Trip to the Far West of Nepal

Last week, I went to the far west of Nepal, next to the Indian border, to travel to three community libraries sponsored by READ Nepal. I flew Buddha Air, a small Beech Aircraft. Surprisingly, there are a quite a few local domestic airlines in Nepal with interesting names such as Buddha Air, Yeti Airlines and Sita airlines. Yeti is a name of a monster in Nepali methodology, while Sita is a character in the ancient Ramayana oriental literature as well.
From the aircraft, I could see tops of mountains whose peaks were emerged from the clouds and an amazing landscape. Perhaps eight of the top highest mountains in the world are in Nepal. Therefore, everywhere I went was hilly area. Many tourists loved to come to Nepal to do trekking.
I went to visit libraries in the rural area to collect information about how community libraries operating in Nepal. I spent 5 days to visit to 3 libraries because of the distance. Besides, the roads were are bumpy and winding. The “highways” are shared by herds of goats, muttons, buffalos and sheep. No kidding, the driver had to try to avoid hitting running goats and buffaloes which LOVED to stay idle in the middle of the roads. I also saw a big snake lying across the road at one point.
The first leg of my visit is Kolhapur which is close to the Indian border. Along the roads, I saw a variety of huts and cottages. The one made of mud suggests the very poor status of the residents. Nepal is still a caste society. Dalit, the lowest caste, is basically deprived of many opportunities Some boys and girls in the rural area married at very young age, say 12. During a visit to a Hindi temple, I ran across into a wedding party. But for the entire 5 minutes that I was observing the ritual, the bride looked grim and didn’t smile. I asked my friend why the bride looked so tense, and my friend said that many brides in the local never knew her future husband until days before the wedding day.
The second leg of my visit is Tikapur, which is a 4-hour drive from Nepalgunj. Tikapur could be a popular tourist city because it has a lovely lotus lake and natural park. But I wonder how many tourists, especially the foreigners, would come this far to the city. Besides, summer may not be best season to come to Tikapur if you don’t like the heat. The temperature here is over 40 Celsius. I was soaked with sweat. No complaint, though. I enjoy the privileges to become few among foreigners who had a chance to see the beautiful and vast lotus pond.
The last leg of my trip is Dadeldhura, which is located on the mountain. Dadeldhura is a small rural town with more than 150 international and local non profits registered in the city. I nonetheless doubt how many of them were active. A UN vehicle parked outside my guesthouse never left its parking spot during my two-night stay there. I saw the offices of NGO everywhere but none were in the office. Nonetheless, I think Dadeldhura is an interesting place due to its unique tribe culture. Its landscape is superb. Standing on high cliff, you can see Greenery Mountains of Nepal – a la National Geographic style.
On the way back, I stopped at the Indian-Nepali border market in Nepalgunj. I arrived there around 6 PM but the market was still buzzing with people and activities. The most popular public transport here is very eco-friendly: horses, buffaloes and donkeys. So, these buses left their dongs everywhere. There were Indian wholesale shop houses selling beautiful embroidered fabrics and vendors selling delicious food such as fried curried puff and sugar cane juice. The sight and smell of these foods were so tempting that I had to forget about diarrhea (Joe would not approve because there are flies everywhere. But what the he…!!). I confessed that I had double shots of sugar cane juice which cost only 10 rupee per cup (One dollar is equal to 72 rupee.) Guess what happens to my stomach in the next few hours!