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!

Easy of BANG

OK, it's been far too long since the last update here. Let's start 2009 off with a humorous one...

The title on this post is no joke. There is a cleaning fluid with that precise name, and below is an exerpt from some correspondence between two engineers on the use of this fluid for cleaning a machine-hall. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

It all started with a very normal and humdrum request: "I have brought a bottle of Easy of BANG along in order to check whether it works or not for the cleaning of clinic floor. You might have noted the stains on clinic floor looking very ugly. I have tested it today and the result is fantastic. Pls arrange to buy 20 bottles and send at the earliest possible."

On 7th of November this mail came from the same person:
"Cleaning work is in progress. Since the floor was very dirty, cleaner is being consumed quite a lot. I think we need an equal quantity of Easy of BANG again."

This meant that 20 bottles of cleaning -liquid had been consumed in two days of work. Some swift calculations in our maintenance department established that each bottle was enough to clean 1000 sqm of area. Naturally, eyebrows were raised and the level of consumption was questioned. The following reply came back:

"It’s not a surface which you clean by soap-water or some simple cleaners which you mix with water in the proportion of 10ml cleaner: 10L of water. We are talking about the dirt leftover by construction works – its white cement stick to tile and the dirt on the top. My colleague did try many alternative ways to clean it but unable to do so thus dirt remained there for such a long period of time. Recently an Indian in his visit at Kirne suggested us to try with Easy of BANG. I brought one bottle (200ml) along last time and tested in my toilet – it worked and then tested at clinic floor- it worked there as well."

The key here is the last sentence above. I have no idea, and don't want to know, if the home toilet is a good testbench for industrial grime removal. But the fact that this engineer did indeed think it was a good place to test tells me much more than I ever want to know about his toilet...