100 days of travel

Iku Khad River - the one that runs down the valley near the school 25 th June Normally my Sunday’s are dedicated to washing, cleaning my room and the teachers’ office, lesson preparation and reading, but given that I’d done a fair bit of the domestic chores on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday breakfast was not too late, I decided to visit Gyuto Monastery just up the road (well, up to the main road and a couple of kilometers along it). It was well into the “stay under a tree” time of day, so I wandered slowly under the shade of my umbrella.   Humidity was extremely high, as was the temperature.   There is a small art gallery, the Naam gallery, on the way to the monastery, which I decided to include in my excursion. The walk along the main road was, of course, hair raising, though the beginning was relatively stress free – there was a traffic jam, so I did not have to contend with vehicles attempting to pass me with only a hair’s breadth to spare. Iku Kha...

23rd June 2017 Always room for one more on a motorbike in India! Tseten, Wangchuk and Kelnam about to leave for camp "Teacher, eat more!" and "Teacher, do you need my help?" Would have to be the two phrases I heard the most on the students' graduation picnic.  Eat more was relatively easy to do, the food they prepared was special food, with different flavours and more yummy vegetables than normal.  The fact that this was prepared on the floor, and cooked on a single gas burner was even more impressive. "Do you need my help?" Was always a very sweet offer, but when offered in the context of going to the toilet or going to bed, I had to suppress my smiles of amusement and assure them that I could manage on my own.   Tsetem trimming bamboo tent poles with a meat cleaver To be fair to them, going to the toilet did involve a round walk of half a kilometre or so, and going to bed did involve negotiating my way in the dark past a ...