Caving and a visit to Machendranath's house

Went cycling again yesterday and we decided to stop and look at some caves (= error 1)... Jeyran managed to negotiate knock down bargain basement entrance fee and we chose our route (not the shortest option = error 2)...

So we set off with guide and head torches... I don't think we really appreciated what the caves would be like... I certainly didn't imagine a tunnel only marginally wider than me which I would have to drag myself through on my knees and occasionally my stomach... it was also very slippery and at one point I felt like Augustus Gloop in the chocolate tube in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' as we had to kind of ascend vertically up a fairly slimy muddy hole... it was dark apart from our torches and we also saw some bats... in saying this it was quite comedy in a sort of what on earth am I doing, will I ever get out of here sort of way... needless to say I am not planning taking up pot-holing or mining any time soon.

Jeyran emerges from a small hole into a slightly bigger one

Part of the Augustus Gloop tunnel

Callum crawling out of a hole...

Bat!

I was glad when we escaped into fresh air after about 30/40min... my ever overactive imagination (fed on BBC world news reports) had been dreaming up all sorts of scenarios such being trapped like those miners in Utah or squished by an earthquake like the one in Peru...

Once outside we realised that we looked like we had been rolling around in a mud bath... and for the rest of the day people seemed to assume we had been involved in some sort of serious off road biking mud fest... actually the photo doesn't do the mud justice... the stains on the back of my shorts aren't ever coming out!

After the cave experience we looked round a Ganesh temple where the ladies were at puja

Then over the bridge made in Aberdeen Scotland at Chobar gorge... it looks like this will be replaced by something much wider soon...

At the bridge we were accosted by people trying to sell us all sorts of junk... small bags, wallets, singing bowls from Tibet and of course an illustrated guide to the Karma Sutra... just what one wants to read on a Saturday morning bike ride... the man selling seemed to be affronted non of us wanted such a wonder, his final retort as we got on our bikes being something along the lines of us all obviously being perfect and hence not needing the guide... comedy...

We rode on to Bungamati a nice little Newari village in the valley... here wandered around and abouts... saw wood carving, more chillies and various other things (more photos on flickr - link on right hand side). We were also followed by a small tribe of children fascinated by our bikes, and just desperate to have a ride (answer: NO), and play with the bells, gears, bike computers etc (answer: hard to stop them).

We also found the temple where Machendranath (god of rain?) resides when he is not being dragged around in his precarious Chariot... Lennie I know you will be excited to see the photo below of his "home"... I didn't actually get a look at Machandranath as I don't look particularly Hindu and there were rather a lot of people chanting, and clambering up the steps to the front of the shrine... and so I thought it wise not to attempt such a feat...

On leaving the village we saw this random sign... I think advertising a cafe, however it brings to mind some sort of NGO (charity) that rushes around distributing picnics (in Harrods hampers darling?) to the poor and needy...

We also saw various different children doing various different activities which amused me because in the UK they would probably be locked inside watching TV, playing on their PS2 and never allowed to put themselves in such danger...

Small child enjoys playing with rusty oil barrel used to burn rubbish... at one point she even gave it a good lick... nice

Another small child makes fiery offerings at the temple

This small child, although admittedly not in any apparent immediate danger, does look like she is about to go out on the razzel dazzel with all that eye make up on... i should probably enquire as to why so many babies wear such black eye make up, i am sure there is a logical (?) explanation...

Grannie activities

As some may know I love my grannie activities (and my grannie)... so I thought I would attach some photos of some grannie activities going on at the orphanage...

Sadie do you remember teaching Christy and I to make origami cranes and 12 pointed stars on those cold winter days in the motherland? I can still make both... Christy can you?!! I only did the cranes with the kids... Making the cranes was interesting a couple of the kids got it instantly, but there was one girl in particular, she is 13, and seriously she was not able to fold the paper in half, despite me showing it to her repeatedly, and then helping her very closely... At a guess I think this is some sort of developmental brain damage probably caused by malnutrition when she was small... nutrition is soooo important, and yet so many kids here aren't lucky enough to have access to it... perhaps their parents are too poor... perhaps their mother doesn't know what is good nutrition... perhaps they are a girl and are not valued enough to waste too many precious food resources on...

1st folds

With some cranes... we made LOTS

They wanted to string the cranes up - see left hand side (I have this sort of thing in my house)

Knitting socks for the winter... I am not their teacher fortunately

Henna hands

The last month has been some sort of special month where every Monday good Hindu ladies fast and pray for their husbands and men in their life... not sure if I wrote this before, but basically they fast so that their men will have a long life, and they wont be left widows.

Another part of the month for ladies is having mahindi or henna applied to your hands... so one day after work last week I went with some friends to get it done... it was fun, and seems to last quite a while, although it is slowly fading now... photos below!

before we get our hands done Rajani and Radhika munch down on some yummy street food!

Looks like some weird marriage proposal momentThey apply the henna and then it has to dry for about 2+ hrs. This makes doing anything involving the use of hands impossible without causing smear-age. I opted for less henna than my friends so that I would be able to open the door of my house and eat dinner etc. I think I had 3 "clean fingers" which helped!

Finished results! Henna all dried and washed off leaving a random (corporate) orange stain. My hands are the pasty white ones in case you couldn't work that out!

As you can see, significantly less henna on my hands!!

chilies... and noI'm not drowning

This last weekend I went on two long bike rides... all that exercise and sunshine left me pretty knackered but there was still time for pizza, picnic in the 'garden of dreams' and a bollywood movie... hilarious as usual... and included random scenes unrelated to the rest of the movie such as the child sized heat seeking missile which seemed to only be in the movie for the purposes of allowing the cast and crew a mini break in Phuket Thailand, and some stunt man a good time on a jet ski...

oh yes some people have emailed me to see if I am OK, as they saw on the news Nepal is flooded... I am well north of the floods, and about 1000m higher geographically, so I have been enjoying the monsoon rains and the coolness that they bring! Obviously many other people are not so lucky...

Attached are some photos from the bike rides... the chilies drying on the houses were amazing. Someone (I'd put money on it being a woman) braided all the chilies together so that they can hang down and dry out ready to be eaten in the non-chili growing season... I have put even more photos on flickr (link to the right) if you want a bigger dose of chili photography... I got a bit carried away they looked so good!

Chilies drying

Lovely old lady, lovely old wooden window frame, many chilies...

More chilies drying

At Godavri - top of the hill

Mountain biking

This Sunday morning I got up at 6.30am to go for a ride in the monsoon-rain on my bike. It was soooo nice to be outside in the rain-fresh-air climbing up a bally big hill. I went with my boss and a friend of his who i was told wasn't particularly fit. However this bloke appeared all dressed up as if he was going to do the Tour de France in all sorts of professional lycra and colour coordinated hat and goggles... this gave me a minor panic as I am not Tour de France standard... in fact i am not particularly fast at all... especially going up hills... and definitely when going up hills off road. I think i need to develop stronger legs so i can get over all the bumps on the steep bits...
Fortunately we stuck to the road most of the time because the rain made the tracks like mud bath slides! We did one very long long climb which was OK, and although i was a fair way behind the men i didn't collapse or have to get a taxi home or anything drastic... i did get covered in oil and mud... but that goes without saying...

The way back was downhill and this is when the man dressed for Tour de France did his clothes justice and canned down the hill as if there was 100% visibility, no hair pin bends, 0 possibility of oncoming buses crashing into you, and a smooth dry road... I was someway behind!

Bellow are some photos of Chobar Gorge. In ancient ancient history the KTM valley was a lake. Legend has it that a Buddhist deity took a (presumably huge) sword and cut the valley edge at Chobar to release the waters... and the result was a fertile valley that today is Kathmandu!

The bridge at Chobar gorge. Made in Aberdeen (Scotland) in 1903!

Jai Binayak Temple - important temple to Ganesh

The return and death of Machendranath

In April I wrote about Machendranath the god of rain who is pulled around town in a huge, precarious wooden structure for a couple of months... by the end of June Machendranath was back at my end of town and parked up for a bit to allow worship or the people hauling it a break... I'm not sure. I went and took some photos...

Machendranath multiplies... now there is also mini machendranath

Worship coincides with many other things... shopping... trying to drive along the street... having henna painted on ones hands... buying fish... meanwhile Machendranath sits in the middle of it all

Lighting candles to the god

Now it is the end of July and Machendranath's chariot is slowly rotting at the roundabout near my house... bit by bit people are pinching things... mostly its just the wheels remaining and they are HUGE... they would make a good fire... but perhaps that's almost as bad as killing a holy cow... I'm not sure.

Photos from home...

So here is a quick photographic journey through the 1st 2 weeks of July... I also put some other photos on Flickr (see link on right hand side).

It started off with a trip to wet wet wet Brighton, on the way we found Ditchling Crescent where Groo, Gramps, Mum and AA once lived for 6 months...

Then there were yummy cocktails with the Nadj in a random Lebanese restaurant in Soho...
Then there was the most marvelous Welsh Wedding of the Year. Really 'Hello' and 'OK' should have been there... perhaps they were? A really lovely day, everything was more than perfect... congratulations to Rachel and Steve ;o)

Making seating labels to go round roses on the tables

Getting our nails done... don't ask about the hairband... a remnant from the hen weekend I believe

The reception venue... and look its sunny!

The wedding party (I think that's what you call us?!)

Ant, and me in my bridesmaid get up

After le wedding, we toodled off to the Peak District, where we had a nice time, camping, walking (lots), getting blisters, eating enough fresh dairy products to compensate for the next 3 months... and hiring a tandem (very exciting, and now features in the plan to cycle the length of New Zealand)... actually the tandem is strange. Being the smallest I had to ride on the back. You get to see more than I thought, (ie not everything is obscured by the person in fronts back) but it is weird not having control over anything... you don't need to think about steering or gears - that is all up to the person in front. So you can just sing songs, day dream, look around and be responsible for indicating at the appropriate moments... as long as you don't stop peddling all is fine...

Camping near Edale... actually we nearly started camping in a field full of charging sheep (well ok many non-charging sheep and 1 charging sheep... seriously a baby sheep charged at me - there was a certain degree of mocking at me finding this quite distressing). We thought the sheep field was our campsite, until we started talking to the only other happy campers in the big field of sheep and they said there were no facilities apart from a sink... which didn't sound like what we booked... so we continued down the lane and found out sheep-less field avec shower which was far superior and only £1 a night extra!

Ant with the tandem!

Perry/cider stop - Cave looking down on Biggin/ Woolfscote Dale

We hiked up above Ladybower reservoir, to an amazing ridge of stacks of stone in order to find "The Salt seller", see below, which features in the most wonderous BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice when Lizzy is on holiday with her aunt and uncle and hikes up to take in the Derbyshire views... prooving she is not a constrained Victorian. Alas no Mr Darcy sitings were had, but it was beautiful!Orange boy... with an orange - at the salt sellar

Its been a while crocodile

I'm just back from another mini break in the UK... it is funny spending all ones holidays in England, but I like it very much. This time the trip involved a wet Brighton, yummy pastries in Hastings, time in the BIG Winch, a bargain night at the Hoxton in Londres (£1 mega deal), the Welsh wedding of the year, and a lovely time in the Peak District - walking (in the rain) which resulted in more blisters and a decision to finally ditch the boots - think Ant's putting them on ebay if anyone wants a pair of Salomon walking boots which really don't fit me other than when I'm sitting down ;o) ... this led to another decision to buy new, and seemingly not so nasty walking boots... and more walking... and a tandem rental = very fun-o on a bicycle made for two... did i mention the rain? hmm rather damp! ... food also featured - you will see there is a dairy theme - a delicious cream tea, ice cream, cheese, rhubarb and custard and buckets of fresh milk (in fact I was greeted at Gatwick by a bottle of M&S luxury jersey full cream milk). I also tried Perry for the first time, which is like Cider but made from pears. I don't know I could tell a huge difference... but it was good - drunk in a small cave overlooking Biggin dale...

it was a good time.

I always find international departures a time for thinking and reflection. I am used to chopping and changing where I live reasonably often and I'm getting to know what to expect... they have become predictable emotional roller coasters which I like in a weird way. The trip to the airport in Kathmandu was a taster for when I leave properly in less than 3 months now (I think)... there's a line in a song from the most marvelous musical 'Billy Eliot'. I think it is referring to how he feels when he is dancing, but it kind of sums up how I am fairly sure I will feel leaving here: "...it's like when you've been crying and you're empty and you're full..." The empty bit is leaving behind another life, and the people that make it fun, and the randomness of foreign lands that make it exciting and interesting and different... and the full bit is going home to where you belong, and a sort of happiness for having the opportunity to not only travel but also live in the places I have...

soooo I guess I should make the most of things now...

Will upload some photos of the English mini break sometime in the not too distant future

xxx