Escape to the Country.

Yesterday wasn’t my finest hour. I don’t think it came across so much in the previous post, but I wasn’t having the best of times. I’d slept really badly and was generally being aggravated by absolutely everything. It happens sometimes.

Today however, much better! It’s a miracle really as again I didn’t sleep too well, I was too busy trying to get as little of the duvet touching my skin but at the same time staying warm. To say the least, last nights hotel made me glad I’d had all my vaccinations. Despite being served a spicy potato curry for breakfast (you can only begin to imagine my thoughts on this), I was actually feeling really positive and ready to face the long day ahead.

And what a long day it has been. We started off again in Duipiple, popping into the office and visiting the other host home, which, may I add, has a cute baby. Bonus points to this house, and I’m already super jealous of whoever gets to live there. From here the details get a bit hazy because I can’t quite remember the order of the villages, but basically we visited the four other places within Lamjung. Essentially all of the villages are in a line along the valley, so once I get used to it, it should be easy enough to get around.

Casually stopping mid River Road to wash the bus. 

When I say easy to get around, I mean easy to navigate. Getting around isn’t quite so easy and there’s going to be a lot of walking over the next few months. Fortunately for our visits today, we had a jeep. I was a bit dubious of the driver; he didn’t really seem to slow down too much- not even when small rocks from the roadside were tumbling down the steep verges of the mountain (hill? Not sure). Luckily I was in a really positive frame of mind and took it as one of those occasions where you just need to sit back, keep smiling and have faith. We managed to complete the day in one piece so that’s the most important part.

The view from the top of one of the mountain villages.

Not entirely sure what this was for, but something ceremonial from one of the village schools.

Some host family members. 

The view from my host home. 

Visiting the host homes and village schools really opened my eyes to life in Rural Nepal. Although we did see one place yesterday, today really was a learning experience. I’m going to need to get some decent photos because words really don’t do it much justice. Lamjung valley is so vast and so, so beautiful. It’s getting really hot here now and so standing up at the top of one of the mountains looking down over the whole area was simply amazing. It’s quite dusty at the moment but on a clear day I’ll be able to see even more. Although the standard of living is nothing like what I’m used to, the volunteers living in the remote host homes are going to have such a wonderful experience. There are almost no vehicles and virtually every home has it’s own mini-farm. All of the homes I visited have chickens, most have goats and some have cows too. One home also had a family of monkeys sat outside, but I don't think these are very welcome as they steal the crops. Seeing lots of baby goats definitely improved my already chirpy mood. Above all else, it’s so very peaceful. Kathmandu is great, but so noisy and so dirty. Going out to Lamjung was literally a breath of fresh air.

Once we’d visited all four of the villages, which for me mostly just involved awkwardly smiling whilst everyone chatted away in Nepali, we drove up to Besi Sahar, which is where I’m currently spending a very relaxed evening. Besi Sahar is probably the closest thing to a large town anywhere near Lamjung and is where I’ll be returning to in just over a week to do the in-community training with the volunteers. 

I’m feeling very smug right now because not only do I have power and Internet in my room, but I’ve also got a western toilet AND a semi-decent mattress. To top it all off, one of the local people bought me a Dairy Milk earlier. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Lizzie x