Phalelung and Panchthar

Panchthar is in the far eastern hills, between the Ilam tea country and the Kanchenjunga massif. It is a district of long forested ridges, cardamom under tree cover, scattered farms and Limbu villages, and it gets almost no visitors at all, not because there is nothing there, but because nothing has ever been organised to bring people.

That is the honest description. What you get for the effort is walking with no other foreigners on the path and a culture that is not performing for anyone.

The Limbu

This is Limbuwan, the historic homeland of the Limbu, one of the Kirat peoples of eastern Nepal. Their religion, Yuma Samyo, is distinct from both Hinduism and Buddhism, and its oral scripture, the Mundhum, is recited by priests rather than written down.

Phalelung is one of the sacred landscapes in that tradition, and it is a pilgrimage site rather than a viewpoint. Visiting means going with someone from the community who can say what is appropriate.

What you will more ordinarily meet is the daily version: chyabrung, the two-headed drum danced with rather than sat behind; dhan naach, the paddy dance, done in a linked line and at length; and tongba, hot water poured over fermented millet in a wooden vessel and drunk through a bamboo straw, refilled several times. Tongba is the eastern hills in a single object and you will be offered it.

Cardamom

Large cardamom, alaichi, grows under the shade of the forest here, and eastern Nepal produces a large share of the world’s supply. Walking through it is unmistakable, and the drying sheds in autumn smell of the entire crop at once.

It has been the district’s cash crop and its vulnerability: prices swing hard, disease has hit plantations, and a bad year for cardamom is a bad year for the whole hillside. Anyone who tells you about the walking here will also tell you about the price.

The walking

Ridge paths between villages, through forest and terraces, at fifteen hundred to two thousand two hundred metres. Days are moderate rather than hard, and there are no passes and no altitude.

North of here the ground rises towards Kanchenjunga, and on clear autumn mornings the massif stands across the northern horizon from any high point on the ridge. The eastern section of the Great Himalaya Trail runs through this district, which is why the few walkers who do come here are usually on something much longer.

There are no teahouses in the Annapurna sense. Sleeping arrangements are homestays and village houses, arranged in advance, and food is what the household eats.

Practical things

• Access is the constraint. Bhadrapur is the flight, and the road up to Phidim takes about five hours in good conditions. Roads in this district deteriorate badly in the monsoon.
• No permit is needed for the district itself. Anything continuing north towards Kanchenjunga does need permits, and those are arranged in Kathmandu.
• Very little English, and Nepali is a second language for many people here after Limbu.
• Cash only. ATMs in Phidim, nothing beyond it.
• Rain. The east is wet. Even outside the monsoon, come prepared for it.