Nepal III: Leaving Kathmandu for the mountains

Clambering into our jeep early in the morning, we left the profanity of the city and stretched our day into the periphery and extensive uplands of Nepal. By day end we were in a small village, resting assuredly by the banks of a river and contemplating our next days intimate beginning of our walk up the valley. We made it through about 100km or rural Nepal roadways to the village that cradled our bones, preparing us for the days ahead.

A small(er) village where we stopped for breakfast.

The scenic and majestic blood thinning roadway that took us most of the way from Kathmandu to our trailhead.

Physics. Simple really, but seemingly not so. We managed to pass this bus, the details of which I am unsure of still today. But we did it.

Ahhh. The place that was completely nondescript on the way in, but so pivotal on the way home. We stopped here for lunch on the way in. Nine days later we were forced to start our tenuous walk home to Kathmandu through the back valley's and hinterland of Nepal from here; it bellied our hopes of a bus, jeep or anything and did nothing but feed us and point us and our feet in the direction of Kathmandu, some 100 km's away.

Nine days after this picture was taken, we started walking what would be about 100 km home. More, much more, on this in further posts.

Rest, sleep. This was the village that we slept in before starting our hike into the mountains.

At this point the experience and the wonder filled us to the brim. It was excessively amazing and eye opening; the culture and lifestyle alone was graciously different. In this picture the man is wearing traditional (and common) clothing of Tibetan heritage. More on this later, but this rural area dilineated the boundary between Indian-influenced culture and Tibetan-influenced culture. It was quite an interesting and harmless (sort of) boundary and mixing of cultures and religion that Islam and Christianity could take a lesson from. However, not too many lessons because the history is bloody enough to keep any religious text well filled with stories. At least we didn't have to suffer through the obtuse imposition of christian missionaries like Taiwan graced us with. Jesus has not yet succeeded at killing this culture; I hope that it forever stays this way.