Reflections on travel - Nepal 1999

Inspired by a current television personality who is actually a proper explorer and all-round hero, I've decided to try and write a blog about travel and adventure and all things in between. Travel doesn't have to be abroad, it doesn't have to be very far at all. You can have an adventure by train or car or bus. All you need is a decent pair of boots, an idea of where you're going, and off you go...

I'm not an explorer but I've had opportunities to travel and I'm a pretty good armchair traveller too. You only have to look at my bookshelf to see guides of various countries - most I've never even been to. And maps! Oh maps. How I love them. I can spend hours planning a route I'll probably never walk; all because I think maps are works of art. 

I've called my blog 'Travelling Buddha' because I'm a Buddhist (have been since around January 2000) and the first post is about Nepal where I first encountered Buddhists.

Gratitude

There's a large part of me that really feels grateful for all the travelling I've done and I frequently reflect on it. I often reminisce on some amazing sites sounds and smells I've had the privilege of experiencing. The majority of this has been holidaying type travelling where it's all organised or city breaks where my partner and I have done our own thing or travelled with friends or family. There are many people in the world who haven't travelled even half of what I have. When I was sixteen years old, I travelled to the Kingdom of Nepal (July, 1999) for one month with school friends and new friends from another school as part of the World Challenge initiative. The idea is that schools plan and fundraise a trip for a group of students which would include an aspect of community service; a major activity such as a trek in our case, and some R&R. It was an experience I will never forget and yet this was before the time of social media and digital photography. I didn't have a mobile phone until the following year! Our teacher took a video camera with him only to find that the humidity of Kathmandu during the monsoon season got inside it and it quickly broke. We all had cameras with 36 exposure films which we had developed when we returned to the UK. Remember the excitement of developing films after your holiday? No?

I would heartily recommend this kind of initiative to people of any age. But, these coming of age experiences don't need to be fancy and expensive: there are organisations out there who are geared up for giving young people a wholesome experience. I currently volunteer with the Marine Society and Sea Cadets (MSSC) and they have an overseas exchange programme as well as a whole raft of activities where bursaries are available. So it's not out of reach. For my experience I had to raise the money myself and as a group (there were 12 of us in total) and we had about eighteen months to do it. Well there's a whole other blog here about social mobility and opportunity etc. but I'll stick to my travels...

'Nepal 1999'

World Challenge refer to your expedition as the country you're visiting and the year you're going. They first visited my school in 1997 at an evening assembly. I remember walking out of it thinking that it would probably be a trip for other boys and not for me. My Mum and my uncle (uncle A) both encouraged me that it was possible - the fundraising would be hard, the physical training would be harder (for me), but that it was possible. I found that some of my close friends were applying too and that sealed the deal. The fact that one of my favourite teachers was leading the trip also fuelled my enthusiasm.

A schools coordinator (can't remember their exact title but you get the point) visited us and gave a presentation on what we might expect to be able to do in Nepal and what the options were. We had to plan almost every aspect: what activities (R&R) would we like to do? Which project would we support out there? Where shall we trek? The group eventually settled on a twelve (ish) day trek around the Annapurna Circuit; working with the Kathmandu Environmental Education Project (KEEP) at a village school and that our R&R would be sight seeing in Kathmandu (Monkey Temple etc).

Skipping ahead eighteen months, the second our GCSEs were over, the trip arrived. We'd all been to various outdoor shops in Covent Garden (I can't remember why there but maybe there was only Millets in those days?) for various items - sleeping bags etc. I had got an army surplus Bergen (100litre) from a shop near Croydon on my uncle's (uncle C) recommendation from his cadet days. In Covent Garden I bought my sleeping bag. I remember my friend A bought himself a tilly style hat from the Rohan shop (which he claims was indestructible) and several pairs of walking trousers.

I remember we slept in our school sports hall the evening before we headed to the airport the next morning at some ungodly hour. We had been teamed up with four students from a school in Basingstoke (met them at a couple of training events that Easter) and we collected them in our school minibus on the way to Heathrow.  We flew to Kathmandu that day via Doha.

After a day or so of acclimatising to Kathmandu we ventured out to a village where we camped in the school grounds and spent two days there painting one of their new buildings - decorated it with our handprints! - and planted sapling trees along a bank with the aim of keeping the bank in good shape during landslide season (which was when we were there!). We had a communal meal with teachers and pupils and had some entertainments - we'd been warned of this in advance: there was to be a cultural exchange where a group of school children would perform for us and we would return the favour. We'd rehearsed a piece on the balcony of our hotel in Thamel the day before and were prepared. The school children sang and danced delightfully; so proud they were, all smiles. We stood up and did an 'a capella' version of the Steps version of Tragedy by the Bee Gees. I seem to remember it went down well. The audience probably thought we were crazy. I guess it was cultural of sorts... Later we had tea and one of the teachers brought out an air piano - a keyboard with a pipe that made an accordion-type sound. I played all I could remember which was Robbie Williams' 'Angels'. More bemused small children gazed on.

So after the two day project work we set out for Besi Sahar by bus. This village is a popular starting point for the Annapurna Circuit. The roads to Besi Sahar are, erm, slippery and narrow, to say the least. I remember a small landslide being cleared ahead of us and especially the fact that the tree that came down with it was still upright.

We had a group of very experienced and incredibly fit men who would carry our kit and pitch tents ahead of us each day, prepare meals and bring us tea and hot water to our tents each morning (Ok, yes I know how privileged that sounds).   

This tiny photograph is of me sitting in a field where we camped one evening. I think it was the village Chame. Above the village was a monastery where we visited the abbot and had a look around. During the evening the Sherpa team made us pizza (spinach pizza) as our group of mostly 17 year old burger-munchers had got a little tired of dahl. They really were so thoughtful and kind. We rounded the circuit via the Thorong La Pass (5,416 meters above sea level). There's a photo which ended up in the local (UK) newspaper of the group standing on the pass. All were there except me - I'd suffered with altitude sickness and was being carried down the other side of the pass by four Sherpas when it was taken. We walked on to Muktinath - reportedly one of the holiest places on earth (for Hindus and Buddhists). Many people make a pilgrimage here each year... here's a photo of me standing by the pool of sacred water and the 108 cow-shaped spouts...

Anyway, the trek continued down the Western side of the circuit until we reached a town from where we were bussed to Pokhara and stayed in a hotel by the lake. I will never forget the party we had that night in the hotel courtyard. We all shared some beer, sang and danced (until the curfew) and laughed. I dreaded that in the next couple of days after some relaxation we would be heading by bus back to Kathmandu. It had been unbelievable.

It's incredible to think that this was almost 20 years ago.