Hanging around in Junbesi, rural Nepal (Nepal 2017-11)

On the Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp trail, approaching Junbesi.

The cheerful Sherpa town of Junbesi was our base for visits to nearby monasteries and for some trekking. The town is in a valley which opens up to the south and is surrounded by both forest and verdant farm fields. This area has not been deforested to the degree suffered by many other parts of Nepal, which has led to myriad environmental consequences, such as soil erosion, runoff, and flash flooding.

We stayed in the Apple Garden Guest House & Restaurant, which was clean and cheerful. The rooms were clean and the food was good, but the toilets and wash facilities needed work (typical in most of the country).

Room with a View - Junbesi from the Apple Garden Guest House.

Pack explosion = room with a mess. In the Apple Garden Guest House.

Entering town from the south, you are welcomed by a chorten with prayer wheels on all four sides. You are supposed to circle a chorten clockwise, meaning pass to the left, and spin the prayer wheels for good fortune and health. Chortens are found throughout the country, and range from huge structures in the city to small units on trails, villages or mountain cols. They serve as a religious focal point in the town or countryside and have a positive effect on the people who live nearby or pass alongside. "Building a chorten is an especially karmic act, helping to ensure fortunate rebirths."

Late tomatoes still ripening in the sun.

Toilet brushes ripening in the sun.

Most of Junbesi is cheerfully painted and in good maintenance. Some of the stores have odd items on display. A couple of my co-travelers found plenty of beer for sale.

We met an Australian dentist who comes to Junbesi once or twice a year to treat local residents. He had a clinic in a small building which was equipped, he said, to do most procedures that he might encounter. He brought most of his supplies with him when he came from Australia. For fillings, he used composite resin. He told me no longer used silver amalgam because the material was too heavy and there was the issue of disposing of waste. The day we talked, he was awaiting nuns to come down the mountain from the Thupten Chöling Monastery.

A short distance up-valley is another prosperous Sherpa town, Phungmoche. This photograph was from the trail that leads uphill to the Thubten Choling monastery.

I have already written about the Thupten Chöling Monastery before, so will only show one photograph. Drying barley in the sun is a common late autumn activity throughout Nepal.

A short distance below Junbesi, a lady was sipping her tea in the town of Benighat.

The boys of Benighat, cheerful and optimistic.

The photographs with grain are from Kodak Ektar 100 film, shot with a 35mm Yashica Electro 35CC camera. The grain-free photographs are from a Nexus 4 phone.

Traditions and Books: Thupten Chöling Monastery, Nepal (Nepal 2017-09)

The Thupten Chöling monastery/nunnery is situated on a hillside in the Solu Khumbu at about 8900 ft. altitude. The setting is magical, with neat houses built up a south-facing hillside for the nuns and Tibetian refugees. According to their web page: "Thupten Choling is a celibate Buddhist monastery located in the high and remote mountains of Nepal. Founded by His Holiness Trulsik Rinpoche in the 1960's after fleeing Tibet, it is an independent and autonomous institution. Consequently, Thupten Choling has been able to remain authentically traditional, and hidden from the outside world." It is not exactly hidden today: a couple hours walk up an excellent trail from the town of Junbesi takes you to the monastery.

Wheat biscuits drying in the sun, Thupten Chöling (digital photograph).

Many of the nun's homes were destroyed in the 2015 earthquake, but we saw many brightly-painted new or repaired buildings.

We were allowed into the central prayer room of the gomba, where students were reciting from sacred texts. From Wikipedia, "A gompa is a meditation room where practitioners meditate and listen to teachings. Design and interior details vary from region to region; however, all follow a general design of a central prayer hall containing a murti or thangka, benches for the monks or nuns to engage in prayer or meditation and attached living accommodation." I was a bit uncomfortable taking photographs, but our guide said it was all right, and I tried to be as quiet as possible. There were other distractions that day: a construction crew was building a tower within the room that would project up through the roof eventually. We saw Tibetan holy books on shelves behind neat glass door. A monk said they were from Lhasa, which would make them especially valuable. Religious texts are now printed in India.

The monks generously fed us tea, dry crackers (the things drying in the sun in the 2nd photograph) and McVities Digestive Biscuits. A Tibetian nun who spoke excellent English said I was could photograph in the kitchen. This was a fascinating room with a wood stove on the floor and cauldrons of rice and dahl. They made rice in industrial quantities. The room resembled the ancient kitchen at the Grand Meteoron monastery in Meteora, Greece, which I photographed years ago. The kitchen was dark with light streaming in from one side through clouds of steam. I had to prop my Leica camera on shelves or posts for long exposures.

The 70-year-old 50mm Summitar lens and TMax black and white film does a nice job with the shiny pans and ladles. Click any of the pictures to enlarge them to 1600 pixels wide.

Two of our companions and a Sherpa guide stayed behind for an overnight and then a morning ascent to a sacred cave. The rest of us hiked back downhill to Junbesi, which is a cheerful Sherpa town in the valley.

This part of the Solu is lower altitude than the "real" mountains further north. The hillsides are heavily forested, interspersed with deep ravines and cultivated fields of wheat, barley, and pasture. The traditional expedition route from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp comes through Junbesi. Although most trekkers now fly into Lukla further east, many hikers still walk the entire multi-week route.

The black and white photographs are from Kodak TMax 400 film, taken with a Leica IIIC rangefinder camera with 5cm f/2.0 Summitar lens. This was my father's 1949 camera, recently reconditioned. Praus Productions, Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol developer.

We will visit more monasteries in the next two articles. Thank you for reading.

Doors of Nepal (Nepal 2017-02)

Gateway to house in Junbesi, Solu Khumbu district.

During my October 2017 trip to Nepal, I had not planned to do a series on doors, but we kept passing by these fascinating examples. Most were home-made in craftsman-built buildings, with interesting signs and paint patterns. I really like seeing what local workmen can assemble as opposed to the dull factory-made uniformity we have in more industrialized countries.

Hotel above Junbesi, Solu Khumbu.

Unused lodge at Phurtyang.

Hanging around in Phurtyang.

We stayed in the nice little Sherpa town of Junbesi for three nights and then walked to the town of Ringmu. These closed hotels/lodges were along the trail.

Numbur View Cheese Factory Lodge, Ringmu, Solu Khumbu

We stayed in the Numbur View in Ringmu for three nights. The lady who ran the lodge prepared the best food that we had in the Solu Khumbu. The accommodations were OK, the toilets pretty rough. She heated the dining room with wood in the evening, but by morning, it was cold. The hot water for the shower came from pipes that circulated behind the wood stove.

Shop at Taksindu Pass - more beer than cheese.

Maoist symbols, Taksindu Pass.

Taksindu Pass (Taksindu La) is at 3031 m (9940 ft) elevation, about two hours walk uphill from Ringmu. The pass gets significant tourist traffic because the traditional trekking trail from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp crosses Taksindu. Most tourists now fly into the town of Lukla further to the east and trek (stampede) to Base Camp from there. But some intrepid hikers still want to walk the traditional route, which can take three weeks, thereby getting acclimated along the way and sampling more of the local culture. On the return, they fly out of Lukla rather than walk all the way back to Kathmandu. When the American Everest expedition came through here in 1963, they had 900 porters to carry supplies.

Grocery/beer/cola store, Taksindu Pass. Note the leaning building.

The earthquakes of 2015 caused damage even here in the Solu region. In the photograph above, the building had been made of limestone blocks without mortar or a reinforced concrete frame. The cracks show how the building settled, and the door frame now really is a trapezoid.

Store near Taksindu Pass with Maoist posters.

The wise shopkeeper attaches posters extolling the Maoist regime, which, as of November 2017, was in power in Kathmandu.

Takgon Tharling Monastery

Takgon Tharling Monastery dormatory

The Taksindu Tharling Sheddrup Monastery, a short distance below Taksindu Pass, is an expansive complex of buildings and school dormatories. We hung a string of prayer flags for a friend who was injured shortly before our hike and could not join us.

Phera, Solu Khumbu, Nepal

On the trek back south to Phaplu, we passed Phera and more doors.

Shop near Phaplu, Solu Khumbu

Phaplu has an airport and road access, so it is bustling with tradesmen, shops, and guesthouses. And chickens.

Gateway to Siran Danda, Gorkha region, Nepal

Much further west in the Gorkha region of Nepal, we stayed in the town of Bhachchek at 1790 m elevation. A walk uphill took us to the tidy little town of Siran Danda and this welcoming doorway.

Siran Danda house and guard chicken.

Siran Danda had been partly rebuilt after the 2015 earthquakes with very neat houses, funded by a UK charity organization. The town's residents included a number of former English Army Gurkha soldiers, and they kept the place clean and orderly, like an army camp. There was no trash, the corn was hung in perfect rows, and the paint was fresh.

Siran Danda guesthouse

We saw neat stacks of beer bottles like this in several towns. Eventually, a truck comes to take the bottles away to a bottling plant for reuse.

Hanging around in Anbu Khaireni

Back to the city via a brutal jeep ride down rough rutted roads with mudpits as deep as a jeep. A short stop in Anbu Khaireni on the Pokkhara highway for lunch and a change to a minivan was very welcome.

Royal Palace Ratnakar Mahavihar, Patan Durbar Square, Patan, Nepal

Finally, we returned to the big city. The spectacular golden door is in the Royal Palace in Patan. Patan is also known as Lalitpur City, one of the three ancient cities in the Kathmandu Valley. At one time, the three were separate, but now the urban sprawl has grown to form a large urban mess. Patan's Durbar Square is one of three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The palaces and temples in Patan Durbar Square, masterpieces of Newa architecture, were badly damaged in the 2015 earthquakes.

Most photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 color negative film, exposed in a Yashica Electro 35CC rangefinder camera with Yashinon 35mm f/1.8 lens. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i film scanner, controlled by SilverFast Ai software. Four photographs are from a Nexus 4 phone.