Cooking classes

Well, after having spent in Nepal more than 4 months and having got addicted to their food, we (with the Spanish volunteer) decided that our skills for cooking real Nepali dishes need to be improved and it’s not enough anymore to be able to cook dal bhaat (the lentil soup with rice) or aloo parotha (the bread filled with potato), but we cannot go home without learning the real and original recipe of my favourite Nepalese dish, the momo.

So this is how we ended up attending a whole afternoon-long cooking class with Socialtours. Well, the afternoon absolutely wasn’t spent useless: imagine that we went to the market together with our Nepalese chef, selected the best items for our momo, after which we started cooking – of course we had to actively participate in this part – and at the end, we even had a nice lunch / dinner of the momos that we just prepared.

Ok, it sounds pretty easy, right? But the truth is that the process included quite some challenges for us, already starting with chopping the vegies (cabbage and onion). Well, when they say ‘chop the veggies fine’, you have to imagine something that almost looks like a sauce or some minced veggies. While we were struggling with this for quite some time, our chef’s hand moved so fast with the knife that you could hardly see it – and just like magic, truly fine vegies were lying under it in a minute. Probably this is why it’s not us who is giving cooking classes – I thought. After all the chopping, learning about the different kinds of spices, and getting to know that momo sauce actually includes a lot of roasted peanuts, the next challenge was faced. It was time to actually form the momos – we learnt two different shapes, the one that is round and the one that looks more like a moon. Again, the process that seemed so natural and easy under the hands of our ‘teacher’ turned out to be a little more difficult for us, as a result of which we had quite a few interesting, ‘modern shaped’ momos.

By the way, we were preparing two different kinds of momos: the most usual veg momos, and another type that was probably more designed for European taste than Nepalese – spinach cheese momo. This latest one I have never tried before, but it’s for sure that this won’t be the last time I ate, because it’s one of the best things I have ever tried! The taste of the spinach mixed with some yak cheese and garlic perfectly match each other! Anyway, we even had a surprise momo, too: when we were all finished with preparing our veg and spinach-cheese momos, our chef brought out a piece of Snickers chocolate, cut it up and formed small balls from it to have a very special filling for the last few momos.

The best part only came after this: when we finally got to try the sometimes strange shaped, but delicious results of our work of the afternoon.

It was a really great experience, no I will just have to try all the process all alone, once I get home. Even if it’s something very touristic, I would absolutely recommend these cooking classes to everybody who is looking for a fun and ‘tasty’ afternoon in Kathmandu! :)

Trip to Pharphing

Pharphing is a small village about 25 km from Kathmandu which became my destination for an easy Sunday trip.

The village is famous for its many Buddhist monasteries as well as a Hindu temple and it was sai to be a peaceful, quiet spot just in the neighbourhood of the capital.

After taking off with the bus from Ratnapark and soon finding out that it was passing pretty close to our place in Sanepa, I arrived in the village after about one hour of bus ride – that took me by the banks of Bagmati River while leaving the last houses the road slowly melted into small hills and deep forest. Approaching Pharphing I already saw a few small monasteries so I constantly kept asking the man sitting next to me: ‘Are we there yet? Is this Pharphing?’.

When finally reaching the village I started climbing up and up a hill – because why not start at the top? – that I saw almost covered by all the Buddhist flags. On the way I also found a famous Hindu temple, saw some monasteries that I walked through, too, while often young monks were crossing the road or just sit around by the monasteries. After climbing and climbing I found out that it was really worth reaching for the top: besides all the flags above me blown by the wind also an amazing view of the valley was waiting for me. I finally spent here quite some time, enjoying the view and sitting under all the flags. Do you remember what I once wrote about the meaning of these flags? That when they are swinging in the wind, the wind is supposed to blow away all the problems and bring back good solutions and luck instead... Well, really having this thought in your mind, it is truly a beautiful experience to spend some quiet time under the flags, over the valley and Kathmandu city by the hillside of the village of Pharphing.

Shrawan - month of lord Shiva

Do you still remember what I have written a few months ago about the Nepalese calendar? You know that we are writing 2071 here and start the year on 14^th April according to our calendar. If you are good at math then now you already know that we just finished the fourth month of this calendar. This month is called Shrawan which is a really special period for the Hindu people. It was about a month ago when I noticed that a lot more women – and sometimes even men – were wearing beautiful henna on their hands than before. Also, yellow and green bracelets (bangles) appeared on the counters of all the small beauty shops by the streets.

After asking several local about this mystery I slowly started to put the puzzle together: I got to know that the month of Shrawan is dedicated to lord Shiva, the most important god in Hindu mythology. In this month, women wear the henna – which is called mehndi here – and the bangles to take care of their relationships. Married women wear it, because it is said to bring good luck a good health for their husbands (!), young girls might ask their boyfriends to give bangles to them, because it is supposed to strengthen their relationship, or they can just simply wear it in order to have luck in their future relationships.

The darkness of the henna is not meaningless either. After having drawn the beautiful patterns on the hand or feet and having waited at least an hour before removing the material, it is said to take about 24 hour for the henna to darken and show its final colour. According to Nepalese people, the darker the mehndi becomes, the more the woman will be loved by her husband. Of course there are some tricks to ‘strengthen’ this love as well: after having the patterns drawn, most women add lemon and sugar on the mehndi to increase the colour, and some also put plastic bag on it for some time to let it dry slower which will again result in more intense colour. So girls, these are the Nepalese tricks, if you would like to have happy and loving relationships! By the way, for me there’s still something grotesque in all this placing it in the context of all the arranged marriages and the local’s ‘natural’ explanations according to which love will automatically come after the marriage...

Anyway, after getting to know all this of course I also walked up to a man drawing beautiful mehndis by the edge of the road in Swayambhunath and – after bargaining for some time – finally we agreed in the pattern and the price of ‘my future luck’. Well, I asked for a pattern covering my palm and half of my arm. When by next day, the part on my palm turned pretty dark, while the other part remained mostly light brown, I started wondering about the meaning of this: maybe I will be loved a lot until halftime and after that no so much? :) Well, probably a more scientific explanation would just be that the mehndi turns darker where the skin is thicker... Well, we will see how much luck my mehndi is going to bring me, but it’s for sure that i have been walking proudly with it for quite a few days, while all my students were amazed by how beautiful the pattern was.    

Weekend trek: Nagarkot – Chisapani – Sundarijal

Well, sorry guys for updating so slowly nowadays, there are too many experiences to live especially after one realizes how short time is left from all those five month that seemed to be so long before coming here…

Anyway, let’s start the story with a trip that I just took a few weeks ago. This time I decided to go back to Nagarkot which is a great starting point for a whole lot of trekking routes. I planned to take a two-day-long trekking in the hope of seeing some huge mountains and also getting some training for my trek that I’m planning to do in the area of Langtang at the end of the month.

So finally I took off right after work and took the already familiar bus to Bhaktapur and from there to Nagarkot just to be there right in time to get the same small room that I had the last time I was there. So back to the same place but different experience: this time I was already walking through the small village knowing almost all the streets and the local shops and small restaurants.

After spending a relaxing evening by reading – for which I didn’t save too much time since I’m here – I got up early in the morning for the sunrise. And for my great surprise – and in contrast to my expectations to see just rainclouds, since it has been raining all night – I realized that above the clouds that sank down in the valley actually some peaks of Himalaya were facing me! I didn’t expect this being in the middle of the monsoon season and after that last time I was only facing the fog in the morning. Anyway, I happily took some walks around the village searching for the best views of the mountains until I realized that the best place was actually right in front of the door of the guesthouse. But after the sunrise still a whole day long trekking was waiting for me: I planned to reach the village of Chisapani this day. So I took off and first my way was leading through a forest after which I ended up in a small village. Although a while asking for some directions a local man tried to scare me off from continuing my trip alone by describing how many leeches are going to fall on me from the trees, I still continued. Though as for the matter of the leeches although I didn’t have any falling on me from the trees, it is true that I would have an advise for trekkers in monsoon period: please be aware that you won’t only need the rain poncho, but it’s even more important to bring long-long socks, unless you enjoy finding quite a few leaches hanging on your ankle and legs when taking off your shoes! But still, don’t let them scare you away from the trek, it would be a great loss of experience! So getting back to the trip: I think this day I took a big extra loop about which I’m still not sure where exactly I have been to. But it’s for sure that it took strangely too long time to get to the next village while sometimes I had the feeling that I’m walking in a big-big circle. Still, during this time I got to see rice fields with people working on them, tiny villages with people sitting in front of their houses, gathering and playing a chess-like game and many more. After getting back to the real route, the way was already easy to find, but still contained some challenges of climbing several hills. The end of the route truly lead through deep forest – just like the man of the leeches told me. It was here where I met with a young girl who this time tried to scare me away by the tigers: she said if I don’t let her draw a mehndi (henna which is supposed to protect you and bring luck) on me, it’s going to be very dangerous for me to walk through the forest where there might be some tigers, too. I don’t know how much reality is in the existence of tigers in these forests, but I met none – and also as I got to know later in Chitwan National Park, tigers are known to be pretty shy animals who only attack people in special cases (like if they are sick etc.). Anyway, the end of the route already leads to Shivapuri National Park, where foreigners are supposed to pay some entrance fee, but luckily I never found a ticket office with an officer present – it seems there are really some advantages of trekking in monsoon season! :) Finally the trip from Nagarkot took me a bit longer than what is written in the books: instead of the 6-7 hour long walk, I got to Chisapani after about 8-9 hours of walking so I was really happy to find a nice and cheap room there for the night. Soon I had to realize why the room was so cheap: since this is already a trekking area, the system works the same way as at Annapurna trekking: although the prices of the room is kept at a low price, you will pay a lot more as soon as you get a little bit hungry…

Next morning I wasn’t as lucky with the weather as before: this time although again I woke up for the sunrise, I had to realize that deep fog was covering the sun itself. Well, after this I set off early in the belief that I was walking in the way of Sundarijal which is a village by the feet of the hills and at the edge of Kathmandu and which was supposed to be my final destination for the weekend. As I said in the belief of that… Because it was only after walking about 1,5 hour, all the way down and down that a villager explained me that I was walking in the opposite way… Just to the north instead of south… This would have been such a big problem, I thought, only if there was any way to get from here to the next village where I was heading to. I only started to get a bit worried when the villager told me that the only way to get to Sundarijal is by going back to Chisapani and starting my daily trek again from the beginning, hopefully on the right route this time. Well, after climbing back to Chisapani, I set off again, still not being 100% sure about that the way I chose this time was the right one. Not being sure means that I was walking and walking for almost two hours in the middle of the forest without meeting any human being or even seeing a house around… This time I started really realizing that I’m in the middle of the hills all alone… It was only after about 2 hours that I met the first people: two Nepalese guys who were about the first people during the whole weekend who I could actually start a conversation with and who spoke English, too. I got to know that I was at the right route and soon I would get to the other side of the hill, from which I would already see Kathmandu so I would only have to walk in the way of the houses. I also got to know that they grew up in an orphanage in Kathmandu – they even invited me there – and right now they were trekking to a village where the grandparents of one of them lived and they were bringing a satellite for the television for them as a surprise. Aha, so that was that big strange-shaped thing on one of the guys’ back – I thought. So after a nice chat with them I continued my way and found out that the guys were right: soon a new view appeared in from of me: down by the feet of the hills I saw the city crowded with houses as well as the traits of Bagmati river – I was almost back in Kathmandu. After about 2 more hours of walking – but this time already knowing where I was – I reached my final destination, I took a bus back to Kathmandu and got home tired by happy about my weekend adventure.

I only drew two conclusions about this weekend for the later trekkings: one is to bring proper socks and shoes and maybe some salt too to avoid the leeches, but the most important is to buy a map before setting off for a several-day-long trek. It can save you quite a few kilometers, I think! :)