One World Insight Blog | Douglas "Las" Wengell

Fellow Travelers and a Superwoman Solo Biker

Moving on the tourist circuit, it’s inevitable you encounter fellow travelers. I have more conversations than I can recount. Here's a few of recent.

A young Finish woman studying biology and ecology, pondering whether to become a nun.

Or a German woman traveling solo for six months, complaining that “people back home are cold and it’s hard to meet people like when you’re on the road.”

Or a young Polish couple, who cannot find suitable employment in Poland, despite his graduate degree in engineering and her specialization in tourist. They worked in a UK factory to save money to make this trip possible. They are resigned. “We love our country but there’s nothing there for us. Maybe, one day, our kids but not us.”

Or two Hong Kong Chinese biking there way through Indochina. “China has made life harder in Hong Kong. Too many emigrants. You can’t afford to live there. There are no good jobs for people like us.”

Then you come across the truly amazing. Like New Zealander Kylie, who I met in Laos and is biking, solo, a woman, across Europe and Asia, from London to Auckland, taking boats where necessary. Her stories biking through Pakistan and Iran defy belief. Go girl!www.bugbitten.com/kyles

Nepal Update: Chaos in Kathmandu

November. History repeats itself and the earth shakes. Peace is the absence of war. In China I learn that violence has erupted again. “In Kathmandu, traffic halts at every turn as hundreds march and chant. Tensions exploded on December 4th after thousands of landless laborers in the far west, backed by the Maoists, claimed tracts of government-owned forest for themselves.  Stalemate between the government and the Maoist party, comprising former rebels, has grown violent. Meanwhile, Nepalis are still waiting for a peace dividend. Some fifty-five percent live in poverty, their plight worsened this year by a late and sporadic monsoon. Strikes and shortages have done nothing to help.”

 

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065897

Parting thoughts on Nepal, way to airport

On a bus from Dunagal to Kathmandu, looking for the single jet runway from the roadside, hidden away in this high mountain valley, so I can get jump off the bus and walk to the small terminal.

I am sitting next to a British occupational therapist. Her parents are doctors, and she spent many years in Nepal growing up. Back after a decade, she is horrified by the backward progress, the economic malaise and corruption, the deterioration of conditions and health. “It’s far worse than when I left. The government keeps foreign aid for themselves.

The people suffer. It would take 20 years to begin to make a difference here,” she sighs. And that exacerbation exemplifies what I have seen during these short weeks here. Behind the veneer and the gracious smiles, past the high mountains that belie deforestation and melting glaciers, beneath the romanticized version too many Westerns I met crow, oblivious of the nation’s cycle of cruel history, the Nepalese are defeated and tired. “We’ll see,” said a Nepali guesthouse owner, about the lack of business. “I expect nothing.”

The exhaust of the bus spills into my face, leaving me and my luggage on the two lane road, a few kilometers outside Kathmandu. Traffic creeps past. Dust and dirt fill the oven air. A man is selling brown oranges. Here?

A towering jetliner is on final approach. It passes a few hundred feet above, engines screeching with the carbon that power the modern world. I can see facing outside the window. That plane and and my coveted passport are my bridge out of here, to the developed world outside Nepal’s borders.

I grab my pack, wipe the perspiration from my brow and walk to the jetliner, leaving behind those Kathmandu students who just want a ticket to somewhere.

Nagarkot, Nepal

From the hotel shower back in Kathmandu, CNN International reports that Ramadan is ending in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Time spent on story: about 15 seconds. I ponder the experience I had in the Kashmir Mosques, and the gulf between East and West.

A commercial is promoting Prince Charles environmental campaign, Save the Rainforest. Attuned to people and place and the challenges of our day like never before, the thread of urgency is tightening, but it appears to be falling on deaf ears.

http://www.rainforestsos.org/

“Little Lamb, who made thee”

Darshan, Nepal style. The same autumn harvest festival I encounter in Varanasi is taking place here. It’s hallmark is for a family to sacrifice a goat, and celebrate the holiday with a feast. The cute critters are everyone, being bought and sold in preparation for the holiday.

 “On a corner of the trail is a weird shrine where horns of many slaughtered goats are piled in a kind of alter, with red ribbons tied to the branches of the trees. At this time of year, people pay homage to Durga, a dread demonesss of ancient origin” – The Snow Leapard.

Taken from Kathmandu, a Princess:

 

And out of this tube came beer, like a river, which the boys jockey to gulp. (I got some)

The Nepal Bus

Institution and pastime, rickety and goofy, the preferred if only mode of transport in Nepal. It’s common for passengers to take a seat on the roof. To the brave and foolhardy, you can too.

Everyone rides the buses. On one trip, the bus is packed. A young mother, holding one and watching another, leans into me and my bag anywhere she can find a grip. Private space is not private. People help each other. Elders and mothers and children get special attention, without the aid of public signs. Everyone is just doing their best to get by. Nothing fancy.

Remote Jomson, Annapurna Range

Take harrowing “hop” flight to Jomson at the north end of the range, wings trailing valleys, and trees not far below. 

Disappointed when discover that the trekking “trail” is now in fact a dirt vehicular road, so we walk against a winds that could lift you off your feet. The valleys to each side are cliffs, and in the distance is Annapurna. Miles pass and there is no one and nothing.

 “I set off ahead, walking alone in the cool breeze of the valley. In the bright September light and mountain shadow—steep foothills are closing in as the valley narrows, and the snow peaks to the north are no longer seen.” – The Snow Leapard.

10 km elapse before giving in to a jeep for the rest of the way to Muktinoth. It’s nearly empty.. I would opt for a trek from the circuit toward the top of one of the mountains, rather than around. But not this trip.

Back in Kathmandu, I serendipitously stumble about an amusing travel article about the circuit. It’s a satisfying feeling to be where others are writing you should visit.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/travel/27personal.html?emc=eta1

The Globalization Conundrum

Back in Pokhara, I read today that the World Health Organization is asking the heath ministers from the South Asian countries to urgently prepare for the protection of citizens due to the adverse affects of climate change. Climate change has prompted over a million deaths globally in the past eight-year period….poor most vulnerable….scarcity of drinking water…coastal flooding…melting glaciers…drought.

Meanwhile, Nepal’s prime minister is opening the first climate change conference of Himalayan nations this fall, in Kathmandu, with a warning about the dangers of melting glaciers, floods and storms. The Prime Minister says cooperation is essential.

Nepal is a loser in the globalization chess game. It’s caught in the development boon of India and China. It receives none of the advantages of globalization and all of the downside. They will have little clout in Copenhagen.

Motorbiking through the countryside

Rent 180cc motorcycle, 40 km Royal Trail mountain and lake circuit trotted by Prince Charles years back, with Annapurna, rice patties, farm animals as the backdrop. The freedom to stop at will and enjoy the scenery. The Nepali in the outback are less familiar with Westerns, so it’s much more of a pleasure than around Pokhara. These school kids appreciate the writing utensils. I am reminded of motoring around the east side of Bali ten years ago.

Another day I ride up to a nearby mountain top, where stands a Buddhist Stumpa, build by a wacky Japanese entrepreneur and mystic, the same one I will later find in Leh. At the top I met two Spanish women, teachers of English, along its ring.

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We talk about  traveling, politics, the environment, education, the good life. “What is more valuable than a hot shower and washing my messy hair.” So basic.  They give meaning to the saw, Europeans work to live, Americans live to work, as if I need to be reminded. We share water and a cigarette (popular among the traveling set), as the sun begins its decent.

 “The stupa is a monument, shrine and reliquary that traditionally derives from the Buddha’s tomb, but has come to symbolize existence. On a square red base (signifying earth) sits a large white dome (water) with a sort of spire (fire) crowned with a lunar crescent (air) and a solar disc (space); such structures guard the approaches to towns and villages throughout the Buddhist Himalaya.” – The Snow Leapard.

To give or not to give?

We pass Nepali children and farmers always. The kids are all too accustomed to Westerns, for the worse. Some, not all, ask you with the biggest, most innocent smile to take their photo.

If you do, and don’t give them the money that they than demand, they turn outright hostile. One girl got pouncing on my bag because the bill I gave her was worn. I took it back and began to walk away. She grabbed it back and that was that. Megan is a Stanford law student and has been working with an NGO in Kathmandu.

She’s of the opinion to not give money, because it just feeds the cycle. She tells me about the corruption in Nepal, how the World Bank would give loans but they don’t find their rightful place. Or how the hypodroelectric projects get built, but the energy is exported to neighboring countries and the Nepalese are left in the dark.

 “Down by the stream, I persuade two girls to try the gooseberries that grow there. The children are suspicious, tantalized, astonished; in their delight, they stare at each other, then begin to laugh.” – The Snow Leapard.

When I visited Southern India ten years ago, kids would be delighted to accept an American pen or pencil. On this trip I brought many. Sadly, kids in Northern India and Nepal aren’t interested, frown with disgust. This is a microcosmic example of globalization and the commercialization and homogenization of indigenous cultures, the unrealistic expectations seeded by TVs and movies and wealthy tourists flouting their money. The sacred becomes profane and for sale.

A boy in Kathmandu insisted that I buy him homogenized milk. His young sister is Vitamin D deficient. Later I learn that this is used to cut cocaine. Or, more likely, it’s resold for cash.

Nepal, the highest country in the world

Nathen, Paula from Italy, and Megan from America and I hike up 2,000 feet to a nearby vista today, take a taxi down, and enjoy a pleasant dinner, dressed in our finest. Muscles ache, views glorious.

 “As the slopes steepen, I am almost on all fours, knuckles brushing the snow, and this simian stance shifts the weight forward, saving my lacerated shoulders. Three thoughts carry me ahead: the prospect of the northward view over Dolpo to Tibet; the prospect of a free descent across these brilliant snowfields to hot tea and biscuits; and the perception—at this altitude extremely moving— that these two hands I see before me in the sun, bracing the basket straps, hands square and brown and wrinkled with the scars of life, are not different from the old hands of my father. Simultaneously, I am myself, the child I was, the old man I will be.” – The Snow Leapard.

Pokhara, Annapurna Range, Nepal

Verdant, tropical, rice ledges, and a seven hour winding bus along rivers and through lush valleys lands us in Pokhara, the launch pad to some of the most famous trekking in the Himalayas, made famous by Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, heralded as the best travel book of the twentieth century. Pokhara sits before the majestic snow caped Annapurna Range, merely a few thousand feet lower than Everest. You can trek the circuit around the range for 30 days, camping along the way in small accommodations, with a porter, all for US $7 day.

Pokhara is a hip, comfortable, mountain lakeside town. Tourist oriented. Espresso cafes, bars and live music. Unfortunately for the Nepalese, business is slow; prices are negotiable. We’re staying at a well regarded guest house adjacent to the lake. Tables on the water, morning coffee, muesli and yogurt, views of Annapurna and high mountain sun. Accommodation is US $10/night, half that with a travel partner.

This balmy evening, next door are two young chicks from Spain, students mulling their way through Asia, Beijing Olympics participants in field hockey. “Michael Phillips got all the attention,” they complain. “And the Chinese whisked us to and fro, we didn’t see the real China.” Out of India – a tough place for women to travel, of any age, from anywhere, the Indian men hard up and give fresh meaning to patriarchy – I will end up meeting many young women, some traveling solo. (Months later, not one of them will have been an American.)

The peeks are visible from the lake. Oh, joy.

Kathmandu, Nepal

Long gone are the days of Kathmandu as Shangri-La, Cat Stevens, acoustics and grass, and the old street that made it famous among 1960 hippies. Today Kathmandu is a bustling urban center, the capital and gateway to Nepal.

We’re staying at Kathmandu Guest House for $7.50/each. Most visitors sleep and meander around the neighborhood of Thamal, not far from the city square filled with gompas, temples and palaces of bygone eras. Unfortunately, Thamal is a Pier 39 tourist mecca. It’s momentarily interesting but quickly repetitive: Tibetan clothing and art; camping and equipment; tourist operators; internet cafes; convenient stores. The touts are aggressive, offing everything legal and not. One late evening, walking back to the hotel, passing me in the damp darkness,  the soft whisper of a pre-pubescent boy, “cocaine?” I shrug. This is just one of many sad indices of a poor country, where its young people have little faith in the future.

One day, I encounter some college kids and a local park. I ask them about life in Nepal who gets to go to university, what they study. They imply that too many go to school. Why, I ask. Because there is nothing for them to do after. Despite a modest education, there are few jobs in Kathmandu, the only game in this small country.  It’s isolated from the world, high and land-locked, and the population thin, so foreign investment is small. The cost of doing business is high and the payoff low.

The government is trying to unify after years of battling Maoist rebels. It’s a tenuous truce. The Maoist will sometimes block the roads into Kathmandu, shutting down commerce, haling incoming visitors, and most hurting the common person.