I am mildly curious if I will find some way to celebrate Christmas this year. Probably hotels will put on a Christmas meal for those interested. When working at the school, I recall a couple of Christmas Days when I would work as usual and not take the day off, but a doctor from the Bath area in the UK was out working as a volunteer for a few months in Dhulikhel Hospital, and he would invite a few British people to his flat, quite near where I lived in Dhulikhel, for a Christmas meal in the evenings, which was certainly welcome. So, although I don’t miss the Christmas and New Year atmosphere, there is a lingering attachment to some kind of recognition of that special day.
The incredible smog continues here, but the Nepalis appear to be oblivious of it, just accepting it as normal. At least it is not so far an irritant to eyes and throat. Rajiv, who works in the health sphere, is on a contract for WHO in the Terai, the border area with India, which being warmer has a greater amount of infectious diseases and plenty of parasites. He is working with vaccination programmes. He mentioned that it was getting colder down there, but still it can’t be as cold as Kathmandu which is about 1500m up. He was surprised when I said most of the air pollution was coming from India. It can be quite warm from about 11.00 am to 4.00 pm, but noticeably cooler when out of the sun. And after 4:00 pm you really notice how damp it is. windy.com reports presents humidity of 55%, but on the Indian border it rises to 83%. It is windless. windy.com also shows all the layers of the pollution, which is even worse in the north Indian plain, that is sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and PM 2.5, the fine particulate matter which can enter into the lungs and is just not a good thing for us to be breathing, being linked to all kinds of health conditions. The air quality here is one reason I would be reluctant to live anywhere in this region. Generally, in the south of Spain, the air quality is good. Today almost no PM 2.5 is reported.
The Nepalis are very stoical as the houses are unheated, so this means a cold December and even colder January, when schools close for three weeks. It’s important, as in Spain, to try to have a least one room which will get winter sunshine, but often that is not so, as the house in which I used to live in here proved each winter. The sun barely gave any warmth through the forest above, and now some organisation has erected a building above which blocks the sun even better! But suddenly, in the last week of February, there can be a surge up to 23 degrees, as it warms up much faster than southern Spain, being on the same latitude as Mauritania. So, the upcoming trek to Upper Mustang will feature cold temperatures at night, but not as low as on the Everest trek, which goes up to 5500m, whereas the destination of Lo Manthang, the ancient town, is at 3800m.
But this is also the picnic season, probably to avoid the hot sun at other times of the year. There are numerous picnic grounds, usually on the tops of hills with a view, where organisations or families meet to enjoy the brief hours of sunshine. Today we passed quite a few groups out for a picnic. There were a couple of extended family groups, and one group of youngsters with girlfriends in a circle, gambling with cards, while a pot of rice bubbled on a wood fire. I hoped they would extinguish the fire properly before they left. Visitors to Nepal often deplore the litter problem, and indeed we could see piles of plastic and other discarded refuse in various locations.
So I managed a 13 km walk today and yesterday, but of course this is a much lower altitudes, though today there was a bit of climbing. Probably the Mustang trek will be the most appropriate, since it will be cold, but not extreme. But oh, would that the mountain wall of the Himalaya were clear and bright in the still air! Clouds appeared today, like stately galleons. There was a slight breeze at times, useful to disperse the smog maybe.