Around Tansen
The best thing about Tansen is getting out of it to explore the outlying hill country and Magar villages, where people still greet visitors with delighted smiles and the full palms-together namaste. The paths around Tansen all pass through farmland and are heavily used by villagers, so it’s fairly easy to find your way with just enough Nepali to ask directions. You may prefer to take a guide – ask your innkeeper – or the excellent maps provided by the GETUP Palpa information service. Numerous other hikes are possible from Tansen, including taking the old trading route to Butwal, which passes the ruins of the old Sen palace at Nuwakot in one long day’s walking (the path is not well maintained these days, though, so you’d need a guide). You can also follow the airy ridge-line east of Srinagar Hill through Bagnaskot to Arya Bhanjyang (11km; 2–3hr), on the Siddhartha Highway – where you can pick up transport back to town; on clear days you can see the Himalayas along the way.
Rani Ghat
The most rewarding day-trip from Tansen is to RANI GHAT, the site of a fantastically derelict palace set atop a rocky outcrop overlooking the turquoise Kali Gandaki. Rani Ghat is the site of occasional cremations, and has a couple of chiya pasal that offer basic food and lodging, but the main attraction is the porticoed, columned and romantically crumbling palace of Rani Durbar. It was built in the late nineteenth century by a Rana commander, Khadga Shamsher, who was exiled to Palpa after a failed coup against his brother, and feels like a place of melancholy isolation. You get a great view of it from the distressingly long (222m) suspension bridge that crosses the river here – the second longest in Nepal. At the time of writing, a resort was being built on the far side; otherwise, if you need to stay overnight, head for the one very simple lodge with a couple of beds, immediately below the palace.
The hike to Rani Ghat
To get to Rani Ghat, you can hire transport on a dirt road (via Chandi Bhanjyang and Baugha Gumha), but at the time of writing it still stopped ninety minutes’ walk short, at Chherlung. In any case, the 14km (4–7hr) hike is superb. The route begins at Kailash Nagar, on the ridge just beside Hotel Srinagar, and descends a ridge before following the sometimes jungly Barangdi valley (bring a torch if you want to visit the narrow, stalactite-hung Siddha Gupha cave, beyond Aule, about a third of the way along) to the Kali Gandaki. You can make a longer circuit walk (22km; 7–9hr) by heading out via Gorkhekot, on the Srinagar ridge a short way east of town (you can get there from a path leading behind the United Mission Hospital), and descending through an immensely satisfying landscape of farmland, trailside hamlets and sections of airy ridge, before the final switchback down to the Kali Gandaki and Rani Ghat.
Gurungs and Magars
Once active trans-Himalayan traders – the Chinese occupation of Tibet put paid to that – Gurungs are a common sight around Gorkha and Pokhara, where many have invested their Gurkha pensions in guesthouses and retirement homes. The majority of Gurungs who don’t serve in the military keep sheep for their wool, driving them to pastures high on the flanks of the Himalayas, and raise wheat, maize, millet and potatoes.
Traditional pursuits such as hunting and honey-gathering are being encroached upon by overpopulation, while the Gurung form of shamanism is coming under pressure from the advance of Hinduism and Buddhism. Gurungs employ shamans to appease ghosts, reclaim possessed souls from the underworld, and guide dead souls to the land of their ancestors – rituals that contain clear echoes of “classic” Siberian shamanism and are believed to resemble those of pre-Buddhist Tibet.
A somewhat less cohesive group, Magars are scattered throughout the lower elevations of the Western Hills and in some parts of the east. A network of Magar kingdoms once controlled the entire region, but the arrival of Hindus in the fifteenth century brought swift political decline and steady cultural assimilation. After centuries of coexistence with Hindu castes, most Magars employ Baahun priests and worship Hindu gods just like their Chhetri neighbours, differing only in that they’re not allowed to wear the sacred thread of the “twice-born” castes. Despite the lack of unifying traits, group identity is still strong, and will probably remain so as long as Magars keep marrying only within the clan.
Pokhara
The Himalayas make the greatest rise from subtropical valley floor to icy summit of any mountain range on earth, and the contrast is stunningly apparent at POKHARA. Basking beside its verdant lakeshore, on clear mornings it boasts a nearly unobstructed view of the 8000m-plus Annapurna and Manaslu ranges, looming almost touchably 25km to the north.
Pokhara’s tourist scene lolls beside Phewa Tal (Phewa Lake), which turns an indifferent back to the modern Nepali city of Pokhara – in fact, if it wasn’t for the smog that increasingly obscures the mountains on most afternoons, you’d hardly know the city was there. “Lakeside”, as it’s known, may not be the rustic travellers’ haven it once was, but it remains Nepal’s little tourist paradise: carefree and culturally undemanding, with a steaks-and-cakes scene that almost rivals Thamel’s, and a pocket version of the same nightlife, to match. It’s significantly more laidback than Kathmandu’s Thamel, however – and relatively horizontal, if you’ve come up from North India.
Pokhara is the first place many travellers venture to after Kathmandu. It may be short on A-list sights, apart from the lake itself, but it’s very long on activities: for trekkers, it’s the gateway to Nepal’s most popular trails; for rafters and kayakers, it’s Nepal’s river-running headquarters; for paragliders and mountain bikers it’s one of the best spots on earth. The climate is balmy: at 800m above sea level it’s both cooler than the plains in summer and warmer than Kathmandu in winter. (It may be significantly wetter than the capital, but most of the rain falls outside the tourist season, so the only sign of water many visitors see is the lake, and the lush subtropical greenery.)
Lakeside festivals
Basundhara Park, Lakeside’s biggest patch of open space, is the venue for the annual Annapurna Festival (usually held in April), a cultural event featuring music, dance and food. Every year, from 28 December to 1 January, Lakeside is invaded by an infinity of food stalls for the Street festival. Various cultural events take place for the New Year under the name of the Phewa Festival: there are more food and handicraft stalls, plus fairground rides and street dancing and singing.
Meditation and yoga
Many spiritual centres last only a season or two in Lakeside, and your best bet is to get personal recommendations from people who’ve just come back from a retreat (while bearing in mind that people seek very different kinds of experiences in this area). Courses can easily be found by checking notice boards or online, and yoga enthusiasts are fairly easily found in Lakeside’s chatty guesthouses and cafés – especially if you head north towards Khahare, where many of the more serious meditation centres are found. There’s little doubt that some Lakeside places are fairly commercial, but then that’s true of many yoga centres back home, too. Introductory classes are sometimes free.
Ganden Yiga Chozin Buddhist Centre Khahare, Lakeside t 061 462 923 or t 061 522 923, w pokharabuddhistcentre.com. A peaceful and serious Buddhist facility with its own modest prayer hall. It’s a short walk north of Lakeside, set up and back from the main drag – albeit in an area where construction is fast taking away the rural atmosphere. They run regular three-day weekend courses (starting on Friday afternoons), as well as daily meditation and yoga classes, and simple accommodation (see Lakeside South). Buddhist monks come up in season from Kopan monastery, outside Kathmandu, to run teachings and meditations.
Nepali Yoga Centre Phewa Marg, Lakeside t 984 604 1879, w nepaliyoga.com. Run by Devika Gurung, a yoga teacher originally from Jomosom, in the Annapurna region, this small, friendly, female-staffed and central Lakeside place offers well-regarded hatha yoga classes mornings and afternoons (90min; Rs400), as well as longer residential courses.
Pokhara Vipassana Centre Pachabhaiya, Lekhnath-11, Kaski t 061 691 972, w www.pokhara.dhamma.org. In a stunning, utterly tranquil setting in the woods that rise steeply out of Begnas Tal’s southern bank, 15km east of Pokhara and close to Begnas Lake Resort, this rustic complex of buildings is taken over for ten-day courses (starting on the 1st of every month) and day-long courses (on the last Sat of every month). It’s highly regarded, but not for the tentative: the day starts at 4am and the rules designed to keep minds focused include no reading, no talking, no drinking and no sex. Relies entirely on donations.
Sadhana Yoga Ashram Sedi Bagar, north of Lakeside t 061 694 041 or t 984 607 8117, w sadhana-asanga-yoga.com. This four-storey, no-frills building sits atop a hilltock fifteen minutes above the Lakeside road, close to the path up to Sarangkot. The owners run popular ashram-style residential yoga courses – bells ring to keep you on your toes, hour by hour; you’ll have “karma yoga” domestic chores to do, and it’s more about breathing than anything athletic. You pay a premium for the secluded location and international reputation: Rs8000 for a three-day, four-night stay. Longer stays, cookery courses and sunrise tours up Sarangkot are also on offer.
The Gurkhas
An elite Nepali corps within the British and Indian armies for almost two centuries, the Gurkha regiments have long been rated among the finest fighting units in the world. Ironically, the regiments were born out of the 1814–16 war between Nepal and Britain’s East India Company: so impressed were the British by the men of “Goorkha” (Gorkha, the ancestral home of Nepal’s rulers) that they began recruiting Nepalis into the Indian Army before the peace was even signed.
In the century that followed, Gurkhas fought in every major British military operation, including the 1857 Indian Mutiny. More than 200,000 Gurkhas served in the two world wars, (often earmarked for “high-wastage” roles – sixteen thousand have died in British service) earning respect for their bravery: ten of the one hundred Victoria Crosses awarded in World War II went to Gurkhas. Following India’s independence, Britain kept four of the ten regiments and India retained the rest. More recently, Gurkhas have distinguished themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan and as UN peacekeepers. In 2011 Sergeant Dipprasad Pun was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for single-handedly fighting off two dozen Taliban fighters.
Recruits hail mainly from the Magar, Gurung, Rai and Limbu ethnic groups, from Nepal’s middle hills. Most boys from these groups have traditionally dreamt of making it into the Gurkhas, not only for the money, but also for a rare chance to see the world and return with prestige and a comfortable pension. Those who fail can always try in the lower-paid Indian regiments; the Nepali army is considered the last resort.
Gurkhas used to be Nepal’s major source of foreign remittances, sending home $40 million annually, but the achievement of pension equality and, in 2009, the final acceptance of the right to reside in the UK, have changed the long-standing and culturally influential lifestyle pattern. Many Gurkha families have now moved to the UK, and in addition, the Gurkhas’ long and faithful service to Britain is winding down. The only remaining training centre is in Pokhara, where thousands of would-be recruits still try out for places. It remains to be seen how the removal of the Gurkhas’ cash injection will affect the economy of cities like Pokhara and Dharan, though the increase in other work migration (mostly to the Middle East) has made up for the remittance shortfall at a national level, at least.
The legend of the lake
According to a local legend, Phewa Tal covers the area of a once-prosperous valley, whose inhabitants one day scorned a wandering beggar. Finding only one sympathetic woman, the beggar warned her of an impending flood: as the woman and her family fled to higher ground, a torrent roared down from the mountains and submerged the town – the “beggar” having been none other than the goddess Barahi Bhagwati. The woman’s descendants settled beside the new lake and erected the island shrine of Tal Barahi.
The other, geological, explanation is that the entire Pokhara Valley, like the Kathmandu Valley, was submerged about 200,000 years ago when the fast-rising Mahabharat ridge dammed up the Seti Nadi. Over time, the Seti eroded an ever-deeper outlet, lowering the water level and leaving Phewa Tal and several smaller lakes as remnants.
Tibetans in exile
Thirty years ago, travel writer Dervla Murphy worked as a volunteer among Tibetan refugees in Pokhara, and called the account she wrote about her experiences The Waiting Land. Pokhara’s Tibetans are still waiting: three former refugee camps, now largely self-sufficient, have settled into a pattern of permanent transience. Because Pokhara has no Buddhist holy places, many older Tibetans have remained in the camps, regarding them as havens where they can keep their culture and language alive.
At the time of the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, the Tibetans now living in Pokhara were mainly peasants and nomads inhabiting the border areas of western Tibet. After the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 and the Chinese occupation turned violent, thousands streamed south through the Himalayas to safety. They gathered first at Jomosom, but the area soon became overcrowded and conditions desperate, and three transit camps were established around Pokhara.
The first five years in the camps were marked by rationing, sickness and unemployment. Relief came in the late 1960s, when the construction of Pardi Dam and the Prithvi and Siddhartha highways provided work. A second wave of refugees began around the same time, after the United States’ detente with China ended a CIA operation supporting Tibetan freedom-fighters based in Mustang. Since then, the fortunes of Pokhara’s Tibetans have risen with the tourism, carpet-weaving and Buddhism industries – the latter is a big earner, due to foreign donations. A small but visible minority have become smooth-talking curio salespeople, plying the cafés of Lakeside and Damside, but whereas Tibetans have by now set up substantial businesses in Kathmandu, opportunities are fewer in Pokhara, and prosperity has come more slowly.
The settlements – Tashi Palkhel, Tashiling and Paljorling – are open to the public, and a wander around one is an experience of workaday reality that contrasts with the otherworldliness of, say, Boudha or Swayambhu. You’ll get a lot more out of a visit if you can get someone to show you around.
Tansen
Once the seat of a powerful kingdom, the hill town of TANSEN (Palpa) now seems little more than a bazaar town stranded in the hills. Tourism comes a low second to trading, yet slowly, almost reluctantly, Tansen yields its secrets: clacking dhaka looms glimpsed though doorways; the Himalayan view from Srinagar Hill; the fine day hikes and bike rides in the surrounding countryside. If you’re coming from India, Tansen makes a far more authentic introduction to Nepal than Pokhara, and at an altitude of 1370m, it’s usually pleasantly cool after the heat of the plains. From Pokhara, the 120 tortuous kilometres of the Siddhartha Highway provide a splendid show-opener.
Brief history
Under its old name of Palpa (by which many Nepalis still refer to it today), Tansen was one of the seats of the Sen princes, who may have been a local Magar clan or possibly Rajput princes fleeing the Muslim invasions of India. Either way, it was from his base in Palpa, that the dynasty’s fabled second king, Mukunda Sen, raided Kathmandu in the early sixteenth century. He is said to have carried off two sacred Bhairab masks, only to be cut down by a plague sent by the Pashupatinath linga. After Mukunda Sen’s death, in around 1533, his kingdom was divided between his sons, and weakened. Successors formed an alliance with Gorkha, which bought them breathing space when the latter began conquering territory in the mid-eighteenth century. Aided by the friendly Indian rajah of Oudh, to which it held itself feudally subject, Palpa staved off the inevitable until 1806, when it became the last territory to be annexed to modern Nepal. Tansen remains the headquarters of Palpa District, however, and retains a strong sense of its own dignity.