Nepal, Kathmandu, Pokhara trek

Zipping into the anaemic sunset by auto-rickshaw, hopelessly overloaded with 6 people + gear (designed to seat only two), heading for the Nepal border. After three weeks of cool climate, the heat of revisited Siliguri was oppressive, and now, into the relative cool of the evening, forgotten smells become dominant - the hot earth eagerly drinking the cool, the evening smell of fields and crops and fresh hay and cows. Remnants of Diwali in the villages we buzz through. It now seems to be the time of year for Kali pujas (pujah = worship) - the blood thirsty images of Kali, the god of Destruction, with necklaces of severed heads and belts of severed hands. The Christian missionaries would have their work cut out for them here. Ah! It will be good to get to the promised hotel at the border for a bath and a refreshing sleep before the long bus journey the next day to Kathmandu!

India / Nepal border. I find myself unceremoniously dumped at a boom gate at dusk, somehow having escaped the mandatory Indian exit formalities and Nepalese entrance stamp. This sort of thing can be worrying with its later implications. The “town” is a wretched haphazard collection of shacks around a wide dusty road, and people laugh and show little concern when I appeal for ideas as to where to sleep. Eventually, in the dark, I find “The Lodge”, a wooden shack containing two bedrooms which were full of an extended rich Indian family tourist. No water, no toilet, a flickering oil lamp. I find a space - a 5’ bench on the porch. The bus left at 0530 out the front, but my offensive Indian friends decided to rise and shine at 0330 and believed that the rest of the world should do likewise. I had different ideas, and told them so in no uncertain tones, somewhat surprised by my own vehemence: “Now that I am no longer in your country there is no further need to be polite to foolish, ignorant, selfish Indians!” I fumed. It had absolutely no effect. The Ugly American Tourist had more than been replaced by The Ugly Indian Tourist - there is not a skerrick of consideration for fellow travellers. (OK, OK, perhaps there might have also been an Ugly Australian there, too.)

Bussing across Nepal at the base of the mighty mountains. Huge moraines - river beds of gravel, and screes. “Water control” seems to be a major issue. And then upwards - no mucking about, mate. 8000’ in about 90 minutes - tortuous, snaky bends, ably handled by the whistling driver (he does it every day, but for me this was a once in a lifetime experience).The rain got into my luggage (causing interesting creative coloured spots of mould over everything later), and predictably the person in the next seat puked over my lap, endeavouring to get to the window. I always sit next to people who want to puke on bus trips. Over the edge into another world - a broad brown valley lying still in the afternoon gold, the villages of three storey stone buildings with steep gables and tiny attics, with buttressed eaves, standing impressive and proud in small groups, with the rice harvest continuing all about.

3/11/78 The amazing city of Kathmandu. At first it seemed flat, clean, with wide streets and open spaces, football stadiums, a few quaint back lanes, western type restaurants, and well - “progressive”. But then you wander further down the narrow, twisted lanes towards the river and you discover a totally different world - abject poverty; people in strange ancient dress; pigs, chickens and goats; naked kids playing stick games; antique temples still in use; and buildings with enclosed courtyards where the women were spreading their grain to dry; and exquisitely carved wooden lattice windows - those open always seemed to frame a beautiful Nepalese female watching the bustle of the streets below; and tiny little smoky shops with low, low ceilings. The magnificent ancient court temple in Durga Square guarded by the red-cloaked worn stone statue of Hanuman (the monkey god) rising five stories with wooden lattice windows and amazingly detailed carvings on the eaves struts, some athletically erotic!

Across the cobbled street lies the Temple of the Living Goddess which houses a hapless maiden, less than 12 years old, who is paraded twice a year and must not be photographed if by chance she peeks out a window of her unique prison. She’s pensioned off at puberty, but marriage prospects are dim (as no-one really wants an ex-goddess). The rest of Durga Square consists of assorted temples, columns, statues and holy structures - it’s a great place to sit and watch the touts, tourists, flute sellers and locals respecting the small temple of Ganesh, circling it, ringing its bells, and then dabbing a red dot on the forehead as social proof of their piety.

Culture shock begins to change to a bout of misery with the pseudo western shops and restaurants, and the hordes of westerners and their fashions, and hash smoking, and talk about the latest western music - combined with a mixture of diarrhoea with ‘flu, and watching the happy crowds from the enormous Encounter Overland type trucks doing it in style. But the food! Lemon meringue pie! Unheard of in all the countries I had so far visited. One meal consisted of a scrumptious pizza, bar-b-q beef with mashed potatoes and veges with cheese sauce, hot apple pie with walnut icecream and percolated coffee for 36 rupees (A$3). After India, this was absolutely mind blowing. The hippy trail to Kathmandu had brought the trappings of tourism which I frankly was enjoying.

A Radio Nepal special bulletin announced in a bored voice

“conditions fair … at 6000 metres, winds 60 knots north-west , temperature minus 35 degrees Centigrade. …”

I guess someone, somewhere would appreciate such information. Noticed on a trekking map:

“ … In Nepal all path and bridges are liable to disappear or change at no notice due to monsoons, Acts of Gods, etc …”

I guess that there is more than one actively destructive Hindu deity hanging around this part of the world.

A morning climb to the temple at the top of the solitary nearby hill - a structure with half closed eyes surveying the evil (or good) all over the valley, and watching the crazy antics of the monkeys, sliding down the ancient stone banisters - good free entertainment!

With health and mood improving, I cycle around the outer reaches of the Kathmandu Valley in the warm mountain sunshine. The rice harvest is just finishing and the ancient fields are being re-tilled (by crude ploughs pulled by cows or buffalos, and the last of the hay is being collected - lying so silken, criss-crossed and golden in the afternoon sunshine. Women in turquoise or maroon or earthy hues winnowing the grain, and snot-nosed grubby children playing in the hay that Dad is trying to get stacked up before night falls. Their houses are built of clay bricks with straw roofs, and usually of three ochre brown colours contrasting with white-wash, making them particularly pleasing, as I pedal on.

This morning, I am particularly irritable towards my current cheap hotel room mate- a postal clerk who sells stamps in Manchester, England - slowly, methodically, and noisily clipping his nails just before dawn. But my breakfast ritual of steaming porridge, with sweet bananas, while listening to Joan Armatrading's brilliant guitar, or maybe a Bach concerto, makes me thankful for those who have pioneered this extraordinarily delightful hippy trail. I spend several days here in the sunshine, writing up these copious notes to send home.

A platoon of tough looking Ghurkha soldiers march by, with the last two incongruously holding hands and they smile sweetly at my amazement. A cowherd dreaming under a tree, and one of his charges comes up and licks his ear, and he squirms in sleepy delight. A boy with a steel hoop and a bark propeller in his other hand, and another in his mouth, barefoot and ragged, maniacally running to somewhere having a lovely time.

Menu Particolors. Chocolet podden / scramblettes / spaghatti bolog nice / speaghtti met bal / spagitty nobleten (Neapolitan) / meccarani / crep suzeet / banana friters, fiters, firters, filters ...

I don't care about the spelling, I'm just thankful for the western food.

Among some hotel rules displayed on the back of the door:

1. Attention Himalaya Glory! (that was rule number 1).
2. We will help you in your booking of aroplane, local sight-seen, treaking, etc.
...
12. Please try to come before 12pm.

A swish, free bus to Casino Nepal and some sophisticated professional gamblers rubbing shoulders with freaks like me clutching complementary tourist coupons entitling me to one bet each at roulette, blackjack and pontoon. I didn't win anything. Watched in amazement as filthy-rich Indians spend wildly as if it was their only reason for visiting Nepal (probably was). One obese creature seated cross-legged on his seat, not unobtrusively wiping his snotty nose on the end of his lungi, causing mild embarrassment by others around the baize table. And sickened me.

The next evening I found myself with friends for a short time at a frenetic disco, so sadly aping western 'modern" standards. A delectable steak Dianne for about $1.50, with two Nepalese friends, progressive yet not sullied by these shallow western standards and lure of easy money from the tourists. One, a mountain guide impressed me with his life's philosophy "computers? Ah ... I don't need computers in my mountains ..." giving a grand sweep of his arm towards the picture window. His friend contributes: "I can't understand why man wants to CONQUER mountains - surely we can fully appreciate their worth, their grandeur, their beauty from a distance, like watching a girl in the street." Me; "and perhaps that girl would be very lonely?" The mountain guide thought for a moment at this inane philosophic comment and beamed at me gratefully, and said "Thank you!"

12/11/78 Bus to Pokhara, change for the slow bus (the goat and chicken special) to Tansen, but was obliged to stay the night in a small village en route - hotel "room" with 10 others sleeping in smoke from the cooking fire downstairs. It might have kept the mosquitos at bay, but my clothes reeked for weeks, and I knew I smelled very ethnic. In my bad Nepalese, I asked where the toilet and was directed to the "the fields" outside. I reinforced my ethnicity and used the side of the road in the pitch black - just as well, the next morning, feeling somewhat like a smoked ham, I saw the 500' drop off the edge of the road. You've really got to watch where you are walking in Nepal. The next morning, we rejoined the bus, now full of patient locals (and their goats and chickens) and eventually arrived at the Tansen Mission Hospital to discover that my friends Roie and David Cooke had apparently not received my note and were back in Kathmandu, and so I stayed at the Hospital's excellent guest house to await their return. The guest list read like an Agatha Christie novel - a retired Baptist preacher, and his wife from Kansas, visiting their volunteer physiotherapist daughter , and struggling to overcome a bad dose of culture shock; a charming Nepalese doctor gaining theatre experience; a Swedish professor in orthopaedics and a mad keen ornithologist, having a working holiday, and having recently returned from Japan where he headed a medical inquiry into a large scale train disaster; an Australian spinster missionary zealot having lived most of her life in India, and who can't look at you while speaking, but rants with fervour (and authority) about her work and the persecution of Christians particularly in NE India and Nepal - she plays an autoharp and sings hymns each night and in the morning always seems to be just a little too late to treat us to some chosen scriptures before we tuck into our rice-meal porridge and home-made bread toast. I learn that it is illegal in Nepal, a Hindu kingdom, to change one's religion, making it somewhat difficult for the Christian missionaries; one man is facing a jail sentence of six years for the crime of baptising another Nepalese. But more importantly I learn that the mission is no way proselytising, as is the popular notion, but the people there are working very hard in a very busy hospital and influencing the Hindus around them only by their Christian example.

A sunrise in Nepal, on this occasion from the top of the arid hill behind the mission, is certainly a beautiful experience - what were clouds, suddenly become mountain peaks, so high in the sky, and (something I would never tire of) get painted progressively pink, red, gold then white before disappearing behind the morning cloud rising from the valleys. The mists in the vast sweeping valley below hang like an upside down cloud, and the sounds of the village awakening below, and the scrunch of distant footsteps on the gravelly paths, and the sleepy chatter of the early morning villagers starting their day. Girls with big brass water containers off to the communal well, and groups of men with scarves wrapped around their heads, and scythes in their belts heading out towards their fields in the distance. And then at the other end of the day, sharing the sunset with an English girl who finds herself here as a specialist paediatrician treating children with leprosy, TB, diphtheria - you name it - and apparently finding my presence "beautiful moral support", as she weeps. The Swedish professor takes time off from the operating theatre (he undertakes 3-4 major operations a day) and we watch huge bats through binoculars against the pastel dusk sky, and we hunt out weird sounding crickets with a torch and a pocket tape-recorder. Then a warm evening with many of the young volunteers so far away from their homes, and some bible study - my respect for these people, and what they are doing, becomes markedly increased. I was able to understand a little better what my younger sister and new husband might be doing in Kenya - little did I realise that I would be there with them before long.

Having eventually enjoyed the company of David and Roie with visits to their primitive but charming mud brick three storey house in the village below the hospital (local custom prevented my staying there - I would have been alone with Roie during David's working hours thus 'compromising' her, I regretfully made plans for returning to Pokhara. There were mountains to trek! Riding on top of the overcrowded slow bus is a great way to witness a beautiful river valley, the rice harvest, poinsettias, mountains soaring high above, the clear river, turquoise where deep, sparkling over the white grey gravel beds, and the paddies staring their unique and grand patterns from the water's edge right up the impossibly steep slopes on either side. But towards Pokhara, a rainstorm got me, and I scurried back inside the bus through the rear window. The next day was so perfect, the rain having washed the haze away, and the majestic famous peaks behind the town stood beckoning. Wandering around the many restaurants (ie shacks and huts that serve food), swimming in the calm clear lake, and snoozing in the sun. Enough to stimulate trekking urges, so I embarked on my second six day trek (I felt quite experienced now) , who besides having no trekking permit (meaning careful route planning to avoid the authorities) was a most agreeable companion for the next week.

19-24/11/78 Pokhara/Dhumbus/Landruk/Gorephani/Birethani/Naudandra/Pokhara. I won't detail the experiences as they were just as good as the earlier Darjeeling trek, except you need to know that a Nepalese trek is far more dramatically rewarding, if more commercial (alas) -everyone seems to be doing it - witnessed by prices, and sweet wrappers and track traffic. But nevertheless there are some wonderful experiences worth relating:

• Tramping along the rocky bed of an alluvial plain formed in a huge glacial valley, with paddies stretching high above and the river alliteratively roaring over the rocks.
• Passing though ancient villages, built entirely of stone and slate roofs - marvelling at the craftsmanship.
• Fat fowls stealing rice and millet drying on mats, and corn husks hung up to dry, safe from the animals, and pumpkins ripening in the sun, and women in medieval costume tending snotty nosed kits - a veritable symphony of earth colours (even the snot!)
• At least two teashops per village and usually a lodge or "hotel"- a single room packed with hard beds and food invariably dahl baht, or rice and vegetables (potatoes, pumpkin, spinach, onion) all making accommodation along the trek a breeze.
• The weather was particularly poor for this time of the year with the mountains visible for bout only half an hour early in the morning, but when sighted, they were amazing - so close, so stark, so silent, so beautiful. Occasionally they peaked through the clouds before us during the day, unexpectedly, bright, white and overwhelming. Once we rounded a bend after waking through rhododendron forests all day - my companion collided with me as I gasped and recoiled at the bonus before me. We both agreed that if we saw no more mountains during the trek, then that one experience was worth it all. (But there was much more to come!)
• One more aspiring lodge offered hot porridge, pancakes, corn bread and accommodation for only 25 cents. How could we say no?
• The beautiful, seldom used trail to Gorephani, along gorges, rivers, waterfalls, and narrow saddle ridges with steep drops on either side, through the rhododendrons and spruce, in and out of eerie mists appearing from nowhere, imagination alone gave us remarkable views.
• Cold and weary, we reached the small village on the Jonson trek 'super-highway' (the most popular route), and secured comfortable beds in a remarkable lodge with a roaring fire in the mud floor room's centre, 30 other weary trekkers, good food and relatively clean latrines marked "his" and "hers". Thank God for the sleeping bag I'd carted all the way across the tropics in SE Asia - it snowed heavily the next day. Pun Hill, another 1000' climb to 10,000' at sunrise for a spectacular vista of a dozen major peaks stretched before us and giving us superb colour show in the cloudless sky.
• In the worsening weather, the animals take shelter in the ground floor levels of the quaint three colour ochre houses with thatched roofs. But the mule trains keep clonking along, oblivious to the sodden trekkers, and their peculiar wet musty sweat smells blend with normal with the normal Nepalese village odours of human and animal dung and smoke.
• The only times we needed a guide was in and out of Pokhara where the multitude of cow paths totally confused us. We met many parties, complete with guides, porters, cooks, etc, doing it in style - carrying only their cameras. I was not unenvious. 
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Finally back in Pokhara for a couple of relaxing days in the sun, preparing for the grand Nepalese exit, via bus roof to Tansen once again, nursing a banana pie for my friends at the mission. I fluted my bamboo flute a tune to each child in the wards. Much to their glee. The Nepalese doctor was also heading south to India and we stayed the night at the border with his relatives, and I was treated to unsurpassed Brahman Nepalese hospitality with all needs catered for. The doctor recounted some fascinating tales and medical experiences, but that will be in my next missive.

6/12/78 New Delhi. Indian attitude (aggressively): "What is the purpose of your visit to India?" One is never fully prepared for India. I found myself once more immersed and struggling to co-exist with the many millions. Ah but the delightful shop signs: Fooding & Lodging / Eating & Drinking / Ticketing & Checking / Suiting & Shirting / Painting & Denting ?