The Terai

Basically i’m already in Laos so pretty behind on my blog. I spent a while writing the first bit then panicked and just rushed the rest, sorry.

I was invited by my aunt to go to her husband’s nieces wedding with her and two of my cousins. It was a chance to learn a little more about this beautiful country and its culture, so I jumped at it.

The wedding was to be held down in Butwal near the Nepal India border in the area known as the Terai. The Terai is a thin slither of land that runs the entire length of south Nepal. It is flat and completely covered by paddie fields as far as you can see.

The journey there took 7 hours and ran along the most winding roads I have ever been on. The hanging decorations at the top of the windscreen swinging from side to side while the standing passengers held on with white knuckles. It’s lucky I don’t get motion sickness. It’s a common sight on Nepali buses to see plastic bags being handed out. This confused me a little the first time I saw it but I didn’t give it much thought. It wasn’t until a later bus journey when I saw an old woman, discreetly covering her face with her shall, then throwing the bag and its content out of the window that I realised what they were for.

I’ve only travelled on local busses, they have a certain energy. The bus boys hang from the open door calling out the final destination and banging on the side of the bus to signal for the driver to start or stop while the latest Bollywood hits blare out from tinny speakers. The outside of the busses are painted with pictures of Hindu gods or Nike and Adidas logos, on the backs are slogans like “no time for love”. You see the big coaches, marked “Tourist only” but the idea doesn’t appeal to me. It was the same in India, tourist staying in hotels, coaches ferrying them from one tourist attraction to the next. Their only real view of the country is through a tinted pane of glass from their air conditioned bubble. I can understand how that might appeal to older travellers but it isn’t for me.

An added bonus of travelling to Butwal was that only a couple of hours by bus is Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha. Lumbini is a rectangular piece of land 2km by 6km. Within it are many Buddhist temples built by different nations, each in their own unique style. Unfortunately at this time most are still under construction.

Hindu weddings take place in the brides house. The bride and her guests wait in apprehension for the arrival of the groom and his family. All the weddng presents sit under a brightly coloured marquee. Once the groom arrives accompanied by a band the ceremony begins. The bride and groom sit for a few hours while they recieve presents and blessings from family and guests. In the evening both families part ways, the grooms family go off and celebrate and the brides family go back to their homes.

It was sad leaving Pokhara and my family. I woke up early to a grey misty morning and said my goodbyes. It had started to rain by the time i left for the bus station. It was the first rain i had seen for a long time and i hadnt missed it.

At the zoo in Butwal with my aunt cousin and my aunts sister in law

me, Daniel and Angela on a rickshaw

One of many temples in Lumbini cant remember which but looks Tibetan to me.

Lots of prayer flags

The building that covers the place where Buddha was born

I think this is the Myanmar Buddhist temple

The Thai Buddhist temple

They were filming some kind of movie here i think.

I dont remember which temple this was either

The bride and groom and Angela on the right

Sunset shot. Obviously.

The end of the wedding. The groom taking his new wife off.

This is the view from the top of my aunts house. pretty amazing to wake up to this. I miss it.

me with my grandfather, granny and one of my aunts.

Angela and Kaji before we went to another wedding in Pokhara. Kaji is wearing a traditional Gurung cast outfit.

Meet the Family – Pokhara

Pokhara’s Lakeside had changed a lot in the 15 years since I had last visited, the dirt road with a few hotels and restaurants was now a busy tourist street, not that there weren’t tourists before but now they far outnumbered the locals. The dirt track had been replaced by a well maintained road; all along it are large hotels and restaurants of every cuisine that travellers could need to get a little taste of home or something more exotic. In the centre of the road are islands with large Banyan trees growing on them, hanging, tentacle like from their branches are roots that grow down in a futile effort to plant themselves in the concrete ground beneath.  In the distance, paragliders gently float around the hilltop village of Sarangkot like scattered dandelion seeds in a summer breeze.

I spent my first few nights in different guesthouses as I had no way of contacting my family. It was nice to have a little time to myself, getting up when I felt like it, eating when I was hungry and going to sleep when I was tired.  After I had spent a day doing nothing but relaxing and eating I decided on my second day to rent a boat and go out on Phewa Lake, it had been one of my favourite things to do as a child but after a couple of hours and a pair of aching arms I realised that renting the boat for the whole day had been too ambitious, so I beach the boat and walk up to the World Peace Stupa that looks out over Phewa Lake and Pokhara.

A few days later I met up with my aunt and she insisted I stayed with her at her house. She rents rooms out to tourists who want to stay for a few months and she had a spare room so I took her up on her offer. My next few days were spent visiting many family members with my cousin Angela.

A couple of weeks into my stay I went with my two cousins and aunt to stay with some relatives in a small village a few hours’ drive outside Pokhara. The dirt track was very rough. It weaved along the side of hills. Here and there cherry blossoms stood out from the green forest’s.  We were squeezed into the back of a pickup up truck with 10 other people and their luggage, travelling in Nepal is an intimate affair. Unlike the packed tubes in London, strangers chat, joke and occasionally sing. You call everyone brother or sister, father or mother or grandfather or grandmother- not in a communist way despite the sickle and hammers painted on walls during the Maoist insurgency.

We arrived as the sun was setting. The house was traditional with a slate roof and mud walls, inside the low ceiling was made lower by hundreds of drying corn cobs still in their husk’s. The room was lit by a single oil lamp and a small cooking fire set into the mud floor. Around the fire were long, woven straw mats to sit on. Outside the stars twinkled. On the hillsides around, you could see a few lights that looked like the reflection of the stars in the waters of  a still lake. Below fireflies danced above the ripe rice paddies stretching out beneath.

I woke before sunrise and sat out on the veranda. As the sun rose it unveiled such beautiful views. To the North were the Himalayas bathed in orange light from the rising sun. To the East lay Phewa Lake and Pokhara, half obscured by morning mist. All around the hills were carved with paddie fields, dotted upon them were haystacks that looked like ice cream cones turned upside down. As the sun began to arc into the sky, women came out from their houses and put out to dry, mats covered in freshly harvested millet.

Another highlight of my stay was the festival of Tihar (known as Dewali in India), the festival of lights. The festival lasts five days and is another of the major festivals in the Hindu calendar. Houses are covered in fairy lights and balconies and house fronts in rows of night lights. Outside their homes they paint decorated circles with a line that runs into the house; this is to bring Lakshmi, goddess of wealth into their homes. If you walk down any street you will more than likely see crowds of people gathered around children dancing, from traditional Nepali dancing to break dancing.

(I thought at the end of my posts I would put a note of what I am or have been reading.)

What I am/have been reading: The Beach by Alex Garland

The pictures are a mixture, some are from my phone some from my camera and others from my cousins camera.

Out boating on Phewa like the small island to the right has a Hindu temple on it.

Small panoramic from the world peace stupa. Unfortunately it was cloudy so its not such a good view of the mountains.(click to enlarge)

Devi’s fall. Supposedly a tourist called David fell in and drowned here. the waterfall goes straight underground.

One of my aunts, my cousin Angela and another cousin Ankit in Mahindra Cave.

My cousin, my aunt and me.

Watching Paragliders taking off from Sarangkot.

Dam side on Phewa Lake.

Rice harvesting by the Seti River.

The house my father was born in.

Dancing during the Tihar festival.

view from the village we stayed in.

The laying out of millet to dry and the house we spent the night in.

Me, my cousin Daniel and Angela.

My aunt Kaji’s birthday meal.

my aunt Kaji, her daughter Angela and me.