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 Nepal forms the very watershed of Asia. Landlocked
between India and Tibet, it spans terrain from subtropical jungle
to the icy Himalaya, and contains or shares eight of the world's
ten highest mountains. Its cultural landscape is every bit as diverse:
a dozen major ethnic groups , speaking as many as fifty languages
and dialects, coexist in this narrow, jumbled buffer state, while
two of the world's great religions , Hinduism and Buddhism, overlap
and mingle with older tribal traditions - yet it's a testimony to
the Nepalis' tolerance and good humour that there is no tradition
of ethnic or religious strife. Unlike India, Nepal was never colonized,
a fact which comes through in fierce national pride and other, more
idiosyncratic ways. Founded on trans-Himalayan trade, its dense,
medieval cities display a unique pagoda-style architecture, not to
mention an astounding flair for festivals and pageantry. But above
all, Nepal is a nation of unaffected villages and terraced hillsides
- more than eighty percent of the population lives off the land -
and whether you're trekking, biking or bouncing around in packed
buses, sampling this simple lifestyle is perhaps the greatest pleasure
of all.
But it would be misleading to portray Nepal as a fabled Shangri-la.
One of the world's poorest countries (if you go by per capita income),
it suffers from many of the pangs and uncertainties of the Third
World, including overpopulation and deforestation; development
is coming in fits and starts, and not all of it is being shared
equitably. Heavily reliant on its big-brother neighbours, Nepal
was, until 1990, run by one of the last remaining absolute monarchies,
a regime that combined China's repressiveness and India's bureaucracy
in equal measure. It's now a democracy , but corruption and frequent
changes of government have led to widespread disillusion and spawned
a simmering rebel insurgency; political freedom has changed little
for the average struggling Nepali family. |
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