After three days in Lahan, another scorpio ride beckoned, this time off to Sara’s favourite city of Rajbiraj. Kajul, one of the change makers from Biratnagar had left scathing reviews however, so perhaps we arrived with trepidation. The hotel balaji in all its glory would be our home, where I had the unusual combination of a squat toilet and star sports two, both unlike anyone else.
Our final day of schools coaching saw the end of my and Felix’s cone obsession – the final arm-linking race brought a tear to our eyes… Otherwise it was a lot of rapid fire for our group; but Felix had experienced rapid fire of another kind the night before, so took it somewhat easy. As for the other group, a second split made things tricky but by all accounts they handled it like champs, to the shock of no one.
We had been promised a cricket shop in Rajbiraj and it didn’t disappoint, we bought 7 bats total, with Mo grabbing 4. I cannot wait to use a “ZAP Old Fangled” in a game – the sledges must write themselves.
A community session in the evening followed, and apart from the relentless shouts of “Heads!” as teenage boys smoked balls directly into our game, this was great, and another 35 girls or so were coached.
Food in Rajbiraj was pretty damn good – Mamacha a culinary highlight of the trip with a to die for paneer roll. £2.44 for this, french fries, 2 eSprites and a lemon tea – not too shabby. Dinner was great too – not a bad word was said (my apologies again Sara!)
Day 2 in Rajbiraj was a cricket tournament, this time we hoped that the organisation would be slightly more efficient. Luckily, our own Sara Begg was in charge and in her element, as were all of us as we umpired and scored a tournament for girls and women between 7 and 20. The quality on show was incredible, from Madhesh vice captain Sakshi Yadav (one to watch) to 8 year olds holding their own against some of the best players in the city. We quickly hopped back in the eScorpios back to Biratnagar, where we took a nerve-racking flight (for some) and landed in Kathmandu on Friday evening.
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