International Mountain Musuem

and flying off cliffs.

But first – we took a short ride on the river to see a temple out on an island.

I skipped photos of the temple, the jams of people and the hundreds of pigeons.

From there we were off to the Museum.

Of note – I have to wonder about the mythology that seems to be unique to the northern tier of mountains (please correct me if there is also a unique creature in the New Zealand Glacier area). It isn’t just the Yeti – there is also Sasquatch, Big-Foot and Grendel who are all one version or another of the abominable snowman stories.

There was a section in the museum dedicated to the peaks over 8000 meters

a few non-climbing traditional tools

Areas devoted to local and primarily Asian climbers (7+ of the 8 key peaks)

What I noticed missing was any mention of the Himalayan Rescue Association which seemed a bit strange considering how much work they do on the mountains each and every year.

Soaring with Birds of Prey

Our lunch today was at a small entry and hostel run by an English couple. They specialize in paragliding and rescue of raptors. Especially important to them is rescue of vultures. Vultures as it turns out (see Kevin) are fairly funny and interesting birds. They do a huge amount of environmental clean up. With a stomach pH of close to 1, they can eat just about anything organic. As it turns out, what they don’t deal well with is NSAIDS. That is right, all the anti-inflammatories that are forced down the throats of various domestic animals. Since this is primarily a Hindu country, cows aren’t normally killed, but they do die from age and accident. Well dosed with medication – a nice supper of cow leads to vulture death since [my understanding] is that it leads to complete and total liver failure in just a few short hours.

End result? Egyptian vultures, along with most of the other scavenger species are significantly endangered.

There was another home hosted whatever this evening. Considering how much food there has been to this point I certainly didn’t starve by skipping supper.

About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
This entry was posted in Travel. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.