L'Arte di Viaggiare - Art of Travel - Francis Galton
21 August Kali Ghandaki
Namaste Nepal En
At last I've found someone else with my rhythms. At 5.30 a.m. We are already out in the street, even though it is still dark. The bus station square is lively, the tea shops are open. We have a 'curd' and some tea before setting off. The walk is delightful, slightly downhill [at last!] and the countryside around us is varied and beautiful. There are numerous streams to cross: at first I take off my shoes and socks and cross bare foot so as to keep dry, but then the crossings become so frequent that I tire of undoing and doing up shoe laces and give up, wading through as I am. As a rule the water is never more than knee-deep, it's only when we cross a tributary of the Kali Ghandaki, on our arrival, that the water comes up to my waist.
Anyhow it was well worth it: this huge palace built for the last Rana in neo-classic style but now,alas, in ruins, is fascinating. And the countryside we came through to get here is equally so in its alternation of tropical plants, paddy fields, waterfalls and small villages.
I can well imagine the effort required to bring all the building material here, I wonder whether they transported everything along the river. A Nepalese man informs us that, should we be interested, in a few years' time we could buy the palace, seeing that the one hundred years required by law in order for the property to change hands and be bought by a private owner, will have passed.
