Catching a Ride to Hetauda

Hetauda is a small city in the south of Nepal, close to the India border. It is the headquarters of the District Milk Producer Cooperative Union where I will be for the balance of my mandate, 8 days. It is 42 kilometers between Kathmandu and Hetauda, which is exactly the distance between Orangeville and Guelph as the crow flies.

Sashi loaded the jeep at 8:15, to pick up Babina  (Assistant Program Officer) and Proeveen (intern and my translater for the next 8 days). We get to Hetauda just in time for lunch.

The one lane road between Katmandhu and Hetauda is swolen with vehicles full to the brim with people (and sometimes tops of vehicles too) including buses, vans, motorcylces, and things that resemble the three wheel English postal service vehicles from the 1950's. Katmandhu has exploded in population over the last 10 -15 years- by almost twice its original size, and today people are returning from visiting their friends and families from the festival of lights the week prior to this. This route is seldom used by anyone other than the local Napalese travelling between the two cities. I thought Kathmandu was crowded when I arrived there two days ago. I can't fatham what it will be like when I return.

Dodging oncoming vehicles, animals, pedestrians, on hair pin curves with cliffs 500+ meters (and no guardrails) Sashi tells me the trip takes 3 hours even at the best of times. His driving is a lesson in precision, but it must be tiring. Sometimes paved, sometimes strewn with bolders the size of small small dogs, in some areas because of shifting earth and landslides it is a beaten down track.

The scenery is absolutely stunning; terraced rice padies of the most vibrant colour green, ancient villages with original mud brick houses, souring vistas of the distant Himalayas beyind the Kathmandu valley, thick sub tropic tree canopy.

Nepal is beautiful.