Nepal

Nepal

Hello everyone,
We are now in Thailand, sweating, and have been reminiscing about trekking around the cool, mountainous country of Nepal. A full account of what we got up to is below, as well as the highly anticipated announcement of the winners of last month's very popular competition.

Summary of Nepal: Big mountains
Carrie and Adrian

NEPAL
by Adrian

This account contains only 2 parts, as we only really did 2 things in Nepal: trekking and other. However, we nearly didn't make it to the country at all, as we'd heard about a good amount of civil unrest throughout the country. We decided to come, though many people have stayed away, sadly, depriving this very poor country of much needed foreign cash.


Prayer wheels. Each wheel contains numerous prayers, each written on pieces of paper, and when the wheel is spun, the prayer is said. The more wheels are spun, the more prayers are said

While we were in Nepal we saw and heard of several skirmishes and strikes which have been occurring sporadically now for several months. Two years ago the very unpopular King decided to sack the democratically elected government, which noone thought was a good idea (except him presumably). Also, an appreciable percentage of the country is not controlled by the government at all, but by the communist Maoists, who at least try to keep order and keep schools open etc (but they do kidnap and shoot people too). Somehow the country has not (yet) fallen into anarchy, but I feel it could happen at fairly short notice. As a peaceful way of protesting about the government and king's actions, there are regular "bandhs", or national strikes, which bring the country to a halt. Three of these occurred during the 4 weeks we were in Nepal, along with a smaller, Kathmandu valley only strike. (Some readers may find this summary a little cursory, in which case I'm sure there's plenty of places to find out more...)

Interesting fact of Nepal 1:The flag of Nepal is very unusual. It looks like a red christmas tree cut vertically down the middle.


A small stupa, in Kathmandu

Nepal is by far the poorest country we have visited and has virtually no natural resources of its own, and foreign aid makes up a large proportion of the national budget. Tourism is very important, but now with the widespread concern over unrest, many tourists, especially those who spend a lot of cash (ie not like us) are staying away. On our trek we stayed in several lodges where we were the only guests and we saw many that had closed due to lack of tourists. This is a shame as its such a wonderful country to visit, and I really hope the place manages to sort itself out before its too late.
One national pasttime we observed frequently was that of expectoration. This is done frequently, noisily and indiscriminately by the young, old, men, women, rich and poor. But, we didn't like it much.

Kathmandu (12-14March, 2-9April)

Our time in Kathmandu was split up by the trek and also by the series of strikes that took place in early April. As time went on the strikes did not seem to be 100% effective, and we were able to visit some sights and even do some shopping, and all in relative ease as the streets were empty of traffic.


Two of the numerous monkeys that live in Kathmandu

Kathmandu is an ancient capital and contains many Hindu temples dating back 500 years. The alleyways and buildings look old also, and seem to possess a timeless quality to them. The streets of Nepal however are not too clean, and some even rivalled those of Egypt! We visited the main square of Kathmandu - main squares are always called Durbar Squares it seems - several times and wandered about the collection of temples and shrines there trying to understand the Hindu religion and avoid the rickshaw touts.

The temples are made of bricks or stone with up to 5 pagoda style roofs on top. Around them they have many wooden carvings of people and gods, some of which usually show quite a bit of rude and athletic goings-on. This seems to be of interest mostly to tourists. The square also has a population of amusing rhesus monkeys that can be seen running about on top of the buildings and eating bananas etc.


Durbar Square in Kathmandu


Another square in Kathmandu

We visited several towns within a few miles of Kathmandu as well. Originally the area surrounding Kathmandu was split up into many different states, each with its own king and government, but they've been united under Nepal for a while. However, each one of these towns retains its Durbar Square and some are very attractive. We strode around Patan and Bhaktapur for many hours observing the carvings and decorations around the temples. Hinduism has many Shiva temples, but confusingly, Shiva has several different incarnations (some human, some animal), each of which have different personalities (angry, happy...). I found this very confusing, but was able to recognise several of them after a few hours of wandering about.

Interesting fact of Nepal 2:Nepal is in a time zone of its own, 5hours and 45minutes ahead of Greenwich. This very strange difference is to separate it from India (5h30m).

Annapurna Trek (15March-1April)

We decided to do the Annapurna Circuit trek, which is by far the most popular trek in Nepal. It seemed to be the obvious choice as it does not backtrack, contains very spectacular scenery and has a somewhat difficult section which we thought we would have a go at: the Thorung La Pass, at 5416m about the highest we'd ever be likely to go. There were some reports of Maoist activities in the area, and some enforced "donations" to Maoist causes, but we didn't see anything of them.
The trek goes around the Annapurna range, a group of several peaks, the highest of which is one of the 14 in the world over 8000m. The whole time we were going around we kept seeing different peaks from different sides and saw clouds only in the afternoon. It was incredible to see such mountains all the day long, especially when they would rise above villages to an unfeasible height it would seem. Occasionally we would see a piece of rock floating way up in the sky, that looked like it was not possible for it to be joined to the land at all!


A hillside viewed from the trail


Carrie with a reflection of Machupuchare in her glasses. Quite clever as well I think

There were some animals and especially birds to see - though we failed to see the Himalayan Marmot. Most impressive were the mountain sheep which prefer to live on the most precipitous cliffs they can find, and move around on the in a very sure-footed manner somehow. As high as we went there were birds and even butterflies. The forests have a healthy population of langur monkeys which provide much amusement with their jumping about and cute behaviour just in front of guest house balconies.


A narrow street in a mountain village on the trail

Trekking in this area really is very straightforward. We were able to stay at "tea houses", locally built and owned hotels in nearly every village of the area. These ranged from simple but comfortable barns with beds in, to quite elaborate hotels with an extensive range of facilities and menu items. Considering that all the building supplies for these have to be carried by mule or person, it was quite surprising how many of these places there were. We typically had a room to ourselves, and ate the local staple meal - the famous "dahl baht". This is a plate of rice with a bowl of lentil soup and a bowl of potato curry and a bowl of some other substance, which we never touched. The main advantage to this (for me anyway), was that there seemed to be unlimited quantities of this produced, and it just kept on coming, provided you could finish the previous serving. After trekking all day, quantity is much more important that quality!

Eating the same food everyday did get a little boring so we did try other things, including apple pie, rice pudding, baked beans, eggs in any style and spring rolls. To drink there was tea or coffee, and even beer and coke, carried many miles again - and probably the empties carried back also (ed. note: yeah, right). Every night we had good sleep (except when very high), which made a real difference.


The Annapurna range


The Hotel Monalisa, typical of those we stayed at, close to Muktinath on the trail

Each day we trekked for between 4 and 7 hours, stopping at various places for lunch, elevenses, tea, etc, and were able to keep up a good pace. Fortunately we were quite accustomed to hiking, so found ourselves overtaking quite a few others, but we did keep seeing the same people every now and again. The trails are generally very good, and many of them are used for mules or horses so are a bit dusty, but there is no real danger of getting lost. The rivers are crossed by steel cable suspension bridges which swing backwards and forwards quite a bit in some cases. We saw a train of donkeys passing over such a bridge of maybe 60m in length by themselves, without a single problem!


Annapurna. Annapurna is one of the worlds 14 8000+m peaks and is the 10th tallest in the world. Here, it is 4000m from base to summit.


More praying

The hardest day was passing over the high pass of Thorung La. This involved a climb of 1000m to 5400m, then a descent of 1700m on the other side of the pass. The pass itself was very windy and extremely cold. Breathing at that altitude was hard work, and I had great trouble keeping up with Carrie under these conditions. However, on top of the pass we were able to take some refuge inside a small tearoom there and partake of some hot tea - surely the highest tearoom in the world. There was some snow at this height, but not much.


Close to our last night's accommodation near Thorong La (5418m), the highest point on our trek


A view back down the trail towards Machupuchare

On descending from the pass we entered the holy city of Muktinath which had a quite attractive temple site with prayer flags all over it and a steady stream of holy men, some of whom claimed to have walked there from India. They wore very colourful clothing and had long beards, so we believed that they probably had come from a long way away.


The village of Marpha

When we were nearing the end of this loop, we decided to join on another, shorter trek, the Annapurna Sanctury Trek, which goes into the middle of the Annapurna range. This was not as interesting of a hike, but the panorama from the sanctuary was fantastic. Mountains all around, including Annapurna 1, over 4000m above us. We looked around at all of the snowy faces, and read about various attempts to climb them over the years - some successful some not. This trek has turned out to be one of the highlights of the whole year so far.


One of the many impressive bridges


Springs near to Muktinath

Famous Nepalis (that I can think of)
1 - Sherpa Tensing Norgay.
2 - Buddha.

Pyramid Competition Results

There was considerable interest in our competition, and the entries are still flooding in, but we have to draw the line now! In the end the winner was determined to be (da, da-da DUM) Tall Paul Handley, writing from Tajikistan. The main problem answers were the mother of King Tut (Kiya) and the order of construction of the various monuments (pyramids are the oldest). The prize will be kept in the Carrie and Adrian safe until its troublefree transit can be assured - otherwise some of the valuable water or plastic sand might escape. Note: it does not come with a pen, so don't be too jealous.