Tag Archive for ‘Himalayas’ at Asian Window

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Tag Archive for 'Himalayas'

Forgotten victims Of great games

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on March 14, 2010

in Afghanistan, Books and Travel

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Also see here and here

They would have called themselves Katis, but the Muslims surrounding them had for centuries called them Kafirs -- infidels -- and their land, thus came to be known as Kafiristan. C.M. Naim in Outlook:

My Heartrendingly Tragic Story By Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah Khan ‘Azar’. Edited By Alberto M. Cacopardo and Ruth Laila Schmidt. Oslo: Novus Press, 2006

One day in 1897, near the village Brumotul not far from Chitral, then a semi-independent Muslim state high in the Himalayas, a bunch of boys went walking. They were not Chitralis, but refugees from another place that lay west of the newly demarcated Durand Line. They were not Muslims, either. The boys would have described themselves as Katis, but the Muslims surrounding them had for centuries used “Kafir” to describe the boys’ ancestors, and “Kafiristan” for their original land. The British had retained that nomenclature for the portion of that land they now controlled, while the Afghan Amir, Abdur Rahman, whose invasion had made the boys refugees, had named his portion “Nuristan” (“The Land of Light”).

The boys stopped on a bridge to watch two “Sahibs” fishing in the stream below, not having seen their likes before. One of the sportsmen came over to them and said something in Khowar, one of the several languages spoken among the Kafirs. One Kati boy understood what was said; he asked his friends to find earthworms for the Sahib. Later, he and another boy carried the day’s catch to the Sahibs’ camp. The man who spoke to the boys was an army doctor named Capt; the Kati boy who understood him was named Azar. Something about the boy struck Harris as exceptional. He sent for him the following day and almost obsessively insisted that Azar—barely ten or eleven at the time—should join his service. Azar offered excuses, his mother cried, but his father, Kashmir, the leader of the clan, gave his permission. Azar became Harris’s servant—first for 18 months at Chitral, and then for two years at Peshawar. Meanwhile, Kashmir was killed by some relatives when he was on his way to Kabul—after converting to Islam—to meet the Amir and seek from him his previous high status. More:

See Kafiristan in Wikipedia:

Prof. Georg Morgenstierne travelled extensively throughout South Asia, but the most unique were his visits to the inaccessible areas of The Hindu Kush Mountains. Read his account here.

Creating glaciers out of thin air

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on January 22, 2010

in Climate change

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Andrew Buncombe in The Independent:

It was in Ladakh, confronted by receding glaciers – currently at the centre of an increasingly bitter dispute between scientists and Delhi – that Chewang Norphel, a government engineer, hit upon an idea to use nature to give the locals a helping hand with growing more food.

Seeing how much fresh water was wasted during the winter – as villagers left their taps running to prevent them freezing solid – and noticing the way that they stored snow on shaded areas of the mountain, he decided to create his own artificial glaciers.

That was more than a decade ago. Now, with funding from the Indian army – which is keen to maintain the support of local people in a strategically sensitive area close to the border with China – Mr Norphel has created 10 artificial glaciers and is planning more. More

K2: A trek to danger’s doorstep

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on January 16, 2010

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Distant and mysterious, the mountain is perhaps the most feared and respected climbing peak in the world. A traveler journeying there discovers an icy world as perilous as it is beautiful. Graham Bowley in the New York Times:

One day last June, I roped up to a porter and we leaped over crevasses until we reached the side of K2, the second-tallest mountain on earth and one of its deadliest. We scrambled up a few hundred yards to the Gilkey Memorial, a rocky, sandy promontory at K2 Base Camp that commemorates climbers who have died on K2’s dangerous slopes.

The air was loud with the sound of ravens. Metal mess plates, punched with the names of some of the fallen climbers, tinkled gently in the breeze. About 12,000 feet above us, the top of the mountain was hidden by cloud; only its vast toes of black and brown rock were visible, stretching down onto the frigid boulder-strewn rubble of the Godwin-Austen Glacier a few hundred feet below.

It was just below freezing. Descending quickly, I tried not to look at the warren of rocks around me where some of the bodies, blasted by storms down K2’s slopes, were buried. Parts of some of the bodies were visible, and occasionally I glimpsed a piece of ripped climbing suit or an old boot, or smelled something sickly on the air. More:

Bhutan to get its first railway link

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on December 31, 2009

in Bhutan and Travel

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From The Times:

The reclusive Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is to have its first railway after its newly crowned monarch finalised a plan with India to build an 11-mile (18km) link between the two countries.

The railway, funded by India, will be Bhutan’s boldest step yet into the modern world. Lost in time like the mythical Shangri-La, the Buddhist kingdom had no roads or telephones until 1960 and no television until 1999. The track will offer one of the most breathtaking rail journeys in the world across the foot of the Himalayas. More:

Signs of change in the Himalayas as Copenhagen summit begins

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on December 7, 2009

in Climate change, Nepal and environment

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John Vidal in Jomsom, Nepal in the Guardian:

On a 1,000-mile journey from the world’s greatest water source in the Himalayas, down rivers and then by train through Nepal, India and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal, we saw evidence of profound changes in weather patterns right across south Asia. Wherever we went we were told of significant temperature increases, and found governments slowly waking up to the threat of climate change and communities having to respond in any way they could to erratic rains and more serious droughts, floods and storms.

The starting point was Jomsom, a small town in the Kali Gandaki valley, 2,300 metres high and at the heart of the Annapurna range. This remote town, which saw its first ever car last year, has experienced no snowfall this winter. The temperature soared way above normal to 27C, and only fell to 13C, against a usual -4C, while the snowline has risen above 5,000 metres. The Gandaki river, fed by 1,200 glaciers, flows to the Ganges and on to Bangladesh.

“The temperature is higher, so there’s less snow, and less meltwater in spring to plant crops. People have no need to come down from the mountains in winter. They can grow chillies and peppers now,” said Sunil Pant, a Nepalese MP. “But now they cannot grow wheat or staple foods.” More:

Top adventure destinations for 2010

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on December 1, 2009

in Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet

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Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan as a Himalayan group are among the top ten adventure destinations for 2010 picked Gadling.

Travelers to Nepal can choose a myriad of adventure options, including hiking the Annapurna Circuit, making a trek up to Everest Base Camp, located at 17,500 feet, or tackling a mountain such as Island Peak, which stands at 20,305 feet, but remains popular for non-technical mountaineers looking to add a Himalayan summit to their resume. As the birth place of adventure travel, Nepal knows how to cater to the backpackers, vagabonds, and modern day nomads, that pass through its borders.

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[A section of the Puna Tsang Chhu river in Bhutan]

Kayakers looking for remote regions in Bhutan

From the New York Times:

Heflin was part of an expedition to the area several years ago — the subject of a 2007 documentary, “Adventure Bhutan” — that explored several remote sections of the Mangde Chhu. This year’s return expedition reunites Heflin with two others from that trip: the adventure photographer Jed Weingarten and Willie Kern, a kayaker who was part of an expedition that completed a first descent of the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet.

The Mangde Chhu and Puna Tsang Chhu contain some of the most impressive terrain in the world. The rivers run at the bottom of lush green canyons, framed by massive vertical rock walls. There, the group would be difficult to reach should it run into trouble.

Portions of both rivers run as difficult as Class VI, the most hazardous classification of rapids. Some sections of the Puna Tsang Chhu, Heflin said, are “unrunnable.” More:

‘The greatest climber of his generation’ found dead in the Himalayas

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on November 15, 2009

in Nepal and Sport

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From the Guardian:

The man considered the greatest mountaineer of his generation, who had been told 10 years ago that he would never walk again, was found dead in the Himalayas today after breaking his leg and becoming stranded on his latest extraordinary adventure.

Slovenian Tomasz Humar, 40, contacted his base camp on Monday to say he had broken his leg while climbing solo in Nepal. Satellite phone contact was made with him the following day, but a source at the camp reported Humar had sounded very weak and said: “This is my last.” It was the final contact he made.

The father-of-two, once rescued by the Pakistani air force in a celebrated mission, scaled the world’s toughest mountains and had been attempting to climb Langtang Lirung, a 7,227m (23,710ft) peak. Rescuers in Kathmandu said that four Sherpa guides with rescue equipment had flown to Langtang Lirung base camp, 6,000m up, earlier in the week and had trekked the slopes where Humar was supposed to be, but could not find him. Heavy snowfall on Wednesday and Thursday also forced climbers to postpone searches. More:

Nepal Cabinet to meet on Everest

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on November 3, 2009

in Climate change and Nepal

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From Reuters:

Nepal’s cabinet plans to meet at the base camp of Mount Everest this month to highlight the impact of global warming on the Himalayas ahead of next month’s U.N. negotiations on climate change, a minister said on Monday.

The base camp is located about 5,300 meters (17,400 feet) up the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) mountain and is the point from where climbers to the Everest summit begin their ascent.

“The cabinet meeting is meant to draw the attention to the adverse impact of climate change to the Himalayas including Sagarmatha,” Forest Minister Deepak Bohara told Reuters, using the Nepali name of the mountain.

The Maldives held the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting last month, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the Indian Ocean archipelago’s existence. More:

The Iceman

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on October 27, 2009

in Climate change and India

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In Ladakh, a man is creating artificial glaciers. Namita Kohli from Leh in the Hindustan Times:

In Leh, the largest district in India, you don’t have to look far to confirm that climate change is here.

In eco-activist Chewang Norphel’s office, just beyond the Leh market, the air inside is warm enough to make you start peeling off the layers – even in September, just before the onset of winter.

“It’s definitely warm for this time of year,” says Norphel (74), a retired civil engineer. “In the past two or three decades, the weather has changed a lot. Instead of snowfall of several feet, we get just a thin layer. And some glaciers have receded by about 2,000 feet.”

Outside the window of Norphel’s office is one of the region’s few remaining snow-capped mountains.

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), about 7 per cent of the ice of the Himalayan glaciers is melting away each year.

The report predicts that these glaciers may disappear entirely as early as 2030.

The ramifications are immense.

Half a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindukush region (which includes parts of seven other countries), and a quarter billion people further downstream rely on glacial meltwater for irrigation, domestic supply and even hydropower. More:

Charting change is real

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on October 22, 2009

in Climate change

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Kunda Dixit in Himal Southasian:

Namgye Chumbi was weeding his potato garden in the village of Phakding in Nepal’s Khumbu region below Mount Everest on the morning of 4 August 1985. Because of the monsoon season, there were not too many trekkers hiking up the trail towards Namche Bazaar. It was a brilliantly clear day, unusual for the monsoon season, and he was working by the banks of the Dudh Kosi River. True to its name, the river was milky white and frothing, as the water tumbled noisily over boulders. Yet around two in the afternoon, the river suddenly became strangely silent. The water level went down, and Namgye sensed danger. Much in the same way as coastal dwellers saw the sea recede before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Dudh Kosi was about to reveal its terrifying avatar. “I noticed that the white water had turned muddy brown, and in the distance I heard a thundering sound like an approaching helicopter,” Namgye recalls. “I looked upstream and saw this huge wall of dark brown water approaching very fast.” Namgye indicates the level of the river with his right hand, and raises his left hand high over his head like a cobra to show what he saw.

There was no time to think. Namgye dropped everything and began to run up the mountain. His wife, Sherkima, had more presence of mind, and picked up their two young children, Hira and Tsering, and followed her husband. They reached a ledge as the thunderous flood raced beneath them, lapping at their heels. The ground was shaking like an earthquake, and the sound was deafening. Namgye and Sherkima lost their house and everything in it. If they had been just a few seconds slower, they would have lost their lives as well. Their millet farm upstream was cut in half, as the river changed its course and started flowing through its terraces. Thereafter, the family built a hut, and other families helped them with food. “We only had the clothes we were wearing, but at least we were all alive,” he says. Nearly 25 years later, Namgye has built a new house higher up the mountain, where his married children and four grandchildren today live together. The Dudh Kosi, meanwhile, is still frothing white as it flows past the farm. Namgye points out one boulder the size of his house that was brought down by that terrible flash flood. More:

[Image: Kunda Dixit]

House flies at 5,000m in the Himalayas

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on October 14, 2009

in Crime and environment

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From the Guardian:

Earlier this year Dawa Steven Sherpa was resting at Everest base camp when he and his companions heard something buzzing. “What the heck is that?” asked the young Nepali climber. They searched and found a big black house fly, something unimaginable just a few years ago when no insect could have survived at 5,360 metres.

“It’s happened twice this year – the Himalayas are warming up and changing fast,” says Dawa, who only took up climbing seriously in 2006, but in a few years has climbed Everest twice as well as two 8,000m peaks in Tibet.

“What I do is climb. It’s a family business. And what we see is the Himalayan glaciers melting. It’s not a seasonal thing any more. It’s rapid. It’s so apparent.

“Look at the walls and slopes of the Khumbu glacier [which flows 1.5 miles down from an icefall on the southern flanks of Everest]. “You can see a clear line where the black rock becomes white. That’s where it’s been exposed to the sun. That means metres of thick ice have melted in just a few decades,” he says. More:

Shekhar Kapur: Act now on global warming

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on September 22, 2009

in Climate change and environment

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From the Hindustan Times:

When you read this I will have returned to the Himalayas once again to try and highlight the dramatic changes that are taking place in our mountains as a result of climate change. These lungs of the world are clogging with the noxious fumes of our carbon emissions, and the slow crawl of poison must be checked before it is too late. The Himalayas are the largest concentration of glaciers outside of the polar caps, and they are also receding faster than any other in the world because of global warming.

I have always felt a connection with the mountains. I’m not sure where exactly that connection comes from, but I know it is something I have in common with thousands of others who have been as lucky to visit them. I think it’s the sense of humility they impart to you: to stand there and face the immensity of nature and try to be at one with it is a great and humbling experience; the effect it has on you is unique.

Of course, the spirituality the Himalayas provoke isn’t just consigned to the mountain ranges: the Gangotri glacier is the source of the Ganga, the holy mother of India. It is also shrinking at a rate of 34m per year. That means that, by tomorrow morning, as this paper lies outside and a fresh copy is in your hands, another slice of glacier the thickness of your thumb will be gone. My daughter is nine now. If we allow the retreat of these glaciers to continue at the current rate, they’ll be gone by the time she’s in her thirties. There’s a real chance her children will not experience the beauty of the Himalayan ranges and rivers. More:

Himalayan glaciers melting fast, says Nepal

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on September 2, 2009

in Climate change

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From the Financial Times:

Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than any other body of ice as a result of climate change, threatening devastating consequences to the livelihoods of millions of people dependent on the river Ganges, the Nepalese government has warned.

Speaking at a two-day Himalayan climate change conference in Kathmandu, Madhav Kumar, Nepal’s prime minister, said: “The Himalayan glaciers are retreating faster than any other glaciers in the world as the temperature is increasing.”

“The potentially catastrophic impact on lives and livelihoods has assumed a huge importance in our international relations,” he added.

The Nepali leader’s comments, intended to raise the mountain republic’s concerns ahead of the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December, contradict those of top officials from neighbouring India. More:

And they didn’t return

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on August 23, 2009

in India and Travel

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India’s Kullu valley, also known as the valley of the gods, is a favourite with backpackers and trekkers. But over the last few years several foreign tourists have mysteriously disappeared or have been found dead. From the Indian Express:

On July 21 this year, Amichai Steinmetz checked out of the guesthouse in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, where he had been staying. Amichai, who holds both US and Israeli passports, and his Israeli friend were to go trekking from Khirganga, a hamlet in Parvati valley of Kullu, to the forests of Bunbuni. According to Amichai’s friend, they separated soon after they began, agreeing to reach Bunbuni from different routes, and planned to meet again in Khirganga the same evening. Amichai never returned. His friend says he didn’t meet him at Bunbuni either.

On Monday, August 17, a US Embassy team arrived from New Delhi to meet K.K. Indoria, Superintendent of Police, Kullu. The team, which included an officer of the diplomatic security service of the US Department of State, had come to inquire about the Amichai case.

Twenty-four-year-old Amichai is the 19th foreign tourist to have gone missing in Kullu (mostly from Parvati valley) since 1992. That’s an unsettling statistic for a tourist haven that is called the ‘Valley of Gods’, whose valleys and ridges offer a favourite setting for trekkers and tourists. Apart from the list of missing foreigners, official government records say 57 foreigners have died in the region between 1998 and 2009. Most of these deaths are attributed to accidents or drug overdose. But there have been murders too. Like that of Martin Young, a British national who died in a murderous assault in 2000. Similarly, Alessandra Verdi’s death in 2001 was described as murder. The Italian tourist’s body was recovered from the Parvati river bank. More:

[Image: Fabrice/Travellerspoint]

Ladakh: in the icy mountains of India

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on July 1, 2009

in India and Travel

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Thiksey monastery, Ladakh. Photo sabspeck / cc

Thiksey monastery, Ladakh. Photo sabspeck / cc

Tom Fordyce in the Sunday Times:

“Darling,” read the road sign as we hammered past, “I like you – but not so fast.” That was all very well, but I was in something of a hurry. Dawn was breaking across the Indus Valley, the yawning sun spotlighting the snowy tops of the Himalayan peaks all around.

When the rays reached the roof of Thiksey monastery, the monks would put conch-shell trumpets to lips and honk a mournful call to prayer across Ladakh. It wasn’t something I wanted to miss.

Two of them were poised in purple robes as I ran up the monastery steps. The view would have been breathtaking if I’d had any breath left to be taken. Running up stairs at an altitude of 11,500ft is not to be recommended; it makes you feel dizzy and confused.

I could have sworn I heard a mobile-phone ring tone as the monks raised their horns.

The shorter of the pair stopped and reached inside his robe. A tinny version of West Coast hip-hop rang out again across the ancient building. He pulled out a slim phone, silenced it with a few quick prods and tucked it away again. Not an eyelid was batted. Up came the trumpet, out came the honk. More:

Risking the Taliban to confront the deadliest of peaks, K2

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on June 28, 2009

in Sport and Technology

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Graham Bowley in the New York Times. Bowley is writing a book about the 2008 accident on K2 that left 11 climbers dead:

At midnight one evening earlier this month, I slipped out of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, heading north in a white Toyota minibus on a journey to find the second tallest mountain on earth, K2.

My purpose was to write a book about the mountaineers who dared challenge its deadly slopes – to get a taste, if not a full draught, of the danger myself. In the end, I got more than I bargained for, and not from Nature alone.

K2, which towers 28,251 feet above the border between Pakistan and China like an almost perfect white pyramid, is considered one of the most beautiful but also one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. By the opening of this climbing season, only 296 people had ever conquered its summit and 77 had died trying.

But this year, just reaching the mountain had become perilous. I had to travel, in a minibus that felt like a bubble, on a long and treacherous road that skirted Pakistan’s Swat Valley. There, at that moment, the Pakistani Army and the Taliban were fighting for control, making the lowlands south of K2 another of the most hazardous places on Earth. More:

Slipping from Shangri-La

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on June 22, 2009

in India and Travel

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Ted Conover at the Virginia Quarterly Review [via 3quarksdaily]:

The line of forty walkers moved quickly, which was good for keeping warm but bad for keeping my balance. Because we were walking on ice, a frozen river. The Zanskar, walled in on both sides by a towering gorge, is the only winter link between villages in that Himalayan valley and the outside world. And it’s only a link for a little while, in deepest winter, when its surface freezes enough to support human footsteps.

The mountain village of Reru

The mountain village of Reru

Zanskar is part of Ladakh-the eastern, Buddhist part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. At more than 11,000 feet above sea level (with peaks as high as 23,000), the area has long been defined by remoteness. The valley has the feel of a cul-de-sac, because there is only one real road in and out-a dirt track from Kargil, an untouristed and predominantly Muslim town just a couple of miles from the disputed border (or “Line of Control”) with Pakistan, to Padum, the main town of Zanskar. Summers are short there, and the Kargil road is only reliably open four or five months a year, from the end of May to early October. After that, snow makes it impassable and the valley gets very, very quiet. But for a few weeks each winter, when the ice is strong enough, the river provides the Zanskaris another way out-an ice road, a forty-mile trail upon the frozen surface called the chaddar.

The walkers were teenagers, mainly. They had maxed out the educational opportunities in Reru, a village with the area’s largest boarding school, and were taking advantage of the cold to get out of Dodge-to make their way to larger boarding schools in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, not far from the end of the chaddar at the confluence of the Zanskar and the Indus. They also were taking advantage of scholarships, offered by Europeans sympathetic to young Tibetan Buddhists in this poor part of the world. More:

Mystics, misfits and mountain men

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on June 12, 2009

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In the Telegraph, Dayita Datta reviews “Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empires to the Age of Extremes,” By Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver (Yale):

In May 2009, when Apa Sherpa summited Everest for the 19th time, and first-time climber 19-year-old Priti Patil also made it to the top as part of the same expedition, the events merited hardly a mention in the national press. A far cry from the banner headlines that greeted the 1953 expedition, which was even co-opted as part of the coronation as a symbol of a new “Elizabethan Age” (no matter that the successful summiteers were a New Zealand beekeeper and a Tibetan guide settled in India – the Commonwealth was still lit by the fading glow of the Empire). A few weeks ago in the pages of this paper, Anirban Das Mahapatra commented: “Once considered a final frontier reserved only for the world’s most daring adventurers… the peak is increasingly viewed by less-accomplished people as their next summer destination.” These developments underscore the appropriateness of the title of this history of Himalayan mountaineering.

The only time Himalayan mountaineering grabs headlines is when sufficient numbers of Westerners are killed – witness the success of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, about the 1996 disaster on Everest. Significantly, the simultaneous tragedy on the North Face was hardly written about – possibly because the climbers were three Indian constables of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police – and the Indian expedition was not wired up in the way the guided camps on the South-West Face were, allowing the world to watch and listen in horror as the dying Rob Hall made his last incoherent phone call to his wife. More:

Murder in the snow

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on November 10, 2008

in China and human rights

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In September 2006 two groups of people crossed paths in the snow-capped Himalayas, one seeking freedom and the other adventure. A brutal shooting threw them together, changing their lives forever. BBC will be broadcasting a documentary on the shooting and its aftermath on Monday, November 10 at 1900 GMT. Sally Ingleton tells the story

Each year an estimated 2,500 Tibetans make the dangerous and illegal crossing through the Himalayas into India.

Many are young teenagers seeking freedom both in religious practice and in their education. A big incentive is the prospect of meeting their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India.

In 2006 the plight of these refugees came to international attention when a group of mountain climbers witnessed and recorded Chinese border police opening fire on one group of pilgrims as they made their way across the Nangpa pass in the Himalayas, 18,000 feet (5,500m) above sea level.

A video of Chinese army soldiers shooting Tibetan refugees as they tried to escape over the Himalayas in September 2006 can be viewed on YouTube here

One last stand: a new strategy to save the tiger

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on October 27, 2008

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Sequestering tigers in nature reserves may doom them to a slow, genetic death. To save them, conservationists want to give them freedom to roam. Lily Huang in Newsweek:

Alan Rabinowitz has spent nearly three decades in a pitched battle to save the world’s few remaining havens for predator cats. He’s turned the Coxcombe Basin in Belize into the world’s first jaguar preserve, and built the largest nature reserve in Taiwan, the first national park in the Himalayas, and the world’s largest tiger reserve in Burma. Nevertheless, he knows he is losing.

The problem, Rabinowitz and other leading biologists now know, is that the classic conservation strategy of preserving habitat is in fact no defense against extinction. Twenty years ago, the devastation of natural forest was a visible danger. What went unseen was the damage sustained on a larger field of battle: the gene pool. A reserve may be a refuge for wildlife, but it is also a genetic sink. When a population of large predators is confined to pristine island of wilderness over time, they fall to inbreeding, leaving the species with weaker young and fewer defenses in an environment increasingly distorted by climate change. This is the deepening lesson of wildlife conservation from the post-industrial age to the genomic age: you can’t save animals without saving their homes, and you can’t save species without saving their genes.

Luxury comes to Ladakh’s hippie trail

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on October 14, 2008

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Fifteen years after backpacking through the Himalayas, Tom Robbins realises a little luxury is not to be sneered at – especially when it’s a community initiative. In The Observor:

Tom Robbins

Monks blow conch shells from the roof of Thikse Gompa to greet the day and ward off evil. Photograph: Tom Robbins

The woman beside me vomited in my lap but I was too far gone to care. It was 1am and we were approaching our 30th hour packed, knees to chins, inside an ancient bus as it coughed and spluttered up and down barren Himalayan mountainsides towards Leh, capital of Ladakh. My head was swimming from fever and altitude sickness, my mouth so caked in phlegm that swallowing was impossible, and white lights flashed agonisingly behind my eyes.

As we climbed towards the Lachlung La, a pass 250m higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, the groaning engine spluttered and died. Turning the ignition had no effect, so the driver tried a bump start, letting us roll backwards down the bumpy road towards the hairpin bend and the 500m drop below, then slamming the bus into reverse with a mighty jolt that made my head throb still harder. After a dozen tries, and a few false starts, he conceded defeat and ordered the passengers off. We were left by the side of the windswept road, in the dark, gasping in the thin air and shivering in the cold, with no option but to hitch the remaining 160km to Leh.

With Bhutia’s pickle, Danny’s beer, Sikkim hits homestay route

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on July 21, 2008

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From The Indian Express:

Eastern Himalayas

Eastern Himalayas

Normal gastronomical wisdom suggests that the more slender the chilli, the hotter it is. So, its appearance as a thick pod suggests that Sikkim’s popular chili – Dalay – would be mild on the tongue. But a small bite suffices to concur with its reputation as one of the hottest chillis in the world. The host adds some local trivia: the chilli has been bottled at a factory owned by Bhaichung Bhutia’s family. And the beer that is served comes from a brewery owned by Danny Denzongpa.

The host is a farmer, one of those selected to act as “rural homestay operators” under a proposal funded by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and promoted by the Sikkim government. While the concept may not be new, the project has been received very well in the state. Ever since its launch in Ray Mindu village in East Sikkim on November 29 last year, the project has been adopted by many other villages like Lingee Payong in South Sikkim, Kewzing, Yuksom and Patsanga.

[googlemaps http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Sikkim,+India&ie=UTF8&s=AARTsJpKj_kx7vNT5KZz3CreOV07l4LStA&ll=26.765231,88.59375&spn=3.923126,9.338379&z=6&output=embed&w=425&h=200]

Into the death zone: An amazing mountain rescue operation

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on June 3, 2008

in Nepal and Sport

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The attempt by some of the world’s best climbers to reach a dying mountaineer on Annapurna has redeemed a sport once known for its selfishness. Jonathan Brown in The Independent, UK:

Mingma Sherpa ran through the narrow winding streets of Kathmandu engaged in a desperate search. The Nepalese logistics expert employed by a Spanish mountain rescue team had been looking for help all night. It was not until 5am, shortly before dawn in the Himalayan capital, that he found the man he was looking for and began banging on his door.

Inside his hotel room, the Kazakh climber Denis Urubko was sleeping off the effects of a gruelling expedition to climb Makalu without oxygen. For the mountaineer, his conquest of the 8,463m (27,765ft) peak just a few days earlier was the 15th time he had ventured higher than the 8,000m mark – the point which signifies the start of the Death Zone above which human life is unsustainable. Yet, despite his state of near exhaustion, he was unable to refuse the Sherpa’s urgent pleas. He got up, packed and immediately left for the airport prepared, without hesitation, to go straight back into that most lethal of places.

[Photo: The summit of Annapurna, which stands 8,091m above sea level, has claimed the lives of four in every 10 climbers who have reached its peak.]

In the Himalayas, a climate-change calamity builds

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on April 24, 2008

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Glacial melting threatens disastrous floods in Bhutan, one of the world’s most environmentally vigilant nations. Henry Chu reports in Los Angeles Times:

Punakha, Bhutan: High in the Himalayas, above this peaceful valley where farmers till a patchwork of emerald-green fields, an icy lake fed by melting glaciers waits to become a “tsunami from the sky.”

The lake is swollen dangerously past normal levels, thanks to the global warming that is causing the glaciers to retreat at record speed. But no one knows when the tipping point will come and the lake can take no more, bursting its banks and sending torrents of water crashing into the valley below.

Such floods from above have hit Punakha before, most recently in 1994, a calamity that killed about two dozen people and wiped out livelihoods and homes without warning. But scientists say a new flood could unleash more than twice as much water and be far more catastrophic.

Trekking in style in Bhutan

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on April 22, 2008

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The best way to see one of the world’s most beautiful countries is on foot. The four-day Druk Path trek isn’t for everyone, but the rewards are great. Bruce Einhorn in BusinessWeek:

It was quite an entourage. A dozen mules, lugging the tents, sleeping bags, backpacks, gas stoves, and enough food for both humans and animals for four days. Managing the animals were three pony men. The group also included two cooks, two campground managers, and one guide in charge of keeping everything in order. Oh yes, and two guests: my wife and me.

We were gathered on the edge of Paro, a small town in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, as we were about to embark on the Druk Path, a four-day trek that would take us through forests of blue pine, past monasteries of whitewashed stone that look a bit like Swiss chalets, above the tree line to yak-herder shelters, along snowy ridges with stunning views of the high peaks, and finally down to the valley of Thimpu, a bustling town of government ministries, international aid-agency offices, small museums, and tourist shops, which is the closest Bhutan has to a city.

[Photo: Uma, a traditional-style hotel in the hills above the Paro Valley in Bhutan.]

A walk in the mountains

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on April 20, 2008

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In a remote corner of India, a new tourism project leads trekkers from village to village to stay with locals . Teresa Levonian Cole of The Guardian has a memorable time:

It was dark when we arrived. We had driven six hours from Bagdogra, climbing steadily through the foothills of the Himalayas, the steamy air of the plains becoming fresher as we made our ascent. We twisted through thickly forested mountain roads, crossing bridges that were regularly washed away by monsoons, skirting cliffs that in the past had sometimes fallen away into the Teesta River that burbled below, and gazed out on to the moonlit slopes in the hope of catching a glimpse of a brown bear or elusive leopard. Eventually, the bumpy track came to an end, signalling our arrival at Yangsum Farm, where a large bonfire burned in welcome.

This was the first stop on my village walk itinerary, in the western mountains of Sikkim, India’s greenest and least populated state, close to the Nepalese border and far from well-trodden trails. The plan was to visit places in the Lesser Himalayas so remote that they don’t appear on any maps. Indeed, in three days, I didn’t see a single tourist or souvenir shop. You could call it soft adventure, this concept dreamed up by eco-adventure company Shakti Himalaya which introduces people to the history, culture and lifestyle of remote areas through supported walks and overnight stops in simple village houses. Comfort, however, is ensured, as Shakti helps local owners to convert their houses, by adding bathroom facilities, for example, and introducing homely touches: a Buddha statue here, framed thangkas there, or a comfortable sofa to flop on.

High-altitude flood warning

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on February 6, 2008

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Global warming could cause catastrophic emptying of lakes in Nepal and Bhutan, writes Tod Crowell on Asia Sentinel.

The upper Himalaya lakes in Nepal and Bhutan that were formed by retreating glaciers are getting bigger as global warming causes glaciers to recede, with possibly ruinous consequences, a development that Japanese scientists have been monitoring with concern.

It is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing and dangerous one. The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development in Katmandu estimates that 15 glacial lakes have burst in recent years, an average of one every two to five years. The center figures another 20 or so are candidates for Glacial Lake Outburst Flooding, or Glof.

RIP, Sir Edmund Hillary: 1919-2008

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on January 11, 2008

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Sir Edmund Hillary, who has died at the age of 88, made it to the summit of Everest in 1953, and became the first man on the planet to reach its highest point.

As a boy in New Zealand, Edmund Hillary’s fragile appearance belied his ground-breaking potential.

At school, he was in a gym group for those lacking co-ordination and admitted to feeling a “deep sense of inferiority”.

But the 40-mile journey to school in Auckland each day gave young Edmund many hours to pore over adventure stories and travel ever further in his mind.

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