A Beard In Nepal by Fiona Roberts

Author:Fiona Roberts [Roberts, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780996745
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing

Chapter Ten

Mention Tibet and most Western minds will conjure up the same mental pictures, starting perhaps with the alluring mysticism of that long-isolated country, but certainly followed closely by what we’ve all heard throughout the years following 1959, which saw the ‘integration’ of Tibet into China.

We share a general view of a country oppressed, of a religion suppressed.

I had long wanted to visit Tibet, but thought I’d never get the chance. When the border opened again during our stay in Nepal, I said to Tod,

“Let’s go during our monsoon month off. We must see it. Tibet! What a chance! Wow!”

This was the opportunity we’d been hoping for.

He said, “Yes dear” or something similar. Sometimes he’s not quite as enthusiastic as I am.

So, arrangements made, we left Kathmandu at 5.30am one very warm June morning, in a large 4x4 Jeep thing.

We were joined in the Jeep by a New Zealand couple, Sharon and Adrian, and we all got on really well from the start. They were funny, very well-travelled, and called a spade a spade – great companions as it turned out, for such a great adventure.

We were going to drive north, up to the Tibet – Nepal border, pick up a Tibetan guide on the other side, and continue in another 4x4 all the way to Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city, a 5-day drive away from the border. We were due to spend 8 days in Tibet in all, and then fly back to Kathmandu on a Nepali Airlines flight. Guess what the Nepali Airline is called? Yes, ‘Yeti Airways’. Couldn’t be anything else, could it?

“What an adventure,” I squeaked. I can be such a child at times.

It took us about six hours to reach the Nepal-Tibet border, and considering the nature of the Nepali roads, the drive was surprisingly incident free. When the border crossing eventually came into view, we were dismayed to see that it was literally surrounded by huge piles of stinking garbage.

Nepal has a massive problem of waste disposal, or rather, lack of waste disposal. Outside of the few major cities there is no organised waste collection, and no designated waste-disposal area in most villages. Even in ‘our’ school the children will simply drop rubbish at their feet, and walk away. They are not encouraged to dispose of rubbish carefully. Tod and I started ‘The Great Rubbish Collection’ hour, and once a week we had a competition to see which children could pick up the most rubbish. It was then dumped in a hole on the mountain side and burned.

On either side of many villages we saw waste tipped down the mountains in huge, stinking heaps, sometimes visible for miles around. The river which runs through the town of Jiri was completely choked with garbage. When the monsoon rains came, and the river level rose, this garbage was washed downstream en masse. We wondered where it finally ended up. We actually found the lack of awareness of this problem shocking, but everyone we spoke to about it

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