Day 2: Tuesday October 8th 1996
Turture to Phalenkangu
Breakfast early , washed hands at the tap with the villagers brushing their teeth right on the front street. Started walking around 8:00 o'clock.
Walked on the road where the buses usually carried the trekkers to Besi Sahar. Terrain quite easy. A good way
to get into the swing of things. We stopped at this teahouse for a drink and a snack.
A few vehicles were on the roads coming and going both ways.
Stopped at Phalenkangu for the night. After supper I went into my room for something and heard a loud scary squawk. It was a chicken on my bed. It must have come in through the window. The chicken coup was right outside of the window. Ram came running in laughing to get it. I will always associate this town with that episode.
The young son of the owner wanted to sit up and talk . There is no electricity here or not on so we use candles. In Nepal less than five percent of the rural population has access to electricity according to ICMOD.
The boy's name was Manoj Shrestha. He went to the Gandaki English Boarding school in Pokhara and spoke very good English. Ram said many of these inn keepers had made a lot of money from the tourists and could afford to send their children to English schools. I exchanged addresses with him and gave him my e-mail address also. He thought the school was soon going to be on-line. He plays soccer for the school and had been to India for a soccer match.
To our surprise while eating supper outside, the tourist buses carrying trekkers started going by. The road was now passable. Some of the people we had started out with were sitting on top of the bus and waved to us. There was no machinery apparent to fix the roads. Just groups of people here and there with shovels.
Pauline and I both had to go in the night. Couldn't get the door open to the very steep and slippery stairs down to the outhouse. Finally we managed to get a door to the front of the building open.
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