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Purang village with green fields and surrounding arid lands
Purang village--with rectangular, mud-roofed houses en route from Muktinaath to Jomsom, Nepal--the mountain sides beyond the village is dry and desert-like. Small plots around the village have maturing crops. Some crops lie on the filed drying. Some plots are barren, after the harvest.
This village lies to the north of the Himalayan range. This is trans-Himalayan range and is also called shadow-range as much of the rain clouds coming from the Southern side is blocked and this place gets very little rainfall during much of the year. The crops are either dry-land crops or irrigated with snowmelt channeled from nearby stream and river.
The houses have mud-roofs which last several years. Because it does not rain much, mud roofs also control the temperature inside the house--making it warmer when it is cold outside and making it cooler when it is hot outside (for example in the day).




