Nepal 03: The last weeks in Nepal and the unexpectedly beautiful India

31st March - 19th April 2017 

As Péter mentioned in the previous entry, we spent some days in Bhiman -   a small village in Nepal and I was giving some English lessons to the students at the public school of the village. It was for me a more sad than  a happy memory during these days. We stayed with the family of a teacher from the school and he helped to arrange some walking around the village, in the school and also some English lessons for me with students from different classes. 

Some classrooms were destroyed by the earthquake in 2015

We arrived at the village exactly at the exam time so all the students were busy with their “tuitions” which means going to extra classes before and after school. This term is very common in Vietnam as well, but I was very sad when visiting one ongoing tuition of the host’s son. The so called “classroom” was actually a potato storage room with only natural light and no tables/benches. The kids sat on the ground, next to the potatoes, forming a circle, some with very old books but no pens, some had pens and notebooks but not really writing down anything. It was the poorest condition of a classroom that I have seen.  

The poor conditioned classroom for tuition

The next day, we visited the school and there I got to meet the English teacher of the school who was not willing to talk to me in English. Once he did, it was the broken, impolite English that we’ve heard for months in India and Nepal. “You from where?” “When you come?” “You like talk to my students?”. Finally, I understood and felt less annoyed by the conversations with the locals that we met everyday. That’s not their fault, that’s their teachers who spent years teaching English but not really master the language. The teachers once were students and their teachers were not much better at the foreign language they taught. I really hope that more native speakers will come to work at schools in Nepal and help the students to practice the proper English. 

The students were shy to talk to me at first as I started the lessons with some basics questions about their homeland. They didn’t know how to tell the population of Nepal in the metric units and totally had no ideas about the leisure activities which Nepal is famous for such as: trekking, rock-climbing, paragliding and rafting. But then, they became very excited and quite active when the questions turned to: “Please name the Hindu Goddesses that you know” and “Who are your favourite Bollywood actors?”. I guess, those are the things they care the most about. 

Leaving Bhiman, we got day by day closer to the Indian border but didn’t  forget the tea discovery in Nepal. We visited the headquarter of Himal Tea Industries - the 44-year-old-producer of the No. 1 tea of the nation. In 2012, they launched a new tea brand called Rakura which has been introduced in 14 countries and become famous among the tea drinkers. 

Being happy with the nice taste of the tea we received, we took a deep breath and entered India again. Well, this time, the sub-continent surprised us with its new face, a green and pure one. We spent a couple of days in Darjeeling, the Mecca of tea lovers and really loved it. The mountain view, the friendly people, the Tibetan food and the nice weather made us feel like we were in heaven. The only annoying thing here was the overpriced lodging. We literally walked to almost every hotel in town and couldn’t find a good place with equivalent price. Even the very ugly and dirty room is offered with a ridiculous high rate. We managed to stay two nights at the cheapest room before moving to a nice, neat and warm room at Dali monastery. This whole thing happened by chance as we visited this beautiful place and met a Vietnamese monk. He asked for the master’s permission and let us stay one night at their “home”. The monks just returned from Vietnam so we were given so many Vietnamese gifts and snacks. What a nice treat! 

Tasting Darjeeling teas at Golden tips

Getting back to the plains, we found ourselves in a green land on the way to Assam state. Tea was everywhere, together with very friendly and hospitable locals. We were hosted by even hotels in exchange for some “press conference” held right at the reception in Alipur Duar. We suddenly became so famous as people started to recognise us from their newspaper and that’s how we bumped into a TV interview with a reporter who checked the news in the morning. It was not the end of this hall of fame because the reporter contacted his press friend in the next town and we got hosted again by the community of super friendly Bodo people during their new year festival. They were so happy to have us there but we could still see the depression in their eyes as the long protest for an independent Bodoland has been an unsuccessful one. 

With Bodo people

So many times during this trip, we ended up in a school and that was golden chances for us to see clearly about the education system of a country. Last time, we were at a poor government school in Nepal. This time, we stayed at a private English school in a village in West Bengal. Both of them were in bad shape and very poor condition. However, we really loved to see how disciplined were the students who stayed in the dorm at school. Some of them were very young but very nice and well-behaved that we started to change our opinion about Indian people. The principle was very kind to offer us a room which was made of metal sheets, just as any other room/class at the school. Once again, we met English teachers who were not very good at the foreign language but very enthusiastic to teach their students in the broken and informal English. We are very thankful for their hospitality as they offered everything they had to us and even asked us to visit them later….but also felt sorry for the situation.

                                                                                                                                            Linh