What a sight!

How’s that for a vista to wake up to? Eight of the 14 highest peaks in the world, right outside our bedroom window in Bandipur, where we overnighted. The mountains are some 200km away, just to give you an idea of the sheer scale of them.
 
We left busy Kathmandu behind us, heading towards Pokhara and its lake.  The trip out of the city took almost two hours, owing to an already impossible traffic made worse by road construction and road hazards created by the monsoon rains.  Our driver, Sanjay, was masterful in negotiating the gigantic potholes and oncoming mayhem.
 
The journey took us through a verdoyant Kathmandu valley, a delight for the eyes after all the dust of the city: banana trees, terraced rice paddies, a majestic river surrounded at times by deep clifs and spanned here and there by suspended bridges. At lunch, we stopped at a great little look out point, where I ran into an NGO that was taking ‘Chepang’ kids out for a picnic by the water (see extra). Chepangs are among the poorest of Nepal’s indigenous tribes. I had a long chat with the guys in charge of the NGO and we exchanged info. I’ll see later how I might get involved J
 
We then climbed a narrow road full of hairpin turns (and hair raising crossings with other vehicles with inches to spare) up to Bandipur, a quaint village at the top of a hill. I’m calling it a hill as instructed by our guide, Santos: “a mountain only qualifies as such if it is at least 5,000m high.”  Perspective is a good thing J
 
Our stay in Bandipur was ‘rustic’: our b&b lost electricity (of course no Wifi either); showers with hot water are restricted to 6-8 am and pm – that is when there is electricity to begin with to warm the water; and screenless windows with wooden walls gave mosquitos plenty of entry ways. But the field conditions were more than made up with by the amazing vistas all around us and a wonderful candlelight dinner of delicious Nepalese dishes. The place is run by a man with his four sisters and daughters (see extra); strong women they were as they sherpa’ed our luggage up the hill and to our rooms as if they weighed nothing: over the shoulder and onto their backs and off they went, saris afloat J They treated us to a goodbye and good luck ceremony, complete with red paint on our forehead and a homemade golden scarf.
 
   
Onwards to Pokhara – to be posted later.