Nepal is the home of Everest, and it's a world famous destination for adventure tourism. I live here and I love it, but not for those reasons. I've broken too many bones in the past by doing adrenaline sports - and I don't challenge myself that way any more.
I'm here because I can be useful and the people are wonderful. There is a sense of spiritual culture here that goes beyond other beautiful places I've been ( Brazil comes to mind....)
And yet, something went horribly wrong, for the second time this summer......
I was supposed to fly from Kathmandu to Bhairawa that day. I normally take the bus to the out-of-valley locations where I teach, but since I'm going to USA for a short holiday next week, I decided to splurge and take a plane. After I landed, there would still be the two-hour drive into the mountains....... but it would beat the ten-hour bus ride.
I'd been watching cyclone HudHud for a week. It sat there in the Bay of Bengal and whipped India's east coast. Five hundred thousand people of India became displaced and homeless. then it headed inland. On twitter I could follow the South Asia weather monsoon map. The storm was going to veer off into western Nepal.
The domestic terminal of Tribhuwan International Airport was clogged with foreign trekkers and the occasional Nepali grandma in traditional dress ( with iPhone of course....) and I sat next to one guy who told me he'd been waiting to get to the Lukla Airport (most dangerous in the world) and begin a trek in the Everest region. He was from San Francisco - and immediately I saw the stereotype - well-heeled Google-type with money to do adventure travel.
He showed me his map. He would travel without a guide or porter. He'd go to Everest Base Camp, then turn west, crossing three mountain passes of about 18,000 feet each, and two major glaciers, on a circle route.
"ever done glacier travel?"
"nope. shouldn't be too difficult."
"got an ice axe?"
"no."
"hmmm. Well, they'll find your body eventually. When the glacier spits it out in at the bottom in thirty years." I thought back to an old friend who once travelled here to retrieve remains of a relative when his body re-appeared in that exact way. The Nepal government was kind enough to contact the family.
"ha ha," he said. He didn't really want to talk to me after that.
My own flight took off, but was unable to land and returned to Kathmandu. I got a full refund. we'll reschedule the training at the Medical School for later. If you want to read about my project in Nepal, click here.
It rained hard in KTM. And then we read the terrible sequelae of that same storm. It reached the mountains still laden with moisture and dropped it all right there. Lots of attention to the trekkers. Not a lot of mention of the three hundred children of God who died in India - but that's another story. Typical of western media.
Trekking in Nepal is a wonderful lifetime experience if you know what you are doing. But I look at the pictures and I 'm just not convinced that many of them were adequately prepared for what they were trying to do. I hate to say it, but anybody who is trekking solo here with no porter or guide, is courting disaster. And in fact, if you do a trek, developing a relationship with your trekking team is actually ones of the joys of the trip- the people here are wonderful. Sure, you can travel light - if the weather cooperates. But - this is strenuous physical activity in a remote area and there is nobody nearby who can rescue you.
There are three main religions in Nepal. Can you guess what they are?
All the books that make it into the popular Western consciousness of Nepal deal with the experience of foreigners in the Himalaya. The Snow Leopard. Into Thin Air. Three Cups of Tea (which was not in Nepal but in an adjacent area of the Himalaya...)
And usually, the literature focuses on "When and how did it all go so horribly wrong." But the problem is, most of the time the books focus on the foreigners with little mention of the twentyeight million people from here.
I admit, my own book starts out that way. The Sacrament of the Goddess begins on a trek near Dhauligiri (not far from Annapurna) during the recent civil war. A young guy goes on a trek by himself. Things go wrong. And then what happens........
But - it becomes something else after that - an exploration of Nepali culture as applied to health care. And the Nepali characters are three-dimensional, not merely in the background. at least, I tried to make it that way. I want people to actually know the real Nepal - not the adventurer's fantasy version.
We will hear more in the coming days about the trekkers and which ones died, which ones were saved, etc. And future travelers do need to be aware of the need for preparation and outdoor skill when they trek here. In the meantime, time to learn about Nepali culture and the actual issues of a beautiful country in the Developing World.
And while we are at it, my first book was nonfiction and told the story of my first trip to work in a hospital in Nepal. These days when I read about the Ebola challenges in West Africa, I realize that the average American has no idea as to how a hospital in a Low Income Country gets the work done.
So - my heart goes out to those trekkers. But there is more to the story....