Our first full day without any jeep transportation! As would become the daily ritual, tea was brought to our tent at 6am along with a basin of hot water and towels to wash-up, then we headed over to the cook tent for corn flakes with banana (and hot milk! An interesting, and very tasty change-up to regular cold milk on ones cereal), then coffee, toast, and eggs with green onion.
Everyone seems to be moving well. The porters take frequent breaks, but Nima and his two cooking assistant porters scoot ahead of us just before lunch to set up the kitchen. Every day involves an hour or two break for a sit-down hot lunch. One of the sillier highlights of the day was when a local man approached Ongchhu to ask him about the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood. Not sure why he needed to know just then, but Ongchhu was happy to explain. Another gem was chatting with our team about who is married, has kids, etc, Chheten - one of our porters who only speaks limited English - piped up with ‘single life is golden life’. We all get a good laugh out of that.
No shade where we stopped for lunch today, so we used the umbrellas (as would become a regular occurrence) as sun shades. Had our first encounter with large groups of school kids and as we’d heard usually happens, they immediately greeted us by saying ‘pen, pen, you give me pen?’ or ‘you give me sweet?’, or ‘give me doll?’ Ongchhu told us the best policy is not to give them anything. If you want to help them out, donate to the nearby school or a charity. Eventually the kids lost interest in us and headed back to home or school. Another funny incident this day was walking through the village of Dharapani and seeing what would be the first of many groves of marijuana plants just growing right along the side of the road. It appeared the biggest problem for the farmers was keeping the cows and goats from snacking on them.
The end of the day came a little earlier than we expected. The porters were getting pooped out from their ridiculously heavy loads and were lagging way behind. We had hoped to get to the town of Muri, but that was still a half-day away. We pulled off the trail and set up camp at an elementary school play field in the village of Sibang. After our lunchtime encounter with all those kids, we weren’t quite sure what to expect pitching a couple tents in a field that had fifty or more children. Fortunately the kids were wonderful. Few asked for any treats, and Becky entertained a lot of them with her pictures of home, the slinky and yo-yo, and as requested, she sung a few songs. The deal was that she’d sing a song, then they were supposed to sing one. I think it worked out closer to them demanding two or three songs from her for every one song that they would sing. There were a couple soccer games going on and a few of the little kids that didn’t have a real soccer ball made do with plastic bags filled with grass.
As we sat in the cook tent having our afternoon tea, this adorable, chubby little boy walked by several times each time saying something that sounded like ‘bizgood?’ I finally realized he was asking for a ‘biscuit’ It broke our hearts to say ‘no’, but these kids were doing just fine. This area was thriving with farmland; rice, corn, beans, quinoa, potatoes.
This afternoon was our first afternoon rain. This was a bit of a surprise. We thought ‘after the monsoon’ meant that we’d have dry weather every day, but apparently the common weather pattern in this area is clear weather in the morning, then the heat of the day causes clouds to build, then by mid-afternoon there are some rather threatening clouds and a bit of rain, then during the night the clouds clear out.
..the next day
link to all the photos
Everyone seems to be moving well. The porters take frequent breaks, but Nima and his two cooking assistant porters scoot ahead of us just before lunch to set up the kitchen. Every day involves an hour or two break for a sit-down hot lunch. One of the sillier highlights of the day was when a local man approached Ongchhu to ask him about the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood. Not sure why he needed to know just then, but Ongchhu was happy to explain. Another gem was chatting with our team about who is married, has kids, etc, Chheten - one of our porters who only speaks limited English - piped up with ‘single life is golden life’. We all get a good laugh out of that.
No shade where we stopped for lunch today, so we used the umbrellas (as would become a regular occurrence) as sun shades. Had our first encounter with large groups of school kids and as we’d heard usually happens, they immediately greeted us by saying ‘pen, pen, you give me pen?’ or ‘you give me sweet?’, or ‘give me doll?’ Ongchhu told us the best policy is not to give them anything. If you want to help them out, donate to the nearby school or a charity. Eventually the kids lost interest in us and headed back to home or school. Another funny incident this day was walking through the village of Dharapani and seeing what would be the first of many groves of marijuana plants just growing right along the side of the road. It appeared the biggest problem for the farmers was keeping the cows and goats from snacking on them.
The end of the day came a little earlier than we expected. The porters were getting pooped out from their ridiculously heavy loads and were lagging way behind. We had hoped to get to the town of Muri, but that was still a half-day away. We pulled off the trail and set up camp at an elementary school play field in the village of Sibang. After our lunchtime encounter with all those kids, we weren’t quite sure what to expect pitching a couple tents in a field that had fifty or more children. Fortunately the kids were wonderful. Few asked for any treats, and Becky entertained a lot of them with her pictures of home, the slinky and yo-yo, and as requested, she sung a few songs. The deal was that she’d sing a song, then they were supposed to sing one. I think it worked out closer to them demanding two or three songs from her for every one song that they would sing. There were a couple soccer games going on and a few of the little kids that didn’t have a real soccer ball made do with plastic bags filled with grass.
As we sat in the cook tent having our afternoon tea, this adorable, chubby little boy walked by several times each time saying something that sounded like ‘bizgood?’ I finally realized he was asking for a ‘biscuit’ It broke our hearts to say ‘no’, but these kids were doing just fine. This area was thriving with farmland; rice, corn, beans, quinoa, potatoes.
This afternoon was our first afternoon rain. This was a bit of a surprise. We thought ‘after the monsoon’ meant that we’d have dry weather every day, but apparently the common weather pattern in this area is clear weather in the morning, then the heat of the day causes clouds to build, then by mid-afternoon there are some rather threatening clouds and a bit of rain, then during the night the clouds clear out.
..the next day
link to all the photos
The village of Dharapani
Schoolkids in Sibang
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