Update on the update on our bato (road)

We decided its about time we give you an update on the state of our road. Back in March we posted a blog about the mess that was our street. Four months on and our street is still a mess. Everything was looking really promising part of the street has even had a layer of bitumen applied so looks very spick and span but now it seems that the money pot has run dry. One of our Nepali friends told us the other day that the rest of the street is no longer going to be sealed (the rest being about three quarters of the street) so we're in for a boggy monsoon. Fortunately they are planning on putting a layer of gravel on top of the mud at some stage.

 This is what most of our road looks like after four months work.

  

After a rain shower

Constructing the drains with one of the local chickens keeping an eye on everything. Rocks are broken by hand and placed in line with concrete spread overtop. However, as the money dried up it appeared that there was less and less cememt put in and they are crumbling away very quickly.

The drains are really quite inconvienent especially if you own a car we've seen several people smashing them to get their cars out. They don't seem to have put enough cement in the concrete as the concrete crumbles when you touch it.

 

Digging a trench because what else does one do when its 35 degrees and really humid. Apparently its for phone cables

This part of the road is actually starting to resemble a street

And if you walk a bit further it starts to look like this. Gravel was layed quite nicely and then a layer of sand which was all rolled with a 100 year old roller (I wish I got a photo of the roller)

And then hand swept clean

A huge plume of rather toxic looking smoke drew lots of Nepalis to the bitumen factory. This is where the bitumen is made the way it used to be, right in the middle of the road.

Some of the bitumen was given to the man to spread (below) the rest was put in the trays in the back of this photo using the bucket on a stick method. That was mixed with stones and gravel to form the layer of tar.

And then laid the way it should be.....

I don't envy this man of his job, fortunately for him they've run out of money so he doesn't have to do keep doing this for another four months to do the rest of the road.

The layer of bitumen is about half a centimeter thick so theres a good chance that they'll be doing this all over again in another years time when the road falls apart all over again. Apparently it was done less than four years ago.

 

Kids playing next to the "bitumen plant" The pile of stones was what went into the large trays over the fire.

The mixture of stones, gravel and bitumen was hand delivered to site..

And then brushed over smoothly.

That is the finished product - a very thin layer of tar as the money has dried up - and it gets better - it is already breaking up in places - three weeks later.

Now that the money has run out the plan we heard was to put a layer of gravel over the surface. At the moment the road is a very slippery mud slide and the driest part is the drains! So, they called the digger back, he has completely broken up a part of the road below the original construction site - and is using the dirt from there to smooth out the upper part of the road!!!! And the story continues............