Journey into the western hills

We have just returned from a field trip to Rukum, in the high hills of the mid west of Nepal. Roger and I travelled together but his focus was on climate change issues and mine on education.
We flew out of Kathmandu on a small  plane with only one propeller each side, which always un-nerves me but I did a lot of praying on take-off and landing and all was well. The best bit was that we had picked the side nearest the Himalayas and although it was raining on take-off, the sky cleared and we had some lovely views of the tops of the snow capped peaks with the clouds forming a carpet below them.


view of the Himalayas from the plane

 

 

 



Once we arrived in Nepalgung, a town right on the border with India in the flat terai region in the south,  we were met by a member of our field staff and shown to our Jeep.   We travelled for eight hours along roads that snaked around the hills with sheer drops on one side for most of the way. We forded small rivers and passed too many cleared landslides to count. The most alarming one was so recent that a digger was still clearing it and our driver drove as fast as he could since a tree was leaning at an alarming angle right above the road.

waiting for a landslide to be cleared

 We stopped for delicious dahl bhat with local meat and vegetables and then pressed on until we reached a big river. Here we left our jeep to walk over a swing bridge and up a hill to meet our second jeep. We were bringing multilingual educational text books  written in nepali and also in the local language, Mugar, to our partner schools in Rukum, Therefore these had to be carried by porters up by porters together with our own small cases. In the dry season the jeeps can ford this particular river but it was too high for our vehicle to cross.
The day we travelle dwas Teej, the annual womens festival when women and girls put n their best clothes, do their hair and the married women return to their mothers house. It was lovely to see them dancing in the villages as we passed.

Women gathered to dance and celebrate Teej

In one village we also saw this particularly well constructed festive swing.

Some of the men also enjoyed the Teej holiday

 Eventually we reached Rukum and gratefully settled into our guest house. The food was all cooked over a wood stove and the accommodation was clean but the best bit was the stunning views out over the hills and down the valley to the river.

arrival at Rukum