A Too-Small Singlet and Lycra Shorts

Short Version:
We walk from Bhulbhule to Bahundallah, and spend an afternoon in the village

Stats:
Total Walk time Day 2 = 3:30
Cumulative Total Walk Time = 6:15
Beer Time = 6:15

Long Version:
Morning in Bhulbule:
Cups of hot lemon+honey drink
Chapati (flatbread) with omelet
Cloud-shrouded ridgelines disappear into rainmist up- and downvalley.
But! At the head of the valley we can see the lower portion of a snow-bearing and truly enormous mountain.
Excellent.

We had an early start, courtesy of the alarm on the Puppetwatch. As usual, the Nenewatch alarm failed to sound. Luckily, we had German lodge-neighbours as a wakeup backup. No fluffing around, either - we were dressed and packed before we hit the dining room, and we bailed pretty soon after eating. Even so, we were among the last to leave, and trekkers who had overnighted in the part of the village on the other bank of the river had been streaming across the suspension bridge for quite a while before we actually got underway.

We'd spent some time talking to Ganga and other Nepali about appropriate clothing before we set out. Guidebooks had been universal in their advice to wear clothes that wouldn't offend our hosts, but a little vague and/or contradictory on exactly how that translated to the real world. Turns out it wasn't too strict; shoulders covered and no short shorts or skirts.

Not everyone had read the same books, obviously; one of the trekkers we saw on day 2 was wearing a too-small singlet and lycra shorts. German, we assumed. Offensive, certainly.

Didn't stop the group of young girls at one of the villages along the way stopping him with a makeshift barricade made of scarves and demanding a toll of pens, paper, or sweets to allow him to pass. We snuck through while they were gloating over their newly-acquired goodies, and carried on up the trail; past a chicken that caught and ate a butterfly as we watched; past many uniformed children on their way to school, many of whom wanted their photo taken either solo or with the inky Puppet; past sleeping cows; past waterfalls and baby goats; past lizards that didn't run even when touched; past cicadas which employed a violent abdominal contraction to generate their vast noise output. We saw a pair of heavily-decorated holy trees, we saw a grumpy old man tell a girl off for asking Nene to photograph her. We saw the path ahead go up a steep hill. Rats.

At the top of the hill we found the village of Bahundallah, just in time for lunch. Hoorah! We sat and looked out across the orange groves (oranges here don't actually get to turn orange, but they're picked and eaten anyway, and they're bloody nice) to the valley that stretched away to the northeast from where we sat atop the ridgeline spur. Good food, full bellies, comfy chairs... nap time! Wait, what? No napping? Asshats.

Out to explore the village, then!
Kids galore, scampering hither and yon, often looking very much like a fall from a precipitous precipice is imminent but somehow managing to stay on their little feets.
Kids and adults alike in various mixes of traditional garb and modern Western clothing; often North Face and other outdoorsy stuff (especially down jackets, worn over any number of styles of undergarment), but just as often slightly weird urbanwear, from tight jeans and street sneakers and shiny thin jackets through to cocktail dresses and heels. In a village with rice straw scattered over the worst of the muddy parts of the dirt trails that serve as footpaths.
A walled school complex, from which uniformed kids and young adults streamed at the close of their school day. Not all kids go to school, but some of those that do travel a LONG way on foot to get there and back.

We'd been hearing a rhythmic thumping for a while, and asked Ganga what its origin might be. He led us into a gated farmyard, calling out to the inhabitants as he drew near the low-roofed building from which the noise was emanating. He explained to the woman and 8ish-year-old girl inside that he had some nosey foreigners who wanted to see them in action, and, with much giggling and shyness on the part of the girl, they started up again.

The woman crouched on the ground just inside the open end of the building, next to a foot-high calf-thick chunk of wood that had been lashed to a long piece of timber that passed over a sawhorse-style brace mid-length before ending at the inner end of the room near where the girl stood, ten feet or so from the woman. As we watched, the girl stood on her end of the piece of wood, pressing it to the floor, then leaped away, causing the chunk attached to the far end, raised two or three feet into the air by her standing on the end of the timber, to come down onto the rice piled on the floor. THUMP! Before her outstretched foot reached the timber for a repeat, the woman was in action; brushing bits of rice that had been ejected from the pile by the force of the blow back into place. THUMP! When the crushing end rose again, the woman had not only hands in motion, brushing errant grains back to the pile, but also her breath, blasting across the pile, scattering split husk segments away from the heavier pieces. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! MOO!* THUMP!
After a prolonged period of thumping, the woman spoke to the girl, who stood on the lever and stayed there. The woman then gathered the rice into a basket and shook it, on an angle that varied from 30 to -30 degrees. Dusty debris streamed away from the basket, leaving husked rice grains, ready for cooking. Not many, though - they were back in action as we left, the renewed thumping following us as we set off.

We meandered back to the lodge, and ate delicious foods (fried rice, and vege spring rolls) while sneakily watching the other trekkers. Some ordered WAY to much food, one took a shower with hearing aids in and killed them irrevocably dead, others played games with local kids until bedtime.

Room very similar to the previous place: Beds are wooden platforms topped with a 3-inch foam mattress; Sheets and pillowcases are white, not new but clean; Incongrous wall decorations - this time a poster for a (very cool-looking!) VW concept car from some years-past auto show; Wide shelf-like windowsills.
Differences from previous place: All walls wood, where Bhulbhule had concrete exterior walls; Floor covered by matting, not linoleum; Exterior blue, not yellow.

Early to bed, again. All this fresh air and walking and eating delicious foods is tiring!







* = The cow in the other part of the room was occasionally quite vocal