Hiking Himalaya: The air so clear, the sky so wide

The path from Chanlang Pati to Thula Syabru now is like a walk in the park now. It no longer rains, instead the sun shines. And it goes downhill almost the whole day. In Chalang Pati at 3,580 meters, we can get cheese from it's state cheese factory, who are tasting great. At least for those who didn't look into the production rooms before the first bite. The manufacturing hall looks like a dark cave who hasn't see a broom or rag since ages.

Just a few kilometers away at a lodge on a hill there is the highest telephone box in the world, built of a wooden frame and a plastic tarpaulin. The satellite phone inside is really ringing straight at the moment we pass the box!

Technical wonders, wonders of nature. The path now leads steadily along a mountain slope, uphill, without steep. A tour like through a German low mountain range in spring. The air is clear, the sky is wide. Every now and then a small village appears along the way, where only few people live. They have a life like a hundred years ago, in roughly stacked stone huts without chimneys. The smoke from the open fires that burn inside to cook and to heat the room is supposed to escape through gaps left under the roof.

Our guide, Udaya Sharma, tells us about the dangers this entails. In almost all rural households in Nepal today, cooking is still done with open fire directly in the living room - living room means the one and only room they have. The room fills up with the acrid smoke of the fire and especially the women who sit in front of the stove all day long suffer from constant irritation of the eyes and have to struggle with long-term lung damages like asthma and lung cancer.

It would be easy and by no means expensive to remedy this. But far away in the West, where the technology and the money would be available, politicians and authorities prefer to concentrate on constantly optimising the pollutant emissions of their own combustion plants through stricter requirements and new regulations.

That reduce the pollution in the per mille range and needs complex technology. Here could simple remedial measures do so much more, because they could saving or prolonging lives. But Nepal is wide away and some small private initiatives are all the modern world do to help.

It is precisely because the surrounding nature is so indescribably impressive that poverty stands out. We hike through tropical vegetation, admire birds and monkeys and butterflies. All around are towering snow-covered mountain landscapes and we have occasionally to avoid the passing yak caravans, which here replace rail and bus.

In contrast to the Khumbu region around Everest and the routes to Annapurna Base Camp, the Langtang Valley is not only not overcrowded but almost empty. Tourists are hardly to be seen on the hiking trail, which always leads clearly along the river, because compared to the tourist hotspots of Nepal, the Langtang National Park is almost undiscovered until today.

The atmosphere is relaxed, the giant mountains of the Himalaya all around are beaming. After another long descent, we pass an army compound, where tired, bored recruits are looking to us.

To the village of Thula Syabru at 2,200 m it is only a short walk now. Here the locals have resolved enough room for terrace fields and a place that nearly looks like a city midst the actually hostile environment. The oldest ones of the houses, mostly built of wood and stone, have lovingly carved balconies, worn down by centuries of harsh weather, but can still be seen in all their former beauty.

Thanks to an early arrival at the "Peace Lodge", the first Everest beer can be enjoyed outside in the bright afternoon sun, with views of the Langtang Mountains and the Ganesh Himal. In this beautiful village there is a Gompa, a Tibetan monastery, according to the travel description.

Above all, there is an internet café, which is closed but opens immediately when customers knock the wooden door. Deep down in cellars that look like a vegetable crate warehouse, there is access to the world outside. In the evening, momos, a kind of dumpling with vegetable filling. Looks like the chef's teeth marks, one of our guys blasphemes.

The sequel of this story is here

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