My travel diaries
Saturday 2 June, 2007 - Tatopani, Tamang Heritage Trail, Nepal
We arise at 6.30 but make a leisurely start. I discover how far off the beaten track we are when I order fried eggs for breakfast and then realise the man in the community lodge doesn't know what a fried egg is. Fortunately Maila happens to be an excellent cook in his own right, and not only shows him how to cook them but produces a pair of fried eggs just the way I like them, with a runny yoke and crispy outside.
We descend gently down the hillside to Thambuchet, the next village, on a nice easy shady path with Buddhist stupas all along the route. To begin with the trail passes between fields, but soon we are in pine woodland again, and Siling is on the lookout for birdlife. When he spies another species of barbet he tells me yet another Nepalese folk tale of how the bird came to get its call.
"A girl from a Hindu family came of age and was married to a man from a rich family across the mountains. Tradition dictates that she must move away to live with her husband's family, and she took with her a pot of water as part of her dowry. Before she leaves, her brother makes her promise to return when the monsoon rains come the following year, with the pot refilled with water as a visiting gift. 'I will come. I will come,' she says as she is leaving.
"For the remainder of the year, her brother longs for her return and he lives with her parting words ringing in his ear: 'I will come. I will come.' But unknown to him, she has tragically died and returned as a bird. She flies back to the village where she lived as a young girl in her previous life, and what her brother is hearing are her final words to him echoing from her throat as she flitters from tree to tree.
"And that is how the barbet came to get its song," says Siling.
I start laughing. "But that's more or less the same story as you came out with yesterday about that other barbet and the kafal berry! Is there one of these stories for every species of barbet?"
Siling looks hurt and doesn't reply. I try to make amends, but only end up digging a deeper hole for myself.
"I'm only joking," I say to him, "It's a good story; it's just that they're not very imaginative are they, these storytellers. Their tales are a bit samey."
Now Siling looks offended. "But they're good stories," he protests. "They tell you about birdsong and local customs at the same time."
I'm suitably remorseful, and resolve not to criticise any of his stories again.
We reach the village of Thambuchet after about an hour and a half's walking from Gatlang. It lies on a small plain at the confluence of two rivers, and is surrounded by tall green hills on all sides. It's nowhere near as pretty as Gatlang; instead of slate roofs and traditional stone walls, many of the buildings have tin roofs and are made from concrete. At one end of the village is a large reservoir surrounded by barbed wire. I go to buy soft drinks from a tea house but find they only have drinks in plastic bottles, so I order tea instead. These are not the sort of tourist developments Siling and Tina want to promote with The Responsible Travellers. As I sit outside the tea house, Siling runs around from house to house enquiring what sort of accommodation is available for trekking groups. He concludes there aren't enough beds combined in all the guest houses and homestays to cope with a reasonable sized group, and Thambuchet is duly crossed off his list.
We continue onwards to the next village, Chilime, where the path crosses a river and we begin a steep ascent up the hill past cultivated fields in sweltering heat. I notice that many of the maize plants are dying and imagine that the monsoon can't arrive soon enough for the farmers around here. After 500m of climbing we reach a small cluster of houses marked by a tea shop on our map. The 'shop' is just somebody's house, though, although the lady owner agrees to brew some tea for us. We climb a step ladder to a large communal area in the upper storey of the house. The room is bare but for two beds and various chests around the walls containing the family possessions. In one corner of the room is a kitchen area where the lady warms our tea over an open wood fire on the floor. Again, there is no chimney, and the room fills with smoke. As we leave Siling expresses his doubts over whether many of the villages on the Tamang Heritage Trail can cope with trekking groups, despite the fact that the Nepali Tourist Board is trying to promote the area as a tourist destination. It seems unlikely any of the places we've stopped at would be able to cope with a dozen trekkers requiring dal bhat. It's a shame, but it's a chicken and egg situation. Without the trekkers, why would these poor villagers invest in tourist infrastructure? I wonder whether Siling and Tina will end up pioneering this trail with The Responsible Travellers.
The trail continues to slant up the hillside, but has become gentler now. When Tilman passed this way in 1949 after hiring porters in Chilime, he saw two black bears fighting in a forest clearing. Much of the forest has been cleared for farmland now and the path passes mainly through fields. We reach Tatopani at about 2 o'clock and check into a very basic lodge with views down the valley we've just climbed. Above us stretch the swathes of pine forest where presumably black bears still remain. We're not far from the Tibetan border here, and it feels more remote than the other places we've stopped at along the trail.
Tatopani means "hot water" in Nepali, and later that afternoon we have a wash in the hot springs above our lodge. The water is a funny yellow colour caused by the presence of clay. At first I don't want to immerse myself in the hot baths, but there is a hot spring shower nearby, so I sit in the bath for a bit before getting myself cleaned off in the shower. Unbeknown to myself and Maila, Siling is snapping away taking photographs of the hot springs for his brochure, and it's a few minutes before I suddenly notice what's going on.
"What the hell are you doing, you cheeky old sod?" I say to him, and he puts his camera away looking sheepish. Fortunately for me I was wearing shorts, but I wonder what poor Maila was thinking dressed in just his underpants.
Later that afternoon Siling tells me about his family. He has a 20 year old nephew who is a monk. It is traditional in the Buddhist areas of Nepal for one person from every generation to join a monastery. I know Siling's father is very devout, so I ask which of his brothers became a monk.
For the second time that afternoon he looks sheepish. "It was supposed to be me," he replies. "When I was 8 years old, a lama came to our village, and my 8 year old cousin and I were due to be ordained that day, along with a number of other boys from the Manang area where we lived. But neither of us wanted to become monks, so we agreed to run away and hide, returning only after dark when we knew the lama would have left."
"Was your father very angry?" I ask.
"Not angry. He may have been disappointed, but he accepted that it wasn't to be. There was never any mention of me becoming a monk again after that."
I retreat to my room with my book as it begins to get dark. It's beginning to get cold, and by the standard of the guest house we are staying in, I assume that it will take a while for our dal bhat to arrive. I can hear a radio being put on outside and a hubbub of voices. When I return for dinner at 8 o'clock Siling is talking in a loud voice that seems familiar from our evenings in Bardia.
"Have you been drinking chang?" I ask him, and Maila starts giggling.
"Beer," Siling replies, with a loud hiccup.
We turn in as soon as we've finished our dal bhat. It's been a shorter day today, just 500m of descent followed by 850m of ascent to Tatopani, but we have a much longer day ahead of us tomorrow.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next
Message board >>
- Bookmark site with
del.icio.us - Post site to
Facebook