A long travel through Nepal and Tibet, on the top of the world

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trip to Nepal and tibet
A journey of a fortnight in Nepal and Tibet can certainly provide a thorough understanding of these two countries, but at least can give you the idea of what to have in the past. The small kingdom of Nepal in the tenth and eleventh century was a kind of crossroads that housed saints and intellectuals from India and Tibet. Met and remained in this state to share knowledge of philosophy and religious and travel information. Nepal was a land of artisans, much appreciated for their ability to inlaid wood and their paintings.
Of Nepal, the international community was able only in the eighteenth century, because of a Jesuit who, ammalatosi in Tibet, to return to India had chosen-following the advice of some local-road through Nepal, then still unknown. Kathmandu Today we offer a very different landscape from what he had seen the Jesuit. The hotels are located in tourist areas a lot, not far from Thamel district, which offers everything that a traveler may need, including restaurants with excellent food. Disdegnatelo why not when you are in Tibet regret it! But Kathmandu Thamel is not just advancing through the narrow alleys that lead to Durbar Square to return to the Middle Ages. Flea markets on the street where they sell fruit or vegetables, houses with roofs and facades of carved wood, concealing courtyards with beautiful temples, smaller stupas everywhere; smiles selfless people make us cross the threshold of our time to enter another, unknown .
Sure, visit Patan and Bhaktapur means to immerse in an environment frequented by tourists, but looking good can be easily imagined as a time to be here. Time seems to stand still definitely in Pashupatinath, the Benares of Nepal, a place dedicated to Shiva where all cremations take place in the valley, located on the banks of the Bagmati River that flows into the Ganges, one of the most sacred places of Nepal. Around pire consuming the body of the deceased's life continues quiet, the children play in the river and the women washed the sadhu - true and false-seated nearby to meditate silently (sticky ones are false).
A tour in the villages around the Kathmandu Valley offers more surprises for the tourist who fell from the car found living conditions that we completely forget.
Recently, the life in Nepal is influenced not just by continuing political problems: the threat of the Maoists, strife elsewhere, and in these days, a real coup d'etat by the king. Today, while writing the telephone and via e-mail is still broken, but the flights operated normally. Anyone wishing to visit Nepal must take into account these factors, but must also know that tourists are not a target of terrorists and are always treated kindly to checkpoints. Rather meet inconvenience: traffic blocked by inability to make excursions prefix, shops closed, soldiers who control the roads.
A day walk in Kathmandu has a special charm ... So far as transport to and from the airport of crucial importance for travelers-have always been insured, sometimes your vehicle is escorted by police.
Then the plane with a leap of an hour brings us to another mythical country of Central Asia, Tibet. It took months to get banned in the city of Lhasa at the time of desire and, even here, what he had seen and described by now no longer exists, but the aerial view of Everest and narrow valleys wedged between mountains inaccessible not for this stop wonder. The road that leads us to the capital of Tibet is fast and well-paved but often the bus brakes suddenly because there are Tibetans sitting almost in the middle of the road to talk quietly to them is still a track that crossed the desert with the yak. Trees that line the street have supported the gowa, the boats made of yak skin, once the only means of communication on the Tsangpo, the sacred river that runs by Kailash thousands of miles to arrive in India, where it is called Brahmaputra. And here in Lhasa away. Among the trees you can see the Potala, the great and mysterious home of the Dalai Lama.
Enter Lhasa is not exciting, but as in Kathmandu, you find places where life has remained that of a time or nearly so, for example around the Barkhor.
Tibet Tibet becomes more when we begin our descent to the Nepalese border. The village formed by houses with walls made of mud brick, flanked by tall conical stacks of yak dung, used for heating and cooking, the Tibetans who work in groups during the harvest chanting rhythm working with songs that bounce from men to women, this leads us to a Tibet that remains seems genuine. It is not difficult to get a look at a house, and it is not difficult to be offered a cup of "po cha" - the typical butter that Tibetans drink all the time. " The nomads are happy to show you their tents made of yak hair. Tents are spacious offering you need to this population that lives in a very rigid. Still meet the caravans of Tibetans who move with their yaks following the seasons, and high mountains that dominate unnamed narrow valleys and villages perched on the slopes of hills. Small monasteries that, unlike those visited, are inaccessible, where, perhaps, there is still that spirituality to be known as the land of snow.
Of course, Tibet and Nepal have followed the modernization, and changes associated with it, material, political and social, are clear. Not everything we see will be to our liking, definitely neither Tibet nor Nepal is a Shangrila where life is idyllic ... But the traveler who s'inoltra in the area with an open mind and a bit of imagination can not make pleasant to be transported by a charm that is not yet lost.
Good trip
Franco and Kristin, February 2005

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