There once was a girl named Selin, this was when she turned nineteen

On the Sunday 19th January 2020 it was Selin’s “Happy Birthday”, when she turned 19 years old – an unmarried spinster by Nepali standards. In recognition of her birth, Nepal arrange a three day school holiday from Wednesday 15th January (actually due to some festival/pilgrimage a while away where communal, ceremonial hair washing took place – we passed the opportunity). Instead we went to Bagdula with the boys from Puja (after a lot of persuasion). Bagdula is like our London. It’s a big city where you can find exotic food like grapes, broccoli and mushrooms, real kitkats, dairy milk and WiFi. 

On Wednesday morning we rose bright and early (5:30am), packed and left by 6:30 – plenty of time to meet the 7am bus that runs from just a short way down the mountain everyday. Of course the only day we intended to actually use the bus it was cancelled and our 20 minute walk turn into over an hour down to our closest town to find another bus – luckily we made it. No vehicle in Nepal can be termed a ‘smooth’ ride, however this particular bus literally threw us off our seats in the air – we wisely had only eaten a samosa that morning. All the morning stresses were worth it when we rolled in Bagdula by lunchtime. 

Bagdula did not admittedly look like the Oxford Street we had envisioned. The bus dropped us at an incredible fruit and veg market. After purchasing grapes (never before seen in Nepal!!) we headed down the central street. The main purpose of the trip for Selin and I was to buy material for kurtas and saris after struggling with very limited choice at our local tailor. Everyone recommended buying them from Bagdula and our host’s twenty year old daughter and eighteen year old son live nearby and said they’d help us out. So after a cup of tea (and almost a chow mein but in the end it was taking too long and we left the boys to eat ours for us) Kusum (our hosts daughter) very kindly took us to a material shop and waited whilst we (I) took forever picking between two identity red and gold saris. Eventually I picked a red kurta and Selin chose green and we both got red and gold saris. By the time we’d finally finished in the material shop the boys had found us and purchased some prints of their own to have shirts and trousers made from. 

Next we set about tracking down a hotel and very easily found Bihana Laj hotel (very nice although our room did have a large, ominous red stain on the floor). Having dropped our stuff and connected to the hotel WiFi, we confirmed that Bagdula definitely did not have peanut butter as hoped however we did find honey, kitkats and (as promised by our friends who own a small restaurant/tailor at the bottom of the valley back in Neta) “happy birthday” cake (they also promised to throw Selin a birthday party with 5kg of said “happy birthday” cake). Selin and I found the best momos to date (although not veggie), we (I) considered getting Selin’s nose pierced, Selin went sock shopping for the boys and we all utilised the available WiFi (it didn’t really work). It was strange to meet people who actually had heard of the villages we live in unlike Pokhara or Kathmandu who barely recognise our district. Although Bagdula did not have peanut butter, we did find red wine. Very exciting. To be precise, what we found was ‘Divine Wine’, promising “potential hangover if over consumed”. 650 rupees (about £4) well spent. That night we returned to the hotel and the boys had a dal bhat. Joe spent the night switching between the beds in the hotel – “trying them all”. 
The following morning we awoke to rain and the news the bus was cancelled but there was a jeep leaving imminently. With a quick detour to buy half a kilo of grapes, we all clambered into a very compact jeep and set off back to Thulabesi. Luckily Selin had emergency biscuits on her as we did not have time for breakfast (thanks for being my snack mum)…

On reaching Thulabesi it was still raining. After our dal bhat in Thulabesi it was still raining. After our cup of tea at a friends house it was still raining. We gave up and walked the two hours up to Puja (where the boys live) in the rain (I had to take my flipflops off at one point because they were too slippy – still, they are definitely the most appropriate shoes for hiking).
Puja was wet. 
I do not like Puja when it is wet. They do not have a porch so everything is just really wet. It was cold. I fell over. That’s all I have to say about those two days in Puja. (Actually we did our first Puja nasta crawl and made friends with some of Joe and Gray’s students’ families.)
On Saturday, after two nights in Puja, mum and Charlotte were meeting us in Thulabesi and so we heading down. Halfway down I received a phone call from mum that their bus had broken down 5km from Thulabesi and they would start walking and see how they went. Although we assured them we’d walk up the road and find them to help with their bags we felt it only sensible to have some samosas and onion bahjis by the river in Thulabesi first when I got a second call that they’d got a jeep and had arrived (lucky we didn’t go looking really). 

Charlotte and mum had left the UK on Thursday, arriving in Kathmandu on Friday at lunchtime only to get the 5pm night bus to meet us on Saturday morning. In short, they did not favour a three hour walk from Thulabesi to Neta. However, we reassured them there were always jeeps or if not a bus running most of the way up. We took them for a dal bhat in Aglung Phedi and realised we have very different perspectives on a portion of rice. Unfortunately on this particular Saturday there was no bus or jeep (or so we were told) and so much to everyone’s dismay we began walking. Joe became mum and Charlotte’s hero as he carried one big rucksack on his back and a massive duffel bag on his shoulders (on top of the big rucksack) all the way to Neta just to have to walk all the way back to Puja again. We gave him a crunchie as a reward. 
That Sunday was Selin’s birthday. With brownies and so much chocolate from mum and Charlotte’s extensive care package, Selin and I had a magnificent ‘pudding breakfast’ (a Neta speciality). At school, Selin and I gave out moam stripes to all the kids and in return received a death march recital of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY SITA MISS” with no tune, repeatedly yelled over and over. 
We then basically spent the day confirming that although it was Selin’s birthday, my mum was here and yes my mum is very old and no she’s not my grandma. 

That evening Project Trust’s country representative and our country coordinator arrived, poorly timed on Selin’s birthday and already with mum and Charlotte in our very small house. However, we forgave them when they presented us three carrier bags of oranges, apples and bananas and some biscuits. It also resulted in us getting in on dinner with our host, Parvati, who is an astonishing cook. We spent they evening crammed in her tiny room, around her fire, chatting. It was great having our country representative there who helped translate stories about Parvati’s childhood for us. 

We now have enough chocolate for breakfast everyday!