Word: mudding
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...communities' isolated, subsistence past to the "relative affluence and sophistication that they enjoy today," writes Tenzing. A Sherpa, working as a high-altitude climber, can make four times the average annual wage of a Nepali. Namche Bazaar, the trading capital of the Khumbu Valley, once comprising a few dozen mud houses, now features neon lights, sophisticated communications systems and blaring rock music. The Khumbu is dotted with medical clinics and schools. But the climbing and trekking industry has brought with it the erosion of the traditional trading and farming life and the ills of rapid growth: drugs, inflation, deforestation...
...Daocheng, a two-day bus ride from the Sichuan capital, Chengdu, rent a jeep and follow the road past thick forests and open fields, where herds of yaks make their way down to winter grazing grounds, to the Yading Nature Reserve. Once in Yading, trade in your mud-spattered jalopy for a hardy Tibetan pony that can better fare the torturous 14-km trek to Luorong Pasture. From there the view of the Konkaling range is breathtaking. Farther along, the three sacred peaks of Chenrezig, Chanadorje and Jambeyang?named after a trinity of Tibetan deities?loom over the landscape...
...either side continually take potshots at each other. These days the situation is nothing less than explosive. On Dec. 23, Pakistan lobbed an 81-mm mortar into Chand's courtyard, the first time such heavy ordnance has been used in the area since 1971. The mortar landed in mud and failed to detonate. Now army engineers are trying to extricate it, whacking around the shell with heavy pickaxes. "If that thing had burst," says Chand, observing from a few feet away, "nothing would have survived...
...either side continually take potshots at each other. These days the situation is nothing less than explosive. On Dec. 23, Pakistan lobbed an 81-mm mortar into Chand's courtyard, the first time such heavy ordnance has been used in the area since 1971. The mortar landed in mud and failed to detonate. Now army engineers are trying to extricate it, whacking around the shell with heavy pickaxes. "If that thing had burst," says Chand, observing from a few feet away, "nothing would have survived...
...tracks splicing in and out of a weave heading north. For almost three hours and 40 miles we followed the mujahedin through choking dust. Rows of mountain ridges rose on the horizon like broken witches' teeth. From time to time we came to tiny settlements; the houses sealed behind mud brick walls, the rooftop edges curved, daily life hidden from view. Some were plunked down in the middle of nowhere, drawing life from plunging wells. Others hugged wispy rivers; groves of fruit trees, winter bare, lined the channels...