We leave the hotel in Sandhikharka around 6.40pm to catch a jeep bus to Ishwori’s family home in Baidhadada. The jeep bus is simply a land cruiser type vehicle that has been adapted to carry as many people as possible. They are 4wD and provide a cheap transport option for people in the mountains. It’s cheap because they carry as many people as humanly possible. On this trip there are 16 people inside and another five or six on the roof! We’re packed in like sardines and it takes a while to organise people to fit as comfortably as possible. We leave around 7.10am and head up. The roads are reduced to bull dust at this dry time of the year.
We crunch to a stop. There’s a problem with the underside of the vehicle that looks serious to me. The driver makes a call and in about 15 minutes two young guys arrive in a bike, one holding a hand full of tools. The mechanic looks like a teanager but he quickly identifies the problem and sets about fixing it. He’s in the dust but in s short time has the problem fixed. I took his photo. We venture on for another two hours before arriving to Baidhadada.
It’s mountainous country and there is a lot of farming. The farms aren’t as terraced as in other places so the cultivations are sloped rather than flat in the terraces. These paddocks are big but are still tilled in the traditional way with ox and plough.
We arrive in Baidhadada around 11am, then it’s a 30 minute walk down to Ishwori’s family. His parents are in their 70s and live here by themselves. His father worked in India as an electrician for 20 years but is now of course retired to the family farm. He’s too old to work the farm now but pays others to till the land and plant the crops. They had six children, two girls and four boys, but none are interested in coming back to the farm. The girls are married and live in Kathmandu. Two of the boys now live in the US and two lead professional lives in Kathmandu. This is such a typical situation in the rural villages and they dispair because of it. The young move away to the cities or abroad where the money is, no longer interested in the meager earnings that farming offers. Ishwori’s brother is here for a while. He’s a teacher of computing science in Kathmandu but has visited his parents during the teaching holidays to help out. He can speak English and is a funny man.
We have lunch then look around at some bee hives. Every house seems to have them. They are a part of a self-sustaining rural life. Dipak, Ishwori and I set off on a walk through the forest to look for stingless bee hives. The forest is full of trees suitable to the bees but we don’t find any active hives. We can see where they were in places until they were removed by somebody for the honey. The forest is on a steep slope so it’s difficult for us to negotiate. We eventually get to the bottom and to a river. There is some farming down here, mainly rice because there is sufficient water. It’s beautiful here. We visit a farm on the other side of the river where there are some honey bee hives. Young women are planting rice and the setting is just right for some nice photos.
We scramble back up the hill to arrive back at the house in the dark.
angusmccoll 