It was early in the morning when buzzing alarm woke me up. A typical November, crisp winter, Kathmandu Saturday morning with mercury standing in between three and five on a Celsius thermometer at around 5o’clock. I forced myself to wake up and freshen up, as the travel for the day was going to be hectic and unforgiving (little that we knew at the time but not entirely a bootless errand) & so, had to start the journey early. The travel was planned by one of my uncle and were traveling with his family and some other friends. They had booked a four wheel drive (4WD) off-road SUV and a mini-bus.
We started from home at around six. As it was very early in the morning, we didn’t hit any snag on the road or traffic bottleneck. As we crossed the city limits on the Ring Road and exited on to the Araniko Highway and started toward East, little bit of fog started to form on the SUV’s windscreen. By the time we crossed Sanga (Bhaktapur district border), fog was so thick that we had to slow down and face unexpected traffic as the visibility in front of us dropped below 50 meter as you can see on the short video below. We lagged behind a fleet of vehicles until we reached Dhulikhel. We were used to see green scenery around, in between Sanga and Dhulikhel which was disrupted by the fog this time.
After crossing Dhulikhel, we started to climb downhill on the Araniko highway and the thickness of the fog started to deteriorated with every passing kilometer. The greenery around us, just was enough to enthrall anyone but the combination of that and winding hill-side road were adequate to stupefy even a anti-ecologist. We took a pit-stop at Zero-kilo (starting point of a highway) at Panchkhal for tea. After a 10-15 minutes pit stop, we exited Araniko Highway and got on Melamchi-Helambu Highway. I took this highway when I came here last, few years back and the highway was decent at the time. Usually, highways get better with time but unfortunate for us, this one got worse. Because of the fleet of trippers (heavy load carrying trucks) and the load they carry that uses the highway, the road was completely degraded and almost not existent. Fortuitously, we were on a 4WD vehicle and it did the road gracefully.
It took us more than an hour to reach Melamchi bazaar from zero-kilo and almost an one and half hour more to get to the top of the hill where the temple is located. It was almost ten o’clock when we reached the temple. As soon as we reached, we start the prepare for the puja. Once every thing was ready, we stood on the queue to the temple. Since it was a Saturday, the temple was crowded and had the be queued for some time before we could hand over the puja thali to the pandits and start our prayers. After we finished out puja, we looked for the passengers from the mini-bus who were just arriving at the temple. We let them be in the queue and went to look for a place to have some tea. As it was well beyond the time to have breakfast, tea stall were not serving tea anymore but rice. We looked for it in few more stores before we found it.
After having the tea and resting for some more, my uncle’s friends who came by the bus, started to assemble as they also finish the puja. Then, we went to look for a place where everyone could sit down and have the food Newari (Jho: Bhwe:) way. Once we locate a place, we carried all the food items from the bus to the location and start to arrange the lapte (a special plate made by stitching multiple leaves with small sticks for Newari Bhwe:) and the food. Everyone done with the food erstwhile and relaxed for some more time and observing the natural beauty of the location.
We started to prep for journey home by half past three PM. After loading everything on to the bus, we headed for our vehicle. Climbing down-hill on dusty, red-mud, off-road, hillside road cannot be more dangerous. Tires were slipping as it was unable to get the traction from loose red soil on the road. Finally, with all wheels operating, were able to get out of the mud and dust. We crossed Melamchi with in half hour. We decided not to return on same road via Araniko Highway and take the Jarsing Pauwa – Sakhu route. The Melamchi – Jarsing Pauwa – Sakhu route was still under construction and dusty but was way better than the highway that we took while going. We stopped for much needed tea break when we reached Jarsing Pauwa and I took below panorama photo from the same location when our tea was being brewed.
P.S. there are two routes to this location from Kathmandu. Also, if you were wondering, here's the google map location:
