Back to Dhunche and Kathmandu

We left Nessing in the morning, after we did a house visit and prayed for some people. A man gave each of us a silk scarf as a “thank you” for coming. While it was time to go, it was hard to leave these people as we developed a bond with them over the short 1.5 days. Our next destination was Sano Hakku. There are 3 Hakkus, Little Hakku, Big Hakku and “I forget the other name” Hakku. We are visiting the little Hakku called Sano. If you look at this picture, it is one I took from Dhunche and it is a picture of Sano Hakku (Circle is Sano Hakku and square is Nessing on the other side of the mountain). While it is hard to gage by a picture, it can give you some kind of perspective of our trek.

We have two actual churches in this area; Gatlang and Nessing. We also have 4 villages that have a small group of believers who meet in a home; Sano Hakku is one of these villages. We begin our assent down from Nessing to Sano Hakku and it takes about ½ an hour. We end up at a home of one of the villagers, encourage them and pray a blessing for them. After that we are homeward bound. Our goal for the day is to hike to Dhunche.

As we begin our descent I am reminded how hard it is to go down the mountain, especially on the feet. Feeling some potential blisters coming from yesterday’s climb, I take small calculated steps and seem to be lagging the other 3. I really don’t know how far we are descending but my guess is about 3,000 feet to the gorge and then 3,000 feet up again on the other mountain. We take a few small breaks and after 2 hours, or so, we are at the bottom of the gorge.

At the bottom is a bridge which is a bonus as I had visions of trying to cross the river rock to rock. We take a break and eat a boiled potato. In North America, we would make sure that we had granola bars and other such similar items. Here, they boiled a pot of potatoes and we now take a few out and gnaw away. There were lots of children who followed us down, laughing, racing and having fun. It is always nice to see children laugh and play.

After our break we started the ascent up. This time I am now leading the pack as my long legs are my advantage. Aaron is mostly behind me and sometimes ahead of me. We stop every 20 minutes or so and let the short legged guys catch up. In this picture, Sano Hakku is on the far side of the mountain we came down from. Because it is the dry season, there is no water at any of the taps along the way. This proves to be a bit of a problem because we run out of water about one third of the way up. This path is a well worn path and used by many people. Over the last 400 years, people have been careful to lay out stones to help create a great path and staircase up. They have also built cement water stations, at strategic places and use plastic pipes to divert water from the streams to the stations. At one point, near the top, we finally find an active stream and we fill up our water bottles.

This path is not only used by people but by animals too as evidenced by the droppings along the way. While ascending, you tend to only look down, at your feet from stone to stone and while your main goal is to go up, your secondary goal is not to step in any brown piles. The closer you get to the top, the more tired you become and the less you care about what you step in. At one point, we step aside and allow 4 mules, loaded with about 200 lbs of sacks, pass by us. They are reluctant to pass at our sight, but their owner, along with a stick, has a way of convincing them.

We also pass by some villagers who are carrying roofing supplies. Most roofs are made from corrugated steel and they are each carrying a sheet rolled up. To build a house in the village, all the supplies have to be carried by people. In Nessing, they carry the supplies from Gatlang; a 3 hour journey. In Sano Hakku, they have to carry it from Dhunche using the route we are on. There are people here who do this for a fee. One 50kg of cement (one bag) can be ferried by a porter for 800 rupees. Their body weight is about 50 Kgs,

The other problem with mountain climbing is you always think you see the top, but when you get there, you discover that there is at least one more top. We do eventually get to the top and I recognise the gates of the village from our trip to Gatlang. As we walk the streets we are befriended by hotel owners hoping to we will stay with them. Raju’s first goal is to find out if there are any buses running back to Kathmandu, if not, we had previously agreed to walk 2 more hours to the next town. Fortunate for us, there is one leaving at 7:30am and so we go to our hotel and take a break from a good workout.

Our motel room is nice, and fairly warm due to the sun shining through the window. But soon the sun disappears and the warmth with it. The room is just large enough for two single beds and a little table 1’x3’. We have the extra bonus of having one extra blanket, much to Aaron’s delight. It is now 3:30pm and not much to do. I ask Hari to find me an internet cafe and after a few minutes he informs me that he found one for 40 rupees for 4 hours.

We go to the shop only to discover that it is the same place I tried to change money earlier. I sported a $20 bill and he said he was not interested in changing $20, it was either $100 or nothing. I opted for nothing. Exchanging money is weird here. My first hotel, I asked where I could change money and he whips his wallet open and asks how much I want to exchange, I said, “$100” of which he stated, after much calculating on his ancient calculator, “8,100 rupees”. I pull out 5 - $20 bills and he says he is not interested in that, he wants a $100 bill. I tell him I only have $20s. His fingers do some flying over the calculator; he looks up and says that he can only give me 8,000 rupees. I wasn’t going to argue over 100 rupees. Now this guy wanted a $100 bill. I later learn that there are lots of counterfeit US $20 bills that are worn looking so $100s and brand new $20s are more valuable.

We ask the guy about the internet and he says, “2 rupees per minute for me (foreigner).” “What about the 40rs we were quoted?” I declared. Apparently that is for locals. I feel a little violated and decided it was “nothing” again and went back to my room. After ½ hour I decided to just pay the fee, use the internet and give a quick post. Hari also used the internet. Eleven minutes later, I have my face book post. I could have done it in five minutes but I had a crappy keyboard and had to bang certain keys to make them yield to my commands. Also, the speed was of dialup quality. So my bill was 22 rupees for me and 10rs for Hari. He didn’t have change smaller than a 10rs so I ended up paying 30rs for Hari and I.

We ate in the restaurant with our parka and gloves on. We opted for something that didn’t contain rice or noodles seeing how we had rice for breakfast. I ordered fried chicken with French fries. We had to order it a few hours earlier and let them know when we wanted it. We stated that we would be back at 6pm. We eventually ate at 6:45 and the temperature of my fries indicated that they were done at 6pm. My chicken was warm and tasted okay but it was hard and chewy and I was convinced that another scrawny chicken bit the big one for these few nuggets. But hey, it was a treat and I did enjoy the non-rice, North American attempted meal.

We went to bed by 8pm as we were tired and there was nothing else to do. At 6:30am the next day, we were down waiting for our previously ordered “simple breakfast” which advertised being eggs any style, hash browns and toast. Here is a picture of our breakfast. The toast was more like a giant soft cracker and the hash browns were fried potatoes, and the “over easy” wasn’t so easy. While enjoying it we asked for a second egg. Our total bill for this hotel, food and lodging was 1,700rs ($21)and almost half of the charge of the Chauhottar guest house.

We mosey on down to our bus which is nicer than our previous bus. It was at one time a luxurious bus with air directors and reading lights like you find on an airplane. But that is now just a reminder of once was.

The last trip we found two other westerners who ended up being Canadians. On this trip, there were three more Canadians besides Aaron and I; all three from Quebec. We only spoke to one of them who had a stereo typical French accent; the kind late night comedians on TV make fun of. Maybe only Canadians come to Nepal in January and everyone else waits until it is warmer out.

At one point we stop for a break. As I am eating a meal, I can’t help but notice another bus passing by. The unusual thing to me was the goats on top of the bus. While it is not real easy to see on this picture, you can see them. Here is a zoom of the goats.


After an 8 hour ride from Dhunche, we arrive back home via a small taxi.