In May 1999 I spent two and a half weeks in Nepal with a group of students and professors from NC State. We were there for more academic than tourist purposes, because the trip took place as the first stage of the inaugural Four Worlds trip. So in that context, we spent our time taking a look at some of the political, cultural, and environmental aspects of the area.
Nepal is a beautiful country, just based on the little that we saw and the small number of people with whom we got to interact. While traveling there from the states can be quite expensive, even this small experience so far from my own country was startlingly illuminating.
Overview
Our voyage began a few days after the end of the spring semester. Our flight
plan took us from Raleigh to Detroit to Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi to Kathmandu.
After visiting Kathmandu for about three days, we flew on a much smaller plane
up to Lukla, a town in the mountains with a (liberally interpreted) landing
strip.
There are no cars, bikes, or even roads in the mountains, so we spent
the next ten days hiking to various villages and participating in some
educational activities. After our tour of the Himalayas, we flew back to
Kathmandu for a couple of days and then returned home to the US, taking the same
route (but this time skipping Abu Dhabi).
I kept two travel journals on the trip. One journal was for me, just personal stuff, and the other journal was for the academic portion of the trip. (It had to have an entry every day and had to discuss certain topics.) If the info from these becomes relevant, I'll include a quote and link to the rest of the entry. I am having a lot of fun rereading these journals, so I'm inclined to put them here for you to enjoy as well.
Kathmandu and the city
The first thing I saw of Nepal was the city of Kathmandu as our plane flew overhead to land at the international airport. The buildings seemed like little scale architectural models because they were so different from the buildings I am used to seeing in the United States or even western Europe : these buildings were mud brick and stucco, multiple-story creations that looked delicate and run down as they hovered on the banks of dry rivers and busy streets.
After filling out our visa applications in the airport, we walked outside and boarded a bus as our bags were hoisted on top. A small crowd of little kids offered to help us carry our luggage (for a small price, of course) and I remembered thinking of the India Mahal (an Indian restaurant in Raleigh) as I smelled the city air outside the airport. Trash littered the sides of the street as our bus lurched down the thoroughfare and honked its way past bikers wearing dust masks and little bicycle rickshaws weaving through the traffic. On the side of the road sat dogs, cows, and people as we traveled past little food shops and clothing stores.
Our little bus beeped its way through street after narrow, unpaved, dirty street. We passed gobs of people—I in my A's cap, they in their simple pants & shirts (simple, but very cool !) and bare feet. New smells wafted in from the window as guys on bikes zipped around past the little taxis honking their horns. more »
From the moment I stepped off the plane, I was thunderstruck. Having only seen some of the United States and a wee part of western Europe, my thoughts revolved around cleanliness for my first gaping 30 minutes in the bus. Clouds of dust and exhaust polluted the air, the rivers and streets were littered with paper, plastic, and other stuff, and everything seemed filthy and apathetic. I, on the other hand, felt excessively clean. It was a weird feeling. But as I got a little more used to the city, the dirt felt more welcome and my cleanliness seemed all the more obtrusive.
Despite the general disorganization, there were a few outposts of what looked to me like more normal civilization.
Religious buildings
The Himalayas
The tallest mountain range in the world is one thing to read about and another thing to see. Even photos don't really capture the vast massive solidity of these chunks of rock, the steepness of the slope that leads on one side to a churning, milky river far below, and on the other to the heavens far above. The Himalayas are home to the world's highest mountains, with Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) towering up above them all at somewhere around 8 848 meters (29 500+ feet) above sea level.
Monasteries and other religious outposts
Peace on the trail
A part of the trip that I found really enjoyable was the sense of peace that the mountains seemed to produce from deep within the earth.
Arts and the environment
One of my particular interests in the trip has to do with the way people approach the arts in Nepal, particularly the visual arts. I had imagined a country full of dull earth tones, one that is barren and void of scenes that one might see in a Michaelangelo or Monet piece. While this was not entirely false, Nepal definitely surprised me on many occasions in this area.