No more posts!

We have left Nepal. This means no more new posts coming up, but I might to some "looking back"-posts as and when time permits.

Everest Base Camp!

As the festival-season is upon us, the rains have died away and the Himalayas are again showing off in their white-capped splendour, it is time to go trekking!

This time we are off to Everest Base Camp, and we leave Kathmandu for Lukla Thursday 7th of October. We will take pictures and this blog will be updated when I return to a more modern world.

Oh, and search Youtube for Lukla and take a look at the place where we will land and take off from. How many airports have a 700 meter drop at the end? And a very short runway, and this is at a 12 degree incline to boot?

I can hardly wait to get going!

And, finally, an update!

This blog has been dormant for far too long. Though mainly focused on adventures in Nepal, there are times when living here creates adventures outside of Nepal. Let me explain.

Kathmandu is comparable to climbing into a warm, nice bath. It is always comforting at first, but if you don’t pay attention it will slowly grow more frigid until your whole body is shouting at you to get out. Those who have lived there will know the feeling. In other words, getting out ever so often offers a respite from the daily madness of Kathmandu traffic, loadshedding, water-shortage, pollution and general decay of all required infrastructure.

Most of the time, getting out means a short hop to Bangkok and then straight to Oslo from there. Thai runs an excellent service to and from Bangkok. They are, in my opinion, the best service to and from Kathmandu. Punctual, service-minded and with an excellent product – at least in business class.

But sometimes, other options are required. A clear number two is Dragonair to Hong Kong. I need to go to Hong Kong regularly, primarily due to my studies and, secondarily, due to the required follow-ups after my surgery earlier this year. So my joy was great earlier this year, when we were summoned for the annual CFO conference which was to take place in Amsterdam.

This trip would combine very well with my first scan after the surgery, and Cathay Pacific has a direct service from Hong Kong to Amsterdam. The ticket was booked and I flew to Hong Kong. I did my scan, and then the Iceland volcano erupted and promptly shut down European airspace. After a few days of waiting, the conference was cancelled. This meant I had to book a one-way back to Kathmandu, and left me with an unused ticket to and from Amsterdam and back to Kathmandu.

As soon as the invite came for the Global Leaders’ conference in Oslo due in August-September, I knew that I should first and foremost finish the ticket we had already paid for and made arrangements accordingly. This would mean going first to Hong Kong, then to Amsterdam and then on to Oslo with a few hours in Copenhagen on the way. And to get to Hong Kong, I would have to fly via Bangkok with an overnight stay there. The routing from hell…

The start from Kathmandu to Bangkok was good as always, and I crashed completely at the hotel downtown as I was struggling with clogged sinuses and a cold. A big bowl of tom yam goong helped clear that up! The flight onwards from Bangkok to Hong Kong was at 4pm, and this left me with plenty of time in Hong Koing to get a shower and attend to general hygiene prior to the flight to Amsterdam.

Let me dwell here on the pleasures of flying Cathay Pacific in their business class. First, you get your own cubicle with a seat that converts into a completely horizontal bed. Add two pillows and a thin duvet, and you have a recipe for sleeping well. Their inflight service is thoughtful and eerily prescient and present.

Thoughtful, because they offer a light meal option and this is especially welcome considering that the flight departs around midnight. Most of us are not in the mood for a heavy meal. The light meal consisted of a very tasty tomato and basil soup, a salad, a bowl of mixed fresh berries (!) and a chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. OK, so the latter is not that light. The rest of this was simply excellent, and just enough to ensure a good night’s sleep. I slept 7 hours straight. Upon waking up, the stewardess (Karen) noticed and asked if I would like a snack. Cathay have started serving Hong Kong style soups onboard, and on this flight they carried the classic shredded pork with preserved cabbage. Awesome! A few hours later, I added fruit, muesli and a small selection of dim sum and was ready for landing.

And then it all went wrong. Upon landing, I soon discovered that none of the transfer desks open could offer any help to SAS-customers whatsoever. Star Alliance made no difference at all, and I was asked to walk from one end of the airport (and Schiphol is huge) to the other. This of course meant passing through passport-control and security. The airport was also heated, and I had worked up a decent sweat by the time I made it to the Schengen border.

It remains a mystery to me why there is always chaos at these. It is not as if they can claim to be surprised by the number of passengers showing up – the airlines can give them the exact number of persons and their passport details well in advance of arrival, so they stand a fair chance of organizing themselves and the lines just a tad better than what they normally do. And it is not as if they can claim that they know anything about managing queues, because it is so bleeding obvious that they don’t. It is always pandemonium, with all of humanity represented: China, India, different parts of Africa, North America, Europeans. They are all there, and they all need to have their passports inspected in minute detail. I still wonder why the guy looking at my passport had to flip through all my pages.

As things were, I could accept chaos at the Schengen border because it is so clear that they are incompetent when it comes to flowplanning and queue management. And I never harass those who are executing the plan of an incompetent mind. And then we came to security, and Schiphol instantly got itself blacklisted for any and all future transfers for me.

The lines were admirably short, and that is as far as the good news goes. They also had one of the fancy new hulk-machines, i.e. full-body scanners. I have developed a healthy disregard for all things radiation, as I get more than my fair share during follow-up scans for my cancer. I duly made my way to a line where I would not have to go through one of these.

As usual I had to take my laptop out. Normally, they will allow me to keep it inside its sleeve, but not here. Oh no, it had to come completely out. And could I open it please? I asked him to repeat, as I was certain I had misunderstood him. I sadly hadn’t. Someone, somewhere, with far too much time and resources and far too little intelligence had come up with the idea that all laptops had to be opened. Not even the otherwise draconian TSA in the USA have thought of this, and I shudder at the thought of this practice spreading. Come to think of it, neither in China nor in India do they have this practice, and I would think India has a higher threat level as far as terrorism is concerned and that China tops the list of nations when it comes to institutionalized paranoia. But here at Schiphol they beat both of them, and I am sure that somewhere in Holland there is a smug bureaucrat smiling furtively at that thought.

After this brief interlude of madness, and after another 10-minute walk, I finally spotted the transfer-desk I had been asked to walk to. I approached in high spirits. Only to have them dashed when the friendly woman from Lufthansa told me she could not help me at all. She could only access Lufthansa systems and the SAS-team would not be there until 2 hours before departure. This flew like a lead-balloon with me and she could tell. And for the first time in my life I met a friendly and helpful Lufthansa staff. She said I could go to the lounge nearby, inform them of the situation and rest there until the SAS team arrived. I thanked her profusely, and told her that if I ever got a choice between Amsterdam and Frankfurt, I would go for Frankfurt as Lufthansa at least has people on duty who can help travelers.

I was looking forward to the lounge, with a nice shower, wifi for catching up and general peace and quiet. Sadly, only one of these were to be experienced. Upon entering I enquired if they had showers, which of course they did not. The lady answering looked bemused, surprised and annoyed at the same time – no small feat! So no shower in which to rid myself of the grime of the last 16 hours. Not ideal, but still manageable.

I sat down, opened my laptop to go online and found the lounge network. It required a number and a password so I approached the counter again to get these. The lady smilingly informed me that there was no free wifi in this lounge – I would have to pay. Looking carefully around me, I could again confirm to myself that this was the business class lounge, and there was no free wifi. I have rarely been more negatively surprised.

At this stage, Schiphol had planted itself so firmly in my mind as a no-go airport, fully on par with Frankfurt, that I to this day see no chance for it to redeem itself.

But all of this got me thinking: The difference between Asia and Europe, is that Asia works and delivers a service which is above and beyond that offered in Europe. I am sure that there are stringent union-rules telling SAS when they can and can not be available to serve their passengers, and this is so gloriously misguided that I can but hope and pray that SAS finally goes belly-up. This would at least allow them to build a customer-centered organization, rather than an employee-centered one.

The other difference is one of infrastructure. Most cities in Asia, Kathmandu being a notable exception, have relatively new airports which are thoughtfully planned and laid out. They offer a range of facilities most European airports can but dream of. They offer showers, massages, movie-theatres, gyms – you name it!

My future remains in Asia, that is for sure. The place works, has ambitions and is not yet at the level where employees look at themselves first rather than the customer. As soon as thinking about the customer first takes root again in Europe, I will gladly reconsider as Europe has so much going for it - just not service and infrastructure. Even Kathmandu does one of the two…

Part 7, Lomanthang

Lomanthang is the royal city of the kingdom of Mustang. Through our guesthouse, our guide makes arrangements for us to meet with the king. He is in town, and this follows a very specific ritual. We are told that our audience with him will be late in the afternoon. With that arranged, we get ready to stroll about town and look at the monasteries.

The first one is locked, and no one seems to be sure who has the key. It looks freshly renovated, with sharp and fresh woodcarvings on the door. We don't want to simply idle in front of a locked door, so we move into the neighbouring monastery. Upon entering the courtyard, we are overwhelmed by noise from a generator. It feels and looks like a building-site, and in a way it is. We were planning to spend 15 minutes here, but it is over 2 hours later when we leave. This was the big surprise of the day...

The groundfloor appears shut, even though we don't try the door. Instead, we climb upstairs and enter. Inside, we see 6-10 people - mostly women - on scaffolding with lights illuminating the walls in front of them. Up to our right, one woman takes a particular interest in our arrival. She jumps down and approaches us. It is very obvious that she is not Nepali - she is clearly caucasian. And this is how we meet Nelly.

Nelly is French, and works as an art-restorer. I never thought about it, but this occupation requires artistic skill combined with chemistry and art history. She is here, together with two others, on a project supoprted by the American Himal Foundation. They are restoring the decorations of the temple. Nelly is very passionate about this, and soon has Joe and me spellbound. We are given a close and personal tour of this amazing collection of mandalas, with Nelly patiently explaining the special aspects of her favourites. Brush-strokes are explained, restoration is explained, the art of drawing a simple line (according to her there is no such thing - it requires superb concentration to draw the right line) and the challenge of finding the right pigments today to restore wall-paintings that are 700 years old.

In many places, the wall and painting is damaged beyond repair. In these places they restore the wall, but do not try to recreate the full mandala. There is not enough information for them to work with. Nelly points out minute details, such as what looks like little gold-dots which, on close inspection, turn out to be miniscule circles. She shows the damage that can be done by poorly handled restoration, she shows the humor in the mandalas (I never knew there was a disco in them!) and she talk passionately about ancient buddhist art.

We talk about the restoration, the training of the local women and she lets slip their secret weapon when restoring the colours of these amazing religious artifacts. I was expecting something fancy, like a specially designed solvent, or instant freeze-drying of the surface, or an advanced chemical rub, but no. After years of education and training, Nelly has established that on this surface and on these pigments the best solution is something as simple as an eraser. Yup, roughly the same variety you used in school, I'm sure. Produced by Staedtler. On rough stains, perhaps a little saliva would need to be added. Apart from that, water and other solvents did more damage than good. Joe and I remain captivated.

Then she starts telling us about the amazing mandalas on the third floor, where her colleague Luigi is working. After another half-hour or so if personal and expert guidance to the mandalas on the second floor, we make our way upstairs to meet Luigi.

The third floor of this temple has an interesting history. First, the monks initially did not want it restored at all. The third floor is reserved for tantric teaching, i.e. the handling of passions, and only very senior monk have ever been allowed in. But Luigi managed to persuade them that they would benefit from a restoration, and so it was opened. That is how we find ourselves in a room which until earlier this year has rarely been seen, and will soon be locked never to be viewed again by mere tourists.

The mandalas are different. They follow different lay-outs, some are even assymetrical with what appears to be cubes or dice randomly placed inside. One has eight radials from the centre, compared with the usual 4. Luigi explains that he is confident that at one point in time there were 54 mandalas in here. Only a few of them survive. Those that do can't help but captivate. Some are sexually explicit, others are not. All share a predominantly red background, and it is tempting to conclude that the color of passion is universal.

With all this ancient art, and with expert guidance, we are so captivated that we forget one small thing. To take pictures...

We return after lunch to the ground floor, where Samantha from Argentina is doing something I have never seen done before: Building a wall using a small syringe. She is 3 meters up in the air, tapping the wall in different places. She stops, picks up a syringe which would fit right in to a surgery, taps the wall again and then promises the wall that this won't hurt a bit. In the syringe goes, and liquids are injected. This process becomes hypnotic to watch after a while, and we spend half an hour watching wall-building by syringe.

The rest of the day is an anti-climax, and that includes the visit to the king. The palace is old and run-down. There is a feeling of decay in the palace which I cannot sense elsewhere in Mustang, and this saddens me.

We go to bed with images of glorious mandalas on our retinas, accompanied by soundbites from three passionate professionals: Nelly, Luigi and Samantha who made this day a highlight of our trip. We hope to see them again when they return to Kathmandu in September.

Part 6, Ghemi to Lomanthang

This is the day when we arrive at the end-point! We are up early as usual, perform our morning ablutions, have breakfast and are on our way. On crests and hilltops around us we see ancient ruins. No one we talk to can share with us the story of what this once was. The most likely explanation is that it was a monastery, but no one knows for sure. The history of this has simply and literally run into the sands of time. Buddhist monks once walked these valleys, and hid their texts in caves and crevasses. Many have, according to legend, never been found and there are temples here today located in spots where some of these texts were recovered. If the prospect of ancient texts dotting this landscape does not fuel your little Indiana Jones - and we all have one - then nothing will.

We face a long walk today, and we will be climbing consistently through the day. It will take us around 5 hours to walk, and there is no obvious lunch-stop on the way. So we leg it. After some hours, on a steadily climbing plateau, we reach a small rest-house serving tea and selling souvenirs. We politely decline the offers of both, and moving on we discover that we did pick up something after all: A dog. It is red-brown in colour, with well-maintained fur - it appears to be very healthy. It follows us for about an hour and then takes the lead. It trots ahead of us for a while, then waits for us to catch up. Trots off again, then waits. It is patiently leading us onwards, and it is a much surer pathfinder than either Joe or me. At one point, when we finally see Lomanthang when cresting a ridge, it looks at us with an "I told you so!"-look in its eyes. It leads us down to the valley, through a flock of goats (some of which are surprisingly coloured) and on a path leading straight into Lomanthang. On the outskirts of the township it sniffs about a bit and then returns, its duty finished.

We wait for our guide and porter to catch up, and when they do we make our way into the heart of Lomanthang. From a guesthouse a greeting to our guide rings out. It is a woman who recognises him, and he recognises her: She used to work at a guesthouse in one of the earlier villages; she married into a Lomanthang family and now helps run their guesthouse. Our guide informs us that she is a first-rate cook and that we will lodge here for the two nights we will stay. We settle in, stroll about a bit and then call it a night. And she is indeed a good cook. We waddle back to our room.

Little do we know that the following day we are up for the biggest surprise of the trip.

Part 5, Syangmochen to Ghemi

We have a short walk today after yesterday's stretch. After our usual breakfast (deep-fried Tibetan bread and onion omelet), we pack up and are ready to go.

The start of today's trek is a brisk climb. Again. But with the clouds crashing into the mountainsto the west, there is more humidity now. And in this area, when humidity arrives flowers explode out of the ground with gusto. I'm no botanist, so I have no idea what this flower is. But all of a sudden they were everywhere, and all the formerly grey-green shrubs started sporting yellow or lilac flowers.

We walk on, and the knowledge that today is a short-haul makes it easier to push a little harder at times. We complete the hike in time for lunch, settle in and explore the little village of Ghemi.

We find the village to be similar to most other villages we have passed through. Mostly farms clustered together, with green fields above and below. All the houses look well-maintained, which stands in stark contrast to most houses you find in the more urban parts of Nepal where decay is the common denominator.

Our guide tells us that the farmers we lodge with in this area are rich. They have goat-herds, and they bring them to Pokhara in early autumn after fattening them up on mountain grasses during summer. They fetch good prices, and their investment is next to nothing. The herd builds itself and grazing is free. I again marvel at how profits make it possible to do things properly.

By any Western standard, these people are poor and have next to nothing. By their standards they are rich, and compared to most Nepalis they are very well off. Yet old traditions are retained here, and ancient ways of life remain. In case of illness, they paint a red cross above the entrance to the house and call in a monk for chanting. We walked by a Japanese-sponsored hospital on the way where there was not a soul to be seen... Life here is different.

Part 4, Tsaile to Syangmochen

Today the hard walking starts. So far we have been acclimatizing and getting our hiker's legs on. We now go from just over 3000 meters up to just over 3800, and there is a mountain-pass or two on the way there.

But before leaving Tsaile, let us look at a small architectural detail from this village. Those of you familiar with Tibet and its culture will instantly recognise the shapes and colours of this.

Throughout the trip, we were constantly reminded that we had left the Hindu-majority far behind us, and we were in an almost purely Buddhist part of Nepal. And in this part, Tibetan culture reigns supreme. In many villages, we found the Tibetan vibration to be much stronger than anything we ever felt in Tibet proper when we spent 2 weeks there a few years back.

In any case, the window is a fresh and attractive example of what the application of a little Tibetan architecture can achieve. For those of you not used to cold winters, I point out that the use of black as a base will help retain solar heat when it gets cold. And now back to the trek.

As soon as we step out of the tea house, the climb begins. The surface is loose and round rocks and pebbles, so traction is not the best. We climb steeply westwards alongside a deep and narrow canyon. The road is, again, washed out in some places, and it at times seems to be held together by little else than a few twigs and a lot of hope.

We ascend onto a plateau, and make our way towards this stretch of road. It is difficult to see, but there is a straight plunge on either side - the road is in effect a land-bridge between two plateaus. A small section is pure rock-climbing, before we arrive on the path you can see winding from right to left in the upper part of the picture. It soon crosses the ridge and starts following the canyon we first encountered when leaving the tea house this morning. The path is little more than tunnel missing the left wall, and it is easily a hundred meters down. We can't even see the bottom of it, as it gets very narrow and dark down there. Perfect Smeagol territory, in other words! Once that thought settles, it is hard not to draw comparisons between these barren hills and the grey, dusty forlornness of Mordor. A steady climb at this altitude soon enough snaps the mind back to the path and the need to secure good footing. A plunge is the last thing we need right now.


We walk pass a suspension-bridge on the way up, and after walking for a while longer we get a good view of it and the canyon it crosses. Just look into that gorge. As I said, perfect Smeagol ground.

You can also see that if we misstep here, there is nothing to stop us before we literally reach rock-bottom. So we step gingerly, and the wind is yet again no aid. To boot, the path is in many places covered with fine dust. The wind picks this up and glazes our eyes with it.

We soon complete this treacherous stretch, and enter into a broad valley where we keep climbing to the ridge. It is not particularly steep, but the altitude makes our chests heave. We press on.

In the middle of it all we stumble upon an oasis: Samar. The tea house is by a grove of trees, with a small creek running happily just outside. A friendly dog snuggles up to us while we sit by the tumbling water. We drink tea, enjoy the shade and soon are hungry enough to step into the tea house. The lady of the house is in charge of the kitched, and soon lunch is served. Our guide informs us that marriage-customs here are a little different. When a woman marries a man, she also marries his brothers. So the woman in this house has two husbands. Our minds start pondering this: How to keep the kids apart, does jealousy enter the picture, how does the more carnal part of marriage really work in such a setting? But apparently it works, and works well. Later on the trip we hear of a woman who married into a family of 5 brothers...

After lunch, the little blue lines we saw crossing out path on the map soon materialise as little creeks having dug deep crevasses. Many times we face a steep descent, with an equally steep ascent on the other side. It is incredibly tiring. After a few hours of this, we descend into "Windy Valley" as we dub it. The wind is being channelled in here and is ferocious. I have so far not been unduly disturbed by the wind, but here walking forwards is a challenge. Joe is right behind me, and together we exit the narrow gap of this place, turn around a left bend and are greeted by the sight of 3 houses in a clutch. Our guide and porter are outside already, and this is Syangmochen.

Our tea house is simple, yet clean, neat and tidy. There is a small girl running around, of maybe 2 years. She is still breast-feeding, but elsewhere on the trip we see kids up to 4 years of age being breastfed. Healthy, but unusual for those of us coming from more "civilized" parts of the world. We are tired after a rough day's walking, and we make it an early night.