Panauti Hike and Homestay

Hiking through the countryside.

A local water source for washing and bathing.

A rest stop waiting for the rest of the group.

BK tries on the 40 kilo basket of peaches...

that this girl was carrying down to the highway to sell.

Earthquake damage.

Two students in a pre-school.

Views of the terraces.

Local people on the road leading to the village.

The lady we bought our cold drinks from.

 The village of Panauti.

 Temples built about the same time as Durbar Square and Baktapur in Kathmandu.

Enjoying our cooking with BK, Shila (our hostess) and her daughter.

Tuesday, May 8^th.

We were up early and off by a large bus for our homestay visit. We had to drive for about an hour and a half through the city and all that that entails, to get to the countryside. From there all of us got off the bus for the hike, except our 82 year old South African Shirley, who stayed on the bus and was driven to the homestay. We hiked for 11 km to our destination. It was a fairly hard hike up and down hills and across three valleys. The first part was actually the hardest as it was a very steep switchback climb. The views were spectacular over the farms and rice terraces, which were dry now just ahead of the monsoon. At one point we met a young girl and her sister. She had gone to school for the morning and was now carrying about 40kg of peaches in a basket strapped to her head and resting on her back. BK and a couple of others tried it, but it was really heavy. Nepalese women often have neck and back issues from carrying loads like this all their lives. The hike took us about four hours. Most of the hike was on hard packed dirt paths, and it wasn’t until the last kilometre that we walked on the paved road into the village. Since there were no elevation issues the hike was only strenuous on the legs and not the lungs. It was also very warm in the sun, so we all sweated quite a bit, but it felt great to get out and get some exercise. 

We stopped at a little shop as the end and had a nice cold drink before the final descent into the village of Panauti. The first thing we did when we got there was to go to the community centre, where we met our hostesses. The Panauti Community Homestay is run by a group of women who were looking for a means of making a little money and becoming less dependant on their husbands. This is a very chauvinistic culture and the men control the funds. The women have to ask for money to spend and justify why they need it. A group of women got organized and approached GAdventures, who after consultation with the community, really liked the idea. The families put up a couple of travellers per house, so we were dispersed among six houses. They fed us lunch, took us on a tour of this historical town, gave us a cooking class where we learned to make potato chipatis, and then gave us dinner with a glass of homemade wine. Rob and I were hosted by Shila Amatya, the president of the association. She was the woman who came up with the original idea. BK stayed in our homestay too.

Our house was a four-storey building in the middle of a busy street. Rob and my room was very nice and clean with two twin beds, with a little ensuite on the third floor. The kitchen was in the basement and was quite basic. During the cooking class Rob learned to make the chapatis by putting a potato curry in a ball of dough and then rolling it and my job was to cook them with a little oil on a flat pan. We had fun doing that.

During and after dinner the three of us had a good talk about GAdventures and traveling. We also talked about our upcoming trip to Tibet and the restrictions that are put on all travellers by the Chinese. It is quite possible that I will not be able to blog from Tibet, so I might be out of touch for up to ten days. However, DK thinks I might be able to from Lhasa, we’ll see. Then we were off to bed early for a really early start as we have to drive back to Kathmandu airport to catch our flight.