Insight through Words

A long-pending bucket list, I got to go see for myself the beautiful Kuri village on the weekend of my birthday which was totally coincidental. We had our Hiace van, but knowing beforehand it won't take us to Charikot, we decided to take a bus from Kathmandu itself. We found a reasonable package deal from Fireside Resort at Kuri with pick up, drop off, bed, breakfast, and dinner. Our bus was to pick us up at 7 and leave by 7:30 am in the morning but the bus driver demanded extra money at the last minute with the travel manager and hence we were at Sallaghari until 11 am. Fortunately, he (Santosh Ji) managed to get us another bus. We stopped by Sukute for lunch at 2 pm. Our driver was an old man and his driving pace was very safe meaning we would be very late when we reached our destination. But better safe than sorry. Due to the rain a day before, the roads in some places were very muddy and slippery and hence our bus stuck in 2 places. We lost about 1 hour in that chaos. By 6 w...

The Amazing Experience of Exploring Australian Camp Hikers: Anil Dongol, (organizer, absent in person due to fever, but present in words as irony), Keshab Maharjan, Teena Dongol, Rina Shrestha, Bimal Karki, Binjita Aryal, Saroj Thapa, Dilip Kunwar, Raj Thapa, Bhushan Shrestha, and myself Kushma Thapa. Departure time: Stated 6am, actual 7am. Date of Hike: 22 nd -23 rd July 2017. Some experiences leave you so speechless, you cannot decide where to start. Hence skipping the part about the mundane routine of the hikers having their breakfast at Naubise (new eating place this time), lunch at Abu Khairini’s   “Thakali Shanta Hotel and Lodge” and in between bathroom breaks, let's jump into the part where we hired a Sumo, or so I think, from the Tudhikhel of Pokhara and experienced the bumpy sumo ride. I am sure the sumo driver assured Keshab Dai five times that our bags on the roof of the vehicle were safe regardless of not being tied. Nevertheless, the driver had to tie up ...

Hiking to Ghanpokhara Date: August 21-August 22, 2016 With packed bags and hiking shoes, we left the office premises at 7am in the morning. We hadn’t reached very far when we got a call from Sameer. He had missed the van so we asked him to catch us at Kalimati where we opted to have tea and a light breakfast while awaiting him. At around 7:45, of course after also picking Sameer, we headed for our journey. The road from Kalanki to Thankot was a mess. Leaving aside the details of where we stopped and where we had our breakfast, after crossing Muglin, near marsyangdi hyrdo power area we stopped at a waterfall site. God help us hike since our shoes and our single pair of socks were totally drenched in our adventure of climbing the rocks to get a nearer view of the top of the waterfall. Off then we went, everyone, taking a turn to try playing the ukulele, singing songs at times too loud with a hungry stomach. We stopped at the very popular Besisahar khana spot of Verisk which was ...

5:50 AM: The orange lining of the sky beautified the dawn. The cold wind was rustling as it danced in rhythm with the leaves and branches of the trees around and reddening our noses as we breathed in the fresh cold air. We were cold on the outside with every touch of the chilling breeze and warming up from the inside with every struggling step nearing the tower. Finally, when we reached the top of the view tower, we were left breathless and enthralled as the mountain range and the many hillocks all around the tower came into view. Rightly named, the place with the view of 100 hillocks i.e. Sai-lung, today was glowing from the light of the bright and full moon in the west while we waited for the sun to rise from the east.  At 6:46pm, we finally saw a glimpse of a ray of light. The sun was rising. Everyone geared up and were ready to capture the majestic moment in any way they could. The sun rose like no other day. The sun rose like none of us had ever seen before. Like a bul...