Khaptad - a place that should be a word for adventurous spirituality

Khaptad is really an awesome place to visit. It is naturally beautiful and spiritually awakening. Here’s how my father and my three friends went to Khaptad National Park.

I live in the Mid-Western region of Nepal, and from my place, it is almost 397km (North West). It was monsoon when we planned, and started our bikes to travel to Khaptad. 7:30 Morning, from Bardiya to Attariya, we accelerated. After reaching Attariya (10:30 AM), we pumped some fuel into our tanks, had some food, asked the guy in the restaurant for a better route, and got suggested that reach Dadheldhura. We forwarded towards the extreme North.

Soon, we were in the midst of the hills; top, down, left, and right. Because of the monsoon, we had to speed up and reach the destination in time. My friend was pretty good at driving motorbikes in hills, but I was not. I had to carefully drive and at a very nice speed, following them. They went really far, but I kept track.

Roads were slippery because it was raining, in a raincoat, extreme fog, and near to no visibility, I drove my bike and reached the destination (7:15 PM, Dadheldhura). We planned to stay there as traveling at night on such slippery rainy roads is totally a bad idea.

It soon became a dark night, extremely cold, and continuously raining. We prayed and slept. Morning (5:50), I woke up, it was heavily raining with extreme storm-like weather. My two friends were still sleeping in the next room. I ordered some tea, recorded some awesome scenes from the top of the hotel, and posted it on the internet.

Now, they woke up, and we planned to start traveling (7:15 AM) even though the weather was not acting in our favor. We asked the hotel owner for the best route, and he suggested us the same route we thought of, going via Tamail. Woolen clothes and a raincoat on, my friend had a pair of gloves and “bhroom”. We drove to extreme hills, and the storm was so strong that it hit my bike, and tried to off-lane it. My hands were like freezing. But, I believe God was in our favor. I prayed and continued driving.

After driving for a while, my father realized we were low on fuel, and I stopped the bike, we thought for a while, but my friends were too far away. I messaged them “If you get this message, wait for us, we are low on fuel”, as the network was not so good. We drove, on some extremely muddy and narrow roads, and we passed, scared and determined.

My friends stopped at a local fast food shop, they had some bottles of fuel in there some we bought three, it was slightly expensive. We had some noodles, and some hot-good tea and continued. Now, the road felt like an eternity and super scary. We traveled so far, and we thought we might get low on fuel while returning, and got fueled up somewhere in a valley-like area.

Now, we traveled, and reached a place called “Tamail” (5:55 PM). It was pretty cold in there, we rested for a moment, had some chaumin (noodles), Pepsi and water, and we got to know that a bridge was broken, so we had to walk for 9 hours straight to a place named “Darugaun” (last stop).

We walked, walked, and walked. It was felt so far. We met a person there who helped us to walk and inspired us a little. But one of our friends got tired and expressed to us that she couldn’t walk anymore. We were in a confusion, as she was asking if she could return. And we waited for 4–7 minutes, and a tractor was noise-polluting. I saw that and suggested we should go via the tractor. We stopped the tractor, it was slightly not agreeing to take us, but later it did.

Continuing the journey on the tractor, we met seven researchers trying to reach Khaptad, they also got on the tractor, and we had some good convo on the journey. Finally, the tractor left us somewhere, and we had to walk again. Walked, walked, and walked, it got 9:00 PM (dark night), and every one of us was using torches to walk. We took a rest in a cliff-like place for 5 minutes and walked again. We reached there at 11:25 PM. We ate food at 12:20, as the person who helped us already called them for rooms, it was easy for us to get a room, also we got to know that it was not a good time to visit Khaptad.

I woke up at 6:15 AM, my friends were sleeping. We had some tea, I brushed my teeth, and did the morning duties. And now, it’s time to start an 8-hour walk (10:45 AM), and there was no chance of getting any rides. My friend’s girlfriend was unable to walk further, so they thought of not continuing the journey, as there was no ride, we asked and pleaded for a horse ride for her, but all the horses were already in Khaptad.

We walked straight, we walked, walked, and walked. The researchers were also with us. We had no bottles with us, so after walking 3 hours straight we got to drink some drops of water. Before it, we were consuming leaves and fruits. And after more than 5 straight hours of walking, we reached the destination. Me and my father screamed “Hallelujah” multiple times. I cried and said thank you to God. I got so peaceful and happy there.

After reaching the hotel, me and my had some tea and some milk, and we slept. We woke up, traveled, and discovered Khaptad, it was amazing. And it was time to return home.

I will never forget Khaptad, it was one of the best travel I have done till now.