I’ve just eaten for the second time at Raithaane in Saugal, Patan, and hope to do so again before long.
The restaurant is a little hard to find at first. It’s about 300 meters east of Patan Durbar Square. The best route there is a walk through small alleyways.
Raithaane serves tasty, inexpensive, local food from many regions of Nepal. It’s all fresh and organic. As our waiter explained they use tomatoes only where it’s appropriate to the particular dish, not tomato sauce on everything.
A friend here in Nepal asked whether I had eaten. When I said “no,” she replied that there were still people in the café up on the 6th floor.
I realized that I had been wondering whether there was still food. A person in Nepal might wonder that as well, but would think first about whether their friends would be there.
Without friends it’s not lunch, even if there is food.
You can’t count on a 4 mph pace on the trails of Newfoundland, even if you can walk faster than that on flat ground. Even 3 mph or 2 mph is hard to manage. In fact, you stop thinking about the pace.
The problem is not the terrain per se. I’m convinced that it involves more walking uphill than down. There are also uneven rocks, loose gravel, bogs, overgrown vegetation, fallen trees and other obstacles. And the occasional bugs and thorns. But you can get used to all of that.
A much bigger problem is the amazing views, even on the most ordinary trails. I’ve learned not to be captive of the camera, but it’s hard not to stop to look at waves crashing against a sea dungeon, to study 560 million year old Ediacaran fossils at Port Union, or to be captivated by abnormally cute puffins on the island off of Elliston Point. Those sights and more are within a 45 min. drive from our house.
But there is a bigger problem still: The trails are edible. It’s hard to keep up the pace when lunch beckons at every turn.
On a short walk yesterday, we saw ripe bakeapples (cloudberries), low-bush blueberries, and raspberries. There were chuckly-pears or chuckle-berries (amelanchier) and dogberries on the small trees, ready to eat. Nearby were partridge berries and cranberries. We’ve also sampled strawberries, juniper berries, bearberries, bunchberries, and many I can’t identify.
These delicacies were right next to the trail, far more than enough for the sparse walkers. When I’d look off the trail, I sometimes saw masses of berries enough for pies and muffins and pancakes, for jams, for adding to cereal, and for munching to keep my energy up.
There are many other edible berries. In addition to the berries on ground cover-type plants, there are fruits, some called berries, on bushes and trees. There are also numerous edible plants and mushrooms.
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Chip's journey 