To Pokhara, with its lake. And some small cultural differences

 I’m in Pokhara, I have been here many times, but I never tire of walking beside its quiet waters.

The lake is busier these days than when I first visited. Busy boats ferry the faithful to and from the little island temple. Tourists (there are many Indian tourists here at the moment) row small boats, just for fun. Young people have discovered the delights of kayaks and boards. Life jackets hang like washing beside the lake.

It’s busy, but even so it’s respite from the mayhem of Kathmandu. I sat in a memorable traffic jam - in the few seconds it took for the policeman directing traffic to rearrange his genitals every driver had assumed their own rules of the road and the result was gridlock. At which point some drivers abandoned their vehicles, briefly, in order to advise the policeman on how to unravel the mess. Sorry, no photos - not of the traffic, nor the uncomfortable policemen. But this is Nepal - no tempers were lost. The jam unraveled. And maybe I was the only person who remembered it next day.

Maybe it’s just that life is tough for many people here. As a visitor - and looked after by Tika and his family - I am removed from the hardships that haunt many people’s lives. Clothes are washed under a cold, outside tap. Electricity is unreliable. Many young people have left, either for the cities or to work abroad. And so the old are left to care for themselves on these beautiful but unkind hillsides.

And there are other cultural differences - things that are unremarkable here but raise eyebrows in the west. For instance, these images line every temple:

This is a linga - a penis and vagina. Behind is a row of linga. I have yet to visit a church lined with sexual images, yet here it is a holy symbol of fertility and deemed unremarkable. But - and here I really hope I am not insulting any Nepali sensitivities - this notice made me laugh: 

(Though maybe Lord Shiva is interested in the dreams of an old traveller!)

And, supervising it all: mighty Annapurna. I have countless photographs of the mountains, taken over many years. And so I can see that there is significantly less snow than there used to be. Which means the waterfalls will be less powerful, and so produce less electricity - much of which is sold to India. When I first came here, every hotel room had a candle and matches - power cuts were common. Today, there are times of reduced power (known as load shedding) but power cuts are far less frequent. But if less power produced in the mountains, providing power in the valleys becomes a greater challenge. Tourists might be inconvenienced. For the Nepali it will turn the clock back twenty years or more.

But that doesn’t stop the mountains being breathtakingly beautiful.

More mountains, and another earthquake.

I need to start with the most recent earthquake. Tremors are common here, and surely we all remember the devastation in Kathmandu and beyond in 2015. Three days ago, the earth shook in the remote north-west of Nepal. People have died; you will have seen pictures of people sleeping in the streets for fear their houses will collapse on top of them.

The relief effort will be challenging: this area is hard to access and supplies may need to be carried on the back of porters - most of whom, at this time of year, are in the mountains with the trekkers. But the Nepali are extraordinarily resourceful. They will not be wringing their hands and waiting for help to trudge over the mountains: that will take time. Meanwhile these villagers will be busy looking after each other. They will harvest what they can and cook over open fires. They will share blankets and any available shelter. 

Meanwhile, I was asleep and felt nothing. And, in true Nepali fashion, my hosts continue to insist that life for tourists must carry on as if nothing has happened. My plans remain unchanged and I’ll be home by the end of the week. Do I feel guilt? Of course. But even if I could reach the stricken region I’d be a hindrance, not a help. 

So let’s backtrack. My last post was written just after I left Lumbini. I had a week or so in Pokhara, pottering by the lake, wandering in and out of shops, lounging in cafes with my notebook. 

Twice I went higher into the mountains. Trekking is off the agenda on this trip, and so Tika drove me to a ridge hotel, where I could watch the sunrise over Annapurna. 

Later in the day, when clouds play in the mountaintops, this is a view down the valley:

My pottering also took me into a little temple by the lake. Hinduism remains a mystery to me (I’ve tried), but half-forgotten temples are peaceful places; I understand the appeal of peace. Though did smile at the pigeon that paid no respect to this sacred bull:

There’s a huge, new Shiva temple high on the ridge above Pokhara: this was full of visitors and an altogether noisier place. Shiva, however, looked down on it all without flinching.

And, across a little valley is a smaller temple. This is the mountains (again - can there be too many mountains?) framed by an archway of bells.

If only ringing a bell could help those rebuilding their earthquake-flattened homes.

From the Andes to the sea, via Cuenca

First, I must give you a picture from the mountains. For 360 days of the year, the high Andes - 3,900m - are covered in cloud. So how lucky was I to be there when it was like this:

The air is thin and clear, and the lakes mirror the sky or the mountains or - occasionally - one of the brave trees that manage to cling on this high up. Walking is a challenge, especially if, like me, you live somewhere low-lying, but I puffed my way along a lovely path (stopping to admire the view at every opportunity) and it was wonderful.

I was on my way from Cuenca to Guayaquil. I spent five days trying to work out why I love Cuenca. Is it the architecture in the city centre? The churches and museums, celebrating everything from the towns indigenous beginnings through the ravages of Spanish occupation to the delights and challenges of independence? Is it the plazas and restaurants? It's certainly not the black smoke belching from the back of buses.

And then I decided it didn't matter why I love Cuenca. I just do. I love the lazy streets - it's too hot for anyone to hurry, but there's a breeze from the mountains (and it's high) so nobody fries. It's easy to walk from one side of the old city to the other along busy streets and quiet streets and forgotten streets. And it's full of very kind people.

And Guayaquil? It's the biggest city in Ecuador, and - until I went to the museum and discovered its history - it seemed to be just a big, working city. But when I learned of its past, all those rebellions, the yellow fever epidemics, a huge fire that devastated almost everything, and the way it succumbed to corruption and general mayhem until just twenty years ago, it's astonishing to see it now. Serious money has been spent - on roads, a theatre, cinema and museum complex, an international airport, a state-of-the-art football stadium. The Malecon, a walkway beside the river, is now full of children's playgrounds, a garden, shops - and plenty of security people. It don't think I can love Guayaquil like I love Cuenca, but I admire what they have achieved in such a short time.

Now - I'm in Puerto Lopez. Small children play on the beach. The ocean rolls in, and rolls in, and rolls in. And I have a hut and a hammock.

What walks books say and what they really mean.

I spent part of last week in North Wales - with its mountains and waterfalls and beaches, it seemed like a good place to spend a few days when the sun was actually shining.

And I thought I'd go walking. I walk a lot in Wiltshire - I'm used to her Downs and her forests, so surely a mountain is like that, only more so? I consulted a trusty walks book, found a route - it was long, but I'd be fine, if I gave myself plenty of time.

I must be clear - I'm no spring chicken. I'm sure the young and muscled would bound up and down this path without noticing its little challenges. In fact I know they did - the bounded past me, many times. Some even asking if I was all right, in a kindly, patronising way.

My problem, you see, was that my walks book was written for the young and muscled, who know all about mountains, and not for passing wrinklies who feel pleased if they make it to the top of Oare Hill. So here, for anyone who might be tempted to follow me, is a translation of the walks book for anyone who might not be used to mountains:

'Long, steady climb' - means long, steep, plod up a winding path with occasional steps.  If you take it slowly, and don't try to talk, you can feel reasonably smug getting up it.

'Steep, zig-zagged path, with a little light scrambling' - means the path has disappeared under a landslip and you have to clamber, crawl, other wise manipulate yourself up scree that feels vertical. Do not believe the young man who tells you the top is less than fifteen away - this final 200 metres takes an hour and a half. (Why not give up? Because you believe the plonkers who come past tell you that the top is round the next corner. Plus there is a cup of tea at the top.)

Coming down, of course, should be easier. But 'winding, rocky and a little difficult in places' - means coming down a ridge, much of it on your bottom as it is the only way to negotiate the boulders. Never be deceived by the twenty feet where you can stand upright - for soon there is another precipice, the path ten feet below and nothing but rocks or sticky-out bits in the way. (Why not go down the other way? What - down that scree?)

'Join the original path, and from there it is a short walk back to the car park' - means that the distance on the ground might be the same as before but this time it takes three times as long, as your legs feel like they belong to someone else.

(Snowdon, up the Watkin path and down the South ridge, for anyone who is curious.)

Why did I do it? Because very soon I have to take my knees to the bone man, and I'm afraid he might tell me to stop doing things like that. Which is a very stupid reason. There must be a better one, surely?

Shock, horror. Older women not drinking cocoa by the fire.

Last week a woman broke her own record for being the oldest woman to climb Mount Everest. She is 73. (If you missed it, you can read about it here.)

And two women, Beryl and Betty, won a Sony award for the most entertaining programme - they are 86 and 90. Regrettably, it is only available in Humberside.

So - are we meant to be surprised that older women are not sitting in a corner talking about arthritis? That they can be fit, and funny?

I think climbing Everest is a huge achievement for anyone, men and women, aged 18, 44, or 73. It is seriously high, the air is whisper-thin, and the weather feels like a conspiracy. I can think of men of 34, thick-waisted and puffy-lunged, who struggle with two flights of stairs - sometimes due to lifestyle decisions but often the result of the health cards they've been dealt. Being healthy enough to climb a mountain at 73 has less to do with gender than luck on the health front and the time and enthusiasm to keep fit.

And as for the amazement that older women can by funny - scroll take a look at the cartoon in the Daily Mail here. Is it okay to laugh AT older women - but a shock to suggest with might laugh WITH them? The publicity has concentrated on their age, with no serious look at why they are funny, and what they can bring to our understanding of humour and why it works.

Surely it's time to stop stereotyping older people. Some are frail, and ill, and need support. Some are fit, and run marathons. Some are forgetful. Some grow wonderful roses. Some break their hips and grumble for a few weeks. Some are wonderfully funny and tell great stories. Surely it's time to celebrate the talents of older people, rather than this surprise when they don't conform to the drooling-by-the-fireside-with-their-cocoa image?

What is it like to have a mother up a mountain?

A couple of months ago, when we were talking about her latest trip, mother slipped a request into the conversation.  Would I, she said, write a guest post for the blog whilst she was away, talking about what it is like to have a mother who travels.  Of course, no problem, I replied, taking another sip of my coffee.  And promptly thought out a post in my head.  Which I have now forgotten completely of course.  So all I can do is try to answer the question - what is it like to have a mother up a mountain?

It is harder than it sounds.  All my life I have known my mother was somewhat unconventional.  She looked and dressed differently from my friend's mothers, and seemed to have a different outlook on life to them.  (Although my one close friend who remains from schooldays also now has a mother who travels a bit - so maybe she wasn't as different as I imagined.)

The itchy feet thing was always there as well.  We might not have gone abroad until I was nine, but summer holidays were seen as essential, and we travelled all over the UK, seeing lots of different places (including one very wet summer studying the inside of a caravan in Swanage, which we still managed to make an adventure).  After that first trip abroad - to visit friends in Sweden - several more followed - to France, Italy and Ireland.  I still have many memories from those holidays - swimming in the sea fully-clothed in Pembrokeshire, the family of artists we met in Ireland, getting badly bitten in Venice and having to hobble painfully back to the campsite, and as an adult following my stepdad's death, the barman in the pub outside Killarney who knew our drinks order so well it was on the bar before we got there.  However, these were holidays, made brief by the necessities of life, the need to earn a living and get an education.  They calmed the itchy feet but never entirely satiated them.

All this is a long-winded way of explaining that when mother first told me she was retiring and going travelling I was not really that surprised.  In fact I was relieved she seemed to be being sensible about the whole thing - starting in Australia and New Zealand, and travelling with Tika initially in India and Nepal (I've since read the book - and now I pay much more attention to what she is not saying!)

Throughout her trip we were in occasional phone contact, but mostly I heard from her through her blog - which I now realise was a sanitised version of events!  I was mostly excited by her stories, and keen to keep in touch by any means necessary.  And even though the phone call that precipitated the end of her trip was one of the worst I have ever received, I could hear in her voice a determination to carry on travelling - whether on that trip or on others.

And carry on she has, to America, Vietnam and Cambodia, and now back to Nepal.  I was worried about her initially when she first started going away again - but I could see that she was looking after herself (probably better than she does at home, truth be told).  Technology has got better, and she has got less of a Luddite - so we can keep in closer touch than ever.  She even managed to log into iChat the other day to wish us 'Happy Easter' face to face - or rather face to pixelated image - the bandwidth in your average Nepali internet cafe is not great I am told!  Every time she goes away she has new stories to tell of the adventures that befall her - I just try and close my ears to the scary ones!

Not that I am in any position to judge.  I travelled a lot in my late teens and early twenties, and lived in Greece for a while, although I am now settled back in the UK.  I have some idea of what it means to travel - to immerse oneself in a new culture, with all the excitements that entails. Any attempts to suggest to mother that she might like to be 'sensible' for a minute are met with an entirely appropriate 'pot, kettle' response.  Mostly she listens quietly for a minute or two to what I think she should do - then ignores me and goes along with her plan anyway.

So in answer to the question, in my case it is like life. Sometimes exciting and sometimes horrific, but mostly just part of everyday living.  Keep travelling mother, just try and stay out of trouble please.

Anna

Why climb mountains?

Trekking is, indeed, putting one foot in front of another.  There’s nothing inherently alarming about it.

Except – trekking in the Himalayas involves tramping about in mountains. And these mountains are seriously huge. With side so steep that paths cling to the mountainside or (worse) are steps build of irregular stones that can stretch on for hour after hour. My guide, kindly, allowed me to reduce the four-hour climb up steps to a mere hour and a half, by taking a serious detour and a jeep along one of the few tracks that are accessible to a 4x4.

Never again shall I complain about living in a house on three floors. People who live in these mountains leap up and down these steps every day.

Was it worth it? Or course it was. And not only for the views, which are astonishing. But how else would I have met Devi Lam?

Devi Lam is a wizened man, whose job is to ‘look after the forest.’ It’s very unclear what this means, as I only saw him sitting about look at the view. Sit by me, he beckoned. He had no English, and my guide translated the rest of our conversation.

You have a husband? (It is a question I am often asked here.) He died, I said, sixteen years ago. My wife, too, she died; I have two sons and a daughter. I was enjoying too much the local wine, and one day I woke up and my wife was dead. (No, I couldn’t quite make the connection either.)

How old are you? he asked. I told him. He is, he said, the same age. It was clear he hadn’t the faintest idea how old he is. But he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and a wicked, impossible, unspoken thought – and suddenly it was funny. He put his arm round my shoulder when my guide took our photo. And still we were laughing.

Why was he special? Because – in spite of his limited experience, and the reality of his harsh conditions in the mountains, he dared to play with an impossible idea, and to find it funny.

Now all I have to do is work out how to get a copy of the photograph back up all those steps.

Post from Pokhara

I’ve made it to Pokhara – after a brief stopover in Kathmandu (I’ll spend a few days there on the way home). The lake is as peaceful, and the mountains as huge as I remember. I still can’t work out why a town that is buzzing with restaurant, hotels, and small shops selling everything from trekking kit to tiny Buddhas can feel quite so calm.

It has changed since I was last here. There are more hotels, more massage invitations (not the seedy kind – and often necessary for anyone spending nine days walking in the mountains). And there are still more opportunities to kill oneself. Walking at altitude can be risky, although it ought to include nothing more demanding than placing one foot in front of another. Bungee jumping is, apparently, now on offer near Kathmandu. I could go white water rafting – though I have heard tales of small boats with nothing to hold on to.

But – worse this – I could go paragliding.

I can understand paragliding in Wiltshire. I doubt if the most enthusiastic glider could make it to more than 300 feet from the ground there, and I can see that would be exhilarating. Plus it should be possible to steer the parachute and land somewhere grassy.

There the comparison ends. The Himalayas are seriously huge. Jump off one of those and you are competing with eagles. You could float for miles from the mountain-top, land in a rocky valley somewhere, with nothing but a passing yeti for company. Or – you might land in the lake. (No crocodiles.)

Not exciting enough? Then you must try ‘parahawking’ – following a raptor that has been trained to lead you and your parachute up to the highest thermals. Just as you reach the height where the air is thinnest, and lack of oxygen deprives you of all sense of reality, you can hold out a piece of meat for the hawk – all beak and talons – to help himself to, hopefully leaving behind the requisite number of fingers and thumb. After that – you still have to find somewhere safe to land.

I think I’ll stick to putting one foot in front of another. I’m off into the mountains at the weekend.