As soon as I walked almost half of the Dipankha Yatra (60 km nonstop walking around Kathmandu and Lalitpur), I wanted to embark on a hike around Kathmandu but was set back by some regular works and the Dashain/Tihar festival. Now that the festivals are over and the hiking season is also ON, I called Basu, Kiran and Dinesh for the Hike above Budhanilkantha (north side of Kathmandu) which I was not sure about the destination though I have heard of a Gumba in that area.
With the last minute calling and no any planning, my friends (fond of accidental travelling) agreed to get going. At around 2:45 Pm, we started walking from the Shivpuri-Nagarjun National Park gate. You could also start your journey from Budhanilkantha temple but as we started late and had to come back home, we rode our bike to the national park gate and started strolling from there after taking 10 rupees ticket. Asking some queries with the army in ticket counter, we decided to set Nangki or Naagi or Nangi Gumba as the destination for the trip. Reminiscing memories of our previous accidental travel and cracking jokes, we enjoyed the walk with the nature. Contradicting our thoughts that we would only be there to walk such late, six guys were seen walking rapidly and later found going towards Bagh dwar- the originating point of sacred Bagmati river, which is around 2 hours walking according to them.
After having short talk with them, I wanted to change the walk route to Baghdwar as I have been longing to walk more and I knew Basu and Kiran would surely agree. Even if Dinesh had to come back for his some works and we had our bike down the national park gate, we took the staircases to Baghdwar- assuming Gumba is also in the way, actually which is not. We even misled two other persons who were actually heading to Gumba. We kept on walking up the staircases but we did not see any Gumba nor we get a sense of reaching Baghdwar soon. After nearly an hour of walking, we saw the two people (which we misled before) coming back from above as they did not find any Gumba above. With that, we knew Gumba is not in the way towards Baghdwar and if we continue walking towards Baghdwar, we have to stay there as it was already 4:30 pm and the security concern of our bike down the gate, made us come down and took another way towards Gumba- which had cemented staircases.
During the walk, we had a taste of some fruits like Mayel, Katus, and Pani Amala: all Nepali names. Mayel also known as Sano Naspati, tasted lil acrid that made us eat some peanuts (that I have carried in my camera bag- the only food we have carried, even without water). Basu had never heard of that Mayel fruit which he took out by climbing its tree but he was the one who picked Katus and Pani Amala for us. Katus ( the wild nuts) were found in the ground for which we need to remove the thorny cover to get the nuts. Basu even picked out small plants from the ground with its roots, for Paani Amala ( underground fruit like Amala) which tasted like water and quenched our thirst as we had not even carried water with us.
When we reached Naagi Gumba, sunset was about to happen. We even felt lucky for the pattern cloud in the sky, and photographed the amazing landscapes. The only thing that was missing was the view of the whole Kathmandu city from such a high altitude, which was due to the fog present in the lower part of the sky. We even took turns to take picture of our self with the pattern cloud and the sunset. After gazing and photographing the beautiful landscapes for half an hour, we started having a look towards Gumba. As it was already dark and people warning for possible Army mistreat for going late, we only had sometime to eat some food: Chauchau, Lays and juice from the shop available there.
Going down, I asked a Nun about the meaning of the Naagi: the name of the Gumba. She corrected me as the real name was Nangki Gumba which means the place where the God lives. It was already six thirty and we were walking straight down the darkness. As we reached the place where we took the stairs up to Baghdwar, we found a vehicle and he was very generous to give us a lift down the gate. We were even told that it is dangerous to walk the dark in such night time.
Who knows what we would have encountered there if we had not found that vehicle or that generous driver. But I was ready to photograph the adventure though :P
