Last weekend Kulturstudier arranged a trip to the small mountain village “Dhampus”. The bus ride was a hilarious experience itself, as the road up isn’t particularly good, and we were swinging back and forth in our seats. We were stunned when we arrived. Until then, we hadn’t gotten a really good look at the tall mountains, but now we truly got to see the impressive nature Nepal has to offer.
Me and my friend Marthe were ready to explore! We had no idea where to go but decided to simply just follow the trail to our right. We passed such unique houses and had to stop at almost all of them to do a little photoshoot.
Outside the last house we stopped at, we found the owners of the house and their little boy.
They warmly welcomed us in and were excited to learn about who we were and what we were doing in Nepal. They served us some fresh hot cow milk and their little son was eager to show us all of his toys.
After hearing a little about their life in Dhampus, the father went up to the loft to get their photo albums. They showed us their wedding photos, told us about their little “love story”, and we got to see photos of the rest of their family.
This ended up being my favorite part of the trip to Dhampus and I felt honored to get to have such a meaningful encounter with a local family.
The nature around was stunning, and we even got to say hi to some bulls before we walked back to our accommodation, which was one of the cutest buildings I’d ever seen. There, the staff served us delicious Nepali food. The food here in general has been one of my favorite things in Nepal. I’m nervous to go home because I know the standard Norwegian food will feel tasteless compared to the spicy foods here.
After some food, card games, a bonfire, and good conversations, one of the students pulled up her guitar and we all sang classics such as “Hallelujah” and the Norwegian summer song “Idyll”. I think the last persons to go to bed left at 2 am, so it was evident that the guitar-playing was a huge success!
The next morning, many people woke up to see the sunrise over the beautiful mountains (unfortunately, I was not one of them, because I was also one of the “2 am” persons the day before, but I heard they had an amazing time together, although the sky was a little cloudy). After breakfast and traditional masala tea, we all left with blessings from the staff and tons of memories in our backpacks – and I with some new friends in Dhampus!
– Elise