After catching up on much needed sleep and ravaging the culinary excellence of Kathmandu, Niek and I were up for our next adventure. First we headed to my host family with whom I lived with for six weeks during my research this past May and June. They welcomed us with flower garlands, incredible meals and rituals that bonded us as family members. This was Niek’s first time meeting them and just like myself he could not believe the luck I had in landing in this good humored and easy going Nepali family in a small village on the edge of the Kathmandu valley. It really was like returning home.
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| Niek's Nepali moves |
Our arrival in the village was synced with Tihar, one of the week long Hindu festivals that run throughout the fall and on the day of our arrival honored Laxmi, the goddess of wealth. For Gyanu and Chiranjibi this meant that they had to perform extra rituals to honor the god, as well as mark Laxmi’s footprints leading to the top room of the house where the shrine for the house god resides. Some customs of the festival resembled Halloween with children coming to sing and dance for money and food at neighboring houses in the evening. Even Niek tried his best at Nepali dancing, which I thankfully captured on camera.
Throughout the villages giant bamboo swings were set up during the festival. These are fantastic temporary structures that help support the belief that everyone should leave this earth at least once a year. Some children had perfected the art of flying these swings to their maximum height with their small body weight and took full advantage of leaving this earth in a playful manner until other children started tugging with impatience for their turn.
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| Gyanu lifting off |
Sujen, my research assistant and good friend from my research period joined us the following day and we walked up the mountain to visit all the families together. It was fantastic to see how well everyone was doing and for some their living conditions had improved. I had been a bit worried whether a few of the girls had been married off since I was there, but fortunately all of them were still in school and smiling shyly at our little troop of visitors.
After two days of being swooned by Gyanu’s fantastic cooking and Niek and myself practicing our chapatti baking skills, we had one more significant family ceremony before it was time to leave for our trek in Langtang. The last day of the festival is to honor brothers, and through this ceremony Niek and I became bonded to Muna and Bibek, the two children of our host family as siblings. We went through an elaborate ceremony in which Bibek became my bhai (little brother) and Niek became Muna’s dhai (big brother). And so our family grows! Following the ceremony and with full bellies, bags full of snacks and lots of hugs, we departed to Langtang for 10 days of trekking.  |
| The brother- sister ceremoy |
Following NickNick
Niek has two nicknames in my family: one is Nikipedia and the other is NickNick, which is inspired by the Dutch car navigation system called TomTom. Before Niek walks out any door he has generally researched the route, the time it takes, the historical facts, the weather reports and any other essential information necessary. Lonely Planet guides are like bibles and are not to be left home without. I rely on his research a 100% and tend to be amazed at his thorough planning and incredible sense of detail on a daily basis. Unlike Niek, I have a tendency to fall out the door, find my way by getting lost, be fascinated by colorful and shiny things and ask any John Doe for directions with the hopes that John Doe knows what he’s talking about. Because of my tendency to neglect research, multiple times a day I ask Niek questions like: where are we going? How far is it? What’s the name of town? What’s the weather like? (even if he can’t check it), and what are the hotels like? Etc. He always answers patiently with as much detail as he can and sometimes reacts with amazement that I often don’t even look at a map. While most other tourists relied on guides, I relied on Niek who spurted out numbers, statistics, travel times and environmental changes within 30 minute intervals.
Finding Tibet in Nepal
Niek had chosen a trek that did not require flying or extensive travel because of our departure date to Bhutan. Flights here are often cancelled because of bad weather and we could not risk such a delay. This planning ended up being incredibly helpful because massive flight cancellations due to fog and bad weather ended up stranding 3500 people in Lukla, the gateway to Everest Base Camp during our trek. Luckily all we had to do was drive 6 hours to Dunche to start the trek and then we literally walked back to Kathamandu over the mountains, only to land a short taxi ride from central Kathmandu.The Langtang valley is a trek which is not as popular as the Anapurna Circuit or Everest Base Camp but still attracts a good number of trekkers every year. It is close to the Tibetan border and the people living in the area are largely Tamang, which are originally from Tibet but have lived in Nepal for many generations and speak their own Tibeto-Burman language. Buddhism is the predominant religion and prayer flags decorate mountain tops and Buddhist shrines and images of the Dalai Lama decorate homes.
Many small villages adorn the valleys and steep mountainsides and all are only reached through narrow and steep walking paths that have become a trekkers heaven. Tents are not needed because most villages have little guest houses with basic accommodation and excellent food that ranges from Dahl Bat, the traditional Nepali dish of rice, lentil soup and curry, to chowmein and western dishes. In Nepal these treks are called ‘teahouse treks.’ The guesthouses are run by families and for the nights you live there, you join in their family life and often sit with them in their small wood fire kitchen. Considering our passion for good (and lots of) food and lack of passion for our 2x4 meter tent, this is a brilliant way to venture into the outdoors without our bicycles for a change.
Journeys through family networks
Once you stayed in a lodge and got chatting with the owners we were caught up in a family reference network. Before departure we were handed a business card of the lodge and sent to the brother or sisters hotel a few towns further for lunch or sleeping. There we would catch up on family matters and then get sent on to the next relative in another village. After completing the Langtang valley we headed on the Tamang heritage trail which was not as frequented by tourists and there these networks were extremely efficient and even included phone calls and using us as promotion for lodges if we were to pass other trekkers heading in the opposite direction. The hotel owner where we had lunch one day told us at one point “when you keep going you are going to meet two Israelis. Tell them to come here!” Although electricity (if any) was solar and running water was often from a common tap or stream, most places had phones and used them to strengthen their lodge reference system.
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| Suntali, a 12 year old servant |
Surprising as well in these lodges was also that paying frequently worked on the honor system. Education is still difficult in these regions where the villages are small and it takes days to walk to the nearest road. Therefore many of the families that run the lodges cannot read, write or count. Standardized price lists exist and trekkers are left to calculate their own total, unlike in some of the bigger lodges, where sometimes a hired cook or manager was able to help manage the finances. Families in these remote areas are starting to realize the importance of education and I had many discussions with parents as well as youths about the difficulties they face in achieving education. Public schools are not reputed to offer good education and in these small towns teachers teach as a side job when they have time. Therefore many parents, if they are able, have to send their children to school in Kathmandu or to Dunche. This costs a lot of money and they only see their children a few times a year. Tourists have started to sponsor children to go to school for some families, but when parents don’t show up to pay the school fees themselves, parents struggle that the school does not respect the parents. Therefore many children and especially girls miss out on education and work the land or hotel with the family. In one lodge we stayed we met a young girl, by the name of Suntali (pictured above), who was a 12 year old Tamang servant girl to the lodge. She was hired on to wash dishes and her family was nowhere near because this village consisted of three little self- contained lodges.
Dereramro!
We hired a porter for our joint backpack as most trekkers do. What tourists do in the Himalayas with high-end equipment, these porters do in plastic sandals while carrying at least the luggage of one, if not two or three people. Our porter's name was Munu and was absolutely amazing. He was older than most porters, probably in his late thirties or early forties and has three sons. He was also Tamang and seemed to know someone in almost every village we passed through. Before we started the trek we ensured our mediator to hiring Munu that we would be covering larger distances than the average trekker to which he said “no problem!” (as every Nepali says to almost anything) without asking Munu himself. We often put two ‘normal’ days into one and thereby covering in 10 days a distance that may take other people at least two weeks to complete. Munu, with many “no problem!” (he did not speak much English) pulled through all of it with the help of us feeding him Snickers bars and Coca Cola on the really long days to keep the energy tank at least partially full.
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| Niek watching the clouds roll in from a nearby peak |
Because of his endurance, speed and strength, Niek bounced happily and with endless energy up and down these mountains with more to spare at the end of the day. A couple of times he climbed up extra peaks for shits and giggles while I retreated to drinking tea in front of fires. On one occasion I renamed a mountain to ‘unnecessary mountain’ and a trail to ‘the never ending trail’ as Munu and myself crawled up with many sighs, curses and hopes for an end in sight. Niek, on both occasions stood at the top ready to keep going and with the latest distance and altitude info by the time we arrived. The ‘never ending trail’ was one of our toughest days and had 2400 meters of elevation gain ‘Grouse Grind style.’ The Grouse Grind is a local Vancouver trail up Grouse mountain and has 750 meters of elevation gain over roughly 3 kilometers. It’s essentially one giant staircase through the trees and the ultimate Vancouver fitness test for many. It is a masochistic yet fantastic trail and both Niek and I are fans of timing ourselves whenever we visit Vancouver to see how we compare to last time. As a result, on this trek and because we know how difficult the grouse grind is comparatively, we measured everything here in ‘Grouse grinds’ in terms of distance and altitude gain. On multiple occasions I found myself saying “ok Carola, you have half a grouse grind to do before lunch.” For the ‘never ending trail,’ which we did in the hail, fog and cold, I thankfully did not realize until after that we essentially did the grouse grind three times at a higher elevation. Most people split this day into two for altitude acclimatization (we were already acclimatized) and because of its difficulty. At the end of these difficult days Munu and I would arrive roughly at the same time, sit down, declare a celebratory “finish!” and conclude with a content “Dereramro!” which means “Very good!” in Nepali. Considering his minimal English and his good sense of humor, dereramro became the slogan of our tour and almost anything in the end was ‘very good!’
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| A quick peak behind the clouds early in the morning |
Upon our return and one final ‘dereramro!’ we once again descended into Kathmandu ready to plunder buffets, fruit baskets, a taste of meat and sleeping in the warm sun.
Now after recharging the batteries we are ready for our adventures in Bhutan, the last kingdom of the Himalayas. It is time to unpack our bikes again and venture through a country where smoking is illegal, national dress is mandatory for work, TV and internet were only introduced in 1999 and where the main yardstick for the country's well-being is ‘gross national happiness.’
