Tamu Losar

After breakfast we boarded the van for a drive into the Himalayan foothills. There was more traffic in the city today, but still not the gridlock of the first two days. The strike has been lifted today. The only rioting took place in the Nepali parliament, where the Maoist minority pushed some people around and threw chairs during a midnight session. However, today is a national holiday in Nepal. The Hindu majority celebrated their new year a week or so ago, and the Tibetan Buddhists will celebrate their new year in February. However, the Tamu people, who are Buddhists of a slightly different stripe, celebrate their new year today. That means there is little to be gained by another day of general strike, when a good portion of the population wouldn’t be going to work anyway.

           The drive over narrow, twisting mountain roads was far more of a challenge to those who suffer motion sickness than anything on the mountain flight yesterday. There was relatively little warning, so those afflicted (Mary and one other in the group) had taken their OTC medications the day before, but didn’t bring them along today. Big mistake, but both managed without incident.

We stopped for a bit along the way to climb to the roof of a house (nobody home and the stairs are exterior) for a look at the Kathmandu valley. The smoke from brick kilns and other general pollution leaves a cloud of pollution hanging in the valley that is nearly as sickening visually as it is when breathing it. Up here we could look down on it while enjoying beautiful fresh air and watching several Brahminy Kites (birds of prey, not paper and string) soaring across the clear blue sky.

           We continued upward to a spot our driver knew. Though it did not look promising when we left the paved road onto a steep dirt track, it was probably less than 100 yards until we crested the hill for a tremendous panorama of the Himalayas, the largest peak probably being Langtang Lirung (23,734 feet), though without our Nepali flight attendant along to identify the peaks for us, we were only guessing from the guide book. To tell the truth, a lot of these mountains look alike! However, the peak had a beautiful, textbook perfect lenticular cloud behind it.

To celebrate the breathtaking vista, Sanjib observed that he usually buys a round of drinks for everyone at some point along this trip, but because of the light, holiday traffic, we are ahead of schedule and it’s still morning. We countered that it was late evening back in the U.S., so we wouldn’t object. So bottles of beer and bags of chips were acquired at a nearby roadside stand, and we toasted the mountains.

A motorcycle arrived while we enjoyed our drinks and the view. It carried a young Hungarian couple who spoke excellent English. They had saved up from several years of teaching in Scotland, then quit their jobs for a one year travel adventure, beginning with 19 U.S. states, China, southeast Asia, and heading on to India, the Middle East, and hopefully a bit of Africa before heading home. They were stretching their Euros by couch surfing, and had been having wonderful encounters. It was fascinating to hear their story.

We continued on a bit higher in altitude to a very up-scale resort hotel where we had lunch on an outdoor patio overlooking the mountains. Although the temperature was only in the upper 60s, the warm sun in the thin air made it very comfortable to remove our jackets as we enjoyed the meal.

We began the trip down after lunch, but then stopped and left the van for a bit of Himalayan trekking (which sounds sort of like mountaineering, but is actually more of what we would call hiking, or the Brits might call rambling) in the foothills. The path was easy, well-defined and mostly downhill. For a change, Sanjib set a nice walking pace, though we had to stop from time to time to let everyone catch up.

As we passed the farmsteads and hamlets there was lots of activity. People were getting cleaned up and dressed in traditional costumes – particularly the women in bright red – in preparation for the Losar celebrations. 

We passed one celebration already under way in one hamlet, where an old woman who was probably the local character started dancing for us and wanted us to join in (though the other women looked on in obvious disapproval). 

At the next village, a somewhat larger place, we first me people leaving their offerings of grain and fruit at the tiny Buddhist temple, then went up to the main event, where the MC switched to English when he saw us, and invited us to remain for lunch. As we had already eaten, and were on a schedule, we declined. But it was an indication of the friendliness that was everywhere in Nepal.

Back in the van, we retraced our route on the paved road down to the city once again, where the sky was not so blue nor the air so clear. We drove to Bhaktapur, which is an historical area around the third of Kathmandu’s pre-unification royal palaces. 

This area was severely damaged by an earthquake years ago, but was reconstructed with aid from Germany. It’s now a heritage area focused on tourists (Nepalese enter free, others are $15 a head). 

We watched a potter working in the traditional way, much as we had seen in India, and saw intricate carvings outside a Hindu temple. During the time we were allowed to wander free after our tour, vendors, shopkeepers, and would-be guides were aggressive in greeting us.

Returning to the hotel, we had a very interesting hour-long presentation by Shailee Basnet, coordinator of the “7 Summits Women Team” (http://sevensummitswomen.org/). This group of young women climb mountains (Shailee has reached the summit of Everest three times herself, and has reached the top of the highest peaks on six of the seven continents), but more importantly, they inspire young women in Nepal and around the world to get education and aspire to goals that seem out of reach to many girls.

Finally, we enjoyed a excellent traditional Nepali farewell dinner in a private room in the Hunter’s Lodge, one of the original buildings that existed on the site of our hotel prior to development of the resort.