Himalayas

If you ever travel by vehicle from Kathmandu to Pokhara, sit on the right side of the car and just look. Much more amazing than the mountains are the communities that spring up beside the road, clinging to the steep walls of the inner Ceti Nadi. These farming communities live, like most people in developing countries, in abject and total poverty. But more amazing than any "noble savage" myth you might make of this, was the practicality with which they used the scape they were given. This region is one of the most productive in Nepal, but without the benefit of flat land with rich soil as the case with the people farming in lowland Terai.

The central belt of Nepal was humorously named "the hills" as a midpoint between the Indian plain, or Terai, and the upper mountain belt, or Himal. "The hills" or pahad in Nepali are giant blocks of earth that shoulder upwards while jungle-like flora creep up their steep sides. I assume that they must look something like the mountains in British Columbia, enormous and green. They are tall enough to broach tree-line, but the Himalayas just miles north catch moisture moving upward from the Indian ocean and repel it back to these "hills" making them fabulously lush even at high altitudes.

I saw the Himalayas for the first time a few days ago walking around Pokhara with Dr. Anil and his family. It was raining, and at first I kept wondering why the clouds were so black in come places... but this was rock from the Annapurna massif in the distance. The height of these mountains are like absolutely nothing I have ever seen. As the rainclouds gapped for a brief moment, you could see the upper peaks in full daylight, above the clouds and storm, more than 5 verticle miles in the sky.

The next morning I got up around 5 am to see the full range from the roof of Dr. Anil's house. I seriously have never imagined anything like these mountains. Every time I turned around I knew they would be there shining high above the "hills," but each time I was freshly taken aback at just how high above these hills the mountains rose. They easily double or triple the size of the enormous hills.