"It is mandatory to know travel time to destination but it is a bad idea to ask the time to a local"

"Three hours" he promptly responded. Just 3 hours it should not take more than that, he stressed. Okay, 3 hours that is fine, we can walk 3 hours, we thought. Keeping "3 hours" in mind we started our journey to Sahartara VDC from Dunai. My student had reminded that it may take longer for us, but by then my mind had stored 3 hours in mind. The morning was good, not so hot to be precise but we were expecting even cooler morning for we were nearly at altitude of 2100 meters from sea level. Forget it, let's walk, we told ourselves and started walking.

The lanes looked pretty straight at Dunai accompanied by beautiful houses with dirty courtyard at the bank of Bheri River. As we were leaving Dunai, we hardly saw any houses.  But Bheri River, like always rushed to its destination, we were moving just opposite to its flow. We could hear gushing sound of Bheri in our entire journey. 

Nearly after 45 minutes we met a woman, "Where are you going?" she asked. "Sahartara" we replied.

"Why?" she asked again.

"Just to pay visit," we responded without any hesitation. But she saw right through our eyes and asked the actual reason. We repeated same answer but she did not believe us. She answered as if no one visits Sahartara without work a normal visit was out of question. We asked her way to Sahartara. "Just walk along the road," she replied. Upon asking time required she said, ?2 hours, at most?. We took a long breath, each of us were happy to reach the study area very soon.

            After having light snacks we walked to our destination. Mobile connection had gone by now, sun was shining upon us, Bheri like always, gushing. It was after 2 hours we met the woman we saw few houses, all of us sighed. That is our study area we thought, I wish it was reality. It was just another village named Byasgad within Lawan VDC but our study area was still, far, far away.

We stopped for lunch. It took almost an hour prepare the lunch. We quickly remembered what we saw on the way and started making notes. Hills, hills, hills, hills, hills one of my enumerators cracked a joke. Really on our way we crossed hills and heard Bheri shouting only. Other than that few maize cultivation, lots of bushes of sisno, few patches of millet, hardly 10 houses and 5 tents. By then I was again occupied with thoughts if I am at right place for my research.

After having one of the most plain yet most expensive lunches we tighten our shoe laces and marched towards the destination. Accompanied by beautiful scenery, we walked for almost one and half hour, a sight of fields was seen in far distance. "That is our study area," my student said. I almost jumped seeing it. It was a green hill with a red hill at the backdrop. The red hill was also Phapar field. It was really a majestic view but it was still far away.

Walking for another one and half hour looking continuously at the study area we walked on the bank of river and down the hills. Sometimes the waves of Bheri would come up to our feet while sometime the cut hills would hit our heads without a notice of ?mind your head?. People walked with ease in such steep slopes while caravan of mule and horses would pass us time and again. Houses were still a rare view along the road but some villages could be seen up in the hills in patches. We questioned ourselves how life would be in those steep hills? How people would cultivate in the slopes more than 45 degrees? Is there any technology that people adapt to cultivate as there were no terraces like we observe in many hilly districts? Finally I was gaining confidence that I was at right place for my study.

While the sun was setting, we finally reached Lingdo, a place right at the bottom of my study area and it was already 15 hours of the day. We took 6 hours to reach the place that locals would normally take 3 hours. Nevertheless though we walked slower than the locals we were quiet happy we reached our study site. We could see the villages and farmlands just in front of us. Our journey longer by 3 hours finally got us to the place we desired for.