#gatlang

[frolicadventure]

#morning #view of #mount #langtanglirung from #gatlang #rasuwa #nepal in #tamangheritagetrail #tamangheritagetrekking #trekkinginnepal #nepaltrekking #shortandeasytrekkinginnepal #trekking #hiking #trek #hike #walking #walk #clouds #hills #frolicadventure (at Frolic Adventure Private Limited)

[bramphotography]

The path to Gatlang

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A breakfast gathering in the morning sun

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Playing in the morning sun

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Nepali girl sitting at the edge 

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Semi abandoned village in Gatlang Valley

[pablogcapistrano]

GATLANG

A small village located in the Langtang National Park, near the border with Tibet, several days of trekking to reach from Kathmandu, most of the people belong to the Tamang caste, typical of the rural areas as Sherpa or Lama.

The site conditions are tough, the mountain people are tough, the houses made of stone and wood from around the area, wonderful, fully integrated into the context of the mountain, and the two temples, beautiful.

At that place and the warming welcome, it was not difficult to stay longer than expected, walking round the area, the cheese factory, the temples, and the buddhist ceremonies, the invitation from neighbors to their homes, even a wedding, made this visit one of the most special.

Pueblecito situado dentro del Parque Nacional de Langtang, cerca de la frontera con el Tíbet, varios días de trekking para acceder desde Katmandu, la mayoría de los habitantes pertenecen a la casta Tamang, típica de las zonas rurales como la Sherpa o Lama.

Las condiciones del lugar son duras, la gente de la montaña es muy dura, las casas, de piedra y madera de la zona son maravillosas, completamente integradas en el entorno de la montaña, y los dos monasterios preciosos.

En ése entorno y la bienvenida tan calurosa, no fue difícil extender más tiempo del previsto, los paseos por la zona, la fábrica de quesos, los monasterios, las ceremonias budistas, las invitaciones de los vecinos del pueblo a sus casas, incluso a una boda, hacen de esta visita una de las más especiales.

© 2014 Pablo G. Capistrano www.pablogcapistrano.com (photo) www.pablogcapistrano.es (design)

[onawireband-blog]

The Rasuwa Adventure

Following on from where Hayley left off we come to our adventure in rural Nepal.  For the kids who don’t have an extended family to visit during the Dashain break Umbrella are keen to ensure that they don’t miss out!   A trip to Gatlang, in the Rasuwa district, was decided upon for a short holiday.  The place is famed for its beauty in the Langtang mountain region and it happens to be a town where over 50 Umbrella children have been reintegrated. It was therefore a great chance for the kids to catch up with old friends and Umbrella success stories.

The intention had been to get the local bus to Gatlang but due to Dashain fever all seats were taken so a back up plan of two jeeps came to the fore.  All systems were go early on the Saturday morning; we consumed a sumptuous dal bhat and miraculously organised our party of 20 ready and waiting on the roadside for our jeeps. I have realised during my time in Nepal however, that you have to lower your Western expectations on a few things, transport is one such thing. In true Nepali style, once assembled we discovered that one jeep had already broken down and wouldn’t be coming.  Nepal is an industrious nation and as this kind of thing is not uncommon, a couple of hours later we were on our way….just in perhaps less comfort than we might have imagined.  Two jeeps, eight seats and no seatbelts, squeezed 10 people in each, plus the driver! Hayley and Barbara (another volunteer) were lucky enough to share the one person front seat! To say it was a little uncomfortable is generous! Especially as we had at least seven hours to go!  The delay meant we couldn’t reach Gatlang in one day but little did we know we would have quite enough adventure anyway!

The drive out of the Kathmandu valley took in some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever experienced; rolling hills and rice fields highlighted by the midday sun is something I will never forget.

Venturing further into the countryside we realised our C plan jeep was perhaps not the mean machine required for mountain roads and we began routinely stopping for liquid refreshment but more importantly for the driver to pour copious amounts of water on our overheating engine!

During this period we were stopped several times to pay a charge to continue our journey! We are still not fully certain quite what these ‘taxes’ were for and there was definitely a relationship to the amount of non-nationals in the car and the money paid.  Still, when in Nepal!!   The most notable part of one of these stops was the acquisition of a new travelling partner to our capacious vehicle! A man of 50 unexpectedly hopped into the back with the boys and I. There was no explanation from the man or from the driver. To be fair to the man he was preoccupied with the telephone call he was conducting. He even insisted that one of the boys sitting with me got into the back of the jeep so he had sufficient room to be comfortable. He stayed with us for twenty minutes and then with no thanks or explanation, or even a cursory wave, he departed as quietly and mysteriously as he had arrived.

I must mention here that our driver had been using his telephone quite considerably during the journey. When the mysterious man departed the vehicle Hayley and Barbara (who could not turn around due to the intricate knot they had established to inhabit the same seat) exclaimed in very real surprise that they hadn’t seen the man enter the car, sit there for twenty minutes and hadn’t attributed the man talking on his mobile phone to a new passenger in the car. Barbara later commented that she was so used to, and sick of the driver using his phone and only one hand on the wheel when driving on narrow, dusty tracks, with unbarred sheer 100m drops, that she presumed it was him and just didn’t bother to look at him when “he” started talking again!

At our next stop Hayley managed to make a new friend. An elderly lady of perhaps 70 approached Hayley uttered a few words of Nepali that she didn’t understand and then proceeded to stand by Hayley and follow her around during another ‘pour water on the overheating engine’ stop! There is an excellent photo to follow of Hayley and her new compadre!

We also had an excellent opportunity here to learn a little of goat and buffalo anatomy at the side of the road as Dashain is a traditional time for beheading, sacrifice and eating meat.  Why use an abattoir when there is a perfectly good hillside road with which to drain the blood!

Soon after this point the journey descended from being slightly uncomfortable test of endurance to a very trying and difficult time. It started with several of the boys absentmindedly putting their heads out of the window, or so I thought. Several minutes later I realised the much talked about motion sickness of the boys was rearing its ugly head. For a period not as short as I would have liked, we had one boy in each row vomiting out of the window, they would then swap seats so another boy had his turn. They are not used to car travel and probably only ride in a vehicle several times a year!  Credit to the driver however, he didn’t stop once! At the same time the dust road became much more unpredictable due to recent landslides and poor weather! This meant that the boys in the back were ok as they were so tightly packed together that they couldn’t move but Hayley and Barbara were in a much worse state of affairs. They were unable to get any sensible purchase on the jeep owing to the lack of seatbelts or seats and ended up spending the next hour bouncing around in the front of the jeep. There was much screaming and shouting; either from being bruised and battered against the door handle or window in the front or from the enormous drops to our left on shale road that the driver seemed to be fairly oblivious to. Once we made it to Syafrubesi Hayley had a bruise on her left hip the size of a small rugby ball. (again pictures to follow).   We also established in this period as we got stuck on a rock fall that our mountain jeep didn’t have a working hand break, the boys were employed to put rocks behind the wheels at necessary stops.  As the journey went on we then realised that our car also only had one headlight, all the better to pretend those deathly drops weren’t there but when the rain began Hayley and Barbara could barely breathe for laughing that there prediction that there were no windscreen wipers had also come true!

After eight hours of black humour we made it through to Syafrubesi.  The original plan had been to hike straight to Gatlang but as it was late and dark we stayed overnight in a teahouse (a basic level of accommodation that provides dal baht and a very narrow bed to sleep on.) A couple of games of Werewolf kept us all entertained and then as you can imagine lights were out by 9pm.