Hiking Route: Kurintar – Keurepani – Manakamana Temple – Kurintar
Duration: 10 hr
Date: Sunday, August 24, 2008
Participants: RudraP, LunaG, GaneshT, SauravD, SameshJ, DijupT, SitaP, RinaM, KesavB, SangharshaB, BidhaR, SumitS, and DhilungK.
Photos: EU Team (SangharshaB, KesavB, SameshJ, SumitS, RinaM, BidhaR, DijupT, and DhilungK)
Caption: DijupT, BidhaR and BishwaS
Report by: BidhaR and SangharshaB
Creative Support: Dijup / Pallavi

This was the first EU Special hiking for the EU team members. We were all very excited as we were going to visit one of the temples-Manakamana reputed for fulfilling one’s wishes. Although some of the team members couldn’t make it, we were there to represent them too.

01 Team Members: Dijup, Sangharsha, Luna, Kesahv, Sita, Sumit, Bidha, Rina, Dhilung, Ganesh, Saurav, Samesh and Rudra.(Left to right)

02 Mountain View
This was the shot taken from Thankot/Nagdhunga. The mountains above the hills and the clouds were simply awesome and the weather seemed to be in our favor to start our enthusiastic journey. At Dhading we stopped for tea, while Rudra dai took a walk to visit his relatives. Interestingly, the tea shop was named Pandey’s Kirana Pasal, later we found that the owner was Rudra dai’s relative.

Our journey continued with the visit to our regular breakfast point at Naubise – The Chadeshwori hotel, where we stopped for half an hour.

03 Getting ready

Finally, from Kurintar – Cable car station, our real hiking started. It was already noon and we were in the worst possible time to start the hike. Under the midday sun we got exhausted and it was the time when the group got separated into two. The exhaustion grew stronger whenever we saw the cable car passing above us, like a glider and we were there walking just to reach the top of the hill.

The weather got better after an hour which brought life to our walk.

04 Thank you

As we would get late to visit the schools, we rather distributed the copies/pencils to the school kids returning from the school.

05 Children of Keurepani

Write nice things, beautiful words, draw nice pictures and remain happy as you are now.

06 Manakaman temple

Ahhhhh… the temple is here, we finally reached Manakamana with complete expenditure of energy. We worshipped there and just waited for the other group to get there. Finally they reached the place after 45 minutes. We were planning to return by Cable Car but to our disappointment we were too late to catch the Cable car. We just could not imagine returning through the same path on the same day. But there was no other option left for us. So, we had lunch and a small photo session there.

Photo Session Part I: Can you guess what were we doing out there?

Trying to make EU symbolically by our hands. It was a fun indeed.

Photo session Part II: This is the EU…

10 Ready to return
Way Back to Kurintar:
Our journey back on the same trail started at around 6:15 pm, and we were obviously late. The evening was cool though, as we walked down the hill passing through the villages on the way, talking to the locals returning from the jungle with their cattle.
The path – bright at first, gradually started to fade. As we moved ahead, we kept loosing the light.

11 Dawn

By now the sun had already bid us good bye -the sight of the twilight spilled all over the horizon. As we started rolling down the same path that we have started, gradually the visible path turned into a faded whiteness, then it slowly merged into the darkness around us. Next resort – the mild light of the cell phone guided us through the darkness and jungle. We all were little tensed too because it was a long way to get down there. But without losing hope and courage we all progressed towards our destination with as much speed as we could make. We could just see the lights of Cable car station from atop the hill and except the distant light and the surrounding darkness, all we had was ourselves, and nothing else.

“This is a dry land covered with forest… most prone to encounter a tiger” Rudra was saying while we returned. (Were we less scared already to walk on that dark trail?)

12 At the base

Finally, we reached the base, loosened ourselves, had some cool air on the suspension bridge over Trishuli, The mission had been accomplished – the steep track which seemed less possible in the midday sun had been measured with our footsteps and we were back to the station.
And then the moments of recollection started – the dry hike to the top and the dark descent back to ground zero had left us with lots of insight. We listened to the silent roars of the Trishuli waves and the reflection on the water while we waited for our friends to catch up. We spent some speechless moments.

The clock ticked 8, it was late and we still had to travel 3 hours to reach Kathmandu. So without wasting time we travelled back to Kathmandu. Running out of energy, we collapsed in the van, slowly reviewing the day that had passed and exchanging the cameras to recap the timestamps we had captured on the way..

[piclens-lite-link]Please click on the image to see its large version.

13 Lava and his philosophy 14 all set and ready to go 15 EU photography 16 EU shutters 17 carrying things 18 this is how we look form back 19 Time to go school 20 waiting for future 21 Experiment 22 Here we come 23 jamka bhet 24 We are getting late 25 buddha stupa 26 Fountain 27 Scenery 28 Land of temples 29 start 30 we can do it 31 The journey begins 32 it looks impossible 33 exhausted yesss 36 holding the car 34 behind the scene 35 Here comes result 37 what to do no monkey in the town 38 I can smile though…… 39 ready for shot 40 what is the price of this smile 41 Dhilung with his shot 42 Exhausted not, GT opts for a short halt 43 balak what do u want 44 Back together 45 is this real smile 46 It`s tough yaar 47 hdr 2 48 running time once again 49 Tough road 50 water supply exhausted 51 looking to the other side 52 Paani ra Tirkha 53 this is the smile of rest 54 working full time 55 working part time 56 All about EU 57 innocent 58 children of the nation 59 we will be ready to walk with you 60 Childish shot 61 there you go 62 Ramro sanga padhnu hai 63 will anyone cary my camera 64 height of dream 65 View from height 66 Our destination 67 things have changed a lot 68 finally we are near the destination 69 Small shops at the temple 70 Balla darsan garna payo 71 means of transportation 72 Want to know my wish…. 73 Devotees 74 let`s call some one 75 salute to EU 76 Planning 77 both side of EU 78 dancing ….. 79 E 80 Temple 81 Dhilung with trisul in his hand 82 Feels good 83 U 84 Side view of the temple 85 What is the EU ? 86 Glorious dusk 87 Blissful moment 88 Light of life 89 View just after sunset 90 Time and nature 91 Dawn 92 Lets take a nice shot from here 93 Its too dark can`t see anything 94 A night to remember 95 haha can u do this 96 Light birds