The lady with a ladle

This morning I set out to feed myself independent from a restaurant for breakfast, since it’s not included in this hotel stay, and since I splurged a little yesterday on food ($14 total food bill for the day, insane!).  I started with coffee, which around the tourist areas is easy enough to find, served in small but delicious quantities and is a reasonable price (~$.90).  Then I headed into the stupa circle of restaurants and shops to see if there was a bakery and I came across a man selling really nice looking apples, so I picked up a kilo for 140 rupee (~$1.40).

At this point the coffee was kicking in and I was feeling pretty good—dare I hope for a nice bakery

A many enjoying mountain top coffee at Nagarkot

too?  I continued around the circle and before I saw it, I heard a little bit of dog scrapping, which is nothing unusual but the dogs sounded a little bit excited this time and not their usual turf-war angry.  As the smoke from the incense pots cleared a lady with a ladle came into view.  She had one mangy dog by the scruff and was batting a few others off with her spoon so the one dog in front of the dish could get his feed in.  She was feeding the street dogs breakfast!  This really made my heart sing because there are so many street dogs here in such bad shape and yet many look well fed enough I had kind of wondered why.  She had several dishes set out and a giant pot of rice and whatnot and she was systematically feeding all the dogs who showed up for breakfast.  I hope I can catch a photo of her tomorrow.

Rooftop view from PRK Guesthouse

Next I dipped out of the stupa circle and meandered into the side streets and after a long stretch of left, right, left right I came across a bakery that had fresh multigrain bread and other pastries (kind of stale but oh well.).  On the way back I found decent peanut butter (for those of us who can eat it, it’s a real protein score!) and headed to the rooftop kitchen to make my own breakfast. Mission accomplished.

UPDATE: I finally had a face to face with my research contact for this area and her organization has 6 areas of focus one of which is care of street dogs. She says that in this Boudhna area since 2012 they have vaccinated over 900 dogs and have a clinic for dogs "at death's door" which is great to hear.