Kathmandu Nepal - Day 4 - Plant Visit, Himalayan Lunch and Garden of Dreams

I woke up at 6:30 am in the morning to have time for breakfast before the participants headed off in 10 buses at 7:30 am to Bela village located near Dhulikhel in Kavrepalanchok District where three hundred or so plants have been built. A 90 minute initially bumpy drive, Kathmandu roads need quite some repair, to a very scenic area where the plants were located. We had a very nice group of 12 people all different nationalities in our bus. 

With Mariela Pino, Chile

Especially interesting to note was the versatile and knowledgeable Micheal Yon, an American who writes about the US military among other things for NY Times, takes photographs which have been published in the Smithsonian and the Times Magazine. He spoke of his travels to Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Nepal and many others. Also made acquaintance with the lively Mariela Andrea Pino from Chile, currently studying in Germany and she had lots of experiences and learnings to share.

Atop a biogas plant

We visited two plants, a 6m3 which had been operating for four years and was operational even with one animal. Slurry was however not being produced. The house was still using some firewood to feed their animals (cow, goats, chickens). What really impressed me was that the family was growing organic vegetables for themselves and for selling, they were also transporting beehives from trees to neatly designed borrows in the house walls to collect honey. It was really neat to see the biogas plants transforming and improving the lives of the people in the rural areas.

A tasty and well needed lunch was had at the Himalayan Horizon, an ostentatious place with a view to die for. The landscape was of the Himalayan range showing over 10 peaks ranging from 6000 – 8000 meters, needless to say the lunch session pretty outstanding especially since I got to chat with Shanti Kapila, consultant from the Asian Development Bank, who pretty much 

everyone wanted to accost and after speaking with her, it was obvious why that was so. Came back to the Hyatt and set up the stall for PDBP in the marketplace arranged in the workshop. We gave out marketing material and other info on the Pakistan programme. The Nepalese friend from BSPN especially Ameesha was very helpful in our marketing efforts, so was Gisella Mcguiness from ICRC. Great opportunity to see some of the appliances and products that other programmes and manufacturers had developed. From PDBPs perspective i felt the Indonesdian programme is one which we can work together since we are at a similar place.

Then I chilled out with the boss and another colleague before getting onto the buses to go to the Garden of Dreams, which is located in the Kings Palace. The place was really quite grandiose and classy and we had the opportunity to chill out some more. Most important was that we had very exciting discussions with some of the other participants. 




SNV gave permission for me to invite my Nepali friends to the dinner and I got the opportunity to meet with Bibhushan and Manjita Sharma which was quite fabulous.Had some animated and detailed discussions with Henri Spanjers from LeAF and Fred Marree who was SNVs person for all the logistics arrangements. It was quite an exciting evening overall even though extremely exhausting and I got back pretty late before I finally retired for the evening.