This is a journal submitted by one of the participants in the fund-raising trek in Nepal in November 2001, the purpose of which was to raise the money badly needed to carry out some of the important projects at the hospital with leprosy patients.
For everyone involved it was a different experience. This is just one account.
For a slide show associated with this trip click here. 
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CONTENTS.
(Put cursor on links to see images. )
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Ricefields Morning Evening Mountain View Farmer Butterfly Hospital |
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After a hectic Summer of fund-raising, the kindness of others has made the goal of this trip a reality, surpassing the hoped for fund-raising for the hospital in Anandaban.
At dawn coming over Doha the blood red desert sun is rising. The landscape is arid and creamy sand at this early hour. As the plane dips low the characteristic style of housing becomes apparent.
The airport is pristine, dripping of the wealth that is Qatar. There are nearly as many staff as customers and one man is busy dusting the stainless steel legs of the seats with a feather duster. As with all airports, it is far from intellectually stimulating!.
Next stop, one of the magical worlds of our childhood, like Timbuctoo, Kathmandu, the land of "dangerous Dan McGrew" and the little green idol to the north of Kathmandu" of the monologue we used to hear recited at parties.
Flying in over West Pakistan and India, the geological folding of the landscape on a vast scale is amazing with the scale of the landscape like Labrador without the snow.
It's 5 o clock, we have 20 minutes to shower and meet our trek leader Rinjin and we are issued with our kit bags and we try sorting out what to bring and not to bring. At 7p.m we walk downtown using torches to avoid disappearing into holes in the paths and roads to , (would you believe!) Kilroy's restaraunt. Mr Kilroy is a young lad from Athlone married to a Nepalese, and we have a nice meal, our first as a group (of 21) with 3 of the doctors from the Leprosy hospital as our guests...our first tangible connection with the hospital we have all worked so hard for this Summer.
Up at 5.15 a.m. to begin our 71/2 hour drive (120 miles) from Kathmandu to the next city of Pokhara in our boneshaker bus. We sat on the right of the bus as the main peaks of the mountains and the river in the Kathmandu valley lie on the right side for our journey so we get good views on what was a remarkable journey.
Getting through the city of Kathmandu, we negotiate a sea of bicycles, tricycles, quadricycles, people on foot, on two feet, 5 to a motorbike,and a myriad of trucks painted like they were from a circus.
The road, which was built with the help of the Chinese some years back, winds it's way up, down, around and almost over the edge of a myriad of mountains, through a landscape of images of people primarily, carrying on their normal life, oblivious of us observing, trying to absorb a culture. Simple and poor lives but happy faces. The existence of many in the land depends on the river. Everywhere, people washing themselves and their clothes in the river, taking stones and gravel from the river. Children as young as 12 breaking stones by the roadside, sieving gravel and so on. Trucks standing in the river being filled by hand..many rope bridges for people to cross, and around every hill a new view to stun the mind.
Our camp site is in a beautiful location by the side of Phew Tal Lake, a bit like Lake Louise in Canada. The tents have been set up for us and we set up our sleeping bags etc before dark. It's incredible how 2 people with limited baggage can lose so many things inside a small tent!!. After a lovely Nepalese meal in the mess tent we stroll downtown to a shopping street (at least it is assumed to be a street...it wouldn't qualify on an ordinance survey map in Ireland!!.) Entering into the Nepalese tradition, we haggle for a couple of rainjackets which we are unlikely to need. In November the average rainfall is 1/2 inch for the month (as against 26 inches in July!.).
The day begins , as the others will, with a cup of tea brought to our tent at 5.15 a.m. "one sugar or two?", followed two bowls of warm water for washing. Then we pack our gear and breakfast at 6.30 as the porters pack the enormous loads they are to carry.
We head to the start of our trek in the forest outside Pokhara. We rise up for the first hour to a clearing where there is a peace temple. On our way we begin the task of getting to know a little of the names and personalities within our group. We are a most unusual Irish group..ages from 19 to 70, from many walks of life, Baptist, Church of Ireland, R.C, Presbyterian, but with a common purpose which makes so much good possible.
We have a leader and 3 other sherpas guiding and caring for us on the way and they are incredibly attentive to the strengths and weaknesses of the various people within the group, to such a degree that ensures no-one will come to harm. In all there is a team of 45 people looking after our party of 21...cooks, porters, sherpas, kitchen staff, all incredibly committed to us.
We are passing through the terraced slopes of rice fields on the mountainsides. Everywhere the children come out to see us, in some cases to greet us, in others to ask for something. We rest at suitable intervals for 5 or 10 minutes. In one area a cremation was taking place and still, as we stopped for a time later, as the mourners passed, they greeted us cheerfully with their traditional greeting "Namuste". We stop at the first of the Bannion trees we come across and our leader tells us how it's function is for hundreds of years a meeting place for people in the widespread mountain communities.
Our final destination that afternoon is Bhumdi. There the sherpas join in a game of football which to them is great with a real football ( they traditionally play a game of great skill using strips of a rubber tyre tied together). As on the rest of the trip, the evening meal is a delight, not just the food but the banter. Breda and I enter into the spirit of it and the laughter has me gasping for air ( laughter at altitude can be dangerous!!).
Yipee!! we get a lie on this morning. Our morning call is at 6a.m.!! As we enjoy our breakfast we watch in awe as the porters prepare thir loads and head off ahead of us. Each porter carries a load consisting of 2 sleeping bags, 4 ground mats, 2 down jackets, 1 tent, 1 ground sheet, all of the baggage that two people have brought with them, and his own haversack. All of these are tied together and he makes a band which he passes around his forehead and then another porter helps him to stand up with this mighty load and he heads off wearing either runners or flip-flops.
The kitchen staff load huge baskets with pots and pans etc and the vast amount of food needed to feed the total party of 66 people. Other porters carry the mess tent, chairs, the portable loos etc.
Many of them only finish packing after we have left and yet they will come hurtling through past us at a later stage on the trek that day as we puff our way uphill with our small back packs.
This is a tough day. Mostly in forest...with sweet chestnut, rhododendroms, ferns, wild flowers (this place must be beautiful in Spring). The morning walk is 41/2 hours and the rocky path is tough and slippy in the forest. Even at this stage there is a great interchange of positions within the motley strung out line of trekkers . The conversation is always interesting, most entertaining at times and with with a very nice element of the spiritual dimensions of life which people are sharing from their past and from the present.
Then it's all packed up again and another 21/2 hours to our next destination Bhanyjang which includes a "tea-house" and a a wonderfully happy atmosphere. Our evening meal is a virtual; banquet including a beautiful cake made in an oven consisting of a metal plate with a pot on top!. After the meal we are brought out to a campfire where the porters and sherpas entertain us with their traditional music singing and dancing and draw us into their fun. We , incredibly ineptly, sing and dance to entertain them too. I play the miniature harmonica in my mouth with no hands which provides some amusement for them. We do a hat collection for them at the end of a great evening of blending cultures. At about 3 a.m. I awake and am not sure if dawn has arrived (there is a kerosene lamp lighting outside)...listened...heard a zip, then another , then another and another...puzzled..is everyone leaving?...listened again and then realised we have a snorer in camp who snores like a zip!.
Another lie-in...6.15 !!.
After breakfast we gather together , as we do every morning on the trek for 5 minutes of prayer together consisting of a couple of readings from scripture and thoughts on them by one of the group and a prayer for the day by another. It's a very important part of our day each day and keeps us focussed on the spiritual dimension of our undertaking.
Today is the day for the optional climb to the top of the highest point of our trek for a panorama of the vast mountain ranges from Panchase peak. A lot of the path we take is set out with stone steps with rounded edges indicating the long time they have been here. Most of the stone here is shale as I discovered last night when I tried to hammer a rivet on my scissors, breaking the stones and making no impression on the scissors.
After lunch we head off with all the team in a different direction away from the giant Annapurna range. The landscape is slowly changing to include more of the terraced farms, cut out of the mountainsides by hand. We reach camp at Lhangpang and after our usual drink of orange cordial ( are you feeling sorry for us?), we enjoy our location in rice fields on the side of a mountain. The evening meal is unbelievable and finishes off with a magnificent latticed apple tart. After tea we play cards and some people manage to get a bit of reading done and writing up their journals. We are all amazed how little time we have to spare.
At dawn the clouds form a cotton wool blanket in the valley below us between mountains, making a beautiful sight impossible to see in Ireland as we are always looking up at them. Once again after breakfast we watch in awe at the porters and even try lifting one of their loads.
Today is all downhill, difficult with loose stone and putting pressure on the toes and the calfs all the time but we have the carrot of a river in the valley somewhere. We pass a secondary school with a few benches in the rooms and a slate blackboard and then we hear the voices of children singing as we round a bend and here are a lot of the locals with a radio playing music and they entertain us on the path with singing and dancing and their is a rig on the ground for us to put a donation on it for them to make some improvements in their community. The government in Nepal operates differently than in our country and people are left very much to their own resources and ingenuity to try to improve things for themselves. This is a festival week so we have more of a chance of seeing the children who are very beautiful and friendly. Some of the ladies in our group are nearly 6 foot so they must appear like giants to the Nepalese people. The hair bands and pencils and books we are giving to the children go down a treat as usual.
At the foot of one bridge a farmer and his family with two oxen and a wooden plough work on a field about the length of 4 oxen and the width of 11/2 oxen. Near the next crossing pint which is stepping stones as the bridge is unsafe (incidentally we learn that these stepping stones are the main route taken by all the farmers in this mountainous area to bring their crops to a road which takes them into India.
In another field women are tilling with hand tools and sowing potatoes; people washing clothes in the river, hand-threshing and weaning rice in another field, and all the time a steady stram of people young and old carrying impossible loads of rice , grain, straw, fodder, firewood, across the stepping stones and up stoney paths that are difficult enough for us with the equivalent of a school-bag on our backs. Once again we learn another shade of humility.
By the river one child draws a nice picture of the scene for one of our group. Another of the trekkers has a group around him and they are teaching him the Nepalese for various things and helping him to spell them. Another lady in the group delights the children with conversation about their ages, families, etc. Others of the group are photographing, chatting with the porters, local mothers etc. Everyone of us is desperately trying in the short time available, to get some precious contact with this new world for us and more importantly the people who make it so special.
Even at 6 a.m. the men are in the fields weaning and threshing the rice and in conversation with each other.
We leave this busy valley and wend our way ever-upwards through the rice fields but the heat of the sun is shielded from us by plenty of trees. The schoolchildren pass us dressed in their school uniforms. We travel on tracks on the sides of mountains with a good smattering of homes. We find the one and only home in the entire trek which has glass windows. A lot of houses have bars on the windows to keep out the mongoose. Every so often we are faced with poverty beyond our experience but we don't know how to handle it.
Our campsite at Cristi Chaur is just short of the top of a mountain and we are all too aware that night that the toilet tents are only 4ft from the edge with the door facing the cliff..I think the sherpas want to challenge us a little more each day.!. A few locals arrive as always at the site, no matter how remote to sell mineral water and even mars bars!!. The Sherpas play football while after lunch we are feeling withdrawal symptoms from walking. However we walk up over the mountain with our guide who tells us of the history of the place..as always very interesting. After dinner the cold sets in so we all head to the mess tent and have a Sunday service, a multi-denominational occasion as we are a mixture of Baptist, Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and R.C. I joined in the hymns on the flute and we reflected on the wonder of this event and what brought us together on a mountain in Nepal.
We begin the final day of our trek ,and probably to the relief of the porters, it is all downhill for about 6 hours passing many farms and the happy voices of schoolchildren echoing from the many small tracks leading o the school. We see every type of manual farm work along the way. They work so hard with a cheerful acceptance. Time after time after you have passed someone you want to go back and help them in some way especially as the opportunity will never come again. That word never haunts the concience. The only redeeming thought is the fact that we still focus on the goal of the trek, or mission, as it can be rightly defined, which is to bring what help we can to the leprosy sufferers.
After lunch, the final trek back to the edge of the city of Pokhara and our original camp-site by the lake.
In the evening after dinner the crew entertain us and we reciprocate. Also we have done a collection to tip them and the tips are equally divided and put in envelopes with their names on them and we call each one up individually to be thanked . Some of them are quite moved as I got the impression that it may have been the first time they were individually acknowledged in that way.
Up at 7a.m. Today the hair raising 7 hour bus ride back to Kathmandu and on our arrival the first shower in a week when we add our share to the pollution in Kathmandu!!.
We have a couple of hours to walk to the Thamel one of the shopping areas which thrives on the tourists who don't know how to haggle.Breda and I survive the onslaught and walk on through into the market places and alleys only used by the locals. What an experience, ..again, so many images, most of them fleeting and unphotographable.
Today, the focus of our entire trip, a visit to the Anandaban Leprosy Hospital.
We travel in a small coach which just fits the 21 of us and barely fits on many of the roads which take us South of the city into the hills. Again , an unforgettable journey in which we see a level of poverty which makes the poor people we saw in the mountains seem well off. A heart of stone could not remain unmoved by the sights, and in our minds we wrestle with the mystery of how they and not us were born into this life of want. It would be an injustice to describe it because it is beyond our experience and also the visual experience does not acknowledge the dignity of their lives no matter how poor. This is surely a test of our understanding of christianity and the place of God in the world.
The road deteriorates mile after mile and at times we meet trucks coming the other way and there are some hair-raising manouvres to get within a couple of inches of the cliff-edge.
The hospital itself is a credit to the wisdom of those who have built it up over the years, a fine collection of buildings over the past 40 years or so in the woodland near the top of the mountain.At the time it was started it was put there to be out of sight and remote because of the stigma so it is a pity it is not more accessible to the people who need it.
We are welcomed by many of the staff and treated to tea in the garden in almost colonial style. Then a tour of the hospital with an interpreter to assist.We meet many of the patients and get to chat with them and learn some of their stories. no-one remains unmoved; many find moments too hard to deal with but throughout the visit there is the awareness that everyone, patient , staff, visitors, has their life enriched by what is happening here. The staff can't believe how much is going to be achieved by the money our good friends have contributed and yet I'm sure everyone saw areas where more could be done and come away with the desire to be a friend to the people of Anandaban.
All that remains now is to journey home from what has been an experience of a lifetime for both of us.
Thank you for sharing such an event with us.
You can see more pictures of the trek at 
