Leaving the Namaste Hotel we walked down Syabru Besi's main street one-half block then cut between buildings to find a stone stairway leading straight up the side of the mountain.
These ancient granite steps glistening with mist led past terraced fields of green millet and yellow mustard. The climb flattened out, finally, and we followed a dirt road. Rain and snow became heavy, so we dawned blue plastic tarps the porter had purchased in Kathmandu, to cover our heads and backpacks. We looked like three blue tents with legs moving along the road.
At some point we encountered a middle-aged French couple and their guide and porter. They are from northeastern France, I heard Strasbourg. They speak almost no English...their guide speaks French and some English, my guide speaks English very well, but no French. The French and their guide seem to be communicating more and having a better time than our party. The guides and porters get together for Nepali small talk and I am left completely out. Frustrating. Maybe it's me, or maybe my guide is quiet like I am and nothing comes up. In this first village, on the trek, Gatlang (and all along the Tamang Heritage Trek), the people are Tamang (as is my guide) who migrated from Tibet 300 years ago. The houses are made of flat granite stones stacked on top of each other like bricks. The stones are flat and broad enough to be stacked into walls without using mortar. The roofs are thick slabs of wood held down with big stones.
Children are very friendly, screaming "Namaste - photo?" very cute, in traditional garb or worn, western stuff. The conditions up here are so tough, cold, and wet, I don't see how people do it. On the walk up, we encountered two kids, brother and sister, 7 and 11, carrying things in the traditional way, in a basket suspended from a strap slung from the forehead. The girl had a load of fronds that
my guide said would be used to make brooms. The boy had a basket full of other various things. They both wore flip-flops with wet, muddy socks. One of the girl's sandals broke and she took the sock off and kept walking, purposely stepping into the ankle deep icy puddles.
The houses are two level , often with 2-3 houses attached. The bottom, ground level is for livestock, buffalo, chickens. Women were loom weaving colorful rugs or wall hangings. I saw a woman chopping herbs with a knife in one hand and using two bamboo sticks with the other to pluck the trimmings and sling them back into the basket on her back.
This guesthouse is made of wood planks - no insulation- and is freezing. We clustered around the wood stove in the dining area for several hours just to get warm. Earlier, when we stopped for lunch, the guides parked the French couple and me in a well-lit, but unheated dining room. We communicated by drawing continental maps and identifying mountain ranges. After an hour we went to look for the guides and found them cooking our lunches on a wood burning clay stove. The room was dark and smoky, but warm. We stayed in there with the guides.
I did not realize that the Nepalese eat with their fingers. They have a plate of rice with other side dishes on the plate and mix the sides up with the rice with their fingers and grab as much as thumb, index and middle finger can hold, and shove it in their mouth. The fingers stay full of rice between bites and throughout the meal. I thought about trying it, but my hands were too dirty.
Must stop. It is 8pm and so cold there is nothing to do but curl up in the cocoon bag like a butterfly larva.
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