ONE MONTH IN THE LAND OF TAMANGS

                                                               

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.

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. 

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!'

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.