Day 15

The presentation of the photos went as expected, coincidentally the first person we presented them to happened to be the granddaughter of the woman on the front cover of the book.



She was rather taken by surprise and visibly upset by seeing her relative who had died 7 years before and we felt rather foolish presenting these images. One person in the gathering crowd commented ‘why are they giving us photos when we need money’. It may be just as well that Dieter and Inga had not delivered these in person as it may have saddened them.


We left Hatiya and finally descended to the Arun River after having remained at several hundred feet above it for some days. After about three hours we arrived at a confluence where the warm brown Arun mixes with the icy blue Barun River.

The Barun carries meltwater from the glaciers of Makalu and both rivers have spiritual significance for Buddhist and Hindu people. This is this a place of pilgrimage, but ironically it is also on the new road that will now connect this valley to the rest of Nepal and eventually China. After lunch we continued on the road beside the Arun, to the small village of Gola (1200m) which, with the road, will also be subjected to substantial change in the coming years.
Distance 15km 5hrs

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