Kathmandu is a funny old place. It's not called 'Dustmandu' for nothing. Huge dust clouds bellow from never ending road works in and around the city and cling to every piece of clothing and nose hair available! Face masks are now a fashion item! But when just the right easterly wind blows, the dust clouds disperse and the Kathmandu valley reveals itself. Huge black kites circle over the gleaming white Stupas tipped with gold that are dotted around the the wooded foothills circling the valley. Kathmandu's traffic policy leaves a lot to be desired. The 40,000 white Suzuki taxis, each with body coloured bumper, spoiler and emblazoned with hand painted Nike ticks roam the streets in hungry packs hunting for passengers. We still come out in a cold sweat every time we venture back onto the infamous Kathmandu ring road, an experience never to be repeated on bicycles! Continuing in the spirit of our adventure, we've found the best way to negotiate Kathmandu's twisting side streets and bustling lanes is on foot, provided your spidey sense is expertly honed! These senses were especially useful as we spent a "busy" two weeks crossing Kathmandu back and forth to eye appointments (all is well, worry not!) and visiting numerous embassies as we plan our onward journey from Nepal.
To tell the truth, with all its little luxuries (mostly within budget!), we were getting very comfortable in Kathmandu. We even had a little reunion with Kate and Steve from good old Aggie and went to a posh restaurant to celebrate Kate's Birthday. We caught up on village gossip sipping cold Everest beer and Bloody Marys. It's strange to think that the next time we see them will be under the Christmas lights in St Agnes!
We then set about arranging our next placement with CAN. This time we were heading much further afield to the Eastern Development Region of Nepal to a little village on the Arun river near the boarder with Tibet and two days walk from the nearest road head, zero point as they call it. We had heard this area (Sankhuwasabha) had some wealth from cardamom plantations but this came with its own vices. Cardamom is a surprisingly expensive commodity (1kg costing nearly £30) but although there is apparent wealth the levels of education are low and sadly much of this money is spent on roksi (home brewed millet spirit) and rum. It's remote location also makes access to health care and good schools tricky. We were told numerous times that this would be a very different experience to Melamchi Ghyang. By chance, the Makalu Base Camp trek starts a days walk from the village so we decided to mix business with pleasure and arrange a trek to finish our stay in Nepal. Times are hard!
Like all great expeditions, we began with a bit of false start. Outwardly and to most tourists, Nepal is an incredibly friendly place, but lots of the political turmoil is hidden from view. An uprising in the Terai, through which we had to travel, meant that our 4am start to catch our bus was in vain. Demonstrators had placed a road block on the main East West Highway after a bloody skirmish with the police. We returned to our flat, blearery eyed facing potentially another 4 days in Kathmandu.
After tea back in bed, our phone rang to say the road was clear and the night bus would be leaving at midday. Night time travel was something we'd desperately tried to avoid. A trip on the Kathmandu ring road seemed like a pleasant day out compared to 24 hours on a Nepalese night bus! Taking long bus journeys was not something we'd wanted to do but getting to these backwaters is almost impossible without them. It would take gruelling weeks on a bike, months on foot and with our new friendly Consultant Opthalmologist and Expedition Manager forbidding us from flying on the tiny twin otter Buddha Air planes, we were left with no option. It took seven hours to leave the Kathmandu Valley, micro buses with goats tied to the roof being one of the many things that passed us by as we sat stationary at the side of the road, inhaling dust and fumes all the while (a journey that took us 45 minutes by bike!). The only thing that kept us going was listening to Martin Freeman read the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. It was easy to imagine deep space travel as we hurtled along at break neck speed on a bus with no suspension in the dead of night!
A full 24 hours later we arrived at Hile, a little jaded and sleep deprived but luckily the next 5 hour jeep ridewas waiting! After securing our bags on the roof rack, we wedged ourselves into the back of a surprisingly shiney Land Rover, 14 of us all together! The driver was brilliant and we soon became incredibly closely acquainted with our neighbours, using each other to brace against the mountainous bumps and ruts that was our road. Mildly concussed, we finally shoe horned out of the back door and stumbled with legs asleep into Tumlingtar, just as a plane landed after a mere 35 minute flight from Kathmandu!
Numb bums told us that was quite enough motor travel thank you and the next day we shouldered our packs and headed off. Back in the day, when Doug Scott (founder of CAN and famous British climber of the Bonnington era) set out to climb Mount Makalu and Kanchenjunga (5th and 3rd tallest mountains on earth) they would have had a very long walk in from Hile before even getting a sniff of snow capped mountains. Despite getting washed back with each monsoon the road is slowly creeping up the valley towards the Chinese/Tibetan border.
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| Couldn't resist broccoli and stilton soup! |
Without a guide and with English being a rarity in these remote parts, we had to rely on our broken Nepali for food, shelter and direction. Like in so many places, it's amazing how many friends you can make with a few stock phrases. After a long slog we stopped for a chia in a little timber framed house, nestled in a lush valley, surrounded by rice paddies. Within moments of us uttering our regular Nepali spiel, our hosts were laughing and embracing us like old friends. Leaving with hugs and handshakes all round, we even got our tea for free! The down side to this being that we often get involved in conversations where we have absolutely no idea what's going on, which makes asking directions a little tricky! Nodding and smiling a lot seem to help with the odd "Tik cha" (I understand every beautiful detail of what you've just been talking about for the last ten minutes!) thrown in now and again.
As we pootled on up the Arun valley, it was amazing to see every building still standing. From what we could see there was very little damage to this area following the earthquakes. The clusters of stone, timber and mud houses with golden thatched roofs sat looking rediculously picturesque, surrounded by terraced fields and rising mountains.
There's lots of work in the valley, with agriculture, the slowly lengthening road and several new hydroelectric projects along the Arun River. Strange little settlements have popped up alongside these developments. As we descended a steep wooded hillside on our path to Gola, we came across one of these new communities next to a swinging foot bridge over the river. A new shining steel roadbridge was being built alongside and the collection of smokey, grubby dwellings that huddled on the riverbank felt like something out of the Wild West.
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| The Wild West, I can still smell welded goat head! |
A headless goat was being butchered in the muddy street as the drizzle fell and the smell of burning hair lingered in the air. Crossing the bridge we found the source. A labourer, precariously balanced on the steel girders spanning the raging white water, was using the projects welding equipment to slowly cook the goats head! Happy to be living as vegetarians, we trundled past with a 'Namaste' looking forward to saag aloo (spinach and potato) later!
When the evening is drawing in and we're looking for a place to stay, it's impossible to know if we're staying in a friendly person's spare room or we've luckily stumbled across the village lodge. Both are equally welcoming and there's always a seat by a fire and food to be had. That's how we ended up staying with Dilly, a more welcoming yet sad soul you can not imagine. On a stormy afternoon, we huddled under his wonkey wooden veranda watching the wind and rain pass by. He gave us a very personal insight into the harder side of life out here. A father of two daughters, he explained with tears in his eyes, how his wife had recently had an abortion after finding out she was having another girl. It was a difficult thing to hear and easy to judge but the hurt in his eyes and anguished explanations showed the torment that the decision was causing. He told us that he felt he simply could not afford another daughter. The cost of education, medicines, food, a dowry and marriage was just too high and he desperately asked if there was anyway he could guarentee a son in future pregnancies. It was hard to know what to say.
It's so sad that a daughter is still considered to be more of a burden than a son and that she can't be seen for the potential she offers. We've seen this potential so often in many clever, ambitious and brave Indian and Nepali women and hopefully these daughters are changing societies perception of what women can do. Everyday I'm reminded how lucky I am, I am free to choose my job, my home, my partner and if I want to cycle the length of India I can just do it! (Even if it does cause my mum a few sleepless nights... sorry mum!)
Dilly sent us off up the valley with a list of friends to call on for food and chai along the way. He'd even phoned ahead to order our daal bhat and it was ready and waiting when we trundled into Simma. Later that afternoon on a bend of the Arun River, we finally arrived in Gola just as heavy rain clouds gathered. These have been a regular feature since being in the valley, often accompanied by some pretty spectacular rolling thunder and fork lightening displays. We've been told this isn't the monsoon but the damp days are certainly pretty frequent. We keep telling ourselves that apparently the best day to summit Everest is the 10th of May, before the winds change and bring the real monsoon rains off the Tibetan Plateau! Fingers crossed for our Base Camp trek!
Gola is a tiny collection of stone and tin houses nestled at the head of a hanging valley on a rocky outcrop above the Arun River. Home to many a mule train as it passes through the valley, the village is a bustling through fare. Aside from the Health Post there is a sadly neglected looking school and some little shops selling mostly booze and rice.
We were greeted at the Health Post by Chandrika, the CAN nurse stationed there. A smaller more smiley person you cannot imagine. At 23, a newly qualified nurse, she has practically single handedly run the clinic for the last two years. Judging by the number of gifts she receives every day in the form of aloo (potatoes), saag (random green veg), locally grown soya beans and maize and all sorts of other truely organic tasty treats, she is incredibly popular and respected here. We immediately found out why as she insisted we stay with her in the clinic and she be our host for our time here. That first night, over tasty food and listening to Nepali folk music on her mobile, we got on really well and have become great friends. She even lets us cook, something no Nepali person has let us do before!
The clinic is incredibly busy and serves the village and many remote communities in the valley, some up to three hours walk away. As we were told, alcohol is a huge issue. The day rarely starts for many people without a Chang (millet beer come three course meal) which often replaces all other nourishment and we've seen plenty of the health complications that arise as a result. Clinic bustles with pregnant women and snotty kids every day. Babies arrive after being carried for miles in wicker baskets slung over their mother's back, the straps hanging back from the mother's foreheads, while men and boys stagger in with minor injuries, coughs, colds and poorly tummies! We're certainly not short of work to do. It's nice to feel useful and we have plenty of opportunities to teach and help out.
On our weekend off, we decided to continue up the valley to visit a village called Hatiya which nearly straddles the Nepal Tibetan border. The weather was kind to us and we followed the river up the valley in warm spring sunshine.
The Arun River itself is a raging muddy green/brown torrent even in dry season. It's waters are swelled even more by the glacial azure blue water of the Barun River that joins it a few kilometers below Hatiya. We'd previously met some friendly German Hydrologists who were working on two Hydroelectric projects due to start soon and it was clear to see why. We've been told Nepal is only second to Brazil in its potential to generate hydroelectric power from its innumerable rivers. Sadly, the current political climate means it is a long way off ever being self sufficient in terms of energy production, made more complicated by the ever increasing pressures from its neighbours on its borders.
Visiting Hatiya was like going back in time. Stone houses crowded the small plateau on which it sat with ancient stone Stupas and walkways winding through the village. Cows, ducks, chickens, mules, goats and filthy ragged children roamed the muddy alleyways. Being on the border with Tibet, it was an entirely Buddhist community and felt like another world compared to the rest of the valley! The world may catch up with it yet as a Chinese funded road advances from Tibet and a Nepali funded one advances slightly less efficiently from lower down the valley. We went to bed in a thunderstorm and woke to crystal clear skies and snow dusted mountains all around. It wetted our appetites for the 20 day trek to come!
More soon... loads of love
Ed and Kat
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