Climbing the mountain...

Today was another travel day.  We said goodbye to the good people at the hotel in Biritnagar who took good care of us and were on our way.  We joined Shemlal & Hannah, Ganesh and Mohan to travel towards the border.  We will be crossing into Bihar, India on Friday.

We had plans to stop at Bhagan's home (pastor of Jhopa district, which includes 4 churches) for a break during our travels.  He and his wife and daughter welcomed us into their home for a meal.  I have been overwhelmed on this trip by the warm hospitality of everyone!  

Again, I have taken many photos during the drive, but I'll post them another time.  I have been enamored by the beautiful fields of yellow.  It's a flower they use to make mustard oil. When we arrived at Bhagan's home, I was happy to see a field right next to his home.

We spent some time visiting together and saw the site of another BIC church, behind his home.  The foundation is there and the deed is approved for up to a 3-story building.  Join us in prayer for this to happen.

Bhagan's daughter, Esther, made the meal for all of us.  Again, it was delicious.  

Esther is 20 years old, and speaks English very well.  It was fun to talk with her to learn of her studies and wants to go to university for business management.  Such a beautiful young lady.

We continued on our journey for another hour or so.  The entire journey took about 4 hours. We have a lot of ground to cover on this trip, so we are definitely traveling around a lot.

We got to our hotel for the night, at the top of an extremely long, windy road.  Our hotel sits close to the top of the mountain.  We dropped our bags in our rooms and were served some tea.  It is definitely much colder here at the top of the mountain.  We wanted to drive up further on the mountain to see the tea plantation before it got dark.

Beautiful views and breathtaking!  And...clean, crisp mountain air...

tea plantations

We continued further up the mountain, to the town of Pickle.  Ken wanted to go to an ATM, so we all went along just to see more sites.  In the photo below, the things hanging are a type of candy, made with yak's milk.  The baskets of stuff are a type of cheese, again, made with yak's milk.  Some of the other packaged items there are different candies, made with yak's milk.  We tried the cheese and some of the wrapped candy.  I like the candy; the cheese, not so much.

We returned to the hotel and had dinner together.

I found out that Shemlal and Hannah enjoy jogging, so there has been some talk of MAYBE going for a run in the morning.  However, I've found out that there is no hot water, so a shower after a run could be pretty painful.  We shall see...  There has also been some talk about getting up to see the sunrise.  Stay tuned...

Thanks for your prayers.  We are thankful - everyone is doing very well.  Nobody is having trouble with sickness.  Pray for us as we cross the border into Bihar on Friday.  We do not anticipate any problems.  Also, we have learned of some possible issues with no driving gasoline-powered vehicles on the road (due to strikes).  There is no need to be concerned for our safety.  We just may not be able to visit one of the SPICE hostels.  Pray that these strikes do not take place, so we are still able to make that visit.