It’s been 6 days since it started raining around the Annapurna Circuit Trek (all around Nepal really, but we’re currently along the road where the circuit trek starts, having spent about a week in Manang, then a few days in Bhratang where there’s climbing). Once it started on Tuesday evening (4th Oct), the rain was relentless for over 48 hours, before letting up a little bit (meaning mostly rain with perhaps a few hours without rain or just a light drizzle). Saturday (8th Oct) was the first day we saw a bit of blue sky, and everyone thought perhaps the weather has turned for the better, but Sunday proved everyone wrong.
Rain, even periods of heavy rain, wouldn’t normally affect our schedules and our lives, us city-dwellers with our apartments and tarmac roads, living in a built environment that is designed for comfort, away from the elements. Here, in the Annapurna region of Nepal (and in many other regions as well), it causes landslides and mudflows, rockfalls and broken roads, muddy roads and gushing waterfalls where there were none.
The rain disrupts/disrupted plans for travellers to hike the Annapurna Circuit Trek (and other treks around the area), in particular to cross the Thorong La pass (5400 masl), and for locals to go to/from other parts of Nepal for their major Dashain festival. With parts of the road broken or rendered inaccessible by mudflows or landslides, motor vehicle access is impossible. Only by one’s own two feet, can one go up (towards Manang at 3500 masl, where the jeep road ends) or down (towards Besisahar at 760 masl, the gateway to the ACT and where the public buses usually ends).
Even still, the path is treacherous. Crossing a mud flow (meaning you sink into the mud to your ankles/shins/thighs) on the road while more mud and rock is slipping down, with a local woman shouting when to go faster or when to turn back. Getting past what used to be a small, passable waterfall but has turned into a torrent of water gushing down, which requires going into the forest to move from tree to tree.
*From first hand accounts from hikers staying at the hotel we’re at, or photos and videos shared on a WhatsApp group for travellers in the region and needing real-time information on weather and road conditions.
We had attempted to go down from Bhratang (2900 masl) and back to Kathmandu on Wednesday, thinking the roads to still be serviceable after just a night’s rain. 7 km downhill, having passed a few small-ish landslides (at that point, but which have now turned into pretty dangerous ones), just outside the Manang district headquarters of Chame (2650 masl), our motorbike got caught in a mud slide. While the tourists took photos/videos of us struggling to move the bike across, two local Manangi men (probably walking home to receive Tikka blessings for Dashain) helped us drag the motorbike across. Going any further (in the still pouring rain) seemed foolish, so we just stayed put.
Being stuck here in Chame hasn’t been too bad, the electricity and wifi comes and goes, but the owner of Hotel White Stupa is generous with the fuelwood, keeping the dining hall warm and toasty. Some travellers came in to the hotel and expressed surprise at how “modern” it is, which somehow strikes me as being a rather condescending and unnecessary remark. Should places along the trek (nearly a third of which goes along a usually serviceable jeep road) not have wall sockets and electric lights, tables and chairs, glass windows and I don’t-know-what-else-gave-the-impression-of-modernity?
Arguably, the hotel being only 4 years old and having an owner who usually lives in Kathmandu and used to live/study in Malaysia, there is a difference in construction and service provided by this hotel and others that are run by the local Manangis (concomitant with the price difference). Still, it bothers me somehow to hear judgements being passed by foreigners, of “remoteness” or “modern-ness”, of expectations of how a place should be.
It makes me wonder, what makes a place remote, or wild? It is a concept I grapple with in my PhD, since constructions of wilderness and remoteness that need to be protected/conserved are rife. Perhaps the lack of “modern” amenities, like an espresso machine or a supermarket stocked with endless choices of processed and packaged foods, or vegan options? Manang (while we were there, before the heavy snowfall cut out electricity and communications) had about three/four bakeries with espresso machines, yet I still witnessed some travellers aggressively questioning one of the staff about the ingredients in the bread (because they were apparently allergic to milk, yet when presented with the dried milk powder that the bakery uses for their bread, were still not satisfied and demanded to see the kitchen). Does the lack of options that satisfy every consumer thus make a place “remote”? Or is that simply entitlement and individualism taken too far?
There is a desire amongst certain strands of travellers to be in remote, wild places. Where “human influence” is few and far between, perhaps. Where the elements (rain/snow, wind, sun) still have a will of their own they can impose upon humans, perhaps. Where one can feel their lives to be under threat, perhaps, because certain infrastructure, usually requiring the use of fossil fuels, are unavailable. Yet we also know that such places (whether the mountains or forests) have long been traversed and inhabited by humans. While travellers lament and discuss the weather and road conditions with great seriousness and fear and complain about being stuck in an area, the locals carry on with their lives, laughing and making jokes. Helping to clear obstacles and re-build the roads, hauling motorbikes across sticky terrain, supplying chiya and biscuits through the rain.
Perhaps it’s mostly in “remote areas”, where life can still be tough and unpredictable, that humanity shines through the most.
Jocelyne Shimin Sze 
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