Last Updated on August 24, 2017 by Christine Kaaloa
Today I awoke to a breath-taking 360 view of the unspoilt Taudaha Valley! It’s a grand feeling… a gift!
Exploring Kathmandu Valley and Chobar Village is one of my biggest highlights of Nepal. The countryside is rich with mountain scenery, small villages and a slower pace. While I have a small room in my guesthouse cottage, it’s the lull of tourist season so momentarily, I am its only guest, so the exquisite view of the valley is all mine!
Traveling solo has it’s trade-offs and perks. To experience a landscape of great magnitude, brings on an accomplished feeling. It’s the feeling that I challenged my worst fears of loneliness and self-doubt to get yourself this far.
Regular power outages and blackouts
Table of Contents: Kathmandu Valley: Discovering Chobhar Village, Nepal
My guesthouse provided me with an electric lamp, which allowed me an extra hour of light. I loved it. I found it made me think of time in a different way.
Read Things to Know Before you go to Kathmandu
Being alone in the countryside, there’s not much to do during blackouts. I found it’s nice to have nights of contemplation. With no one to talk to or entertain me, I could only read, meditate or listen to music. Sometimes, the guesthouse cafe downstairs was open and I could eat by electric lamplight. It’s a different kind of romance.
Nepalese food made from scratch
Chobhar Village is a small quaint village
The rural conditions in Nepal can make for bad teeth and people’s clothes can be as brown as their sun-tanned skin. Most things like laundry are done by hand and laid out to dry upon neighboring bushes, rooftops, balcony rails and anywhere one can create hanging room. Baskets off chilis, lentils and corn bathe in the streets in front of open-door abodes.
A boy gets his haircut sitting in a chair in the middle walkway between houses. An old woman sits on the porch while a neighborhood friend applies henna from a bowl over her graying hair. Little babies and children with runny noses run around barefoot and bottomless. Some women go off to work in the quarries. Yes, women work in the quarries, chipping down rocks and transporting them.
Meanwhile, the older men of the village seem to pass time by not paying attention to time pass.
Each seems, if not at home or busy at work, to have his own lounging spot amongst fellow male companions either at the local “cafe” or in pairs and threesomes under shaded areas where it is cool. Village animals – ducks, dogs, chickens- aren’t nearly as concerned with staying cool but sun-bathe where there is comfort and companionship, oblivious to each others’ differences.
Every man, woman, child and animal lives in harmony with its surroundings, crossing borders of space and living a life without invisible walls.
Despite the lack of modernity, the simplicity of Chobhar Village all makes it a charming place to experience and to make your launching ground for other nearby towns. It’s the idyllic place you go to, in order to escape the craziness and pollution of Kathmandu, to reflect on life, write in your journal and take some photos.
