Crossing the road and climbing up a small trail. “I want to show you something.” My companion had, it turned out, taken me on a trail that went as much up as back into the past. We were soon on a narrow stone-paved street. Huge Newar-style houses, bigger than any I’d seen in Kathmandu, stood on either side of the path. We had arrived in a town several decades after it had blossomed, boomed, and then declined. The town was Dana in Myagdi district of west Nepal. It lay on the ancient salt/rice trade route that passed through the Kali Gandaki valley. The trade route once connected Nepal’s mid-hills to Thak Khola. From there it went further north to Lo Manthang and eventually into Tibet. More recently, it had become a spot on the Annapurna trek map. Dana was a town redolent of the prosperity Thak Khola once enjoyed. Everything reflected opulence: palatial houses with large courtyards, lavish use of wood, ornately carved windows, slate roofs and orange orchards. But time and the fluctuating fortunes had done their work too. The courtyards were now overgrown with grass, the suntala trees looked old and untended, the colors of the walls had faded, doors were missing and windows were broken in places. It was as if people and prosperity had abandoned it overnight.
No comments:
Post a Comment