Mountain heights to City lights!

I walked with Ed to where the path split to take him off to Kathmandu and beyond and we said our fond farewells! I returned up the path ready to begin my solo adventure in Melamchi Ghyang, an odd prospect after 4 months in each others pockets! The two weeks passed amazingly quickly. I filled my time with mornings spent in the clinic, usually quite a quiet affair, and then pootling to the school to work on the guidelines we're trying to make. Everyday I went on little walks around the village, finding some beautifully secret spots. The only people I ever bumped into were the wood cutters returning from their days work or the local shepherd herding his unruly goats. They always greeted me with a quizzical look and a 'namaste', as if to say, 'what on earth are you doing wondering round like a little lonesome soul!?'

In those two weeks, I got to know our host family a little more and they couldn't have looked after me better. Amazingly, I was even allowed to start helping with simple chores, carrying water, weeding in the garden and sorting and drying the chives I'd picked with Ibi (Granny of the house!). Its hard to know if its through politeness or a complete lack of faith in our abilities to perform the simplest tasks, but on the whole we were not allowed to do anything to help!

The festivities for the Sonam Buddhist New Year (Loshar - one of the hundreds of New Years they celebrate here!) lasted 10 days and for all this time, there was a seemingly never ending supply of the chewy, oily and slightly odd rice flour breads that are a speciality of the festival. We had them for at least two meals a day and I would be lying if I said I wasn't glad when the mould set in and they became Jenny's (decrepit family dogs) treat... Although with no teeth it was more of a struggle for her!

I went along with the family to a few puja (ceremonies) at what remains of the monestary or Gompa. These consisted of hours and hours spent sitting crossed legged under a tin shelter being kept regularly fed and watered with salty yak butter tea, roksi (millet spirit), daal bhat, rice pudding and even bags of biscuits (ten hours sitting was my record!). In between this sustenance, there was much chanting, praying, ringing of bells and blowing of conch shells. It was an incredible thing to be part of and if only I could stand the unbelievable pain in my hips from the crossed legged sitting, it would have been even better (more yoga required!)! As evening drew in, a huge fire was lit and some simple string instruments came out and the subdued chanting morphed into a repetative and mesmerizing circular dance with men and women singing alternate verses. The roksi flowed freely and we stayed up way passed bedtime, dancing in the moonlight with the huge snow capped mountains silhouetted against an amazingly bright midnight sky.

Before I knew it, I was walking down the hill again to meet Ed after his own solo adventure!

While Kat was preparing for two weeks in solitary confinement in the mountains I trundled off down the valley in search of Kathmandu! I'd like to meet anyone who'd racked up more miles for their GP application... sadly the Royal College doesn't pay travelling expenses! There was a lovely freedom walking down from over 2500m in the Himalaya along a path I'd never walked. Spring was in fast forward as I descended, the rhododendron began to bloom and the once barren rice paddies became a dense green. Purna and his family thought I was a bit mad walking out to Melamchi Bazaar, where I planned to take a bus to Kathmandu, and I'm not sure they believed I'd make it. They somehow seem immune to the constant precipitous drops alongside the route the bus takes out of the mountains which I was very keen to avoid! After 8 hours and 25 miles my feet were starting to regret that decision but I'd made it just in time for the last bus.

The valley had been celebrating Loshar over the weekend and unbeknown to me, everyone was heading back to the city having spent the weekend at home. What followed was one of the most terrifying bus journeys to date! Barely room on the bus to breathe let alone sit (I got incredibly friendly with the men in front and behind me!), standing for five hours on mud rutted tracks, half of the bus suffering from travel sickness and screaming babies being passed around to whoever had most room. We reached Bouda, a Buddhist area of Kathmandu, at 10pm and I skulked through the dark streets looking for a hotel trying to avoid the roaming packs of dogs! Finally, a kind fellow opened the gate and gave me shelter for the night!

Before I knew it, I was touching down on terra firma in London and then sitting my GP assessment a few days later in a Holiday Inn off junction 25 of the M5! It all seemed a bit strange! After a haircut, which took over one and a half hours, and with a new school uniform I looked vaguely presentable and practiced being a doctor again! On the same day, I headed back to Heathrow to see if I could find Kat where I left her, bags packed with dark chocolate with raspberriers, marmite and other essentials! Needless to say, Expedition Manager, R V Moore, shone once again and made sure I reached all essential appointments on time and with great company!

Determined to avoid all contact with Nepalese buses, this time I decided to walk all the way from Kathmandu to find Kat! 40 miles, two days and a horrible amount of up later I found Kat sunning herself almost exactly where I'd left her two weeks before! It really was all very strange! And so the story continues...

(I'm really sorry about the lack of contact while home, I was doing everything not to break the bubble (while spending a lot of time feeling crook on the loo... The Kathmandu Quick Step kindly followed me home!)

Shortly after we arrived in Melamchi Ghyang initially, we heard that two other British volunteers had been living in the village for a few months, now trekking to Everest. All any one could remember of where they were from was that they lived by the sea. We remember joking at the time that they were probably from Cornwall but then thought little of it until we finally got the chance to meet them. The world being the ridiculously small place it is, the answer they gave us was almost inevitable when we asked where they were from.... 'just up from the Tap House off the main road to Perran in St. Agnes!' Not only that, they were planning on meeting two of our friends in Myanmar after leaving Nepal.

The St Agnes Crew..
Kat, Kate, Steve and Ed!

Within minutes, we were chatting away like old friends and catching up on village gossip both in Melamchi Ghyang and back home. Kate and Steve left real life behind in Cornwall and set off on their 'Grey GapYear' (their words not ours!) in October. Their world wide adventure takes in just about every country imaginable but they'd decided to spend the first five months working for Community Action Nepal. Kate, after a three day TEFL course, was plunged in at the deep end teaching the entire nursery class single handed. Nights spent lesson planning followed and amazingly imaginative displays and projects covered the walls of the temporary class room. Steve, a book binder turned plumber back home, set about reinstalling the school solar showers and getting heavily involved in the village water project as well as attending the endless meetings about meetings about arranging more meetings to discuss the previous meeting, which he absolutely loved! Four hours of discussion without a word of English was his favourite afternoon activity!

Aside from gossiping, it was amazing to be able to share our own experiences of life in the village and to compare notes. With some very important guests due to arrive, we took it upon ourselves to tidy up around Purna and Zangmo's house. We four spent an entire day together tending a big bonfire of rubbish which villagers added to throughout the day. It was the perfect place to chat away for hours, reminiscing about Cornwall and the funny characters there as well as stories and tales from travels so far. Every now and then, pinching ourselves that somehow, we all lived in St. Agnes and yet had never met until we wound up in this tiny Himalayan village. It will be fantastic to meet up in our little Cornish village when we get back home and chew the cud again. Hopefully not in front of a fire of shivelling plastic packaging and toxic fumes coming from a pair of old slowly melting Wellington boots... sorry again World!

Shortly after Kate and Steve arrived back in the village, having bravely gone on the annual five day Year 9 school excursion, we jumped on a weather window and headed off, rucksacks bursting, into the mountains. After a very heartfelt goodbye with Zangmo, Meme and Ibi and a 'see you soon' with Kate and Steve, we plodded off up the almost vertical ascent to Thadapati, 1000m up in 4km was almost too much to bear! 

Our Melamchi Ghyang family... Ed, Steve (front), Kat, Meme, Ibi, Zangmo, (middle) Kate (back)

We topped out at 3600m feeling very wobbly, heads throbbing from the altitude, wishing we hadn't packed those three juggling balls, whittling knife, harmonica, tin whistle and other assorted ridiculous 'essential' items.

Our plan was to trek by ourselves for two weeks, first heading into the Langtang National Park over a 4600m snowy pass to the frozen lakes of Gosainkunda.

A daunting view of the pass...The snowy valley in the centre of the photo on the far ridge.

We then wanted to walk all the way back to Kathmandu, from summit (nearly!) to city, stopping in on two other CAN projects on the way down.

After flogging ourselves on the climb to Thadapati we decided, in the spirit of all great expeditions, to leave a depot of all non essentials to pick up on our return journey. We had been reading 'The worst journey in the world', a mind boggling account of Scott's tragic Antarctic expedition, where depots were a very common theme! So far we had been climbing through huge oak and rhododendron forests, some flowers just about bursting through. The undergrowth was thick with bamboo and thousands of scattered tiny purple primulas carpeting the mossy ground.

With spring ever accelerating, the forest was alive with butterflies warming their wings in the sunshine, bees buzzing about and birds chirruping away. We were ever vigilant for the very elusive and heartbreakingly cute Red Panda...We were a little mistaken as to their size, we imagined something similar to a small bear but were later told they are about as big as a small dog...no wonder we didn't spot one!

As we climbed, the vegetation thinned and the tree line approached, the snow patches grew and the air became colder and thinner. We could see the pass ahead and it seemed pretty daunting but step by step we got closer and after a few days we stood on top next to the fluttering colourful prayer flags surrounded by pristine snow and frozen tarns, gazing at white capped mountains over 8000m.

Adding our offering to the mountain gods!

10 points if you can spot Ed!

No points for spotting Ed here.

Beautiful and snowy descent from the pass to Gosainkunda.

Me trying to work out how to use the timer on the camera and Ed getting bored!

The weather was kind to us and with our thermos full of coffee and a celebratory pack of chocolate bourbons we stopped for a cuppa, not a soul in sight. It was a short but snowy descent to Gosainkunda where we spent the next two days exploring the icy landscape, climbing to nearby views points and balancing stone towers on the frozen lakeside (there were hundreds Dave!).

One of the many Anthony Goldworthy style installations around the frozen lake at Gosainkunda

We had two of the most stunning cloud inversion sunsets which made the persistent headaches and awful nights sleep at altitude completely worth it.

Our mountain time machine was put in fast forward as we descended back over the pass and spring sprung all around us once again. We even spotted some beautiful white Himalayan orchids hanging delicately on the mossy tree trunks.

But the weather can change in an instant and we were soon plunged into cloud and sat out a cold, windy, rainy day huddled round a fire playing cards in a cosy mountain lodge.

Just after leaving Langtang National Park, we arrived in Kutumsang. Another tiny village perched on a ridge line and completely destroyed by the earthquakes. It offered panoramic views and a lovely warm wind that whipped up the valley in the afternoon. We stayed for three days and visited the CAN supported health post and school, both of which are in the process of being rebuilt. We arrived at the health post minutes after a young mother had delivered a healthy baby in the "birthing centre", amazingly this turned out to be a ShelterBox relief tent, sent all the way from Cornwall nearly two years ago after the earthquakes.

Shelter Box tent...or Birthing Centre

I (Kat, not Ed, I think he was a little scared!) popped my head into the tent to find a relatively well equipped delivery 'room', a happily exhausted mum, sleeping baby and placenta still in a kidney dish under the bench!

The school was in an equally upsetting state. The four classrooms, kitchen and teachers accommodation were made from large pieces of bent corrugated iron more reminiscent of pigloos back home than a school.

Pigloos....or Primary School

Whereas the children in Melamchi Ghyang all arrived at school in smart clean uniforms, the tiny little scraps we passed walking themselves to school here looked dirty in tattered clothes, some having to walk for over an hour at the age of 5 to get to and from school. One of the teachers openly admitted that the levels of education in the surrounding communities were much lower than that of Melamchi Ghyang and the difference was tangible. It made the work Purna had done over the last 32 years in Melamchi Ghyang even more incredible, utterly changing the quality of life and expectation of the local people there. Kutumsang appeared in desperate need of help which makes the work by CAN all the more important.

We left Kutumsamg to begin our walk back to the city lights. It was a fantastic feeling walking under our own steam, bags on our back, master's of our own destiny! Being the fearless explorers we now are, we even plucked up the courage to wild camp in the Himalayan foothills, braving the constant nocturnal snuffles of wild boar, the twit-twooing of owls and ever present threat of bears, snow leopards and yetis! We slept terribly, twitching at every snapped twig but we woke to a beautiful sunrise over a frosty field feeling very proud of ourselves! Bellies full of the most pathetic excuse for a Tibetan Bread this side of Lhasa, we meandered along a misty forgotten stone path that wound down through the forest until we eventually saw the dusty city below. A sure sign that we were re-entering civilisation and our little bubble was bursting came in the form of a huge group of Korean day hikers, listening to Guns and Roses, Sweet Child O'Mine on their phones as they went!

The ridge that took us all the way to Bouda, a predominantly Buddhist area of Kathmandu and where our friend Kami lives, was a perfect transition from mountain to city and before we knew it we were dodging traffic and inhaling the dust of Kathmandu on its city streets.

What an earthquake can do to a new, reinforced steel concrete building.

We could see the huge white dome of the stupa at Boudhanath from miles away and it guided our route into the city. We reached the stupa just before sunset and joined the hundreds of Buddhist pilgrims making their slow clockwise circumambulation in the evening light. The change from mountain to city was complete!

Joining the crowds around Bouda Stupa

These two county mice have been spending the last week having hot showers, drinking proper coffee, washing clothes and generally reconnecting with life while planning the next adventure to the Eastern Himalayas. We also managed to acquaint ourselves with an excellent Ophthalmologist after Kat had a bit of a problem with one of her eyes which is hopefully all sorted now, oh and I got my GP job in Cornwall... those thousands or air miles to Dubai and the UK were worth it, although the thought of full time employment brings me out in a cold sweat!

So now, on Tuesday we're off back to the hills to visit our next clinic and hopefully see those snow capped mountains once again!

Loads of love, hope you're all good and that spring is on its way back home!

Ed and Kat

Xxxxxxx