<figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3b99c7e80680e09666ejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Reservoir pond of the Pharping hydropower project 12 km south of Kathmandu Valley. Photo: ASMIT RAJBHANDARI</figcaption></figure>It was 6:30pm on 22 May 1911, and the sun had just set in Kathmandu when King Prithvi Bir Bikram Shah arrived at Tundikhel to turn on a switch to light Nepal’s first electric lamp.Nepal was the second country in Asia to install a hydroelectric power plant, commissioned by Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Rana, who named the project after himself: Chandra Jyoti. Chandra Shumshere had visited England eight years previously, and this was part of his grand plan to modernise Nepal with technology.Besides electricity, he established Nepal’s first college, built metal suspension bridges all over the country, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-walk-back-in-time-chandragiri-hatiban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">commissioned a cargo ropeway from Kathmandu to the Tarai</a>. He sent architects to Europe, and engineers and horticulturists for training to Japan. <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3bc9c7e80680e09666fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3bf9c7e80680e096670jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3c39c7e80680e096671jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3c69c7e80680e096672jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Construction of the 500kW plant in Pharping 12km south of Kathmandu began in 1907 with British engineers, and took four years to complete. All the turbines and penstock pipes were shipped to Calcutta, brought overland to Bhimphedi and then had to be carried on porter back over the mountains to the site.Built to light <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/inside-story-of-nepals-rana-dynasty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the palaces of the Ranas</a>, homes of courtiers and some street lights, the power station stored water from two springs, in Satmule and Sesh Narayan, in a circular reservoir. The Ranas first tested the electricity in a house in Khokana before connecting the wires tot their palaces, to ensure it was safe.Under supervision of the prime minister’s clan, the power plant was built by Tilkikram and Bakhat Bahadur from the Nepal Army, the main engineer for the power house was Kishore Narsingh Rana. Two engineers from England, ‘Barnau Puwante’ and a certain ‘Mr Linzale’, were also involved in the construction. <figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3c99c7e80680e096673jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3cc9c7e80680e096674jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3cf9c7e80680e096675jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3d29c7e80680e096676jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>In 1911, it had been only three decades since the world’s first hydropower plant had been installed on the Fox River in Wisconsin in 1882, and a year after China built its first hydropower plant in 1912 in Yunnan province.Despite this early start, Nepal got around to setting up its second hydropower project only 28 years later, a 640kW plant in Sundarijal in 1939. For a country with such a vast potential for hydropower, it would take Nepal another half-century to produce just 1MW of electricity.Since 1911 when Pharping was built, Nepal has managed to produce only 1,400MW of power from its rivers, not even 2% of its total potential. Since most of the plants are of the run-of-the-river type, electricity production fluctuates with water level on rivers. This spring, due to a long winter drought, for instance, Nepal is importing nearly half its peak hour demand <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/more-than-half-of-nepals-electricity-imported-from-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">from thermal power plants India</a>.Sadly, the history of Nepal’s oldest hydropower plant has now been almost forgotten. Although the government declared the power plant a ‘living heritage’ site in 1911, not much has been done to preserve the area. The power plant could be brought back into running condition, even as just a demonstration unit. <figure><img width="3000" height="2000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3d59c7e80680e096677jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3d99c7e80680e096678jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="1500" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3dc9c7e80680e096679jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The power house, the royal guest house and other buildings here are part of Nepal’s heritage, but are crumbling. Two 250kw generators have great historical significance, but are not properly preserved, metal pipes more than 100 years old lie rusting near the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/Comment/storing-water-reservoir-Nepal,1042" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reservoir</a>.For most of its functioning life, Pharping generated power for only three hours every night. Later, even when the reservoir started being used to supply drinking water to Lalitpur, it was generating electricity for one hour every evening.There is a masterplan to preserve Pharping as a Live Energy Museum with the old building renovated to house a centre for hydropower development, as well as research into <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/an-energy-windfall-for-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">renewable energy sources like solar and wind</a>.None of that has taken off, but 22 May is still marked as National Energy Day to pay homage to Nepal’s hydropower potential.This story was first published on <a href="https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1617686418226000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYgYjTYeKkemPKVPByKGEFPQOeiQ">The Third Pole</a>.

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Nepal’s 1st hydroelectric plant is a museum piece

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd6ee9c7e80680e092dafjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1554" height="954"/><figcaption>The original 12th-century Laxmi-Narayan stolen in 1984. Photo: LAIN SINGH BANGDEL In Sotheby’s catalogue in 1990. Photo: ERIN L. THOMPSON The deity in the Dallas Art Museum in 2014. Photo: ERIN L. THOMPSON</figcaption></figure>The stone figure of Laxmi-Narayan had been worshipped at a shrine in Patan’s Patko Tole for 800 years. But on one night of 1984, it disappeared.The holy androgynous composite of the two deities was so important to the community that local people replaced it with a poor replica.In 1990, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGZOp-uVkLUv31wf1lQZfZ8T1ohrg">the 12th-century statue, which is also known as Vasudeva-Kamala</a> was spotted at the Sotheby’s auction house based in New York. After that it disappeared again until American artist <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/Narratives-of-Faith-and-Memory-Remembering-the-Lost-Sculptures-of-Kathmandu-exhibition,987&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEspOXCRr77XIFGQB5cgNO81hoOrQ">Joy Lynn Davis</a> located it via a Google image search to the Dallas Museum of Art.The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is finally taking possession of the 70kg figure on Tuesday, and delivering it to the Nepal Embassy in Washington on 5 March, American Art Crime Professor, <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/530848/stolen-deities-resurface-in-a-dallas-museum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://hyperallergic.com/530848/stolen-deities-resurface-in-a-dallas-museum/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG-w4uPnw1nk_80MuQQmsrAACKjYQ">Erin L Thompson</a>, who has been tracking this and other stolen antiquities, told Nepali Times.“I am happy that the museum saw its retention of the work was unjust,” Thompson said. “I continue to be dismayed that museums and collectors demand the type of proof about the date and circumstances of theft that existed in this case, since this information has so often gone unrecorded elsewhere. No work of Nepali sacred art left the country legally, that is the essential fact.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd6f39c7e80680e092db0jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1610" height="1130"><figcaption>The Laxmi-Narayan figure as memorialised by Joy Lynn Davis in 2015. Painting by: JOY LYNN DAVIS</figcaption></figure>Heritage activists and local communities in Nepal say the return of Laxmi-Narayan statue could be the start of a process of repatriating thousands of other religious objects from Kathmandu that are now in Western private collections or museums.“We are glad our god has been located in Dallas and is being returned, but we must also ask ourselves whether we are up to taking good care of it,” Bhairaja Shrestha, a social activist of Patko Tole <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/replicating-nepals-stolen-gods/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGZOp-uVkLUv31wf1lQZfZ8T1ohrg">told Nepali Times last year</a>, adding that the community’s festivals and rituals were affected after the god was stolen.The image of the 15th-century deity was first published in Indian historian Krishna Deva’s book Images of Nepal in 1984, followed by Nepal’s art historian <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/bringing-our-gods-home/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFeA52pRTDl2zmfdFDn_q3kuxEQOQ">Lain Singh Bangdel’s book</a> Stolen Images of Nepal.<a href="http://rememberingthelost.com/repatriations/">Artist Joy Lynn Davis</a> painted Kathmandu’s shrines and depicted the stolen deities in them in gold, and held an exhibition of her work in 2015 that included a painting of the Patko Tole shrine.She says, “The day the Laxmi Narayan arrives in Nepal, I will be the happiest person—so many people and organisations have worked on this. The only way to protect them is to increase awareness about their significance. We have a lot of work to do, Laxmi-Narayan is just the beginning.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd6f69c7e80680e092db1jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1330" height="992"><figcaption>Bhairaja Shreshta at the Patko Tole shrine last year, with the replica of the Laxmi-Naryan.</figcaption></figure>The Lalitpur Metropolitan Office has <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/122418" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/122418&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGWCrhYsfr36aTj5vFMyePQQyKU9A">offered to pay for the shipment </a>of the Laxmi Narayan, and to restore it to its original shrine in Patku Tole after a ritual chhama puja.The Nepal Embassy in Washington has said it will start the process of sending the deity back to Nepal, and denied <a href="https://ekantipur.com/news/2021/02/28/161447682183787221.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ekantipur.com/news/2021/02/28/161447682183787221.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHc4H0lu6F3uy0HJKCt2LjPylD9Pg">media reports</a> that it did not have the money for air freight.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd6f99c7e80680e092db2jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1422" height="942"><figcaption>The 1993 exhibition East Meets West: Sculpture from the David T. Owsley Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art where the Laxmi-Narayan can be seen at centre, right. Photo: Dallas Museum of Art</figcaption></figure>Kumar Raj Kharel, the deputy chief of mission at the embassy, told Nepali Times: “I was misquoted. We have never said that we cannot pay for the logistics, just that we cannot send it to Nepal immediately. We had to look at the cost, insurance, and fulfil the lengthy bureaucratic process of consulting with the ministries of finance, culture, foreign affairs, and the Department of Archaeology in Kathmandu before dispatching it.”Thousands of stolen statues of Nepal to date remain in the display of international museums in many parts of the world and more that are found in the US, some may have provenance and some may not.Kharel added, “We hope the repatriation of the Laxmi-Narayan to Nepal will set a precedent for locating and returning other stolen images.”<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd6fc9c7e80680e092db3jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1002"><figcaption>The 12th century Laxmi-Narayan statue stolen from Patan in 1984 has been handed over to Nepal Embassy in the US. Deputy Assistant Director of FBI Timothy N Dunham and Nepal Ambassador to the US Yubaraj Khatiwada were present during the handover. Photos: AMITABH JOSHI</figcaption></figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7009c7e80680e092db4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="428"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110111148/636cd7039c7e80680e092db5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1002">He said museums and collectors with stolen antiquities from Nepal need to be responsible and abide by the UNESCO’s Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.<a href="https://hyperallergic.com/530848/stolen-deities-resurface-in-a-dallas-museum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://hyperallergic.com/530848/stolen-deities-resurface-in-a-dallas-museum/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1614733523195000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG-w4uPnw1nk_80MuQQmsrAACKjYQ">Art Crime Professor Erin Thompson</a> agrees. She says, “Every art lover in America has a responsibility to look at the art we see and ask if it is right for us to have it here.”

US museum returns stolen Nepal god

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70a79c7e80680e06008cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="899" height="685"/>The visitor to the Taragaon Museum is surrounded by faces: from large, realistic examinations of elderly men and women to symbolic portraits in abstract styles. An exhibition titled A Portrait Story studies the genre of portraiture from all angles.The oldest exhibit is a framed photograph of Chandra Shumsher, his wife Balkumari, and two of his sons. Back in the 19th century, such portraits were a way of putting your best face forward. The means to own a camera or hire a photographer were only available to the fabulously wealthy, and portraiture was status.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19789#.XiBDb_4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The first photographs of us</a>, Kanak Mani Dixit<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70a99c7e80680e06008djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="876" height="747"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Fast forward to the 21st century, where almost everyone has a mobile phone with which to take a selfie and disseminate it to the world at the press of a key. The exhibition comes full circle in showcasing two social media ‘influencers’ who constantly post selfies.It may seem that flattering depiction is the only purpose of portraiture. However, the genre also exists outside this narcissistic box, and this is where artists come in. A Portrait Story features many artistic explorations of the portrait genre.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/old-art-meets-new/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Old art meets new</a>, Sikuma Rai<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70ac9c7e80680e06008ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1456" height="1478">“Artists make a lot of portraits on commission, so these are commercial,” says co-curator of the exhibition Shivangi Bansal, “But we know of artists who make portraits just for the sake of making portraits. We wanted to see how artists are exploring this genre beyond commercial art.”Indeed, many of the portraits on display are not necessarily flattering. On the one end of the spectrum is hyper realism, where every tiny detail on a face, from a wrinkle to a missing tooth, is highlighted.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16424#.XiBEI_4zbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Art attack</a><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101116/636b70b09c7e80680e06008fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1236" height="1868">At the other end is experimentation, where the details of the face become irrelevant as artists play with outside objects, light and shadows. Manish Lal Shrestha paints only a fraction of his forehead on top of a pillow in ‘Sirani’. Pramila Bajracharya paints a two-dimensional figure of a Nepali woman that seems to portray her personality. Kapil Mani Dixit has an abstract piece which does not look like a portrait at all, while Saurganga Darshandhari experiments with a portrait without a face.Contemporary artists have also experimented with digital manipulations. The picture of a Kumari with an entire temple on her head is an example, and Ishan Pariyar depicts angst with a face that is bursting out of its rope bindings.A Portrait StoryTaragaon Museum, Boudha9-23 Jan

Portraying portraiture at Taragaon

<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96999c7e80680e05dc75jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="875"/>Many of the everyday items Nepalis traditionally used in their homes are going or gone. So have the words that described them. Plastic buckets have replaced brass gagro. Linoleum floors have taken the place of sukul straw mats.Most young Nepalis do not know what petaro, sakari, chulesi, dalo, doko, theki, dhiki, dheri, kolhu, sandook or mandro mean. Nepali words that described many of these objects are now extinct. Tharu words for utensils, Gurung vocabulary for household furniture and Rai or Limbu terms for farm equipment are all endangered.Judith Conant Chase has been in Nepal for nearly 50 years, and has made it her life’s work to collect and preserve many of these traditional objects. In 2012, she set up the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Return-of-the-past,907" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Living Traditions Museum at the Amatya Sattal in the Changu Narayan</a> complex to house her collection, so it could be seen by as many Nepalis as possible. By preserving the objects she has also saved the Nepali words for them.When the earthquake struck on 25 April 2015, Kathmandu Valley’s oldest monument zone was badly damaged. Some of the 1,300-year-old Licchavi era temples went down, the museum was damaged, but the exhibits were intact (including the Tharu clay pot hanging from the rafters in the photo, right). The structure has now been rebuilt, and Chase is trying to have the museum reopened in the new year.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a969b9c7e80680e05dc76jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="803" height="516">Travelling across Nepal in the 1970s, Chase admired the simplicity of people’s lives, their cheerfulness despite hardships, and the everyday handmade objects they used around the house — like the umbrella that Gurung villagers in Bhujung wove from nigalo strips and leaves, which Chase found ingenious because it also kept a farmer’s back dry while bending over to tend the fields.Maithili jewellery fascinated her, especially the sculpted silver bracelets that had strips joined into a ripple pattern. Over decades of being worn during work, the metal was weathered and polished into a shiny metallic brilliance. Doko baskets are perfectly crafted through a technique handed down from generation to generation of Gurung families, as are the felted carpets and capes of villagers in Ghandruk, and in Kathmandu the intricately carved bapa, used as a shrine in Newa homes. Another example, from Humla, was the colourful Nyinba woollen greatcoat, worn once a year during festivals (pictured overleaf).All these <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/art-of-everyday-living/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">items, lovingly preserved</a>, will be returned to their cubicles and exhibit cases once the Living Traditions Museum reopens. Chase’s book, Living Traditions of Nepal: The Beauty of Purposeful Living, is an encyclopaedic guide to the artefacts, and more.The voluminous 440-page, coffee table book is superbly illustrated and designed, and divided into sections representing the Himal, Midhills, Tarai and Kathmandu Valley. The text is arranged like extended captions, and interspersed with extracts from Chase’s journal of four decades ago.Chase decided to use her journal entries because the words recorded her feelings more accurately at the time, making the memories so much more real.One such extract, after seeing a sadhu at Pashupati on Shivaratri: ‘I feel invigorated, intoxicated, inspired, as if being in love. There is a whole way of being in the world that I had only sensed dimly… There is a feeling of a secret that everyone else knows that I am just beginning to glimpse, frustrating and enticing together.’She marvels at the ‘hanging life support system’ of Tharu homes, where food and storage items dangle from the ceiling, where protective smoke of the central fire preserved and cured stored food items. This was technology developed over centuries ‘out of a particular set of natural resource and household needs’.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a969e9c7e80680e05dc77jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="308" height="400">‘The lives of the Nepali people and their art objects are elegant, inspired, vigorous, humorous, vibrant, romantic, sometimes even a bit wild,’ writes Chase. ‘They are woven, hammered, carved, turned, painted out of the hand of artists, both household and professional.’<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a969f9c7e80680e05dc78jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="312" height="300">The Beauty of Purposeful Living: Living Traditions of Nepalby Judith Conant Chase<a href="https://serindia.com/products/the-beauty-of-purposeful-living-living-traditions-of-nepal-by-judith-conant-chase" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Serindia Publications (July, 2019)</a>Hardcover: 440 pages, $100ISBN: 978-1932476-90-3<h2>A life in the most precious place on earth</h2><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96a09c7e80680e05dc79jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125">Judith Conant Chase still remembers flying into Kathmandu in October of 1974, looking out of the window at the wrinkled terraces of rice fields, forested hills and the snowy mountains beyond, and telling herself: “This is the place.”The American had come to Nepal to try to climb a mountain in the Langtang Valley, and 45 years later she is still here. Along the way, she has done pioneering work to document Nepal’s crafts, joined an ashram, started an organic agriculture movement, collaborated on a project to market ceramic products and started a museum.“Nepal was so casual, and of the earth. It connected to nature in so many ways in the puja and the way people worshipped,” recalls Chase, who resonated with  the Hindu mantra ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ — truth is God, and God is beauty.She travelled across Nepal, and while many foreigners at the time marvelled at the scenery outside, Chase was drawn to the interior of people’s homes and the everyday objects they used: wooden storage bins, straw mats, bamboo baskets, clay vessels, metal craft.Chase never rushed through the countryside. She lingered and learnt from families she stayed with, collecting beautiful objects and understanding their traditional use and significance. She kept a journal, knowing that one day she would want to write a book and perhaps set up a museum.Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/art-of-everyday-living/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Art of everyday living</a>, Reeti K.C.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108181148/636a96a39c7e80680e05dc7ajpeg.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="427">Both the museum and the book have happened. The Beauty of Purposeful Living and the Living Traditions Museum in Changu Narayan complement each other. The museum was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake (left), has been rebuilt, and nearly five years later it is to reopen.“It was so impressive to me that there were no roads, and yet people were so capable, so self-sufficient,” Chase recalls of her travels through Nepal in the 1970s.Chase met and married <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/Jim-Danisch-and-Barbara-Adams%20-passed-away-this-month,3007" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jim Danisch </a>in a Hindu ashram in Banepa in 1984. Danisch worked on a ceramics promotion project in Thimi for the German agency, GTZ, training locals to make glazed pottery and developing a new type of kiln. The two went back to California to set up a pottery business, but soon found they were getting too old to chop firewood and cut grass, so one day Judith told Jim: “Let’s go home.”They returned to Nepal, where they worked on a farm in Kavre, and put together the Living Traditions Museum (See review, opposite.) After Jim died in 2016 in Dhulikhel, Judith continued working on her book and rebuilding the museum. All the while, the <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18931#.Xck2mNIza70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">organic farm in Kavre </a>demanded a lot of her time — helping villagers with pesticide and chemical-fertiliser free agriculture, preserving traditional seeds and the biodiversity of the forests.“Nepal in the monsoon is just so intoxicating. There is all this variety of words in Nepali for different types of rain, and the vegetation is so lush because of the warmth and moisture — there is extraordinary growth, which you do not have in a temperate climate,” explains Chase.In an experiment, she set aside a 1 sq m test plot in Kavre to study and classify every kind of plant that grew in it. There were 27 types, but she could identify only 18 of them. Chase thinks Nepal’s soil and fertility is so rich that artificial fertilisers are not needed — all the nutrients are already in the soil.Does it not pain her to see Nepalis not valuing nature, and the farms of Kathmandu Valley being replaced by urban sprawl? “It is not just Nepal, it is happening all over the world,” she says. “It is not exceptional, but it is tragic. Much is gone, but the vibrant traditions continue. Kathmandu Valley is one of the most precious places on earth.”

Kunda Dixit

The art of living

Where will Nepal be in 2050? It is only 25 years away. The country’s population will be peaking at 36 million, the poverty rate will drop to near zero. Maternal and child mortality rates will fall further. Nepal will be generating up to 40,000MW of hydro and solar power, more than half of that for export. Upgraded highways will improve connectivity, railways will make transport cheaper. Pokhara and Birganj will only be two hours away from Kathmandu. Nijgad airport could be Nepal’s new aviation hub, reducing Kathmandu’s congestion. Nepal will hitch its wagon to the engines of economic growth in India and China. Investment and job creation will reduce outmigration, Nepal's data centres will be powered with surplus electricity. Remote areas will prosper with high-value tourists. That is if all goes well. But if Nepal’s politics remains dysfunctional with incompetent leadership, then the country will muddle along as it is doing now. Society will be more unequal, public discontent may boil over as politicians resort to faith to hide failures, the exodus abroad of youth will continue. Climate breakdown will exacerbate these crises. Global average temperature will have risen to 2.7°C above pre-industrial levels (it is 1.1°C now). The remaining Himalayan icecap will shrink by half, glacial lakes will threaten valleys. The hydrology of rivers will change, reducing dry season flow. Severe and prolonged heat waves in the Tarai will force people to migrate back to the mountains. In the final analysis, it all boils down to a political system that is more accountable, and displays more integrity and efficiency. <h2>Mission 2050</h2> · Melamchi Water Supply Project · Pokhrara International Airport · Bhairawa International Airport · Upper Tama Kosi Hydroelectric Project . Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway What do these biggest infrastructure projects in Nepal have in common? All ended up being more expensive than they should, all have been delayed and are not fully operational, two were badly damaged in climate-related disasters that should have been foreseen. The $800 million Melamchi is Nepal’s most expensive infrastructure project to date. It took 30 years to build, but was nearly destroyed by a glacial debris flow in June 2021. The headworks need major repairs. The 456MW Upper Tama Kosi was severely damaged by a rockfall and floods in last September’s floods. It is still not operating at full capacity, and other hydropower plants were damaged in recent glacial floods. Pokhara and Bhairawa airports were supposed to be the new aviation gateways to Nepal to take the pressure off Kathmandu, and become game changers for tourism and pilgrimage. Nearly three years later, both handle domestic flights. Poor and inadequate design, kickbacks on contracts, cost overruns, failure of diplomacy to get India’s nod on air routes, and lack of planning and marketing have made the airports a pair of white elephants. Some of these setbacks can be blamed on natural calamities, but mostly it is political incompetence and greed, lack of accountability and poor implementation. That is no surprise, since these are the hallmarks of doing business in Nepal, often delaying projects, adding to the cost, and even when completed they are already outdated. That is the story of the last 25 years, are the next 25 going to be any different? Not if governance does not improve. “What we really need for the future is vision, idea, and understanding, and then the domestic capacity to implement them,” says infrastructure expert Surya Raj Acharya, who laments the total absence of technical and planning expertise. “None of our national highways meet technical standards, our cities are unplanned. The priority was never on quality. Politicians sold us short-term infrastructure that have now become a barrier to prosperity,” he adds. One silver lining has been private sector involvement in hydropower, and the energy strategy aims to generate 11,769MW by 2030. But hydropower is high-investment, high-risk due to climate breakdown, and ecologically damaging. “Hydropower is a good example of how government incentives and public-private partnership can work wonders, although we now have to take climate change into account,” explains economist Kalpana Khanal of the Policy Research Institute. She adds, “We now have to identify other key infrastructure areas that also enhance the growth of other sectors.” The National Planning Commission’s periodic plans guide overall social and economic strategy for the country into the coming decade. Nepal’s current five-year plan (2024-2029) has set a target of 7.3% annual economic growth against the current 3.9%, $2,351 per capita income up from $1,456 at present, and poverty reduction to 12%. The plan aims to export nearly half the hydropower generated by 2030, earning the country Rs41 billion annually. But there is no real coordination between line agencies, and bureaucratic lethargy leads to constant delays, says former member of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Min Bahadur Shahi. “Development in Nepal is still very much synonymous with building roads and bridges, and infrastructure is rudimentary,” he says. “Elsewhere in the world, digital infrastructure and governance go hand in hand, we are far behind.” The frustration of a man who served in the National Planning Commission is an indication where the problem lies: in actually executing plans and implementing strategies. “We need to prioritise projects based on our geography, climate, societal needs,” Shahi continues. “We want to push Nijgad airport when we can’t even operate Pokhara and Bhairawa. Have we even studied potential air routes and needs of international carriers?”  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726070744_0547e5a7fd4424b5de8c279cab637ee7ebd9e65f2673b15e6dbd4eb2aa2524f2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250726070744_0547e5a7fd4424b5de8c279cab637ee7ebd9e65f2673b15e6dbd4eb2aa2524f2" data-rendition-name="original" width="3600" height="2400" loading="lazy" alt="Pokhara airport"><figcaption>NO FLY ZONE: Pokhara airport was supposed to be the new aviation gateway to Nepal but nearly three years after its inaguration, it mostly handles domestic flights. Photo: RADHIKA KANDEL </figcaption></figure>  TARGET PRACTICE Export of hydropower, manpower and lately information technology are the mainstays of Nepal’s economy, and will carry the country to its graduation from Least Developed Country status to a developing country in November 2026, and hopefully to middle-income by 2030. Nepal has an installed capacity of about 3,800MW, most of it from hydropower, and increased adoption of electric cars has reduced the import of petroleum products, decreasing the trade deficit with India. Meanwhile, Nepalis abroad sent home $11 billion in remittances last year, and at least $900 million in backend IT exports. But demographer Yogendra B Gurung is not impressed: “Despite the reduction in the poverty rate, and our improving income status, life expectancy, income, even maternal and infant mortality are not on par with countries with similar economic status.” He says relying on remittances is an unsustainable economic model, vulnerable to external factors and remittances are mostly spent on day-to-day needs, and not invested in productive sectors. Remittance is credited with reducing poverty in Nepal which is down to 20.27% from 42% in 1990. Money sent home by workers abroad has allowed families to afford basic healthcare and education, in turn helping to reduce childhood malnutrition and maternal mortality while improving female literacy. But the progress has stalled in recent years, and many doubt Nepal will meet its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets. The National Planning Commission has said Nepal is likely to achieve just 60% of the targets by 2030. Sex ratio at birth, which is 112 boys to 100 girls in Nepal in particular, is worrying, as it is much higher than the biological ratio of 105 to 100. This is much more pronounced in Karnali, Sudurpaschim and Madhes Provinces which suffer from historical neglect. Despite a rise in female literacy, patriarchy is still deeply entrenched and the provinces are behind the rest of the country for gender equality, education, healthcare, nutrition and economic opportunities. “Karnali is resource-rich, especially hydropower and the recent discovery of the methane gas, but inequality is much greater,” says Shahi, who is with the Karnali Integrated Rural Development and Research Centre (KIRDARC). “Federalism in Nepal is only on paper, we need a total structural reform to devolve political power to really bring about change.”  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726070744_fd4a218656e1fbf6f13f5f87a47bfe624516c6a0232481b6be77875ae866deb9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250726070744_fd4a218656e1fbf6f13f5f87a47bfe624516c6a0232481b6be77875ae866deb9" data-rendition-name="original" width="3600" height="2400" loading="lazy" alt="Butwal-Narayangadh "><figcaption>The Daunne section of the Butwal-Narayangadh road notorious for traffic jams and accidents, it has been in never-ending construction for three years. Photo: BISHNU PRASAD GAUDEL / RSS </figcaption></figure>  Despite limited resources, Nepal also suffers from wasteful investment as a result of politically (mis)guided decision-making, instead of people-centric plans and policies, says demographer Gurung. “People are overwhelmingly moving to the cities but our leaders are hell bent on building roads to every village and now there are empty schools in the mountains,” he adds. Nepal needs data-driven planning but its long-term economic vision 2020-44 seems more of a wish-list than realistic goals, including average annual GDP growth of 10.5%, $12,000 per capita income and population under the absolute poverty line at 0. Other goals include raising electricity generation capacity to 40,000MW, access to motor transport to 99%, life expectancy at birth to 80, maternal mortality down to 20% and literacy to 99% and 100% access to the internet, among others. Meanwhile, Nepal is committed to net-zero by 2045 and 100% renewable energy by 2050. “Our planners have no idea what kind of infrastructure we need 20, 30 years down the line to sustain and accelerate growth. We need a big structural change in the political leadership, in technocratic planning, and for policy implementation,” says infrastructure expert Surya Raj Acharya. Meeting such targets would require large investment, and it would be unwise to rely on remittances for the longer run, especially as Nepal’s demographic dividend will diminish as it turns into an aged society by 2065. Reversing out migration requires a favourable investment climate so jobs are created. Good governance marked by accountability and transparency are the basic prerequisite for ease of doing business. But lack of rule of law and illicit funds put Nepal in the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money-laundering watchdog. “Everything comes down to a political will. The established parties must realise that if they don’t perform, they will be replaced by alternatives,” says Kalpana Khanal. “In the meantime, we must engage the youth and find ways to retain them as well as attract the diaspora to invest in Nepal.”

Nepal in 2050

MetLife Nepal has signed Rohit Paudel and Indu Barma, the captains of the national men’s and women’s cricket teams, to promote the importance of life insurance.

Metlife signs Nepal cricket captains

Many of us former Nepal Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) would agree that our time in Nepal changed in significant but very different ways our perspectives on life if not the future paths we chose to follow. Of no one was this truer than Dorothy Mierow. Dorothy was born in 1920, in Colorado Springs. Her father Charles C Mierow was a classics scholar and Latin professor, who served for ten years as president of Colorado College.&nbsp; Dorothy developed an interest in animals as a child, graduated with a BA degree in natural history from Carlton College in 1942, a Master’s in biology from the University of Pittsburgh, and another Master’s in geography from the University of Minnesota.&nbsp; As a young woman, Dorothy traveled with her father throughout Europe, including a visit to ancient Greek ruins, and took a Magellan Tour by cruise ship around the world in 1958.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_0bad133ab22aada319e74bbad95d563e191371db291c08f373839fbd15440262.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025071901074_0bad133ab22aada319e74bbad95d563e191371db291c08f373839fbd15440262" data-rendition-name="original" width="903" height="1178" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>HOME AWAY FROM HOME: Dorothy Mierow as a college student in her native Colorado.</figcaption> </figure>  She was a college teacher during much of the 1940s, also teaching at a girls’ school in Hawaii. Then back to her native Colorado in 1953, where she became a curator and later director of the Colorado College Natural History Museum. She taught geography classes, and in her free time, Dorothy climbed 22 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks. Traveling in India in 1960, Dorothy decided to spend two weeks in Nepal. In late 1961, she filled out an application to join the Peace Corps and specified that she wanted to go to Nepal, ‘because I admired the people so much when my father and I were there on our trip’.&nbsp; Dorothy reached Kathmandu in September 1962 as the first group of American Peace Corps volunteers in Nepal. She stood out from the others: one of the few women in that group, surely the oldest at age 41, a world traveler, and a woman who already had established a professional career.&nbsp; One doubts if Dorothy had had a husband and children whether she would ever have gone to work and spend much of the rest of her life in Nepal.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901078_68e84ade1ffb0f6c83c7f8fa5c1e7315b5f6c543217f96cde012e4d86f171515.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025071901078_68e84ade1ffb0f6c83c7f8fa5c1e7315b5f6c543217f96cde012e4d86f171515" data-rendition-name="original" width="1259" height="910" loading="lazy" alt="How th Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life NT"> <figcaption>Pokhara Bazar in 1962.</figcaption> </figure>  The Peace Corps assigned Dorothy to teach geography at Tri-Chandra College. After the school closed in the winter due to lack of heating, USAID and the College of Education asked Dorothy to help train general science teachers.&nbsp; She taught for two months and became involved in a textbook-writing project, commenting: ‘I would like the children to know something about public health, conservation (the trees are going fast and so is the soil), and learn the names of some of their common birds, trees, and flowers. They are more impressed with electricity, airplanes, and cell structure.’ When a new college opened in Pokhara in 1963, Dorothy was transferred there and lived with a Nepali family. The college boasted 30 students and no permanent buildings.&nbsp; In October 1963, Dorothy wrote: ‘Pokhara is a town of almost 5,000 people … We are in a fertile valley surrounded by foothills … There is a small Mission Hospital … a Leper Hospital and Tibetan Refugee Camp started by the Red Cross and now run by the Swiss. With winter approaching, more Tibetans are appearing in town, often with pack horses or donkeys. Some have been carrying large boxes of powdered milk,donated (by USAID) to the camp from the airport … There is no electricity, and the transportation problems make many items scarce and expensive. I am really a sort of a museum. The landlord brings all kinds of people in to see how I live and count my shoes and dresses. They express amazement at my books, pictures, tin oven, Nepali dolls from Kathmandu, screened food shelves and curtained closet.’ The standard term for Peace Corps volunteers was two years, but Dorothy extended her term and was still at Prithvi Narayan College at the end of 1965, when she wrote that she had 20 Geography students in the first-year class and 6 in the second year preparing for the IA Examination. The college enrollment was 125 students, and the foundation for a new science building was being excavated.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_c6a80e5e0db0c705b2f8733c6d30dc0386fe3abbd2238ea9d947b7d746f94a29.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025071901074_c6a80e5e0db0c705b2f8733c6d30dc0386fe3abbd2238ea9d947b7d746f94a29" data-rendition-name="original" width="902" height="605" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow and friends at Phewa Lake.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy noted that she ate one meal a day at the (Shining Mission) Hospital but otherwise lived on dal-bhat, momo, and potato curry at local shops. However, she had developed a new passion: to build what she initially called the Pokhara Museum of the Himalaya. In commendable Peace Corps fashion, Dorothy always worked with Nepalis and respected the culture. ‘The greatest joy and satisfaction I have had has been from the building of a Museum-Library in memory of my parents … It has been possible to feel like a wealthy benefactor with the money saved by father for the family’s education and now available for the education of others… (Father) would have loved to be in on the founding of a new college and be able to plan a library. Several hundred of the books to be in the museum-library came from his collection and were carefully selected to be of use for students in Nepal…’&nbsp; ‘The museum part is to satisfy my own inclinations and was thought of when I found how little diversion there was for the people of Pokhara… It is part of the University requirements for the college that it should have a geography and biology museum. The museum building is small but adequate.&nbsp; I have tried to design it in harmony with Nepalese architecture and decorate it with some of the art of the best artists or woodcarvers… Posts holding up the porch roof are carved by Cottage Industries to represent different peoples of Nepal in typical costumes. The door was carved by a local wood carver and has typical birds of Nepal around it. Inside are 10 roof-support carvings designed by the retired Director of the National Museum in Kathmandu, Mr. C.M. Maskey.&nbsp; They were carved by the best wood carvers in Patan very skilfully. The building has three rooms: the library, the exhibition room, and a smaller workroom which can be used by our newly formed Woman’s Club as well as other groups or classes.’  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_03d3359c65389d30a0134e9a4862778994121e7e833b7d28b18e06e36fc76ff8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2025071901074_03d3359c65389d30a0134e9a4862778994121e7e833b7d28b18e06e36fc76ff8" data-rendition-name="original" width="629" height="599" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow with local women in Pokhara in 1969.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy promoted her project to influential Nepalis connected with organisations whose support she solicited: The Department of Archaeology, the Department of Agriculture, the Godavari Botanical Gardens; Tribhuvan University’s Science and Education Department, Nature Conservation Society.&nbsp; The museum was opened officially in early 1967. The Annapurna Natural History Museum, the building Dorothy designed and had constructed, is still open and features some exhibits which she created many years ago.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_54326a8a0685e980e782378076de2f5cd02d2426e9b0d94eed972d3dbe83af26.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2025071901074_54326a8a0685e980e782378076de2f5cd02d2426e9b0d94eed972d3dbe83af26" data-rendition-name="original" width="1333" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>The Annapurna Natural History Museum.</figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy returned to America in 1967, but she longed for Nepal. In the spring of 1969, she again tried to enroll as a Peace Corps volunteer but was told that as she had spent more than four years, she would not be eligible for another assignment. Undeterred, she persuaded the college in Pokhara to invite her to return as a teacher.&nbsp; UNICEF and the Forestry Department sponsored Dorothy to prepare charts on trees, birds, animals and flowers in colour for distribution to the schools of Nepal. Dorothy, back in the Peace Corps, returned to Pokhara and the Museum in 1972. She formed a friendship with her former geography student from Sikles, Chandra Prasad Gurung, and in 1974, she brought Chandra to America, where he enrolled in Colorado College and studied cultural anthropology.&nbsp; Chandra subsequently earned his PhD in geography from the University of Hawaii and returned to Pokhara to become director of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project. Gurung actively promoted ecotourism, landscape conservation, and biodiversity conservation in Nepal. His life was cut short along with those of 23 other Nepalis and foreigners who perished in a helicopter crash near Taplejung in September 2006.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025071901074_322d3c3ac6f1b08ffa07c44a19998b937a7db9eb43527f7539cf6481e1546314.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2025071901074_322d3c3ac6f1b08ffa07c44a19998b937a7db9eb43527f7539cf6481e1546314" data-rendition-name="original" width="2500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer's life"> <figcaption>Mierow's four books on Nepal and its biodiversity. </figcaption> </figure>  Dorothy worked with several well-known Nepalis to publish her paintings and photos in beautifully illustrated books. She and Hemanta Mishra of the National Parks and Wildlife Service wrote Wild Animals of Nepal (Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1976). More than 400 photos Dorothy took on treks to the Everest region, Gosaikunda, Muktinath, Jumla and Rara Lake, as well as travels in the Tarai, appeared in Himalayan Flowers and Trees (Sahayogi Prakashan, 1978).&nbsp; The botanist Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha identified the species. Dorothy and Kesar Lall published This Beautiful Nepal (Sahayogi Press, 1981). Birds of the Central Himalayas (1988) contained Dorothy’s paintings of 250 species of birds found along the areas of the Kali Gandaki River, Pokhara, Chitwan and the central Tarai. Dorothy summed up her life and work in Nepal in Thirty Years in Pokhara (Pilgrims Book House, 1997). Dorothy returned to Pokhara and her adopted Gurung family several times during the 1980s and 1990s to celebrate festivals and meet old friends. Her final years were spent at her mountain cottage in Green Mountain Falls north of Colorado Springs. She died at the age of 79 in August, 2000. Nepal gave new meaning and purpose to Dorothy Mierow’s life. Daniel W Edwards was a Peace Corps volunteer in 1966 and is the author of several books on Nepal. The author thanks Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College.

How the Peace Corps changed a volunteer’s life

The monsoon has got bad press because Nepal’s tourism operators actively told visitors to avoid <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/managing-the-monsoon?%2F">the rainy season</a>. It is time to change that. The reason can be found right here in the vast alpine meadows of Central Nepal where this time of year you can walk on velvet grass of pastures abloom with delicate pink, red and yellow flowers as the mist rolls up the valley. There is no sound except the hum of bumble bees. &nbsp;&nbsp; There are dozens of places across high Nepal called Chaurikharka, which means yak pasture. But this particular Chaurikharka in Rukum East located at an altitude of 4,000m stands out for its serene beauty, rustic charm and bucolic setting. There is just the occasional chime of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">yak bells</a> in the distance, and the sharp whistle of herders corralling sheep. &nbsp;&nbsp; The grass shoots are so fragile that one hesitates to step on them, the rounded ridges appear and quickly vanish in waves of mist. With the<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/before-the-next-monsoon"> arrival of monsoon</a>, these meadows are a soothing shade of green dotted with millions of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-anatomy-of-a-flower?%2F=">multi-coloured flowers</a>. Until very recently, it took a week or so to hike up to places like Chaurikharka, but with the expansion of the road network even to these far-flung mountains in the lap of Dhaulagiri, they are much more accessible. It is just a three-hour uphill from the Mid-Hill Highway on the border between Baglung and Rukum East.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250802130828_a0b06b494d751b2144ffbbf10894ea64b29e8aed844bc8c66171783abfaf4e16.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250802130828_a0b06b494d751b2144ffbbf10894ea64b29e8aed844bc8c66171783abfaf4e16" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon"> </figure>  Purists would say that such easy access devalues the sanctity of these remote high meadows, but it also means more people will be moved to treasure the experience, appreciate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/natures-fragile-gift-to-nepal">the value of nature </a>so they can take steps to protect it.&nbsp; To be sure, the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/deadly-monsoon-in-nepal-turns-deadlier">monsoon season can be challenging for road travel</a>. The roads are rough even at the best of times, and in the monsoon they become muddy and treacherous, often blocked by<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/monsoon-deluge-in-nepal"> landslides</a>. But that could be precisely the kind of adventure that the more intrepid visitors crave. Improved road connectivity has already made Chaurikharka and places like Badimallika &nbsp;and other sacred lakes in the mountains of western Nepal popular with domestic tourists. What is driving this traffic is the urge to go to exotic new places and share videos and selfies on social media. Several of Nepal’s travel vloggers have visited Chaurikharka and popularised the place, enticing followers on TikTok or YouTube to retrace their footsteps. But even as they become more popular, these fragile and once-remote places should be protected from over-tourism.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250731110736_f97110b7cdc3e7f80d5877690948fc9f4c95a09c583deb23b07355491e6c5446.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250731110736_f97110b7cdc3e7f80d5877690948fc9f4c95a09c583deb23b07355491e6c5446" data-rendition-name="original" width="1083" height="699" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon NT"> </figure>  <h2>INCREASING FOOTFALL</h2> Chaurikharka is located in Bhume Rural Municipality of East Rukum, near the scenic valley of Dhorpatan in Baglung district. Even in the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/monsoon-culture">middle of the monsoon</a>, there is a steady stream of Nepali hikers trooping to these high pastures – especially during festival days like Saune Sankranti which this year was on 17 July and actually marks the auspicious beginning of the monsoon here. “This year the rains have not been as heavy and there have been some clear mornings when we could see everything from Dhaulagiri to Machapuchre,” says Khageswar Bhandari, who trekked up here from the road. “The flowers, the greenery and the snowy mountain views make this an incredibly unique place.”&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250802130824_1b9e26f2e9853fdfe69154bb42a7c9ea6da4bf4940efc1da99b304dcfbd7d3d9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250802130824_1b9e26f2e9853fdfe69154bb42a7c9ea6da4bf4940efc1da99b304dcfbd7d3d9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1152" loading="lazy" alt="Visit Nepal in the monsoon"> </figure>  Chaurikharka is worthwhile to get to in any season, but it has a different charm during the monsoon. Word has spread and because it is now easy to get to from Baglung or even Pokhara, people have been flocking here.&nbsp; “Holidays and Saturdays see the largest crowds, with up to 500 visitors every day,” says ward chair Mankaji Pun of Bhume.&nbsp; There was a time not too long ago when local herders brought sheep, goats, cows, buffaloes, horses, and mules to graze here during the monsoon. Although there are still livestock around, animals have been replaced by visitors taking selfies. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-monsoon-and-nature-s-arithmetic">The monsoon, and nature’s arithmetic</a>, Tom Robertson Ward Chair Pun says infrastructure development is his main priority. A foot trail to Chaurikharka was built last year by the Tourism Division Office in Kohalpur, but access via the Raniwas-Koipa road section still remains challenging.&nbsp; “If we get more budget, we can improve the road and facilities to make Chaurikharka the main tourist attraction of this region,” says Bhume Municipality Chair Hom Prakash Shrestha. “After that, we hope to promote Chaurikharka as a top tourist spot.”&nbsp; Economic activity is also picking up with the arrival of visitors, but there seems to be a need to manage the makeshift sheds made of corrugated sheets that spoil the beauty of the place. Tea shops and lodges are also available but facilities are basic. Kuldeep Neupane took a three-day trip from Ghorahi in Dang to visit Chaurikharka recently, and says: “This is an ideal trip to make a quick getaway and let nature recharge your mind and body. And it is much more fun with a tent, to watch the sunrise over the Himalaya or the mist blowing in.”