We embarked on our journey to another destination on the second day, Syaule gaun. We had to stay at the village,
and the next day, we needed to catch a bus to Gunsakot.
Though we could get a local vehicle to the place easily from here to Syaule bus stop, then to Gunsakoti, but we'd longed to trek to the top of the village by walking.
While on the way, the explanation about Panch Pokhari by the manager of the resort seemed to be unfamiliar to me but was quite enough to aggravate my excitement and make me lunatic to explore that place. His elaboration made me think of it more, which was bringing some dim pictures of picturesque mountains, waterfalls, streams, lakes, jungles, open meadows and endless amusement in my mind. But first we had to climb Syaule gaun for long hours and then Gunsakot before we reached heaven.
To reach the village, we had an 18 km walk straight to the north direction. We had to walk miles on foot without pausing footsteps for a rest. We had to pass some villages, uncountable houses, and silent trails and forests to get the wonderful Syaule gaun. I guessed we could reach the village before dusk even if we would take a rest for an hour.
We walked effortlessly uphill through the narrow trail for about an hour without any hurdle or obstacle. We emerged from the tall and thick trees that had covered us wholly. We arrived at a place where many small but beautiful stone and brick houses could appear before our eyes.
On the field side, a lady who was not too old but she aged more than fifty, was toiling alone on the farm. We dashed her and asked about the route to the village..
"Babu haru, kahan dekhi aaunu bhako ho- Babuharu, where did you come from?"
"Kathmandu dekhi, aama- From Kathmandu," we said unanimously.
'Ae Kathmandu! Timiharu Syaule gaun ghumna aako ho- Oh! You three have come to visit Syaule gaun?"
"Hajur! tara hami aru thau pani jaanu xa- Yes! We have to go to some other places too," I said.
"Ae! Kun thau jaane ho- Humm/ which place will you go?"
"Aba yahan dekhi Gunsakot, tyas pachhi Panch Pokhari jaane chhau- Now from here to Gunsakot, then we will go to Panch Pokhari."
"Ae Panch Pokhari! Dherai ramailo thau- Panch Pokhari is very beautiful place!"'
"Hajur- yes,"
The village looked so gorgeous due to rich forests, orchards, small houses, and open fields, as I thought every villager lived here peacefully, and this small village was so alluring that the place was enough to entangle us here for a longer time.
Just some time ago, we three were chatting with lonely and tall trees, silent paths and cold winds, and we'd seen no human beings, no cattles, and no houses around us that time, but now we rolled up a village which was full of houses with generous and helpful villagers.
Though it wasn't too hot, we felt hotter by walking uphill. In the hilly region, the weather varies unexpectedly and intermittently, for which I thought it would turn cold soon.
Our on-foot journey made us thirsty and weary a little. We were sweating and legs were hurting sinisterly just after half an hour of walking, and I assumed if we walked some more steps, what will happen to our body? I guessed we would have some more pains and aches in our bodies. Among the three, I especially was confronting the problem of walking like this as It was my first time trek and not accustomed to walking uphill paths, but I felt that Som and Jeetu also were feeling tired. We were much in need of rest and wanted a suitable place where we could resist our aches and weariness for some time.
On the top of the village, we spotted a sole beautiful oak tree standing quietly along the open fields and meadows.
The tree stood ghost-like, the silent observer of the snowy mountains and the floating clouds. Below stood a small girl who looked about seven, peeling oranges, holding a brown coloured shawl that might belong to her mother. It seemed that she was waiting for her mother who'd gone for work on the field. Her red flimsy dress was flapping in the wind and shining in our eyes. Aftereards, our eyes spied a desolate and uninhabited land which extended broadly to the North east. On the edge of the land, we could see a black horse grazing lonely and freely. It was a strong and healthy horse, but we did not see its master anywhere. After some moments, a tall man who wore a large round hat like a Hollywood hero emerged from the thick bush. He rubbed its shoulder and ear pampering and quickly climbed on. The horse marched steps ahead, neighing and snorting towards the trail.
The place was a popular hub to enjoy horse riding where many local and tourists people visit frequently.
Far away, the noise of some village children echoed as they were playing a game similar to Hoopla-game on the barn that cheered us magically and placed smiles on our faces. Their game, cheerfulness, and innocence brought extreme ecstasy to us.
March and April are the best and most glorious months to explore new places and to be somewhere in the countryside. The dawn and evening's light make everything look particularly elegant and pleasant to watch. My attention was drawn to how diverse and changeable life the free birds have.
As spring arrives you start to hear the birds singing and build their nests in the trees. It's such a lovely sound to hear the chirping birds sing their beautiful songs. Melodious chirping noise of the birds always soothes every human's ears exquisitely.
Sitting by the tree, under the open blue sky and in the beautiful weather, I suddenly struck one beautiful quote in my mind "The best thing in the world is to be free". This inspirational quote was stated by the renowned French fashion designer Coco Chanel, which I thought was precisely applicable for those birds who were soaring high freely without any stress, hope, and fear.
They flew so high and far away that I wanted to know curiously where the flight took them and where they landed. To see them, I wished I also would be a bird because there are only birds in the world who enjoy every blissful morning flying and landing on the trees.
Not sometimes but several times these beautiful birds teach us great life lessons with their melodious songs that life is full of pain, sorrows, miseries, and hatred, but we just need to make our wings higher and try to fly on our ways.
Like the birds, once they fell but tried again and again to fly. Their spirit motivated us to learn more and walk ahead fearlessly.
"We are feeling tired, I think we must take a rest here for somr more time," I said.
Jeetu and Som also agreed with me as we wanted not to miss any chance to reduce tiredness and view the lively sceneries of nature.
It was mild weather on the hill, so we lay down under the large tree which covered us promptly with its shed to some extent and it protected us from the light of the sun like a huge umbrella.
From the very top of the hill, the entire area looked heavenly and stunning, where we breathed fresh air. The cold wind blew so gently that made the tree branches dance and pressed our cheeks against them. It made us cool and calm. The beauty of nature enticed our minds and the light of the sun blushed our faces intuitively.
Som took his bottle of water out from the bag which he filled from the hotel," I said.
After I quenched my thirst with water, I turned to Jeetu to pass the bottle, pondering about his thirst, but he was busy unwrapping the packet of cigarette as if he wanted to quench his thirst with the puffs of cigarette not with water. He again lit one and started to inhale, however, he grabbed the bottle too from my hand. Som also frequently was having some puffs, grabbing himself from Jeetu's hand though he had never been habituated to smoke, but did sometimes only just to release his stress and to receive calmness on the hillside. After an interval of ten minutes, Jeetu lit another one, maybe half was not sufficient for him. Both were having puffs of cigarettes together, seizing from each other and enjoying the scenes of undulating hills. They two were busy emitting smoke, staring at the sky firmly whilst I was smiling, seeing sloppy hills.
I thought that we would need some more water for further journeys as we had to walk half of the day more, but I hoped we might not face the problem of finding water resources in the villages whether they were remote and isolated.
By the time, Som fetched some luscious oranges from a lady who was selling near the field, sitting with her big basket full of juicy oranges.
Lying on the open land beside fields, we contemplated the blue sky that was seemingly floating before our eyes like fish in the ponds. The chirping sound of happy and free birds, mooing sound of clean cows, noise of local children on the fields, echoes of melodious notes of flute played by a shepherd boy, sitting on the branch of the tall tree and musical Nepali folk songs on the radio from somewhere far away, made us extremely pleasant and refreshed. And, the entire area gave me feelings of selflessness and kinship as my birthplace.
For some moments, I was completely lost in my own fantasy and the most amazing old days that I had, being in Dehradun.The quiet place and blissful weather brought me all nostalgia and reminiscence of childhood and college time. I was cherishing all those priceless moments that I'd had while being there with my friends- childhood carelessness, freedom, mischievous actions, childish games, long and tough study hours, melodious Hindi songs, the first day of graduation, and the crowd of beautiful girls around me all that were being nostalgic and was just revolving all the things in the mind. But beyond all, that moment revived something more special- all difficulties and struggles of my parents that they both had confronted and performed hard work just to bring me up and my siblings. That brought the most emotional feelings to me at that time and came with some goosebumps moments again which caused some tears to trickle down my cheeks.
"Sami, what happened to you? Are you crying?" Both asked.
"No! Nothing happened," I mumbled, trying to conceal tears from both and wiping them.
"You're missing someone, You've tears in your eyes," said Som. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing bro! Just...….." I said.
Som also did not extend his question as he understood my emotions and stopped to inquire.
The cool air and the spectacular scenic land bounded us to spend some more time, so we kept lying under the tree calmly but idly, peeling and chewing sweet and a bit of sour oranges.
After staying around an hour on the fieldside, we got up and continued our journey to Syaule gaun, advancing with steady steps.
it was about half past two. It seemed that we arrived at the village which was small with several homes but far away from each other.
We had to stop our journey here and needed a homestay to spend the night as it was almost dusk. Moreover, the four hours long walk had brought us all fatigues, hunger, and body pains.
We could not take a bus to Gunsakot now as we'd decided to continue the journey the next day. We spotted so many small and beautiful homestays on the hillside, but we chose a suitable one and entered.
The hosts were two men of about 40 who were wearing Nepali dhaka topi which displays our eminent cultures. They welcomed us respectfully and spoke courteously 'welcome sir!'
The homestay chosen by us was big and looked like a thatched hut which was a three storeyed hut.
We were ushered to a room on the third storey which had nice beds with high windows from where we could spy at the desolate and barren area with no humans but only quivering trees, flowers, birds, and some grazing cattles.
At one glance, I scanned the whole area with weary eyes through a wooden window.
After having snacks, we wanted to go near the village and enjoy nature. In the meantime, one of the men whose name was David, came upstairs and asked.
"Would you want to take a stroll near the village?"
"Yes, sure!" I replied. "Where can we go?"
"There is a beautiful chaur (open land) near here. I'll lead you,"
'Oh! Thanks! We definitely want to go for,"
We got down from the house and accompanied the man. We walked straight along the paralleled path to the west side. It was a 2 km walk from the house.
It was extremely cold on the hillside even during the month of April that we could not bear. We spent about an hour, staring at enticing nature from the open land, chatting, laughing, and strolling. The man led us to some more places nearby and gave some useful information about the village.
Suddenly I remembered the words of the man who talked about the manchhe haraune Chamero gufa. I wanted to know about the place and curiously asked him, "We've heard about Manchhe haraune Chamero gufa in Syaule gaun. Do you know where it is?"
"Yea! It's reality! The person who has visited the chamero gufa, has never returned back. Villagers say that there is the inhabitant of evil spirits inside, therefore now no tourist visits since several people are killed some years ago."
"This is really strange!" I remarked. "Where is it?
"It's a 3 km walk from here to the northwest. David added.
"Oh" I said.
"Do you want to see the place once, Sami?" Som said, mocking me.
"Humm! I really like to go once."
"Yes, you can visit and see it from far away," David added.
I thought it was impossible to go to the place as it was a little scary and dangerous to visit. Due to the unbearable cold winds at evening time, we made our way back to the house cheerfully.
We had dinner at about 7 and went to bed.
We were awoken by the chime of the alarm at 7. We dressed in, meanwhile, one of the staff boys came, carrying breakfast plates with food, including tea, bread, butter, and eggs; A good set of my favourite food.
We finished breakfast in less than 15 minutes.
We carried our bags and got ready to move to the bus stop.
"Thank you sir! Keep visiting," They said together.
"Thank you very much for your kind service," I replied.
We left the homestay behind at half past eight. One of the men guided and helped us to find the right bus to Gunsakot. We had a three hours drive from here to get to Gunsakot. We had planned that if we could reach Gunsakot in time then we could continue our imminent trek from Gunsakot to Panch Pokhari on the same day, but for this, we had very few chances to act in accordance with our planned schedule.
We got the bus in, but it was carrying less number of passengers beyond our expectation, though the local buses carry more passengers. I thought we were lucky this time as we got a nice bus that would make less crowd. This time again the driver also seemed to be amicable and generous man who used to talk gently with the passengers.
While travelling by bus, it was the time again to enjoy, contemplating and viewing spectacular sceneries of nature and we were travelling through several hills, valleys and forests. The scenes of nature, hills, and mountains from the very top looked so soothing and good to our eyes to watch continually.
It was a more than three hours long journey. We had lunch at one of the hotels where they served even more delicious food than before we ate.
We reached Gunsakot bus stop at about half past twelve. The bus stop was too small and was situated at the corner of the big tree.
But we needed again to stay somewhere; a resort or homestay, but we had to choose a cheaper homestay this time as we were likely to run out of money soon.