My favorite day

Yep, Saturday was by far my favorite day in Nepal so far. It all started early in the morning at 6:30 am, the other Charlotte had stayed the night at the monastery still busy with her interviews. We made our way down to the dining hall, got our roti’s and went to sit outside by the prayer wheel where we’d promised the two Sonam’s the day before to meet up. Whilst we were eating our roti’s (with a choice of my peanut butter or the monks’ spicy chilli sauce as condiment) a group of younger monks came to find me. “Zizi, picnic today?” UM, YES PLEASE. We had talked about this in class for a bit and decided that if it was good weather Saturday that we would go. The weather was amazing. We all agreed to meet at the prayer wheel in an hour.

An hour later we were all ready to go. I had heard before that they always have picnics at a park so I was all mentally prepared for a simple walk on the road to a grassy field. I WAS WRONG. We ended up hiking up a mountain in the middle of the jungle. It turns out that the monks use this short cut so that they don’t have to pay the entry fee (naughty). The hike was super tough but super beautiful, the sound of waterfalls as a background song to the chirping of birds. However, the mountain was crazy steep and the ground was super slippery; there Charlotte and I were on our flipflops (which we had worn because we were expecting a simple park picnic….) with the young monks, who were carrying pots and pans and wood on their backs and heads, meters ahead of us.

Then horror struck, we discovered there were leeches (I finally got my first leech! Why am I excited about this?) And about 2.3 seconds after that we discovered that Charlotte is deathly afraid of leeches. She had a panic attack right in the middle of the jungle. There Aryan and I were desperately trying to calm her down, trying to find a plastic bag for her to breathe in, trying to find something for her to eat, but there was no one and nothing around us except the green and… more leeches. Eventually Aryan and I managed to calm her down (the group of 7 younger monks were already far and distantly ahead of us) and within a five minute walk we made it to a road. We carried on along the roads from there on forth.

Chopping veggies like the
mom I am...

Leaves as oven mitts! Yes.

The total trek took a good 2 hours and then we arrived at the destination. It was amazing; a quiet, green open space right next to a clean, fresh river… this was not the kind of park I had in mind. All my expectations were blown out of the water (wait, pun intended? What am I doing with my life). I think the super tough trek up the steep mountain to the picnic spot actually made us that much more grateful for the amazing place we had ended up in. And because Aryan, Charlotte and I had arrived later we could hear all the monks playing in the river already, I was beyond excited. The two older guys (Aryan and Jimpa) started making a fire whilst the rest of the young monks played in the water with Charlotte and I watching.

That’s how we spent our day, accompanied by eating mangos, pomegranates and ramen noodles; which were impressively good considering it was cooked by one of my young students. Because of the walk Charlotte and I were all gross and sweaty and were dying for a swim, but we hadn’t brought anything to swim in (expecting a western style picnic in a flat, grassy park) so we had to do with just paddling our feet in the freezing water. Then, as if it was a gift from the river Gods, we found four one-use packets of shampoo lying on a rock!!! What!!! We decided it was a divine sign that we should just go in the damn river and wash our hair. It. Was. Amazing. I never want to use a bathroom again… okay that may be an exaggeration. Either way it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Look at this view!!!

Now that the no-swimming-for-us rule had been broken and we let go, we played and played and played with the monks for the next half an hour before our feet got so cold that they could’ve fallen off. We went back to the grass spot and quickly dried up thanks to the burning hot afternoon sun. After some more talking, card games and a butterfly landing on my face (!!!) we decided it was time to go back. The younger monks all left on the forest short cut whilst Aryan, Charlotte and I took the civilized path down the sand roads. We arrived back at the monastery an hour after the rest of the younger monks, exhausted and high on life because of the awesome experience we’d just had. Ahhh, I really can’t put how amazing that morning/afternoon was into words, this will have to do.

So after a quick breathing break Charlotte was ready to go off to Boudha where she was planning to spend the next few days. After a quick debate in my head I decided to go with her, Boudha really is one of my favorite places here. Of course we went to the Spanish restaurant again, it helps that the owners are so awesome… and I had churros for the first time and died a brief death of joy. Then the rain started. First slowly and then all at once, and didn’t end for an entire hour. We were stuck at the restaurant drinking fruity cocktails… poor us. Then we looked outside. BOUDHA WAS FLOODED. There was half a meter of water around the stupa! Bikes were half drowned and people were up to their knees in water! It was almost 6:00 pm, time for me to take the bus home, but then I looked outside again and realized that the sandy roads of Sundarijal were probably a disaster by now. After a quick call with my monastery supervisor I decided to stay at a guesthouse in Boudha, where I slept like a baby on the softest mattress I’d laid on in weeks. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Now I’m back at the monastery again, it’s officially my last couple of days here, I’m going to miss it so much but at the same time I’m feeling strangely okay with leaving. I thought that I would be a wreck and half-devastated but I’ve come to accept that this too has to end… plus, having the thought of seeing my baby Maks (he’s a dog, not an actual baby, don’t worry) and my family in a week is definitely making it easier too!

Charlotte x