Unforgettable Travel - Bandipur

Deerwalk Plan Analytics Team| Bandipur| April 2015

25th April 2015 was the unforgettable date for our travel and Bandipur was the place. Travelling is fun and that fun doubles when you have amazing people to travel with. Me and my office team were all set and excited for our 2 days hike. The sky was cloudy and it had started to drizzle in the morning, but it hardly mattered to us as we were busy making plans to make the trip memorable. We left office right on time and picked everyone on the route and reached Kalanki at 8am. We packed some food & water and left the valley. Our journey had begun with all of us sharing our excitements of the hike and how amazing it felt to catch a break from our daily routines.  After travelling few kms along the curves of Naubise we stopped for breakfast at a roadside hotel.  We had breakfast, clicked few photos and got back on the road.  We were driving alongside the Trisuli River, playing games in our very own Deerwalk van and listening to the songs.

It wasn't my normal Saturday where I slept till late, had more than one bed teas. It was an exciting Saturday on road and none of us had any idea about what nature had to offer us. Suddenly, we felt the bus hit the bumps on the highway. At first, we ignored the jerks assuming it was the speed and made a few jokes about it.  Soon it turned scary when we could see all the locals outside, panicking and grumbling about the earthquake. When we reached Bimalnagar our slated hike start point, we got out of our vehicle and stood by the roadside as a precaution. We were all worried as we were not with our family in such a time and we had no idea whether to go ahead and complete the journey or return back. Then suddenly right there we felt the tremors and the road beneath us started shaking. We were holding each other. We were not able to stand straight as the road was shaking. All of us tried to contact our families and check their safety status as soon as we heard the news about our valley.

We decided to travel ahead towards Bandipur as reaching a safe place was the only agenda we had then. We reached Bandipur, checked in our hotel. The excitement of the hike was all gone and the hike was the last thing we had in our mind. The only thing we did have in our minds was to contact our families, relatives, and friends and be assured of their safety. We roamed around to see the earthquake’s effect on the city. The beautiful city was totally shut; people were scared to stay inside their houses. Luckily the hotel we were staying served us lunch at around 3pm. We were unable to decide what to do and what was actually happening. Nature’s wrath was upon us and each other's support and confidence was the only thing that kept us going at that situation. We traveled around the city for some time with earthquake being the only topic of our talks.

 Upon dusk, we all stayed around each other and hoping that everything was going to be alright. The earthquake had taken out the power in the city and we spent our night under the dark sky. The night felt too long.The tremors repeated every hour and it looked like it had no plans to stop. Early morning at 5am we traveled back to Kathmandu. We were all ready for the journey back home as we didn’t even take off our shoes for the whole night.

It was a silent morning with nothing much to talk about along the way. We couldn't even imagine what was waiting for us back in the valley. We reached Kathmandu around 11am to a city which didn’t look like the one we had left the previous day. The city was broken, people were broken, rescue was ongoing, and it was all chaotic. It showed us how vulnerable we are to Mother Nature. Indeed, we wanted to make the trip memorable, but we were unaware of the fact that we had something else waiting for us. While we all were there merely playing our parts.