Tansen

Day 34 – Bardia to Tansen – 27 Sep 2018

After breakfast we left our cottage in Bardia, this time taking the road towards the Karnali river which we couldn’t cross on the onward journey due to rising levels of water. The alternate route which took us to Thakudwara last time was an additional 30kms, and an extreme slush road at places. As we moved along the road towards the river crossing, we were enchanted by the traditional village huts, and people – a way of life that has not changed over years! Though the climate was uncomfortably humid, the view was just spectacular, with beautiful huts all along the way, and cattle barns occupying more space than the actual hut! There were buffalos, cows and goats, and it was clear they form an integral part of each family. We soon reached the river crossing, to our surprise, we could see that the river had shrunken to a thin stream in a day’s time. I applied all my experience gathered from the Ladakh river crossing story, and slowly crossed the stream without much trouble! We covered some really nostalgic and beautiful village roads and finally got onto H01 again!

Once on H01, it was a smooth drive on the less crowded highway (except for the cattle that block the road often).

One thing we noticed is that, the first major city we saw after entering Nepal on the East-West Highway is Butwal which is almost 430kms from the Mahendranagar border. Indeed a long drive fully in village tranquility!

The drive was pretty smooth. After Butwal, mountain roads to Pokhara start and Tansen is on the way and it is again a hilly area. It was dark by the time we reached Tansen. And the roads on this mountain town is very narrow and steep. We struggled a little to climb up and then find the actual location of our homestay. On top of this, we had no network coverage and the homestay location was not accurate as shown in the offline map. This made us roam around for a while to find the location. The town looked very ancient, with crowded streets and literally no place to park the car. As we parked the car somehow, and walked along the streets, we could quickly spot some of the antique art and craft shops displaying their authentic works. Even though it was a tedious task to check-in to the homestay, things changed immediately as we met our host – The Bashyal family! We had an absolutely warm welcome and we were invited to the terrace dining in the first floor for a tea! Though the house was not that spacious, it was very well maintained, and the terrace was the perfect place to sip a hot cup of tea with a nice view of the town. Abhishek Bashyal and his mom, made the stay really comfortable for us,  and we spent a long time chit-chatting on the terrace. While Abhishek who was a school student, was super excited to know more about our road-trip, his mom insisted he talk to us more about the higher studies opportunities in India. Mom prepared an extremely delicious dinner for us according to our taste and choice, and made the stay such a memorable and awesome experience for us. 

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