THE RELUCTANT TOURIST:

My Nepali Journey

by Jon Huer

My heart skipped a beat when Terry, my wife, and Kris and Dean Caldwell, our neighbors and good friends who also teach for Maryland, all chose Nepal as the destination of our proposed trip together during the term break.

Nepal? One of the world's infernally impoverished places teeming with parasitic diseases, beggars, and unfriendly Maoist guerillas? Which decent tourist seeking familiar exoticism and comfortable adventure would want to go to a place at the end (or top) of the world?

Three-to-one democracy eventually prevailed and I very reluctantly agreed to go with them to Nepal. We arrived in Kathmandu, via Bangkok, amid much anxiety about the unknown, some excitement about the dangers, and mild curiosity about the things Nepali. Nepal was so different from what we had known and had been used to, with all the dire warnings we had heard of the hardships and risks lurking everywhere in that country. Naturally my most nagging emotion at arrival was one of shapeless apprehension.

The proceedings were slow through Immigration and Customs because we had to get our visa, which consisted mainly of paying 30 US dollars. The most immediate impression was that Nepal is a nation of chaotic improvisation and petty deception by everyone everywhere, including the "officials" at the airport.

Our travel agent met us outside with a car and a driver and took us through the main highway to our hotel about 20 minutes away. The sight that greeted us in the city was overwhelming. The street was impossibly dirty and dusty, grabbing you with a sense-shocking vista of squalor, poverty and disarray. The people, although busily in motion, seemed to be going from nowhere to nowhere because there was only nothing in their destination awaiting them.

Once we settled in our rooms at the hotel (certainly no Sheraton, but clean and impeccably British) the four of us went out on the main thoroughfare by our hotel and walked around. The traffic was noisy and crowded, more terrifyingly lawless than I had ever seen even in Seoul. I did some shopping (buying an electric transformer [from 220 v to 110 and vice versa] for about 5 dollars and at a department store bought a latest copy of the Economist and a JVC video blank tape for what seemed to be less than 3 dollars. Everything was incredibly cheap. Our dinner cost us less than 10 US dollars.

Terry and I decided to do the typical touristy thing and signed up for an early morning fly-by along the Himalaya, climaxing at Mt. Everest, to take place the next day. The agent assured us that the money would be refunded if Everest, the tour's star attraction, was not visible. We got up early and were driven to the airport 's domestic terminal where a sizeale crowd milled about for their respective flights within Nepal. We boarded the small 20-seater to the mountains, grandiosely called "Cosmic Air." After the delay of an hour or so for "poor visibility," the plane took off.

Within twenty minutes of flight, the first sight of the Himalaya came into view unannounced. And, lo and behold, it was breathtaking, easily the most mesmerizing sight ever beheld by the human eye! I was awe struck as if in the presence of something not of this world, holding my breath in the stark beauty of the mountain range. The white peaks, untouchable and pristine with gleaming snow and ice, passed slowly before my eyes one after the other in an unforgettable panorama of grandeur. Indeed, it was "cosmic" in its heart-stopping spectacle. The passengers were invited into the cockpit one at a time to have a better view, and by the time I got in there the plane was just sweeping by Mt. Everest.

The triangle peak looked familiar, like the many pictures I had seen of it before. Its actual height was barely above its companion peaks, but it rose to its splendid summit as if there were no other mountains nearby. It shone like a mythical Sphinx towering above the cottony clouds strewn around just to make Everest look more kinglike. Our plane flew just above the clouds within five kilometers of Everest. Even from the distance, Everest's myth and majesty were unmistakably grand. Although I had videotaped the whole Himalaya mountain range, I lingered o

n its king, wanting to record everything that I was privileged to witness. I only reluctantly took my eyes away from the receding peaks as the plane made its sweep and returned to Kathmandu. I had once considered the price too much for a quick fly-by, but no, I would have paid ten times that much to see the most awe-inspiring creation on earth that brooked no opposition.

The rest of the day was spent touring the city, playing the obligatory foreign tourist. An intelligent and pleasant looking woman came from the tourist office and took us out to three different places. The first one was a cluster of temples including the "Living Goddess" quarters, holding a preteen virgin child as their perfect goddess for worship and oracles, which exuded a mixed impression of sacredness, hokiness, and superstition. The buildings that made up the temple square were in terrible disrepair and every corner reeked dire neglect and poverty. I gave in to the persistent street peddlers and spent 10 dollars buying typical Nepali trinkets only as part of my contribution to their economy as the trinkets were largely worthless and cheaply made. But the utterly relentless peddler-predators surrounded me to concentrate their attack sensing that I was an easy mark..

Terry and the others tried to rescue me from the pesky street merchants by advising me to be stern and act decisive with my refusal to do business with them, which, given their desperation, I found enormously difficult. We repeated this routine two more times that afternoon, once at a Hindu temple where I was suckered into spending another 20 dollars on two pendants made of inlaid yak bone. Later on, another vendor offered me the same two for 5 dollars. (But the lady who had cheated me posed for my video camera and gave me the most incredible smile, which soothed my bruised feelings somewhat).

The third site was Boudha, a very large Buddhist stupa. It was at this site, made up of a series of shops that circled the round stupa, that I began to experience the odd feeling of being misplaced and dislocated in my concept of reality (or, more likely unreality). The surreal contrast between Nepal and the world I inhabited was so violent I found it difficult to reconcile the two into a coherent whole. I watched a woman unpack her wares and display them on the street as her day's business. After videotaping her routine work for a while I bought two stone-made Buddhist carvings from her. She was sweet and gracious to me, but obviously weary of her way of life. On the way back the guide took us to a respectable store where the Caldwells bought a rug and we a Tibetan-style Buddhist painting. That ended our formal tour.

Having already been victimized by the peddlers several times, I was beginning to be affected by the not-so-uncommon affliction among tourists to poor countries: The feeling of shame, the shame of being a rich American tourist. Kathmandu seemed so reminiscent of Korea in the 50's as I remembered it. This sense of shame became so acute that I was even thinking about canceling my part of the make-believe elephant safari trip and just staying at the lodge, thinking things over about life. I was also beginning to be affected by the Nepali people that I saw on the street and those I judged as country people. They seemed fetchingly authentic and unspoiled, especially those in abject poverty, by capitalism and materialism.

The next day we left the hotel and were on our way to Chitwan National Park. A young handsome Nepali brought a van for us to take us there. I had no idea that the trip involved driving five hours (with two or three stops on the way for photo ops and bathroom visits) along the most traitorous mountain pass on a narrow two-lane highway all the way from Kathmandu to Chitwan. While Terry and I said perhaps a hundred Hail Marys along the route (and the Caldwells saying their own secular-version prayers too, I am sure), and witnessing three major wrecks on the way, the mountain pass also revealed Nepal in its most astonishing beauty.

Most Nepali women in the country and mountains favor the color red in their attire, a sort of dark crimson sari-like drape-around that is at once stark, alluring and picturesque. The women in red dot the countryside in an appealing invitation to the camera. You see a solitary red figure walking along the dusty road alongside heavy traffic, often carrying a load on her back; you see a crimson human silhouette working in the far field; you see small girls wearing the red drape-arounds, open and fearless in their natural friendliness and dignity, giving you the bright smiles without a hint of their economic misery.

Yes, the Nepalese are terribly poor, in a way that is hard to fathom, but their poverty seems to have none of that pathologically demoralizing effect. They seem to just live with it, neither bemoaning it nor being debilitated by it. Unlike the city's dirt and squalor that is typical of a poor country, the people along the mountainside were like a spiritual tornado waking us up from our intellectual and moralist slumber. The exquisitely terraced mountainsides and the languid emerald-colored river that snaked along the road, on which tourists were rafting, were of great beauty in their primeval grandeur. But it was the people--poor, dirty, and in savage daily struggle for survival, but seemingly alien to the corruption and rationality of material civilization--who tugged at my emotion the most about Nepal.

Adults waved at us, and children smiled for the camera. One particular episode I would never forget: An old man was carrying what amounted to a batch of grass on his back, about twice his body size, laboring uphill on a dirt road along our highway. Because the traffic was light and I strongly wanted to videotape the man, our driver stopped the van and hollered something to the old man. The old man (perhaps a young man who only looked old with the burden) stopped in his track and turned around toward us and gave us a huge smile until all of us finished our picture taking! When we were done, he and his burden slowly turned around and resumed their steep ascent uphill. His smile was so authentic and so generous, it would remain in my memory for a long time.

Nepal seems to be cursed with its political chaos and economic barrenness, yet incongruously blessed with the splendor of its natural beauty and the stoic bearings of its people. Even the city dwellers, in their full endurance of impoverishment and misery, seem to maintain a measure of innate sweetness that we find in poor but uncorrupted people. This sweetness is all the more touching because of the wretched conditions from which it springs. My Nepali journey was an arresting, and in many ways shattering, experience simply because the people seemed so unconscious of their own heroic strength and converting power amid the impossible odds.

Our drive to Chitwan seemed to go on forever, but I could not stop videotaping the scenes we passed and witnessed, lest I missed anything. Finally we left the mountain road and went through the lowlands and through a truly dirty city that you see only in documentaries before we turned onto a country road to reach Gaida Wildlife Camp. The next two days we spent at the camp, straight out of a "Fantasy Island" set with cottages and flower gardens with all the rustic symbolism and representation (They even rang the bell for meals).

As scheduled, we went on an elephant safari with a group of other tourists, mostly American. All that I can say about the elephant safari is that (1) it is difficult to look intelligent or dignified while riding an elephant; and (2) even those from the most technologically sophisticated country are utterly helpless while on the back of an elephant having to depend on the skills of its rather low-tech elephant driver. Otherwise, we enjoyed the subsequent nature excursions we took while there.

On the way back to Kathmandu on the same mounting pass, which we dreaded, we witnessed four more traffic accidents. At the hotel the travel agent met us, the survivors of another harrowing four-hour drive and glad to be alive, and he and the driver took us to the airport. We flew back to Korea via Bangkok.

What can I remember about Thailand where we stayed two days? I loved the Thais and Thailand. I liked their unhurried and friendly pace, and their surprisingly sophisticated cosmopolitanism which was evident everywhere. (By contrast, Korea seems like a new kid on the block in the international tourist game, who has learned everything from Hollywood only yesterday). Although we enjoyed the slow-paced and tourist-friendly Thai people and its civilization of great richness and sophistication, they were completely overshadowed and crowded out by our riveting encounter with the Royal Kingdom of Nepal.

Would I want to go back to Nepal? Yes, definitely. As soon as possible.

Jon Huer