“Trekking” from Nagarkot to Dhulikel

To mix up our 3.5 day tour of the Kathmandu Valley, I asked for one of the days to be a hike from Nagarkot to Dhulikhel, since Nagarkot was on the itinerary. I had read about this hike in Lonely Planet, and it seemed to be picturesque, and also relatively easy since it was supposed to be all downhill. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but nonetheless I have really good memories from this day.

One thing I expected was to have views of the Himalayas all along the walk. One of the best views turned out to be in the car ride from Bhaktapur to the starting point of Nagarkot!

Then we were dropped off by car around Nagarkot. Originally we were supposed to come for sunrise, but that would have meant a 4:30am start in Bhaktapur - and it seemed to be cloudy these days. I’m glad the plan changed.

We started our hike along a paved roadway. This quite reminded me of my Camino de Santiago walk, which was much more along roadways and inside of built-up towns than in the wilderness.

We then came to another spectacular viewpoint.

Close-up of the mountains.

We hiked past several military grounds.

At one point we doubled back and went “off road.” At first we happened upon a clearing with an area…

…with many shiva lingams!

After crossing a roadway, we then went really off-road through a forest.

It was nice to be out in nature.

The hiking here was quite strenuous! It was also quite muddy and slippery from recent rains.

This eventually led to another roadway, and from this point on, we were on pavement the whole time. Strangely, though, we were now facing Kathmandu Valley, rather than the Himalayas which was what I had expected.

We did get to see a lot of rural life in action, and learn more about the crops that people grew. Here are pepper plans - you an see one red one just below and to the left of the center of this picture.

Here was a gentleman appearing to water his cows…

We also came across a few groups of school kids.

Everyone was so friendly! Many put their hands together and greeted us with “Namaste,” which some engaged with us in conversation.

Here are some kids playing kind of a doubles match of hitting a tied-up clump of grass with their plastic boards (for writing?).

Apparently they were really happy because they had just finished some exams.

We walked alongside the children for much of the way. But our companion for a very long stretch of our hike was this white dog. It was very kind and just followed us around.

Throughout the walk, we also witnessed different stages of crop processing.

Here was corn and chilis being dried.

A house overflowing with corn husks and shucked corn!

Apparently they use the husks and corn kernels as animal feed. And the corn cobs as fire fuel.

There was corn processing going on everywhere.

And here is corn still planted.

Houses were overflowing with corn products!

A lot of the houses had modern or art deco elements.

I liked this staircase with no railing to a floor with no railing.

More corn.

This house had goats.

We stopped for lunch at what seemed to be the only restaurant in miles.

I was very curious what they could output with this tiny kitchen, and no other customers we could see.

It was perched out of the slope with great views and a pleasant breeze.

A lunch plate came out pretty much immediately. Everything was ready-to-eat.

It was a plate of hard-boiled egg, “fresh chicken” curry, beaten rice - a first for me! And black chickpeas. All delicious! That beaten rice is made with cooked rice that is then beaten flat in a mill, and then dried out.

Lunch ended with a glass of delicious hot green tea with lemon. For the four of us, lunch came out to be 1000 rupees, or about 7.35 USD.

A cat meowed the entire time for food, and then we found it relaxing outside in the shade.

Marigolds are a major flower here, given out at temples.

Here is a shed of marigolds being dried out, in order to be sold in the city later.

We also came across these farmers harvesting rice. They were so friendly and all waved to us!

Here was a greenhouse of tomatoes, growing up and into a trellis overhead.

At the bottom of the hill, the guide asked if we wanted to take a bus the rest of the way. We decided to continue on foot.

There were some interesting sights, like these guys selling apples out the back of their truck…

…and chilies drying in the sun,…

But it became very traffic-filled and built-up.

So at this point we decided to take a bus to the hotel. We were pointed towards this main road that you see above, where there were supposed to be many buses.