Nepal forms the very
watershed of Asia. Landlocked
between India and Tibet, it spans
terrain from subtropical jungle to
the icy Himalaya, and contains or
shares eight of the world's ten
highest mountains. Its cultural
landscape is every bit as diverse: a
dozen major
ethnic groups ,
speaking as many as fifty languages
and dialects, coexist in this
narrow, jumbled buffer state, while
two of the world's great
religions
, Hinduism and Buddhism, overlap and
mingle with older tribal traditions
- yet it's a testimony to the
Nepalis' tolerance and good humour
that there is no tradition of ethnic
or religious strife. Unlike India,
Nepal was never colonized, a fact
which comes through in fierce
national pride and other, more
idiosyncratic ways. Founded on
trans-Himalayan trade, its dense,
medieval
cities display a
unique pagoda-style architecture,
not to mention an astounding flair
for festivals and pageantry. But
above all, Nepal is a nation of
unaffected
villages and
terraced hillsides - more than
eighty percent of the population
lives off the land - and whether
you're trekking, biking or bouncing
around in packed buses, sampling
this simple lifestyle is perhaps the
greatest pleasure of all.
But it would be misleading to
portray Nepal as a fabled
Shangri-la. One of the world's
poorest countries (if you go by per
capita income), it suffers from many
of the pangs and uncertainties of
the Third World, including
overpopulation and deforestation; development
is coming in fits and starts, and
not all of it is being shared
equitably. Heavily reliant on its
big-brother neighbours, Nepal was,
until 1990, run by one of the last
remaining absolute monarchies, a
regime that combined China's
repressiveness and India's
bureaucracy in equal measure. It's
now a democracy , but
corruption and frequent changes of
government have led to widespread
disillusion and spawned a simmering
rebel insurgency; political freedom
has changed little for the average
struggling Nepali family.
Travelling in Nepal isn't a
straightforward or predictable
activity. Certain tourist areas are
highly developed, even
overdeveloped, but facilities
elsewhere are rudimentary; getting
around is time-consuming and
sometimes uncomfortable. Nepalis are
well used to shrugging off such
inconveniences with the all-purpose
phrase, Ke garne ?
("What to do?"). Nepal is
also a more fragile country than
most - culturally as well as
environmentally - so it's necessary
to be especially sensitive as a
traveller.
Topography is obviously a
key consideration when travelling in
Nepal. Generally speaking, the
country divides into three altitude
zones running from west to east. The
northernmost of these is, of course,
the Himalayan chain , broken
into a series of himal
(permanently snow-covered mountain
ranges) and alpine valleys, and
inhabited, at least part of the
year, as high as 5000m. The largest
part of the country consists of a
wide belt of middle-elevation foothills
and valleys , Nepal's
traditional heartland; two ranges,
the Mahabharat Lek and the lower,
southernmost Chure (or Siwalik)
Hills, stand out. Finally, the Tarai
, a strip of flat, lowland jungle
and farmland along the southern
border, has more in common with
India than with the rest of Nepal.
