The People of the LangTang Valley, Nepal

All photos by Francisco (F) and Jordan (J)

A boy outside his family's home (F)

Boys in the Dunche schoolyard (F)

A horse wanders by a woman washing clothes (J)

Sitting by the path, her village's fields beyond (F)

Serving Dahl to hungry travellers (F)

Our hostess in her kitchen (J)

Playing in the yard at Kyanjin Gomba (J)

Tamang woman at the door to her home (F)

A break for tea in the warm afternoon sun (J)

A 3-day hike into the village with supplies (F)

Carrying firewood up to the village (F)

Preparing the harvest (F)

Taking a break (F)

Porters working their way up a steep trail (F)

Helping mom shift the water supply (J)

Escape from Kathmandu - the LangTang Trek

Gasping for breath in the thin, cold air, I look up at the trail.  A series of jumbled rocks forming an impossibly steep, uneven stairway that twists and turns towards an unseen summit.  There has to be a summit.  Somewhere.  I mean come on.  We’ve been climbing for 5 hours.

 

“One foot in front of the other” I keep saying to myself.  “One step at a time.”

 


 

Our guide, Norbu Lama (known to his Canadian friends as Vishwa – wisdom of the universe) of Peak Endeavours Nepal had recommended a trek in the Langtang Valley north of Kathmandu on the Tibetan border.  It  is far less crowded than the more popular Everest and Anapurna treks, is considered relatively easy, and would get us onto the mountain trails quickly.

 It also has a strong cultural component.   The valley is home to the Tamang people who share language and lifestyle with the people of Tibet. 

 But as an office-bound, middle-aged Canadian with wonky knees I knew that it would be a challenge.  

 

The Road to Dunche

 

The first leg of the trip is a frightening, 8-hour, 120 km drive from Kathmandu to the village of Dunche. 

Yes, 8 hours.  The single lane ‘highway’ threads its way along steep-sided gorges, through grimy rag-tag villages and past cascading terraced fields so precise they appear to have been combed. 


 

 

Nearer to Dunche, the road rises steeply in tear-shaped hairpins sliced into near vertical cliffs high above a braided turquoise river. 

 

 

Where landslides have destroyed the roadbed, a bulldozer merely pushed aside some boulders to create a precarious passage that appears ready to collapse again under the weight of our vehicle. 



 

 

Despite a competent driver, solid Toyota “jeep” and relatively steely nerves, I still have to close my eyes, particular when we meet an overloaded bus and have to back up around a blind curve.

 

 

 

 

Lower Langtang

 The first day of hiking takes us on a steady climb out of Dunche to the ridge straddling town of Thulo Syabru where we visit a vividly painted temple and watch a vivid sunset paint the snow peaks of Ganesh Himal a vivid pink.

 

The second day is the most gruelling of the trip – hiking down 500 meters of elevation and then back up 700 meters over the course of 6 hours.  We feel for our big-hearted porter Tej who trudges along with both of our overloaded duffle bags on his back.

As gruelling as it seems, the scenery is spectacular – a mature, open, moss-draped pine and rhododendron forest spills down a narrow gorge of tumbled black stones towards a roaring white turquoise river – more beautiful than any movie set designer could conjure. 











Through the strong verticals of the forest, tantalizing glimpse of pristine snow capped peaks.   Langtan Lirung - at over 24,000 feet above sea level, isn't even one of Nepal's 10 highest peaks.

 

 

Our reward is the Ganesh View tea house at Remche – a dining hall and a row of tiny plank cells perched precariously on the side of the valley with a spectacular view of the ridges fading in shades of blue into the sunset.  (And solar-heated shower!)

Beyond Remche, it’s a somewhat easier climb past the unattractive jumble of competing tea houses at Lama Hotel and climbing out of the gorge at Gorha Tabela into the broad, U-shaped Upper Langtang valley.

Upper Langtang

The landscape changes significantly once the valley broadens out.  The trail emerges from the forest into an open, alpine landscape resplendent in the autumn golden browns, reds and oranges of late November.  The sense of open space is uplifting; the light is clear and white. 

All around us, the pristine shards of mountains whose names I can’t pronounce gaze at us over the black shoulders of lower ridges.  Occasionally, the thorn shrubs beside the path rustle – a yak reaches with its tongue to grasp the last green leaves.  Villagers bustle past with a pleasant ‘Namaste’, carrying heavy burdens of firewood, food supplies or office furniture. 

At this point, we’ve reached 3,000 meters (10,000 ft) above sea level and are warned of the dangers of altitude sickness – avoid overexertion, stay hydrated, don’t climb more than 300 meters in a day.

 

We spend a night in the bustling Langtang village in hut built of loosely fitted grey stones. By the time dark shadows of evening reach the snow peaks, the temperature slips below zero and there’s little to do but crawl into our down sleeping bags and sleep for 10 hours.


 

 

The final push brings us to the ‘top village’ of Kyanjin Gumba, at 12,700 feet above sea level (and thin air estimated to be ¼ atmospheric pressure).  It’s a cluster of tea houses and lodges that lives off of yaks, cheese and trekkers.   

We use this as a base of operations for the next 3 days, with day hikes up to the foot of the Langtang Lirung glacier, an expedition to the peak of Kyanjin Ri (15,750 ft) and a flat hike across an impressive alluvial delta (right) and up the valley to the lookout at Jatang. 

 

Our hosts are a happy young family – their two-year-old toddler making friends with all who happen by.  The accommodations are basic – we have to break the ice on the water barrel beside the squat toilet every morning to ‘flush’ and wash up.  The food is identical at every stop – local Dahl Bhat (lentils, rice and curried potatoes), pizza (cheese and ketchup on Tibetan break) or Chow Mein (noodles fried with vegetables). 


 

 

But it all adds up to a huge reward for having put one foot in front of the other for endless hours, trudging up steep slippery slopes with your eyes glued to the trail ahead. 

 

The penalty … now you have to trudge back down.

 

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Kathmandu - Exotic chaos

The very name of the city evokes an ‘edge-of-the-world’ exoticism that attracts misfits: Kathmandu, capital city of the mountain kingdom of Nepal. 

Nestled in a broad, fertile valley behind a wall of protective ridges, it remains isolated in many ways.





Once a city state at the caravan cross-roads between the kingdoms of India and Tibet, Kathmandu achieved its golden apex in the late 1600s when the Malla kings absorbed foreign influences and competed to build impressive palaces and temples.

Then in the latter half of the 1700s, Prithvi Narayan Shah, the ruler of the tiny hilltop kingdom of Gorkha, created “Greater Nepal” by conquering almost 50 other Himalayan states – building a bulwark that held the British Empire at bay and royal bloodline that survives to this day.

Modernization arrived slowly.  The Shah kings (and the parallel and even more powerful Rana family of Prime Ministers) kept the country isolated.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that a shaky democratic system was established, dismantled and re-grown.  A Maoist insurgency (and eventual government), the mass murder of the Royal Family in 2001 and rampant political corruption have kept Kathmandu and Nepal in a form of economic and social suspended animation for the past 2 decades.

Today Kathmandu retains an air of other-worldly, medieval exoticism – a stage set Spielberg would have dreamt up for the filthy outpost of some strange, eroded empire. 

Along the old city’s random tangle of dusty, narrow lanes, simple wooden shutters are all that separate the tiny, dark shops from the bustle of peddle carts, armies of revving kamikaze motor bikes and tentative taxis – brushing side-mirrors against the elbows of the pedestrian throngs.  


Behind those shutters, the city’s merchants good-naturedly bargain for every manner of goods and services. 



 

At Kathmandu’s heart is the glorious Durbar Square – a relatively calm pedestrian zone crowded with intricately decorated temples and towers, impressive statues and gates, and palaces from a range of eras protecting beautiful chowks (courtyards). 


 

• ·      -  The jewel-like Kumari Bahal palace – built by the Malla kings, still houses the prepubescent Living Goddess – who appears in at the intricately carved 3rd floor window at designated audience hours.
• ·      -  The erotic tantric carvings on the struts of the Jagannath Temple – guides are hesitant to point it out to women and children.

• ·      -  The Hanuman Dohka – a 1908 royal palace modelled on London’s National Gallery is now a dusty museum dedicated to the final, tragic Shah kings. 

• ·      -  My favourite was the nine-storey wooden Basantapur Tower – built in 1770 and decorated in intricately carved screens and  roof struts.  From the top floor, the king could survey the entire valley, ensuring all was well by checking chimneys for cooking fires. 

 

One of the pleasures of Kathmandu is exploring the blending of Bhuddism and Hinduism at impressive religious sites. 
 

We visited the Bodhnath (Boudha) Stupa, a massive, pristine-white structure rising from the centre of an oval square of narrow brick buildings. 

Masses of pilgrims - many in the maroon robes of monks, circumnavigate the base of the structure, spinning each of the 147 prayer wheels set into niches as they walk and chant. 

Above them, a perfectly proportioned dome is topped by a tall plinth where the mesmerizing painted eyes of Buddha gaze out from below a 13-tiered gilded tower.  Colourful prayer flags are strung from the highest point and flutter against a clear blue sky. 

 

These two sites, and the evocative Swayambhunath (monkey temple) that mixes Buddhist and Hindu iconography on a steep suburban hillside, are rare outposts of serenity amidst the filth, pollution and noise of this chaotic city.  A day or two and most visitors are ready to flee to the mountains.   

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Three Days in "the weather" - Trinity Bay Newfoundland

Our crumpled rain gear is hung to dry on a high hook in cozy yellow room.  On the high wooden bed, surrounded by worn rag-rugs, the colourful quilt provides a warm refuge after a day in the driving mist.  Through mullioned wooden windows, the stiff North Atlantic winds whip the dark waters of the bay into lively whitecaps.  Black clouds hang heavy over the village of brightly-coloured wooden blocks scattered like children’s toys over the folded landscape of the Bonavista Penninsula. 

It’s a soothing, cozy haven after a long day spent out in “the weather” – a true taste of the marvellous, terrible Newfoundland experience. 

We’ve come to Newfoundland for a quick visit – pairing an early June conference with a 3-day get-away.  Our base of operations, an easy 3-hour drive north of St. John’s is the colourful, random tumble of Trinity Bay.   The town was settled in the early 1700s, and while dozens of generations have drawn their livelihoods from the waters of the North Atlantic, little about the town appears to have changed.  

We’ve taken a room in one of the local homes that are collectively the Artisan Inn.  Barbour House is a wooden clapboard painted a jaunty blue-green that mocks the dark weather.  Tucked in behind, a burgundy outbuilding balances on pilings over the dark waters of the  bay; the Twine Loft is a lounge and restaurant that lovingly serves hearty breakfasts and finely worked, fixed-menu dinners to those wise enough to reserve weeks in advance. 

There was more than enough to keep us busy over our three days on the Penninsula. 

·         Trinity Bay boasts 7 historic sites – a museum of daily life, a grand brick mansion, a cooper’s shop, a fish-plant theatre all accessible on a $10 pass.  

·         A short drive away, at New Bonaventure, the set for the year 2000 miniseries Random Passage is preserved as a perfectly re-constructed outport from the early last-century.

·         In Port Union, the only union-built community in Canada, the historic factory district provides glimpses into life in a fish factory town, with picturesque workers’ housing, long-abandoned, melting back into the unforgiving landscape .

·         At Maberly, a short walk, along a cliff’s edge out onto a windswept promontory, brings you to a Puffin colony, where the comical potato-shaped birds with the rainbow beaks tumble out of their burrows into frantic flight, or crash land into the sea. 

·         At the tip of the Penninsula, a candy-striped lighthouse marks sturdy Cape Bonavista, site of explorer John Cabot’s landing.  Behind it, the jumbled town faces the full bluster of North Atlantic storms with weathered clapboard and billowing grasses.

·         At every headland, hiking paths lead hikers to cliff-top vistas – and an opportunity to spot majestic blue-white icebergs drifting down from the Greenland ice cap and humpback and minke whales following the capelin.

·         Around the Penninsula, top-notch eateries serve local delicacies to hungry travellers – the road-side Two Whales coffee shop specializes in Panini and soups, the Bonavista Social Club offers fresh-baked bread and scrumptious pizza with views of surf-pummelled headlands, Fisher’s Loft Inn serves exquisite fixed-menu dinners from a hilltop mansion.

Between each of these destinations, a well-kept ribbon of road – highway 230 – drifts through vast, crumpled forests of fir, larch and birch and by pristine fresh-water ponds edged in granite and shale.  Despite hundreds of years of waterfront settlement, development has yet to penetrate the interior.

Throughout our three day stay, the constant drizzle and strong easterly winds paint a hazy, gray picture of an outpost culture – gazing sadly out to sea, mourning the fish the government claims are no longer there, missing friends and children who have moved away to earn a living. 

The history of loss is starkly revealed on Bruce Miller’s intelligent Rugged Beauty Boat Tour out of New Bonaventure.  His open dory skims across the lively ocean swells and slips into Keyley’s Bay, Eye of Ireland and British Harbour  - all outports cleared in the 1950s and 1960’s by a government decree focused on increasing efficiency.  

Fifty years later,  only scattered jumbles of rotting wood mark homes where generations of Newfoundlanders lived.  But his stories bring the communities and their characters vividly to life: here’s where Uncle Joe set his nets, that’s where grandpa dried his cod on harbourside flakes, that’s where Auntie challenged the fish inspector’s grading of her husband’s catch, there’s the time the Great Uncle threatened to shoot a campaigning Joey Smallwood in the foot.  The humour, the love, the anger are constant threads that run through his colourful patter.

In only three days, we have immersed ourselves in the magnificent landscape of this small corner of the Rock, absorbed glimpses of a long history of humour and disappointment, and nestled into the warm embrace of rural Newfoundland hospitality.

On our last night, the Twine Loft serves us a hazelnut encrusted salmon and local root vegetables paired with a lovely Oregon Pinot Noir and sends us to our room with a contented glow.  (The Screech Chaser may have helped!)

Nestled under the quilt, the light off, we listen to the muted whistle of the wind and, imagining the stories that surround us, drift off to sleep.   

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To Chase a Thief - Milan

“Bastard!” I scream. 

He looks surprised. 

“Bastard!”. 

The well-dressed, 30-something gentleman with a round face and good haircut backs away from the front passenger door of our car, his tailored navy suit jacket draped casually over one shoulder – cradling something.  He says a word … to himself … in Italian … and turns to run.

Instantly I know what is happening.  My legs are pistons, my Doc Martens pounding the pavement.  I have power and speed and I am going to pulverize the guy.   I scream “Bastard! Stop Him! Thief, Stop Him!”  My voice ricochets off the tightly packed, grey buildings of this grey business district on the fringes of Milan’s grey downtown. 

Faces turn to watch – slouching taxi drivers gathering before the morning rush, sleepy tourists dragging wheeled carry-ons, the plump parking warden in an orange safety vest.  They watch … as I and then Fran dash after our quarry, turn the corner and disappear towards Via Tunisia.

We should have been suspicious.  As a word of warning to other travellers, here is how it unfolded. 

Seven in the morning and we’re headed to the airport.  The car is loaded and idling in front of our tourist-class Ibis hotel.  One of our companions has headed back into the hotel on one last errand and we are standing, stretching, breathing the warming morning air as the yellow sunrise highlights the top stories of a nearby tower. 

A well-dressed man in a small BMW pulls up and asks one of us for the way to Central Station.  We’re clearly tourists and point to the cluster of taxi drivers.  “Ask them”.  He seems oddly persistent, backing his car up a few feet.  “Central Station?” he repeats to the rest of us, lingering, confused before driving off.

Moments later we see him walking on the far side of the street, as if he’s looking for an address on a block-long, blank wall.  He glances our way.  “Weird guy” says Fran.  “He’s looking for Central Station?”

As we wait near the car, an older, slightly disheveled gentleman is suddenly standing beside us.  He says something and we lean in to see what he wants.  “You want taxi?  I can be here in 5 minutes”.  Used to touts, we politely say ‘no’… I turn to show him that we have a car and see ‘Central Station guy’ backing away.  Our companion had left her purse on the front seat and the door open.  He didn’t need more than the moment it took his accomplice to distract us to reach in and tuck it under his casually flung jacket. 

As I lunge towards him, he starts to run, dropping the purse on the sidewalk, unopened.  But that’s not enough for me.  I’m angry and want to hurt him.  We are fast, abandoning the car to our returning companion.  He is faster and has disappeared by the time we turn the next corner.

Disappointed, we reassemble and take stock.  We have the purse, passports and jewelry still inside, and our flight is only a few hours away.  Leave him.

But as we drive off, I spot him again, quaking, cowering in a doorway. 

The anger surges.  I want him… want to teach him a lesson.  I leap out of the car, and take chase again across Via Tunisia and down a side street.  An old man shouts to me and points down a narrow alley.  But my aging knee calls it quits, evaporating under me and I’m down, skidding on my arm across the hard, black pavement.  When I struggle to my feet he is gone. 

I’m pumped on adrenaline and talking a mile-a-minute when I get back to the car.  “Did you see the look on his face?  We gave him a real scare.  I feel like Tom Cruise.  It was like being in a movie”. 

The pain (and blood) from my roll on the pavement begin to register on our short drive to Linate airport.  So too does the steel-cold realization that he might have been armed; that catching him would have been far worse than letting him get away.  It was fool-hardy, chasing a frightened thief down an empty street in a city I don’t know.  I was lucky.  My guardian angel had tripped me up. 

The lessons are often repeated – keep your hands on your valuables.  Lock the car.  Don’t think that all thieves look like thieves.  Stay alert to behaviour that just doesn’t add up.  It doesn’t take more than a split second for someone to step between you and what you are watching … and it’s gone.  And today, a new one: while chasing a thief might scare him into dropping your valuables he may also be leading you into further dangers.  

I feel very lucky today.  Our thief didn’t get what he was after.  We had a huge adrenaline rush.  The road rash will heal.  And we have gained a little more travel wisdom.

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Venice is ...

Venice is a temptress.  At first glance, she beckons you from across the lagoon with tall, pyramid-topped campanile* and imposing grey stone domes. 

Her lacy 16th century palaces float daringly a mere meter above the lively waters.  Tempting public squares and lean, sinewy canals offer brief glimpses of deeper delights. 

As you arrive, her beauty mocks her fame – all photographs are mere caricatures.  The timelessness of what lies before you is dazzling. 

Tintoretto painted canals and palaces as backgrounds to his saints, Caneletto sketched postcards for 18^th century travellers.  And it opens before you, unchanged – solid Rennaissance palazzos shoulder-to-shoulder along the Grand Canal, barges and gondolas churn the green black waters, the serene arch of the Rialto bridge hovering over busy human activity.

Cooly demure under a warm sun, Venice is ancient and stunningly ageless.

  

Venice is enchanting. Turn away from the bustle of the canal-side Fondamente** and plunge into her haphazard, shoulder-width alleys.

In the endless maze of leaning gothic dwellings, hunch-back bridges vault lazy, turquoise canals.  Sudden turns may dead end or lead to unexpected squares fronting on massive stone churches. 

Amidst the cool half-light, random sunbeams spotlight tumbling amethyst wisteria and blood red geraniums.  Stand on the arched back of a bridge and feel the pull of curving canals and twisting streets, enticements to discover what treasures lie beyond.

Venice is unfathomable.  It takes time to link the glimpses you are offered, to get a broader sense of her many charms.  But you never achieve an all-encompassing view.  Nowhere can you stand back and survey all she has to offer.  Her sestierri (six districts) must be explored slowly, calli-by-calli, campo-by-campo. 

And in the end, Venice is a vixen.  She jostles you with her crowds of tourists, rushes you from San Marco to the Rialto, blinds you with trashy trinkets and over-priced boutiques, and sends you on your way.  She leaves you with fantasies of what might have been – in another time, with more time. 

Venice is … without parallel.

(*bell tower  ** canal side quay)

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