Ranighat; Tansen, Palpa

The walk to Ranighat is well worth it. It's long, but beautiful, and the path is more or less easy to traverse and follow. From the top of Tansen, near the Shreenagar hotel, you can begin your walk, or from the East side, if you prefer, a slightly longer route along the ridge of nearby hills is possible. I walked down and up the same way, not having enough time for the whole loop, but was still happily satisfied by the journey, though exhausted by the end.

The walk down is about 3 hours, and the walk up about the same, I found, though I took a wrong path, went left instead of right near the top of the hill and found myself in a town to the west rather than Tansen and had to walk around the hill. So the return took 4 hours. Take little paths that cut down the hills for short cuts; be careful, it's tough to sense direction in these winding trails, but ask people you meet and you'll find the quickest way. Oh, and don't give pens to the kids. Especially not when they accost you with: "give me pen!". How did this start?

I was on my own, and happy to be there in the daylight. Though even with the sun shining in, going up into the attic was spooky experience and you can attest to the creaks and thuds that this old buildings emits when you make the trip yourself. I would suggest to anyone, dare anyone(?), to spend the night in the old mansion. I hear it was built in memory of the Governor's late wife, the story goes...