Nepal: Changunarayan - Lumbini

After spending over a week in Nepal’s capital city we felt like we had seen and learned a lot. We thoroughly enjoyed it but longed for a break from the hustle and bustle as well as the inevitable dust and pollution, so, we set our sights on the hills to the east, namely a village called Changunarayan. This small village lies on the periphery of the Kathmandu Valley, where, because of the increased elevation, you have a fantastic view of the valley, including Bhaktapur and Kathmandu. The village itself is an important heritage site because of its ancient temple; one of the oldest in the country.

Changunarayan temple, one of the oldest in Nepal, dating back to the 5th C AD.

View from the hills near Changunarayan

We stayed in a rural home stay with a local family, and life there was very different to what we had become accustomed to in Kathmandu. Everything was much more rural, and the modern amenities of Kathmandu were much less seen. The biggest changes were that houses had no running water, as such. Each cluster of houses had a spring-fed fountain where families washed themselves and their clothes. The clothes, including ours had to be washed from a wide bucket with a hard bar of soap. This is a technique which took me quite a while to get right and I often ended up with dirty clothes, despite washing them, in the beginning. This particular technique is common throughout Nepal though, even in Kathmandu, only there we did this job in the shower. From the fountain they also filled jugs and bottles to drink and cook, and some connected a hose to the fountain at night to fill large tanks high up on their roofs, so that they could have a shower. Some houses had solar panels which they used to heat this water so they could have a hot shower. 

One of the many cows found throughout the village tracks.

Chickens can be found roaming free throughout.

There are several walks around the village offering stunning views of the Kathmandu Valley below.

The other difference was both the food and the kitchen. The food was very very simple – we ate a large helping of rice every meal with Dal (a lentil soup which is poured over the rice to make it more palatable and to give it some flavour), as well as a small helping of potatoes fried with some spices. Meal times are a little strange to us, coming from Europe, with breakfast consisting of bread and tea at 6am, “lunch” consisting of Dal Baht at 10am (!) and dinner at 8pm (!). It felt very odd having such a substantial “lunch” at breakfast time, and then having no food at all for another 10 hours, but it seems to be quite common around Nepal in general. 

A typical, traditional rural kitchen, found commonly in the village.

A local family prepares a popular adopted dish of Momos (dumplings).

Alba prepares Roti - a traditional round flatbread.

Another noticeable change was seen in the weather, with much more rain up in the hills, compared to Kathmandu. Some days it rained solid all day, preventing us from leaving the house at all. With all of this rain, and lush vegetation came another surprise – leeches, and lots of them! On my first day I pulled two from my feet, and the bleeding didn’t stop for nearly 12 hours. This is because of a natural anti-coagulant they inject into your skin when they bite, to maintain a flow of blood for them to drink from. After this incident, we were very conscious of the possibility of picking these nasty critters up, so we walked everywhere with boots and did regular checks. Whilst we did pick a few up, they never had the chance to bite down again, thankfully.

A local lady covering up in the monsoon rains.

A well-soaked Large-billed Crow in the heavy monsoon rains

Of course, the other big difference was the wildlife. Because we were now in a rural area there was a big increase in bird and invertebrate diversity which made me really happy. Over our 5 day stay there I saw a whole variety of new butterflies as well as some lovely birds with my highlight being a lovely Long-tailed Shrike. It was really interesting and relaxing to explore the rice fields and see how everything functioned. We are a few months away from the harvesting period but we watched lots of women working very hard weeding and then carrying any pulled weeds in a great big mound, wrapped in some cloth, which was then hung by a strap from the forehead, and resting on the back. It seemed like backbreaking work. I very rarely saw a man in the field doing this work, which was surprising. I did however, see them in the roadside cafés having tea and chilling! Not all men behave in this way here but it seems like, in the rice-fields it’s a man’s world! 

Brown Pansy - a common butterfly in the area.

Common Map - an incredible looking species!

Fulvous Forest Skimmer

Fulvous Forest Skimmer

Indian House Crow

Jungle Myna

Juvenile Ashy Drongo

Long-tailed Shrike

White-throated Kingfisher

White-throated Kingfisher with a Mole Cricket.

A plethora of rice-fields surround the village and are great fun to explore

A closer look at some of the rice terraces.

An old lady fertilises the rice.

Lots of villagers take shortcuts through the rice-fields, walking on the terrace walls with caution.

A lady carries a bag of weeds pulled from the rice fields. This will subsequently be used to feed their goats or other livestock.

We're always surprised when we see the loads women carry, with the support of their head and back!

Two rice-field workers stop for a well-earned break.

After spending 5 days in Changunarayan, we felt like we had seen what was to be seen and we packed our bags and moved onwards again. This time we had a much bigger journey ahead of us. We did some research, wanting to see some of Nepal’s big predators and herbivores and decided to head towards Bardia National Park. Chitwan National Park seems to be the place to go for most people but admittedly I don’t really like big numbers of people and so we decided to go to the much lesser spoken of, Bardia (this ended up being an excellent decision – but more on that later). To go from Kathmandu to Bardia would mean a minimum of 20 hours of bus travel so we decided to split the journey in 2 and stop at Lumbini first – the birthplace of Buddha.

To begin, we took the bus from Changunarayan direct to Kathmandu, and stayed one more night with our original, fantastic host, Pushpa. The following morning, we took a taxi to Gongabu bus station, and then a bus direct to Lumbini for 850 NPR each, what a deal! The whole thing took us about 12 hours, but it wasn’t too bad as we had air conditioning and sufficient legroom. The scenery was quite interesting too! We stayed at Lumbini Garden Lodge which was really reasonably priced and very nice overall. 

On the go again (at 5am!), this time from Gongabu station in Kathmandu, destined for Lumbini.

I look rather unimpressed - not because of the food  but because I don't like my photo being taken. This traditional Nepali breakfast consisted of black tea, roti and a spicy chickpea soup.

The following morning we rented two bikes and spent a half day exploring the Lumbini temple complex. This is a very holy site for Buddhists and has evidence of temples dating back millennia. Because of this, many Buddhist and even non-Buddhist countries have built their own temple in the grounds. With the bikes, we cycled to each one and really enjoyed it. It was really interesting to see the unique and individual temple styles of each country. We would highly recommend hiring bikes, because of the vast size of the complex and the extreme temperatures. Bicycles can be rented for as little as 100 NPR per day in various locations.

My trusted bike for the day

Here we are at the Chinese Temple, Lumbini.

Temple Decor.

We were surprised to find that Germany had a temple inside - it was very nice though!

The Thai temple was very reminiscent of the White Temple of Chiang Rai, Thailand, which we visited last year.

Part of one of the Tibetan Temples.

Stray dogs are commonplace at temples throughout the country, presumably because the monks feed and care for them.

This was really encouraging to see! Despite keeping ours eyes peeled we never saw any Nilgai in and around the temples though.

  

After a shower and a little rest we went back out, this time to explore the rural villages and rice fields behind our accommodation. We absolutely loved this part of the day and it gave us a real insight into true rural life in the west of the country. Everybody was so curious and genuinely friendly – it put a smile on our faces the whole way. In the rice fields there were so many interesting birds to photograph, with the highlight being very showy Red-naped Ibis and Lesser Adjutant. We also came across a group of Nilgai, the largest Antelope in Asia. They were much bigger than I had envisioned particularly in terms of sheer muscle mass – they look incredibly powerful. They didn’t seem too perturbed by us and allowed us to get some nice shots. To wrap up our short stop in Lumbini, we met a lovely father and son herding their buffalo home for the night. The son was called Sunil but we never did catch the father’s name as he was a little shy. Sunil, however, stopped to say hi and even asked if we could take his photo which we gladly did, as we love photographing our trip and I, being shy myself, often find it difficult to photograph people I don’t know. 

A schoolboy cycles home on a typically old-shool bike, Lumbini.

Bikes are a very common mode of transport in rural Nepal, much more so than in the bigger cities.

Our two bad boys take a well earned rest in the rice fields.

Domestic Buffalo taking a dip in the heat.

The Julius Caesar of the buffalo world.

This was a really interesting moment. This man stopped in his tracks and just stared at Alba with a look of curiosity in his eyes for what seemed like an unusually long time.

Photographing a showy Lesser Adjutant

An impressive Lesser Adjutant, photographed in the rice fields of Lumbini.

Red-naped Ibis

We finally connected with a group of Nilgai on the edge of the rice fields. Here is a powerful mother with her calf.

The friendly Sunil with his father and their buffalo.

Alba and Sunil both love the camera, unlike me!

While staying at Lumbini, Alba had contacted a lodge in Bardia National Park, and in return for us working on their website (correcting English spelling and grammatical errors), they offered us free accommodation and food – the perfect base to explore and hopefully see Elephants, Tigers, Rhinos and more! More on this to follow shortly.