Since leaving Shimla, over a week back, I’ve made my way to Pokhara in the middle of Nepal, crossing at the western border at Banbassa (India) and Mahendranaggar (Nepal). On the way through I made a couple of stops, one at an out-of-the-way little village and another at Rishikesh.
The village was my unplanned stop on Diwali night (the 22nd, I think) as I’d underestimated how long another lovely little unpaved road through the mountains might take to traverse and was riding in darkness. There was very little sleep to be had as the villagers celebrated all night with fireworks, the firing of shotguns and setting light to everything.
Next day the roads were deserted and I made good time to Rishikesh and a very pleasant room overlooking the Ganges. I like the bustle of Rishikesh, watching the tourists and Gangetic pilgrims who arrive from all over the country, so spent a pleasant three days before packing to leave for Nepal. The evening before the off I checked my mails and there was a message from Pankaj – he was due in Rishikesh the following day, where he would be hosting an adventure training programme for 60 of Johnson & Johnson’s Indian staff.
So, departure delayed, P and I met up for the first time since he left Leh back in July. That night we were given luxury tents on a river valley campsite owned by the company arranging the course’s activities and I spent a short while kayaking with one of the guides (a refresher after not having set arse in a canoe for 20 years) and swimming in the cold river, before wittering away a pleasant evening with P.
The following morning I was up early to go white-water rafting on the holy river, joining a group of young Russians and older western Europeans. The rapids were pretty impressive, but nothing compared to the afternoon, during which I joined the J&J employees for their run down the bigger stuff. For a people who like to spend much of their time dipping in ponds, lakes and rivers, a surprisingly high proportion of Indians (well over half) can’t swim, so there were plenty of nerves on display.
These lower rapids were way bigger than the morning’s, stopper waves, towering above the rubber raft, which was thrown all over the place, but not flipped. In some of the lesser white water it was permitted to jump out of the raft and float down in one’s life jacket – fun, but cold – an offer with few takers.
All this unplanned activity was a wonderful surprise, but time was running out for me to get to Nepal before my visa expired and I was keen to have a day or so in hand to cope with any problem reaching or crossing the border. So, following a night on the rum with P, I left Rishikesh, making good time on smooth, flat roads until within 50km of the line.
The border crossing at Banbassa carries very little traffic, running over a series of small bridges crossing the huge Sarda Canal. Everything was fairly straightforward until it came to processing my customs carnet on the way out of India. It had been incorrectly filled at Delhi airport, which caused quite some consternation and debate as to what should be done. In the end – after some 45 minutes of drinking chai and eating leftover Diwali sweets in the small customs office – they agreed to let me through.
The differences between Nepal (the bit I’ve seen, anyhow) and India are immediately apparent. There are far fewer people around and, despite Nepal having a poorer population on paper, there’s less poverty apparent on the streets. Less litter, too, and everything and everybody looks that bit cleaner and healthier. There are few TVs and no satellite dishes, but the quality of peoples’ lives looks just fine in this area.
There is one big main road running west-east in Nepal, and it was this smooth, wide route that I followed. Despite its prominence on the map the road carries very little traffic, as very few people have cars. Bicycle and buffalo use is heavy, though.
When you think ‘Nepal’, a vision of endless mountains doubtless springs to mind, but here in the south, the countryside is lush, flat farmland and sub-tropical forest. It was into this forest I turned a couple of hours and 150km down the road, in order to visit Bardia National Park, about which I’d been told at the border by a travel geezer.
It’s a lovely spot – so peaceful, lush and unspoiled. The village is sited in the park’s ‘buffer-zone’ and is wonderfully scenic and relaxed. But all this calm beauty belies the reality of a troubled country.
For the past five years, Nepal has been in a state of virtual civil war between the well-equipped, US-backed, government forces, loyal to King Gyanendra, and the ‘Maoists’ – who are more left-wing anti-royalists than strict followers of Mao’s doctrines. Presently Nepal is in a period of truce, with an interim coalition government composed mainly of moderate opposition leaders, communist party members and some politicians previously loyal to the king. Also in the political fray are the Maoists.
Loyalty to the monarch has been low and suspicions high, since his brother, the previous king, along with his two sons and daughter, were slaughtered by a palace insider in 2001. This increased the popularity of a democratic opposition and anti-royalists (not to mention reinforcing the position of the ever-growing Maoist movement, whose premier gripe is the leech-like king) to the point that on February 1st 2005, Gyanendra dismissed the civil government and declared his direct rule, backed by the army. All communication, both internally and with the outside world, was severed as the king desperately tried to reassert his beleaguered status.
However, the Nepali people tolerated this for only until late April, when they took to the streets in mass demonstrations. So deep was the feeling across the stratum of Nepalese society, that Army chiefs appealed to the king to reinstate civil governance, rather than try to use force to quell the uprising. On April 24th this year the king concurred, almost certainly realising it was his only chance of hanging onto any power.
Constitutional elections are scheduled to be held in seven month’s time, after which there will be the not-so-small matter of writing a constitution and moving on to full parliamentary or/and congressional elections. There’s already a framework document outlining Nepal’s move into full democracy, but a couple of major sticking points remain – what to do with Gyanendra, and how to either fuse or demobilise the Royal Nepalese Army (if indeed it is to remain ‘royal’) and the well-armed Maoist guerrillas.
On the royal front, the Maoists want to see to king dispossessed and exiled – which has been the opinion of the overriding majority of Nepalese I’ve spoken too. They see him as nothing short of a thief. However, many of the ‘opposition’ leaders want to keep him on as a ceremonial puppet king, which worries left-wingers as they see him possibly re-building his power base and once again rearing his gold-framed RayBans. Many in the older generations are also pro-king as he’s part of Nepal’s religious framework and they can’t imagine life without the divinely-appointed royalty. Should the left insist on showing Gyanendra the boot, it could well kick off some kind of Royalist last stand – though I’m sure you’ll find the king safely out of harm’s way during any ruckus.
On the militaristic questions, the first concern is how to remove the armed factions from the streets at election time – to house them and their weapons under UN supervision is favourite. Next is the question of what to do with all these fighters thereafter. The Maoists rather simplistically claim that as their forces have contributed at least half the impetuous to democracy, they should make up at least half the armed forces. Obviously other parties are worried this will give them a position from which to launch an all-out revolutionary coup. This would also mean very poor Nepal having a massive – and massively expensive – military, just when it should least need it…
So what does all this have to do with the Indian one-horned rhinoceros? Or the Nepalese one, come to that? Well, all this civil strife, violence and intrigue have impacted on his horny hide in several ways.
The political shenanigans, and the way they’ve been reported, say locals here I’ve spoken to, have had a profound effect on Nepal’s all-important tourist industry. Although the left-wing ‘terrorists’ have avoided harming foreigners - Nepal’s only major means of gaining hard currencies – the perceived threat has all but killed the travel trade. The Maoists ‘taxed’ trekkers occasionally to the tune of around ten pounds per head, but their main targets have been government institutions, royalist sympathisers and the military.
Here in Bardia, over half the tourist lodges have closed and those six or seven remaining have been clinging on by their fingernails. Things are improving now that there’s a peace, and tourists are slowly returning (though the most lucrative Yanks and Japs are still mainly staying away), but their absence has hit communities such as this hard. In turn this hurts the park and our one-tonne big-nosed buddies.
Without the tourist dollar coming in, why should the villagers tolerate the elephants who come out of the park to ravage their crops (there are loud trumpetings near the village as I write), or the leopards and tigers nabbing the odd goat? Or indeed knocking the shack-shop holder next door off his bike? He managed to fend off the leopard with his bicycle, sustaining only minor claw-wounds.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the notional fence, poachers have been at work depleting wildlife reserves while the military, who erstwhile did the guarding, have been distracted by the insurgence. Maybe we’ve just found out what to do with the militaries – have them guarding the peoples’ forests. Or The Peoples’ Forests.
I’ve been talking much of this over with Sri, the proprietor of the curiously-named Racy Shade Guesthouse, where I presently reside in comfort for a pound and 80 new pence per night… and the plumbing works… and it’s clean… and there’s 12-Volt solar backup for when the mains goes down every day. Sri is an intelligent, reasonably well-travelled fellow in his mid-thirties. He’s recently married (very late for this part of the world), has a year-old son and is pretty optimistic about things. In the past five years he has had 40 guests passing through, but has equalled this in the seven months since the restoration of government – though this is still nowhere near the number of guests expected prior to his majesty’s paddy.
He is also the leader of the village’s park forum, designed to improve communication between the villagers and park authorities. A hopeful example of how this works is the restoration, by Mum Nature herself, of the buffer-zone’s forest which since it was handed over to the village as ‘theirs’ several years ago, has started to regenerate. Since the villagers now have a sense of ownership, they must apply to their peers before taking anything out instead of poaching resources, as they did when they felt they were taking something back from corrupt government or king.
Also in a spirit of cooperation (bad link), I joined a bunch of Shady staff and villagers last night for an unusual spot o fishin’ by moonlight. This entailed damming the small river that runs out front, just above the bridge and the mini-weir soon beyond. Remove all the water you can, straining it through a net, and voila, fish…
Eels (‘bam’ in Nepali) were the most prized of the catch of the night, though the most elusive, being able the wriggle under the stones. So there was some chaos, with villagers shouting ‘bam, bam, bam’ and scrabbling though the exposed riverbed on all fours, grabbing with cloths at their slippery prey.
The cloths were explained when I caught my first eel. They look very like our own freshwater slimesters, but sport a line of spines along their backs. This minor pricking was nothing, however, when compared to the spines on a catfish’s gill covers. I assume they’re slightly venomous as the throbbing from a pinprick went all the way to the shoulder. Henceforth I specialised in freshwater shrimp, not risking grabbing at anymore silhouettes in the shadows.
I was invited back to the cookhut to share the eelfeast, which was prepared much as my grandmother used to on the Somerset Levels. Chop yer wriggler (although eels here actually die when you kill them, whereas UK eels are indestructible until cooked) into two-inch sections, roll in flour and spices, and fry the hell outta them. In the UK’s Westcountry, however, we seldom ate eels with gluey rice flakes.
After the eel eating I headed of to Pokhara, with a stopover at the small market town of Tansen. I’ll update on Pokhara in the next couple of days, but in the meanwhile I’ve got ‘real’ work I need to send.
