Trip with Cherry & Jill

The 8th November was a beautiful day and Mon and I had planned to do the 2 and a half hour walk to Aandhimul from Bandipur, and cut out the jeeps and buses and take in the stunning views of the Himalaya as we strolled our way to the village.

But the evening before I bumped into this lovely lady Cherry in the Bandipur Old Inn hotel, who coincedentally I met the year before in the same place. It was so funny, we both laughed at such a deja vu. She had a lovely friend with her Jill, who both were out to enjoy the beautiful sights Nepal has to offer, do some little trekking and actually Cherry helps support a Nepali masseur woman, Devika and the work she's doing in Pokhara.

After having a lovely conversation, and me talking about the things we are doing with the Aandhimul Project and that Mon and I were going to the village in the morning. They decided to join on the adventure, and an adventure it was.

We had such lovely journey, full of jokes and laughter and because some of the routes were quite steep. We took a longer detour, which Mon and I had never taken before. It turned out to be a beautiful walk and we were rewarded with some amazing views, as you can see above in the first few images. You can see Mon, Jill (in the white T-shirt), and Cherry in image 2. Also, image 3 is a great image I captured of Jill showing how much she appreciated the orange just given to her by a villager who took it from a nearby orange tree. I have to agree, you can't eating fresh oranges taken directly of the tree. November and December being the orange season, they are everywhere!

When in the village, it seemed to be a very busy day. Most people were preparing to send many nanglo's (rice shakers), they've made to be sold, in places such as Pokhara. So to take advantage of this opportunity and as a reminder of this day, Cherry bought a small one. You can see the exchange in image 6, where Cherry, Jill, and Mon are surrounded by Nanglos.

We ended the day flagging down a local bus, a first experience for Cherry and Jill, and they loved it! And I agree, if you ever come to Nepal, you have to experience the local buses. Just not at night, maybe the safest form of transport during the hours of darkness. But in daylight, you see and experience so much of the real Nepali culture, as we did that day.

Lee