The trip to Mugu was an adventure on its own. The time in Mugu will have to be saved for another entry. When your destination airport is closed indefinitely and you need to get a flight to the next nearest airport and then walk 3 days to get to where you are going; that’s the beginning of something unique. How unique is what I found out along the way.
Waiting at the Nepalgunj bus stop, I found a boy with his own homemade Wayne Rooney soccer jersey. Now playing in a red jersey for Manchester United, I wonder if this boy knew that Rooney was famous for the phrase “Once a blue, Always a Blue” from his youth soccer days.
Welcome to the Terai in
Several grown men refused to carry our pack on the 3 day walk from the Bajura airport to our destination in Gam Ghadi. After discussing it among themselves, they found a teenage boy who could carry the load.
At a fork in the road for a shortcut someone asked me, “Are you willing to walk on a trail one foot wide?” I said that I would.
Landslides are commonplace here. Before one is finished being fixed, there are five more that need fixing too. You just walk over them as lightly as possible, trying not to make a sound. (See if you can find the footprints in this one I just walked across.)
Far off the tourist path, on a trail that is only a commuter path for locals, the younger children have never seen a foreigner. (The braid down the center of her head is traditional here. The age ratio between carrier and cary-ie is also traditional.)
Not everyone is impoverished here. The owners of these fields are doing quite well. But with a distinct and permanent class system, the only kind of poverty here is inescapable generational poverty.
The treacherous trail is relentless. Over and over, there’s that little pass you wish you could skip. I still can’t believe the porter did the whole thing carrying that pack.
Some little girls gathering water for their family, a little stupefied to see a foreigner at their local watering hole. (The giant aloe-looking leaf used as a spring spout is very common here.)
We met a group of men on the trail. They were escorting their friend home, without telling him what had happened. It was at his home that his wife would tell him his son had been swept away in the river. A day later we met the same group of men (minus one) coming the other way, it was their job to go looking for the body. Danger from nature is a way of life here, and all too common, a way of death.
Nightfall in the village we would stay in on the first night. Here we paid $13 extra too add a chicken to the meal. At our destination in Gam Ghadi, chickens sell for around $35 each.
On the next day, brief moments of wider trails brought some relief. It also brought the ability to look around at the scenery, instead of just looking at where your next step is going to be.
That relief doesn’t last long and soon it’s back to only worrying about your next step, and trying not to make a sound that will cause another landslide.
A family peering out of their shop, with a little boy curious to see the foreigner and a protective mother checking to see what’s drawing all the attention.
Have I thoroughly mentioned the general condition of the trail yet? This is a regular walk for many locals in the area.
Children in a village where we stopped to eat lunch. No matter how hard I try to blend in, it just doesn’t seem to work.
Going higher into the mountains, we start passing through denser and darker forests.
In the darkest place in the forest, I got a bad feeling of anger and fear. I looked over to see a pagan idol. Nothing in Hindu or Buddhist tradition has room for this. It was described as a “Ghost who eats chickens”. Rather, it was a place where locals go to sacrifice chickens to appease an angry spirit who dwells there.
The second night was spent in a village with a medicinal herb growing project funded in part by KOICA, the South Korean international development agency.
Another day of hiking through pristine mountain forest, with glacier-melt rivers and split-log bridges over the more harmless of the rivers.
At the end of day three it’s a stay at
In the morning it’s only a four hour walk down to my destination, the district headquarters of Gam Ghadi.
It’s across the river from there, where you find the
P.S. It was only a few days after arriving that someone was swept away in the river while gathering water. To be clear, no one comes back from being “swept away” in this place. That is the final destination for them. With water gathering being a common task for women and children, what are the odds that one of the children pictured above will eventually be swept away to their final destination?
