A Country of Contrasts

So what of Nepal? It's not fair for me to give an opinion on the country as a whole, seeing as I only visited three places – Pokhara, Kathmandu and the Everest Base Camp trail. But I feel I saw enough to get a decent taster of this idiosyncratic nation.

Two worlds coexist in Nepal. One world, that of the Lakeside area of Pokhara and the Thamel area of Kathmandu, exists solely to cater to Western tourists. I'm sure a lot of visitors to Nepal only see this world. It's filled with steakhouses, pizzerias, internet cafés, hotels, bars, supermarkets selling Western goods...all the luxuries of back home, at inflated tourist prices.

But step outside this charade and the real, untidy, poverty stricken Nepal can be found. With a turbulent, unstable recent history (Nepal is the world's youngest republic, having been a monarchy for a long time previous to that), the country's infrastructure is painfully underdeveloped. Even after throwing off the chains of monarchy, huge problems still exist. In a country with huge potential for hydro-electricity generation, having rolling power cuts is unjustifiable (electricity was cut for 20 hours a day when we left – though most tourist spots have their own generators). This is even more unjust when you consider that Nepal actually exports electricity to it's neighbour India.

The word on the street is that corruption at all government levels is choking the country's development, an opinion that is hard to disagree with, having seen the way the country operates. Tourism seems to be the best developed industry in the country by far, but every other aspect of the country has a long way to go.



Despite all these obstacles, the people of Nepal are, for the most part, genuine, helpful and extremely hospitable, and always with a smile on their faces. These Nepalese qualities were never more apparent than in Shiva, who we hired to bring us up to Everest Base Camp but who had no problem helping us out finding accommodation after we returned, who guided us through our first Holi festival experience and who even brought us to the airport when we were leaving the country. All this and he asked for nothing in return.

The people of Nepal deserve a better quality of life. I hope they get it some day. And I hope the people of China can match up to their Nepalese neighbours in hospitality terms.