Dhanusha district, 15-16 September 2014

Rows of bitter gourd growing on the bund

 I’d not seen bunds between rice crops so well used to grow other produce before: here they were often sown with gourd or eggplant to maximise the available arable land.

Eggplant down the bund

At the rice research station I saw a small (maybe 30cm long, 1.5cm in diameter) snake slither off the bund into a paddy: my colleagues assured me it was harmless but were pretty freaked out by it, so I'm not sure if it was that harmless, or if they’re all just freaked out by snakes (or thought the visitors might be)?!?  Anyway, it was gone pretty fast, and I didn’t see or hear any others.

Blink and you'll miss it!

There were some miniature waterlilies in some of the irrigated paddies at the research station: the lilypads were 2-4cm wide and maybe 4cm long: really sweet!!

We were had a spectacular sunset over the paddies as we waited for dinner: however despite taking dozens of more photos the brilliance hasn’t completely come out :-/