where we have been

Dr Bigg's expertly made a map of the villages that we visited during the field work in Nepal. the distances between the villages are to scale (of course they are we are geographers dont you know!) although the lines representing mountains dont quite do the trek justice. Jhalbas is 200 metres above sea level and Jagadev is 1200 metres. Ok so its not the biggest climb in Nepal but its a fairly admirable effort for work purposes i think!

anyways, to make up for it we will be going upto 4610 metres next week in Langtang! - i hope anyway...

the one that got away

this one vanished from the blog earlier. this is me showing the students how to map their villages in Google Earth, the internet is very slow so it took a long time to load! about 2 hours per research site!


we are finishing our work this week now. have one more meeting with an NGO that supports the students before we leave for the trek in Langtang. so this might be the last post before we get back to sunny southampton. it is Nepali new year's eve tonight so we are off out on the town with Rajesh who works at ICIMOD. So happy new year all and we will see you soon!

GIS and mapping of the villages.

ellie introducing the students to GIS.


working by candle light... ok, its a story book, but it shows dedication.

receiving a traditional nepali hat from the students. ellie received a traditional nepali purse too.
the final evening we took the students to the cafe we frequented far too much during our stay. we exhausted the menu...
working at ICIMOD... how the international NGOS work!

other villages.

the intrepid exploring team at the end of the 23km journey. sorry these come out in a different oder to how i load them up but i aint got the patience to go back and do it again!

a community discussion in Namjakot village.

Mohan (foreground) leading the community discussion.

after being garlanded in Jagadev village. Gary is knackered as Nepalis dont have breakfast before climbing from 805 metres to 1200 metres at 7 am in the morning!

after leaving Bhandare we travelled to the top of the mountain to Jagadev village at 1200 metres. luckily it wasnt quite as hot since we set off at 7am.

Bhandare village

after a bus along the highway and then an hours jeep trip to the end of the road... Bhandare village was the first stop on the trip. We set off from 265 metres above sea level and in 35 degree heat we scrambled up to 805 metres. here we stayed for tuesday night with a local leader and his family who were kind enough to organise a community discussion as well as giving us food and lodgings.
the view of the terraced fields from up the mountain.

the house we stayed in on tuesday in Bhandare. We had an electric light as the family had solar panels. but no toilets were seen until we left the mountains on thursday. trying to go to the toilet in a village full of inquisitive children is very difficult by the way...

local lady carrying water from the spring back home.

the local spring. used for drinking at the front of the image as the water inlet is here. cleaning clothes in the middle and children at the end... if this spring dries up it is another 5km to the next one.

more village photos

ladies in the rice field nursery uprooting the rice to be planted in the fields - this is called transplanting. they thought we were hilarious for some unknown reason!

a local method of moving irrigation water across a gap in the rock.

TOLD you all i would get some geography pictures in somewhere. terraced farming with the fields flooded in preparation for the rice crops.

there is a dam in the picture somewhere. see if you can spot it. when we were told there was a dam in this valley we though concrete monstrosity not the local variation! but still very interesting, especially when the road ended 3 km earlier so how would they get concrete here?

Village visits

one of the less attractive bridges to cross.

sharing the highway with the local traffic

one of the new metal bridges installed after floods destroyed the old wooden ones.

the path to the hills. and an interesting irrigation channel to the right. there are lots of NGO activity in the valley to varying degrees of success.

Hi all,

we are back from our trek to some of the most remote community in the Nawalparasi district of Nepal (thats where we are based...). it was a brilliant but tiring trek up the mountain before conducting community discussions (with translators as our Nepali isnt much cop!). We stayed with some very friendly villagers, and even shared a room on the second night with a chicken laying eggs! the food was interesting... i chewed on a chickens foot before ellie kindly pointed out that there would be no meat found (it was a cooked chicken i didnt just pick up a random passing chicken and start chewing)!. I also had a cockerals head in my lunch with a nice eyeball staring right back at me whilst eating! I think ellie found out some useful information for her research, its difficult to tell until you return to the UK and properly look at what you found out. anyways, enough of the chatter, ill add some photos now!