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Cleaning up a hill
Invoking the sense to keep beautiful places clean
by PRERANA MARASINI
| FROM ISSUE # 126 (June 2006) | IN THIS ISSUE | |||
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DESTINATION: Champadevi temple at Champadevi hill
It's easy to get tired of the city's bright lights. Every now and then, you need to getaway to the fresh green fields and crisp cool air of the hills. So the Walk With WAVE group decided to hike to Champadevi on 13 May and clean it up. 
Champadevi hill lies southwest of Kathmandu. It is an hour's drive from the main city and approximately three hours hike uphill. At 9.30 AM, 30 hikers gathered at the parking lot next to St Xavier's School, Jawalakhel. We had three vehicles waiting, all set to hit the road. Arun brought his own car (which ran on both LP gas and diesel) and had a flat tyre so we waited while he changed it. Finally, we set off to Hattiban.
Getting to Hattiban Resort, which lies on the way to Dakshinkali, is easy. You follow the road to Tribhuvan University from Balkhu and continue straight up. You can't miss the awful stench that steams from the dumping side on one side of the road. I clamped my nose and cursed the municipality for not doing something to kill the odour. But then I remembered, we would have more garbage on our way back. Where would we dump it?
Further, the lush green fields of Chobhar greeted us as the tranquil waters of the Taudaha sparkled in the mild sunshine. Alok Tumbahangphey, who coordinates the Walks, gave us a running commentary on migratory birds from Siberia that fly here for winter. Another 15 minutes drive and we reached our checkpoint.
I call it 'checkpoint' because this was where the efficiency of the old faithful car we were travelling in was put to test. The trail was steep and the car wheezed and coughed before finally giving up. Another vehicle had to be called to complete the last leg of the journey.
At Hattiban hill's summit, everyone was given plastic gloves and bags to collect litter. The walk or rather hike, to be precise, would begin from the top of this hill as we headed to Champadevi picking up garbage on the way. The hill is beautiful but the garbage careless picnickers had left behind marred the scenery with plastic noodle packets and greasy cans thrown along the trail. We were on a mission and so we began.
From school students to teachers who had joined the Walk, the clean up started. Chocolate wrappers, Wai Wai, Mayos and Real Juices– We picked them all and tossed them in our garbage bags. It felt good to be doing something worthwhile. We complain about our city being dirty but really we are the ones who make that happen. If we took the time to clean up our mess, there wouldn't be much complaining to do. That's why we were overjoyed when we met Environment Science students who had also come to clean up the place. Their route was different from ours which meant, two routes would now be litter-free.
We walked through rocky trails and finally reached the top of Champadevi hill at noon, bags full of garbage in our hands. The view from the top is magnificent as you can see Kathmandu Valley, Kirtipur and on a clear day, the Himalayan range. We weren't very lucky since the monsoon Saturday sky was overclouded. Every one of us was tired and starving. Nanglo's Bakery Cafe had sponsored our lunch which we gobbled up quickly, making sure we cleaned up our mess. Then we headed over to Champadevi temple.
The temple had no roof or priest who could tell us the legends surrounding the hill. So, Alok acted as our guide and told us about Chandragiri hill where Manjushree apparently placed his Shakti before draining the waters from the lake Kathmandu. After the meal and story-telling, our energy and enthusiasm were recharged. We began separating the garbage we had collected into biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste. We burnt the biodegradable and headed downhill.
The trail looked much cleaner and greener on our descent. We felt quite pleased that our day's efforts had made such a difference. Further down, we met two groups of people: one a family going to the temple and the other, students from St Xavier's School who were excited at finding out that we were from WAVE. One girl even took out the latest issue of our magazine that she was carrying in her bag to show us.
The sky began to thunder and a little while later, it drizzled. Though the Walk With WAVE notice had told us to bring umbrellas and raincoats, none of us had bothered to do so. There was no shelter either so we trudged on. As luck would have it, once we reached the area where our cars were parked, it stopped raining. We laughed, tossed the non-biodegradable waste into the back of a pickup which would take it to Kathmandu Municipality's dumping site, and piled into the vehicles, drenched to the bone. We had cleaned up the hill and the rain had cleaned us.