Magical Places: Raja Rani

Dear All,

So I’ve just returned from yet another trip to the field. This trip was much shorter than I had anticipated, as I managed to get a little bit of a stomach bug pretty early on and had to return to Kathmandu in a hurry, but it was still an enormously eventful few days. In fact, there’s so much to tell you about, I’m not certain I can fit it in a single blog post, but I will do my best.

As is true of any journey, just getting there was half of the fun. This trip Dai was accompanying me so I was able to travel by bus instead of having to fly to Biratnagar and then hire a cab to Dharan. I know I’ve mentioned before the route to my fieldsite, but let me just remind you in case you’ve forgotten. My fieldsite is in the south eastern part of Nepal, not that far from India. In order to get to the villages that I’m working in, I generally fly from Kathamandu to Biratnagar which is about an hour flight. From there, I take a cab another hour to Dharan, which is where Dai’s family lives. I usually stay one evening there, and then I take a public bus in the morning another 2 to 3 hours depending on how busy the roads are, until I finally reach my Dhimali mother’s home. But going by bus is an entirely different adventure. By bus, we board in Kathmandu and ride 15 to 16 hours to the Koshi river. Every time I’ve crossed the Koshi it’s been at a different point and by a different way. I’ve crossed it once in the small wooden boats, just after the flooding. I’ve crossed it once using a bridge that had been quickly restored after the flooding, but which was closed due to strikes this time, and finally, this time, we crossed on the big bus ferries. So far, I prefer the bridge, but only because the crush of people on either of the two types of boats makes me nervous. Here’s a picture of the ferries, so you can get an idea what I’m talking about. (There are more pictures in the slideshow box too.)



While the ferries were in and of themselves a spectacle to see, the bigger spectacle for me occurred as we drove through the foothills in the evening on the way to the Koshi fording point. As we drove through the night, I glanced out my window expecting to see nothing but rolling green hills, but this time, I saw something amazing. Long red lines cut across the hills, glowing in the dark. Apparently, the recent heat had caused a rash of forest fires, and the hills looked as though they’d been transformed in to volcanoes. I tried to take pictures for you all to see, but my camera didn’t do a good job capturing the thin lines of fire in the dark. But I’m not certain a photograph could ever have captured how truly beautiful and slightly heartbreaking those fires were. It was really incredible.

It was only after this evening journey through burning foothills that we arrived at the fording point. As the pictures will show, the buses were literally lined up for days. So we were told to get off our bus, hike down to the river, crowd on to one of the ferries, and catch a bus on the other side. This prompted me to wonder why they actually bother to take any of the buses across the river, but I never got an answer to that question. I suspect some enterprising bus driver will think of it eventually. Dai and I were able to crowd on to the first ferry and so we were up the hill on the other side and back on a bus by around 9am. We arrived in Dharan later that afternoon and I was pleased to find that while the summer heat had set in, cool winds were still dancing through the city, making Dharan seem to be as much a paradise as it always has been to me. We rested for the day and determined to head off to Raja Rana the next morning.

Raja Rani is the sight of one of the more important Dhimali festivals and houses one of their community temples. It is located about an hour drive from my study village, and is situated at the top of a rather large hill. Raja means king in Nepali, and Rani means queen (yes, just like Hindi). Raja rani is actually named after two ponds at the top of the hill, one called Rana pond, the other, Rani pond. The Dhimals travel as a community to this spot once a year to begin their new year and to conduct the year’s first worship. It was both exciting and humbling to be able to join them on this pilgrimage.

Many Dhimals had told me that Raja Rani was a magical place, and as we approached the hill, I began to take these claims more seriously. The landscape was stunningly beautiful and the fields were a green that is seldom seen in the Terai. Usually, the harsh heat of the area leaves most of the land, even the fields, looking decidedly brown. But here, the irrigation streams were well fed, and as soon as we got off the truck, you could hear the whispering of the water as it rushed to keep the young plants growing. But we only took a few seconds to take in the sight before we started the climb up to the top of the hill, where we would be staying the night. (Funnily, it was only at this point that it even occurred to me that I had no idea where I would be sleeping that night, just as I had no idea where I’d be sleeping the night before, or the night after. It seems I’ve grown accustomed to surrendering myself completely to the plans that life and my study community make for me. It still surprises me to think that I’ve become such an adventurer.)
Since I’m not now, nor do I ever plan to be, a trekker, the climb to the top of the hill, especially in the heat, was brutal. I tried to bear it as best I could, but I kept thinking about all of the other American friends I knew in Kathmandu who actually paid money to climb hills like this. It still seems strange to me, but to each his own I suppose. After a brief eternity and a half, we reached the top of the mountain. I was drenched in sweat, and my friends were kind enough to try and stifle their laughter at my exhaustion. Still, after only a half an hour’s rest, I was ready to head off in to the forest to see the ponds, and the temple.

It was in the woods that the most exciting part of the trip occurred, the thing that really convinced me this place was indeed magic. As we were walking we came to the following bridge:

I froze, terrified to cross such a small and shaky bridge, but work was calling on the other side, so there was nothing to be done. (It turns out, there are very few crazy things I won’t do in the name of work.)I started haltingly across, but in the middle, one of the logs teetered and I froze again. In an instant, it seemed as though a million brown leaves began to rain on me from a tree above. It was only on second glance that I realized it wasn’t leaves that were surrounding me. It was hundreds and hundreds of monarch butterflies! I know I may have to apologize for this, but I think that may have been the greatest moment of my life. For that one instant, all my fear and worries vanished, and I was filled with a joy I’ve never known. I stood there basking for a moment before I realized a hand had been outstretched and was gently pulling me across the rest of the bridge. It was a sweet and comforting gesture, but it also startled me, as I realized that for my fellow traveling companions a butterfly downpour was nothing spectacular. And to think, sometimes I pity them because they don’t have running water. I wonder (hope?) that sometimes they pity me because I don’t have an endless supply of butterflies.

Wow, it seems this post has already become obscenely long, so I’ll gloss over the rest of the trip. As I mentioned above there are pictures in the slideshow box, including a picture of the huge spider that was protecting my bed when I reached my Dhimali mother’s home.

I’ll write again soon, as I have more exciting things to tell you including a little bit about my Easter and the amazing priest I’ve been lucky enough to meet here. (He gets in street fights, shares my love of chocolate, and is potentially the most gentle, humble human being I’ve ever met.) I hope that you all also had a very blessed and joyful easter.

If I don’t say it, do you still know I’m thinking it?...Ok, ok, I love you all sooo much.

All my love,

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Rafting

Dear all,
First of all, I’m heading out to the field again this coming week. The Dhimals are going to be celebrating their biggest festival of the year. I’m terribly excited, but I’ll also be gone for awhile. So please forgive me if I go silent again for awhile. But I am resolving now to write more often as soon as I get back. And I’ll try and write at least one letter from the field. That said, last time in the field, I wrote personal letters to a few of you, but then I realized I don’t have your addresses. So I’m including a form here, if I know you, please give me your address so I can write to you. Of course, you don’t have to, but if there’s no address there’s no chance you’ll get a letter.






Ok, so, today I have another adventure to tell you about. Yesterday, I went rafting with 35 of my closest friends here and it was sooo much fun. We all met at 6:30ish and climbed on to the bus we had reserved. From the first moment, I was completely impressed with how well organized the whole event was. My friend, we call him Buffalo, was the organizer, and he’d not only secured the bus, but he’d gotten us all boxed breakfasts, and he’d remembered to get two huge jugs of water. So before we’d been on the road even half an hour, we were all enjoying a breakfast of vegetable pakoda and my favorite Nepali sweet, julabi. (actually, they call it something else here, but I seem to only be able to remember the hindi name for it right now. Sorry) Once the sugar from the julabi had kicked in, the silliness began. Another of my friends, who has the biggest most constant smile I’ve ever seen, started to sing, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t stop for a full two hours. It wasn’t long before most of the bus had joined in. Sadly, I only know one song in Nepali, a child’s rhyme, but to make sure I didn’t feel left out, we all sang that too. It was hard to hear over the laughter, but it was there.
The trip to Tirsuli, takes about 3 hours, so we stopped once to buy bananas (which were fresh and sweeter than any banana I’d ever eaten in the US.) We actually thought we were stopping for tea, but we’d mistaken a big house for a tea shop, and the woman who lived there was only polite enough not to chase us away with a stick. It was actually pretty funny. Then we climbed back on the bus, and didn’t stop until we’d reached the rafting place. At the rafting place, all the girls needed to change, but there were no changing rooms, so we had to borrow a room from a neighboring farmer. We changed in the room where they kept all their corn, and as we changed we made jokes about how we’d become just like goats. Once we’d changed, we walked down to the river. I was so excited, it was hard not to rush a head. There were a couple groups of tourists as well, but we mostly kept to ourselves. We all got geared up in helmets and life jackets, and looking back at the pictures, I think we all looked pretty silly. Then we split up into four different boats, and headed to the water.
Fortunately, our rafting guides were friends of Buffalo and Skeleton, because we were quite a handful. I got the sense that other rafting groups actually have an interest in rafting, whereas we were mainly interesting in waging war on each other and being mischievous. It reminded me a lot more of a game of battleship than rafting. One boat even had the foresight to bring a bucket. Sadly, that wasn’t my boat. We weren’t even 10 feet from the shore when the splashing and chasing began, and for a good twenty minutes all of our boats simply rotated in place as we were all more interested in splashing neighboring boats than moving forward. Eventually, our guide was able to gain control of our rambunctious crew and we headed out in to the river.
Our rafting route was actually pretty long. We went about 16km before we stopped for lunch and then after that we went another 5 or 6km. It ended up being about three hours all together. The river was tamer than I had expected and we only hit a few really big rapids, but I still managed to lose my seat a couple of times. We also had plenty of chances to jump in and swim, and the water was so refreshingly cool and deep. It was really nice. In fact, being a Michigan girl it was just nice to be near water again, and I couldn’t help but think of all the canoeing trips I’d taken back home. The scenery wasn’t all that different from home either, except for the occasional waterfall and of course, the ever present hills looming in the background. Buffalo caught me looking dreamily at the water, and being as intuitive as ever, worried I was missing home too much, but it was more a happy nostalgia than a heartsick feeling. In a weird way, it felt good to miss home that way. But it also made me resolve to get at least one afternoon of jetski-ing in when I get home.
After rafting, we climbed back on the bus and headed back towards Kathmandu. We stopped once for fried fish on the way. At the fish shop, there were 5 or 6 different kinds of really small fish, all about the size of my palm, and they were fried whole in oil. Everyone said they were delicious, but I’m a strict veggie over here, so I didn’t try them. They smelled pretty tasty though. After our quick fish dinner, we headed back home. Despite our exhaustion, the singing picked back up in a matter of minutes. We played a game where one side of the bus would sing a song and then the other side would have to sing a song that began with the last letter of the last word in the other side’s song. It was very summer camp-ish, but it was also a ton of fun. Once again, I wasn’t able to contribute much, but I did sneak Happy Birthday in, which made everyone laugh. When most of the bus had drifted off to sleep, a few of the guys started singing old nepali love songs, and I fell asleep to their soft singing.
In short, it was another wonderful day full of great friends and great fun. I uploaded the pictures and you can see them in the slideshow for now.
As always, I’m sending my love your way.
Sarah
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