FOSS Nepal Community conducted Hiking program on 19th April 2014. The hiking program was first of the kind organized by FOSS Nepal Community. Though much notified and hyped, not many community members turned up. There were only 7 of us. The members and their friends who came for the hike were:
- Hempal Shrestha
- Dadhiram Nepal
- Prabin Gautam
- Shalu Khanal
- Pravab Dhakal
- Martin Dluhos
- Pratik Gautam
Except for Hempal dai and Martin, we met outside NachGhar, Jamal and took a Micro to Budanilkantha at 5:35am. We reached by 6:00 am and had breakfast. On the mean time Hempal dai joined us. Martin came with his bike. He thought the start and end point of Hike is same, but we had the plan otherwise. Everyone decided to help martin with his bike throughout the way. We start our hike from Budanilkantha temple at 7am. About 1.5 km uphill we reached Shivapuri-Nagarjuna National Park Entrance. The Entrance fee for us was Rs. 10 whereas being a foreigner, Martin had to pay Rs. 250.
We started from the gate at 7:40am. The group had already split over the pace. Pravab, Martin and Pratik were ahead whereas rest 4 were little bit behind. The reason was not just pace but aiselu (ऐसेलु).
We enjoyed eating aiselu from the bushes for such a long that we did not bother about the walk. After walking for about 40 minutes, we started off-road.
There was small path towards the bushes upward. we thought we have to explore and headed towards it. After some time we realized the way was just in opposite direction to our destination. That is when we went into the wild. No path, no foot prints - slipery सल्लाको पात, and झ्याङ।
We walked for some time when we saw the road steep down. It was not easy getting to the road.
After about 30 min walk, there was stairs towards Nagi Gumba off road upwards. We all met at Nagi Gumba. There were some construction going on. We had some cold drinks in a shop nearby.
There were more aiselu beside gumba. We had lot of them. There were still some remaining, we thought of leaving them for others to have :P .
Then we took a jungle walk. It was the most adventurous part of the hike. We all loved it. Martin missed this walk again because he had to take his bike through the main way.
There in the jungle we could see some birds, pair of wild hen(kalij), and insects. At some point we felt lost but again figured out the way out. Throughout the way we talked about various issues in FOSS, our community and future programs on Open Source and casual stuffs. We met Martin again after more than half and hour.
We were here at 10 O' clock. We walked ahead. the road was wonderful and the sun was heating up. We were feeling hot by now. Wanted to dive into any possible stream or river which comes on the way. Some part of the path was covered in dense forest with high trees where we would feel cool and dark. The jungle still had some laligurans(Rhododendron). Guys attempt to get some for themselves.
climbing up to get some guras.
getting off the wild way.
We walked for couple of hours. There were some houses on the way. There were shop selling waiwai, Mountain Dew and chyang. ठोट्ने (Thotney) is the name of this bush which is found in hilly areas. The stem tastes mild sour. It is edible and people also makes chutney from the stems. Its sometime sold in local haats (हाटबजार) in hilly regions. Similarly we also had पानी-अमला (paani aamla). which is actually a root of a kind of fern.
After about two hours, we stopped by the stream. By this time, the feet were slightly aching. Removed our shoe/socks and dip feet into the water which was felt ice cold. The feeling was like - as if the cold reached the bones. We tolerated for sometime then it was comfortable to keep foot in water. We had some dry bhuteko chanas (भुटेको चना).
The stream was making such a nice sound, Pravab started meditating!!!
We walked for another two hours to reach some restaurant above Sundarijal. It was 2PM then. We had ordered for food and in the mean time had couple of beer "BSOD at Hiking".
We totally deserve those bottles
We started moving down towards Sundarijal at 4PM. Meanwhile, Martin returned back to the river side few minutes bike from the restuarant to look for his bike keys which he may have missed. Rest of us returned to kathmandu by bus from Sundarijal bus stop.
Nobody was injured (except for minor scratches) and everyone reached home safely. It was 100% fun.
