Travel in the land of the Himalayas: A prologue to #VNY2020
The VNY 2020 Campaign, initiated by the Nepal Tourism Board, is a timely entry into sustainable tourism — needless to say, critics of the ideal see value in short-termism and a fast-track option for trendsetting rather than leisure pursuits of any kind. Nepal is not, for the most part, a tourist destination for the duplex clientele known to drink champagne in icy settings. As a nation, it is largely geophysical and local. Kathmandu deserves mention for its newly-retrofitted, 21st century-style contemporaneity.
Sacred landscapes, scenically-natural proliferation and diverse ethnic communities comprise the country’s locales. With new material infrastructures and structuralism itself making visible inroads into the provincial, we must take stock of the previously-hidden places to visit. The trip, in tourism parlance, has seen many renewals and pledges. But, there is real hope and real benefit. Key performance indicators of value additions to both local economies and travelers could yield surprising results as we progress into a stable and prosperous socio-political realm.
The shifting global order, both monetary and fiscal, touted in popular media heralds a balanced outreach as opposed to business as usual. International compliance, however, remains weak in actual terms. Risk is, nevertheless, seen, known and acknowledged with security measures and mechanisms positioned to normalize an otherwise uncertain public sphere. The ideal tourist and traveler for Nepal could, finally, receive the local fare s/he read about in a travelogue. The country, despite contrarian claims, is not a rigid and typically-insular state — simply, cautious.
Travel in the Nepali terrain has, often, eluded correct and accurate codification. The openness of western-style democracy and economic advantage appears to lose both marketing and branding diktats as Himalayan landscapes re-emerge not as material paradigms but, rather, as the chosen lands of the Himalayan people. Much is written about the local and the indigenous ways of life which preserve and grow. Little, sadly, is known about Nepal’s quest for socio-environmental justice. To be sure, the rule of law requires human understanding and agency.
Advanced channels of communication touted as the defining, saving grace for the teleios become, instead, means of exposure and alienation. While this is not a new phenomenon, neither is the Nepali travel ethos. Impunity, too, serves the political divide. There are cultural idioms that counsel for tolerance where modernities have failed to support racial harmony. Darwinism is known here as an extended theory. The Nepali hinterlands are not a stereotypical “hot, flat, crowded planet” borrowed from the Perrier ideology. Nevertheless, where change was necessary, it has been realized.
Deriving from medieval values of socio-voluntourism, many Nepali signifiers are embedded with good travel norms and practices. The wherewithal for the complete experience are, as yet, not within reach. The modern spa vacation needs no introduction but its Nepali translation can be found unassumingly and freely. God is in the detail. Recent decades were defined and redefined by the pursuit and acceleration of systems and design thinking but have faced, concomitantly, tremendous uncertainty born out of casual money as opposed to vibrant and smart work.
The future of tourism in Nepal could be interconnected, precariously, with the future of work — the signs are not entirely positive. The famous Sherpa is well-suited to relate this part of the narrative with insights into everything from mountain cabins to donkeys advertising the Fitbit. Small wonder, then, that geopolitics reigns supreme despite the coal miner’s solar wind farm-based coup de gras. Media reach as with mobile penetration, in this regard, has come a long way but many places remain lost in translation.
Prolific advertising of steep, ice cliffs and jagged bike swerves will not aid the cause of holistic rest, fitness, travel nor the adventurous return to nature. It takes a trained mind to scout the trail for the rest. The community bonfire is, as always, a racial trope. Travel as a statement of purpose is well within reach but irksome historicities, unfailingly, cap the bottlenecks. The mountains are geographical and high. The mid-hills are temperate by nature. The Terai is where the rice crops harvest in good sunshine. Nepal’s river systems are not, in any way, seminal materialities for the modern world. They are indispensable for the Nepali people and terrain. We are known even to guard them. “The river has a spirit.”
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal has recently published a report entitled “Glacier Status in Nepal and Decadal Change from 1980 to 2010 Based on Landsat Data (2014).” Barring the attendant fanfare and induced science speakeasy, the report is highly recommended for institutions and professionals working in the Asian travel industry. Nepal is, by and large, a climate refuge but glacial retreat is not storytelling nor place-branding for anyone, anywhere, at any point in time. The data is clear and remarkable.
“Travel is not supposed to be a precarious pursuit. In some ways it’s an antidote to a more pernicious problem — inaction.” — National Geographic
The April 2015 earthquake remains in the Nepali imagination only as metaphor. The structural trauma of fault lines unable to withstand pressure is tantamount to a Nepali meltdown. However, the response to losses and damage was near complete. The much-debated human versus nature inconsistencies are paradoxical here. The Himalayan ranges and valleys below are testimony and trial. We have risen to the occasion. Notwithstanding debris offenses, few tectonic struggles can be interlinked and sensationalized. The medium is the message.
As newer generations begin to decline urban and spatial degeneration, we can see truisms but also trite regeneration. It takes a Herculean imagination to connect the dots to the bedrock but it is a mammoth task to place the orbit. The world stands not as a unique departure in Nepal but as a revival of basic, simple and thorough community. Anthropogenic factors in climatology have borne peculiar evidence in many places in Nepal. The phenomenon-based era must revert to metaphysics and not to nature’s eventfulness — this is akin to expecting a harvest in the moonlight. While rays of the sun can be likened to a glorious spectrum of colour and light, the Nepali paradigm is not one of existence rather co-dependence when conditions are favorable. The rest, as they say, is history.
