Louis and Frankie's woodcarving day in Nepal

As you wander through the streets at the centre of the  beautiful old city of Bhaktapur, one of the three 'kingdoms" in the Kathmandu valley here in Nepal, you realise architecturally, at least, it probably hasn't changed much for centuries.  Intricately carved wood is everywhere, from the majestic temples to the door frames of much more modest buildings.  Wood shops abound that want to sell you anything from tiny wooden statues to huge wooden wardrobes that literally take months of painstaking effort to finish. 

We were talking to a family in one shop about how they make these items, and the effort involved and whether our boys could try.  The owner, Monika, explained that they would be happy to have the boys for a few hours and teach them how to carve something that they could then take home.  Mindful of the limited space in our rucksack, I checked that this would in fact be a small piece of wood, and not a large coffee table. 

So we returned a few days later, and Louis and Frankie indeed spent a day woodcarving. 

We met in the shop and followed Monika's cousin through a labyrinth of dark alleyways, along narrow passages with low brick ceilings, seemingly into a quiet back and beyond away from the busy streets and finally found ourselves in a little workshop where two teenage girls were already busily carving huge wooden posts. 

All very interesting but can we get on with it now, please?

Setting up their "workbenches"

The boys were set up with their own workbenches (everyone sits on the floor) and, after reading about a short history of woodcarving in Nepal (not sure how much they digested of this!), given some delicate carving tools with assorted tips - some flat, some shaped - as well as a wooden mallet. The expert was introduced to us and began to show the boys firstly how to secure the strip of wood they would be carving and then how to draw the pencilled guidelines on them that would orient their carving pattern. 

After observing his technique, the boys were soon trying it for themselves, gently tapping their tiny chisel-like tool at a very shallow angle to break off very small chunks of wood.  You realised how hard it was to accurately reproduce the patterns - the boys made a good effort but when you looked up close you appreciated the workmanship that must go into these things to reproduce the pattern with machine-like accuracy. 

Pooh - this stuff is smelly!

The boys stuck at it for a few hours, working very diligently, Frankie finishing with a lovely piece of wood with two patterns, and louis with a single strip of wood and also a second piece called a "Knot."  It was then time to go on another journey, deeper into the narrow backstreets, to find the tiny little room where they dip the wood in a very smelly veneer.  Even the lady working there had a mask on to protect her from the fumes.  

Frankie summarised: "It was very hard but thoroughly fun.  I am pleased with my carving, it's not something you'd do every day!"

Louis added: "I really enjoyed it.  I was amazed how much work they have to put in to do all the detail on the big pieces of furniture. Imagine if you were doing the very last part of a wardrobe and you accidentally chopped off an important bit!"

Perfect.

Finished!