Nepal Day 9 Gothauli Village and back to Kathmandu

Sunday May 2^nd

We were up early this morning to meet Dhruba Giri, the owner of the Sapana Village Lodge, who took us on a tour of the local village, Gothauli. He is instrumental in a number of initiatives in the community. The next blog entry will be dedicated to him and his projects.

We walked from the lodge through the farming area and across the bridge over the river. The village was very interesting. It is a rural community and the people are from the Thura tribe. We wandered around as the people began their day, cooking, eating, feeding animals, cleaning and farming. When we had finished our tour, a van from the lodge picked us up and took us back, where we had breakfast. Then we loaded our gear onto the bus and set off on the six hour journey back to Kathmandu.

We stopped at another small village to visit a couple of shops that Sapana also supports, with women's crafts. While we were shopping or window shopping, a few elephants with trainers came walking down the main road. Then we resumed our drive.

We stopped a couple of places for washroom stops and for lunch. The drive was interesting again, as traffic here is crazy. When we finally re-entered the Kathmandu Valley traffic came to a halt. We were stuck in a traffic jam for an hour and a half. It was amazing watching how a two lane road became four or five lanes wide, with cars and motorcycles driving off the road, onto shoulders and curbs to get around each other or into the lanes of the oncoming traffic and forcing them off the road. No one seems to lose their patience, they just do what they have to do to get where they are going.

We arrived at the hotel by 5:00 and arranged to meet again in the lobby for our last dinner. We walked back into the tourist area to Rum Doodle, a restaurant that specializes in catering to all the trekking and mountain climbing groups. If you climb one of the Himalayas you get free dinners here for life. As trekkers we got a cutout footprint that we could all sign and write on and they put it up on the wall of the restaurant. There are hundreds of them throughout. We had a nice dinner, a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hotel for the night. The end of another great tour.

For the whole trip Anil called me Mr. Joe. At first I thought it was to differentiate me from Miss Jo. But then I realized it was a cultural thing and it was his way of showing respect. He was always attentive and made sure I was comfortable, so I told someone he acted like my mother, to which he responded, "Because you are my adult son."