On trips to his mother's home as a boy, Sherap would travel by bus with his family from Kathmandu to a small village at the end of the road on the way to the Helambu Region, to the NE of the Kathmandu Valley.

6 hours on the bus, stop for a quick snack and then another 6 or 7 hours walk to his mother's village, at over 3,000m it's a climb of about 2,000m above the road.

In those days it was little more than a mud road, an unmarked turning off the highway to Tibet. Over the passing years the road has been extended, shortening the walk to his mother's village to about 3 hours, though the road has still not been metalled

We planned to approach from the other direction, to ride the path from a small town called Sakhu - about 1 hours ride out to the NE of the Kathmandu Valley. The road we were searching for linked with the path to Sherap's mother's village. It had been upgraded and is now a motor-able road. Though in places it's very steep-down* and only jeeps and powerful people carriers - Micros, can make the journey in both directions.

This particular road had been developed more recently due in large part to the constant disturbances and bandas or shut-downs over the last two years, blocking the highway to Kodari at the Tibet border. Agitating political groups frequently block highways in Nepal. It halts all commercial and passenger transport, often for days or even weeks. Local transport operators diverted to this route to reach the Arniko highway and then service passengers back either way as far as possible down highways and byways.

We set off with full tanks of petrol to find this recently opened road, to discover where it joined the old path that Sherap had walked so many times, so long ago as a boy.

Our ride took us through small villages, over streams, across landslides and where the road took its hairpin bends, stones much bigger than cobbles had been laid to strengthen the surface; steep and bumpy, out of the saddle on-the-pegs type climbs. On level sections the road suraface was dried mud and sand and would soon become impassable in the rainy season.

We stopped for a cup of tea, snacks and homemade doughnuts, at a village called Jarsinghpauwar. Our ancient cramped little tea shop overlooked the dusty junction that vaguely defined the centre of the village. Across the road not far away lay a school in front of whose gates stood the stone bust of a man. To the left in the shade of another village shop, boys played idly at the Karem board.

Just 10 days earlier - April 10th 2008, elections had been held across Nepal for the first time in almost 12 years. As we rode through the countryside, in almost every village we passed, we saw bold splashes of red everywhere, flags, posters and hand-painted slogans. From the windows of many houses, hung limp 'Hammers and Sickles', red on white and white on red.

"Of whom is the statue?" Sherap asked of the locals who'd gathered to sit with us and a couple waiting for the 'Micro' to  town. "His name was Krishna Bhakta Shrestha." A young man told us. "He built our village school over there and later became its Head Master. He helped so many poor people in our village. He was a good man, but he was a UML** party member and the Maoists killed him."

Our small plates of 'Tarkari' - chick peas and veg, and cups of tea and donuts cost us 55 Rupees, we paid, we thanked them and said our goodbyes. Still barely 15 kms out, we had to press on, we didn't know how far we'd to ride and our 4 year old map showed no sign of our route.

We were riding in hill country, terraced paddies all around us hanging precariously to the hillsides. In places banana palms hung heavy, there were outcrops of Aloe and chopped-down pine trees. The land needed breaking, the work carried on - if you stay 12 years, it's yours for the taking or so it once was. At each bend the view changed, we rode past 'Chautaris' - large stone seats beneath built huge Pipal trees, villagers resting in their shade. A man cutting timber stood above his charge, in the dusty road, children played odd games with stone and marbles.

Such roads in the hills take the steepest path a jeep can manage, we'd climbed and climbed before reaching the danda - the top, saddle or pass. Our motors were hot, we stopped and sat and let them cool a while. "There is the ridge we follow to mother's home", pointing north across two small valleys. "This is the road we used to walk." Below us in the distance the Indrawati River shimmered in the afternoon sun. We had found our path, a path Sherap's mother still trudges, to visit her family high in the mountains.

Heading down to the valley, quickly we found the road that would lead us to the Friendship or Arniko highway; the road to Tibet. Today's newspapers tell us the railway will come to Khasa - just across the Nepal border, all the way from Lhasa. The Chinese, it said, will link Nepal to China with a railway. Only 5 years to wait then it's trains and buses (and Micros) overland from Beijing to Paris, and if you like, via the little road to Sherap's mother's ancestral home.

Below us in the river valley women were planting and replanting rice. Growing rice is so labour intensive, it needs to be thinned and replanted two, sometimes three times. Men drove paired-oxen hauling heavy wooden ploughs back and forth in thick dark mud, making way for this replanting of rice.

Intricate networks of water channels kept paddies awash with water, so much so, it appeared the Indrawati River had nearly run dry, though in spring the river would be a mighty torrent of ice cold Himalayan snow melt. We stopped by a small group of farmers who were walking home. They were busy they told us, planting rice, ploughing paddies and harvesting wheat. "Which was my country?" one man asked, "...where we were heading? ...from where had we come?"

For more than a decade there have been plans to channel and tunnel the water of the Melamchi and Indrawati Rivers to the Kathmandu valley. But ten years of civil war has taken its toll. Contracts were broken, deadlines missed, workers harassed, roads unfinished and project work stalled. Even now the Melamchi Drinking Water Project, is still under discussion.

The bus blew its air horns, we were back on the highway. Just time for a rest, reflection, refreshment - a bottle of beer and snacks of grilled goat. And atime to head home, an orange sun dipping below distant hills and still two hours to go.

The ride was approximately 150km.

*In Nepali language there are words for steep-up and steep -down. Ucalo, Oralo.
**UML. Communist Party Nepal – United Marxist Leninist. CPN – UML.