Section 6 – Days 108 – 120 Through the vastness of Dolpo!
We arrived in Ringmo! After 44 days of continuous walking our first Rest Day! And it couldn’t be in a more beautiful place! Phoksundo lake is so blue, bluer than the blue of the sky and in such contrast to the dry rugged mountain slopes that seem to bow at the steepest of angles into the blue seemingly solid mass of water – right on the shore where the edge of the water is shallow before it suddenly slopes into the deep blues the water has an Adriatic turquoise colour that suggests alluring Adriatic temperatures – haha! Not quite! Above the dry slopes glaciers hover on striped rock faces, in fact the entire east side of Phoksundo and Ringmo is encircled by mountains that seem painted in black and light grey stripes, perfectly parallel unmatched by anything I have ever seen before. The rest day has been the most brilliant one yet. I spent most of it lying on the “beach” reading, meditating, sunbathing (and getting a full on sunburn on my belly!!!), swimming and watching the water and its mesmerizing, colourful ripples and spray as the wind caressed its surface, turquoise and blue but also yellow and brown with cobalt shimmering layers- yummy and almost hypnotizing.
But let me go back to the beginning of this journey through Dolpo as the lake and the juniper and pine trees that cover the slopes on its southern end are so very different from the almost otherworldly, spectacular landscape we travelled through these last 12 days.
Dolpo, and especially Upper Dolpo, really is so very different from all the other mountain regions we have been to, it really seems to be another world altogether! Here the land is dry, trees are non-existent, the wind is strong and so is the sun-relentless, in fact, and only bearable because of the dance it dances with the wind. Here, the land is high – we have been above 4000m for most of these past 12days and crossed 5 passes all between 5100 and 5550m (three of these passes we crossed within the last 4 days always dropping 1000m between each one of them)- so the land is high and so are the few ancient villages we passed. Since everything is so dry the only place a village will be found is near some substantial river or two, the second important feature is some level land that can be fed with water by small hand hewn irrigation canals that will divert some of the river’s water high up in the valley. An intricate system of many waterways that can be either opened up or blocked with only a couple of heaps of a shovel or a pick axe, each field will get watered one after another. In Charka Bhot the main footpath through the village turned into a minor river during watering time as it also constitutes the main watering canal which all smaller irrigation canals branch off from. We learned that the main grain grown here is called Ua and I have yet to look up whether there is an English translation for this grain. It must be very tough getting a balanced diet off their fields as even potatoes seem to struggle up here.
In twelve days we have been through exactly three villages. Santa, Chharka Bhot and Dho Tharap, each separated from the next by at least three days of walking and one or two passes above 5000m. We reached Santa on day 108. Santa consists of 15 households only, all seemingly interconnected and if not that, then at least built so tightly next to and on top of each other that you couldn’t really make out where one house ends and the next one begins. For almost two years now there is a road that reaches Santa but there is no electricity in the village and water seems scarce and is only available through a pipe diverting water from a river high up and two ridges over. It seems enough for the few fields they have – a miracle considering how arid and inhospitable the land is.
On my little walk through Santa, which required path finding skills as many pathways through the houses ended in a dead end with a cow munching on some straw or alternatively in a narrow dark tunnel underneath several homes with no obvious end to be seen- it felt intrusive to just duck and shimmy through- I made my way through a narrow path between houses uncertain if I was trespassing or merely using the “main road”, a woman and her two children waved to me from the roof of their house and kindly indicated for me to please come into her home. The houses have a ground floor for the animals. On a wooden beam with steps carved into it you climb into the first floor which holds the kitchen, sleeping and general living area – all very dark, only the hole in the roof, which held the next wooden beam ladder up, provides light and should it rain, of course, this only source of natural light will also be closed shut. The woman who had invited me in had hoped to sell me some of her hand woven traditional belts and drapes; I didn’t buy any merely because I knew I still had a good 50 days of walking ahead of me. (I was happy to see John purchase a couple of items from her later on.) Generally, the rooftop is where most villagers could be seen sitting in the sun doing their chores from weaving and spinning wool to drying their grains or just sitting and watching what’s happening in the village, shouting from rooftop to rooftop to exchange the latest news.
Through this very rooftop communication channel the news about Satish’s distribution of solar lamps for each family in Santa spread like a wildfire and within 15 minutes one representative of each household (all women of all ages and only one man! In fact I barely saw any men at all in the village which is a phenomenon that would reoccur in both of the other villages we passed through, too. It must have to do with them herding sheep or yak high up in the mountains as livestock is the livelihood of most families in Dolpo). So Satish’s friend, Murakami Yuske, from Japan, had donated solar lamps for distribution in a village that Satish decides would benefit most – Santa was a perfect fit! Once all the women (and the one man) had gathered Satish explained and demonstrated how to use them – the joy and curiosity of the villagers was awesome to watch – awesome because it became quite clear what a huge difference this small lamp will make in their lives!
Chharka Bhot, four days later, had the feel of an ancient fort, built on the high cliff of where the Chyanjun Khola river flows into the big, beautifully turquoise coloured Chharka Khola river which we had been following for a couple of days already. This village, we learned, had about 70 households, many of them spread around the old fort like center. A primary school with a very motivated young teacher who himself was born and raised in the village up until he received further education in Kathmandu offers Nepali, Tibetan, English, Math and social science to the 36 children of Chharka Bhot. School is open for 5 of the warm months since in the winter the cold keeps everyone inside their houses, none of the passes in and into Dolpo can be crossed and life is confined to the small and dark spaces of their windowless living quarters. School also closes for another month during Yarsagumba (caterpillar fungus-see my earlier blog) season when all families go up high into the mountains taking their children with – not only because no one stays behind to take care of them in the village but more commonly because their eyes are much sharper and they thus add considerably to the harvest yield of their family. Keeping village children in school beyond the age of 12 or 13 is hard, the teacher explained, because they are needed in the fields and the value and opportunity of a good education is just not seen and understood in the community and by the parents. It is a real and obvious dilemma. Immediate survival versus long term investment with no guarantees and an imminent fear of losing the child to the world beyond the village.
Between Chharka Bhot and Dho Tharap lay three stunning days of walking, the first of which had us scrambling up the steepest of slopes which then narrowed into just a gap between two very big rock slabs in between which stairs had been improvised up until those just stopped in what seemed to be a dead end! There was then no way up or to the sides but a hole opened up at our feet, the entrance to a tunnel through the mountain! With torches we each shimmied through the dim darkness until the bright sunlight greeted us again at the other end with a breathtaking view across the river valley below! The edge was dramatically vertiginous and at first it seemed that there was no way down, but some masterfully set yet narrow steps had been hewn into the steep face and we all made it down safely where five huge shaggy yaks were busy crossing the river! Such a wonderful sight to watch these majestic animals ease into the roaring river as if it were a puddle with neither current nor freezing temperatures and next to just stand midstream facing the current unmoving, clearly cooling off from the heat of the day.
The next day had us cross Chan La pass (5378m) and the three our walk to its top was beautiful for the range of colours the scree slopes showed themselves in, from black and grey up on top of the pass to yellow, brown, red, beige, rust and hints of green coloured on the way up, hues and shades reminiscent of buckets of paints being dropped from the top and artfully allowing their running course to merge and cross pollinate each other until the most otherworldly beauty is created – the uniqueness and awe inspiring beauty only nature itself can create!!
Only another day later we walked through Dho Tharap, a village so spread out it took us over two hours to walk through its entire length. From here the Tibet border is only a three hour motorcycle ride away (Not on roads but on neck breaking footpaths maneuverable only by the most hardened riders, all on Chinese bikes since no bike could make its way from the south, in fact the fastest way from Dho Tharap to Kathmandu and any Nepali road would be the way we came, to Kagbeni, a minimum of 5 days walking and three passes above 5000m!) Within the coming year the “Dho Tharapers” are expecting the road from China to their village to be completed – then China will only be an hour away! Ironically at the moment that very border is only open once a year during festival time for no more than two weeks, but during these two weeks a big market is set up on the Chinese side and the Dolpo villagers come out to do their annual shopping, stocking up on beer, biscuits, chewing tobacco, 2-minute noodles, Red Bull cans (although more often found to be its Chinese avatar “Red Boss” with an elephant as opposed to a bulls head on it), shoes and other items of clothing – all the things we see en masse in the village dumps namely a ravine nearby and certainly and sadly same items once discarded will end up floating in the otherwise pristine rivers. Similar and related to the issue of the ever growing network of roads to the most remote villages the increase of plastic and tin and otherwise non-biodegradable waste coupled with the lack of education I am curious and often frustrated with the complexity of “development” – there is a multitude of truths inside the many layers of this”onion” – its local and personal micro levels and the macro perspective of the geopolitics and economic opportunisms of development with Nepal certainly in a challenging but also possibility rich position between India and China. Again, no space in the
On to even more important worldly matters: The Soccer World Cup! As luck will have it of course we are in Dolpo of all places when it’s all happening out there in Russia! With me being a default Germany supporter, Nigel an obvious England devotee and Satish a passionate Brazil fan we had enough potential for some exciting banter, nerves and addictive nights of game viewing in odd village pubs and homes! But Dolpo with all I just described really was and is the worst place to be if you are an ardent soccer fan during the World Cup – John, extremely non-attached about the whole business clearly had an easier time these past couple of weeks of TV and news abstinence! However, I would lie if I said the satellite phone has stayed unused in its case! Having said all that as luck and fate would have it the one game of all games we did get to see on the one TV available in Ringmo was….. the Germany vs. South Korea game! Enough said! Maybe all for the better because it eased my excitement for the World Cup a bit and has turned me into more of a bystander who is very amused seeing Satish dance with each news of Brazil winning and Nigel glow and grow uppity in his confidence in his English team. I have yet to see whether another real time game viewing opportunity will come up for us between now and the final game on the 15th.
Meet more of the team
Sunil Tamang, 31 years old, is one of Satish’s wonderful assistant Sherpa guides. Sunil was with us in Section 1 & 2, then assistant guided the big student group in May and joined us again in Section 6 and will be with us to the end! He is a joker and a dancer and a singer- and especially in those moments when you most need it: a dance and a song in the rain or on a high and cold pass or a smile and a joke when he wakes us in the early morning with fresh coffee!
Kazi Tamang, 37 years old, was with us from the start and like Sunil went off to co-guide the International student group but then immediately came and joined us in Section 5 again and then handed back over to Sunil. Kazi is exceptional- my nickname for him is Balu, the fabulous bear from the jungle book! He is forever calm, kind and has a transforming smile. He lives and breathes service and care is exceptionally mindful of everyone and everything around him and to top it all off has an eagle eye when it comes to spotting wildlife!
And then of course there are our mule drivers! Our mules, we have decided, are lucky mules! Not only because they have three awesome mule drivers, Sudip Kathayat, his brother Sudarsan and young Kamal, but also because our days of walking are short compared to what mules will usually have to do. We stop a lot and they get plenty opportunities to graze the short bit green grassy slopes near the rivers. When they throw small rocks at one of the stubborn ones in their pack they always make sure they don’t actually hit the mule and just give them a fright. Sudip is 28 years old, speaks good English, has even taken two years of computer science at a local college but decided to go back to the mule business as it is what he loves and it is just more lucrative. In fact, he actually owns the eight mules in his pack (another reason why he treats them so well) Kamal is only 17 years old and is the son of a mule owner. His father owns 50 mules and is therefore a respected and rich man in his village. Kamal started mule driving at the age of 10!
