Dolpo, Nepal

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Scoundrels in the Sky

‘What’s going on?’ were the only words coming out my splitting headache.
‘…Looks like the donkey man flew last night’
‘What do you mean… flew?’
‘He just left. The Sirdar paid him in advance. We are stranded here, unless, of course, you are willing to carry the loads’
It was all very confusing. I was hammered by a hangover but I had not touched a drop of alcohol in the last three days. Altitude. We had left three days before from a place called Jomoson, a collection of huts around a landing strip where our Pilatus had landed after a hair-raising flight through the Kali Gandaki valley, the deepest gorge in the world, running between the Dhaulagiri and the Annapurna. For a day we had hiked along the valley floor, at the comfortable altitude of 10,000 feet before crashing on the benches of a local ‘hotel’, our luggage and tents being somewhat lost behind. The day after this comfortable sleep among people who never wash and build windows, our way left the main track into Mustang and Tibet to climb west towards the little known region called Dolpo, a wide, mysterious and mountainous area closed to travellers until few weeks before. The region could be accessed under two very simple conditions. First, one had to pay a hefty 100 US per day tax for the privilege. Second, one had to be accompanied by a military liaison officer from the Nepalese army, for obvious protection. These were the two official conditions. Then common sense imposed others. First not to be alone but organized in a party of as comfortably many as possible to share the costs and protection. Second, that this party was accompanied by as many porters, sherpas and cooks as possible because it was certainly foolish, if not impossible, for us to carry fuel, food, tents and all the necessary equipment so high and for so many days, and to find the energies to set the tents and cook the food on top of it. Indeed, I could barely carry my own weight. The thirteen Italians and the single German woman under the first conditions were therefore herded up the valley by five Sherpas, some cooks and many donkeys. I say herded because the confusion ensued from the delay of the loads added to the numbing effect of altitude and the language barrier with the Sherpa could barely generate a random upward motion of the various legs along a barely marked trek, like cows that could not see a shepherd but just other similarly nonplussed quadrupeds.

On that second day of endless climbing, some magical force saw that the whole party found itself on a rocky terrace overlooking the World. Indeed most of it, I am serious. That was my first ever hiking over 4000 metres, and when we stopped we were probably closer to the 5000 metres line, and as a result the only sight for most of the day were the tip of my mountain boots moving slowly on a small loose gravel path. When we stopped the incredulity that the daily torture was over was soon overwhelmed by the view. The terrace looked east towards the Annapurna and North towards Mustang and Tibet. The fading light was just leaving the fractured, ochre, endless Tibetan plateau; and the mist was not vapour, but simply distance. The sky was dark already, the deep blue of the great heights, and the contrast of the peaks was impressive. Soon after dinner we fainted in an endless doze trying to fight off those Prussian soldiers jumping inside the head with nailed boots and spiky helmets. I was so tired I forgot to swallow the 17 aspirins that would have thinned my blood enough to arrive at least to the neck.
The following day the caravan had the usual Nepalese fun going up and down valleys and ended up in a real Dolpo village, and I have to say that they were really surprised to see us. They were probably much less surprised to hear the donkey man swiftly going away in the night. None of our guides, let alone the baa-lamb liaison officer, had ever been there and therefore knew what to expect. The donkey man did. The villagers were fast to equalize a vast number of numb foreigners with easy dough, and had just told the donkey man to get lost from their own turf. When sun rose, they were in a strong position to put their own gang in charge of our caravan. Negotiations were not over before 11am, so we had the time to discover the life in the hamlet. Those of us in a good shape actually spent a long time acting as doctors, an exceedingly intangible concept for the locals. If one lives on a barley flour, yak butter and hard sand diet warmed up on a meagre yak-dung fire into a windowless hut with neither soap nor an exit for the smoke, one cannot expect George Clooney’s teeth. Few people could boast uninjured exposed parts and I don’t even want to think about what happened under those raw wool clothes or into that hair, probably still oiled with placenta. Others had a great time finding themselves into the Middle Ages but still being able to use a Nikon F4. While all the males were having their say on the transportation deal, the women were carelessly going on milling flour, spurning wool and piling yak dung to dry.
We left assured that the caravan and loads would have followed, the justified fears to loose all our belongings drowned by the unrelenting dizziness. The latter did not abate at all when we discovered that our destination for the night, right on the other side of the valley, where we could clearly see it, was just a couple of clicks away as crow flies but at least 18 clicks away without wings, and through a gorge passing by Farinata a Degli Uberti in Dante’s 6th circle of his Inferno. Views, I have to report, were rewarding, so the sky.
The day after we could fully appreciate the gang carrying our loads with the help of yaks. The scoundrels had a certain number of common features: a disarming smile, black, long and unkept hair with a red band keeping the greasy bundle in place, a beautifully red and brown, handspun woollen set of clothes with woollen boots to match, and definitely Tibetan traits. Assured that we were more precious alive than dead, we herded on happily in a deep and high valley as far as the Dolpo centre of Tsarka, a picturesque fortress/village by a crossroad in the valleys. Here we made two discoveries: first, that the Nikons kept working also in the Bronze Age. Second, that our porters, and indeed ourselves, had stepped on someone else’s turf and that we could not expect to get away unpunished, at least in our wallet. The feud between Carly Fiorina and the rest of Hewlett Packard stockholders was nothing compared to the hours, equally shared between the evening and most of the following morning, between our guides, the porters and the Tsarka thugs. Our caring of women and children infections did not move their men’s hearts too much. The only man who did not take part in the proceedings was the liaison officer, who totally washed his hands with the matter, thus demonstrating what we already suspected, that no government at all existed here, and had fun with us discovering what the local houses might contain. Not much, I have to say, apart from a sturdy door, a fireplace with no exit for the smoke, that indeed persisted 24/7/365 into the cubicles and people’s lungs, few butter lamps, rugs, pots and jars. All the clothing was always on the owner, together with basic but nice jewellery of red coral, basic jade and hand-hammered silver plates. Some women proudly boasted other possession in their necklaces, keys in most cases. Not that they had any lock corresponding to them, but they were rare, shiny and had a hole, therefore worth showing.
We were by then better acclimatized to height, and therefore we made clear that the gang had to settle all the feuds from now on without bothering us, otherwise we already knew the way back. It worked, and I like to say that success was more due to our putting our foot down than to the simple fact that there were no more villages on our track apart from some monasteries. These, as every religious institution since the dawn of apes, can be bought without too much fuss.
From Tsarka to Tarap it took three days, in which we trampled along sky less plateaus, dry passes and shiny creeks between 4300 and 5800 metres of altitude. The colour contrasts between the dark blue sky, the shiny glaciers, the ochre valleys and the glittery iced creeks was absolute, the air being very thin, or better non existent to my perception. Rarefied air has many strange effects, mostly distressing. It transforms every step into a cardiologic test, it gives the illusion that the pass is right there while it’s ages away, and tastes of garlic. This blessed vegetable decreases blood pressure therefore fights the AMS, and we had buckets of garlic soup every single night. The smell fell on us the first day and left after the twelve showers we had after two weeks in Kathmandu.
We had a very interesting couple of nights so high that we could have our aspirins walking around under the starlight so close the sky was. But it was coldish. Temperature outside was -18C, and -12 into the tent. Ice crackled from the tent on the sleeping bag in the morning when the sherpas, who by the way used to sleep just under the stars, woke us up with a cup of tea and a basin of warm water by the tent, water that one had to use swiftly before it froze.
Stomping along those plateaus was fatiguing but very rewarding. Nature put them on the Tibetan side of the Himalaya and the local population was therefore Tibetans. Still, from some strange reasons, the English draw the border north of the watershed, so that Dolpo was never invaded by the Red Army. The local population was forgotten by both governments and left free to keep living their own way, trade in the style of the old days and follow Buddhist cults. The main drawback was a complete disinterest by the central Nepalese government, which did not therefore bring schools, hospitals and the usual paraphernalia of corruption and incompetence. Dolpo was left in the middle Ages.
The central government had never accepted easily foreigners wandering around their remote provinces. True they could not assure safety, and the local morals are certainly relaxed enough to justify this kind of worry. But surely the main reason is that ignorance is a powerful instrument of control, and prohibiting contact between the outside and the remote provinces helped both activities, controlling the locals and limiting the foreigners’ curiosity. Only very few scholars were let in at various stages.
Giuseppe Tucci was allowed to roam around Mustang in 1952, when he was certainly the most prominent Buddhist scholar. Indeed he was one of the few who could meet the Dalai Lama few years before, when Tibet was sealed. He was the scholar mentioned by Haller in his book ‘Seven Years in Tibet’.
In the early 60s it was the turn of David Snellgrove, who probably remains the highest authority on Dolpo, as testified by his books, ‘Himalayan Pilgrimage’ and ‘The Four Lamas of Dolpo’. The only difference between his pictures and ours is in the colour. His were printed in black and white, but the places are exactly the same.
In the 70s it was the turn of Peter Matthiessen who accompanied George Shaeller in his quest for the Snow Leopard. His interest was more mystic and he hoped to visit the Crystal Monastery, or Shey Gompa, the most famous of Dolpo. His hopes were frustrated by the government and he could just stare at it from the other side of the valley. He probably should no that he missed nothing. Some members of our party survived and visited Shey, only to find it empty and forgotten.
Still, this objective we had, the Crystal Monastery, that eluded better people in earlier days, became so important that we basically oversaw Tarap, the real and still partly alive religious centre of Upper Dolpo, where Matthiessen was not allowed to enter. In all probability the last European who slided down the immense descent from the plateau to Tarap before us was Snellgrove. We just have to blame Matthiessen for making such a fuss of a relict and Snellgrove for his incapacity of writing such good a book as ‘The Snow Leopard’.

End of Part 1

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