Trekking to pokhara day 4

We made it to pokhara car of the bumpy bus. The bus followed a river bed for a couple kilometres, not sure what they do when the river is up in monsoon?

Trekking to Pokhara day 3

When we woke at dawn the first children had already started to gather at our door. But this time they had toys to show us. Lukey immediately set to "mowing like grandpa".

Then the baby goats came out to play and Lukey found the stonemill by the kitchen and poured in corn and ground it up to shouts of "Mokai pini"  ( grind corn!).

I (Rissa) found a lady making straw mats from the recently harvested ricestraw and Boyd chatted to the local school teacher.

 In short we dawdled, reluctant to leave the beautiful village knowing that bigger settlements were just around the corner.

By 10am all the children had left for school and the village grew quiet. Boyd had secured an offer to stay the night with a lovely man called Mahindra Kahan 7 kms away. He just happened to work in the school here and commuted every day by foot. So we set off confident that we had a bed for the night.

Leaving the road behind us we dropped down onto the river flats and followed the river until it met up with the road again and then meandered through some villages. We had lunch by a power station . Boyd and the kids went into investigate and reported back that it was fully kitted up  with equipment dated 2012 but seemed to be disused.

A lady and her baby joined us and shared some suntallas ( oranges) and we laughed as her tiny baby played with her goats.

We walked a little further and Lukey started dancing to Hindi music, as we rounded the corner we were beckoned into a wedding. The children quickly discovered a massive rice sacks fills with roti and popadoms with admiring AMA's ready to refill their plates.  Boyd and I tucked into delicious Dahl baht and curry, and as much sweet tea as we could manage. The father of the bride urged us to dance and dance and DANCE. Until,exhausted we made our excuse and snuk away.

Rissa dancing like a melon

Rambazaar was just across the river. A drab collection of concrete buildings, I was soo pleased that it was not on my map as we shuffled through it .

We navigated our way through a hand down map to Mahindras place asking at  neighbours houses and getting astonished look and gifts of oranges. Finally we arrived at his home to find his wife and two daughters and a tiny baby. The reception was a little cool.  And we couldn't figure out if Mahindra had let them know we were coming so we went for a short walk up the hill  hoping he would return soon.  Finding a quiet spot to sit and talk in Nepal is always tricky and so we discussed our options surrounded by children firing questions at us . "What is your name?"   "We could walk back to Grand Bazaar ". " Rissa" " What is your country? " " "New Zealand, its along way and we are already tired" " Sitzaland????" "No New ZEALAND " "What is his name?" " Anyway its nearly dark" "WHAT IS HIS NAME!" " Her name is Tara"  " And he?" I'm sure Mahindra will be home soon ." " And HE?" " His name is Luke. "

Mahindra got home shortly after we returned , His wife made some popcorn for the children and things warmed up a little. There was still some tension in the air and the kids felt it. So rather than  being the usual ice breakers, they broke out their full repertoire of tantrums and whinging.

Between whinging Mahindra told us that power station we had lunched at was disused because a slip had damaged a portion of the canal diverting the water from the river. It was a 10kwatt power station and had never been operational. He also told us that the way to make butter from buffalo milk was to make a curd or yogurt and then to churn it with a paddle in a pot until the butter comes to the surface.

That night we slept peacefully in a room adjoining the buffaloes quarters and in the morning she woke us hollering for a mate. Mahindra disappeared to take her to the bull and came back for an enormous plate of Dahl baht before walking to school. The children got a treat of rice pudding for breakfast with actual honey.

That morning we said our good byes and hopped on the bus to Pokera singing "the wheels on the bus go bump bump bump!!"

Heating the Buffalo milk for pasturising