They mine the tourist lode. At all the key sites in Kathmandu, Pokhara and other cities, white faces attract persistent vendors. Many have come in from country areas to the glitter of the city. Others are refugees from Tibet, who have been in Nepal for up to 40 years. They sell a huge array of stuff: flutes, brassware, fossils from the Himalayas, fine wool scarfs, second-hand mountaineering and trekking equipment. The vendors work amid the layers of Hindu and Buddhist culture: the temples that attract the tourists in the first place.
Nepal is one of the poorest countries on earth, yet it is one of the most attractive for tourists. The magnet is Everest, the world’s highest mountain at 8848m. Every day, just after dawn, flights leave Kathmandu for the short distance to the Himalayas, they fly about 1500m below the height of the mountain, but very close. You could see a mountaineer. So close, but in a different world.
Nepal is no longer just a trekking, mountaineering and adventure destination. In the past couple of years, Nepal has tried to widen its tourist base for cultural tourism and sightseeing with the completion of several four and five star hotels and more frequent flights to Pokhara which provides the classic views of the Annapurna range of the Himalayas.
Nepal is getting easier to travel in, but it retains the romance of remoteness and strangeness. I think it comes from the fact that only the temples appear finished. Every other building seems unfinished. Kathmandu remains the unfinished city. In 1989 when I first went there, the airport extension had just begun. It is still unfinished. Houses are built with the aim of adding another storey later. Reinforcing rods for the concrete poke up from the roof from virtually every building. Other houses sit with an unfinished side waiting for next door to build abutting. The surfaces are not complete. The edge of the road is not sealed. Electric wires are all over the place, no-one has thought to finish the job. Brickwork is exposed. It is not finished because it gets to a state where it is useable and it is used and life goes with more important things than finishing anything.
Crispin Hull travelled to Nepal as guest of Holiday Planners 84 Pitt St Sydney, 02 92236000.