Escape From Kathmandu


The 3/7/99 in Darjiling. India

Well, one day short of one month from the day that I had my passport stolen, The Indian Embassy finally issued me with another Visa. I only got out once to Chitwan national park, a little natural gem on the border with India. The last real refuge of the great one horned Indian Rhino, I visited to see that and as many birds as I could. Being well out of season getting a bargin was certainly easy, and everything I did was cheap compared to the normal prices. I went for a couple of walks with a local kid who was into birds in a big way, and good too. Then there was the morning "jungle walk" The forest was more like the inside of an English wood than jungle, but pleasent to visit. We had to trek through stands of 3m elephant grass, and when your guide is armed only with a stout stick, this is not the most dull of strolls. Eventually, after a couple of hours we found 2 rhino wallowing in a shallow water hole, but didn't get really close. However, 30 minutes later we got to sneak up on a rhino in the river and got to within 10m, although well above it. Still, it stormed up the bank, at a lost to where we vanished to as we'd rather rapidly climbed the nearest trees. I milled about for another day doing some bird walks and finding the odd gem. Wild peacocks were great, and I was way too excited for sanity at finding a genuine wild chicken. Then all that remained was the elephant ride. My guide book warned it was two hours "which is about as long as you want to be stapped to an elephant's spine" amen!! We did see Rhino, but I'll leave elephant riding to the Raj's. So back again to Kathmandu and the waiting. For close to three weeks I visited the embassy nearly daily only to be told that the London office had not replied confirming my previous visa, and I must come tomorrow. Tired of this, I finally tried to apply for a new visa as a South African, and shortly thereafter had it. Then I hung about Kathmandu for a couple more days, watching SA choke at the second last hurdle in the world cup. I’d met up with Daniel and Will, two lads from the flight over 4 months ago. We teamed up and eventually headed here to Darjling. Leaving Nepal was with mixed feelings. This home for the last 3 months, although it had given me the great inconvience of having to replace my passport and curtail my travels, had certainly been better than India, and it was with no great sense of anticipation that I strolled over the border under a 35kg pack back into India. We headed pretty much straight for Darjiling, and after 20 odd hours of travel found ourselves universally dissappointed with what it just another filthy Indian town. The great Colonial ideas had crashed amoungst the litter, excrement and odours that were so absent in Nepal. Monsoon has also stuck, with some vengence, so the views that are so legendary, were completely obscured in cloud.

Needless to say, after a month of enforced city entrapement, I was more than a little eager to go trekking and thus after investigating a large push into the mountains, and being repelled by cost, we decided on the shorter more traditional local 6 day effort. We were joined by Dave, a classical Yorkshireman. After a quick visit to the Zoo (leopards, snow leopards and Tigers) and a visit to the Himalayan mountaineering institue, we left the next day in the early afternoon to the trailhead. Needless to say, the weather was inclement, and by the time we’d climbed the 8 km to the first rest hut, rain was steadly falling. This by and large set the pattern for the coming days. It took a total of nine days for us to get around the trek, although we certainly never pushed ourselves. We only walked 3 or 4 hours a day, often less. Spending endless hours playing cards and reading, brewing cups of tea and generally passing time as rain drove into the roofs over our heads. For three days the rain largely held off, and we even all got a little sunburnt when the clouds parted and the we found ourselves next to a bubbling brook, having a trailside lunch. I did myself the disservice of burning my newly shaved head (again). The scenery was never spectacular, in that the clouds, though they parted above us, never lifted to reveal the closeby peaks. And of course though Sagamartha was apparently visible, I never caught a glimpse. The best views, at the furtherest north point, were found 200m up from a airy cold lodge. I stood alone (while the others attacked Roxy, the local paintstripper type spirit) on a wind swept ridge as the mist parted to reveal cloud filled valleys below, and the slopes of Kangchendzona (worlds 4th highest peak) with its freshly snowchoked gullies ascending into cloud. It was late afternoon, and the highlight of the trek for me. Conditions the next day were positively Patagonian, with howling wind and driving rain, yet we descended like kids, running down paths that were often streams and occasionally near rivers. The trekking poles and years of practise made this little adventure the highlight of the walking (running) and only my lack of fitness stopped the fun before we reached the village 17km away in under 2 hours. Monsoon, although it lacks views, has its advantages. Whereas this trek is another ABC affair in high season, we were the first group through in 3 weeks and saw not another westerner, scared off by very wet walks and leeches (of which I suffered asingletniy specimen, while dave was pillaged for his blood).

The driving rain has meant that one reaches a level of greenness and saturation that I have hardly seen before. Every little flora organism is revelling in the conditions, from delicate miniture Azaleas to massive Rhododendrons. Ferns of every type abound, and wildflowers cover any unforested ground. Indeed, the higher ridges (+-3600m) are simply covered in purple irises in such profusion that it often looks like some mad landscape architects experiment. Water is absolutlely everywhere. And given the topography, it is forever falling, rushing and roaring through the greenery. I could not imagine a landscape more lush. Yet I plan to find one. For once we’d returned and the others head for the West, I’m going East. To the wettest point on the globe in the wettest time of the monsoon. In the month of July, Cherrapunja recieves an average of 2600mm of rain. But has had 5000mm. In 30 days. To be so close to this hydrological anomally and not visit it is impossible for someone like me, so while the thousand of other travellers in India cower from the monsoon in the mountains or the western deserts, I’m off (and almost certainly alone in this) to embrace rain in its purest form. To see what a 72hour wall of water looks like, and try to photograph it. And then to head for the mountains in the West, where the silly politics of the past few weeks will hopefully have finished their nonsense.