Our latest trip to the Himalaya; Part 1 Nepal

I had made the arrangements over the internet, we were to meet a guy at Indira International Airport in Delhi who would have tickets for our connecting flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. I was a little apprehensive that it would actually work out, especially as we were an hour late landing. Getting through immigration had also taken an age, we usually sprint off the plane to get pole position in the queue but this time Lucy our one year old daughter was with us and things always take four times as long when you have a young child in tow.

We fought our way out of the arrivals section, past all the taxi drivers, taxi driver's mates and their mates and found our way to the departures section upstairs. I needn't have worried, there waiting for us was a well dressed young man with my tickets in hand. He'd been waiting for us for two hours, but in true Indian spirit he thought nothing of it.

We were soon back on a plane this time to Kathmandu, the dusty plains of Northern India were below us and to our left getting bigger by the minute were the magnificent snow capped peaks of the Himalaya. In just over an hour we were starting our descent into Kathmandu. We have flown this route many times but still the sight of the stepped cultivation terraces and mighty rivers filled our hearts with joy. My wife Laura probably loves Nepal even more than I do, but this time we noticed how bare the hillsides were looking, deforrestation has long been a problem in Nepal, there is a large and growing population with few natural resources so the trees are cut down to stove the cooking fires.

Landing in Kathmandu we met our first touch of Nepalese Bureaucracy, we had no photos for our visa application forms. We never bring a photo and as the visa exercise is just a way of earning foreign currency, there was always a cheery ' In Nepal this is No Problem !'from the official behind the Visa Desk. But this time we were told we did need one and were directed to a chair by a pillar, maybe post September 11 security had increased here too. By the pillar there was a small man with a large old fashioned camera which took four photos at a time, he was making a fortune as there was a long queue as at least half the foreigners on the plane had no photos. We waited our turn to sit on the chair, click the man took my photo and I waited for the polaroid to develop. I laughed when I saw the photo, he had cut off the top of my head, Laura's photo was just the same, maybe this wasn't to do with security after all.

Driving into Kathmandu we were quite shocked, we hadn't been to Kathmandu for two years and all the poverty, litter & pollution had got alot worse. We hadn't been back since the Royal Family had been murdered and the Maoist insurgency had got out of control. Nepal needed our help more than ever.

Kathmandu Street Scene

We spent the next week visiting our various suppliers who were all delighted to see us. We saw Mr Rashid and his family of embroiderers, he makes our superb embroidered T Shirts and showed us a new style of bag that he had been working on.

We visited Tsering , a Tibetan Lady, who looks after our knitters. As usual she invited us to her house for a Tibetan Feast, the food was excellent but we could only eat a small amount of the food that she produced. But the food is not wasted, it all gets eaten over the next week. Tsering showed us the new designs that the knitters were working on.

We went back to see our friends at Maghuti and Wean, two charities working with disadvantaged and destitute women in Nepal. They were making some beautiful Handmade Paper Notebooks and Photo albums which we snapped up and which have been selling very well.

We also dropped in on our old friends, The Nepal Paper Ladies who had been making us Beautiful Handmade Paper Lampshades. They sit under the tree, mix up the Lokta ( the plant which they use to make the paper) with Water and lay it out on a mesh to dry in the sun. The results are stunning.

We were sad to hear that on friend Jason had gone to Goa to try and sell things to the tourists as his Business in Kathmandu collasped due to the maoist insurgence. All our suppliers had told us now hard life had become with the insurgency and the corresponding lack of tourists.

Whilst we were in Kathmandu we also popped in to see our friend Tsering Lama who makes our wonderful Tibetan Zempo and Healing Incense. All the incense that he makes is handrolled and made from the finest natural ingredients, Tibetan Incense works like aromatherapy, each ingredient has an effect, the result is a very calming incense.

Whilst we were in Kathmandu it was the Tibetan New Year, this called for a visit to Bodnath Stupa the home of the Tibetan Community in Nepal. There was a big ceremony at which the whole Tibetan Community around Bodnath came. The monks brought their long Tibetan Horns and all the worshippers walked clockwise around the Stupa an auspicious number of times, this can vary from 7 to 101 times depending on the amount of merit the worshipper wishes to gain. On the Stupa itself a crowd gathered and began chanting, the chanting got louder and louder until it climaxed with all the worshippers throwing flour into the air. The air filled with a fine white powder, it reminded me of a documentary I had seen of the coral spawning.

At the end of our week in Kathmandu we were very excited as it was time for us to fly to Bhutan, a country I had heard alot about but we never had the opportunity to visit. Click here to read about our adventures in Bhutan.