Langtang National Park (LNP) is
the nearest Himalayan protected area from Kathmandu. Langtang valley and Kyangjin valley provide solace
to every adventure loving soul while the holy Gosainkunda lake presents ample
space for a spiritual journey! In February 2013, I spent almost a month among
the mighty mountains of LNP.
A super ride through the Pasang Lhamu highway
I took an early bus to Dhunche,
the headquarter of Rasuwa district, from Machapokhari, Balaju, together with
Meena Bohara, my colleague at the Central Department of Environmental Science,
Tribhuwan University, Kirtipur. The super express run under 'Pasang Lhamu Yatayat' left for
Syafrubesi at 07:00. We got down at Dhunche at 12:05. The bus ride was super
indeed; it carried no standing passenger and took a strict break of ten minutes
for lunch at Trisuli bazaar. While
the driver honked the horns after lunch, a new passenger got into the bus. The
conductor gave a sharp comment, 'Sir, you know what, we will be fined NPR 6,000/-
for carrying passengers beyond seat capacity. If you agree to pay that fine on
our behalf, you can get in!' In no time the man got out of the bus. Unlike the
usual local buses, the bus did not pick up any passenger on the way, not even security
personnel. Although the price was almost double the normal rate, it was a
comfortable ride!
At Dhunche, our team grew in size
with the addition of three LNP game scouts; Madhu Lamichhane, Bishnu Bajgain
and Ramkaji Pandit. We rode on the hood of a local bus to Syafrubesi, but got
down at Thulo Bharkhu as Bishnu told that we would hike up to Thulo Syafru from
there. On the other hand Madhu and Ramkaji argued that we were to go to
Syafrubesi. Finally we decided to go to Syafrubesi. During the evening, Ramdew
Chaudhary (RD sir; assistant warden, LNP) joined us with another game scout, Durga
Nepali.
Located by the side of Langtang khola, Syafrubesi exhibited a charming
picture of itself. The numerous good looking hotels gave it a typical look of a
busy touristic place.
A stop by not so
common stop
Early the next morning, we headed
for Langtang valley. Equipped with binoculars and Nepalka charaharu, a field guide on birds of Nepal, we moved up
very slow. Having RD sir in the team was rewarding as it was my first birding
in the Himalayan landscape and he was a fantastic birder; we could rightly
identify almost every bird. When we reached Rimche, my eyes caught sight of a
herd of animals grazing on a far away hill slope. I directed my binoculars to
the herd. Beautiful! They were Himalayan tahrs. Since this was my first
sighting of these mountain ungulates in the wild, I observed them to the
content of my heart. To me it was the 'moment of the day!' The trail was not so difficult except for a 90
minute walk up slope to reach Rimche.
We stopped by Lama Hotel for the night.
The first hotel built in this place was named Lama Hotel, after which the place
itself took its name. But there were six hotels at the time. During an informal
discussion, the hotel owner sighed with dissatisfaction, 'This place is not
preferred much for an overnight stay by tourists. They usually crave for the
beautiful mountain ranges. Since they are not seen from here, they prefer to
stop by Rimche or Ghoda Tabela, about three hours up from here. Furthermore, the
trail here remains slippery during monsoon adding to the problem!' There were
two young girls working in the hotel. The game scouts engaged in singing lok-dohori (folk-duet) with them till
midnight.
A lonely trekker with animal parts
While we were heading for
Langtang village, we had a sudden encounter with a French backpacker; a pelt
and some bones were hanging on his bag. On seeing this, RD sir inquired him
about the belongings. He told us that he had bought them from a villager in
Langtang village. 'This is a skin of domestic sheep', said he. RD sir made an
effort to convince him, ' Sir, carrying any wildlife part from a national park
is illegal. Please throw them into the forest.' But he remained unaffected by
the suggestion. The situation grew
tense. This compelled RD sir to shout at him in rude tones, 'You bloody fool;
do you want to invite trouble for yourself? If the national park officials or
the army saw you with these things, they may hold you for hours further
degrading the situation. I have already told you it's illegal. Just throw it.'
Then he took out his identity card and showed to him, 'I am the assistant
warden of LNP by the way!' The French angrily took the things out and RD sir
threw them down slope into the forest.
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| Backpack of the French tourist |
Beyond Ghoda Tabela, we passed a
long stretch of Langtang larch (Larix
himalaica) forest and reached Langtang village in the evening. The weather
was chilly cold. We were invited to the kitchen of Peaceful Guest House by its owner
where we warmed ourselves by sitting around the fire.
Wild days in Langtang valley
Langtang valley had reserved a
lot of fascinating moments for us. Large flocks of snow pigeon gave peace, the
chirping of yellow-billed choughs created natural melodies and the spectacular
view of Himalayan monals in flight kept us awe-struck.
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| Langtang valley |
During the evening, we
had a close up sighting of Himalayan tahrs; we required no binoculars to
observe them here. We even had a sighting of musk deer from a distant hill
slope, but lack of a good camera with sufficient optical zoom prevented us from
capturing it on photograph. By late evening, wild boars were seen fearlessly
raiding on the potato farms. Later an elderly villager told me, 'In older days,
the government used to send professional hunters annually at times of crop
ripening. They shot some wild boars. This tradition was in tune to control the
population of wild boar in the area. With the establishment of LNP, the hunters
are not sent any more. Similarly, we abstain from killing wild animals (The
people here belong to the Bennag or black Bonpo by religion, which bans killing
of wild animals although killing domesticated livestock once a year is
permitted. The other sect Benkar or white Bonpo has put a complete end to
killing of animals). Both these have largely contributed in dramatic increase of
wild boar population leading to a considerable rise in crop raiding'.
The next day we ventured into the
forest of Palfa on the other side of Mundu village with Gyalbu Tamang, our
local field guide. The entire forest was covered with snow. We made some
attempts of taking transects. With our legs dipping up to knee time and again,
we had to give up finally.
RD sir was stung by an insect in
his eyes the previous day. He was desperately looking for a woman with a new
born child to obtain a few drops of her breast milk, which he said would
relieve him of the trouble. When we met him in the evening, his trouble was
gone; he had finally managed to treat his eyes with the milk. When I referred
literature, it was revealed that the antiseptic and antibacterial properties of
breast milk can reduce itching and promote healing of insect bites and stings.
We do not need to search for a woman with a new born child!
The mobile tower of CDMA had come
into operation the same day in Langtang village. All of us made a call to our
homes through the CDMA set of RD sir.
I had an intense desire of coming
to Kyangjin valley since a long time. When we reached Kyangjin valley, I went
spellbound; no adjective could perfectly fit in describing its beauty. The
majestic Himalayas of Langtang range surrounded the valley and it was
beautifully adorned in a thick blanket of snow. Three hours passed unnoticed in
this dreamy valley. Ecstasy flooded into my heart when I realized that I had
just stepped on 'one of the most beautiful valleys on earth!'
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| Kyangjin valley |
After reaching back to Lantang
village I realized we had forgotten to visit the famous Kyangjin gompa and Kyangjin yak cheese production
centre, Nepal's first and world's highest cheese production centre.
An oil lamp dinner at Ghoda tabela
We took a brief stop by the house
of Gyalbu dai, his wife prepared
buckwheat Dhido for us. The Himalayan
aroma of buckwheat mixed with the sincere love of Gyalbu dai and his wife made the food a special treat for us. The owners
of Peaceful Guest House bade us good bye with the traditional scarf.
We passed mule herds multiple
times. 'Every time you come across the herds, make sure that you are standing
on the side with walls and not on the other side facing down slope. The mules
may accidently push you down!' RD sir gave a nice suggestion.
For the night, we had planned to
stay at the LNP post of Ghoda tabela. But darkness had already descended while
we were still 2-3 hours away. We took out our torch lights and continued
walking. When we reached the post at 20:00, game scouts Dinesh Paudel and Ashok
Thapa greeted us with hot tea.
There was no light inside the
kitchen. Both electricity and water to the post were made available from the
army barrack nearby. However, the army barrack frequently troubled them by not
sending the electricity!
All of us were very hungry by the
time the dinner was ready. We sat around on the floor and had a delicious
dinner in the light of oil lamp!
Tibetan by culture, Tamang by
citizenship
The next morning, Meena and Durga
left for Syafrubesi. Bishnu, Madhu and Ramkaji had already left since they were
in a different survey. Nagendra Sah from Bridhim post joined us. At Rimche we
diverted towards the 'Tamang Heritage Trail'. On the way, we had a good
sighting of mammals including a group of Assamese macaque, Nepal grey langur, barking
deer and orange-bellied Himalayan squirrel.
We passed through the oddly named
Sherpagaun, with not a single family
belonging to the Sherpa tribe. Review
of literature later revealed that the original name of the place was Shyarpoko, which went through verbal
modification to be called by the present name.
Having spent two days in Khangjim
village, we reached the Bridhim home stay village on the next day.
Interestingly, the villagers called themselves Tamangs although no one spoke the Tamang dialect. In fact they were Tibetans, their culture and
language clearly told it. As majority of the indigenous communities in the
region belonged to the Tamang tribe,
they had taken Tamang as their
surname while issuing Nepali citizenship.
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| Bridhim homestay village in 'Tamang Heritage Trail' |
At Bridhim, the LNP post was in
an abandoned building of a primary school. The original post lied desolate in
the middle of forest, about 30 minutes away from the village centre. Most of
the houses in Bridhim had solar water heaters on the roof top but very few were
really working. The system was distributed to the villagers by Tourism for Rural
Poverty Alleviation Program (TRPAP), who provided the villagers with fish but
did not teach them how to fish themselves!
We had a different taste of food
at Bridhim Guest House and Inn; corn dhido
with neetle soup. RD sir had brought a few packets of dry meat for the entire
trip. But sadly, there were very little of it remaining in his bag. Actually he
had made the game scouts carry his bag while moving to Langtang village. The
game scouts were usually coming behind us, silently picking up the dry meat.
'Now I understand why the idiots were being so happy on the way! They were
having a secret treat of my dry meat and so were dancing and cheering up
throughout!' RD sir exclaimed in fury.
On the twelfth day, we were back
to Syafrubesi. No sooner had we reached the LNP post than thunders began to
roar. Shortly after, there was a downpour that continued the whole day. We had
to put an end to our plan of visiting the historical Rasuwagadi that was only
about a 45 minutes drive to the north. During the evening, Bishnu took me for a
bath in the hot water spring by the bank of Langtang khola. The local boys were having fun by the pool, smoking weeds.
Upon seeing us they greeted us with a 'Jay
Shamboo'; a usual praise for the Hindu God Shiva. Apparently, it was Shivaratri, a Hindu festival where God
Shiva is worshipped!
At the pool, Bishnu told me, 'RD
sir showed us so many birds on the way to Langtang. Of them, one bird will
remain in my memory forever. F**ktail! What an interesting name' he laughed.
'How funny, it's not f**ktail by
the way. The name is forktail!' I too broke into laughter.
The suffocating Yarsa
We met Dhruba dai at Kalikasthan. The three of us
drove to Yarsa on a motorbike. The settlement was very dirty. The villagers
defecated openly; only two toilets were available in the entire village, one in
the house where the school teachers lived and the other one near the LNP post.
We completed our work as fast as we could and left for Dhunche. Had we spent a
single day more, we were almost sure to fall sick.
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| Settlement of Yarsa |
On the way, RD sir shared an
incident from Mugu district, when he worked in Rara National Park (RNP) as a
ranger, 'RNP had initiated a program of constructing toilets in its buffer zone
to discourage villagers from open defecation. After three months, we went on a
monitoring visit to find ourselves in wonder. The villagers used the toilet as
a store; most of the toilets contained fire wood. When inquired, one of the
villagers gave a stunning reply, 'Sir, how can a mother-in law, daughter in
law, son, daughter and grandchildren defecate in the same toilet?'
A refreshment trip to the frozen lake
After completing the field works
in Dhunche together with Dhan Bahadur Ghale, I set off for a refreshment trip
to the holy Gosainkunda lake. Rudra Timilsina accompanied me. A little up of
Ghattekhola, I was having a pleasant time watching Nepal grey langurs when
Rudra called me up. To my great pleasure, three mountain weasels were playing
on the trees. We watched them run from one tree to another for almost five
minutes. Sadly, I did not have a good camera. My simple point and shoot camera
did not enable me to capture them, although the animals were so close!
At Chandanbari, we stopped by the
Hotel Red Panda, the same hotel where late Dr. Pralad Yonzon had stayed while
studying the red pandas of LNP for his Ph.D.
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| Chandanbari |
Rudra was coming slow as it was
his first trip to Gosainkunda and he had not been to high altitude before.
Beyond Chandanbari, the trail was blanketed with snow. We stayed at Cholangpati
for the night. The dense forest of Polangpati, reserved for the red pandas,
lied nearby.
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| Cholangpati |
We walked on the snow paved trail
and reached by the holy Gosainkunda lake around 11:00. All the lakes of the
Gosainkunda complex including the Saraswatikunda, Bhairabkunda and the
Gosainkunda itself were completely frozen. While I advanced up to capture the
frozen lake in full frame, Rudra rested by the lakeside, as he was not coping
well with the altitude. So, we descended down spending only a few hours by the
frozen lake.
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| Gosainkunda, also called the frozen lake |
At Cholangpati, we diverted north
to head for Thulosyafru. There was a thick layer of snow in the forest; I
slipped a number of times while coming down. However, the route paid off as
soon as we reached Mulkharka. Different species of Rhododendrons bloomed in the
forest; it was painted in natural red, pink and white by the flowers.
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| Different species of Rhododendrons in the forest of Mulkharka |
By the
time we reached Thulosyafru, darkness had already enveloped the scene.
Back home with the magic paper
I took a bus to Kathmandu at Syafrusbesi
at 07:00 the next morning. At Kalikasthan, an army got into the bus for a
security check up. Seeing a lot of sophisticated equipment with me, he
inquired me about the belongings. Without speaking a word, I took out the contract
paper we had signed with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation/LNP
and showed him. He smiled and gave me a handshake. After he went down, a German
tourist who was seated next to me, gave me a compliment, 'Buddy, you seem to
have carried a magic paper with you. Come any inquiry and you show it, then everything
turns to your favor!'
I reached home at 17:00.
