Life goes on...

Hello hello again!

Sorry, it has taken so long time since the last update... But I have two good explanations; I got a neck ache, and decided to give a little rest to my neck and upper back (tried to avoid the computer some time) AND I haven't done anything to mention about...

The life goes on and my mind is, at least, every once in a while quite much in Finland already, that's not a bad thing, I guess. Anyway I don't feel too bored anymore because I've been spending my time running around the Patan and tried to find tailors and fabrics for trousers, evening dress and traditional women shirt called chsolo (I think). And I've found them! Evening dress is on its way, one chsolo is in my hands already and another one is ready to make as well as trousers with check design :) Today I'm going to buy the fabrics and bring them to the tailor near by our apartment, couple of days and I should have nice new clothes!

The woman on the right is wearing a chsolo.



Yesterday I decided to find out if I have any space left in my baggage (this is the thing what you could always do if you don't have anything to do ;). So I pre-packed my rucksack and backpack and for my surprise all my clothes fit in there! Then I decided to borrow the scale from our landlord and for my surprise the baggage was too heavy! Luckily only couple of kilos... So I can still buy something more! ;) After this exciting exercise I unpacked my bags and started to plan how I get all my stuff with me. That I'm still doing but without panic, "everything is gonna be alright ..."

During this month I've also had couple of field visits and the difference between spring and summer is more noticeable at the countryside than in the city (although the Bagmati river has more and more filled with water). The fields, the rice fields! They look so nice! Little bit green here and there and whole field covered by water. Beautiful! Going to the field by car isn't that comfortable because of the monsoon rains, the roads are very very bumpy and muddy but it's interesting journey anyway. Every time you can notice the changes of the season and see something new, last time there were new born calf and little chickens on the road so we needed to stop for a while. They were adorable!





The weather isn't that sunny anymore, it's raining every now and then and especially morning time is quite foggy like you can see on the photos taken at the countryside around 10 am and for comparing around 1 pm.





Oh and mention about seeing something new, I saw naked man on the main street of Patan! I didn't go to ask what he was doing but it seemed to be something with the drain, I don't know and don't even want to know more. The little animals are better! :)

That's about it this time, this may be my last text from Nepal (I'm not sure yet if I'm going to carry on with the blog in Finland), yesterday I was presenting a guide to girl from Taiwan will see what I'm going to be today...

And once again I'll congratulate my close friend who became a married woman on Saturday! I'm happy for you both! And hope that you'll live happily together forever :)

Heli

I'm not from HOLLAND, not even from Germany!!!

Hey you!

That title is what I've had to correct more than often, almost all the people I talk with first ask if I'm from Holland and the second guess is if I'm a German. But no, I'm really not although I'm tall and blond. Germans and Dutch are beautiful but that assumption pisses me of every once in a while not to mention the thing that I sometimes feel like I'm a celebrity and it's not a good feeling. Everybody seems to know or at least recognise me and I'm supposed to say hello every one of them. Now I think I know how celebrities feel like, it's quite hard to act like everybody is your friend although you haven't met them ever before… Please locals, try to understand, I'm not a bad or angry person although I ignore many of you. I'm not looking for Nepali boyfriend either although I wear a top!

Despite the "celebrity" feeling my time doesn't feel too bad and boring anymore because I've found some good ways to spend my more-than-enough-free time. Now I think I can survive for these last four weeks with my new activities. First of all I've carried on with cooking… Actually I've also baked,,, a bread,,, and I fried it on the pan because we don't have oven :D So my wheat bread is very close to the Finnish hard bread, it's thin and hard, but anyway it's quite tasty although it may not look so. I found also cheese made of YAK's milk from the grocery store! If I'm not able to see living yaks I have at least opportunity to taste the cheese! That looks same than the "normal" ones and it tastes quite good, different than basic cheese but not too much, maybe it has a bit stronger taste compared to others. And if somebody thinks that yak's milk is pink (I've heard that) I can say that at least the cheese isn't.

Because I like to cook, bake and eat I also need some exercise, so I've started to walk quite long distances. Of course I did my morning walks, but I had to change the time because now I've something else to do in the mornings, I'll tell you more later on. Nowadays if I needed to do something in the centre of Kathmandu I walk there and back and it takes about one and half hour. I usually prefer my legs and map instead of taxi if I need to find some special place. That's why I once wandered to the airport (which is about 5–7 kilometres away from the Kathmandu centre) when I was trying to find a cinema at the centre… Then it was good idea to catch a taxi when the airplanes started to look too big :) The only problems with the walking in here are the lack of space and badly polluted air. There are footpaths for walkers in the centre but if the traffic doesn't move on the roads the motorcycles take shortcuts and drive on the footpaths, very nice! And during daytimes the air is in unbelievable bad condition, it's so dusty and it looks like fog in the mornings. You can feel how the little particles are flying towards your face and body and you can only hope that your lungs cope with that amount of pollution. At least until now I haven't had any problems and hopefully I won't get them either. I was very happy to read that some students are starting a campaign for using more bicycles in Kathmandu. The campaign is called Kathmandu cycle city 2020 (KCC) and the purpose is to get people and city more bicycle friendly till the year 2020. I really hope it works!

Oh yeah, I said I was trying to find a cinema and with the help of taxi driver I finally found it before the movie started. So at the first time in my life I went to movies in Nepal but luckily and surprisingly it was quite same than going to movies in Finland, England or in Mexico. The price was nice, 250 rupees for the best places (the price depends on the place). There was one clear difference compared to the other countries I've been, there was only one option for the movie you could watch so the movie was very easy to choose ;) The movie they were showing was Karate Kid with Jackie Chan and it was perfect for my emotions at that time. I could so easily identify myself to a little boy who moved from US to China ;) When I'll get back from here I'll start Kungfu, Hapkido or something else, for sure! :)

Talking about hobbies I also have one in here, yeah! Sadly but true It's not riding… But it's YOGA! And that's the thing what takes one hour or so of my mornings. The yoga in here is quite common but there are only a few places where foreigners can get the teaching in English. There is also a big gap between the prices, in some place you may get a one month course (everyday) for 2000 rupees and in another place you have to pay about 200 EUROS for one week course (5 times/week). Mine is not cheap but it's not the most expensive either and I get private lessons which is good. So nowadays about twice in a week I have thought lessons at seven in the morning and other times I try to do yoga by myself on the top of or building after I've woke up :) Will see how long this lasts, hopefully very long…

And to the end of this text I could say that little red ants piss me of a quite much nowadays. We have always had them and they get everywhere and they go everywhere where they find something sweet to eat, they make their way even to a little bit opened packet of muesli. Yesterday I proved that by eating, by accident, tens of swimming ants with my morning muesli before I got angry and but the rest of the packet to the freezer locker of our fridge! So next time I can eat muesli with delicious frozen, hopefully dead, ants, and I'm very happy about that :P But Happier I was when I took a drive with three-wheel-electric tempo sitting on the FRONT seat! I can say that the machinery of that type of vehicle has already seen its best days. And skirt isn't the best dress to wear while travelling in the front, it may be that you got stuck with it in the wings of rotating propeller…

That's quite much for now, write to you more in next time, keep your mind clear, and mind with the body in the present, not in the past and not in the future either, in the present! And take a deep breath, see ya!

Heli (Patan gate and the "home"streets on the photo)

It's SO boring!

Hi hi!

Sorry, you had to wait again new text, but anyway it was nice to notice that at least some read this blog ;)

Because there hasn't happened too much in my life lately I'm going to tell you just about the general life of us here in Kathmandu, Nepal. We live in a quite quiet and calm (if you can call so any place around Kathmandu) area in the one district, Lalitpur, of Kathmandu. This part of Lalitpur is called Patan like I've already mentioned before. Actually to get here you need to pay 200 rubees as an entrance fee because this is part of the historic city of Patan and near by is the famous Patan durbar square with a group of temples. We have managed to come and go in an out this area without paying when we have just said that we're residents BUT a couple of days ago while we were on our way to museum café at the durbar square the guard of the area stopped us and demanded us to pay the fee, omg, we've lived in this area about 1,5 months and now we had to pay the fee?!? We were pissed but no can do we paid the fee and got sticker on our chest, yeah! Problem was solved and we don't have to worry about being caught again.



Actually the eating at the museum café was one of the few restaurant visits of mine in here, eating outside is SO expensive, no not really, you get a very good dinner max with about 5 euros but eating at home saves your money anyway ;) It's interesting to cook here with a gas stove and the ingredients are packed weirdly, for example you get milk in the plastic bag and yoghurt is covered with piece of paper in a bowl made of clay. Until now I've cooked rice, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, pasta and noodles, mixed with everything what have come to my mind. The "fresh" meat I won't buy because it looks so ugly on the tables in the open area beside the dusty streets flies flying all around of it. But instead of the fresh meat I found some sausages from the grocery store, so next time I can fry meat as well!





Because it has been a little bit boring lately, I've got very sleepy quite early on the evenings and I've also gone to bed already around eight, nine o'clock. I've noticed that ten hours sleep is enough so sometimes I've woken up already five or six am :) It's not unusual in Nepal, usually the locals' day starts around five with ringing the bells and worshipping their Gods. The low sound of the bells is quite annoying if you try still to sleep, but nowadays it's kind of alarm for me like the sound of badminton rackets' of our landlord as well. I don't know if they are practicing for world championship or what, but they have daily training on the street (no nets, no nothing professional) every morning starting around five am! Another weird thing is the world cup of the football. Nepal doesn't have own team, but still they are very keen on football, everywhere is TV on and they have even brought big screens on the streets. Load shedding times are forgotten probably because of people want to watch football and if you need to buy some foodstuff from the little shops it may be that the shop keeper is watching and listening the game with one eye and ear and only the another one is looking and hearing what you want. :D The games cause also some problems with trying to fall asleep, because when some team gets goal locals shout… out loud! And if there isn't any game going on in the evenings there are dogs which have their daily fight of territories…

Anyway once I've fell asleep I'll sleep till next morning and wake up lively even at the 6 am. And down to lack of different activities I've started to go for a walk almost straight from the bed. It's nice to walk on the streets early in the morning, it's still quite quiet and not too hot. During my morning walks I've seen women bringing some offerings (rice, flowers, etc.) to the Gods outside of their homes and some pigs in their morning walks and breakfast (in the middle of rubbish, and people even think that pigs eat rubbish?!?!) on the street near by our house. Funny.





During daytimes I've started to read Sinuhe The Egyptian which is surprisingly interesting and I may even reach the end of the book with about 700 pages! :) Will see. I've started also to use tempos (van with seats) and tuktuks(?!?!) (electrical three-wheel-vehicle, on the photo) instead of taxis between centre of Kathmandu and Patan. Those little vehicles are funny, cheap and you're not always sure where they drop you, so why not to use them, it takes time and you may see new places :). Once I got a short drive by the rickshaw as well, I felt like a real tourist sitting behind a man who was driving the three-wheel bicycle on the streets of Thamel (main tourist area) but anyway the lift was comfortable and I got an one new experience :)



I've visited also in Bhaktapur which is little town near by Kathmandu. The town was nice with its durbar square (on the first photo) filled up with temples and pottery shops with lovely clay decorations. The entrance fee was 700 rupees, about 7 EUROS, so I won't go there again. Too expensive. Anyway the town was seen enough in one day. After Bhaktapur I visited in Pashupatinath, where you can see e.g. Hindu temples and there some Hindus have their funerals as well. Coincidentally I was in Pashupatinath while there was funeral and I saw the ceremony. I tried to hide behind other people and I didn't take any photos, so hopefully the bereaved family didn't mind (there are burning bodies on the photo but that's not from the funeral). After the ceremony family members burn the body which is covered by yellow, white and orange clothes by the river Bagmati and the ash naturally goes to the river after a while. Bagmati river is holy river and how beautiful that sounds the Bagmati suffers a lot because of its position. It smells, it's full of rubbish and no one thinks it should be cleaned. Because it's holy river…





Near by Pashupatinath there is also Bodhnath with its big stupa (on the photo) and because I had time enough I decided to visit there as well. The stupa was quickly seen and walked around so I ventured to go to see the monastery near by the stupa as well. It's mystical place with a many rules and monks wearing yellow-orange-red clothes. The building itself was very colourful and it wasn't scary at all despite the loud low speaking sound of man from the loudspeakers. I got a very mystical and respectful feeling while visiting at that area mostly because of that sound…



That's basically what I've been up to lately. I've also got my hair cut, they are quite nice actually although the cut is made by nepali barber ;) The pond Pimbahal Pokhari beside our building has got new inhabitants, some fish and little ducks hundreds even thousands of them and it's nice to watch what they're doing every now and then :) And that's it, tomorrow I'm planning to go again to Thamel and maybe in some day I visit also Natural history museum of Kathmandu. By the way now it's time for finnish midsummer festival and I'm little bit pissed of because of Embassy of Finland has sauna-night today, but I'm not invited because I've been lazy and slow with filling up the embassy's information form of me… But no can do, at least I prepared my own midsummer meal and ate candies… a lot! :)

See you again SOON, I promise!

Heli



And still, nepali cats are beautiful! :)

Waited vacation

Hello hello, I'm back again!

I have a nice vacation lasting about ten days behind. Like I said earlier I was going to go to Chitwan first and after that to Pokhara. Actually we had bought our bus tickets to Chitwan (huge 350 Rs) in advance at the day before and on Sunday morning we headed to the bus station to find our bus. Surprise surprise, when we asked about our bus to Chitwan we were told that there isn't any busses going to Chitwan at that day due to strike of docktor's kidnapping case (That can happen only in NEPAL!). The first thought was that we were duped and because of that we asked more about situation in Chitwan. All the answers were the same: there wasn't any busses going to Chitwan on Sunday. Okay, we were standing at the bus "station" (there are busses on line beside the road and you have to pick the right one by asking) with fully packed rugsacks and tried to think about another options. We didn't feel too good with thinking about going back to Patan and wait till another day IF we had been able to go to Chitwan then. After a while we decided to change the direction and head to Pokhara. So we lost 350 Rs for bus meant-to-go-to-Chitwan, paid another 350 Rs for bus to Pokhara and were very happy that we hadn't plan or booked anything else beforehand!

The journey to Pokhara took a long long time, there were some road blocks on the way and the journey which normally takes about 5 to 7 hours took about 10 or more hours. About four hours of that time the bus was basically just standing between another vehicles on the line. When we finally started to move it started to rain as well… And the roof of the bus started to leak :D Due to road blocks we arrived to Pokhara, which is guarded by Annapurna mountain range, in the evening. The taxi drivers gathered quickly around us, it was annoying but anyway it was easy to get a lift to the one hotel (Peace eye guest house) which we picked up from Lonely Planet. The hotel was nice and it was funny coincidence that when we were thinking out loud in finnish whether we should take the offered room or not, the owner asked if we're from Finland. He had some finnish friends and he recognized our language while we're talking only a couple of sentences in finnish…

Pokhara is the area of opportunities, it's a little town surrounded by Annapurna mountain range including three of the world's biggest mountains which means that in clear weather the views are awesome and you're able to see the mountains reflecting off the lake next to the "main tourist"street of the Pokhara. But of course this time of the year it's very rare that you can see even a glimpse of the snowcapped mountains and we had that moment only in some early mornings because of clouds. Never mind. Because of the environment of Pokhara there are a lot of activities you can do. On the next morning after our arrival I went to do what I've been wanting to do before I came to Nepal, I went to PARAGLIDING! I flied above some hills and the whole city of Pokhara and landed by the lake with the pilot of course. It was fun especially when I got a chance to fly "by myself". There was only a one thing I had forgotten; I don't like swinging too much, or actually my tummy doesn't like and paragliding is basically swinging in the sky but anyway I survived although the pilot wanted to show me a "nice" twists and swings at the end of the flight :D The paragliding was interesting but I still want to do parachuting someday, I want my adrenalin flowing and paragliding was too "easy" for that ;)



Overall we stayed in Pokhara a couple of days and I was meant also to go for a horseback riding. I was very exited about it but when I saw the horse (which could have been even worse but not smaller for my size of rider) and the way how the riding would have been organised I got disappointed and cancelled my ride. After more than ten years of riding I DON'T need a leader to walk beside my horse, neither I wouldn't pay double price to get another horse for the leader/guide! If I had known that to happen I'd have gone to do some rafting on that day but I missed that because I hadn't booked the rafting the day before. Anyway instead of those activities I did some shopping (bought skirt, trousers, other clothes and some jewellery) and ate well :) During that day I just enjoyed the spirit of the little touristy street full of cafes, restaurants, travel agents and shops, I also wrote some post cards while sitting by the lake where I walked earlier and got some water buffalos to pose for me during their daily bath on the mudhole. So the day ended up nicely and everybody was happy.





The next day we finally headed by the bus filled up with nepali songs to the Chitwan national park and the journey was surprisingly quick. After Pokhara Chitwan felt like a totally dead place, it's end of the season, and there was only few people, not to mention the tourists, in the town. Of course it's nice to be with locals but in a strange place it's also a relief to see some tourists as well. There was few but anyway there wasn't too many locals either. Maybe the one reason was that it was afternoon when we arrived and the temperature was nearly + 40 degrees Celsius! Amazing, you didn't have to do nothing but just sit and you were sweating, que bueno! I could say in Spanish :D Because of the heath all the activities started in the early morning and lasted till not over about 11 am. After morning activities there wasn't too much to do. I would have liked to do some canoeing but I skipped that due to lack of time and days (and I didn't want to spend too many afternoons without doing anything). At the first morning in Chitwan we had an ELEPHANT RIDE inside the jungle, it was fun and exiting! We saw a barking and spotted deer, wild boars, peacock and wild CHICKEN! :D But unfortunately we didn't see the animals we were looking for, no rhinos, no tigers although many people saw them in the same jungle almost at the same time we were there :/ But anyway life is life and wildlife have their own tricks, that's also the thing why it's so exiting. Anyway the elephant ride itself was interesting, a little painful, there was four of us on the little riding platform and the gait of elephant isn't the most comfortable gait ;) but with the elephant we were able to get very close to wildlife and they weren't scared of us. And every time when somebody of us (the other two, rich, grumbling, unsatisfied couple) drop something the mahout (the rider) "asked" the elephant to pick that thing up with its trunk and he did, kindly :). I think those two had quite a nice relationship, the mahout didn't use a metal hook, instead of that he had only wooden stick and he used quite much his voice. Normally the mahout rides the same elephant through its whole life.



After the ride we went for the breakfast by the river and saw riders and elephants having a bath, tourists were also able to join with them, so did us, too. It was fun! The elephant I was bathing with was quite little but very tricky. All of those elephants were trained to fall their side when asked but "my" elephant also shook itself when asked… It's difficult to stand on the back of elephant when it's shaking :D Playing with and on the elephant reminded me the summers with my siblings playing together with the big inside tyre of tractor on the lake at our summer cottage (the last time was in last summer, looking forward the next time! And the ages are between 19-37 ;) :D Of course if we started our day with elephants we also had to end it with them, so later during that day we went to the elephant breeding centre to see some baby elephants with their moms. I arrived to the centre around 4 pm and it was just the perfect timing, I saw the stars of the centre arriving from their daily grassing trip back to "home" (moms and calves spend most of the time playing and eating in the woods and the grasslands). By stars I mean male twins at the age of 18 months, at the moment they're the youngest calves at the centre and they are cute although I tried to hide from them behind the fence when they arrived. They're about as tall as I am and little bit stronger, I guess ;) Sadly when they got to their shelter with their mom they were shackled from their front leg :/ At least they were together. At the age of two-three they'll be separated from their mom and shackled tight from the both of the front legs and maybe from the head also. During that period they may be slightly injured, I don't know what that means and I don't even want to know… Photos of that process reminded me of the common way of training horses years ago (they still do it in some places), hopefully there will be also an elephant whisperer in someday, WWF try their best…




The day after elephant day was meant to be a horse day. At this time I had seen the stables and the horses before so I knew what to expect at the Nirvana's horses resort and I WAS exited! I guess it's only place in the whole Nepal where you're able to do a real horse back riding-treks. The French-Spanish-Nepali-stables has only five horses yet, through breed Marwari and Kathiawari stallions and geldings. They are small horses so I got the biggest one of them :) It was interesting to sit on the stallion at the first time of my life, but it felt the same than with geldings and mares :) Although stallions are self-confident I think the treks might be easier to organize with geldings (and mares) because with stallions you have to be little bit more careful not to go too close to each other or to mares. Anyway I didn't have any problems with my handsome "twisted-ear" Samsara although at the one point he got pissed of flies, wailed and galloped a little. The views were beautiful, we mostly walked (the owner was worried about the possible mud and the legs of horses) by the river and open areas watching some birds and deer. When we headed back to the stables after a couple of hours we had to cross the river, it was fun, my legs got wet! :D The rest of the day I just walked, watched and enjoyed the silence of Chitwan. In the evening I sat a long time at the restaurant by the river and witnessed the beautiful sunset while some men were still having a bath with elephants. At the next morning I took a bus back to Kathmandu where I'm staying at the moment and waiting the next visit to Devichaur (which will be tomorrow). I enjoyed the trip and I still hope that I have an opportunity to go rafting somewhere and maybe attend to a yoga course as well :D







By the way, I'm starting to get pissed of 5 am awakening by some kind of bells near by this apartment and the continuously sound, flop flop flop… from the badminton bats while our landlords have their daily exercise starting around 5.30 am. If you wake up around eight in the morning it's late in Nepal, the morning starts around 5 am, everywhere! :D Another annoying thing is umbrellas. If it's raining you use them, if it's shining you use them, basically there isn't a time when you wouldn't use an umbrella. When you have one you can use it whenever and wherever you want. If you want to open it at rush it's not your problem if other people have difficulties trying to pass or walk beside you… :P

See you later alligator!

I almost forgot to mention that I travelled by the tempo/tuck tuck-whatever, yesterday at the first time of my life! Hihhih! And I visited at the so called monkey-temple, Swayambhunath, it was high on the hill, the place and the stubas looked nice and there were some monkeys around them :) I'm sorry there isn't any photos in this text, I had problems with uploading them, it's getting late and I have to wake up early tomorrow so if you want to see photos, be patient and check this out on sunday again :)

VACATION!

Hi my dear readers, have you already missed me a lot?! Of course, I understand, but no can do, I had some misunderstandings etc. with this blog and I couldn't sign in for a couple of weeks, actually the web page said that the blog is destroyed, luckily it wasn't and now everything should be in order again! Finally!

Anyway there hasn't happened too much while the blog was put on ice, we had couple of field visits and at the one time we got announcement early in the "day-off"-morning (around 6 am) that there's a some kind of meeting at the field office and we should join there as well. So we had to leave to the field again during afternoon and say goodbye to our day off. After that meeting we got one free day and went back to the field for couple of nights. I like being on the field, the countryside of Nepal is so interesting and the views and the night's and morning's silence are amazing, but there still is some little problems as well (if you have to stay there more than one night). The place (one room near by the field office) where we usually stay over night is alright although it hasn't windows, only the HOLES on the wall, it's well air conditioned then ;) and the food is not that good except one little shop where we have sometimes our breakfast (= milk tea and biscuits). But refusal of offered food is a massive insult in Nepal which means that though we had eaten a great dinner, lunch or whatever in this little shop we would have had to eat at least a little bit the offered not-so-good food, so called "mud", at the field office as well. And that makes the life a bit difficult every once in a while. One more complicated thing is also the freshen up, there isn't any shower, only basins and a water tap and if you try to fresh yourself up in the evening there isn't any light either which makes everything even more interesting. The toilet is basically a hole in the floor, which I may mentioned already before, and it takes time to get used to it. But anyway despite those little things living in the countryside every now and then is nice and it helps me to detach myself from the hectic Kathmandu-life perfectly. I like it! (As long as I don't have to spend there too many nights).







Last two night's visit at the field was again exhausting but interesting. We arrived to the field office with two nepali student Bikash and Mina during afternoon and just talked, played (snake-game and ludo) and hanged around. Actually it was nice way to spend our spare time. On the next morning we were meant to walk to the farthermost parts of the village with the staff of CODEF field office. The main tasks we had were interviewing locals, staff of the schools and health posts, but there was only one school open on our way and we didn't see any health posts so we had to content ourselves just with interviewing locals. The answers were interesting, basically villagers in the farthermost part of the Devichaur don't have any clue of anything better, they give birth at their home, keep the cow in the kitchen and poo on the paths. There is a huge difference in the knowledge between villagers in different parts of the Devichaur not to mention the difference between villagers and the city dwellers.





The journey (by walking) to those places mentioned above was again very hard because of narrow paths and high climbs, the normal nepali geography. This journey differed from the journeys before because at this time we hiked in the local forest (where is said to be some tigers and wild boars) in the middle of leeches, yak! We survived and managed to leave those little disgusting things behind us. Unfortunately we didn't meet any tiger or wild boar but I saw some familiar birds, cuckoo and coal tit, if my eyes didn't lie?!?!

The day was soooo loooong but I was happy that I managed to walk the long long journey again. In the next day we came back to Patan so tired but so happy early in the morning and in here Yaba told us that we're going to have a VACATION lasting about 10 DAYS!!! And that's it. Today we wandered around Thamel, Kathmandu and… Bought bus tickets to CHITWAN NATIONAL PARK!!! The plan is to stay there a couple of nights and then head to the Pokhara and if I'm lucky I get a chance to do paragliding in there! I'm so excited! At first a little elephant trekking and elephant bath while watching rhinos and tigers (hopefully) and then some horse back riding, canoeing, rafting and PARAGLIDING (hopefully), awesome!!! So stay on line, there may be interesting stuff to read after a week :) Keep in touch!

H.

By the way I bought a cheese(?)cubes made of yak's milk and they're hard like a rock, if you know how to eat them, let me know :)

Living on the edge

(There is two persons on the cliff)
Yeah, that's where we walked and lived close by for overnight, nice steep, huh?! Now I'm going to think back for few days and trying to get you into it as well. After the first visit at the village Devichaur, we got a one day off before our next visit which was going to start on wednesday 12.5. During our day off I trained my language skills with nepali, we did some shopping, and tried to think hard what we'll need during our overnight-staying in the middle of nowhere, at the CODEF's field office in Devichaur. I was SO happy that my lovely little sister had generously loaned her beloved sleeping back to me for my time in Nepal. Thinking afterwards, that bag was an GOOD idea! Like some juice, a pack of biscuits and sneakers as well.

We left from our apartment, Kathmandu, Patan, around ten o'clock in the Wednesday morning and our lift was a little truck with some furnitures on the platform. The journey went nicely despite bad, sandy and bumpy road. At the office we had some rest and during that time I tried to learn how to use the local latrine, which means basically little, dim and unsanitary hovel with water bucket and the hole on the floor. That's what I'm possibly going to improve, will see, anyway I have to say that human being is able to adapt many kind of conventions in a quite short time if it has to ;) After a while we started our journey, by foot to the places where Jari was going to take some water samples and do some tests of the water which was meant for the households' use (Jari's thesis is going to be about the quality of drinking water in Devichaur). We walked on the side of the river (where the water goes to some households) and during our journey we saw a calf, some kids having a bath and cow's poo on the river, NICEE! Despite those things what we saw Jari didn't find any marks of phosphorus or ammonia and now we are just waiting for the results of the coliformic bacteria (which cause diarrhea) but so far I can say that the results won't be that good, surprise?! I don't think so although I'd like to believe so :/ The journey itself was an experience and I can really say that I like the countryside of Nepal, the traditional agriculture in there (fields are made with the help of bulls etc.), the views, the everything. Jari took samples from the main water source which was in the woods, after that we climbed up in the middle of the embankmented mountainside to the one farm if I can call it so, in Nepal farm means house, couple of goats and cows at the little backyard. There we took some samples from the farm's tap where was used a filter, a piece of cloth on the tap. Our last point was a water tank where the water of two different sources is mixed and where the water goes to the "centre" (to area where the field office is) of the village.

The whole episode took about half a day and after that we were quite tired and hungry. At the field office became clear that we should have taken some real food more with us because we were told by CODEF's staff that we shouldn't eat the local food (made of not-that-hygienic materials and we're not that used to these bacteria yet) but there WASN'T ANY food with taking care of our "needs"! I don't mean that we'd have needed to have some gourmet dinner but I just thought that there would be some kind of dinner made of something else than the local materials or at least a bread (there isn't any shops near by). But no can do. We went in one dim house (the door is little, I need to bend to get in), actually it's a room, which was filled with smoke and smell of food. There we sat down on the floor by the plates and, of course, our plates were already full of rice (maybe 500 gramms) boiled in that same water we tested earlier. With rice we got some spicy potatos, beans and a bit of a cold sauce. It's not that appropriate to leave food on the plate, so… I ate the dinner kindly thinking in every spoonful how many protozoa and different kind of bacteria I'll get… The food tasted good, but…

After the interesting dinner we started to go to bed and we faced to the cruel reality; there was four of us (me, Jari, Hari office worker and Mina our counterpart) and only two blankets on the thin mattresses (which we call almost as a mat in Finland). The thing was that I would share the one room with Mina, two mattresses and a one blanket and Jari and Hari would do the same in another room. Lucky me, I had the SLEEPINGBAG!!!! Actually my night was ok (I dremed and thought to be in Finland, maybe because of my sister's call earlier), Jari didn't feel as good in the next morning, Hari had taken the blanket and snored loudly ;)

Our awakening on that morning was a bit early as well, at 5 am, but I felt quite good with it. Quickly after morning doings we got a lift by a old and rattletrap tata-truck (even worse than my dad's (well-working) 25 years old truck ;) to the some parts of the village where we were going to meet locals and organize the womengroups. Actually the truck was able to go only to one part of the village and from there we had to walk from one place to another. We started the first foot-journey at 7 am and walked on the twisting footpath up and down in the mountainside while the sun was rising behind us. The weather was good for the walking, not too hot… yet, and the views were stunning, mountains everywhere, little houses with chickens, buffalos, cows, goats and corn fields on the mountainsides. But in some places the walking was quite difficult as well while the path was really narrow and under our feet there was some scree and we tried to go down on the mountainside with the angle of about 60 degrees. Omg. After a couple of HOURS we got to the next part of the village (don't ask the name, I DON'T know anything but that the name is same than the plant which they use for making roofs, something which starts with B). We were standing in the front of the small houses and locals started to bunch together and brought some chairs to us and to each other. Funny thing was that the meeting was meant to be for women but most of the people were men :D When we asked about that, we were told that this was the first group meeting and men wanted to be part of it at first and then think about if they let the women take part in later. Fair play. Anyway some women came to the meeting as well a little bit afterwards when they got a time from their dutys. Me and Jari were basically just listeners and I took some photos during the meeting. Somehow my camera pointed most of the time to the total wrong direction, and on most of my photos are buffalos, calf, goats, cat and young goats ;) The young goats were unbelievable adorable, there was three of them and all the time they were exploring something and playing. I was also happy to see some kittens and their mom, two of my favorite animals are hardly on view in Kathmandu valley, cats and horses, but at that place I got a chance to see cats for second time during my staying in here! :) And cats look like ocicats (one breed) thin, spotted, good looking ones.



After the meeting, which took couple of hours and photographing was time to eat, first time after my morning biscuit :) And what was the lunch?! Food by locals in even worse conditions than the dinner in the evening before! OMG! I felt very uncomfortable but I really needed to first ask just a tiny weeny bit a rice and later I had to refuse to eat everything. I didn't get any problems because of the food last evening but I didn't want to push my luck either. I don't know what the locals think about me now, but in that case my health is more important and they have to understand it (and I didn't feel comfortable thinking about running between bushes during the whole day in the middle of the nowhere). Luckily I had that pack of biscuits and a pottle of water with me so I somehow survived the whole exhausting day. After the lunch we had another meeting with another group quite near by the first one. At that place were only couple of men and all the others were strong minded women because their husbands were earning some money in the city, Kathmandu. I heard that the women were very interested about making so called women group and think about things they want to improve. But there was some misunderstanding as well, they thought that they get some money for that and then they doubt if they'll be stolen some money. And when those things became clear there was a little problem; how they can write things down, if they don't know how to write?! Anyway they figured something out and it was time to us to start the last journey by feet.

It was about 2 pm so the sun was shining from the clear sky (hot hot hot) and we started our up-and-down-walking on the small paths again, in some parts of the journey I thought if my flip-flops were the best shoes for that kind of trekking (I think our trek was even more difficult than the Mt. Everest trek for tourists and people wear the best trekking costumes during that). The route was even more dangerous than any others what we've had tried before, under our feet was scree, in our left hand side was about 1 to 1,5 km drop and our right hand side was a vertical mountainside where you could see the marks of landslides. At some points I really thought what if… But anyway it was the once in a lifetime experience (I really hope that there isn't too many of those anymore) and I liked the views and pushing myself really to the limit. If somebody had shown me the place and asked whether I want to go there or not I would have thought twice but at that time I didn't have options. I'm happy that I didn't sat down and would have been satisfied just with waiting a helicopter. I did it, I made it, yeah! It also became clear, that I don't need any trekking shoes, flip-flops will do :D

After the dangerous, two-hours-trekking we got a lift to the field office by MOTORBIKES, WITHOUT helmets (I have always wanted to get a lift by motorbike, yeah! But I prefer a helmet). At the office we took rest of our stuff (I changed my shoes from flip-flops to the sneakers, very good idea!) and hopped on the motorbikes again, the road was, surprise surprise, very bumby and the sand underneath the bike tried to run away, so the bike was a bit difficult to handle, but my driver did it quite well although he could have driven a bit more slowly and cautiously at least when we got finally to the main road which was paved. It felt like we were on a very hurry and we had to pass all the cars we saw in the front of us. But I wasn't scared, I somehow trusted the driver and kind of liked it, it was fun and I just smiled. Although I want to wear at least a helmet at the next time (good leather motorbikecostum wouldn't be an bad idea either ;)

So, So far so good, I'm still alive and not feeling any signs of food poisoning, but I've been thinking to go to laboratory after this trip, if I'll survive till august :)

Now we are just having a rest before the next trial (don't have any clue what's the next one, better so) And it's very hot in here!

And before this text is going to the end I want to congratulate the stallion and the owner of him (and the stables where I used to go before I came here) from the bottom of my heart for reaching the finnish record points at the Icelandhorseshow during this weekend, I wish I were there! Congratulations once again Liisa and Bragi frá Austurkoti, you have done a GOOD job and earned your place as the BEST!!!! :)

Hopefully you were able to read the text to the end, this was a long long journey :)



-Heli-

A couple of photos

There are some photos of our visit in Devichaur, people in the photo are one of our counterpart, social mobilizator ("going" to the toilet, etc. :) and villagers...