Hasera – Living on a rural farm in Nepal

Christa working the plants

“Yololo!” Govinda shouted. Best word ever you’ll hear on the farm, because that meant “Food is ready!” Mito, Govinda’s wife, prepared possibly the best food ever. After a semi-relaxed morning of work, we get pretty much the rest of the day off. Or we could choose to do more work if we wanted to.

We were volunteering at Hasera Permaculture farm. We went through a company called Volunterring to Learn. Rolling hills with huge mountains in the distance surrounded the farm. But their gigantic size makes it seems like we could reach a hand out and touch the top of one of the snow capped peaks. In just over a week, we’ll be working our way up one of those peaks. But for now, we were busy digging up onions, garlic, and feeding chickens and petting the cows.

Birth Place of Buddha to the Kathmandu Valley - sacrifices and host families

The birth site of Buddha in Lumbini

Lumbini. Not so shortly after we crossed the border, we settled in a quiet town where Buddha has been proven to be born in. Nothing spectacular. A few temples all very dedicated to Buddha from each Buddhist country in the world. We saw China, Korea and Nepal before we decided it was too hot to bike around anymore. Here it was still 40 degrees. Not what we bargained for, weather-wise.

We retreat back into our room play in the shower, aka wash our clothes. It was about time we had fresh clean clothes again. All hand wash, courtesy of the hotel shower. Just don't tell them. Shhh... We head to Kathmandu 2 nights later.

Walking across borders. End of India and the beginning of Nepal!

On the train ride reading up on Nepal

Varanasi was a scorching 42 degrees and it showed no signs of relief until the odd hours in the morning. We decided it was enough and took the 8am train (when the heat was still somewhat bearable) to go to Nepal. This isn't as un-common as we originally thought. A lot of people do this trip. From Varanasi, we took a 4 hour train to Gorakphur. We were lucky to find an express train that stopped only twice, otherwise it would've been a 6 hour trip.

From Gorakphur, we found a bus that went to Sunauli. It wasn't hard. When we got off the train from Gorakphur, touters were coming up to us "You going to Nepal? Take our bus!" The bus stand, though, was right infront of the train station and it wasn't necessary to listen to touters. We asked a few people which bus went to Sunauli and they directed us in the right direction.  There were touters though, trying to get us to their private company buses that cost 1,000 Rupees. About 12 dollars. But instead, we found a bus for 80 Rupees. Just over 1 dollar. This bus though, really isn't that nice. We put our luggage on the roof and were literally crammed in the back corner of the bus. Leg space is non-existent. You literally sit up 90 degrees to give some room for your knees. And the Indians will just keep piling on the people and shove you futher into the corner of the bus. We were on that bus for 3 hours in the baking heat of 40 degrees of the day. Longest 3 hour bus journey of our lives. Fun!