At the age of eighteen, I penned an essay on Nepal, describing it "a scabrous land neither fruitful nor bountiful." At that time, Nepal was still very much a place over the rainbow, an exotic country I never expected to visit. And true enough, it wasn't until twice that age and a world of experience later, did I finally see Nepal.

It is a scabrous land, with jagged snow-capped peaks covering it like a crumpled blanket. But unlike my schoolboy imagination, it was also fruitful, bountiful too, with every arable inch cultivated.

That trip yielded a slide presentation entitled Along the Kali Gandaki, A Journey Through Nepal (https://timtravels.tripod.com/nepal.htm). Thanks to my long time friend Clara Ooi for organizing it, and to my pal Choo Beng Teong without whom there isn't much to present, the slideshow was held to astounding response at the Malaysian-German Society on 18 February, 2000. I must apologize to the guests who failed to get a seat - we did not plan for a packed house. The hall accommodates about 80 guests, but over a hundred turned up, so many were unable to enter the place, let alone attend. But all in all, I had a jolly good time, and I hope those who came (and got seats) had a ball as well.

Along the Kali Gandaki follows our trekking expedition along the mighty Kali Gandaki, from windswept Mustang District to the forested lowlands.

For the benefit of those contemplating a similar trip, here's the itinerary. We started from Kathmandu, where we got an agency to arrange the expedition for the three of us. (There is a multitute of trekking tours to choose from, just pay a visit to the Thamel district and shop around).

The group consist of three persons: Choo Beng Teong, the famous wildlife artist, Mr Leng, a sixty-five year old friend of Choo, and of course, me. It is more a trip to take photographs, and we planned to have sufficient days to spend really "smelling the roses", sort of.

The whole trip includes a one-week trek along the river, many a time having to climb over ravines and cliffs, and wade across the icy river, so it is not the most leisurely outing. Moreover, as we had to cart armfuls of photographic equipment, we got ourselves two porters and one trekking guide. (Alas for us, after only one day of trekking, one of our porters quit, and so we were left with only one heroic porter, Mikbadur, who stayed with us the rest of the way, and bore the enormous weight of two. I salute you, Mikbadur!)

Our journey from Kathmandu began with a whole-day bus trip to Pokhara, the only other significant city in Nepal. Other than being shaken silly on that bus, and having to breath the intoxicating exhaust, my only other recollection of that bus trip was being ripped off by an itinerant drink seller, who took my money and promptly left the bus.

Pokhara is built around Lake Fewa, which offers magnificent views of the Annapurna Range. Its around this range that the Kali Gandaki flows, and the journey along it opens up a diversity of scenic views.

At dawn, we boarded a small airplane from Pokhara for the first leg of the journey. The 18-minute flight got us to Jomsom, the only outpost at Mustang District served by an airstrip. The flight would remind you of the the plane crash from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I remember seeing walls of rock and snow coming straight at us, before the plane veered to one side, and started gliding towards the airstrip. It was a magnificent sight, but you must see it for yourself.

Jomsom is a rugged place carved out of the barren landscape. It would have been a truck stop if there were trucks. But the only means of transportation here are mules, donkeys and horses. You can always tell when a convoy of mules are coming your way. All wear bells and they make quite a racket as they thunder past you. If you meet a convoy along a mountain trek, the wise thing to do is to press yourself against the side of the mountain, away from the cliff, in case they knock you off. The mountain track winds its way up to forty or even fifty feet above the river.



The mountains guard Jomsom from both sides, and the Kali Gandaki cuts right through it. The culture here is Tibetan, complete with prayer wheels along the routes and all. At this altitude, the mountains are devoid of vegetation, safe for a heather and some wind-twisted pines. Here, the Kali Gandaki opens up into a kind of delta - this peculiar river defys natural laws by being wide at the top, and narrower as we trekked down. The river bed here is said to contain fossils washed down from the mountains about.

The homes in Jomsom are white-washed adobes constructed of rocks, and often surrounded by high walls with only a tiny door as the sole opening. The sight of children at doorways and the kling-klang of mules signalled the only sign of life here. In fact, to me this place looked more like Peru than Nepal.

The actual trekking started from Jomsom, and the first village downriver was Marpha, also known as the Apple Capital of Nepal. This mediaval village, and many others along the Kali Gandaki, has fortressed gateways to ward off intruders and invaders of old. In the old times, with the long winters, starvation was a way of life up here, and ever so often, the villages had to raid one another out of desperation.

One of the most memorable sights for me came somewhere between Marpha and Lete. Here, the dry river bed opens up, almost like a bowl. Away in the distance, a dot moves on the dry bed. A full minute later, that dot became a man carrying lumber on his back - another reminder that, while starvation is a thing of the past, tough life is still very much present. It made me more appreciative of life and what I have, rather than always thinking that grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Do not expect to be served "culinary delights" in the mountains. The Nepali staple food is rice with dhal bart, a yellowish legume curry. Since the area we passed through falls under the Annapurna Conservation Project, every village has guest houses where room rates and menus are strictly controlled. As a result, you can find spring rolls, spaghetti and even lasagna on the menu, right here, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

You can tell the altitude not only by the temperature, but also by the vegetation. At the very highest, the ground is barren, almost like a desert, with only shrubs and low twisted pines. Then gradually the terrain gives away to pine trees and various types of conifers. Lower down, we come across the first banana tree, and eventually the jungle.

For much of the journey, we walked under a blue cloudless sky. I made the terrible mistake of leaving my sunblock at the hotel in Pokhara, and within a few days of trekking, my face had turned as red as octopus. Our daily treking starts around 8:20am in the morning, continues until 12:00noon, when we would stop at a village for lunch, and continues on around 1:30pm. By four o'clock, the sun has begun to set, and by five, it was already too dark.

After a week of walking, we finally came to the town of Beni. There is a bus terminus here. We bid farewell to Mikbadur, our porter, and took the bus which got us back to Pokhara.