Trip to Gorkha and visa problems in Pokhara!





 Our next school visit, was out to our furthest afield school, Shree Bhagawati School, out in Gorkha district. We set out in the morning, as ever, heavily laden with resources and materials to donate to the school. We planned this trip at this point because Andy’s visa was due to expire shortly and so the plan was that on the way back we would go via Pokhara and spend the weekend there before resuming our teaching the following week in some of our more local schools. This plan fell through slightly as Andy realised three hours into the bus journey that he didn’t have his passport which he needed for the visa extension.

We were committed to going however and there was no turning back so Andy looked at ways that he could try and get someone to get his passport to Pokhara to avoid a further 10-12 hours on a bus going back to retrieve it.

The seat Andy was sat on felt a little loose but on arrival in Mugling about five hours on from Tansen, it completely collapsed from under him as he stood up! The last hour of the journey had been a bit of a balancing act to keep it intact. It wasn’t the first one to go either – during the journey we had stopped, just outside of Butwal and a guy had come on with a welding kit and fixed one of the seats at the front of the bus which had suffered the same fate. Nepali buses really need to be seen to be believed!!

The guys riding us weren't phased by the huge bags we had!

In the afternoon we went up in the cable car to Manakamana where we stayed for the night before being picked up the next morning by the head teacher, his brother and another of the teachers on their motorbikes. We were rather heavily laden on the bikes but somehow managed to balance ourselves for the hour long journey over to the school. Despite the discomfort it really was an amazing way to get to the school – the scenery around this area is absolutely stunning.

Shree Bhagawati School, Gorkha

 
 

Having fun with a phonics puzzle.

After a short meeting with the teachers we got straight to work visiting the kindergarten classes and year 1 and 2. As I had done at Bagnas we took a box to the lesson with a big selection of books, games and other resources for the children to explore and gave them time to have a look and a play with them. The musical instruments proved especially popular and it was quite a noisy classroom! The children also loved the books and jigsaw puzzles and we also took bright colourful paper and pencil crayons for them to do some drawing. We once again tried to get the message across to the teachers that these resources must be used as often as possible. Hopefully by showing the resources to the children, so they know they are there, will help with this.

The English teacher, Radhika, with some of the children and their artwork behind.

Being saluted!

The children like to be in photo's!

 
 

Making cubes with a huge class and not many rulers!!

We won’t describe every lesson again as largely they were the same as other lessons we have described earlier, though obviously new to this school. We did have a slight problem when we went to make the cubes as we realised that we had forgotten the rulers which we had been taking to every school. We had a class of at least 40 for this lesson and the school managed to find about 8 in the whole school for us to use (bearing in mind this is a big school!). Luckily we were able to go and buy some from the local shops though the children did end up having to share them around.

 

This is just half the class!

Taking them outside to try out the 'phones'.

The little girl who's home we were staying in - she was shy at first but a cheeky little thing!



Leaf art!



More art work to go on the walls.



Science: alien soup experiment.

We even got Radhika, the English teacher, involved in the over and under game in PE.

 

 

 

We stayed at the same house Andy had stayed in the previous time and were well looked after by our lovely host family. On our final day of teaching a random man came into the class and gave us a nut each. It was rather bizarre but we later found out this is a kind of invitation to a party! It seemed to be a bit of a combination of a leaving party for us and someone’s wedding – not something we wanted to intrude on but no-one seemed to mind – sometimes in Nepal you just have to go with it. There was a nice leaving ceremony for us and we were, as ever, invited to say a few words. Afterwards we had a fun evening of dancing, with us getting pulled up to dance more than our fair share of times. When we were utterly exhausted we left the party, still in full swing, and made our way in the pitch black (with no torch!) up to the house, a mile or so away.

After the leaving assembly to say goodbye.

 

More tikka!

The children show us how it's done!

We're probably a bit old to be climbing trees but never mind!!

 

The next morning we were due to be taken back on the motorbikes to Manakamana. However during the night it had started to rain and it continued to pour down for the early part of the morning whilst we huddled on the porch surrounded by our bags and chickens also trying to take shelter. There was some spectacular thunder and lightening and we saw one fork of lightening hit a tree only about 50 metres or so away from us which was rather startling!

Once it had stopped we were still left hanging around for a good couple of hours until they assembled three motorbikes to get us on our way. It turned out one of the riders had continued celebrating in the morning with a few Roxies and was not in a particularly good state to ride so Saran rode his bike with him on the back. It was not easy going with the amount of rain that had fallen in such a short space of time but the guys riding us were brilliant and despite a few slips and slides we avoided any accidents.

 


We gave out some balloons before we left which proved very popular!

One funny incident on our way to Pokhara occurred just as we were about to get on the bus. A policeman stopped us and searched our bags, apparently looking for drugs. It was the most cursory of searches, he may as well not have bothered! It was actually a festival day and the one day of the year where the smoking of cannabis is actually permitted, however they had had a report of someone carrying around larger quantities so were searching people. Saran didn’t particularly like being searched, not because he had anything to hide, but just felt they shouldn’t be searching us with no reason to do so. He must have said something, though the first we knew of this was 5 minutes into our journey, in a jam packed minivan, when the police pulled us over. The funny part was when the policeman asked the driver to open the slidey door to let Saran out so they could speak to him but it wouldn’t open. We were sat in there for 5 minutes or so whilst the driver pulled and kicked the door in an effort to get the bashed in door open. Eventually he did and Saran was spoken to (why they hadn’t done that before is a mystery) and we were on our way again. Unfortunately every time the van stopped to let someone out the driver had to go through the same thing of trying to force the door open! It’s a good job there aren’t any MOT tests in Nepal or no-one would have a vehicle left to drive!

Saran headed back to his home the next morning and we stayed on as it was the weekend and Rob had not seen Pokhara. We did all of our shopping for presents and clothes in Pokhara (there is a massive selection of excellent quality, fake North Face gear for a fraction of the usual prices. In the afternoon Andy took a taxi up to someone’s house who had his passport which Sagar had given him to bring from Tansen. This was done by giving a taxi driver his phone so the man could explain what was going on. It felt a bit scary having a passport with some random guy but in typical Nepali fashion it worked and he wouldn’t take any money for bringing it.

View of Machupuchare from Pokhara.

The next morning we hired mopeds and rode up to Sanrngkot, a big hill overlooking Pokhara which gives magnificent views of the Himalaya’s…usually. Unfortunately after we had made our way up the steep climb on the bikes, of which one had to be pushed several times, the mountains were covered in cloud. We did get a bit of a look at the mountains but it was not anything near what we had hoped for. Rob left early the next morning, whilst Andy had to stay an extra day to wait for the Visa office to open up as there had been yet another public holiday!

It was a bit unfair on Rob as Andy was able to go up Sarangkot the next morning before leaving and saw the views at their best!

We are not far from the end of our visits to schools now with just Bagnas and Dumre (and perhaps Mahachaap if there is time before the exams / holidays).

Best wishes

Andy and Rob.

Andy got lucky with some amazing views from Sarangkot. The previous day it was covered in cloud.