Indian sweets and visitors with all the producers at Nepal Leprosy Trust

So as NLT leather workshop is where I spend most of my time in Nepal, working on the patterns and checking on quality control etc when my productions are happening, so of course I wanted to take my parents there to meet people there! We had bought a lot of Indian milk sweets to pass around during the morning tea break, though I must admit, I'm not keen on eating them myself!!

Above: Several workers had holiday leave , so here is several of the producers: - from left to right:

Kumar, Shyam, Bel, Maita, Me!, Kamala, Man Bahadur, Alka, Surya Kala, Bhagawati, Shanti.

Below: The regular product spread at NLT, and Bharat Neupane, who is the fantastic production manager for NLT.

Also, when i was showing my parents around the NLT office, they had all their usual product collection laid out for a meeting with one of the big charity buyers - such as Tearfund, Traidcraft and Ten Thousand villages (who buy products already designed by handicraft charity units such as NLT).  So we had a look!

My products are designed individually by myself only for AURA QUE, and then we work through the sampling process with Kumar, Ram and Shyam. And these are very different style and price range from the regular offering they produce.

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Incredible Himalaya views at the holy Hindu site of Muktinath in Lower Mustang

So I finally made time to go trekking up to Muktinath, which is a holy pilgramage site in the North of Nepal near the Tibetan plateau.  Having only trekked in the more leafy and tropical areas in the valleys, I was really excited to see the bleak vast open arid space in the Lower Mustang area.

Above: At the temple in Muktinath

The views were incredible, all around mountains, with fantastic colours and tones in the scenery.  At 3800 metres, it is a little bit short of air up there! We passed through the village of Muktinath, Kagbeni (the gateway to Upper Mustang), Tukuche, Marpha and more...

This was the main route for the Salt traders who exchanged Tibetan wool and Himalayan Salt for Rice with the Thakali people in the area.

More recently, Marpha and the surrounding area has been used for apple farming, making this a popular local fruit - we tried the local Apple cider, sat in the sun one afternoon!

Higher up, we saw lots of women with these home made weaving machines, where they would make these very brightly coloured scarves and shawls.

I just really enjoyed the complete change of landscape from bleak arid mountain tops to the lush green valley, as teh route follows the Kali Gandaki river, which runs from Tibet down to India, through one of the worlds deepest gorges - surrounded by 3 of the world's 14 highest mountains over 8000 m - Dhaulagiri I, Annapurna I, and Manaslu - of which we had fantastic views of all on the way down!!! Epic!!

I took my parents on this trek this month, during their first visit to Nepal so my recent job has been as a tour-guide alongside AURA QUE work!! It has been great to show them Nepal and the people I work with - more blog posts to come on this!!

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Happy Nepali New Year - its now 2069!

[[posterous-content:pid___0]]This week it has been Nepali New Year! There were plenty of celebrations around the valley despite the weird rain storms, unlikely of this time of year.

The official Nepali Calendar is Bikram Sambat, which is based on the lunar calendar and ancient Hindu tradition, and over 56 years ahead of the solar Gregorian calendar that we all know! That is why the year here is now 2069!

Unlike Gregorian months, the lengths of Nepali months are not predetermined and change from year to year, so all festival and calendar dates change from year to year, though New Year usually falls in April.  Also celebrated in Nepal is Tibetan New Year (Losar) in January and Newari New Year also - so plenty of celebrations!!!!

[[posterous-content:pid___1]]So Happy New Year All!

 

 

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