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eCard #116 – Toodling Around Uganda
I had organized a car and driver/guide to take me around to some of the national parks in Uganda after hiking in the Rwenzori Mountains (eCard #115). I used local (Kampala) agent Churchill’s Tailored Safaris – great front-end experience via email and WhatsApp with Ether (EHT-air) putting together an itinerary.
Having bailed out of the mountains trip unexpectedly early, Ether was able to extend my itinerary at the front end very quickly. (It was the low season for tourists.) What was originally a look at the national parks in the southwest of the country became a grand tour. Brighton, picked me up the in the expedition Landcruiser the day after I returned to Kasese from the mountains, and off we went.
The pics on flickr are in two albums:
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part I
I’ve never hired a guide just for me alone for any period of time, so I thought it was going to be a bit weird. The potential weirdness was compounded when checking into the Buffalo Safari Resort in Queen Elizabeth National Park it became apparent that I was the only guest there . It’s a really nice place, and was staffed for a full house. I had the impression that everyone were recent graduates of hospitality training and anxious to put their skills into practice. Four people checked me in, three showed me my room, etc.
This lodge (as for most places I stayed) was within the national park boundaries. There were mongoose and monkeys outside my room. Elephant poo on the walkway. I was instructed to call for an escort to/from my room between 7PM and 7AM. He carried a big flashlight, swinging it around checking the brush on either side of the walk, and he carried a big billy club. I’m not sure what use a billy club is against a charging elephant, but I felt safe. At least he didn’t carry an AK47.
After lunch we headed off for the first game drive of the trip. I told Brighton that I had been to Africa in 2000 for six months and saw many animals, but never saw a leopard (one of the BIG FIVE – lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo). As all guides do, he made no promises, but said we would have several chances to see them on our trip. We hit the road about 3:30PM. At 4:10 we saw the first lion of the trip relaxing from the heat in the branches of a tree. At 4:45 we saw a leopard in a candelabra tree. And at 4:50 saw a second leopard in another tree… Um. Wow! There were loads of elephants, a few hippos and countless antelope-like critters. Not a bad first afternoon.
The overly attentive service didn’t end with check-in. I was told that meals were a fixed menu since the kitchen would be cooking just for me. No problem, I’m easy. Then the waitress listed several choices of appetizer and five choices for the main course for dinner. The meals were superb.
Some of the best food I’ve ever had. Anywhere.
And it wasn’t just due the elephant poo ambience. We were only here for two nights, but I could have luxuriated between the dining room and the pool looking across the valley to the Rwenzori Mountains for quite some time.
Geologic Digression
The valley I looked across to the Rwenzoris is a rift valley. Normally we hear about tectonic plates crashing into each other, either pushing ground up to form mountains (like where the Indian plate crashes northward into the Eurasian plate forming the Himalayas), or where plates slide along or under one another – fault lines and subduction zones like the west coast of the Americas forming chains of uplifted mountains and volcanoes. And all this gnashing of plates generates earthquakes.
Rifts occur where the tectonic plates are pulling apart. As they pull apart they make the crust thinner leaving lowlands between them, and this also allows volcanoes to appear (Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya are on the Eastern African rift). Iceland is still forming this way – it’s at the northern end of Mid-Atlantic Ridge – the separation line of the continuing expansion between the North and South American plates as they pull apart from the Eurasian and African plates.
As a rift valley expands, water intrudes to form lakes and further expansion results in outlets to the sea, or a sea forms. The Atlantic Ocean is the end result of this process. In east Africa this process is in a younger phase (only 20 million years old). The East African Rift extends for almost 6000km and has formed a chain of lakes – The Great Lakes of Africa.
The other Great Lakes are in North America. There are interesting comparisons. The most striking for me is that the lakes in Africa contain 25% of the unfrozen fresh water in the world. The N. American lakes contain 21% (though I don’t think that number includes the Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in Canada).
- Homework: What are the biggest fresh water lakes in the world in terms of surface area? Volume? Depth?
- Hint 1: One lake holds all three records.
- Hint 2: It’s not in Africa.
- Hint 3: It’s not in New Hampshire.
- Hint 4: In area it’s about 50% larger than New Hampshire.
(Reader Jim L. told me I was a frustrated teacher. That may well be. But my only frustration is with the quality of my students 🙂 )
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part II
QENP is on the floor of the western part of the East African Rift Valley – The Albertine Rift Valley (I guess named for it’s proximity to Lake Albert). It’s elevation is low, and it’s on the equator. It’s hot. If not for the vegetation beyond the poolside umbrellas, you could see the 20 mile long Kazinga Channel from the pool at the lodge. This is a natural waterway connecting Lake George and Lake Edward. (Lake Albert is farther north near Murchison Falls.)
The next morning we did a drive paralleling the channel that took us through an area of low volcanic craters. Some of them contain saline lakes, and there is a minor salt industry collecting it. We passed a large herd of elephant in the distance hanging around near the water. (Suggested collective nouns for elephants include herd, parade, memory, trunkful, tusker. For hippos you can use bloat, herd, pod or crash, though I prefer to use “crash” for rhinos. For Tibetan momos I suggest “belch”.)
We turned around in the small town of Katwe after watching a bloat of hippos in the water. One female hippo was floating in the water dead, and several young hippos kept approaching her body and nudging it.
That afternoon I took a boat trip up and down a small section of the channel and saw elephants, hippos, and buffalo from the water. An iguana was prowling the shore for crocodile eggs. We didn’t see any Nile crocs.
There were a few colorful birds. My dad was an avid birder, and I know my folks came to Africa at least once to extend his list, but they didn’t make it to Uganda. There are 1000 native species in the country, plus about 200 varieties that migrate here from the European winter.
Queen Elizabeth National Park, Part III
Moving south to the Ishasha section of the park we did afternoon and morning game drives. The park is noted for seeing lions lounging in branches of the big fig trees. We went to all the fig trees Brighton knew of and didn’t see any lions. Didn’t really matter. It’s a pretty place. We saw some topi and a distant view of the big volcano, Mt. Muhabura, on the Rwandan border.
From Ishasha we had a long drive south and a climb in altitude away from the floor of the rift valley to the cool environs of Lake Mulehe which would be the base for a mountain gorilla trek.
One of the striking things about Uganda is how green it is. It’s incredibly lush, though a bit drier on the floor of the rift valley. But in the hills we’re talking Garden of Eden lush. Brighton declared, “Uganda is a poor country, but no one starves because there’s food everywhere!” This was certainly true in the southwest (definitely not true in the northeast…). Bananas are the staple food crop, and coffee and tea the major cash crops. You also see a lot of cassava/manioc growing.
Lake Mulehe Gorilla Lodge was perched on the south facing slopes above the lake with a great view of Mts. Muhabura and Mgahinga. This was the third lodge I stayed in, but the first place that had other guests.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Returning to Uganda I absolutely had to see the mountain gorillas again. My previous visit in 2000 (eCard #9) ranked as the number one or two best hour-long experiences ever. It’s always a risk to go back to a place to try to re-live an experience. It’s usually different and not as great. And I suppose in the intervening 24 years I’ve become a bit jaded in my travels, and not apt to gush enthusiastic without good reason. But I do have to say being in the wild with large wild animals that can easily kill you is a thrill. Even if they are habituated to humans. So this trip, though different in details, was no different in the experience.
This year I saw the gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, and we saw a small family with one silver back, a couple of females and a few juveniles. In 2000 I saw them in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park just a bit farther south right on the border with Rwanda – a group comprised of two big silver backs, females, juveniles and a 3 month old baby. It’s difficult to see them in the dense foliage, but that makes it more fun.
The old eCard noted that we got to within about 15 feet of the animals. Although the sign at the briefing hut says you have to stay 10m away, this time we were within just a few feet of them. At one point the tracking guide had lost track of the big silver back in the dense foliage, and he came rushing past me just a few feet away. Wowzers!
I mentioned in eCard #9 that I shot “several” rolls of film in the hour we had with the gorillas. So that’d be 108 photos (actually a few less). In the hour with the gorillas this year, now armed with a digital camera, I took a hasty 700 pictures and a couple of videos. I took no selfies.
I’ve posted photos from both visits on flickr
On to Murchison Falls National Park
From Lake Mulehe we had a long drive to Murchison Falls which is north of the Rwenzoris. We drove up and down the hilly terrain of the region with one final look back to the volcanoes marching south. The drive was broken up over a couple of days with one night spent on Lake Bunyonyi.
The standout sight on the lake commemorates a milestone in the subjugation of women. Punishment Island is where unmarried girls who became pregnant were abandoned to starve or to drown trying to escape. Single men unable to afford the bride price for an “untainted” woman could rescue them.
Pressing on, we were back to the heat of the rift valley, and we didn’t leave the heat for the rest of the trip.
All the water in the Nile River as it flows north out of Lake Victoria squeezes through a 20 foot wide cleft in a rock escarpment as it drops 150 feet, creating Murchison Falls. I took a boat trip up the Nile to view the falls. Unfortunately, we didn’t get as close as I would have liked, but there was quite a bit of wildlife to see enroute. After the boat trip, Brighton drove us to the top of the falls for the view from above.
The national park is a huge place, and on the game drives we saw many giraffes, elephants, hartebeest, patas monkeys, and baboons. Off in the distance we saw three lions hanging around in the shade, but no leopards.
A Long Jaunt to Karamoja and the Kadepo Valley
Departing Murchison, it was a two day drive to the remote Kadepo Valley National Park in Karamoja – the far northeastern corner of Uganda near the borders of South Sudan and Kenya. This wasn’t on my original itinerary, and I wasn’t too sure what there was to see here.
Security
I have an annual subscription to Global Rescue who will pull you out of a bad situation. I have this for mountain rescue. It is possible to buy coverage from them for extraction for security reasons. I don’t have that coverage, though perhaps I should get it. I generally don’t pay too much attention to travel advisories. But for some reason I felt the need to look up the Uganda “Destination Report” on their app to find out about Uganda:
“Risk Overview. The risk rating for Uganda is High due to a Moderate security risk rating and an Extreme health risk rating.”
So far, so good.
“The northeastern region, especially Karamoja, should be avoided due to banditry and weak law enforcement. The western border with the DRC is unstable.”
Glad I didn’t read this before leaving home! Just for kicks I checked the US State Department Travel Advisory. Uganda is “Level 3 – Reconsider Travel.” Too late, now. It lists general threats due to terrorism and crime, “… especially in the Karamoja region, and along Uganda’s western and northern borders.” Um, that would be Congo and South Sudan – where I was and where I’m going.
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office is responsible for issuing travel advisories for the UK. They are typically less hysterical than the US State Department (Brits tend to think of insecure areas as discount travel opportunities), so I checked to see what they had to say.
“FCDO advises against all but essential travel to: (among other places) Queen Elizabeth National Park.” Ooopsie. “There is an increased security presence in north-east Uganda in the Karamoja sub-region due to cattle theft. Military and civilians have been killed during security operations.” Hmmm.
I raised my concern with Brighton. “No, it’s very safe.”
“Oh. OK, then. Let’s go.”
Kadepo Valley National Park
During the drive we passed many traditional homesteads. Typically there’s a large central circular building made of sticks and mud with a thatched roof. This would be the residence of the first wife. Subsequent wives have smaller versions built around the center home. The compound may be surrounded by a thicket fence so cattle can be kept securely. A man’s income is dependent on the wives, for you see, the men generally don’t work. Wives make you rich. Unless you make the mistake of taking a wife in the city where she’ll end up costing you money, I’m told. I was thinking these people may have hit on it, but then I realized the fatal flaw in the arrangement. Marriage.
We stayed in a tent lodge overlooking Kadepo Valley with hills forming the border with Kenya and South Sudan off in the distance. My tent had ensuite facilities, but no phone. On the night stand there was a whistle I could blow in case of emergency…
It was hot and dry here. We were at the tail end of the dry season in Karamoja. The animals were suffering from it as the water sources were drying up. We did see many elephants and a huge herd of buffalo, hippos, zebra, giraffe, a group of wombats (collective noun “mob”) with a predator hyena eyeing them, and we also stumbled on a group of eland – very skittish and hard to get close to. No lions. No leopards.
My camera shut down one afternoon. This happens occasionally for some unknown reason, but it usually comes back up with a reboot. But it was out for the count one afternoon. At about the same time Brighton’s phone stopped working. We were in the shade, but supposed that the heat was causing the electronics to shut down. I looked up the specs for my camera that evening, and Sony says the max operable temp range is 40C/104F. It was hot, but I would have thought the camera would have been designed to operate a bit warmer than that…
I thought back to other hot experiences. Traveling in Xinjiang province in western China, John and I were visiting the ruins of Gaochang in the Turfan depression – the low point of Asia. It was 50C/122F. I looked down to read a map, and the lenses to my glasses fell out – the metal rims had expanded in the heat. I think the hottest temp I’ve experienced was in Death Valley in California. The temp was reported as 130F/54C. I came back to the campground one evening after being out all day, and I remarked to the ranger that it had really cooled off. He said, “Yeah. It’s only 105 now.”
Moroto and the Karamaojong
We split the two day drive to Kampala/Entebbe by spending the night in Moroto and visited a traditional Karamojong village. The whole northeast was very dry. Farming and agriculture look pretty difficult. The region is very flat except for a few mountains and rocky outcroppings that appear. There were signs for every international aid agency you could think of announcing their projects and involvement in the area. So although it might be true that no one in the southwest of Uganda starves, it is not true in the northeast.
The Karamojong people are actually several different tribes and descendants of the same stock of people who left Ethiopia a long time ago and became known as the Masai in Tanzania. Like the Masai, the Karamojong are semi-nomadic cattle herders. Their other main economic activity is cattle rustling. Your wealth is measured directly in how many head of cattle you own (indirectly by how many wives you have), and you need cattle to pay a bride price – typically 100 cows. This activity often involves murder, so it gives people the opportunity to form tight family circles and feuds.
A flood of guns became available when Idi Amin’s army fell into disarray in the late 1970’s. This transformed the traditional form of rustling using spears into a much more deadly pastime. Starting in 2011 the Ugandan government began disarming the locals and crime and violence has declined. Unfortunately, Kenya is just a stone’s throw away and they have not disarmed their tribes, so there is some cross-border rustling and the associated violence that continues. But there is a fairly large Ugandan military presence trying to keep things under wraps.
Our local Karamojong guide told us that a couple of years ago one of the richest men in the area was killed. He had 36 wives and an equally impressive number of cattle. His herd had been the target of rustlers, so he and his son got some military personnel (he was rich, so had influence) to confront the thieves and was killed along with his son and their escort. Hence the recent travel warnings.
This is the process for getting a wife. After the girl gets pregnant (I think I missed a step), the boy in the company of his friends has to slaughter a sheep at the entrance to her family’s compound. The girl’s family somehow accept this as a down payment for their daughter. The girl then builds two separate houses within the family compound, but somewhat isolated from the rest of the household. One house is for her and the other one for the boy and his friends when they come to visit. When the baby arrives, he’s expected to give her parents a few cows and 40 goats. Finally, when he can come up with 100 cows he can claim her as his wife.
But there’s a potential snag. Anyone else who can come up with 100 cows can come and take her at any time, though he also has to take the child under his care. So there’s a bit of an incentive to steal those cows in order to move the process along. In many societies it is seen as advantageous to have sons. You can see that in this culture daughters are preferred so you can trade them for cows. So I guess if there’s an unmarried girl with a female baby, she’s likely to be snapped up.
Jinja and Entebbe
Continuing the drive to Jinja, the region became more and more green. I wondered why the nomadic Karamojong didn’t migrate just a few hours south so they didn’t have to depend on foreign aid to survive.
Jinja is where the Nile river starts, flowing out of Lake Victoria. There used to be rapids here, but a hydroelectric plant was built in the 1950’s which submerged them. The reliable electricity has made Jinja the industrial hub of Uganda.
So you come here to see the source of the Nile. It’s pretty underwhelming, actually. And Entebbe is the suburb of Kampala where the airport is. It was the scene of the Israeli raid to free some hostages hijacked in an Air France flight in the 1970’s. When I was here in 2000 there were plans to convert the remains of the plane into a cafe, but this never happened. It’s still sitting around, having been stripped of everything but it’s outer skin.
Nepal 2022 – Upper Dolpo, Kathmandu and Chitwan
Upper Dolpo is, of course, on everyone’s bucket list. What? You’ve never heard of it? Neither had I until preparing to leave Islamabad for The Mountain Company’s K2 Basecamp trek in Pakistan in 2019. The leader of another trek departing at the same time had recently led a trip to Doplo and was raving about it. So I put it on my to-do list, thinking it would fit into my plans for the following spring.
Well. In a word, Covid.
You know the drill. Trip postponed ’til the fall of 2020…. ’til spring of 2021… ’til fall of 2021. Until, finally, it was a “go” for the spring of 2022.
Pictures on flickr here:
(The trek pics are in chronological order with title slides for each day. You can scroll down the page view or click the slide show icon at the upper right. I suggest you then manually click through the pics as the slide show is too slow.)
I had read the itinerary, but still really didn’t know much about what the trip would encompass. I knew it was long (26 days) and at altitude (crossing six 5000m passes) – it’s the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, after all. There would be plenty of opportunity to come down with AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), or HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema), as well as any of an unknown number of local stomach ailments.
It wasn’t like the trek in Pakistan where the ultimate prize was a view of K2, or like the Tour du Mont Blanc where there was always hope the clouds would part to see the mountain at some point while walking around it for two weeks. (It finally did clear … on the last day).
We would not be seeing many of the “great” mountains – the 8000m peaks – like Everest or Annapurna, but we might see Dhaulagiri.
I knew that being in the Himalayas the scenery would be spectacular. I knew the area was remote and was expecting little in the way of civilization. We would be close to the Tibetan border, and the locals would be of Tibetan origin (many fled here when China invaded Tibet and began efforts to homogenize it). We would visit Shey Gompa (Shey Monastery – The Crystal Monastery) an important pilgrimage site for the pre-Buddhist B’on religion.
The region had been written about by Peter Mathieson recounting his trek in the area in his 1970’s book, “The Snow Leopard” (a popular reading choice among the trekkers), but I wasn’t familiar with his writing until after the trip began. I went into the trek not expecting much. Not in the sense of having low expectations, I just didn’t know what to expect.
But there were bad omens. The flight from Boston to Kathmandu via Dubai would … take … a … long … time…. I used to think that the traveling part of travel was fun. I no longer maintain that view.
Most worrying, though, was that this was organized by a UK outfit. There would be porridge for breakfast. My fears were dampened somewhat since I traveled with TMC to Pakistan, and on that trip I ended up donating my personal (and closely guarded) supply of muesli to the kitchen, since porridge wasn’t the only choice on the breakfast menu most days.
So I didn’t have many expectations for the trip, but that’s all I needed to know to sign up. Before heading off on his trek, Mathieson’s Roshi admonished him, “Expect nothing”, and he walked “with no thought of attainment.”
The trek followed an inverted “U” shape from Juphal to Jomsom, bounded by the Shey Phoksundo National Park on the west and the Annapurna Conservation Area to the east. We were within 7km of the Tibetan border at the northern part of the U.
The area is remote, but not wilderness. There are many small communities scattered around, monasteries (seeking seclusion, but welcoming donations), and yak herders. It is quickly changing, but now there are few roads in the region and very few vehicles. The primary means of moving around is by foot or mule, though motorbikes appear in some unlikely places as they are disassembled and carried into remote areas on mules for reassembly. (How much would your gas/petrol cost if it had to be brought to you by mule?)
Logistics
The group met in Kathmandu. With the recent removal of Covid testing requirements, an early flight arrival time, and pre-departure online visa approval, entry formalities were quick and painless. Just pay the visa fee, get the sticker in your passport, and away you go. I arrived a few days early to help adjust for the time zone, and I spent the time walking around the city to see if I could feel anything from my last visit here in 1997. I could not. More on Kathmandu later. Let’s get on with the trek.
Restricted area permits were required for the Dolpo region – keeps out the riffraff, you know. I’m never quite sure what purpose these serve. Possibilities are: To limit numbers (maybe); Keep track of who is in the area (for sure in China, but not likely in Nepal); To extract hard currency from tourists (definitely). The fee (included in the trip cost we paid to TMC) was US$800 per person – not trivial, but cheaper than Bhutan which now charges US$200 per day just to be in the country. Presumably you can be fined/detained if you don’t have a permit or overstay the duration of it, and there were checkpoints along the way. Our leader collected our passports and took care of obtaining these for us.
There were 13 trekkers (3 Canadians, 3 Americans, 7 Brits) with one western leader. A fairly diverse group, though doctors were over-represented with 4, and I usually consider one Canadian more than enough 😉 Ages ranged from 43 to 70. (I’ve noticed a definite upward trend in the average age of travelers in the group trips I go on – and it’s not just me skewing the average!)
The popular trekking routes in Nepal can be completed while staying in tea houses of varying standard. In Dolpo, this is not the case – camping is the only alternative to make a circuit out of it. There were tea houses until day 4 at Ringmo on Lake Phoksundo, but we didn’t see any other accommodation to speak of until we got to Chharka 14 days later. I suspect if you were a solo traveler you could convince a local to take you in for a small consideration, but be prepared to eat a lot of dal baht, and be prepared to be outside.
In the great tradition of Nepal treks, we had a rather large staff led by a sirdar who oversaw everything. We had three “sherpas” (guides – see minor rant below), a head cook with 5 “kitchen boys”, a lead porter in charge of 9 porters, and two muleteers chasing the 20 mules we began with. A staff of 22 plus 20 mules!
At one point 14 of the mules and one muleteer departed as we ate our way through the supplies and they were no longer needed. (Chatting with a French woman in Chharka trekking in the opposite direction, I mentioned that we started with 20 mules and were now down to six. She asked, “Did you eat them?” I did not leave her with clarification….)
Each porter and the kitchen boys carried 30kg (66lbs) in addition to their personal gear. The mules carried 60kg each. So in total we had about 1500kg/3300lbs of stuff, but no room for a charging cable for the sat phone, apparently.
Our personal gear was limited to 15kg in a duffel (each porter carried two duffels) and 7kg in our day packs. (In the late 90’s I trekked to Annapurna, and the porters carried three 15kg duffels each, though, come to think of it, they went on strike…. These days there are standards set so the porters are treated better and more uniformly across all expeditions than previously, and expeditions are less likely to be abandoned.)
The 22kg limit was set by the airline, though slinging my 1.3kg camera around my neck and wearing a fleece jacket with the pockets stuffed with things assisted in evading that restriction. (Traveling to Bolivia on a climbing trip in the 80’s, we threw our four big duffel bags on the check-in scale together and then jammed our feet under the bags. The gate agent was surprised how little the bags weighed. We wore our mountaineering boots on the flight, just to be sure.)
Stats:
- We walked about 170mi/273km
- With all the ups and downs, we ascended 37,000ft (7 vertical miles) or 11,300m.
- We crossed six 5000m passes with the highest at 5566m/18,260ft.
- On 16 nights we camped above 4000m (13,125ft).
- On 12 nights we camped above 14,000ft (4267m).
- On 4 nights we camped above 15,000ft (4572m).
- Our highest camp was at 4905m/16,090ft. For comparison, Mt. Blanc (the highest point in western Europe) tops out at 4808m (15,774ft) and the highest point in the conterminous US is Mt. Whitney at 4418m (14,495ft).
Food
I thought the food on the trek started out very good and remained that way for two-thirds of the trek, then it wasn’t. It’s typical on a long trek, though, particularly when you don’t have access to buy fresh food. As the days go on, what you still have becomes tedious, and you run out of fresh stuff – vegetables, eggs, etc. You run out of fresh everything once you’ve eaten all the mules. (We ran out of three goats in Pakistan about half-way through the trip. They were named Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. The chickens were un-named – they were much less personable.) Toward the end of the trip, you look longingly toward the cooks at lunch hoping there’s an extra slab of Spam.
You tend to lose your taste for food at altitude and can lose your appetite completely. Some things you just can’t eat – porridge, at any altitude, for instance. Fortunately, there was a good stock of peanut butter, and the cook seemed to have a knack for making a wide variety of fresh breads. That got me through breakfast.
I don’t ever recall turning down seconds (or thirds) of anything early in the trip, but by the end of it I was handing my plate back with uneaten food left on it. Whether it was boredom with the diet, altitude, or just bad food, I can’t say (OK, the vegetables were inedible by the end). There’s a corollary to the mountaineering wisdom, “Be as comfortable as you can for as long as you can and then suffer.” It is, “Eat as much as you can whenever you can and then starve.”
A good cook realizes this is the case and tries to mix things up and give you the occasional surprise. Our cook was pretty good, especially the baked goods. Who was expecting good pizza? But 25 days of porridge? That deserved a lot of awshits that cancel out the attaboys.
Late in the trip he managed to buy some fresh cucumbers and potatoes in a village we passed through. My notes from May 24th (day 17) at Rapka say, “We had French fries for dinner!!! Oh, yeah. We saw a snow leopard.”
Off We Go
I won’t give you a day by day account of the trip, but will cover the literal and figurative high points.
The original plan was to take commercial flights to Nepalgunj (nicknamed “Nepalgrunge” as the hottest city in Nepal) and then a flight to Juphal the next day. But it turned out there were enough of us that it was economical to charter a flight directly to Juphal. This saved a day, giving us a buffer day, if needed, and avoided “the grunge.”
The flight from Kathmandu to Jhupal was in a 20 passenger Czech-built Let L410-Turbolet twin-turboprop STOL (short take off and landing) plane, and was low and slow. We were nearly scraping the ridge tops and I could hear the annunciator from the radar altimeter shouting to the pilots, “Terrain! Terrain! Pull up!” According to Wikipedia, “With at least 20 fatal crashes from 2003 to 2013, it is one of the most accident-prone aircraft.” Hmmm. Video
Disembarking at Juphal and passing through the first checkpoint of the trip, we had a short walk down to the Thuli Bheri River and upstream to Dunai where we had our first camp and were indoctrinated into the trek proper.
The real walking started the next day as we passed through some lush forests and ascended for a couple of days. A beautiful walk through forests I did not expect to see.
We finally started gaining some real height along airy trails and passed the tremendous waterfall exiting Phoksundo Lake shortly before arriving at Ringmo at about 3600m (day 5).
Ringmo is in a fantastic setting overlooking Phoksundo Lake and surrounded by big hills. There are a few snow-capped peaks visible nearby, though the largest, Kanjiroba (6612m), is not seen from this end of the lake.
The lake is, well, gorgeous. The blue is amazing. We had a rest day here to marvel at the setting and we took a short walk to the nearby monastery perched above the lake. I only wish we could have kayaked here, but it’s a holy place, and I wanted to avoid being stoned to death. I couldn’t get a kayak in my carry-on, anyway.
From Ringmo we followed the high route of the Great Himalayan Trail for the rest of the trip. The GHT traverses the length of Nepal and is out there waiting for you if you’ve got a few months available and looking for a 1750 km trek. Only about 100 people have completed it. That’s far fewer people than summit Mt. Everest every year. I’ve seen trips that offer it for a fraction of the cost of climbing Everest – just $27,000 for 150 days!
This was an awesome place to hang out, so Lake Phoksundo has been inscribed in the “Awesome Places in the World to Hang Out In” list.
The discouraging aspect of Ringmo is that we could clearly see the trail we would follow to our next camp at the north end of the lake snaking along the base of the steep hillside on the western waterfront. (It’s called “The Devil’s Trail” in the film “Himalaya”.) It seemed to continue around the peninsula just above the lake,… but no. That part of the trail is unfinished. Look up. No, look higher. No. Up there. Yeah, there. That’s our trail.
After leaving the second camp on the north end of the lake (day 8), we hiked northwest up the beautiful valley formed by the Phoksundo Khola (river) and beneath the Kanjiroba/Kanjirowa Himal – a ridge at 6500+m towering above the southern side of the valley. I nearly broke out into song. Where’s Julie Andrews when you need her? There were booming cracks in the high glaciers and occasionally we could spot an avalanche.
Turning north, we climbed above the Ghyampo Kapuwa Khola valley with Kanjiroba behind us. The climb up was a bit strenuous and caused trekkers and porters alike to be strung out along the trail – we were still acclimatizing to the altitude. But as we continued to climb to “Snowfields” camp this day and the next, we were rewarded with ever changing views of Kanjiroba to the south.
Snowfields camp (4690m) was located below the Kang La (our first big pass at 5400m). We camped here for two nights and did an acclimatization hike a few hundred meters higher toward the pass on day 10.
The next morning we awoke to snow. The weather changed for better and worse as we worked our way up to the pass.
Crossing the pass we had hoped to have a good view of Dhaulagiri to the east, but it was shrouded in cloud. The weather cooperated enough for the descent (it started snowing a bit) and walk down to Shey Gompa, improving as we went.
Shey Gompa – The Crystal Monastery. I’d love to wax poetic about it, but I never heard of it before this trip. It is a pilgrimage site with roots in the pre-Buddhist, pre-Hindu, B’on/Tibetan religion. Like all religions, it seems to have adopted, evolved or transformed into an mish-mash of all three religions – pick whatever myth suits you and become righteous. It is situated in a beautiful spot at the confluence of two rivers. Crystal Mountain (largely quartz) looms overhead and is a holy substitute for the holier Mt. Kailash in Tibet. Pilgrims do the circuit around the mountain here as they do in Tibet.
We had a rest day after arriving at “Shey” with an optional day hike to nearby Tsakang Gompa. The path was high above a rugged valley with views of more rugged valleys beyond and was breathtaking. This entire area has been inscribed in the “Small Gems of the World” list.
Moving on from Shey Gompa, we crossed the Saldang La (5115m) with two false summits before the pass (and one false lunch stop afterward), continuing on to Namgung.
After a rather long day passing through the prosperous villages of Saldang and Karang, we descended to the Nagaon Khola and camped along the confluence of it and the Panjyang Khola where they form the Tora Khola at Tora Simna. We were now on the northwest corner of the inverted “U” of our track.
Turning east from Tora Simna, following the Panjyang Khola upstream, we took some time to visit Yanger Gompa, and just a few km later we turned northeast up the Musi Khola to the outskirts of the village of Musi/Mischa in preparation to cross the Muri La (5085m). This was our closest approach to Tibet, just 7km away.
The SE side of the Muri La dropped back down to the fertile valley of the Panjyang Khola and the villages of Shimen and Tinje.
Somewhere I had heard that Tinje was the site of an airstrip used by the CIA for covert operations during and after the Tibet uprising against the Chinese in 1959. I haven’t been able to directly confirm Tinje as the site for this, but Tibetan rebels were trained at Camp Hale in Leadville, CO during this time, and I’ve found references to four airdrops into Tibet in ’59 and ’60 which all failed miserably, which may or may not have been dispatched from Tinje. (There was also support for a Tibetan guerilla group based in nearby Upper Mustang until 1965, but I didn’t find any references to air support.)
In any event, after walking through the fields in the broad valley near Tinje, we crossed “the disused airfield” and camped along the river below it. Most importantly to the present narrative, Tinje is where our cook obtained fresh potatoes and cucumbers.
Just after settling into camp near Rapka, our leader spotted a snow leopard above camp. This wasn’t just a quick glimpse. The cat hung around for a good 15 minutes sizing us up for a meal. These animals are extremely rare, solitary and cautious. Needless to say, it’s extremely rare to see one, and we were incredibly fortunate. During the best of times, the path we were following is not heavily traveled, and during the previous two years of pandemic, even less so. So I can’t help but think that the cat we saw was habituated to fewer people, and an army of brightly colored tourists caught it’s curiosity. Thank goodness for the pandemic! One of the trekkers got a good video . (Oh, yeah. The French fries at Rapka were awesome, too!)
A fairly long walk took us to our highest camp (4905m) just below Chharka La. It was a pretty windy day, which is the norm for Dolpo, but adding to that the snow/sleet in our faces for the latter part of the day made this the only unpleasant trekking on the trip (due to weather, that is). The approaches to the pass were grass covered – a perfect place for an afternoon stroll or to let your yaks graze.
We could almost see the top of the Chharka La (Mola La on the map, 5038m/16,530ft) from camp, and it was a great morning trekking up to it on day 19. The pass would be our final chance to get a peek of the peaks of Dhaulagiri, and the local weather was promising. We made the pass in good time and hung around the summit cairn and prayer flags snapping photos.
We had good views through moving clouds of Dhaulagiri II, III, IV and V (all around 7700m/25,200ft), and we could just see the top and a bit of the western ridge of Dhaulagiri I behind a nearer mountainside. At 8167m (26,794ft) it’s the seventh highest mountain in the world (collect the set!).
I have always been slow to acclimatize, so I look carefully at trips to see how quickly altitude is gained – generally the longer the trip, the better. This trip had it right for me (see elevation plot below), and I only had a few nights of sleep interrupted by Cheyne-Stokes breathing (where you stop breathing and wake up gasping for breath – sometimes with dreams of suffocation). As the days went on I felt stronger and stronger.
But my performance peaked on day 20 after we crossed the Chharka La. I was near the front of the group going up from camp and over the pass, and I felt strong all the way up and on the descent. But then we arrived in the miasmic village of Chharka for two nights – a literal shit hole. Not sure, but suspicious there was open sewage in the main street, definitely trash and shit in the river, cramped camp with pit toilets within a few feet of the tents. Too bad, since otherwise it could have been a nice village.
I didn’t feel well the next day (a rest day) as we walked across town to visit the local monastery – I had some ill-defined stomach/head thing – impending diarrhea, gas, malaise, and the beginning of my loss of appetite on the trip. I never got over this for the remaining week, and the last couple of days my butt was dragging (including, unfortunately, crossing the highest pass and on to our last camp at Sangda). Getting lower in altitude didn’t immediately make me feel better, so I suspect it was a bug of some sort. Complicating the diagnosis, I started taking the anti-malarial drug, Mefloquin, since I was going to the low country of Chitwan National Park soon after the trek. (I’ve taken it before and don’t recall similar bad side effects.) So I don’t know. Bug? Altitude? Mefloquin? Bad food? Or just plain fatigue?
Glad to leave town, we followed the Chharka Khola on a trail above the valley which then descended to meet the Thasan Khola which we waded across. A steep climb above the river’s narrow gorge took the energy out of me, but a good snack while admiring the twisted geology before crossing a large scree field revived me a bit. Then it was down into the narrows to walk along the rocky riverbed where there was once a trail – now obliterated by landslides and washed away. The walk was topped off arriving in camp near Norbulung located in a broad valley with snow capped peaks behind. It was a nice walk and the varied hike made it a highlight day for me, in spite of not feeling so hot.
Camp at Norbulung was the second highest camp on the trip at 4773m/15,660ft. By this point, day 22, we had already crossed four 5000m passes and spent 13 nights above 4000m. I was well acclimatized, running a PO2 of 86% with the same resting pulse rate I have at sea level at home. Here’s the daily profile for the trip:
But at about tea time after arriving in camp, one of the trekkers exhibited symptoms of HAPE with a PO2 of just 50%. The trekker was sealed into a Gammow bag which was pressurized to reduce the effective altitude by 1000m, or so, which seemed to bring instant relief. The satellite phone was dug out to summon an evacuation helicopter, but they would not be able to come that day. The symptoms were under control the next day, and we had an additional rest day in futile anticipation that the helicopter would come (cards were played) – glad we had acquired an additional buffer day early on.
Norbulung was a much nicer place to chill out than Chharka, and the extra day here gave me the opportunity to catch up on laundry. I decided it was time to wash the shirt I had been wearing continuously for seven days whether it needed it, or not.
With assurances that a helicopter would come, a skeleton crew was left behind to assist, and the bulk of the group went off toward the Sangda La.
At 5566m/18,261ft, Sangda La was the highest point of the trek. We could see the full climb from a long way off – no switchbacks, just a long, steady traverse to the pass. I was slow. Even the Snickers bar half-way up didn’t energize me. Finally at the top, a nice view, and I thought, “All I need to do is get down the other side, and we’re in camp.” Sangda Phedi camp was scheduled to be our highest camp at 5100m.
But, no.
Arriving at Sangda Phedi there were no mules and no porters. For some reason the sirdar (still back in Norbulung at the time) had contacted the guides to move on to another camp (Ghalden Ghulden) over the lower Sangda pass (5025m) and 800m down a very steep slope of loose shale. In my view, this was an incredibly poor decision for a variety of reasons. But there we were.
From there we continued the descent into the deep gorge of the Kyalunpa Khola and then ascended to the village of Sangda/Santa for our last campsite in the village. My knees were still wobbling from the long descent the day before, and by the time I got to the bridge at the bottom of the gorge, I was whipped. It was a tough grunt uphill to a road that eventually led to Sangda. But the gorge was a beautiful and dramatic expanse – another highlight of the trip in spite of the pain.
In the evening we discussed the possibility of taking a jeep from Sangda down to the Kali Gandaki river (a tributary of the Ganges). There was only one jeep on this side of the uncompleted bridge, so it was worked out that we’d be in three groups – the driver would shuttle back and forth and pick up each group as they made progress walking along the road. There were four seats available from camp, and I waited a respectful 30 seconds for someone to grab the last seat before volunteering myself and avoiding the long, dusty walk.
A second jeep from the east bank of the river got us to Jomsom (3612m) in good time. We were back in civilization, and my radar quickly found a “Himalayan Java”, the first coffee shop (with German chocolate cake!) in almost a month. … so come to think of it my appetite did come back upon losing altitude….
We completely took over the Hotel Dhaulagiri.
Showers. Hot showers.
We had our last full group meal followed by a small celebration to say farewell to the staff who supported us during the trek. Tips were handed out individually. Along with cash tips, gear that the group decided to give away was distributed to the staff by lottery. It was a fun event with blessedly minimal singing and dancing.
It was intended that we fly from Jomsom to Pokhara where we’d spend a night before moving on to Kathmandu. Ours was to be the first flight departing Jomsom after a plane crashed coming into the valley a week or so earlier, killing all 22 on board.
In an incredibly prescient decision, one of the trekkers had pre-arranged to add on a 5 day trek to walk out of Jomsom in order to avoid the flight – he felt the riskiest parts of the trek were the flights. (I need to contact him to see how his investment decisions are doing…)
We trundled to the airport at 5AM only to be sent away as the weather was not going to clear. The alternate for this 20 minute flight was a torturous 8 hour jeep ride on the horrible “highway” to Pokhara via Beni. The road is a continual construction project, buried by landslides and undercut by floods with the occasional earthquake keeping everything in motion. At one point I was hoping that it would rain to reduce the dust, but that would have turned the road into a mud hole.
Om mani padme hum
The sacred mantra, om mani padme hum (“Praise the jewel in the lotus”), can be heard and seen inscribed everywhere, though a taxi driver in Kathmandu was chanting something else which I assume meant, “Let me survive this traffic one more day”.
In the countryside there are mani walls everywhere – piles of stones neatly organized into rectangular structures which were nice places to lean against for a rest. The stones were engraved with the mantra or some other religious text. I assume there must be a class of itinerant stone masons that performs this service.
The piles of rocks reminded me of home in New England where old stone walls snake through the forest – fields cleared by early European settlers that have since regrown. The walls weren’t built to enclose anything, it was just a convenient way for farmers to stack the rocks that were in the way of plowing as they scratched their livelihood out of the meager topsoil.
Recent ethnographic research indicates that, as in many cases where languages are adopted by new immigrants or conquering powers through the ages, initial meanings are mis-applied or mutated to accommodate new needs. It turns out that agrarian cultures in the Tibetan plateau in pre-Buddhist, pre-B’on, pre-Tibetan times used to chant omm anip adme hom while working in the fields. Roughly translated, the original meaning was, “Another damned rock!”
Pokhara
Monsoon season had begun. During the trek we were north of the mountains that acted as a rain shadow for us, and we had great weather throughout – just one night of rain early on and a bit of snow crossing the Kang La and going up to the Chharka La. But we arrived in Pokhara in our jeeps under a torrential downpour – it washed the dust off.
More hot showers. Swimming pool. Beer. Not necessarily in that order.
No porridge.
The group went on to Kathmandu the following morning, while I stayed in Pokhara for a couple of days and did absolutely nothing. That’s not true. I walked up the main drag to Himalayan Java and back along the lakefront – the clouds never parted so I had little ambition to walk anywhere to try and get a view of Annapurna. I did walk between my room, the pool, the laundry and several restaurants.
Chitwan
From Pokhara I flew to Bharatpur (205m) and was picked up by a driver for the short drive to the Sapana Village Lodge near the village of Sauraha – a gateway to Chitwan National Park on the border with India.
God it was hot.
After the trek in 1997 I stayed in a tented camp inside the park which was a really cool experience. Each morning and afternoon guests were scheduled for a different event – jeep game drives, elephant-back game drives, bird walks, canoe trips, etc. – and they made sure everyone had a chance to do everything over the 2 or 3 days we were there. The government has since prohibited any lodgings within the park, and many lodges and guesthouses have sprouted up along the northern edge of the park.
Back then it was unusual to see an Indian (one-horned) rhino, and incredibly rare to see a sloth bear or tiger. Now estimates put the rhino population at just under 800, and there were reports of tiger sightings the week I was there this year.
It turned out there was only one other guest at the lodge when I arrived, and I was the only one there for my last night – the monsoon, you know. I didn’t get the memo. But I was in Nepal so I would have come regardless. The lodge had a nice peaceful setting with viewing platforms and sitting areas overlooking a grassy river. I watched a rhino there while having breakfast one morning.
The lodge offered an a la carte menu of activities, and I convinced the other guy staying there to share the most expensive item – a full day jeep game drive. Not that I was anxious to spend another day in a jeep, but I figured the farther we went in the jeep, the more likely we’d see something.
As we waited for a dugout canoe to ferry us across the river from town to the park proper, we spotted our first rhino across the river. There were also two varieties of crocodiles to encourage us to stay in the boat – long-snouted gharials which are not a threat to humans, and marsh or mugger crocs, which are.
On the jeep drive we saw a couple of varieties of deer, and later in the day as we got further in the park we saw quite a few rhinos – video here. Our driver had heard reports of a tiger and we stopped in at several potential spots to look for one, but to no avail.
We did stumble on a sloth bear coming down the road with two cubs. It walked right past the jeep! Video. Not seeing a big cat here, I had to content myself with having seen a snow leopard on the trek.
You would have thought that riding in an open vehicle with a good sunshade would have helped with the heat, but it did not. It was 40C/104F in the shade, and, with the humidity, my weather app said it felt like 48C/118F.
It was so hot, that the other guy left the next day – I couldn’t convince him to hang around for a jungle walk, which in the end I didn’t do either. I managed to go on a dugout canoe trip on the river in the morning – lots of kingfishers and crocs – but spent the rest of the day hiding from the heat.
That night some thunderstorms rolled in and I heard the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard – I went from sound asleep to sitting upright on the edge of the bed in a split second, twice, thinking the world had ended .
The food at the lodge was amazing, especially considering there were only 1 or 2 guests. They had an extensive menu and could prepare anything on it. It was plentiful, well presented and delicious. And there was no porridge!
Chitwan has also been added to the “Awesome Places in the World to Hang Our In” list, a previous omission. Go there, but go in a cooler time of year.
Kathmandu
I flew back to Kathmandu and was reunited with my fragrant duffel bag which contained dirty clothes and a mildew-smelling sleeping bag, having been packed away for 6 days by then.
Laundry. Drying.
There was a severe earthquake in Nepal in 2015 which destroyed many of the old masonry buildings everywhere, and particularly in central Durbar Square. I didn’t recognize anything in the center of town.
I walked over to the Buddhist stupa at Swayambhunath (the “Monkey Temple”) where Siddhartha/Sakyamuni/Buddha is said to have preached. Though the area around it is largely built up, the hilltop temple area still retains some atmosphere and it’s monkeys.
On the other side of town, I recognized more of the golden Hindu temple of Pashupatinath and it’s “burning ghats” – where people cremate their loved ones along the banks of the holy, wholly polluted, Bagmati River. (A smaller version of Varanasi and the Ganges in India.) It brings a different dimension to having smoke in your eyes. It all seemed so very overcrowded, and I remember there being a more mystical feeling about the place when I was here in 1997 – it was on a foggy morning, back then.
I started to walk the 5km from my hotel over to Bodhnath where the largest Buddhist stupa in Asia was built around 600AD. But the noise and pollution coaxed me into a taxi after 20 minutes. The stupa itself is a serene structure bedecked with prayer flags. But the neighboring area was a sensory overload for me. The branch of Himalayan Java that overlooked the stupa was a more meditative place.
Kathmandu just seemed like a teeming, dirty, Asian city, which, come to think of it, it is.
The air pollution didn’t seem to be a problem when I arrived in early May before the trek – there are blue skies in some of the pictures. But for the few days in June before heading home, the pollution was suffocating – as bad or worse than the worst I experienced when I lived in China. Kathmandu sits in a depression and the exhaust from vehicles has nowhere to go – it’s filtered by your lungs. Really awful and best avoided.
Epilogue
The evacuation helicopter flight from Norbulung to Pokhara and then to Kathmandu cost the evacuee about US$7000, making what seemed to be a pricey US$250 travel insurance policy suddenly look like a bargain. A similar flight in the US would have been triple that, or more.
After being off the trek for about 10 days and back home, I was still down a net 20lbs from my post-pandemic, pre-trek weight. I’m guessing I actually lost 25 to 30lbs on the trek, some of which was quickly put back on once I discovered Himalayan Java.
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Minor Rant #1
I put Sherpa in quotes since this term seems in common use for referring to any guide. Originally, Sherpa meant a Sherpa – someone from an ethnic group of people originating in the Khumbu region of Nepal and the Tingri region across the border in Tibet. They became famous as high altitude porters for the early Himalayan expeditions. Tenzing Norgay Sherpa was the first person (along with Edmund Hillary) to summit Everest.
Today Sherpas do the heavy lifting and set the route for the tourists climbing Mt. Everest, and for most expeditions in Nepal. But with their experience, Sherpas have transcended this role as support teams for foreigners and have become some of the best mountaineers in the world.
In May of this year, Kami Rita became the first person to summit Mt. Everest 26 times. An all Sherpa team led by Nims Purja became the first climbers to successfully summit K2 in winter last year, putting all 10 members of the team on the summit together. (Video here. At 1:46 there’s a great view of the “Bottleneck” and the hanging glacier above – “The Motivator”.) Oh, yeah. Nims? He set the record of climbing all fourteen 8000m peaks in just over 6 months.
Our guides were all great guys – cheerful, kind, humble, gracious, always helpful. But not Sherpas.
Customer Service in Sri Lanka, 2007
I recently filled out a job application. Before you get too worried, it’s for a flying job, so not work, in the strict sense of the word. One of the questions on the application was (paraphrased), “Please describe a time during which you provided a customer with exceptional customer service, OR when you received exceptional customer service from someone else. What did you or the employee do? How did it feel?”
OK. I can write volumes about bad customer service experiences, but I had to think a long time about a good one. And then I remembered my experience leaving Sri Lanka after a week-long visit in 2007. AND it was aviation related. This prompted me to re-visit my pictures and gives me the excuse to reminisce a bit.
Oooh…. You can’t click on the pics here to see them full size, though you can use CTRL+ and CTRL- to zoom in and out on your browser page. You can also find these pictures and more on flickr: Sri Lanka, 2007
Sri Lanka is that little island suspended in the Indian Ocean and the southern Bay of Bengal off the southeast coast of India. It used to be called Ceylon. European interest in the island began when the Portuguese first landed in 1505 during their voyages of exploration, trade, and conquest. They eventually solidified control of the coastal areas.
The Dutch arrived in the 1630’s and entered into an agreement with the local king to rid the island of the Portuguese. The Dutch, of course, were duplicitous, broke the terms of their treaty, and remained in control of the coast and trade, while fighting sporadically with the remnants of the inland kingdom.
By the late 18th century Ceylon was to become a geo-political pawn, and we have to turn to what was happening in Europe. After their own revolution, the French went on a military frenzy in Europe to demolish the remaining monarchies, oh, and expand French territory. Napoleon was the thorn in the side of establishment Europe, and in the name of freedom imposed his rule. In 1793 he overran Holland and occupied it. Always fearful of the French, and particularly of Napoleon, the British were concerned that Holland’s possession, Ceylon, would fall to France and threaten their jewel in the crown, India. So they pre-emptively invaded in 1796, wresting complete control by 1815. Of course by then (Napoleon had been defeated, exiled, returned and defeated again at Waterloo by June of that year), France was no longer a threat to the British, but it seemed silly to give up something they now possessed. They remained until granting independence in 1948. The country adopted it’s new name in 1972.
An interesting side note (and the basis for a good Jeopardy question) that I stumbled upon while visiting Nagasaki in 2008. Japan was closed to the outside world for much of it’s history. The Portuguese first made inroads in the 16th century and were followed and ultimately replaced by the Dutch. From about 1640 for the next two hundred years, the only place foreign vessels could dock and where foreigners could live was on an artificial island called Dejima in the bay of Nagasaki. During the Napoleonic wars, this was the only place in the world where the Dutch flag flew, all other Dutch territory having been occupied by France or Great Britain.
OK, so in April of 2007, I had been living in China for almost a year and took a week-long holiday to Sri Lanka with Amei. I booked this through a guy who had been the leader on a tour I did in Tunisia a couple of years prior who was setting up his own tour business. We stopped in just a few spots on the island and had a car and driver for a few days to take us around.
The majority Sinhalese population make up about 75% of the roughly 20 million Sri Lankans. They speak Sinhala and are mostly Buddhists with roots from Bengal and northern India. The Tamils, from southern India, make up 15% of the population, speak Tamil and practice Hinduism. The 1970’s political climate fostered a political/ethnic/religious/racial divide culminating in civil war which finally ended in 2009 with the defeat of Tamil forces – the Tamil Tigers. Estimates are as high as 100,000 killed and 300,000 displaced during the period. Much of the island was off-limits during our visit due to the conflict.
My great impression of the island? It was incredibly hot. I remember that we really didn’t like it very much, but I couldn’t remember why. In the photos and my memories, people were generally friendly and smiled at us. It finally came back to me. Everyone had their hand out for a tip. I don’t think I had become accustomed to the Chinese culture of not tipping at all, (at the time the Chinese refused to accept tips) but I remember people standing around who had nothing to do with us asking for a tip. The guy standing next to us as we checked out of a hotel asked for a tip. Crazy and annoying – I remember the guy leading our elephant tour talked non-stop about the tip he expected of us (he got nothing).
Ranweli Eco Lodge
We arrived in Colombo via Hong Kong and went directly to the lovely Ranweli Eco Lodge overlooking the ocean. This is a chill-out place with a few activities – walks, boat rides, bird watching. I think we just stayed a night or two and moved on.
The Mudhouse
Our stay at The Mudhouse was probably the highlight of the trip – a delightful little compound with a thatched roofed cottage, an open day lounging area, a dining gazebo where meals were served, hammocks, visiting lizards, rats living in the thatched roof, and a friendly dog that Amei named Jack, though Jill would have been a more appropriate choice. (If you check their website, we stayed in The Original Mudhouse which was the only place at the time. It has since been modified.)
We were sited on the edge of a flat expanse of jungle/farmland with a shallow lake that attracted many birds (our bungalow came equipped with binoculars). Our gracious host, Kumar, led us out one day wandering along the shoreline to see the bird life and visit with some locals living off the land. From some places we could see the rock outcropping of the Paramakanda Rock Temple.
Paramakanda Rock Temple
Just a 2km tractor drive from The Mudhouse stands the prominent rock outcrop housing a small Buddhist temple which dates from the first century BC. There are some small shrines with murals painted at the base beneath the rock overhangs. Some of the paintings depicted bad things that could happen to you, things that maybe I have to look forward to. Fine views from the top, and lots of monkeys scampering in the garden at the base of the rock. It was a nice little excursion from the rigors of life at The Mudhouse.
Sigiriya (Lion Rock)
Moving on toward the center of the island, we checked into the schnitzy Kandalama Lake Hotel built into a bluff overlooking the Kandalama reservoir created for irrigation. There were monkeys running around outside who were unafraid to come in the open window and steal my apple (or anything else) from the table. We were warned to not walk along the road during the evening or after dark due to cobras. This was information worthy of a tip, and we enjoyed the sunset from our balcony.
Our room had a view of Sigiriya – a 200m high rock outcrop which served as the palace and citadel of a 5th century capital city. The complex had a long entrance walkway lined with pools and gardens leading to the base of the rock and to the many steps leading to the top.
We joined the busy queue on the way up, passing some ancient frescoes of bare-breasted women. I don’t know what their significance was (to pacify attackers?), but originally it is thought the whole western wall of the rock was covered with paintings.
About half way up we came upon a small level spot where two giant lion’s paws (the Lion Gate) cradle the beginning of the stairway to the very top of the rock and the site of the palace complex. Nice view from the top. Hot. Bring water.
Dambulla Cave
This was another busy spot for local tourists/families. A first century BC Buddhist cave shrine with statues and paintings. There are five caves in all, richly decorated and with hundreds of statues of Buddha.
Kandy
Kandy is the capital of the central province and one of the country’s major cities. It is also the home of one of the most important Buddhist shrines in the world, the Temple of the Tooth, located within the royal palace complex. Locally this relic of Buddha is vitally important, since whoever holds the tooth, legend maintains, holds power. We joined the long queue to see the relic under tighter security than my dentist provides.
A principal attraction in Kandy is a visit to the Royal Botanical Garden, a few km west of town. It’s a lovely, well maintained and attended park that is renowned for it’s orchids, but I will always remember it for another reason.
As we wandered along the main path we saw some trees hung with hundreds of large fruit bats, so we decided to take a side path to have a closer look. As we approached the bats seemed to be making more and more noise. I remarked that they were probably making noise due to the approach of a predator, meaning us. The bats covered a half-dozen large trees, and our path was parallel to the main path. Once we got to the end of the row of trees, it looked more interesting to cut back over to the main path.
Now, I’ve been in snake country before. I don’t like ’em, so I usually have an eye out for them. (I’ve been know to wear snake gaiters/chaps and have even carried a pistol loaded with snake shot in my defense.) So, being in snake country on a reptile-hot day, wearing sandals, it was with a bit of trepidation that I took that first step off the path into some shin-high grass.
I took the precaution of stomping my feet to see if I would stir up anything lurking in the grass.
Damned if it didn’t work.
I’ll never forget the piercing scream that came out of Amei (or, perhaps it was emanating from me?). I estimated that dark, thick bodied snake charging away from us to be at least 15 feet long. Had it been coming toward us, I would have doubled my estimate.
Having identified the real predator, we decided to stick to the path. Later, our driver said it was probably a rattlesnake (though I think all rattlesnakes are New World – he probably meant it was a krait) since if it were a cobra it would have lifted it’s head up to look at us. This knowledge did little to relieve me. (In Googling the subject it turns out Sri Lanka has about one-third of all snake species (including sea snakes) and the highest death toll due to snakebite of any country in the world – mostly from cobras. This information was withheld from the tourist literature.)
There was a huge, hundred year old Giant Java Willow tree (Java Fig) in the garden, which was cool (figuratively and literally) to walk under. Also of interest were Giant Java Almond trees, a Cannonball Tree planted by King George and Queen Mary in 1901, and a Coco de Mer (Sea Coconut/Double Coconut) which is native only to the Seychelles and has the largest seeds of any plant.
bat in flight. BOTTOM: Fruit bats, flowers, formal garden, Coco de Mer.
One evening in Kandy we saw some traditional dances and fire walkers – I didn’t see the need to make my feet any hotter than they already were, thank you, but it made me feel cooler watching.
Our hotel was situated near downtown, so it was convenient to join the locals during the evening paseo. My fondest memory of the hotel was the refreshing pool.
Even More Stuff
Somewhere along our travels we visited a spice garden, went on an elephant safari, visited the Pinawalla Elephant Orphanage, and stopped at a tea plantation to see how this important crop was processed for export. Here I learned that after the tea was dried, sorted, graded and packaged for consumption in Asia and Europe, the dust was swept up to be put in tea bags for the US market.
That Customer Service
We were due to leave the country, so I tried calling to confirm our flights (I think we flew on China Airlines), but was unable to get in touch with anyone. It was strange. I tried several times and asked at the hotel desk for some information, but got nothing.
Our driver got in touch with us and suggested we depart a little earlier than planned since he anticipated some unanticipated traffic. As we headed toward the airport in Colombo it seemed we weren’t following the main road. And then we entered the airport from a side entrance. I assumed, rightly, that the driver knew what he was doing (though he didn’t volunteer any information).
As we sauntered into the terminal there was no one at the China Airlines desk, but we were very early for our flight. A gentleman in a Japan Airlines uniform approached and asked what flight we were on. He then ushered us into his office and told us what was happening.
The Tamil Tigers had been shooting at planes, so the airport was going to close before nightfall. He hammered on his computer for a bit and then presented us with JAL boarding passes to return to Shanghai via Tokyo, and then ushered us and our baggage to the plane that was due to depart in 30 minutes. We would be getting home earlier than our scheduled flight with a much shorter layover in Tokyo than we were originally scheduled to do in Hong Kong, and we would be less likely to be shot at.
Talk about customer service! In answer to the question, “How did it feel?”, I wrote, “I have to say it felt pretty good!”
becklectic Tales 