Visiting Tibetan Friends in Pokhara

Early one morning I found myself where I never expected to be and that was in the center of Pokara in a downpour. Two Tibetan women were standing near the bus stop where I arrived. I learned from them that the Tashi Ling Tibetan Refugee Camp was only a few miles away and they pointed to a bus that was just leaving for the camp. I looking for the Tibetan man named Pema Tsering and thought that he might be at the refugee camp. Two years before, I was approached by a Tibetan woman in Massachusetts asking me if I would sponsor other members of her family still in Nepal and I agreed. I sponsored two sisters of Tashi Dhundup and his wife, Sodol Dolma, and two of their daughters, and a number of other people from that camp as well as another Tibetan refugee camp located in India. When I got off the bus at Tashi Ling refugee camp it was still raining heavily. I went into a small shop and ordered chia and began talking with a Tibetan man who asked me where I was from. We talked quite a while before we discovered that I had sponsored one of his relatives. He jumped up and ran through the warm rain that was still pouring down. Ten minutes later he reappeared with a dozen Tibetans including Tashi Dhundup and Sodol Lama, the parents of the two young women I had sponsored.

So, this is Tashi Dhundup...

and this is Sodol Sonam-Dolma. They immediately invited me to their home and I was then treated like royalty for several days. I've never eaten so much in my life. Moo Moo (Mow Mow), a dumpling filled with spicy hot meat was piled on my plate in a never ending supply. I couldn't turn my head for one second without looking down and seeing my plate piled high with moo moo again and again. It was delicious but filling.


These are Tashi and Sodol's younger daughters: from the left, Karma Yangchen, Phurbu Dolma, and Tenzing Passang. Tenzing was the same age as my youngest daughter and we became fast friends. She became my teacher in all things Tibetan.

While staying with Tashi and Sodol I learned that somehow I had miscalculated the date and to my pleasnat surprise I had four more days to stay in Nepal than I thought and I immediately knew what to do with them which, or course, was to run up to Annapurna base camp to at least get a look at the mountain itself. The weather, with the Monsoon settled in, it was doubtful even if I went all the way up to the base camp that I'd be able to see much in the mist and rain but I thought it was worth a chance.

I went into Pokhara and got a trekking permit and packed a small pack stripped to the mere essentials so I could go as light and fast as possible. Tashi advised me to take Lopsang, a family friend, who was a mountain guide and had been one of the sidhars on the 1978 Women's Expedition to Annapurna led by Arlene Blum. I made it clear to Lopsang that I wasn't able to pay him anything for his time but he wanted to come anyway. I said goodbye to Tenzing Passang and Tashi and Sodol and began a wonderful adventure up along the Modi Koala, a fantastic glacier fed river that literally roars down from the mountain all brown and frothy, leaping down through a narrow gorge that takes your breath away.