Day 15 Sikha
We gained elevation today and will again tomorrow. We are now about 6,500 feet in Sikha. Tomorrow we climb to 9,500 feet. We got here early in the day and spent the entire afternoon meeting one person after another. I love seeing how the people live and getting to know a little about them. We met one woman that was patiently separating what looked like mung beans from their husks. I joined her for a while. I took a few photos of an infant poking his head out from behind a door which led us to meet his mother or grandmother sitting close by. We sat with a group of women in a home while they prepared a strong wine made from millet. Pramod became the photographer often while I interacted with people. My hat is quite a topic of conversation. It is a Nepali cap called dhaka topi. I commented to a man about his hat, similar to mine, which began a long interaction with him and others. He told me he is 86 and has a daughter in America. When I was leaving him and this group, they were singing a Nepali song about the hat. The mountains here are terraced and farmed where possible. Tibetan Buddhism is mostly left behind on the higher elevations closer to Tibet. The dominant religion here is Hinduism.
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