Mary Jane Walker

Nomad in Nepal and the Lands Next Door

A Nomad in Nepal and the Lands Next Door updates Mary Jane's earlier book, A Maverick Himalayan Way. With links to blog posts containing colour photographs and videos, A Nomad in Nepal and the Lands Next Door describes Mary Jane's three trips, so far, to Nepal and the Himalayan region. A little over a decade ago, Mary Jane knew almost nothing about the region. Since then, she has learned a lot. Delving deeply into Himalayan history, A Nomad in Nepal is also a mine of useful firsthand experience about guiding and trekking pitfalls and the politics of the region, all while describing epic treks in Nepal and visits to Sikkim, Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh), Sringagar (Kashmir) and the exotic Chitral region of Pakistan as well, hard-up against Afghanistan, where the local Kalash tribe is menaced by the Taliban. A Nomad in Nepal describes three mountain treks in detail: the trek to Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna/Manaslu Circuit, and the Three Passes route. Mary Jane also describes her experiences climbing in the Hindu Kush mountains of Chitral. She stayed on a houseboat on the city lake of Srinagar, and was shown around the region by the family of a guide who calls himself Raj on the plans of India and Yaqoob in the mountains. In Chitral, she stayed with an erudite professor and his family, all the better to discuss the local situation. For a change of scenery, Mary Jane also visited the Chitwan National Park, in the steaming lowlands of Nepal, where tigers and the little-known Indian Rhinoceros abound, along with other curious creatures such as the sloth bear, which resembles a giant badger and carries its babies on its back.