After a sweet coffee for breakfast (I’m lookig forward to real coffee, by the way, but this one is great, too) I left the house for a quick stroll around the village in beautiful sunshine. Soon I was picked up by an elderly lady (Komala, as I learned later), who showed me the Hindu chamber in her house (even though she said she was Buddist) as well as a Hindu temple on a little hill (which, btw, is the only place where I have reliable mobile signal). The air was a little clearer than yesterday and the view over to Jamuna was amazing. Unbelievable that I had cycled all along those mountains yesterday. The distance, as the crow flies, is really just a few kilometers, but in between there are 2 river valleys that needed to be descended to and climbed out of again.
It was market day today, so the place was crowded and colorful.
I got to taste tin pani, the local ‘wine’, literally ‘three waters’, because it is somehow distilled by stacking three bowls on top of each other.
I also tasted chulri, a snack made of milk fat.
Occasionally, (not just here) people ask me how much my bike costs. I’m down to US$ 500, which is way off but still a freaking lot for the people in the countries I tend to travel in. If my maths don’t fail me, the Nepali Rupee is worth less than the Indian one, which makes traveling here incredibly cheap. I’m paying 325 Nepali Rupees per day here (granted, I don’t have my own room and share all facilities), which includes food (100 for the bed only). That’s a bit more than 2 Euros per day (about 70 eurocents for the bed)! I hope (for them) that there is an error somewhere in my calculation.
It is warm here during the day if the sun shines. But it gets quite chilly in the evening when the sun sets (around 6pm). It’s less than 10 degrees now and if nothing else, the temperatures make me want to go back down to the plains. My clothes are not suited for this.
Houses here don’t have any fire places or other ways of heating. And no insulation, either. They have lovely earthen stoves, but those are used for cooking only. Electricity is available at night only. I was told yesterday that the villagers feel very underprivileged, understandably, and many would like to migrate. The road to here is fun for me, but it is no fun if it’s the only connection to the outside world. Supplies for the local shops are brought in by pack horse from Phikkal.
There is very little light pollution and the night sky is so full of stars.