Nepal+Tibet+India+Arabia:

a rough report

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This is a rough write-up of the trip from when I got home, mostly stitched together out of emails I sent to friends.

Less than a day after handing in my MSc, I flew to Delhi (via Dubai) in advance of the main party and made my way (by train and bus) to Kathmandu to sort out permits. At least, that was the plan. In fact, Mark had done most of the work for me, and I didn't have enough cash to pay for everyone, so I explored the town for a few days and waited for the whirlwind to arrive.

Once the rest of the group got to Nepal, it took just 2 hectic days (and a large pile of dollars) to sort out climbing permits, the obligatory guide, porters, food, a cook, fuel, gear and transport to the start of the walk.

The walk from Pokhara to our base camp is one of the most popular treks in Nepal, 5 days up into the Annapurna Sanctuary. There are tea-houses (simple hotels) the whole way, and stone steps up all the steep hills. And there are lots of steep hills, all of them terraced and farmed. It would have been a wonderful walk had it not been for the huge packs on everyone's backs, and we all swore (as we sweated up the endless steps) to come back just walking sometime, carrying nothing more than a jacket, a camera, and a wallet - bliss!

For days and days the snowy peaks are visible above the green, but only on day 5 do you get the feeling that you'll actually reach them. The path climbs up through a steep rocky gorge which opens out into the sanctuary, a complete circle of peaks, 6, 7, 8000m high. The last tea houses are huddled together on the right bank of the South Annapurna glacier, the traditional end of the trek. Our base camp was a little higher up the opposite bank of the glacier, half a day's walk across what resembles a giant's gravel dump and up the steep grassy hill on the other side.

I arrived here a few days later than the others, after spending a few days just below the sanctuary getting over some infection I picked up in Kathmandu. By the time I arrived at base camp a full-blown expedition style attack of Tharpu Chuli (supposedly our little 'acclimatisation peak') was in progress, complete with stocked high camps, 150m of fixed rope up the steepest section, and a timetable planning the parties for several days ahead. The third group made it to the summit, after a long push through deep dry snow, and I joined the fourth group the next day.

We left base camp (4400m) in the evening after supper, and moved up to high camp (4900m) for a few hours sleep. At 3 the next morning we set off, walked up the scree and onto the glacier, and followed the path to the base of the steepest section all in the dark. Dark and cold, -20° we guess, certainly colder than I'd ever experienced. Most of us waked in 2 fleeces and a down jacket, and any water outside the second fleece froze solid.

By the time we'd all made our way up the fixed ropes the sun was shining. From there we followed the trench the previous party cleared, immensely grateful not to have to make our own. Up a steep incline onto a sharp ridge which lead (via the obligatory few false summits) to the top! A first Himalayan summit for everyone, and at 5663m a new height record for most of us. Tharpu Chuli is right in the middle of the sanctuary, so we had a full 360° panorama of peaks, spectacular. After an hour or so enjoying the view, many energy bars and many many pictures, we started down, and reached base camp just after dark.

Short on time, food and body mass, we still had to give Singu Chuli a go - this was the peak we came for, after all. Leaving everyone else to go down (at various speeds) six of us gathered what we could and set off one evening to try. It snowed that night, the clouds that had been coming a little higher up the valley each day had reached us. So despite the full moon we couldn't see the way across the glacier, so we had to stop for the night.

By morning the clouds had gone, so we carried on through the crevasse fields and up the the ridge we had hoped to follow to the summit. On arriving at its base, we found out that it was far longer than it had appeared from Tharpu Chuli, and that the ridge up to it was too dry to climb - normally there would be snow to cover all those precariously balanced rocks. We found another way to get onto the summit ridge further along however, up a crack in a rock face, and (since it was now afternoon) made a camp there and made plans for the next day: the strongest three would take all the gear and all the water we could muster for an attempt starting at about midnight.

Water was a problem: above base camp it all had to be melted from snow, and one by one, all our stoves were being killed by the dirty fuel. Not just clogged up (as is to be expected) but some metal parts physically etched away. That night we had one still half-working, and with this produced 5l or so for the team of 3 to carry.

Not too surprisingly they didn't reach the summit, the rock climb was harder than we had hoped, so they claimed a little bump on the ridge and called it a day. We struck camp and met them where they came back down onto the glacier, and we made our way down to base camp that evening. The porters met us the next morning, one day ahead of plan, and soon we were on our way down.

We walked down backwards through the seasons, from snow to bare rocks down to bare wintery trees, then damp autumn forest and eventually almost tropical greenery. Christmas eve lying in some hot springs (amazed at how thin we are, minus all the layers) then down to the road and a local bus back to Pokhara. For the first time we had all 11 people together in Pokhara for a few days of feasting. Two days river rafting the freezing Kali Gandaki, then back to Kathmandu on a rainy new year's eve. We welcomed 2003 sitting around a fire in the rain drinking Irish coffee.

Leaving the others to go back to India, I stayed on and organised to go to Tibet. I had originally intended to spend quite a while there, and was the proud owner of a 60-day Chinese visa, but this was not to be. The rules change every month or so, and in January it was possible to go into Tibet from Nepal only a special 'individual group visa' which would last at most 15 days. 5 days to get to Lhasa, 3 days to get back, hence 7 days in Lhasa - not nearly as long as I wanted, but I thought it would be worthwhile all the same, so I handed over the $200 or so and went.

The 'friendship highway' starts with a spectacular climb up through a steep river gorge, a snowploughed road between vertical rock walls. On day 2 we got up onto the plateau, gradually expanding flat valley floors between scree mountains, less and less snow on the hills as we get further into the rain shadow, signs of fields around the little settlements but everything is the same dry brown in winter. Clusters of little flat-roofed houses, all marked with 3 colours , and with yak dung drying on the walls. 5000m passes which don't really feel like passes, only the cairns, prayer flags and the headache mark the top. All the mileposts read km to Beijing, and there are walled compounds with Chinese lettering every few of them, and convoys of drab green trucks, and endless checkpoints.

Then things started going wrong. First, several people in our group found that our visas had been issued for the wrong duration, mine of course was short: 13 days instead of 15. Which cut the trip to 11 days, as that was when I could arrange transport back to Kathmandu: there are no buses on the road, only hired Land-Cruisers, and no flights in winter. Second, I got ill on day 3, Shigatse, 3900m, and only recovered when we dropped down to Lhasa, 3600m, on day 5.

If I think of Lhasa I see the incredibly strong sunlight and black freezing shadows, all slightly at-a-distance through my dark sunglasses. And the only smell that survives in the thin air is the incense, vast clouds of it from the furnaces in front of the Jokang obscuring the buildings. We did endless rounds of the Jokang circuit, a rushing current of pilgrims clocking up karma by circling the famous temple. I was surprised by their haste, somehow I expected it to be a slow thoughtful march. Visited the Potala, the red-and-white treasure-house of a palace perched on a hill, now a museum. And wandered around the big dry gardens of the summer palace, from where the Dalai Lama fled.

But these things are submerged in a big very organised Chinese city, bathroom-tiled buildings with big gold Chinese letters and smaller Tibetan ones, Chinese restaurants, shops, hotels, nightclubs. Very sad, that there must now be Tibetan ghettos in Lhasa. Tibet is very much the wild west of booming China: people move out west for the vast opportunity, mining, business, military jobs, and relaxed laws (like the chance to have two children.) And the people who used to live there become a minority and are conveniently made to disappear.

Back in Kathmandu I worked up the courage to face India again, and reversed my journey back to Delhi. Which no longer seemed so hectic, I'd acquired the knack of completely ignoring touts on the street, and peering sideways into stalls so as not to attract the interest of the shopkeeper.

I spent a few days exploring the city: first New Delhi, the British imperial capital, endless wide avenues linking great stone buildings set on spacious lawns. It made me think of Pretoria, which is not too surprising: the same architects designed both. Then 'old delhi', Shahjahanabad, the Mugal city: a fractal of bazaars, from the grand 4-lane Chandri Chowk all the way down to metre-wide passageways. Crowds of people, bicycles, dogs, rickshaws, cows, taxis, busses. Whole districts of shops selling only saris, or only stationary, all the same. Perhaps the strangest was the gold bazaar, where I couldn't help grinning at the sight of an open-fronted shop just big enough for the shopkeeper (sitting cross-legged) and his stock of full size gold bars, stacked floor-to-ceiling against one wall. The security, says the guidebook, comes from the fact that he can definitely outrun you in that alleyway.

Vague plans to go South all the way to Kerala were abandoned after spending a little time browsing those bible-sized India guidebooks in the bookshops - I decided to limit myself to Rajasthan (the province SW of Delhi, bordering Pakistan), which certainly had more than a month's worth of sights, rather than spend all my time on trains.

First stop: Agra (in fact just outside Rajasthan) for the famous Taj Mahal. The train there is the smartest in India, with snacks, newspapers, water, a meal, and almost no stops. Saving the Taj for the early morning, I started at the fort. It's an enormous red sandstone construction which once contained an entire town, now only the palaces survive. (The signboards smirk that the British demolished it all to build garrisons, but you have to look at the map to find out that it's still occupied by the Indian army, 200 years later.)

The Taj Mahal, I'm pleased to say, lived up to expectations. At dawn it is almost empty, so the formal gardens are uncluttered and the inner chamber is cool and quiet. The building manages to feel light despite being quite heavily built, and detailed without being fussy. Quite the opposite of the building I visited the next day (a temple belonging to some Hindu sect, 100 years into its construction) which the guidebook describes as "a monument to Hindu kitsch instead of Muslim restraint." Fascinating, all the same, to walk around the construction site.

To Jaipur, the pink city, famous for its jewelry (and these days, for its jewelry scams.) Then South to Pushkar, a ring of blue temples on the steps around a holy lake. The days slip by... South again by bus to Udaipur, on the edge of another lake, famous for the floating palace where James Bond 'Octopussy' was filmed.

And finally (after an all-night plus a bit bus ride) to Jaisalmer, a castle-town out West in the Thar desert, right up on the Pakistani border. The castle is unique because it is still a living part of the town: my hotel room was on the wall, overlooking the entrance, and we could have dinner on a balcony overlooking the square, where a crowd of angry locals were protesting the Maharaja's plans to turn it into a museum.

The done thing in Jaisalmer is a camel safari out into the desert for a few days, but (having changed my flight) I didn't have time, so just soaked in the town instead. A network of interconnected Jain temples, streets of intricately carved Havellis (merchant's mansions) and the Maharaja's palace, now a museum about Rajasthan's different states - until 1947 the province was a collection of somewhat independent feudal kingdoms, who fought endless honour-driven wars until eventually signing away some power in return for the British umbrella of protection.

My father is often in the UAE on business (he's a civil engineer, facades) so he arranged to be there and I broke my flight home for a week's stopover.

The contrast between Delhi and Dubai could hardly be greater. Where Delhi is a city of monuments, all decaying and mostly built on top of older monuments, Dubai is a city of brand new glossy buildings on the virgin desert, gardens kept fresh with desalinated water and imported labour. From filth and crowds and grey air to fresh seaside cleanliness, a few uniformed sweepers removing the sand that blew in yesterday.

We spent a day or two with the expats in Sharjah, dining at the country club and going four-weel-driving to secluded pools out in the desert. Then drove across the spine of the peninsula to the Indian ocean and down south into Oman for a few days. Woke up in Muscat on my birthday, with echoes of Zanzibar, then drove up into the mountains. We did a walk to a deserted village, perched on a ledge between a huge vertical cliff above and another below. The terraced fields were above free air thanks to an arch in the cliff face below. Houses just standing as they were abandoned, doors and a millstone-pair still in place. Two goats and us (plus a handful of dry plants near the village) the only living things in sight - the rest was just a canyon of dry, splintered black rock and a little sand. Down again to Nizwa, a castle (too-neatly restored) in a whole plain of date palms, then a long drive back to Dubai.

Whew. All vanished now into a small handful of mementos, a diary, and a big pile of film.

Michael Abbott (web@mabot.com)   31 March 2003
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