DAY 90-DAY 547

WEATHER: Beautiful, cooler and 20C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Feeling 96% better

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Half the group leave for rafting-miss them

WORD OF THE DAY:  Serenity

This is day 90 since leaving home on the 8^th of August and day 547 of my whole Odyssey. 

This is my life and I am one lucky person that is for sure.

Good morning…and what a good morning it is.  I am feeling 96% better, I slept through the whole night and I am hungry for something to eat this morning.  I still feel a little ‘off’ but compared to yesterday I have nearly made a full recovery.  Man, I can’t remember the last time I had food poisoning and it is the first time in 20 months that I have had it and I hope it is a long time till I get it again. Yuck, yuck and double yuck.

But today is a new day and we were up and dressed at 7.30am for some breakfast.  We decided to eat at the café across the way, the guys had eaten there yesterday and had raved about it and I needed something in my stomach after not really have eaten yesterday and I have to concur that my eggs and onion and tomatoes mix was amazing.  I wasn’t able to eat it all, but it was just what I needed.

Six of the group were going rafting today, which is an overnight excursion, and then the rest of us (4) would be leaving Bandipur in the morning with all the bags and picking them up along the river somewhere around lunch time tomorrow.  So they were all busy packing their overnight bags that were provided and that would go into barrels and I decided I HAD to get some blog written.  Even though it was a little cooler today, the sun was out, the sky was blue and I decided to make the most of this marvelous setting and view and sat downstairs, outside with my computer and just started to tap away.  Now this is what I wanted to do yesterday and is the beauty of getting sick on rest days, at least I got that part right and it was nice to have the additional day here, rather than in Pokhara, as I just would have shopped more there and there were more distractions, and it was a lot more relaxed here and exactly what I needed.  So my words flowed until my computer went flat and I had to go back to the room to charge it.  I am lucky it doesn’t take long for it to charge, around 45 minutes, so I left it in the room and bought back my hard copy diary and caught up on that, sticking in my daily sheets, ticket stubs and anything else that I hold onto for keepsakes all the while listening to my tunes and just enjoying where I am and thinking about where I am going. 

The group left at 11.30am.  So with a wave goodbye and wishes of luck we were now down to 4.  Rubes, Jess, Mar-Anne and I were left to our own devices till tomorrow morning.  We were given the run down from Satya on what was to happen tomorrow-so we were clear on that, and it was all taken care of, but we still had to sign a waiver that we were ‘leaving’ the tour for the night and reconnecting tomorrow, even though the company has organized all our extra accommodation and transport.  Well whatever paper work they need then so be it.  I skipped on lunch and retrieved my computer to keep blogging till I got kicked off the big table at 2.30pm for the arrival of a large group for lunch.  I was okay with it as I had nearly finished my 2^nd blog and was nearly typed out.  I moved to one of the smaller tables in the shade and it was just too cold to be sitting there, so I loaded the 2 that I had done and then went back to the room to read for a few hours before Jess, Rubes and I had decided to meet at 5.30pm for an early dinner.  It does sound early but it takes so long to get the food once you have ordered, so by the time it comes it is around 6.30pm-7ish anyway.           

The internet has not been so great since leaving Kathmandu.  There has been enough for status updates, a few loads of Instagram photos and a blog if I am lucky.  I have so many messages I need to reply back to and I feel bad that they can see when I have read them and haven’t replied back.  So as soon as I get some decent internet, I promise everyone that I will reply back to every single message that has been sent.   

        

I haven’t spoken much about the town of Bandipur but it is a super cute, quaint kind of place and with some of the buildings reminding me of Cuba with them all run down but still having a charm about them.  Bandipur is a hilltop settlement in Tanahu District of Nepal. Because of its preserved, old time cultural atmosphere, Bandipur has increasingly been coming to the attention of tourism. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 9952 people living in 1929 individual households.  Bandipur is located at an elevation of 1030m on a mountain saddle (Mahabharat range) approximately 700m above the Marsyangdi River Valley, 143 km to the west of Kathmandu and 80 km to the east of Pokhara. Since 1998 it is connected by an 8km access road from Dumre (Kathmandu-Pokhara highway). Until then, there was only an unreliable road, in monsoon usually not accessible or only by tractors. The mountain saddle, just 200m long, is barely wide enough to accommodate the main street lined by 2 –3 story buildings on either side. At the backsides of these houses the mountainsides steeply descend and the gardens are only accessible by stairs.

Bandipur was established as a funneling point of trade by Newar traders from Bhaktapur in the Kathmandu valley after it had been conquered in 1768 by Prithvi Narayan Shah. They took advantage of its malaria free location to develop it into an important stop along the India-Tibet trade route. With them they brought their cultural heritage and architecture which basically has remained unchanged to this day.  Originally a simple Magar village in the early 19^th century Bandipur developed into prosperous trading centre and a community with town-like features: substantial buildings, with their neoclassical façades and shuttered windows and streets paved with slabs of silverish slate. Bandipur had its heyday in the Rana times (1846-1951), when, as a measure of its power and prestige, it was granted special permission to have its own library (still existing).  In the 1970s, trading fell into a steep decline with the construction of the Kathmandu – Pokhara highway. For technical reasons it was logically built in the Marsyangdi valley, leaving Bandipur isolated up on the mountain. In addition to that, as a result of its poor accessibility.  The tradesmen of Bandipur were forced to move down to Dumre and many even left for the Terai; Bandipur turned a semi-ghost town. The population declined considerably.  Some relics of its wealthy past remain. Although many houses are in bad repair, the typical Newari architecture is preserved. A distinctive aspect of Bandipur’s main street is a covered veranda extending along almost the entire length on the northern side. Most of the buildings still have little shops in them. The slate slabs in the main street have been destroyed by heavy vehicles, for which they were not made, but they can still be made out along the edges and in the smaller alleys. The library still exists and was carefully renovated in 2000.

So not the most exciting day for an ordinary traveler.  But I need days like this and it was just what I needed following such a sick day yesterday. 

This is day 90 since leaving home on the 8^th of August and day 547 of my whole Odyssey. 

This is my life and I am one lucky person that is for sure.