214.953 miles from Everest

This weekend, after three weeks of intensive language study we took a couple of days off to spend some time with Lucy’s parents who were passing through on their way home from Singapore.  We decided to get out of the busyness of Kathmandu valley and head south to the Terai (the name given for the flat plains of Nepal that border with India).

In what felt a little like an MI5 style of travel arrangements we phoned a number given to us by a friend.  When the man answered at the other end we confirmed his identity then stated the name of our contact.  This eased the conversation and we were immediately given instructions to be outside a certain landmark on a certain day on a certain time and everything else would by then, we were assured, have been arranged.  So on the appropriate morning we were almost ready to leave when we got a phone call from an unknown number telling us “I am here.” After some frantic wracking of the brains and the subsequently cobbled together Nepali we realised that this was the person we were supposed to meet kindly just wanting to let us know that they were at the rendezvous. We met him with no further problems and were ushered unto the waiting vehicle where we were handed an envelope and the journey began!

Travelling in Nepal is more like a cross between a rollercoaster ride and being in a washing machine on spin cycle (well for your stomach at least!)  With no set rules that in practice apply one should not be surprised to find oneself playing chicken with an articulated lorry on a blind bend of an un-tarmaced road half way up what we might call a mountain (the Nepali’s would class as a hill) with a sheer drop beneath you leading to the dried up riverbed below, that is waiting for the monsoon rains, or you to fall, whichever comes first!  And so it was with incredible skill that our driver negotiated such roads that led us from Kathmandu valley in what would be classed as the middle hills with a backdrop of Himalayas to the flat lands of the Terai. Here the horizon stretched out as far as the eye can see in both directions uninterrupted by any kind on bump on the landscape, and the sky somehow seemed a whole lot bigger all of a sudden. The feel of the Terai is more tropical with the temperatures noticeably warmer at the lower altitude and miles of fields interspersed with traditional mud hut villages and the occasional bigger, more developed town. 

It was at one of these towns that we stopped without warning and another unknown man got into our vehicle and, after greeting us with a warm smile, asked if we had the paper. This we concluded must be the contents of the envelope we had received earlier. It appeared we were correct in our assumption and we drove on to our hotel and had a wonderful couple of days being introduced to some of the local culture and wildlife, which included a baby rhino and twin toddler elephants, before repeating the 4.5hr journey in reverse!