Changu Narayan, middle hills, dal-bhat and Nepali time

Changu is a small village 20 kilometers to north-east from Kathmandu center. The village lays in slope of one of many middle hills of Nepal.

Travelling in middle hills of Nepal

Middle hills are, as their name already points, in the middle. When you go north, you'll end up to endless Himalayas. When you go south, you'll face lot of hills, green jungle, dry deserts and Indian border.

One thing you should remember if you consider going somewhere from Kathmandu valley by land. With a bus or a jeep maybe. It's gonna take time. You have to go over or round lot of hills and mountains no matter which direction you go. And roads are bad. For example one of our bus trip took 11 hours and it was just 120km distance. Eleven hours just for one way 120 kilometers by road.

Pic from empty bus. Shooting photos is impossible when its full because you might not be able to move your hand to your pocket. You can easily stuff 60 people to the bus of 20.

Fortunately come back journey took only 6 hours for same distance. But the driver seemed to be bit nuts. The road wasn't better or more safe at all other way. Sometimes (all the time) you just see 400 meters of empty space sharp downhill from window just 10 centimeter from your bus tire.

Just deal with it.

120 kilometers with a deluxe bus costed 7$.

I don't really know what exactly were the deluxe part in those busses. Maybe that you could have your own private seat.

If you plan travel on the road in Nepal, you should get familiar with the concept of Nepali time first. That's exactly what we did in Changu Narayan.

Changu Narayan

In last post I told you about my arrival to Nepal and how did I manage to get myself from Kathmandu airport to Changunarayan village. And more exactly to Dhrubas House which was my first destination and headquarters in Nepal.

It was huge relief to finally reach the place.

At the beginning I was confused because everything was new. Chicken, dogs, goats and cows running all around the yard. Trash everywhere. Maybe the weirdest and most funny thing was that no one pointed any attention to these... faults.

Chickens in their natural environment

After recovering from first shock of arriving to Asia, started to look where am I and what's happening around me.

Changu Narayan actually is hindu temple on the top of the hill. It's the oldest temple of Nepal.

The village around the temple is called Changu.

Changunarayan is a municipality where the village Changu and temple Changu Narayan is located. There's been population of 55 000 people in Changunarayan in 2011.

I had made my booking to Dhrubas House via Airbnb(10$) so I got my own room and threw my backpack on the floor and went to chat with the others. Soon came out that other travellers had made their reservation via Workaway(7$) and they were actually working there.

I had no proper plans so I decided to do also some work while my stay. It was mostly carrying water buckets, preparing Dal-Bhat (peeling potatoes) and washing the dishes.

Dish washing place

Working with locals is effective way to get familiar with the people and culture. And with other travellers also.

There were three water taps in 30 meter distance from our house. The fourth one was maybe 50 meters. All the taps were slow and it took always from 10 to 15 minutes for bucket to fill. That was perfect time for small break and a cup of tea.

Working hard with Phil, English traveller.

We spent few days with Phil in Changu and I really miss those times. Phil has been travelling and workig lot in Asia and for me this was the first destination so I got lot of answers to all typical beginner questions like "how you wipe your ass here?" etc..

Yeah, people doesn't use toilet paper in Asia. Just a tap and a cup in a toilet and you got all you need.

There's pretty nice tutorial video for using Asian toilet. Made by two Finnish guys Riku and Tunna, aka Madventures.

After stay in Changu Phil went to Annapurna trek for two weeks and after that went back to London to his "normal life". 

I'm sure we'll meet again.

Dal-Bhat

Mornings in Dhrubas house (official name Village Villa) starts always the same way. The rooster starts his cock-a-doodle-doo six at the morning.

Breakfast is usually somewhere between 7 and 8:30AM. And it's always chapati (2pcs) and omelette (1egg).

Lunch is eaten pretty early at 10 AM and the next meal is dinner at 8 PM.

People usually eats some snacks at some time between lunch and dinner. Usually it's fresh or spiced fruits (banana, apple, mango) or coconut cookies or dry noodles with spices.

Lunch and dinner was always the same. It's dal-bhat. Rice, dal and some vegetables. Sometimes there's chicken or mutton but mostly veg.

Our hostmom Menuka sharing dal-bhat.

We always ate together sitting on small 5 centimeters high benches in a shady kitchen. At the beginning it was very weird to see that people in Nepal and India eats with their bare hands. Or a hand.

More accurately only with right hand because left one is for toilet you remember, right?

I really liked the food in Nepal. It's always good. But still couldn't completely understand at the beginning the Nepalese excitement about food. They were always so happy and enthusiastic when it was getting near dal bhat time.

"Dal-bhat, dal-bhat, dal-bhat!", they sang.

It was good. But every day. During your lifetime. Twice in a day dal-bhat. And you're every time like you won in a lottery.

I think there's wisdom behind that excitement.

Gratitude. That's what Nepal culture is all about.

Everybody got problems. It's all about what you concentrate. You can be complaining until the end of the world about your miserable destiny. Compare your life others and you'll never achieve peace. Always someone has something more. At least it can easily look like it.

Or then you can be grateful for what you got right here right now and have a party every time you got food, shelter and friends around you. Even if it's dal bhat. Twice a day. Until the end of days.

Evening time

At several evening I, Phil and Italian traveller Francesco spent time with our host familys son Nabin. He's same age as I and he works for the governement as a loyer in Butwal, southern Nepal, behind 14 hours travel with a bus. This time he was fortunately for us, visiting home for holidays. Usually we watched cricket and talked about everything.

Nabin taught us lot about Nepali culture. About caste system, society, politics, economy and cricket of course.

There's still lot to fix in Nepal (like any elsewhere) but I wouldn't be too worried. Everything is going to better direction in whole universe and same is happening in Nepal. People are more and more educated, equality and possibilities are increasing in a big picture all the time.

Nabin as our guide from day trip to Sankhu, village at valley near Changu.

This is long-term journey of a lifetime.

-Nabin

Nepali time

Concept I really liked in Nepal was taught by our host father Dhruba. It was called Nepali time.

At one evening Dhruba were speaking about fixing the holes from road next day. We were suppose to help him with that. Morning arrived but when we next time saw Dhruba it was already an evening.

We asked him about fixing the road.

For our suprise Dhruba showed the most wide and friendly smile of universe and said:

"Nepali time, my friends"

And we never fixed the road until I left Changu for now after three weeks from arrival.

So after this if anyone ever claims you are late or lazy or anything, you can always just answer that you live in Nepali time. And don't forget smile.

Thank you for reading! :)