from Jenna about Lo Montang

We spent 12 days in the most remote region of Nepal. In fact this region is still called the Forbidden Region because, until recently, no tourists were allowed in. To get in we had to register months in advance, complete the necessary permist, and hire a trained and certified guide (and porters) who would spend the 12 days with us. Here are a few "snapshots or this place.

LO is a place where.......

-every dinner is a candle light or cook fire dinner
-Dal Bhat is served for lunch and dinner -- a LARGE heap of rice, a small cup of lintles in garlic and ginger broth, Aloo (curried potatoes) and sauteed mustard greens. This meal is served on a LARGE round metal plate which is refilled as fast as you can empty a compartment.
- there are only 15 villages in the region and some have as few as 60 people or as many as 600 (there are about 6000 people total in Lo)
- people wash laundry, dishes, children, and themselves at the community waterpump (a large croud gathered when we did our laundry-- later we found out that they all realy enjoyed watching us wash our clothes (underwear and all)in DISH washing soap
- villages seem to be only two mile apart, but to get to the next village, we had to walk 7 hours, climb 5 steep narrow trails, descend 5 rocky switchback trails, cross 3 wooden bridges patched with ROCKS, and wade threw onw swollen river with water up to our knees
-the bathroom, if we were licky, was in a ROOM with walls and a ceiling and porcelin rimed hole in the floor, when we were unlucky, there was a hole in a sagging mud floor surrounded by a stacked rock wall with no ceiling and a door that would not shut, or we used the "natural toilet"
- Tashi Deleg means hello and Tu tu che means thank you
- Naryan, our wonderful guilde, painted his face (just like ours) using red, orange, white, dark gray, and mustard colored natural rock pigments we found near a Chortan (mud and rock shrines that can be seen all over Nepal)
- Binod, Ganish, Hari, and Gopal, our porters, sang and laughed with us, cooked for us, waited for us at the top of big climbs, danced with us, and spent 12 days exploring monistaries, rivers, caves, villages, asnd the mountains of this Northern region in Nepal
- Saligrams (spiral chambered nautulus fossils, over 20 million years old) can be found in the river beds
- snow can be seen on the tall peaks
- showers, IF THERE IS SUCH A THING, are COLD!!!!
-homes are made from stacked rocks packed with mud and the roof is made from mud covered branches
- the floors in homes and monistaries are sprinkled with water a few times a day to settle the dust and to level out the scuff marks on the dirt floors
-meals are cooked over fires
-there is NO ice for drinks
-besides small junipers, the only vegitation has been planted by hand and wateres by irrigation ditches also dug by hand
-prayer flags fly and rocks are stacked at the top of tall mountains and steep climbs as a welcome, and to honor a tough journey, celebrate an accomplishment. When we added our rocks to these piles we joined our guide in saying, "So So So So La" it means victory to the gods
-children who may not speak any English, still know, "Chocolate? Rupee? School Pen?"
- some people may have never seen a white face before
- there is NO TV, raido, or telephone, grocery store, laundrymat, or fast food restaurant
- children may not go to school becuase there is not one in their village, it is too far to walk to the nearest school, or they are responsible for caring for younger siblings or working in the fields
- AND people drink YAK BUTTER Tea---- aarrggghhh!!!!

SO much more to say, but it is getting late, and as you will read on Jane's blog, we have just arrived in Kathmandu after a long hard journey.

Reba-- we miss our roomie!!! Debra, Eric, Joey, Tom, Diane, we miss you guys too.
Thank you to everyone who is responding to our blog, we love to hear from you!

more soon Jenna