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I decided not to fly the normal tourist way to Lukla because I wanted to keep away from tourist mountaineers and I wanted to meet real Nepalese people who had not been changed by wealthy western ways. We flew from Kathmandu to a very short flat piece of grass on the top of a hill called Lamidanda, a half hour flight. The pilot was so friendly and pleased that we wanted to meet local people and pleased we wanted to not just be tourists. He was so friendly in this tiny plane, like a minibus with wings, with us sitting behind him that he invited me to kneel beside him and move the trim wheel so the plane went a bit up and down, though to be accurate, he needed to adjust something and let my hand be around.
The pilot gave a continuous description of the peaks that we could see on the horizon and I realised the huge distance we needed to walk to get to Everest. The landing strip was so short with a drop to the Dudh Kosi below but at least the cows had been moved from the grass field of the landing area. We expected to camp in the wilds but we English were so unusual that we were invited to stay with the airport manager and colleague Thakur and Dakhal, who also advised that tomorrow was a special festival.
I’m sitting on a veranda, the house guest of the airport manager Mr B R Dhakar, and the air traffic controller Mr K K Thakur. The view is terrific.
The airstrip is perched on a hilltop overlooking – almost overhanging – the Dudh Khosi which is the river that runs down from Everest. We are looking straight up the valley at huge snow covered giants of mountains. We can just make out Everest behind the first range of mountains.
There are orange and mango trees around and a young lad has just given one to me but they are unripe at the moment, a bit like our tangerines. Some tree we saw last night has cucumber things hanging from it about 2 feet long and Joy says it’s Zukini tree like there are in Italy.
In the fields mustard is grown from which seeds they compress mustard oil. Last night we gorged ourselves on goat fried in it, it makes the meat very hot spiced, good. Millet is also grown and is part of the staple pulse diet. They use it to make soup, cakes and a very alcoholic wine which we were treated to in quantity.
Last night we said that we were interested in dancing and music so we were taken to a neighbour’s hour where some girls sang and played a drum and a guy danced. Joy also danced (of course) and was a success (of course). We must get her to a dance school in Delhi.
So how did all this happen? The Nepalese are so friendly and hospitable that it’s almost unbelievable and a bit embarrassing. All I did when we landed and disembarked from the tiny plane was to ask for directions and Dhakar said do you want tea so we said yes then he said food, we said no, he said stay, we said we’ll just rest for an hour … So here we are on our second day as their guests having been wined and dined and treated as something more special than we feel we deserve.
We’ve just been to a Hindu equivalent of a Christening ceremony with party and dinner. We were about to leave and the father invited us to an early lunch. At the house the mother was sitting in the garden with the child and as we approached her everyone else approached her and gave her money either openly or in an envelope. We were told that 5NRs was OK which we gave her. Inside the house we chatted with the local headmaster who was very young, about 25 years old. It seems to be the case that the start of their teaching career must be spent in the outback rural areas. Although only 30 minutes flight from Kathmandu they must stay here for a year. They are the educated Brahmin elite, cultured young lads in what they consider is rural backwaters. That explains why we were popular as a diversion for them.
There are no roads in Nepal except three connecting Pokhara and Kathmandu and each of those with India. Consequently communications are bad, neighbouring valleys are different culturally because often rivers cannot be crossed to allow tribes on one side to mix with the other side of the river. Consequently there are 50 different languages in Nepal. Nepalese is the official language but higher education is studied in English which is the language of the officialdom.
Thakur had to do his science degree and air traffic control training in English. English is also the language of the office and nothing else is supposed to be spoken in Royal Nepalese Airlines. It must be extremely difficult to learn difficult work in an alien language and an alien alphabet!
The Nepalese have learned a lot from the outside world. Only 5 years ago they were doing agriculture in this valley by slash and burn. Then an American showed them crop rotation, fertilisation etc and change the way they farmed.
Nepal is mainly Hindu, then Moslem then Bhuddist, so cows are scarce. It is illegal to produce beef on a farm but some cows are kept for milk and pulling ploughs.
Today is cow worship day and the neighbour’s cow has a flower garland around its neck.
Tomorrow is Bai Tika day when the sisters give a garland of flowers to brothers and the brothers give sisters presents and pray for them. They also erect palm tree poles to make a swing to play on. When we came here we passed hamlets where the only level ground was used to make a swing to play on.
When we flew here we were very excited by the journey and the Twin Otter only had 16 seats and an open doorway to the cockpit, the pilot within touching distance, just like us sitting in the front seat of a minibus. Experience the fear 50 years later via YouTube at Lamidanda Airport Khotang
We were joking with the pilot before take-off and during the flight he invited me to crouch beside him at the controls in the cockpit and gave me a running commentary on the mountains that we could see and, of course, I asked how to fly it and he demonstrated some controls which made it go up and down a bit like a big dipper and then let me turn the trim wheel to do the same oops!
The runway was tiny and perched on the top of a hill with a drop at the start and finish and to get into it he had to turn at the head of a valley, I mean he descended while flying towards the dead end of a valley then before hitting the end of the valley he had to turn sharply and line up for the few hundred metres of dirt strip on the top of a hill in the valley. On touch down he only had a few hundred metres of grass and dirt to roll to a stop. Very exciting and not surprisingly there are many accidents when these brave pilots get caught in the violent cross winds and vertical air pockets.
We are finding out some interesting facts about Nepalese way of life. When sons are old the father must divide the land equally between the father and the sons. This of course leads to smaller and smaller farming units which must be uneconomical.
Many young men go to the Ghurka army in Malaya, Singapore or Hongkong (still a British Territory) and return after 15 – 20 years. The consequential surplus of women work in the fields. In fact the men do little work, the women often even plough with the wooden plough drawn by an ox.
Marriage is the usual Asian mix up even in this Hindu society. If a father has a daughter he must “sell” her ie give a dowry to the husband. If he is a professional person eg doctor or engineer the price is £5,000. Even that may not be enough because at the wedding feast held in the girl’s house the man may say “give me a car” or house or more money or I will nt eat in your house. The poor father may have to sell everything if he has a greedy son in law or if he has many daughters. Sometimes the sons of the father may give money to the father to help pay for the dowry.
Dhakal explains this to us. He paid £5,000 for his sister to marry an Indian. It is customary for Nepalese men to marry Indian women, at least for Brahmins. Brahmins are the upper caste, the professionals and administrators. That’s not all – the poor lad and lass don’t even see each other until the wedding day unless they have enlightened parents. Only then will the lad perhaps go to her house to look at her but only look, he is not allowed to talk to her. In order to find our her character and wifely skills the lad’s parents will investigate by asking neighbours about the lass, and also by talking to her parents, at which time the price is agreed.
Divorce is illegal except for a catastrophe. Thakur is going to be naughty and has fallen in love with a girl below his caste. He wants to marry but knows his parents will refuse because by breaking caste rules this will mean his whole family will be thrown out of the caste, even his uncles and aunts. Caste is as important as qualifications so his place in society and every member of his family’s place in society will be affected by his love for another person.
Both Thakur and Dhakal are against the dowry system.
One sad point. They have a cook, a gentle kind man. He is in fact a Brahmin but when his father split his land between him, J Passad and his brother, J Passad went off to Calcutta for 15 years leaving the land to be farmed by his brother. But his brother gambled away both shares of the land leaving J Passad with nothing. J Passad is at least now with a job as a cook for the RNAC here.
The airfield has only 3 flights a week yet there are 20 people to run it! Both Thakur and Dhakal have 4 office boys each. The office boys get 400NRs per month and the 9 security police get 400NRs per month.
The lads have finished work now and are playing cards with the other “workers” and listening to a selection of Indian and Nepalese and western pop music. They like discos but only loose girls go there. Tonight there may be some dancing and if we don’t get persuaded to join the festival tomorrow we’ll start walking.
We’ve got red dyed rice and black dye on our foreheads called Tika and we have flowers in our hair, part of the celebrations. A man blessed us with a Sanskrit reading when he put the mark on us. Everyone is so gentle, smelling of flowers and we all cuddle the calves.
Festival of Bai Tika. Set off 10:am invited to Mr J Passad’s for roti and spiced liver and oranges. 2hrs descend to Dudh Kosi. 2 hrs to walk up to a village. Camped in someone’s garden. Woke with many kids and adults peering at us in tent.
Bai Tika. Thunderstorm all morning. Dry clothes for a bit. Photo locals and are given many garlands of flower.
2 ½ hours to Dumre 4:30 arrive so we camp at school house on ridge. Locals came a long way to see us. Ripped paper to make doll shapes. Played whistle to entertain them.
Rained at night. Attempted weed for sleep but lethargy so chucked it away.
11:30-4:30. School assembles. By 11:20 we have a porter, barefoot and bare legged. No common language or understanding of sign language. Where will he sleep & eat?
Uphill for 1 ½ hours then beautiful ridge walk to Aishalakaka. Millet masher, roti and sweets. Then up towards Bakachoi but we camp at a shrine before it and send porter back to Aish for him to stay there and return to us in the morning. Locals came from miles to our deserted spot, very annoying, it should have been deserted! Wood fire.
10:30 – 4:30. Porter fails to arrive by 10:30 we have 16 year old Sherpa called Kadji, at least we called him that because he was always cadging off people. He takes us in someone’s home and we are offered Sherpa tea, salted green tea with Yak butter which we secretly slip into a plant pot. Later he finds a Sherpa home for us to sleep in and we refuse the tea. 10NRs for carrying 5NRs food and lodgings for Kadji.
Downhill steeply to Lakhim. We meet a very slow Sherpa guiding an English trio and 2 ladies and 8 porters pay much more than we do.
1 hour later steep descent down the gorge of Dudh Khosi river and then up the other side. We camp at a tree shelter and have spinach and egg. 4 eggs 3NRs and lots of tea. A maize stalk burns as our torch. Porter sleeps outside the tent in the open with 2 blankets.
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The rest of the 43 days of trekking in the Everest region and nearly climbing Island Peak and scrambling up Awi and getting to the top of Kala Patar was a blur of adventure and Joy wrote a daily journal and I wrote my impressions later. For continuity I continue with Joy’s daily log, then my journal. I realise now that our family did not hear from us for more than 45 days because the only communication available was post from Kathmandu. There were no phones in 1978 in the mountains and mobile phones had not been invented nor were there digital cameras so the number of pictures was limited by how many films you carry and you had to anticipate what pictures would be worth taking in the future, a frustrating business.