Day 127 - 1385 Metres Elevation. Bahundande to Chamje

We continue the trek up and down through lush green 'hills'. It seems in Nepal anything under 3000 metres is a hill. At one of our rest stops, a stone wall separated the tea house from the path. A herd of cows passed by, herded by a bamboo rod apparently waving it itself over the wall. As the stick passed the gate, it revealed the herdsman - a little girl of no more than 3 years old shooing the cows with authority. Her mother followed a few metres behind carrying a basket of vegetables, and giving the cows a shout when they didn't listen to their pint-size driver.

As we walk, we are following hills along the course of the Marsi Gandi river, and the views down the valley are spectacular. This is also one of the wettest regions of Nepal with many, many waterfalls. Since we are trekking just after monsoon, the falls are all tumbling at full bore, often throwing out rainbows in the spray.

We stopped to rest at a guesthouse about a kilometre before Chamje. The plan being for Cz to watch the packs while I went on ahead pack-free to see where the best accommodations would be. Our plans were thwarted by the Maoists.

Time for a brief (very brief and very broad) lesson in Nepali politics. Nepal is legally a Constitutional Monarchy. In reality is it a police or military state, as the military police are currently the ones with the most power, and the head of the military police sort of controls the monarch. There are 7 official political parties, but each of the parties has splinter groups and factions, so the real number is somewhere in the 3o's. There was supposed to be an election in mid-Novemeber, but the parties couldn't agree on a fair voting process, so the vote has been delayed indefinitely. The main two groups in most visible conflict right now are the military/police, and the Maoists. They are extremely violent toward one another with kidnappings, murder, and torture all being fairly common on both sides. Nepal actually has the highest per capita rate of "disappeared" persons of any country in the world. That said, none of the factions make any kind of violence towards international visitors. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, and tourism is one of the most lucrative industries. All parties involved know that if even one Westerner is hurt, it would destroy one of their most reliable sources of income.

The Maoists, however, have decided to capitalise on the Western wealth hiking in Nepal, and have set up checkpoints on most of the popular trekking routes (the "taxes" range anywhere from 100 to 5000 Nepali rupees, depending on the mood of the Maoists or whether they carry guns). The first I ran into was between the guesthouse where I left Cz, and the bulk of Chamje. Rather than face the Maoists alone, I returned to the guesthouse, and we spent the rest of the afternoon reading, playing cards, and enjoying the beautiful view of Chamje's waterfall. We figure if we spend the night here and get an early start, maybe the Maoists won't be out yet when we leave in the morning.