Kalinchowk

According to Baral, experience creates confidence. And sure there were 100s of confident (and brave) dogs chasing the speeding vehicles in this tour.

You need to cross that creep between mountains!

Kalinchowk lies at North of Kathmandu about 100Km. If you go in local vehicle, you should take bus to Charikot or Jiri and then travel from road head to the hills (5-6 hrs treks). Otherwise if you take private vehicle, there a motorable road constructed upto the village near the main temple. Main temple is about half hour from this village.

The tour started at 5am Saturday morning on 12 February 2011 with Nabaraj, Naran, Raja, Kishor, Bisnu Baral and Bhairab dai. After feeding petrol to the vehicle at Baneshwor, we travelled towards the destination. At zero kilo (place where road separates to Melamchi) we had some breakfast at Sharmila's hotel!

Even with Raja, we were inside the vehicle till then! But enough is enough for Raja. So there was no option except to go to the back of the truck and enjoy the ride and tolerate the cold and centrifugal force created by Bhairab Dai's steering. We were rolling on the truck all upto the Kalinchowk village. Lots of Laligurans on the way were observed. This year, Laligurans were blooming a month ahead of its usual time (Chaitra).

After separating from Kathmandu-Charikot highway there is dusty yet adventurous road uphill that ascends to the Kalinchowk village. The road seemed to be newly constructed. Tall, fat, lanky tress resembling scene from some action Hollywood movies. And we were heading ahead.

While entering reaching the Kalinchowk valley, our joy had no bound. We screamed like crazy. The place was so beautiful. Few wooden houses on the plateau and rocky mountain in the background, blue sky all around. The experience cannot be described in mere words. It was awesome!

Gauri Shankar Tridents

At the village, we ordered food in the local hotel and then marched towards the main temple. The temple lies on the rocky mountain about 500 meters higher than the village. The village itself seemed to be about 3500m above sea level.

It took about 45 minutes for us to climb up to the temple. Tridents were plenty in this temple. It seemed that pilgrimages offer trident to the goddesses of this temple. There was a stack of trident lying.

Rajes had denied going with us. However we saw photos of his late parents there. Probably some of his family member had visited there.

A magnificent view of Gauri Shankar Mountain was observed from this temple.

Then we descended to the village and had our food and then travelled towards Charikot at Nabaraj's house.

On the way back, we saw a pair of fox that had lost its path and were on the road. Bhairab dai was chasing them. But the fox had fortune and nothing happened to the fox. Lucky fox! Probably the foxes had lesser experience and strolling on the road instead of jungle.

We travelled to Nabaraj's house from there. His house was about 28kms from Charikot. We stayed the night at his house. There we had 3 glasses of mohi in row, enough to crack the stomach all over the night. One thing to notice is, every time Nabaraj gives us new thing to drink, we have to spend night in toilet.;)

Next day we left Nabaraj's house with a goat for Bhairab Dai at 3 am. At 9 am I was at office washing my face.

I think we increased our experience and confidence!

"जो फुल पहाडमा फुली हाल्छ, अनि फुले पछि बुकु बुकु गारीहाल्छ, हो तेहि हो बुकेको फुल।"