There’s a civil war going on and it’s easy to forget. by risa
By David Keatley
The cascading light of the early morning sun awoke me with a start: I thought I’d overslept my alarm, and lost in the confused chaos of an interrupted dream it took me a few moments to realize where I was and why exactly it was I wanted to get up early. Then, with the excitement with which a child awakes on
Christmas morning (and others on St. Patrick’s), I walked outside my room, and stopped with mouth agape at the massiveness of the Annapurna range spread before my eyes. Nowhere else on earth matches the relief of this view: I stood a mere thirty kilometers away, but in that distance, the land ruptures from 500 meters to 8000, and for those not into metric, that’s a 24,000 foot difference.
Pokhara is a strange town- one of those handful throughout the world that has
been completely destroyed and recreated by tourism. Compared to the authenticity of Tansen the day before, Pokhara was sterile, and now in a lurch it’s suffering hard. Shop keepers are desperate to get you in for a look, restaurants are empty, but at the same time the town is ludicrously overpriced. I went in for a look at a store (remember the rule, you can never have too many puffies!) and walked out with distaste….so much money borrowed and invested to start up these little shops, and everyone has lost their entire savings on them.
After an overnight train and a shared jeep with a record sixteen people crammed in, I arrived at a bustling border, passed beneath a sign that said “Welcome to Nepal,” and crossed uncertainly into a country that for nine years has been privy to a civil war, or peasant revolution that has killed 12,000 people, and seen both the revolutionaries and the government commiting widespread human rights abuses. Five minutes later, I had a visa, and looked ahead….another crazy Asian country, and now in New Style fashion, I was sans guide book, and had forgotten the name of the next town I was trying to get to. When a truck loaded with dirt passed by, I jumped at the opportunity to forgo a bus and offered to pay the same fare to commune with the dirt workers. The first military checkpoint was confused when we pulled up, and as we reached a bigger junction, I jumped off and took a series of buses to Tansen where I would spend the night.
Transporation is slow and there is a military stop every twenty kilometers; Foreigners seem to be exempt from the process; as everyone else is searched and questioned suspiciously, I receive a gentle smile and am kindly told it will only be a moment. Curfews are imposed around nine o’clock; in Tansen, which was
an incredible little town, a hilltop stronghold of some bygone kingdom, I woke to the eerie slience of the empty streets illuminated by the waxing moon.
Shortly afterwards, I was again woken by the screams of a man who was being restrained by six men dressed in government camouflage. They dragged him away still kicking, screaming, and trying to get out of their grasp. There’s a civil war going on and its easy to forget.
I’m on the way out of Pokhara. For the next twenty-five days, I’m going to be trekking around the Annapurna massif and then try and link it to one into the heart of the sanctuary. I’m loaded down with some of the most exciting mountaineering books I’ve always wanted to read and am thrilled with expectation in the way preparing for a backpack always makes me feel. Last night I sipped a Mt Everest beer (breaking my March 18th promise to never drink again in Asia, this week, rum) and looked up at the mountains wishing for some other company but revelling in the solitude.
Top rope on, brain off
Dave
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