Muktinath

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 123 – Location: Muktinath; Nepal

02/01/13

I had a terrible night’s sleep, tossing and turning, I had a bad headache and felt sick, light headed and weak. In the morning I realized I was probably suffering from altitude sickness, the symptoms fit and in the jeep we’d climbed almost 1000 meters in just a few hours. It might also account for Sophie’s continuing heart problems. We decided to see how we got on and head back down today if possible – the best remedy for altitude sickness is to descend before the symptoms get worse.

After an early breakfast we ventured forth through Muktinath village, it reminded me of a Wild West town with a wide barren high street and balconied buildings lining it. Souvenir stalls, especially of homemade stripey scarves, or fossils, were being set up all along it. We walked to the edge of town to admire the views into the crater below. There were only a few other tourists around.

Sophie in Muktinath’s main street

Engraved stones in the main street

Next we walked to the other side of town and through Muktinath temple gate, where some babas (holy men) were sitting wanting money for blessings or photos. Then we climbed a long flight of steps towards the white temple walls wiggling along the rocky hillside. Prayer flags were strewn like spider webs on the rock face behind, some attached to seemingly inaccessible rock clusters.

A big prayer wheel by the main entrance

We could really feel the altitude affecting our oxygen, after five steps we would already feel knackered and we kept stopping for rests on the way up. At the top we passed through the wall gate into the temple complex. It was quite large, possibly 300 meters square – a collection of buildings, a copse of trees and a barren section of small scree-like rocks. We explored the temple buildings, and saw homes inside the complex – a few women were going about their daily chores. Presumably the families who take care of the temple. We walked along the scree section which turned out to be full of little stone towers made by visitors for good luck. Me and Sophie made our own too.

Mount Al-Soph

The building in the corner of the complex had a nice Tibetan style temple room, filled with colourful carvings on the roof and pillars. Unfortunately photography is banned inside. Out in the courtyard was a circular reflective dish, like a satellite dish. We’d seen these around the area, this one had a kettle on a holder suspended in the dish’s center, confirming that they are used to focus the sun’s rays to heat water or cook food. Ingenious energy saving idea, the sun is so bright up here and they are using it. Solar panels are also used in some of the hotels, like much of Nepal. I put my hand in the heat field and sure enough it was very warm.

We continued wandering through the rocky part past some traditional stone shrines, and into the copse, where the main temple building is hidden. Clusters of different sized bells were hanging in a mishmash on a stand. A pool by the temple was filled with blocks of smashed ice, guess they want to keep it clear. The inner courtyard of the temple was lined with bells as well, had bell clusters hanging around. I haven’t seen the bell clusters before and I wonder what the significance is?

Outside the temple, surrounding it on three sides, were rows of gargoyle head fountains. Long icicles hung from railings where the water had struck. I walked through the copse to get some shots of the prayer flags strewn on the hillside.

Check out his icicle beard

We wandered back to the temple complex entrance past a tower and some old locals sitting on their roof in the sun. They were friendly and we noticed how incredibly weathered and wrinkly their skin was. One of the women had her breasts practically hanging out, modesty isn’t such a big thing in this culture! Didn’t really do it for me I’m afraid, I prefer them a few years younger!

Back in Muktinath village we stopped for lunch in a rasta restaurant (yes, they are everywhere in this part of the world!), and watched some of the local kids from the balcony, a little girl was spying on us and gave us a wave. I gave my big zoom lens a go, now it had been repaired. Seemed to be working fine.

Me waiting for lunch

The wee girl who was checking us out

This girl was collecting water from the public tap

Weaving handicrafts on the street

Weaving rig

We discovered there was a jeep leaving at 4pm back to Jomsom so we walked to the jeep stop. There were a lot of people waiting, locals and trekkers. We bought a rather expensive ticket and piled into a jeep. We bumped our way for a few hours back to Jomsom. Sophie got stuck next to an annoying local man who wouldn’t give her any space and kept nudging her to try and get her to move (we were jammed in like sardines, so much that one girl was bending over sat on her husband’s knee). Us and the other locals kept telling him to stop but he just thought it was funny, though he did relent a little bit. We passed on the opposite side to the “crater” as on the way up, giving us great views of the huge rippling cliffs below, and we passed more of the villages which looked like they came out of a time machine. Again photography was nearly impossible due to the bumpy ride, tiny windows and clouds of dust.

On the valley floor we stormed over the rock field that me and Sophie had crossed, in only twenty minutes, fording rivers and bouncing around all over the place. We arrived in Jomsom as the sun was going down and walked back to the hotel we’d left our stuff at. My altitude sickness had been improving during the day and I was feeling a lot better now. We had a relaxed evening reading and enjoying the tasty restaurant food. I tried to buy a torch from their attached shop, only to find that literally none of their torches worked. They all looked about 20 years old and many were rusted inside. The cheeky woman tried to make me pay for the batteries separately but I pointed out I only needed them for the torch! We turned in early, tired after our restless night up in Muktinath, but we were feeling a bit better.

Bridge at Jomsom’s entrance

Mules hanging out, smoking, burning bins, as mules do…

A yak chilling in the street. These things are big!

Sunset over Jomsom’s valley

Nepali Village School Visit

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Alan Stock

Village school kids await Sophie’s instructions

Day 81 – Location: Karmidanda Village, Langtang Region; Nepal

21/11/12

At 5am I woke to the sounds of people walking and talking on the path outside. I was very cold, I hadn’t wrapped up properly in my drug-fuelled condition – my bedroom had a gap between the wall and the roof which let the cold mountain air in. I could still feel the effects of the weed overdose a little bit. I managed to get some restless sleep whilst the rest of the village woke up.

I emerged at 8am feeling tired but otherwise ok and I vowed not to underestimate ganja again! Jhabraj greeted me and told me his drunk colleague from last night had stayed for a while until he eventually made it to a house nearby where he crashed for the night. Jhabraj had already spoken with him and he was in pretty amazing condition considering his state last night! We had tea, fresh curd from the cows and beaten rice for breakfast.

At 10am we set off to the village school, where Jhabraj works as an English teacher. Jhabraj was kitted out in a very sharp pinstripe suit, the teacher uniform for his school. It was Sophie’s first day as a volunteer there. We walked down the hill through the village for about twenty minutes. The mountain villages here are very spread out, clusters of houses and individual buildings speckled over the hillside. We passed kids on their way to school in unforms of varying degrees of decay, most of them said “Namaskar” (a respectful greeting) to Jhabraj. They didn’t seem too interested in me and Sophie – Jhabraj often has foreigners visiting so it’s not a new sight for them here. We crossed the main “road” (dirt track) where there was a van full of small chicken cages. We soon saw the school from above, three or four large white rectangular buildings on a big flat patch of land, flat dusty spaces inbetween. The view over the valley from here was awesome. This school had mainly been built with funds raised from an Italian guy who had stayed for a long time with Jhabraj in the village and with Jhabraj’s persuasion decided to help the community. He had fundraised for years in Italy in local communities and churches and raised a lot of money over the years. The school had started with one classroom and eventually expanded to a full school employing teachers of all subjects. Although compared to western schools it is very basic, and still lacks equipment and funds by Nepali standards it’s good. Quite an achievement by the volunteers and the teachers involved! If you are interested in helping out the students and teachers of Karmidanda’s school with donations or volunteering, please contact me and I can put you in touch with Jhabraj – they are always in need of equipment, staff and funding! (see bottom of post)

Looking down on Karmidanda’s school

We arrived early and met some of the other teachers in the staff room. Their pinstripe suits made it look like we’d accidently walked into a mob meeting! Amusingly, the drunken teacher from last night was there, and just as Jhabraj said, in sobriety he was very quiet and serious looking!

Class started and we went to observe Jhabraj teaching a class of 12 year olds. This school teaches kids aged 6 to 16 – classes are seperated by age. The classroom was like the ones I’d seen with Anja in Besisahar, bare walls with the only furnishings being a whiteboard, wooden bench-desks and open, barred windows. The class wasn’t very full as this was the first day of school after the Tihar festival. The kids all wore uniform although some were dirty or had holes in them. All the kids had exercise books. We sat at the back and watched the 45 minute English lesson. It was a fairly standard lesson, the kids were quite well behaved and Jhabraj didn’t take any crap from them. They learned about tag questions – for example “Rita is a nice girl, isn’t she?” I was impressed with their level of English at this age.

Jhabraj at work

During class me and Sophie got plenty of attention through the back windows from curious kids. Unfortunately because there is no real playground, and no glass in the windows, it’s quite noisy and distracting for kids trying to study in classes. Other kids can peer through the windows and disturb the students – for us this included a very funny buck-toothed 5 year old girl who lives near to Jhabraj. She is too young for school but her family works so she gets sent with her older sister. Whilst her sister is in class, she wanders around and plays. Jhabraj said that it’s quite common for parents to leave their underage kids at the school, so sometimes there are 3 year olds wandering around, pooing everywhere and crying. As Jhabraj explained, it’s hard work and unfair for the teachers to take care of these young kids when they are already working so hard!

Curious kids peeking through at the newcomers in class

After class we had a free period so me and Sophie sat in the sun whilst groups of kids hung around us with great interest. The younger kids were fascinated by a German/English picture book which Sophie brought, left at Jhabraj’s by a previous volunteer. Jhabraj took us to a little store below the school where we drank tea and told us about the latest village drama.

This is not staged, the children were genuinely thrilled with this book!

The school caretaker; a widow from the village with three children, had been beaten up last night by a group of men and women. They even beat up her children! She’d called Jhabraj (as he is a community advisor) and he told her to speak to the police as it was a complicated matter outside of his hands. He’d talked with her eldest daughter who is a student at the school; she had written a detailed report of what happened which they could give to the police. Apparently the reason for the assault was because the mother was having relations with a married man (she is windowed) – to cut a long story short the man’s wife found out and it was a revenge attack – even though her husband was the instigator of the affair! Jhabraj said they would have to see how the situation developed, it was certainly causing a stir in the community.

After break, Sophie went to her first class as a teacher unsupervised. She started well and I took a few photos before I left her to it. I sat in on another of Jhabraj’s lessons, where he went over verbs. During the next break he told us he was disappointed that over 45 days of holiday the class had forgotten a lot of what he’d taught them, and most hadn’t done the homework he’d set them. He gave them a week deadline said there’d be a big punishment if they didn’t do it. Although many teachers physically punish the children (which is pretty normal in Nepal), Jhabraj doesn’t believe in it –when he was a younger teacher he used to, but now realizes the error of his ways. He encourages the other teachers to use non-violent punishments and tries to provide a supportive atmosphere for the students so they aren’t afraid and can trust teachers with their problems.

Boy’s side of Sophie’s first class

Mid-way through the class one of the girls was pulled out, the daughter who had been attacked who I mentioned earlier. She was off to the police station to make her report. Jhabraj had to leave the class early to check on another class, so I was in charge. I went through some more verbs with the students until the end of the period; I have some teaching experience myself.

For the next period I waited in the staff room as Jhabraj’s next class would be in Nepali. Then we were served some instant noodles and tea, and we met Sophie who had got on alright with her two classes – her year 6’s were good students and understood English quite well, but her class 3’s (only 8 years old) were difficult to keep motivated, they were easily distracted and didn’t understand much of what she was saying.

Me and Sophie walked back home. She only has two classes every day so it was only 1pm. The sun was shining brightly as usual. At the house we chilled out, I had a “shower” (brisk!) and we were visited by local kids, of both the goat and human variety! Januka was around doing various chores. Jhabraj arrived back at 4pm. He told me that yesterday he’d spoken privately to the son who wasn’t feeding his old father, and the son had agreed to take better care of him. Jhabraj had checked up on the old man to find his son was indeed keeping to his word, and so thankfully he wouldn’t have to round up a committee to resolve the problem.

Colourful houses near the school, and a goat, of course. They are everywhere!

Awijit, Jhabraj’s son came back from school and Ama (the grandmother) came back and forth with backloads of grass for the animals. After chicken curry with rice we spent the evening in the kitchen by the open fire, chatting, drinking rakshi. Various locals visted to chat with the family. Jhabraj’s brother lives very close and he dropped by. An older man who speaks a bit of English also came round and some mothers came to chat to Januka. Some older visitors came by too. Of course the cheeky boy Jeneet from next door made an appearance as well! It’s a very social community and reminds me a lot of soap operas in our country. Everyone pops around to each other’s house all the time, they share commodities with each other, and they help each other. Jhabraj reminds me of Helen Daniels, an old character from Aussie soap “Neighbours” – solving all the social problems of the village!

Another nice sunset over the village

I tried to check my internet on Jhabraj’s computer, which has dial-up internet. I haven’t heard the screeches of an old phone modem for many years! Unfortunately it was very slow and couldn’t load Yahoo Mail. It really didn’t like Facebook either. Other pages loaded but very slowly. Still, to get internet at all out here was a surprise! We went to bed pretty early.

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Would you like to stay in Karmidanda village with the Neupane family? Read on…

Jhabraj at home

If you are thinking of viisting Nepal and would like to do a homestay with Jhabraj’s family and see his village, or you need an experienced trekking or private tour guide, Jhabraj is very happy to accommodate you. He can do tours anywhere around Nepal and for trekking, he is very experienced and a safe, responsible guide, having guided on all the major Nepali treks multiple times as a guide (including the popular Everest, Annapurna and Langtang treks). It is also possible to do some spectacular trekking in the Langtang area from his village area so you could always combine a homestay with a trek. Jabraj charges very reasonable prices, he speaks good English, and you couldn’t meet a friendlier, more interesting and hospitable guy! Your enjoyment, satisfaction and safety are his primary concerns. Money that Jhabraj earns from visitors and clients goes towards the higher education of his children, which is extremely expensive for a village family. If you want to hear more, please contact me via this website and I will put you in touch with him. Highly recommended!

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Would you like to help Jabraj’s village community of Karmidanda? Read on…

Like many outlying villages in Nepal, the village Karmidanda is extremely poor and the community has many serious problems as a result. Almost all the families here are in a lot of debt, living on the breadline on the meagre earnings they can eke out – most are farmers. Other avenues of work are simply not available up here and most families cannot afford to put their children into higher education to improve the cycle. Public welfare does not really exist in Nepal and the area only has one health clinic staffed by volunteers and supplied by charity. If a villager requires hospitisation the villagers have to pool together to get enough money to pay for an ambulance to take the patient 5 hours to Kathmandu and also pay the expensive hospital treatment fees, if they can afford it. The village school was built thanks to charitable efforts but staff wages are low, equipment and resources are always scarce and there are not enough teachers for the number of students. These are just some of the problems that the community has – yet despite the difficulties the community spirit is amazing here, people help each other, they have a smile on their face and they are welcoming and friendly. If you think that you can help with donations, volunteering (incuding English teaching at the school) or charitable projects, please get in touch. Jhabraj has many contacts and can direct you to the right people so you know your money or resources are going directly to the local community and no share is going into anyone elses’ pocket. Some charitable efforts have also been started by foreign visitors who have visited Jhabraj and decided to help the community of Karmidanda – please check out the following websites: (links coming soon!)

Shiba’s Traditional Nepali House

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Alan Stock

Day 50 – Pokhara Region, Nepal.

19/10/12

Today I had a nice surprise, a visit to a local Nepali house to see the tradional lifestyle. My choice of a quiet place paid off and I slept for about ten hours, playing catchup after the terrible sleeps I’d had on the trek. Whilst I was having breakfast Shiba arrived on a motorbike. The previous day he’d invited me to visit his house. This morning he was in town anyway so dropped by to see if I wanted to join him. As my Swiss friends were off to the Pagoda today, which I’d already seen, I had no plan and so hopped on Shibas motorbike (which he borrows from a friend), and set off through Pokhara. We stopped for him to pay his electric bill, the reason for his visit, and then went out of Pokhara on the usual beeping, swerving experience of motorbiking in Nepal.

At the next town, maybe an hour away, we stopped a few times for Shiba to shop, whilst I wandered around. At one stop I found a football match with lots of spectators. One side was all black men so maybe another country’s team was visiting. Shiba tied some chicken wire to the back of the bike, for his neighbor. At another stop I was waiting in a bus shelter and a friendly old man chatted to me in simple English. When he found out I was British he started listing footballer names. I said I lived in Manchester and had seen Man United play which made him incredibly happy. I got the impression maybe he thought I played for the team or knew them personally!

We headed out of town into the countryside, passing lots of people in their best clothes heading to a nearby temple, as part of the Daisain festival celebrations. The women wore bright green or red saris sparkling with gold and silver. The road got rougher as we wound through flat rice fields and past the temple which had a big marquee outside with singing blasting from the loudspeakers. Sometimes kids would wave as we went past, we were definitely off the tourist circuit here.

The road went up along the valley side and we were constantly dodging potholes, buses and Nepali tractors. We descended into the next valley which was covered in rice fields. We had a near miss as Shiba turned down onto a dirt track and nearly smacked us against a wall. He clearly doesn’t ride the bike too often! This track wound through the rice fields and was very rocky and hard going as the bike passenger. On one section I had to get off as the bike wasn’t powerful enough to get up the slope, and when I got back on afterwards it toppled, nearly squashing us. We passed locals carrying grass and sickles, and Shiba greeted them. Soon we reached a collection of houses near the road and we stopped. I gratefully got off, my legs were killing me after being in a straddle position for two hours.

Shiba led me down to his house which was a basic affair similar to the ones we’d seen in the mountains, with a dusty porch, an outside water tap and a buffalo in an attached shed, whose eyes opened in alarm when she saw me.

Shiba’s two sons, 6 and 12 years old, plus another 6 year old friend greeted me, followed by Shiba’s wife.

His house was surrounded by rice fields and looked out to the valley with a nice view. After some hot buffalo milk from his buffalo, Shiba’s neighbor arrived who was a local IT teacher and spoke English. After chatting with him, Shiba and his wife went to work on their couple of rice fields, collecting the rice to dry.

I offered to help but Shiba was having none of it and tasked his 12 year old son to give me a tour of the area. His son spoke very good English for his age, and led me through the rice fields to the river in the valleys middle, telling me about the local people and his life. He was at private school, paid for by his father, and liked maths and science. He climbed a guava tree and picked us some juicy but bitter fruits to eat.

He did very well in his exams and wanted to show me!

The rice paddies in the field weren’t ready for harvest yet and their muddy soil had little puddles. The fields were alive with grasshoppers everywhere. We found a little fish in one, who wouldn’t be around for long as they were drying up. At the river was a small white stork.

In a field nearby, we passed a local man who was threshing rice, who greeted us. We watched as he battered big clumps of it on the ground, dislodging the rice from the stems.

AlanStock-1060786

Up by the road we a family working together, who said hello. One guy carrying a massive load spoke English and let me take his photo.

Shiba’s son led me up the hill behind their house where we had nice views of the surrounding valley. We munched on a packet of instant noodles which he ate like crisps. Surprisingly as they were flavoured they weren’t too bad!

Up by a house in the woods a man called out to us and came jogging along the path. He wanted to invite me to have tea at his house, and he spoke English too. We went up to his house and chatted a bit, he lived there with his wife and son and although he was quite rich and owned two other houses elsewhere, he preferred this one as the air was clean outside of the city.

He offered that I could stay the night if I liked, and that he’d had an American stay last year. I got a call from Shiba saying that lunch was waiting for us so I had to apologise to the man and make a move, after taking some photos of him and his family.

These local kids came to say hello on the way down.

Back at Shibas we had some noodles and biscuits. Shibas sons messed around and I joined them to watch some TV in Shibas bedroom. Then I showed them some photos on the computer which they loved. The camera was also fascinating to them.I spent a while transferring photos from the trekking to Shibas memory card so he could have them, as the kids played around me and messed around with my Kindle Touch which they loved.

By this point Shiba and his wife had made a good stack of rice to dry and he put a flower on top as a blessing. After a few days of drying, they’d get it taken to the local mill for shelling, and then it could be sold. He told me that rice is quite expensive to produce and hard work, without a great deal of profit.

Me and Shiba’s son chatted and he mucked out the buffalo, which wasn’t scared of me any more now she was used to me. She was a very friendly buffalo and the kids could hug her and run and hide behind her with no problems. We ate yet another meal, homemade roti (circular flat breads) with honey. This was prepared in a simple kitchen.

Upstairs was a nice loft full of drying corns. All water, drinking and otherwise, came from the outside tap, which Shiba pays a set price for water. The water is boiled for drinking. With my sunglasses on I joked I was a policeman. Shiba brought out a passport soon afterwards and said I could have it and maybe I could get him into the UK. I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not but tried to explain I wasn’t in any position to help him. I wondered if the hospitality was so I could help get Shiba into the UK, as it’s very hard for Nepali to get in. Even if this was the case they were still a very nice family and I wouldn’t have begrudged them for it.

The sun was getting low and I had to get back. The motorbike ride in the dim light was pretty hairy. The bike stalled quite a few times leaving us wondering if we’d have to walk. Then we got stuck behind a bus trailing so much dust we could hardly see. Then it started raining and the roads became slippy, made worse by the darkness making it very hard to see potholes and speed bumps. As we entered Pokhara the traffic became very busy and we had some near misses with traffic, especially at a chaotic roundabout which was a free for all. There weren’t street lights in many parts of town and people would just walk out into the road in front of you. Some other vehicles had no lights and would suddenly appear out of nowhere. We got to my hotel in one piece and I gave Shiba a donation for petrol and to buy his kids some treats. I thanked him for giving me a nice insight into the lives of the locals.

Later I met Anja and the guys for dinner. They’d had a nice day up at the Peace Pagoda and then at the Tibetan refugee camp I’d visited before, although Nick had a Tibetan friend so they’d been able to meet the locals there. We returned to their hotel to drink and play dice.

Despite my protests he still wanted to show off his action hero skills!

Alan Stock Photography

My travelling (mis)adventures. It's ok to cry.

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