Lohaghat to Nepal March 9th to 15th

I have found some time to do some writing which is rather lovely - only problem is I am feeling dreadful..

Poorly feeling

We climbed up a nearby hill to get to a viewing point of the Annapurna Range and at the top I started to feel off my food and nauseous which is most unusual and has caused quite a bit of concern amongst my companions. Aching and forlorn, I was thrown into a car, leaving the intrepid Susie and Clare to find a longer less direct route which was eventful in itself as you will later discover, back to Pokara Lakeside where we are staying. Lying in bed and catching up on our stories is so much easier than lying in a bed up on the hill feeling hot and bothered......


We have spent an idyllic time in Lohaghat and Khuna with Saket and Susie and have moved on via jeep and small car across the Nepali border to our present resting spot on the lakeside at Pokara. Susie is with us but Saket stayed home for a couple more weeks to get the work at their cottage more underway. We saw such a huge change since our last visit in early january. The sun had warmed the earth, the pinks and creams of peach and apple blossom were out and the fields were looking green and lush. Oh and of course the blood red of the rhododendrons and the yellow of the daffodils that grow wild along the frostiest of paths. Compared to home we thought spring had already happened in early january, but this is real spring and has transformed the hillside landscape. And what will it look like here in two or three springs' time when the recently planted fruit and almond trees have been planted..!

Wild nature came calling in a more exciting incarnation one morning too. We were woken rudely early to a piercing screech in the ancient oak trees behind the cottage. The scream was a cross between that of an angry boar and a badly injured cat. A month earlier on hearing the same sound continuously for over an hour, jungle meister Saket had taken his loaded shot gun to investigate and had discovered a lone Langur monkey. Near to the tree in which the Langur was sitting some leopard spoor had been spotted by young Shashwat a couple of days earlier.  The Langur was warning the jungle of the leopards approach. These are calls to set the nerves on edge.

Sadly there are no tigers left in this jungle but thanks to the legendary Jim Corbett, who lived and worked as a man eating tiger hunter, and later conservationist, in this very area - The Chapawat District of Uttarkhand - in the early part of last century - there is a large area of the himalayan foot hills further West by only 150Km where Tigers are protected and very much present as Clare and I witnessed on a recent visit to the Jim Corbett National Park.

Blossom out on the terraces

Now, in mid march, the days are hot and make work on the fields far too unhealthy after about 11.30am, the nights, too warm for quilts. In january we had frozen stiff the moment the warming sun dropped below the jungle covered mountains around us at 6pm. Now we welcomed the descending sun for the cool air and shade which meant digging, weeding, painting, sweeping, watering could recommence! Sounds like we were worked hard but we did two days! Saket and Susie had dug 5 fields of land on the terraces by hand,  weeded and prepared for planting with turmeric. They both seemed to be enjoying the work that's for sure and we were very happy to join in. Shadow seemed sure that we were simply digging to supplement his diet with monstrously outsized mealy grubs. That was his contribution to the weeding and cleaning process. One afternoon Clare and I were set for our afternoon snooze when a storm cloud appeared on the horizon and Susie went into overdrive - setting us up with three coriander beds to dig and a drystone wall to build before the rain set in! Two heavy earth lifting chest building hours later we had completed the task. Then a call across the valley to the caretakers' house brought a basket full of well composted and wormy cow dung to spread over the fresh earth. They have a dung mound the size of Annapurna on tap outside their cowshed, under the house. (The cowsheds by the way are always under the main rooms of the house in order to provide extra warmth through the winter months). Anyway eventually exhausted but proud we had hot masala chai to recover from our duties.

New coriander beds!

Stone walling and new coriander bed by Clare Hein - imported stone waller from Somerset England - very cheap

They have planted cactus ALL around the boundary of their growing land, once large and spiky they will be a defence system to keep people and animals from getting in and meddling with the lush produce. Already wild boar and stag pug marks along the fence are evident making it clear that they have attempted to get in. The small plants were very spiky and within a year should be very big as long as they get enough water. SO that was our first job - we had to water ALL the plants by hand with 2l of water each plant in the early morning or late evening. The land we were watering was terraced, each terrace 5 ft above or below the next and we had no hose pipe, the water source being at the top of the hill. ( A very recent and new resource - when I visited last time there was a bucket of water delivered first thing every morning by the neighbours along with the milk for that first Chai!) We carried buckets - it took three hours of relentless effort. What a joy it was to finally meet Saket who had been watering from the other direction! We wondered why these two hadn't  invested in a hose pipe? - of course they had one but it had been left at the town house, the watering needed to be done and they enjoy the physical work so there we go!

Isn't it beautiful?

 It seems that Susie and Saket have really got into the idea of spending more time at the cottage and are in the process of finding someone new to live in their outhouse or the cottage whilst they go on their necessary travels every year too. A good solution for all round happiness. The Khuna cottage is the most lovely place, in the jungle, surrounded by hills, birds, trees, wild animals and peace. In the winter (Jan and Feb) it is cold in the mornings and evenings but march, april its heavenly - june, july, august its monsoon and leach infested everywhere off the tracks ( a problem all over the north at this time I am told, beware) - good time to travel!

Shadowski! So cute and getting bigger by the day, not surprising given his penchant for  giant mealy grubs  in the freshly dug fields..

Vidushi and Shashwat

Taken by the dog - very clever

We said our sad goodbyes to Mummy in Loharghat and the children Shashwat and Vedushi - much fun with these two! They both speak English - age 10 and 8 - and taught us some Hindi - in hysterics at Clares' pronunciation most of the time. And to Nishant, Sakets brother. Then we set off by jeep in the direction of Tanakpur of the Nepal border. It took a few hours to get here, along rough mountainous road and through forest. The border took a bit of manouvering as we had a huge pull along bag, mostly full of other bags and STUFF - awaiting the promise of shopping opportunities in Nepal. The exchange rate makes thing in Nepal half the price of things in India - which is almost heartbreaking but also quite exciting to me in my materialist moments - think presents for the next three years! So large bag, Clares ruck sack ( very small) and Susies ENORMOUS ruck sack for 5 months away all needed to be woman handled from India over border bridge and various bureaucratic paperwork filling out spots.

Ridiculous bag full of stuff paid for it all in sweat and blood - hauling it over the border on rocky roads. 

 I ended up helping to push a ricksha with my bag on it over rough track to the final paperwork filling point. From here I think we fell into the car hire spot but I was too traumatised to remember really. I know we ended up in a car driving to Pokara. (We could have flown to Pokara or taken a bus but decided on a car as a compromise- it was a third of the price of a flight and Clare and I didn't want to fly anyway if we could find another way). We expected this journey to last 10 hours - in the end it took 18 hours. We expected to stop for the night at 10pm in the end we didn't stop for longer than an hour and this was at 2am in a mosquito infested high street with the car owner phoning every 20minutes to make sure the driver got no sleep at all. It was a bad experience really.

Well this is our car. Lovely.

Heading onwards with a driver we had to prod now and again to check he was still alive - we had the surreal experience of seeing a huge tiger on the road side too. The driver showed no reaction whatsoever to this which made it all the more surreal. Susie had just been attempting predictive text, obviously for the first time, and was reacting similarly to my 80 year old mother! She also looked a little disinterested in the sighting but later said it just didn't sink in and as the image settled from retina to brain she showed more bewilderment and astonishment! Clare and I said almost simultaneously "Its a tiger!" (being experienced tiger spotters now we new for sure this was no illusion). The tiger meanwhile turned to look at the car having been apparently minding its own business, disturbed only by the passing head lights. Our eyes met as we sped past! Lucky I hadn't asked the driver to stop for us to have a pee. This had been discussed only minutes before. Its so much easier in the bush, We have changed our minds about this now!
A reminder that this is wild country, that anything can happen and to respect the forest. Nearby people sat by the road side passing the early evening together, soldiers sat alone at regular check points along the long forest roads and tigers roam around.
Our driver was very good at hiding his reactions, he spoke little Hindi so communication was tricky but we gathered that this could be his first drive to Pokara. He showed no reaction to our first sighting of the Annapurna range either - an awesome sight and for us breathtaking!  Maybe he sees loads of tigers and awesome mountains.

That is one of the peaks in the Annapurna range - not Annapurna but Fish Tail( Machapuchare) - the Nepali Matterhorn, just 4000M higher than Matterhorn.

Clare has been bitten by a dog! Horror - not a good place for this to happen, on a mountain side in dusty Nepal. I had been sick and had taken a taxi back to our hotel earlier that day leaving Susie and Clare to walk down from our Annapurna viewing site at Sarangkot. We had clambered up to this high point from Pokara the morning before, myself with a dodgy knee and knee supports, Clare with her stick and Susie like a mountain goat - quite a mixed bag! We had made it up the 2000m climb and were feeling pleased with ourselves, we had seen the spectacular views, be it a little cloudy as the sun set, which meant we didn't get the full effect of this band of 8000m rock massif right in front of us but we saw at least three or four peaks majestically poking through the clouds 4 miles above us! We were knocked back by the unexpected beauty of the mountains, we knew they were big, we knew they would be spectacular but sitting in front of them has a profound effect on the soul!
Maybe its the wildness or their visibility then disappearance behind cloud, the sudden emergence again - its as if we think we see the world as it is but then suddenly we are reminded that we see a very small part of reality. It could be the ephemeral light, the pink, blue and orange translucent shimmering light of the setting or rising sun shining on these mountain peaks above the cloud line. The sun itself is hidden from us by the clouds but not from these peaks, they collect the light from above the cloud and reflect it back to us, for many minutes after sun down, to the piece of earth we stand on.

ouch! See those teeth marks. 

As for the dog bite! Clare is Ok - she went straight to hospital and started anti rabies vaccinations and antibiotics. Her leg has been sore and the bite seems quite small, but she said she felt the teeth on her bone! The wound is behind her knee joint and bandaged well. She had an uncomfortable night as you would expect and is being far too stoical about it all.  She has another 4 vaccinations to have to complete the course so will be continuing at home.  Its unlikely that this dog had rabies, apparently it didn't like foreigners and has bitten them in the past - a good sign as it means it's not mad with rabies but mad with something else probably- this is the only course of action in a country where Rabies is endemic. The antibiotics are also a good idea to prevent a wound infection. She had a good hospital experience, reporting clean needles, very well spoken Indian doctor, well used to dealing with such occurrences. Very clean and efficient all round (God knows how they manage that).

Any other developments I shall report asap -  Its quite traumatic being bitten by a weirdo dog let alone in a strange place, so I think her experience of it all will leak out slowly over the next few days.....