It absolutely bucketed down last night and the wind blew seemingly straight through my room. This morning, however, it is dry again and the clouds drifting in and out of the valley add to the scenery. I’m still heading downhill and it takes me only a couple of hours to walk down to Kinja. To my great surprise, in the two months since I was here last they have been added to Nepal’s booming road network. So rather then following the trail I decided to walk along the road and check it out. The first and as it turned out the last vehicle that I encountered was a tractor and trailer bringing in the hay. The road follows the river for the first hour but then winds its way up toward Bhandar. It’s built in typical Nepali fashion by getting a digger to cut into the mountainside and throwing the resulting material down the hill, this makes for a highly unstable surface that will wash away after the first monsoon rains, and most likely take whatever was left of the farmers fields before the “construction crew” arrived with it down to the valley below. The resulting road is at best functional during the dry only.

My more immediate problem is that the road now starts climbing seemingly endless switchbacks to Bhandar and it has started to rain. With my rain jacket on it’s too hot and I get soaked in sweat so I leave it off and get soaked by the rain instead all the while going up. The road is getting muddy and even using my trekking poles it’s getting slippery but at last Bhandar comes in sight. I cut through a few people their backyards, walk across a field of wonder weed and I’m there.