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HIKES IN THE HIMALAYANS LIVES UP TO THE HYPE; NO CONTACT WITH 'FOREIGN-FRIENDLY' REBELS

By MARK WAITE
SPECIAL TO THE PVT
Editor's note: This is our latest installment on former Pahrump Valley Times reporter Mark Waite, who this week writes from the troubled but beautiful Nepal.

KATHMANDU, Nepal -- The graffiti on the power pole read, "Long live Marxism, Leninism, Maoism." Further down the hike appeared more graffiti that read, "Long live people's war."

That, fortunately, was as close I got to a face-to-face meeting with the Maoist rebels fighting the Nepali government while I was on a recent hike in the Himalaya mountains.

I was told at one point in my trek I would venture into an area frequented by the Maoists. But other trekkers said they would confront me armed only with a receipt book, soliciting a donation. The usual donation was 1,000 Nepalese rupees, a little more than $14.

According to a fairly recent cover story in Time magazine (April), the Maoist rebellion against the Nepali government has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people since 2001. The conflict shattered the image of Nepal as a Himalayan Shangri-la with spectacular mountain scenery - and poor but friendly people who greeted hikers with "namaste," the local word for hello, as they walked by.

An Indian man on the train from New Delhi to Gorakhpur, near the Nepali border, urged me to go instead to an Indian hill station in the Himalayas, specifically, he mentioned Nainital. But Iriel, an Israeli tourist on the train headed to a Passover reunion with other Israelis in Kathmandu, said confidently, "I am 100 percent sure it is not as dangerous as Israel. I live in Israel, I work in Israel, I am not afraid."

An ominous news report the day before told about a bus that struck a land mine; killing five people and injuring numerous others, including two Russian tourists.

Three of us foreign tourists chartered a taxi for about $14 for the two-hour ride to the India-Nepal border. A long line of trucks signaled we were near the border, the truck drivers could've been stuck trying to cross into Nepal, since Maoist rebels declared an 11-day strike the first part of April that was widely honored around the country.

I easily obtained a Nepali Visa at the border for $30, payable in U.S. currency. I then found out what looked like a straight route north from the border to the popular trekking base of Pokhara would in fact be a two-day roundabout route by bus in a convoy escorted by the military due to the strike. Instead I opted for a $67 flight on Buddha Air, leaving out of Gautama Buddha Airport - the birthplace of Buddha was in Lumbini, 12 miles from the border town of Bhairawa. A military official stopped me from photographing the name of the airport.

Pokhara Lakeside, a clean tourist enclave near Phewa Lake, resembled an area that had been definitely overbuilt for tourism. Numerous, empty shops lined the streets. Nepalis were celebrating the start of their new year in mid-April, but the month wasn't the only thing different from most of the world. To them it was the year 2062.

The celebration was marked by live music and dancing at a lakeside park. The shops in the Lakeside district were obviously built when tourist numbers were much higher. At my hotel a travel guide didn't waste any time getting me interested in hiring a guide for an eight-day hike called the Jomsom trek, an abridged version of the also famous Annapurna trek, which is an 18- to 19-day trek. The word trekking itself is a Nepali word.

The Jomsom trek includes the last part of the Annapurna, around the Annapurna range, picking up right after the most difficult part, 19,552-foot Thorung La Pass. A guide would cost me $10 per day, but he would pay for his own food and lodging. I thought it could be handy having a Nepalese guide in case of any encounters with Maoist rebels, robbers, or an accident en route. I had to obtain a permit to enter the Annapurna Conservation Area, at a fee of just under $30.

I booked an airplane ticket for $64 to Jomsom, to start the trek in reverse at 8,800 feet, an option many hikers took. The plane ticket for my Nepali guide was only $17 on Gorkha Air. There were some interesting names for airlines in Nepal including Cosmic Air and Yeti Air.

My guide wasn't too concerned when we were still standing at the hotel waiting for a taxi 15 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. I found out why. I was told we were lucky to get out that morning on the first try; flights are sometimes postponed for two or three days due to weather. We took off after 9 a.m. and flew low through a valley between towering mountains.

Jomsom, on the dry side of the Annapurna range, looked like the most impressive Colorado skiing town. Only Nilgiri Mountain, at 22,948 feet, was a third higher than the Rocky Mountains, as if God decided to take the highest peaks in the Rockies and supersize them in Nepal. The sign at the checkpost in Jomsom reported the number of permits issued for the Annapurna Conservation Area dropped almost in half - from 76,407 in 2000 to 38,642 by 2002, obviously due to the political turmoil. The 2002 figure, however, is still about 100 hikers per day average for the Jomsom trek, the Annapurna trek and the hike to Annapurna Base Camp.

October is the peak month for travel in the Himalayas due to the good visibility after the summer monsoon rains; 4,244 trekkers took out permits in October 2003, 141 per day. The 2003 permit figures, the latest ones posted, were about equal to 2002.

It was a short, three-hour walk the first day through a dry riverbed to Kagbeni, the first overnight stop on the trek. The travel agent said most days I'd walk five hours average, to avoid getting too tired to enjoy the scenery. It made sense. Kagbeni was typical of some of the charming towns I'd encounter on the upper part of the trek, with stone streets and buildings.

There were Tibetan prayer wheels at the entrance and a portal for horse riders to duck under. A pair of young Tibetan monks blew conch shells at sunset.

Bells under the donkeys forming mule trains woke me up in the morning. Many of the goods were shipped up the valley by an amazing number of horses or donkeys and by porters, on human backs. The second day was a hike to Muktinath, at 12,630 feet the highest point on the trail, stopping before the climb to Thorung La Pass. The snowcapped peaks looked close enough to touch. Pilgrims hiked up to the Hindu temple in Muktinath. A sign at the temple gave encouraging words: "May God Muktinath fulfill your wishes. May your journey to Mukti region become prosperous."

On the way back down to Jomsom and downward, I noticed a lot of households had Tibetan souvenirs for sale outside. It seemed also like virtually every guesthouse had a large photo of Lhasa, Tibet or the Potala, Lhasa's famous temple. The Kala Gandaki, the river valley below leading downward most of the hike, is the world's deepest river gorge. The hike through the stony river valley in dusty winds wasn't the most pleasant trek however, not like the typical American hike where after parking at the trailhead, trekkers walk up through forest to a scenic overlook.

My guide and I thankfully walked past the Internet provider in Jomsom; that was one of the trappings of civilization I came to get away from. But the food, thanks to the thousands of trekkers on the popular route, was at times as tasty as back in the city. In the also quaint village of Marpha I dined on yak steak, served with French fries on a sizzling platter. The mildly intoxicating apple cider was a refreshing way to warm up at the 8,667-foot altitude. The woman managing the Neeru Guest House in Marpha said residents were concerned about talk the government was building a highway up the valley; I said it would attract a different type of tourist who would ride a bus or car to see the scenery. A German man working for the Annapurna Conservation Area project explained some of the projects they built using funds paid by hikers for the permits. They just finished building a waste incinerator outside Marpha, he said.

As I continued downward from Marpha, there were magnificent views of Nilgiri mountain to the left and Dhaulagiri Mountain, 26,542 feet tall, to the right, Nepal's eighth tallest mountain. The apple blossoms were in bloom in the foreground, completing the scene. Big mule trains came up and down the valley. We also walked over the first two long suspension bridges over the river.

By the fourth day I felt the blisters on my feet and the arthritis in my hips. The rising sun started to make me dread another day of hiking. But the scenery continued to make up for the discomfort. The hike downward from Kolopani into the gorge looked deeper than Yosemite Valley. The long hike below to Totopani at 3,864 feet was soothed by a dip in the hot springs afterwards; toto pani means boiling water in Nepali. The good food continued, from boneless chicken with chili at Kolopani, to a bean and cheese burrito next to a waterfall for lunch, to lasagna stuffed with shredded chicken for dinner at Totopani. It was hardly like roughing it on a campout.

A donkey traffic jam held up the hike leaving Totopani in the morning. But soon after leaving town, my guide and I veered left into a different river valley where it would be a long, seven-hour hike up to Ghorepani, at 9,262 feet. It was finally a quiet, hiking trail without pack mules or horses.

It was here I was told I might encounter Maoists. The brilliant red rhododendrons were in bloom on the trees farther up. The people at the lower elevations were Aryans similar in appearance to people in India and with the tika mark on their forehead of the Hindus, unlike those further up who had an Oriental Tibetan look and were Buddhist.

One of the highlights of the Jomsom trek is the viewpoint at Poon Hill at sunrise, from 10,400 feet. The sign at the Snow View Guest House in Ghorepani listed the time of sunrise, 6:00 a.m., and the time estimated to walk to Poon Hill, 45 minutes. The afternoon clouds dissipated and blue skies were in view at daylight the next morning. Unfortunately, the hazy conditions from the valley below made the snowcapped peaks like 23,461-foot Annapurna South, 22,727-foot Macchapuchchhre and Dhaulagiri look like they were drifting in mid-air; better to come during October for a clearer view I thought.

After sunrise most of the tourists went back down for a long day of hiking, except for an Aussie couple -- the Aussie guy at one point posed for his girlfriend on a nearby meadow wearing only a knit cap for a "best butts contest" on the Internet.

The terraced fields rose up steep mountainsides on the way down. I calculated on the last day of hiking I had spent $43 per day, hardly a cheap trek. While rooms at the guesthouses were $2-3 per night, the bill after a day of breakfast, lunch and dinner along with a room came out to about $20. The guide was $10 per day, then there was the cost of the flight and the permit.

I wondered whether there was another strike called, and if so would I have to walk all the way back to Pokhara. Trekkers on the Annapurna circuit had to hike another 30 miles to get to the start at Besisahar due to the 11-day strike. Luckily, there was a bus for the 90-minute ride to Pokhara at the end of the trek's seven hour's walk below Ghorepani in Nayangul.

Some tourists actually regretted not meeting the rebels for the experience. I was told the rebels didn't harm foreign tourists whom they considered important to the economy of the local villages. A burned out bus, however, sat on the road soon after we left Nayangul, an ominous sign of the war. I sat in the back of the bus, thinking if we struck a land mine the passengers in front would bear the brunt of the blast.

The Annapurna trek seemed quite doable after the Jomson hike, thanks to the comfortable guesthouses and tasty food. It would be great to spend a few days resting up at the charming mountain towns en route, which I'd no sooner rush through than I'd run through the pearly gates.

Like many Nepalis, my guide wanted to leave Nepal. He claimed it was his first trek as a guide in three months due to the downturn in tourism. On the bus ride from Pokhara to Kathmandu I passed a few of the military checkpoints; the bus had to zig-zag around razor-wire barricades in the road, past sandbagged bunkers manned by vigilant, heavily-armed soldiers. The military came on board the buses armed with automatic weapons; most Nepalis got out of the bus to walk through the checkpoints. Foreigners were seldom bothered or even asked for identification.

Kathmandu, a city of two million, has long been famous among those who choose Asia to do their backpacking. It was the end destination for the Magic Bus that traveled overland from London to Kathmandu back in the hippie days in the 1960s and '70s. A central meeting spot for those overlanders was Durbar Square in Kathmandu, now a World Heritage Site where foreigners are required to pay about $3 to enter.

Instead of hippies sitting around the nine-layered steps of Maju Dega in the middle of the square, young Nepalis were surveying the scene of women selling produce and flowers, rickshaw drivers ringing their bicycle bells to get through the crowd, porters carrying heavy loads on their backs and a few colorful Sadhus or Hindu holy men with painted faces trying to entice foreign tourists to take their pictures for a tip. Durbar Square has a number of temples around the grounds, built from the 12th to 18th century. A boy urinating in his sleep on the step below me ended my reminiscing about those old days on Durbar Square.

The Pashupati temple is the holiest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. Bodies were placed at the ghats along the Bagmati River waiting to be cremated. A guide persuaded me to hire him for $3. He showed me the series of phallic symbols inside the various shrines on one side of the river called lingas, the holy men living in the temple and other sights.

A symbol of Kathmandu is the eyes and nose of the Boudhanath stupa, a Buddhist temple that's a short walk through a poor neighborhood from Pashupati. Tibetan pilgrims spun the prayer wheels while walking clockwise around the round stupa. Tourists were told it was mandatory to walk clockwise. The stupa measures 130 feet tall. The grounds were filled with souvenir shops. The rickshaw driver taking me back to my hotel maneuvered through jam-packed, narrow streets to the Thamel district, the tourist enclave in Kathmandu.

The nearby resort of Nagarkot, at 7,150 feet, up in the pine forests above Kathmandu Valley, was touted as a good viewpoint to see the Himalayas. However, the snowcapped panorama depicted on the postcards was nowhere in sight due to the haze in late April. I had to get close to the mountains for that view this time of year.

I was bitten with the trekking bug. I had to take another hike to see these impressive mountains. A friend recommended the Langtang trek, a shorter hike accessible by a bus trip from Kathmandu. I bought a permit to enter the park for a little more than $14 and hopped on a local bus. The 10-hour trip was along mountainsides, on bumpy roads so rutted and for the last few hours my hair raised on my neck out of nervousness. I started petting a goat standing in the aisle of the bus that someone brought on board. I petted the animal, but my eyes were focused on the cliffs below.

There were seven checkpoints on this bus ride. The 110-mile trip to Diunche, the entrance to Langtang National Park, took nine hours. A military officer sternly scolded some Israeli tourists who attempted to walk past the office or complained about paying the 1,000-rupee entry fee.

The Langtang trek unfortunately lacked some of the conveniences of the Jomsom trek. There were no rooms with attached bathrooms. There were Asian squat toilets down the hall instead of the western sit down variety. Hot water was usually lacking. There was no meat or chicken on the menus, which were bland concoctions of macaroni, pasta or spaghetti mixed with vegetables, eggs and perhaps cheese.

Then there was the Nepali national dish, dal bhat, a large helping of rice wettened with a bowl of lentil soup and usually green beans, potatoes, chilies and peas on the side. The price of food seemed to increase as I walked farther up the valley, the price of beer increased from 150 rupees (a little more than $2) at the start, to 208 rupees, 220 rupees, finally 250 rupees at the end. That's because porters have to be paid to carry the food to the hungry trekkers up the mountains.

My guide, who I hired off the bus, offered to lead me on the trek for 500 rupees per day, $7 U.S. He would pay his own food and lodging, though it seemed the guides had a network of guesthouses where they stayed. I concluded he probably didn't have to pay one rupee. My guide eventually also offered to carry my daypack. It wasn't necessary to carry a huge backpack since food and blankets were available at the guesthouses.

The rain began to fall heavily by early May as we left the Friendly Guest House at Lama Hotel, in a town 8,100 feet in the mountains. Beautiful waterfalls descended down steep cliffs as we climbed up to Ghora Tabela at 9,750 feet, a scene that almost resembled Yosemite National Park. My guide always walked to the left side of the mani stones, a collection of big stones with Tibetan writing in a form of altar at various places on the trek, in keeping with the clockwise motion.

We pushed on to the end of the trek that we reached roughly eight hours later at Kyanjing two days later. It is known as a place a fellow traveler described as "the most beautiful place on earth" at 12,675 feet. The next morning, as skies cleared, I realized why he made the statement. The valley was ringed with huge, snowcapped peaks topped by Langtang Lirung right above it at 23,556 feet. A hike two hours up to a bunch of Buddhist prayer flags atop Kyanjin Ri peak at 13,975 feet also revealed splendid views across the valley of 18,990-foot Naya Konga, 20,757-foot Gangchhenpo and Ganga La Pass, a 16,640-foot pass trekkers climb on the Helambu trek between Naya Kanga and Pongen Dopku, a 19,272-foot mountain.

The sun failed to warm the chilly mountain air. A major pastime was sitting in the dining room next to the pot-bellied stove that was kept stocked with wood as the Tibetan woman who ran the guesthouse hummed a tune and knitted a sweater. The kitchen was also warm, next to an earthen oven and stove where a boy was cooking thick Tibetan bread or momo, a turnover-like food stuffed with vegetables.

Most tourists were visiting Sagarmatha National Park, as Nepalis call Mount Everest, flying from Kathmandu to Lukla for $190 roundtrip, then hiking two days to Namche Bazaar, the home of many of the Sherpas on the Everest expeditions. From there it's a tough, four-day hike to Kala Pathar, at 18,021 feet, where they have the best possible view of the world's tallest peak near Everest Base Camp.

I decided not to pay for another plane fare. My guide and I eventually got back down through the rain from the upper Langtang Valley to the highway again and the terrifying bus ride back to Kathmandu. A slogan on one bumper of a bus that read "slow drive long life" seemed appropriate. But as I left I thought of another slogan I saw on some of the guesthouses: "Come as a tourist, leave as a friend."

Luckily I got through the troubling news reports to visit this country, long a favorite among many world travelers. I knew I had left as a friend of the warm, hospitable Nepali people.

Media Center
Nepal Tourism Board
Tourist Service Center
P.O Box: 11018
Bhrikuti Mandap, Kathmandu, Nepal
Hotline Telephone No:977-1-4225709
Ph.977-1-4256909 (Ext. 181/182)
Fax. 977-1-4254298
email: mediacenter@ntb.org.np
URL: www.welcomenepal.com

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