Bandipur Adventure

So I met up with some mutual friends via another intern at WWF for a weekend trip to Bandipur. Bandipur is a small town about 3 hours bus ride west of Kathmandu and a 45 minute jeep ride up to a saddle. Along on the trip with me was Alec, a law school student at UW working on women's rights legislation for the new Nepali government, Mary, she was turning 24 over the weekend and had been in Nepal for 10 months so was fluent in Nepali, Kim, a Swiss development volunteer, and Kate, the schoolmate of my friend from the WWF who is working in Kathmandu as well. After talking a bit it turns out that Mary grew up only a few miles from Dartmouth in Hartford, VT and had worked at a clothing store in Hanover in high school.

Our day started with a long bus ride along narrow windy roads. The bus was actually quite nice, nicer than I expected – somewhat soft seats and no one had to stand.


We stopped for a nice pee-break about an hour and a half in,


After arriving in Bantipur we got rooms at a small guest house overlooking the valley below. I got the expensive room at $5 for the night. I'd say it had a pretty nice view.


We had a relaxing day walking around town and seeing the landscape. People were drying (and selling) chillies on the side of the road.


There were no cars or motorbikes allowed in the main part of town so it was very relaxing. A nice change from the mess of Kathmandu.


And from above


As with any small (or large) Nepali town, there were chickens and goats wondering the streets. As it started to rain, this mother took her chicks under her wing – literally.


Corn fields surrounded the town with every piece of land not used for housing was terraced to make room for farming.


In the valley below, rice patties cropped up to take advantage of the huge rainfalls from the monsoons.


Once we got back to town some local kids had picked up a game of cricket in the streets. This was serious stuff.


A few kids took up some badminton as well.


In the morning I saw a soccer ball roll by as I left the guest house with this guy following along.


We then took the jeep back down to the highway. We had 31 people stacked on a normal sized jeep: 7 in the cab, 9 in the back bed, 3 hanging off the back, and 12 (including the 5 of us) on the roof. It was quite the sight. We also got our fair share of looks being 5 westerners sitting on the top. We then took a bus down the road an hour to the River Springs Resort. Our main (and really only) reason for stopping there was the pool. We had doubts based on the billboard we saw on the side of the road, thinking they just got the image online and printed it out. But with Mary's assurances we payed the hefty $5 swimming charge and went down. We were surprised by the huge size of the pool and delighted by the swim up bar where we could sip a cold beer and relax in the water. Not too bad way to end the weekend.


We would take breaks from swimming and go up to the resort for some food. Then it was time to flag down a bus to take us back towards the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu. Kate, Alec and I finished off the night with dinner in Thamel and I had one last night in the capital before going off to Kathmandu University 30km outside of town. There I will be working on improved wood fueled cooking stoves.