Dhulikel town, Sunday, October 16, 2015

After breakfast we took a hike up the hill to where the Himalayas could be seen, if it weren’t so hazy. The trail was steep and narrow, with a drop off one side and a hill of lush vegetation on the other. We came to a small farmstead where we saw an old wooden plow and some goats. A family was shucking dried ears of corn and then shelling the corn. Raaz explained that the farm house had been damaged by last year’s earthquake; what was once a two-story house was now only one story. A semi-permanent shelter similar to a Quonset hut had been built to house some of the family members. We would see many such semi-permanent shelters around Nepal.

We climbed higher to visit a small Hindu shrine and then a school. The views were beautiful, even though the haze prevented us from seeing the Himalayas. Two men followed us, offering a hand-made bird for sale, which Raaz said was either a cuckoo or a magpie. After some negotiation, Abby purchased one for 1000 rupees, about 10 dollars.

We came to a small three-room rural school. School was not in session, so we were able to look at the classrooms. Judging from what was on the walls, the main topic of instruction is the English language. Raaz said that school that provide instruction in English advertise themselves as “English boarding schools” even if there is no “board” involved. A lizard crawled across the blue wall above an English-language poster.

We passed a cow tethered to a clump of weeds. The tether ran through her nose so that she would not pull on it. On the way down the valley to the hotel, we passed the security post for the hotel grounds. Toothbrushes in cut-off water bottles hung from the eaves, and we could see bedding inside. The uniformed guard had spent the night here.

We piled into the bus and took a tour of Dhulikel town. The earthquake mostly spa

red Dhulikel, but we still saw a lot of cracked and leaning buildings. Most of them seemed to be still occupied, but it would make me quite nervous to live in them. We saw a three-roofed Vishnu Temple flanked by two Garudas, the manifestation of Vishnu that is half-bird and half-man. These two Garudas were quite different in style.

We saw a large “chariot” or sedan chair that is used during festivals, and another three-roofed temple dedicated to Shiva. We stopped at an upscale hotel for lunch overlooking the valley. We watched kites (the type of bird) soaring overhead. After lunch, we headed back to the Dhulikel Mountain Resort for a relaxed afternoon and evening.