04.25.2015

Namaste.

I just donated to Direct Relief, one of the highest ranked non-profits according to Charity Navigator. Please consider donating to their Nepal Earthquake program.

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Man vs. Mule

Stubbornness and sustainable trekking in Nepal

Quite a heavy load in that basket...

There's a dark side to the beauty, enchantment and amazement of Nepal's Himalaya Mountains. Some of the treks in Nepal can be easily done without assistance from a guide, porter, or sherpa. 

You can just show up with your backpack, have almost nothing planned and do a week-long trek such as the "ABC" one without any hassle. The trekking infrastructure in Nepal is actually quite good, the trails are in good shape and there are plenty of guesthouses offering accommodation and food for as much as $5 a night (food included).  

For longer treks, camping trips or treks in restricted areas, however, at least one guide is often required and a crew of sherpas, porters and/or mules might be needed. Camping trips, especially, require many supplies as there is no food, water or shelter readily available.

I noted in one of my earlier posts that trekking agencies need to be looked at closely but I decided to write this post to really focus on the issue. The problem with "staffed" treks in Nepal is that they can result in gross abuse of the porters who carry all the supplies. Porters are Nepalese men (typically) who go on trekking trips and bring all the supplies on their backs. If done right, mules are also employed to share the load. Neither men nor mules are not supposed to carry more than 40 kilos or so.

The problem is that many trekking agencies promise their trekker clients that they pay fair and don't overload their staff. In reality, many of these agencies charge for, let's say, 10 porters, only hire six and keep the difference in their pockets. Not only do they underpay their porters but they also force them to carry as many as 100 kilos on their backs. 

A backbreaking 100 kg/220lb 28-day journey

These treks can last as many as four weeks and porters have to carry these loads up and down insanely steep and difficult terrain. That's basically lugging around 220 pounds every day for a month at more than 13,000 feet in altitude! 

Unfortunately, many porters have low income and families to support so they're willing to put up with the heavy loads in exchange for a few dollars a day of pay.

 

One of the best ways to go about trekking in Nepal to ensure these hard working people are not abused, is to work with an independent guide who hires his own staff and ideally has his own mules. This guide should go with you on your trek and you should get to know him quite well prior to your departure. Get to know your crew and ensure that they are well paid and carrying appropriate weight. Trekkers should support a wholesome and sustainable trekking industry in Nepal where human rights are respected, not abused. 

And what about the mules? Well, mules are known for their stubbornness so if they're overloaded with more than 40 kilos, they simply won't move. No matter what. Regardless of any beating, yelling or screaming, these stubborn animals won't move an inch with so much weight on their back. Why should anybody else? 

If you're interested in going on a sustainable trek in Nepal, contact our fantastic guide, Karma Mustangi. 

Too much weight on their backs: one of the packs constantly leaked kerosene all over the porter

Our porter Manoz was stoked we packed so little, asking us "and the rollie bags"? There were none of course.

A more reasonable load

Just about right for what a mule will handle

Namaste! Chia please! Addicted to Tea in Nepal

Tea, otherwise known as chia in Nepalese, is the national drink in Nepal.

Nepal is a tea heaven. It is available everywhere, 24/7 and for not even 10 cents a cup on the street you can have as much of it as you can handle. The quality of the tea leaves is not the best in the world, but the key to this delicious drink is all in the preparation and the other ingredients (especially for their spiced tea).

Most of the tea available in Nepal is a black tea - white or green are extremely hard to find and once you find it, it's probably in a teabag (clearly inferior to good ol' loose leaf!). The black tea variations consist of black tea, milk tea, or dud chia, and spiced tea, or masala chia. Chia means tea in Nepali and, confusingly enough, Chai is tea in Hindi.

The other varieties are mostly herbal and consist of ginger tea, lemon tea, honey ginger lemon tea, jasmine or mint tea. The tibetan variety, butter tea, was left untouched. I had it once or twice when I was in Tibet in 2008 and it was enough to last a lifetime. Butter tea is literally hot piping butter (usually from yak or cow) and it feels like drinking a soupy chapstick. No thanks!!

In most places, tea is very cheap and it's fun to drink - at some points I swear we were having 10 cups of tea a day.

Here's a breakdown of tea in Nepal (in order of my personal preference):

Black Teas

Masala chia

Loving the masala chia

If you've ever had 'chai' tea or spiced tea, Indian style, that's exactly what masala chia is. Funny thing is, for a westerner, 'chai' is a kind of tea just like a 'latte' is a kind of tea, but in Hindi, 'chai' just means tea. When getting a "chai tea", it's the same as just ordering a "tea tea."

Masala chia, meaning spiced tea, was my favorite kind of tea in Nepal. Fresh spices such as ginger, pepper, cinnamon and cardamom are ground and added to black tea with milk (strained before serving). As with any black tea, whole milk is used. We usually asked for our masala chia without sugar because the Nepalese way was a bit too sweet for our tastebuds but sometimes, especially during our long trek, we welcomed the extra sweetness.

Dud chia
A very close second to masala chia, this milk tea is just black tea with whole milk and a little (or a lot) of sugar. It's great for the mornings or during a tea break in the afternoon. We didn't always get it loose leaf though, some of our destinations were too remote and we had to resort to the teabag.

Tea and crosswords, what else could you ask for!

Just black tea
This was just hot water and black tea, nothing to write home about but very handy once your stomach starts giving you problems. Milk is not always ideal to have, especially when sick so black tea was a good alternative and it also helped us with some headaches (in lieu of coffee).

Herbals

Real lemon on my HGLT!

Honey ginger lemon tea (HGLT)
My favorite, by far, of the 'herbals' offered in Nepal. This tea is great for a sore throat or a cold. The unfortunate part is that the 'lemon' is not natural, it comes from a powder, and the herbal tea was almost always in a teabag. Regardless, the nice hot mixture of honey, ginger (real ginger!), lemon and tea was a life-saver plenty of times.

Ginger tea
Hot water plus freshly shaved ginger is another good one if you're sick. Sometimes they didn't have HGLT so the plain ginger tea was a good enough alternative.

Ginger all along the bottom

Mint tea
Mint grows everywhere and it was a good night-time beverage. All they did was add fresh mint to boiling hot water. Usually we'd down a giant thermos of mint tea prior to dinner, just to keep warm.

Jasmine

Matcha!

This was just jasmine tea in a teabag. Got it once or twice, and the 'jasmine' taste wasn't really there.

Green tea! I only really had it once. It was on ABC and it was given to me as a present by a Japanese trekker. He brought small packets of matcha (green tea powder) from Japan and even though it was 'inferior' to the real deal, it was so good sipping on my favorite kind of tea!



Here are more images of the different kind of tea and serving styles:

The craziest tea we got: goji berries, other local berries, rock sugar and an herbal tea bag

10 days and 180 KM of whitewater rafting in Nepal

Going from mountain goats to 'leave it to beavers'!

Rafting down the spectacular and remote Karnali river in western Nepal 

Our 33-day trek was amazing and after a week-long rest in Pokhara, we were ready for more adventure. This time, however, we wanted to give our legs a break so we opted for a 10 day, 180km whitewater rafting trip (3 days of travel plus 7 days of rafting). Getting set up to go whitewater rafting is super easy in Nepal. Operators provide everything: food, transport, tents, etc. All we had to do was sign up and hop on a bus!

Although we didn't choose this company, we really recommend Paddle Nepal based in Pokhara, they're a little more pricey than the other ones but they're VERY good at what they do.

The awesome but smelly rafting bus!

A two-day bus ride traversing most of western Nepal brought us to the amazing Karnali River. Like many adventures, ours was off to an interesting start! The guides picked us up in a tiny shit-hole of a town and as we were leaving the bus broke down. We had to push the bus to start it and after a short two hours, we were on our way.

The bus was not the most comfortable thing on Earth and, with no air conditioning or fans, it got blisteringly hot in there. Once the meat cooler started leaking, the meat juice started smelling really nice so we plugged in our earbuds and listened to "The Heist" album by Ryan Lewis and Macklemore. After finally arriving at 9PM we ate a late dinner, showered and passed out in our 'cosy' room.

Basic accommodation but with a shower!

We woke up at 4AM the next morning to continue the rest of our trip to the put-in point. The roads were actually not that bad for the most part; what made the journey extra-long was the dozens and dozens of military check-points along the entire length of the road. Commercial operators have to obtain a permit in order to be allowed on the road. The last few kilometers were killer, it was one of the worst unpaved roads we had ever been on and the bus couldn't go any faster than 5 KPH.

We finally got to the put-in point and brought all the gear to the shore. The town was intense: the locals just sat there eating peanuts watching us do our thing and the kids wanted to help us really badly in exchange for a few rupees (i.e. steal things from your bags when you're not looking). Our philosophy is: we never give out money to anyone, no matter what.

The encounters went something like this:

"Sister, hello?"

"Hi."

 "Banana?" as she motions to help carry it...

"Yes, this is a banana" [I was holding one]

"Sister! Sister! Banana? Madam?"

[keep walking, ignore, ignore, ignore...]

Sorry, but no thanks, we'd rather just do it ourselves -- if we really wanted help, trust me, we'd ask. Plus, we'd really prefer not to have our valuables snatched. Anyway, we finally got everything on the rafts and went down the river for just a few minutes and landed on our first beach as big dark clouds rolled in.

The staff had warm drinks and snacks ready for us and we wanted to set up our tent before it got too dark. We were told that we'd be given a tent but the staff had "forgotten it on the bus." Sweet. No tent for 7 days and a crazy storm was about to hit... we weren't too happy about this.

Gimme Shelter!

Fortunately, Gerry the super amazing kayaker/film director/Everest veteran came to our rescue and let us use his tent. As soon as we were able to set it up, an intense hail storm hit and we sat between the raft that we had propped up with paddles and a flimsy tarp we had managed to tie to another set of paddles. The storm didn't stop so we stayed there to eat our spaghetti dinner and played our first round of one of the most addicting and entertaining card games ever: Dirty Clubs (we will have an exclusive post on this game soon).

The rest of the trip was smooth sa-.... rafting! Every day we'd paddle for 4 to 6 hours and land at pristine river beaches, making camping logistics extremely easy. We headed to bed early after the the nightly campfire and woke up for the sunrise. The group of rafters and kayakers was wonderful and we all had a lot of fun together. Both of us even got an introductory course to river kayaking and it is a lot harder than it seems -- we have a lot of respect for those who run Class IV and V rapids on kayaks!

Most of the rapids we hit were class III and IV and it was a blast: the rush of adrenaline when the raft guide yells "paddlepaddlepaddlefasterforwardrightbackleftforwardfasterfaster!" as we are about to head into a wall of rushing water was just amazing! One of the best parts was called Jail House: we stopped to scout the Class IV rapids and then hit them straight down the middle.

Sleep tight

We often just jumped in the river and float down for a while. This was extremely relaxing and Andrea even got to kayak down some of the calmer portions of the river (Eliot was too tall to fit in the available kayaks). We were extremely impressed with the cleanliness of the river. It was almost impossible to spot trash floating down and the water was very clean. This was probably due to the fact that the Karnali River is in such a remote area, the biggest village we saw only had a couple dozen houses in it (no road or grid access for miles).

It was so refreshing to be in such a remote, clean and beautiful place, we really hope to find some more great rafting throughout our trip.


co-posted on www.eliotpeper.com

More pictures of our 10-day Karnali rafting adventure:

Beautiful fields en route to the river (Western Nepal)

Put-in point

Day 1 of rafting, getting all the gear together while being watched by the curious and intense locals

Our cook, our meal

A typical post-rafting afternoon on the beach

Tea time after a day's rafting!

Another typical beach set-up

The fantastic rafting and kayaking crew - all top notch people!

Nice views of the river on our way back to Kathmandu after the trip

Some crocs chillin on the river

10 days of no shower turned Andrea's incredibly straight hair all wavy!

The Himalayan weightloss plan

Rhododendron madness

After a two-week journey through the ancient Kingdom of Lo, we returned to the relative civilization (i.e.hot showers and non-instant coffee) of Kagbeni, a small town in the Lower Mustang region. Although civilized, we practically evacuated out of our room that night because there a kerosene leak that had been going on for hours and we were getting dizzy, headaches and our throats burned. Apparently, the guesthouse owner couldn't even tell that there was something wrong (!!!!!).

We spent the next few days hiking through dramatic river valleys circumnavigating the west side Annapurna mountain range. The scenery looked a lot like Switzerland: burbling brooks, alpine vistas, temperate pine forests, moss covered rocks, etc. Idyllic villages dotted the landscape, famous for their locally brewed apple cider. Afternoon thunderstorms chased us to our daily destinations and, aside from a horrific bout of food poisoning  (the salad was so tempting!), we made it through relatively unscathed. Finally we arrived at the final stop of the Annapurna Circuit, a town called Tatopani famous for its natural hot springs.

Purest water on Earth

Ironically many trekkers now skip this last leg of the Annapurna Circuit route because a new road was recently built to short-circuit the journey. Although there are numerous alternate trekking routes, most tourists opt to take a Jeep and skip the last section. This is a damn shame. We found the west side of the Annapurnas more beautiful and dramatic than the traditional east side of the Circuit and we highly recommend anyone considering the trek to walk the whole way.

We had finished both Upper Mustang and the Annapurna Circuit sections of our 33-day trek and the finale was almost in view: Annapurna Base Camp (ABC).

I thought I knew what stairs were. Seriously, there are stairs in San Diego, hills even. But nothing compares to the stairs leading up to Annapurna Base Camp, aka ABC. If you ever want to train for the Stairmaster World Championships this is the place to do it. The trail consists of thousands upon thousands of vertical meters of rocky stairs that go up as well as down, eventually leading up into the sanctuary in the middle of the Annapurna range.

View of Fishtail peak from ABC

When you stop for air the scenery is absolutely spectacular. The humidity is much higher on this side of the range and everything was green. Bamboo groves danced in the mountain breeze and blooming rhododendron trees turned entire hillsides bright pink. Farmers urged on their water buffalo to turn over tiny rice patties alongside the path. At higher altitudes monkeys swung from tree to tree and vultures soared through the sky. Glacier-fed waterfalls showered the valley that leads up into the mountains. For most of the journey the humidity kept it relatively warm but on the second to last day we were rudely ambushed by a heavy hailstorm. Eliot bravely made it through the 2-hour storm wearing just a t-shirt while Andrea quickly put on her windbreaker, gloves and hat for protection.

We finally reached ABC after a long slog of a climb. The camp itself is surrounded by Annapurna's most scenic peaks. We sipped hot cocoa, crunched our way through the snow and watched the sunset turn the mountains rosy. Although a few of our fellow climbers fell victim to altitude sickness we had no problems, probably because we were already fully acclimated and the altitude was a mere 4,100 meters. The next morning we got up before dawn and watched the sunrise. It was gloriously clear and we had dazzling views of the different peaks.

The final few days of the trek were surprisingly challenging. We trudged our way through the hilly regional homeland of the famous Gurkha warriors to make it to the nearest road. At the end of our 33rd day we hopped into the first motorized vehicle we'd used in over a month and headed off to the lake town of Pokhara. No scales were available to test the effectiveness of the Himalayan weight loss plan but you can look at our pictures below and decide for yourselves.

Our tour of the Annapurnas was complete and our feet were ready for a well-earned rest...

co-posted on www.eliotpeper.com

Before

After

Damn pretty

Valley the path follows

Rural village

Keep that energy level up!

River valley

Waterfall

Almost there

ABC

Sunrise on Annapurna I

Annapurna South (I think)

Cool, right?

Local buckwheat