10-08-09

Today Jos and I split up. Jos went to Namjey to fix the tower because it had been hit by lightning. I went to Dhankuta and Hili together with three other guys to look at the sites and do as much as possible in Dhankuta. It was a long ride to Dhankuta down into the valley and then up again. Dhankuta was not that high up the mountain and the sun was shining so it was pretty hot. I thought Dhankuta would be similar to Bhedetar and other towns but it is much bigger. Mayba half the size of Dharan. The post office there already had PC's and I think it also has internet so all we want to install is a phone connected to the rest of the network.

First we looked around to see where we could place the equipment. The first problem we encountered was that it was not possible to get on the roof and the next best thing was the roof of a shed next to the building which wasn't all that high. Fortunattely we later found out the atic had a little hatch in the roof so we could get up. But we didn't install the antenna and radio yet. First, we placed the batteries, chargers ect. and connected them to the power grid. We added some grounding and placed a new phoneline. It doesn't look like much but stripping and connecting the wires and clipping them along the walls and ceiling trying to find a nice route is quite some work. We were quite happy with our result. If all we placed is ok, all that has to be done is add plugs to the phonelines and mount the antenna up the roof.

At around 13.00 we had a quick lunch in a place next to the site. We had some simple dalbat with eggs and spiced potatoes. It seems we were lucky because all the guys at Namjey had for lunch was some thea and cookies. Though I would really like a lunch with some bread like thing once. I am getting a bit tired of all the hot lunches with rice. I am not used to this and I really like my bread.

After we were done in Dhankuta we rushed to Hili to drop of some equipment ant take a look at the site. It was a nice ride up the mountain through some pine and bamboo forests. Hili was right in a cloud so we couldn't see much but what we saw worried us. The site is a low building and it is a little bit from the mainroad down. Apart from the fact that you can only get there by stairs it seems that there is no clear line of sight to Dhankuta what will be a problem. But we will look at it again with a compas.

Daan