My life in Dhulikhel

Most, okay all, of my posts so far have been from my little side adventures over weekends and days off. But I have actually be spending a fair bit of time working at Kathmandu University in Dhulikhel, Nepal. Dhulikhel is a smaller Newari town around 30km east of Kathmandu. For travelers along the Arniko Highway it is the last real stop before the Tibetan border 75km away. During tourist (non-monsoon) season, a series of “Resorts” and “Lodges” are filled with tourists admiring the fantastic view of the Himalayan massif. Now-a-days most of the guest houses and hotels are empty and it's only Nepali populating this small town. Kathmandu University (KU) is actually located two kilometers west of Dhulikhel. The bus stop/neighborhood along the highway is called 28-kilo because it is handily 28 km from Kathmandu. KU is then a 800m walk along a road dotted with small shops, homes, and lots of rice patties.

Here at KU, I have been staying at the International hostel. It is a mix of quite a few Nepali students and several students from Africa. Somehow I got a very nice room with an attached bathroom, not sure how I got that lucky.

Everyday we cook, mostly dal bhat, lunch and dinner. One day we used a stove model we had just developed to grill some chicken.

The three story dorm/hostel has a nice roof for drying clothes when it's not raining and has a great view from the surrounding area.

When we are bored sometimes we'll play a little bit of cricket in the common room.

Life around KU is a mixture of football, cows, and stray dogs. Oh and rain, let's not forget the rain. Down below the various dorms there's a football field where kids come to play all the time.

And all around the cows roam, mowing the grass and fertilizing the soil.

The cows normally have someone watching them, at least from afar. It looks like it might be a boring job sometimes.

A few days ago I was wondering around KU taking photos of the rice patties and the town in the valley below (Banepa). As I had my camera sitting on a stone wall for a longer exposure a man ran up to me, through a hole in a fence and waved me down to his house. Apparently the only words of English he really knew were “my house”, “my cows”, and “my children”. Nevertheless I sat down and had a cup of milk tea with him and his family. After his father was very interested in my camera I took a photo of him with his grandchildren.

This past Saturday several other Nepali guys and I went on a short walk up to the top of a hill just outside of town that was having a small Hindu gathering/festival of sorts. Never got the story behind it, but it was a festival none the less. Tons of people.

Even a carney. Yeah they have them in Nepal as well. This game you had to throw the ring and encircle the juice box. No one seemed to be winning so it's safe to say that carnival games are the same round the world.

There was a small pokhari (pond) where people would toss water out into the middle of the pond as well as on their heads for good luck.

On our way back down we took the scenic route and were rewarded with a fantastic view of the valley below

Back at KU, my work has consisted mostly of computer modeling of wood combustion stoves in an attempt to improve the efficiency. Not a whole lot of luck so far, but I'm pretty confident for the next week or two. Here is the current stove design.

And a new stove prototype that was designed in Kathmandu that my supervisor, Suraj, and I went into town to test. And yes that is 20 liters of water that that thing boils in around 40 minutes.

Finally here is Suraj's other project, a biomass gasifier that uses the resultant fumes to run a diesel engine.

That's all for now, maybe in a few days I'll have a cool CAD model picture for you all.