lost. We just had two choices, walk straight uphill or straight downhill. Vishnu suggested we go uphill, so began our climbing battle. For a few hours, we battled with hills, the dense forest, and the leeches. Then it began to rain like hell. What had I done to anger the Gods so much? The next 4 hours were pure agony. We were on all four limbs trying to climb 60-degree slippery slopes. Leeches attacked us from all sides. To top it all the attack was joined by big forest ants. After hours n hours of all this we spotted the Nagarkot Tower. We were saved, thank God. After one last attempt straight up a hill we reached Nagarkot. I was so relieved. It was after reaching the tower that I started to feel pains all over my body. After resting a while atop the Nagarkot Tower we then descended towards Nagarkot main junction. We had dinner at a restaurant and celebrated coming out of the ordeal without any mishaps. Personally, whatever agony the trip might have caused, now that I think about it, the trip was really exciting and adventurous.
