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.

Part 3, Kagbeni to Tsaile

After Kagbeni, the river has washed out the normal path. I get the impression that this is an everyday thing. A mere landslide, carrying thousands of tons of rock and sand, becomes a minor nuisance, something mentioned as an aside during breakfast. We need to take a "shortcut".

The path today will take us to Chhuksang in time for lunch, and then on to Tsaile for the evening. We only climb 300 meters or so, to be sure we minimise the risk of altitude sickness.

Soon after leaving Kagbeni, we can't help but be captivated by all the caves beehiving the sheer face of the mountain on the other side of the river. We do not know what these caves hold, and for me this is perfect imagination-fodder while walking! It seems obvious that the top caves are the oldest ones, and that they were built also to provide protection from the raging river. So as the river eroded its way ever deeper, the caves were expanded downwards. That is at least my speculation as my feet carry me through the landscape.


Soon we depart from the regular path and move uphill for the "short-cut". In general when hiking, short-cuts are a really bad idea. Old paths are typically following the route that will require the least energy-consumption and time. Any deviation from this is highly unlikely to lead to any improvements. And so it is here. The path gets adventurous, with us pushing through narrow cracks perched high above the river. Joe is not comfortable with this, and it gets worse when we need to descend on loose scree with nothing but a sheer drop down to the riverbed below. Progress is very slow, and the gusting wind adds to challenge of keeping balance. But slowly, slowly, we make it across and head for higher land.

The path takes us to a canyon landscape of eroded sediments. The shapes are an odd mixture of smooth, rounded curves and sharp, blunt edges. The walls are solid to the touch, but they crumble at the slightest impact of anything solid - even a knuckle will do. With the word "landslide" embedded in my mind, I move away from the pillars and get ready to move on. We have more walking to do before we reach our lunchbreak.

We descend to a dried-out riverbed, down a steep slope covered with gravel and sand. We partly slide, partly jump down. And then it is up on the other side. Little do we know that this is an exercise we will go through time and again over the coming days.

In Chhuksang we rest for lunch. Waterbottles are filled and the tea house owner tries to sell us some fossils (they are almost literally everywhere on the riverbed), as well as an old religious relic he apparently "rescued" from a monastery somewhere. It is very old, he assures us, but we have no intention of shopping anything on the way up to Lomanthang. Why carry the weight? He is soon joined by his brother who speaks good English and a better-than-average Putonghua. He and my wife converse in Putonghua for a while, until it is time for us to move on to Tsaile.

The path descends to the riverbed of Kali Gandaki again, and the path traces the eastern bank. We get an idea, and decide to try crossing the river to the other side, where it should be a straightforward walk along the dry riverbed to Tsaile. I'm wearing sandals and shorts, which is ideal for this kind of crossing. Joe is in trekking-shoes and pants - less ideal. The solution is to try to carry her across in a fireman's lift. After crossing not even a third of the river, it is clear that it will soon be too deep and to swift to cross safely in this manner. If we had a rope... But we have no rope, so we stick to what is left of the washed-away path. At one point, we pass beneath a large chunk of compacted sand and rock through which a large crack has formed. We are swift and light on our feet, and pass without drama.

Across a bridge, up a steep hill and we are in Tsaile, our rest for the night.

Part 2, to Kagbeni

So we were all gung-ho for our flight. It was delayed, and delayed, and then our guide told us that yesterday all flights had been cancelled, and then we had another delay. And then, miracle of miracles, boarding was announced! So we rushed out and boarded. The plane had clearly seen better days, just look at the crack in that window:

Undeterred by this, we remained on the plane. After an uneventful ride, we entered the valley where Jomsom is located. We flew pretty much straight over the airstrip and continued up the valley. The valley soon opened up into a large bowl, and here we made a sharp 180-degree turn. Joe felt she could touch the mountainside... We started descending, and hit the runway no more than a meter after the asphalt started. An adventurous landing!

Moving from Pokhara to Jomsom gives an altitude difference of almost 2000 meters. Between Kathmandu and Jomsom it is almost 1400 meters. Consequently we took it real easy the first 3 hours on advice from our guide. Then we started walking slowly towards Kagbeni, our stop for the night.

These first 3 hours were uneventful. A strong wind gusting from behind us, a jeepable road under out feet and Joe and me walking together to find our hiking-feet. The landscape up here is dramatic, and unlike any other I have seen. Mountains and sediments have been worn and sculpted by the seasons, the water and that ultimate landscape-shaper time.

Arriving in Kagbeni and settling in the tea house, we note a large poster of Lhasa on the wall. It is a recurring theme on the trek: Every tea house has at least one poster from Lhasa, and they all refer to it as Tibet. Not Tibet, China.

Not all the posters are good though. Some have been photoshopped to add Chinese lions in front of Potala Palace, others add small pagodas. And the shadows fall in opposite directions. Regardless, these are obviously treasured pictures since they are endemic to the area.

The Upper Mustang adventure, part 1

After very little dithering, wifey and I had decided to go vacationing in our current country of residence. With monsoon-season hanging over us like a wet cloth, we needed to find a place which would be: Dry (to avoid leeches), not too warm (to make walking manageable), not too cold (wifey takes badly to chilly temperatures) and, finally, with no camping required as wifey sleeps poorly in tents. Fortunately, Nepal has an option worth exploring: The remote mountaing kingdom of Mustang!

So arrangements were made, deals concluded, I dropped the kids at my parents' in Norway for summer, and all was ready for the adventure.

To get going, we needed to fly from Kathmandu to Pokhara. This is a fairly routine flight, without much excitement to it. Upon arrival in Pokhara, we were met by our guide and taken to a hotel for the night. Flights to Jomsom in Upper Mustang ONLY take off in the morning hours, so if not airborne by around 10ish, then there are no flights that day. More on that later...

Pokhara is a tranquil place. Fewa Lake is the obvious attraction point for restaurants, bars and clubs, and we idled away a few hours sipping lime sodas and snacking at the terrace of one of them. Pokhara is great for relaxation!

We had a peaceful dinner and returned to our room for the night. And then Joe spotted her least favourite creature in the world: The cockroach. She sought refuge in the bathtub, while I got the duty of removing the poor thing. It was soon gone. No sooner had wifey calmed down, when another one appeared. There were a total of 4 of them in the room that night, and no furniture was left unmoved in the hunt for these. Little known fact: When a cockroach rushes across your foot, it tickles! This factoid found little grace with Joe, who ordered me back in the shower to wash again and then spent the rest of the night worrying. We were up very early in the morning, waiting for our flight to, hopefully take off. That is for part 2!

This is what is wrong with the world

Well, it is one of the things that are wrong. On a flight recently, I was served a light meal. In the meal-box was a small cup with a nice label on top: Crunchy Strawberry Yoghurt.

Now, most people would probably see this yummy combination and go for it. Me, being an avid reader, noticed the fine print "Ingredients on flip side". It never occurred to me that something as simple as yoghurt would have a lot of ingredients, so I HAD to investigate.

Most people would expect something like this to contain milk, some form of lactobacillus to make yoghurt, strawberries and maybe some biscuit/cracker-like ingredient for the crunch. Wrong. Here is the complete list of contents, and give yourself a pat on the back when you find the yoghurt...

Ingredients: Water, sugar, 13% strawberries, vegetable oil (coconut, palm kernel, palm, rape), wheat flour, glucose syrup, margarine (vegetables oil and fat from palm, palm kernel and rape), water, salt, emulsifier (E471, E475, E322), sugar, flavour, acid (E330), colour (E160a), cane sugar, skimmed milk powder, egg, 2% youghurt powder, malt dextrin, bread crumbs, invert sugar syrup, acid (E330), gelifier (E440), modified maize starch, flavouring, whole milk powder, salt, thickening agent (E407, E410, E412), emulsifier (E471), colouring (E160a, E120, E150d).

So inside the box was essentially a predominantly vegetable-fat based thing, with little room for anything natural. As for the strawberries, I am not sure if the 13% refer to the strawberry content of the red jam-like goo inside or if it refers to the strawberries' share of the weight or volume in the cup. From the looks of it, it is the strawberry content of the reddish goo.

What happened to good, old-fashioned yoghurt just being milk and bacteria??? Shame on you, SAS, for deciding to save money by buying something that is patently not youghurt, yet marketed as if it were the real thing.

One thing they do consistently right here in Nepal is yoghurt: You buy it in clay-bowls, and it is rich, creamy, unpasteurized, non-additive infested and so good that the kids eat it by only adding fresh fruit and berries - no sugar. And I'm sure it is cheaper than the stuff SAS buys from Holland.

On the road to Kathmandu

Last week I spent a few days at the powerplant. Going out there by helicopter is always fascinating, especially since the pilots are flying quite close to the terrain at times! This time, we were to drive back to Kathmandu.

The road is incredibly bumpy for 22 km, while climbing out of the valley. The views are incredible though, and the river simply begs for a kayak to be launched. Once back on a blacktop road, we come through a small village and then we climb again. This is what you see from the car while climbing:


As you can see, it is awesome! Little villages dot the hillsides and the landscape itself is shaped by these people through all their toils: Terracing, almost terraforming, the geography to suit their needs.

With the coniferous forests dominating at higher altitudes, the forests gain an airy almost cathedral-like feel. There is space here, yet human habitation is seldom far away. A small farmhouse can be nested almost anywhere in these hills, and in a few locations we can see grander buildings that are abandoned and slowly decaying. I look forward to hiking through these valleys during the stay here.

After passing Dulikhel, traffic jams up and the feeling of calm and tranquility quickly vanishes. Irritation and frustration rush in to fill the mental space, and it is only upon returning to the haven of home that peace again descends in the mind.

It has arrived!

Finally, after over 3 months, our container with our stuff arrived. Nevermind that it had been baking in the Calcuttan sun and gathering the Calcuttan dust for close to 6 weeks, we were happy it arrived!

Unpacking turned out to be a treasurehunt of some magnitude. A box labelled "Master Bed Room" (and note the way they split words) and sub-labelled "Toys" had me worried. It is far too easy to draw the wrong conclusions when you see a box labelled bedroom toys. Knowing that we were incredibly lacking in this area also piqued my curiosity. What could this possibly be? A gift from Santa Fe with the finest in Chinese bedroom accessories? A donation from a well-meaning but misguided therapist?

It was not to be. Upon opening it contained kitchenware... And it was neither the first nor the last mislabelled box. So a big thank you to Santa Fe in Beijing who made it impossible for us to know what was in the boxes they had packed for us.

Next post will contain some pics again - promise!