
TREK REPORT 2005
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A fast-moving duo
By Rob Rowlands
With three Australian doctors, we drove in two tiny taxis from Dharan to Basantapur and started
walking late on 8 November. That night, we reached only Panch Pokhari, a cluster of tea houses on a
ridge at about 2800m. The air was clear in all directions and the views were stunning; we could
see Makalu, Chamlang, and the tip of Everest to the north, and Jannu and Kangchenjunga to the
south.
Next day, beyond Chauki, the ridge was an easy stroll. Gupha Pokhari was hosting a district soccer
tournament, and there was a traditional Nepali bamboo swing (Ping) left over from the previous
week's Tihar festivities. At Gupha, we met a Maoist with a velvet touch who extracted the
expected donation. We got away with NRs. 3000 each ($US42) and the doctors with less, perhaps
because the Maoists hoped to recruit them.
Hanpang
From just past Gupha the ridge drops precipitously to the Tamur River at 600m, but we took
a bypass trail south to the Limbu village of Hangpang at 1400m, where we had installed a
solar-powered vaccine fridge in 2000.
We wanted the Aussie doctors to see the fridge and to check the electrics. We arrived late, stayed at a
nearby house, and early next morning were shown around by the health care workers.
This post has 40-50 visitors each day, so is busy. The vaccine fridge was working, though because
of an equipment failure, it was running only during the day. The solar-panel controller had ‘failed
safe’, and the full power of the 200 watt panels had boiled the batteries dry. Keeping lead acid
batteries topped up is the biggest problem with solar systems in Nepal. We need Lotus Energy to
replace the controller as soon as possible.
Our Australian friends left us here and retraced their route to Basantapur and Dharan.
Lelep
We went on to Dobhan, which is under Maoist control, although despite this, the power station
appears to be working again. Our 'donation' receipt from Gupha gave us free passage, and we
clambered up the marginal trail to Mitlung, arriving just on dark. The spotless tea house there
has been expanded into a lodge and has clean toilets and upstairs rooms. The following day we went
through Sinuwa. It now has a new school building, possibly funded by DFID ??, but the health
post is in ruins. We crossed the Tamur River on the new bridge at Taplethok and arrived in Lelep
at dusk.
Next morning, we checked the vaccine fridge. This was our first fridge. We had installed it
in Lungthung in 1999, but earlier this year it had been moved to an abandoned KCAP building
in Lelep. In the process one of the batteries we had supplied in May 2004 had ‘gone missing’.
We sent a recovery party to Lungthung to find the battery, but the attempt was unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, the fridge was working well on its one battery and was well stocked. We installed a
new battery and a couple of lights for the healthcare worker. Previously the building had been
wired by KCAP, but the Maoists had looted everything, even the copper wire in the plastic conduit.
New lights
The lights we had installed last May in the
girls’ dormitory were working fine. But we had installed them in only four of the eight rooms, and all 40 girls
were reportedly crowding into these four rooms to take advantage of the lights. We installed a new 50 watt solar
panel, a new battery, and lights in the remaining four rooms. We had planned to install lights in the
kitchen building as well, but the one large kitchen had been divided into four rooms, each with
two clay stoves for use by four-five girls. We hadn’t brought sufficient lights for four more
rooms, so we elected to leave this until the next trek.
Folay
We left Lelep late on the morning of 14 November and made good time in reaching Amjilosa by
dusk. We crossed yet another new bridge, this one at the north end of the Sokathom camp site. En
route, we met a trekking party – the first so far – of three Brits who had come from the south
over the Sinion and Mirga La. Next day, we continued up valley through Gepla and arrived in Folay at about
3pm. We dropped off a bucket of Duplo and a play tent at the
Folay School and met the new healthcare
worker, Tsering Dhonden. The previous worker, Yungdung Dorje, was critically injured in a bus accident earlier
this year and now lives in Kathmandu.
No radio
We arrived in Ghunsa just after dark and stayed with Chumea in his lodge by the bridge. The
locals all turned up to visit us, and we went by Himali Chungda's house to meet the trekkers
there. Jamie McGuinness, a Kiwi trekking guide based in Kathmandu, was there with three clients,
as were two Brazilian trekkers who had flown in to Ghunsa.
Thanks to his satellite phone and email, Jamie is able to summon helicopters for medical
evacuations if need be, but only when he is there. Otherwise, as neither the police nor KCAP
now operate there, Ghunsa has no radio. Rescues require a runner being sent to Taplejung. So much
for progress. KSP will be considering providing an HF SSB radio in the future, possibly in
cooperation with the Himalayan Rescue Association.
School refurbishment
We were delighted to see that the village was refurbishing the school. The roof was in the process
of being primed and painted, and the broken doors and window shutters replaced. One room had a new
cement floor. Still, the teachers asked for many items, and we will be working with a
Nepalese NGO, REED, and the British Himalayan Trust to provide some of them.
The pre-school program continues
to be successful, the job being shared amongst four mothers. The room was well organized and had posters
on the walls, though the toothbrushes and hand towels from May 2004 had all gone. We delivered another
bucket of Duplo and a play tent to an enthusiastic, though snotty, groups of kids.
Ghunsa clinic
The health clinic was clean and well
organized. The healthcare workers job is shared by Pema Chambal Lama and Chitting Dandu. This is supposed to
mean that one or the other is always available for emergencies, but this is not always the case.
The maternal healthcare worker,
Lemu Pema, has been successful with the birth control program, and only two children were born in Ghunsa this
year. She caters to the needs of Folay, Gepla, Amjilosa, and Yangma, as well as Ghunsa.
Maintenance
After paying salaries, we headed down through the golden larch forest to Folay. The pre-school
kids there were already using the play tent and Duplo. The wind generator’s mast clamp had broken,
leaving the generator dangling on its wiring. We couldn’t repair the clamp, so we removed the
generator and put ‘new clamp’ on the list for the next visit.
After eggs and many cups of tea, we did a little maintenance on the solar lighting in the
monastery, and donated my old 32 watt flexible solar panel to the studious monk there. Chunduk,
the well known, hunchbacked, Tibetan emigre we had known so well, was killed in the same bus accident
that had injured Yungdung Dorje. Chunduk’s family treated us to a big lunch, while an enormous
Rakshi still held pride of place on the fire.
Gepla
We didn’t leave Folay until 2pm, so reached only Gepla that afternoon. The fields of Gepla are
quite extensive and south facing, so have good wheat crops, and there is a water-driven mill in the
khola above the village. We stayed in the hotel there, and Phurba and Rob walked up to the new
school, 200m above the main trail. This school was the site of yet another accident, when Tumahang, a
carpenter from the village of Hellok, fell about 6m from the roof. He was seriously injured and
died a month or so later, leaving a widow and seven children. Tumahang had worked on both the
Ghunsa and Folay schools and the Lelep girls' dormitory.
Maoists
We had a flight to catch from Suketar on Saturday, so we set off early on the 17th, hoping to get
to Chiruwa. But we stopped in Amjilosa for breakfast, and at Tumahang's widow's house below Hellok
for tea and photos late afternoon, so we reached only Tamewa, a tea house by yet another bridge to
the west bank of the Tamur River. The tea house kitchen was full of people who turned out to be a
bunch of Maoists, possibly engaged in a futile attempt to extort donations from the trekkers who
had helicoptered past them the day before! They left, noisily, at 5am on 18 November, leaving us
alone, thankfully.
As we walked to Taplethok, we met the Folay headmaster, Gonpo, and several others on their way
back from Kathmandu. At Taplethok, a major mercantile exchange was in full swing. Huge, 40kg bags
of cardamon were being filled, weighed, and tabulated before being carried to Taplejung.
Rumours of Maoist extorting their share persist - each bag is worth about US$100.
At Chiruwa we had a good breakfast, but heard a disturbing story of a local teacher who had just
that day been released from a four-day abduction by a Maoist teacher. He had been made to walk,
at night, without food, pointlessly, to several parts of the district, as punishment for some past
deed. It was sobering to be amongst such suffering, just as we thought the Maoists' grip was
lessening.
On to Suketar
At the Thiwa Khola bridge we started the long climbing traverse to Suketar. This trail is wide
and well maintained trail, and a huge new bridge is being constructed over the Sisne Khola.
Near Tagelum we dropped off much appreciated photos from last year with a Brahmin family in the tea
house, the pushed on to Jogidanda, where our arrival, again at dusk, was rewarded with beer
and surprisingly good dahl baht.
We still had 6km and 400m to go to Suketar for a supposedly 11am flight, so we left early and
reached the airport soon after 9am. The Yeti agent berated us good naturedly for being late, but
all looked well for our flight out that day. However, a few hours later came the flight-cancelled
rumour, and despite the promise of another flight the next morning, we knew our flights out of
Kathmandu next day were are risk.
Flight cancelled
Next day, Yeti cancelled its flights for the week, so crestfallen, we made phone calls home, and
began our escape by walking the 800m down to Taplejung Bazaar. There we booked a bus for the
following morning, then walked the length of the bazaar, greeting several acquaintances from
previous treks. Following a big fire, part of the bazaar was being re-built, Terai-style, in
2-3 storey concrete - instark contrast to the remaining low, close-spaced wooden
buildings.
We had good seats on the 30 seater bus, but as it left Taplejung we knew our comfort would be
compromised by the appalling road conditions and hilarious overcrowding. When we crossed the Kabeli
Khola bridge three hours later, I counted 70 people aboard, including 10 on the roof. Clive and I
took turns holding a sleepy two-year-old on our knees and everyone jolted along good naturedly at
less than 10km/h. The descent from 2000m to a river crossing at 200m took two painful hours,
the road ahead only too visible.
Kathmandu again
At Phidim, we still held hopes of getting to Kathmandu the next day, so hired a nice Mahindra jeep
and hurtled into the night. After two hours of dust and mud we reached a paved surface and could
triple our speed. We spent the night at Rumke, then left at 3.30am on the 22nd for an early flight
from Biratnagar, arriving at the airport at 10.30am. Phurbas persuaded Yeti Airlines to put us on
its first flight, so after several expired departure times we took off about 3.30pm, but reached Royal
Thai Airlines office in Kathmandu's Durbar Marg five minutes after it closed.
Next day, ominous stories of fully-booked flights proved false, and Clive and I both returned to
our first-world lives, only 3-4 days late. In my seven trips to Kangchenjunga, this was the first
to be disrupted by flights out of Suketar. In Bangkok our taxi hit 100km/h as we headed out for
dinner, and we knew the trip was over. The charm of Nepal remains undiminished and despite
the Maoists, it is a safe and pleasant travel destination.