Photos of our Fabulous Adventure
What a wonderful sleep last night. It is cooler here on the hilltop and the air is so fresh and clear. Love it!
Breakfast is at 7am, however they aren’t putting the buffet out as the bread has not arrived – so I was told. Apparently the bread delivery hasn’t arrived because it is festival time. Many people are away in their villages visiting family and service & shops is intermittent. I would say the Dashain Festival is the same scale as our Christmas. So many things are delayed or don’t happen because of the Festival! If you want an excuse or anything, ‘The Festival’ is as good as any – ha ha.
Finally the bread arrives and breakfast is served. We have a while to relax and then we pile in to two off-road jeeps to head to Rani Mahal (the Queen’s Palace). They only sent one at first which would fit 6 maximum and we are 12. Bikesh got right on that and asked for a second jeep. We had a good laugh as Bikesh says they would have put 12 Nepali people in the one jeep!
Although Bikesh promised it was not a very steep road, the drop offs were very steep & very deep. Thankfully I was at the very back facing in towards the middle of the car and couldn’t see much. Within 40 minutes we were at our destination near the Kali Gandaki river and the Rani Mahal. They call this the Nepali Taj Mahal as the architect was the same person that did the one in India. It was built 121 years ago and took 6 years to build. The Kali (means dark) Gandaki river flows south from Tibet and switches direction and flows north here at this spot. This is meant to be good luck and the reason the King situated the palace here to show his love for his wife.
Many people come down to the river and to visit the palace. During the short time we were there, people appeared from everywhere and headed straight to the river. Time to leave and we prepared to ride up the 13km of the winding steep road. For some reason it seemed much more tame than the way down.
It’s now lunch time and the morning has left us very hungry. We order and it seems to take an incredibly long time to receive our meals. Shane orders a banana milkshake and a couple of the group order coffee with milk. The shake and the milk don’t arrive and we are told that “due to the Festival, they are waiting for the milk to arrive”. Finally after over an hour, the milk arrives – we know this as we can hear the blender and suspect that the milkshake is in progress. Minutes later the shake and the milk for the coffee appears. Then slowly our food is served and to their credit the food tastes wonderful.
We rest a wee bit, and then take a short walk up to Srinigar Danda (hill) at 1650m and climb to the top of the tower for a lovely view, although still hazy. Back at the hotel our attention is drawn to the building of the traditional bamboo swing for the Festival. Bikesh explains the tradition. During Dashain, as much of the family as possible reunites to celebrate. Tomorrow is the day that the grandparents and parents bestow blessings on their children and grand children and cover their foreheads with red tikka. With each pass of the swing the blessings flow up to heaven. What a lovey tradition.
As dinner time draws closer we gather in the courtyard for drinks and then move into the restaurant for our Nepali Buffet dinner. The meal was good, and as always, the conversation was lively and laughter abundant.
Tomorrow we leave for Lumbini at 8:30am so we call it an early night.