Chapitre 8 : Nepal
For our trip in Nepal, we wanted to trek in the mountains. In order to do so, we needed to join a tour as a permit is needed and it was safer to do so. Because of our limited dates, we couldn’t join the everest trek of 17 days but we chose to do diverse activities with our trip : trek in the Annapurna for 4 days, 2 days of rafting, 2 days at the chitwan national park.
After spending 4 days in the pollution of Kathmandu, we were very excited to start our trip. (We loved Kathmadu, the food was amazing and its great fun to walk around, shop, bargain etc, but the pollution is a killer). We joined 4 other british people who made our trip very pleasant.
Nepal today:
30 million of inhabitant
Life expectancy; 50 years old
Adult literacy rate; 49%
Gross national income; US$240 per capita
Average age; 21 years old
UN Human Development Index; 157 out of 187 countries
Regime ; Communist Republic
85% live in the countryside.
A quick glance at the figure above shows that Nepal is very far from being a ‘developed’ country. On almost all metric, including education, health, enviroment and infrastructure need to improve.
Nepal’s economy is mainly surviving thanks to tourism which bring US$335 million each year. Money spent by a single tourist can support 10 Nepalis. Recognising this the government has tried to make it more attractive while similtaneously increasing the prices of every trip to its mountains and in particular Mt Everest. (A summit attempt will now cost about 60 000 Euros for 3 month trip).
Nepal today is breathing after a long decade of civil war between communist and royalist consisting of 3 higher casts. With an end to the recent armed conflicts and a democratic election for a new government, Nepalese people are optimistic for their country’s future.
Kathmandu:
With nearly 2.5 million of inhabitant in the kathmandu valley and a million in Kathmandu, the capital is very dynamic. During the civil war, people would established their families in or around Kathmandu to find job and to provide food more easily. But the infrastructure didn’t grow with the inhabitant and many oil station / food store ect would be out of stock. Dusty and bumpy roads are unforgettable as it hasn’t been improved for a decade while the number of vehicles tripled. Pollution is extremely high because of the high number of very very old vehicles which decrease the life expectancy within the capital. Traffic is a nightmare.
Religion:
We were a bit confused when we tried to learn the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism in Nepal as they often pray in the same temples. Buddha is born in Nepal 2 500 years ago but buddhism arrived in Nepal only in 250BC. Buddhism in Nepal is practised by the Himalayan people and the Tibetan refugees.
Hinduism and Buddhism have the same bases where they believe in a cycle of life, death and rebirth where the aim is to achieve moksha / nirvana. Your actions have causes and consequences know as karma that will help or hinder to achieve this moksha. Your reincarnation will depend on your karma.
Hinduism have 3 main practices : Prayers, the cremation of the dead and the regulations of caste system. There are 3 main casts.
The main gods are Shiva the reproducer and destroyer, Vishnu the protecter and Bhrama who has 10 reincarnations, Parvati who is Shiva’s wife, Ganeth (half elephant half human) who is Shiva’s son, Hanuman who is the monkey god.
Buddhism in itself is not considered as a religion as it is not focused on a god but rather is based on a philosophy. Buddha (the teacher) found after starvation that suffering comes from our desires and the illusion of their importance. We can control the pain through a 8 fold path and reach you to the nirvana if your karma is good. 3 Buddha statues are often represented in temples: Past (Dipamkara), Present (Sakyamuni), Future (Maitreya). There are 32 physical marks to recognise a Buddha statue than other deities including a bump on the head, his third eye and the Wheel of law on the soled of his feet.
With 60 different ethnics and caste groups, it is hard to generalise but Nepalis are tolerant with other religions, patient, and good humoured. Their vision of the world is dominated by prayer and ritual including the way to say namaste which means I greet the divine inside of you. There is a shade of fatalism as religion is a big part of their way of life.
As a whole the population are very poor (some of the poorest in the world) and the large majority of people live in the countryside often on subsistence farming and where any form of assistance (medical or otherwise) is very weak. Agriculture is the main activity but 50% of the production would go to the landowner as a rent. Families survive by growing sufficient food and sell the rest to town around.
Women:
It is hard to be a women in Nepal as you work is harder and longer than men, for less reward. Their life expectancy is lower. They gain in respect if they bear a child for the husband and if they can’t, the husband can take a second wife. The literacy rate for women is 35% as boys would be favoured to go to school in a family. They have the right to apply for a passport without a men’s approval only since 2005. There exists a big festival for women though ironically it honours their husbands more than them.
Art:
Wood carving and stone sculptures are everywhere in Kathmandu. A temple is not a temple if there are no deities statues represented. Many places are world heritage sites although many are still threatened by earthquakes, fire or pillage which destroy these works.
In many of the art forms we can see chinese, tibetan, indian and mughal influences.
Mountains:
One third of the total length of the Himalaya is in Nepal and 10 of the 14 highest mountains are rooted there.
Everest is the highest mountain in the world with its 8848 metres. It was renamed after Sir George Everest, the surveyor general of India in 1865. Everest is still growing of 6 mm every year. In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine climbed the Everest without coming back. One of the two bodies will be found at 8150m and today it is not know without known if they succeeded to reach the summit. In 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent to the summit and successful return, making Britain the fist country to climb the highest mountain in the world. Many stories, beautiful or horrible are written about the climbing to summit which makes Everest a mystery. We would recommend reading Into Thin Air, which details one such Everest adventure.
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