In 1959 the Chinese army shelled the capital of Tibet, and the Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa and took refuge in India. A number of Tibetans left with him at this time, but with later Chinese army occupation of Tibet, and aggressive incidents in 1962, large numbers of Tibetans left the country and became refugees in Nepal, Bhutan, and India. This was the same year that I joined the Peace Corps and came to Nepal. By the mid-1960, over 1,00,000 Tibetans had become refugees.

From ancient times there has been trade between Tibet and Nepal. Caravans of sheep and goats carried salt from Tibet and returned with wheat, barley, or rice from Nepal in their packs. Now the Chinese closed the border and deprived the merchants of their trade and the herdsmen of their summer pastures. Instead of traders, refugees and Khampas of the Tibetan army headed for the border, and were sometimes intercepted and killed by Chinese guards.

A group of Tibetans from near the sacred Mt. Kailash region brought their herds and entered Nepal through Dolpa. The barren pastures of Dolpa couldn’t support so many extra yaks and sheep, so starvation followed overgrazing. Warlike Khampas killed many of the animals in order to survive, and the local villagers provided food at inflated prices. It was a long, severe winter with plenty of snow so there was heavy loss of local animals as well as those of the refugees. In Tsarka village only 96 out of 500 yaks survived. The Tibetans had been relatively well-to-do when they arrived, but in one winter they became poor. The Swiss Red Cross encouraged this group to settle in Dhorpatan, south of Dhaulagiri. From here they entered the salt trade again, this time bringing in Indian salt from the Terai with donkeys and mules.

In 1963, they came to the Pokhara valley and were settled on land at Hyangia. Coming from a cold dry climate and entering a hot, rainy area had been hard on the health of many. Dysentery and smallpox had caused many deaths in the beginning, and later TB developed as a killer. They were in need of immediate shelter, and many wore frayed clothing. Food was provided by the Red Cross, USAID, and CARE. Leaky temporary shelters of bamboo mats were put up in a hurry. As people around the world, as well as in Nepal, gradually became aware of their plight clothes, medicines, and other necessities were provided.

I used to meet large groups of Tibetans carrying flour and cooking oil with “Donated by the people of USA” written on the sacks and cans, on days when it was delivered to the airport in Pokhara. It took them about half a day to get it to Hyangia, now a distance of ten kms by road. They were very cheerful, and thanked me personally as a donor from USA!

The first young Swiss who came to look after the new Tibetan Camp was very interested in snakes and made a collection of all the interesting ones he could find. He kept them alive in cages and hoped to turn this into a scientific study. Unfortunately he found a beautiful but deadly coral snake and, as he held it by the neck, it managed to bite his hand.

He knew that there was no anti-venom for this snake and he had only about an hour to live. He carefully put the snake back into its cage, sent a Tibetan to Shining Hospital with a note, and wrote his will before he died. He had no family and so left what money he had to a little Tibetan orphan boy he had been looking after. The Tibetans at the camp were very upset at what had happened and threw the snake collection in the Seti River.

About this time Fred Barker, an Anglo-Peruvian, entered Nepal from India in the back of an open truck. He was wearing an Indian dhoti, and had been trying his hand at being a Hindu religious pilgrim. When he learned what had happened at the Tibetan Refugee Camp, he quickly changed his outfit and applied for the vacant position. It was not long before he was wearing the traditional garb of the Tibetans and has acquired a horse. The Swiss were assisting in getting a rug industry started. Fred pursued various other leads to get the Tibetans back on their feet again, earning money. I remember watching silversmiths taking old silver coins from Tibet and turning them to silver spoons to sell to tourists.

The walk to Hyangia from the campus was a pleasant one along the Seti River with wonderful views of the Annapurnas, so I went there often and enjoyed the people at the end of my walk. When I went for a trek I was encouraged to take Tibetans from Hyangia as porters and so learned to know more of these very kind and generous people and enjoyed their good-natured jokes. Later a Swiss-German couple got involved in establishing a school and health post as well as building more permanent houses for the Tibetans to live in.

My first house on the campus was torn down to make way for a new Science Building and a second, larger one was built for me on the edge of the river terrace overlooking the Seti, with a full view of the Annapurnas. The new house was not finished when I moved in, but Thanksgiving was coming and I wanted to entertain my friends. It was a very mixed group consisting of Peace Corps volunteers, campus faculty, Shining Hospital founding members, and Fred Barker, who came with a friend from the Tibetan Camp. It was pot luck. I finished a chicken dish and the volunteers made a pumpkin pie. Fred and his friend brought Tibetan momos and produced a gallon of local beer, or chang, after the missionaries left. The cold wind blew right through my house as I didn’t have glass in the windows yet, but we had a good time together, although only Americans knew about Thanksgiving.

At a later time I went with friends to spend Christmas night at the Tibetan camp in Hyangia. The Swiss-German couple supplied a real Christmas tree with lighted candles. In Nepal I generally had to teach on Christmas Day, and be content with few cards which might get through the mail, for Nepal was a country that didn’t celebrate Christmas, so December 25th wasn’t a holiday.

After dinner we were invited to observe a psychic Tibetan go into a trance, and make predications for the New Year of 1967. We walked home from the sleeping camp, now starting to look neat and prosperous, along the road following the river in the moonlight. The spirit of Christmas stayed with us all the way as we climbed over the tricky bamboo bridge and continued a cool wind at our backs.

A few years after the first wave of Tibetans had come to Pokhara there were more incidents in Tibet, and a second, larger group of refugees arrived, poorer than the first, and suffering from sickness and starvation. There was no room for them in Hyangia, and they came from a different part of Tibet, so a new refugee camp had to be started at the lower end of Pokhara.

About this time an Irish girl, Dervla Murphy, appeared on the scene. She had previously ridden her bicycle through Europe and the Middle East into India and written a book about here adventures, Full Tilt. Then she had spent about a year in Dharmsala in north India, where the Dalai Lama had been given refuge. There she worked with the Tibetan orphans gathered in a school run by the Dalai Lama’s sister. She wrote Tibetan Foothold about this experience. She volunteered to take on the job of getting the new group of Tibetan refugees settled in the camp at Pokhara.

Dervla rented a very uncomfortable room near the airport and traveled all around Pokhara on her bicycle wearing a man’s shirt and short. She was very energetic and fun to talk to but the missionaries had some doubts.

“Why, you can’t tell if she is a man or a woman!” exclaimed one.
“If you can’t tell, what difference does it make?” responded Mr. John reasonably.

Dervla and I sometimes discussed what policy would be best for these Tibetans. She felt that this new group should never have left Tibet, because they were poor and the Chinese would take care of them. I felt the Dalai Lama and their religion were more important to them than any material benefits the Chinese might offer.

Since she thought they should be encouraged to return to Tibet, she was not in favor of building the permanent buildings recommended by the Red Cross. There was a rumor that some Nepali government officials favored stone houses for the Tibetans on good land because they thought that the Tibetans would soon leave and the Nepalis would benefit from these houses, built by foreign aid. After a while, Dervla had collected enough material for another of her interesting books, The Waiting Land, and left the Tibetans in the hands of two students who had come from England.

Under the direction of these young men, and with the help of the Tibetans themselves, a permanent camp was built. It had a handicraft center, school, and health post. An SOS Children’s Village for Orphans was later established nearby.

Toni Hagen, a popular geologist, authority on Nepal and development, had recommended that the Tibetans should make carpet production their source of income, since farming was not their traditional way of life, and land was scarce in Nepal. The carpet industry became the great contribution of the Tibetans to the economy of Nepal. Carpets are now the leading export of the country. Within a remarkably short time the Tibetans at both camps had become self-sufficient with their crafts, trading, rug industry, and restaurants. As Tibetan rugs became a major export, the demand was greater than the number of Tibetans available to make them, so young women from poor villages of other ethnic groups have been attracted to come to work in the rug factories, mostly located in Kathmandu. A few Newars and Gurungs are also making Tibetans rugs in Pokhara.

The material Khampas from eastern Tibet brought another problem with them when they crossed the border into Nepal. Because governments did not want to get involved with Communist China, they agreed with China that the invasion of Tibet was its internal affair. At the same time there was a lot of sympathy for the Tibetans. Because of the presence of the Khampas and their activities, trekkers were forbidden to enter the area north and east of the Annapurnas. After a complaint from China, there was a brief, secret military action along the border by Nepali military forces. The leader of the Khampas and a number of others were killed as they attempted to escape to India. In the late 1970s I saw some of the Khampas, who had given themselves up being led to Pokhara in chains. After the Khampa surrender, it was once again possible to trek around Annapurna. The Tibetans of Hyangia were glad to be freed from the domination of the Khampa military, for the latter had collected fees from them whenever they passed through the area.

Since Fred Barker had ridden his horse into the region controlled by the Khampas, and was suspected of having helped them, the Nepali Government felt they could not offend the Chinese by keeping him at the camp. He changed his image again, ran the luxurious Fishtail Lodge at the lake, and married a former airline stewardess now with the Dooley Foundation. (We must not get this Fred Barker confused with another man in Kathmandu by the same name. The other Fred Barker ran the “Pink Mushroom” restaurant where hashish was put in the cakes).

I first got to know the Tibetans when I hired some as porters on my treks. They needed the work, and were cheerful and willing. In 1971, when the campus was closed by strikes, I decided to walk to the far west and around Dhaulagiri. I was encouraged by Christian Kleinert, author of a German guide book to trekking in Nepal, to go with just on Tibetan porter-guide as a companion.

Since Christian had taken the pictures which the Austrian Dhaulagiri II expedition would use as guides to climb this highest, as yet unclimbed,  peak in the Himalayas, he asked them as a favor to let me got with them over the high passes on the northwest side of the mountain range. From there I would continue west to Jumla and Rara Lake in western Nepal, while the Austrians climbed their peak. Christian assured me that if I had his Tibetan friend, Lobsang, as a porter-guide, I would need no other companion for the two-month 500 mile walk around the Dhaulagiri Range.

The Austrians were visibly annoyed at being saddled with a middle-aged American woman at the start of their important expedition. The leader told me that if I were not in Pokhara when they were ready to go, they would start without me. If I could catch up they would let me go over the high passes with them, but I should not expect to get shelter from storms in their tents, as their Sherpas were more important to them and would be protected first.

When I arrived at the Pokhara Airport from Kathmandu, I found that the Austrians had left the day before. They had taken Lobsang with them, and left a dejected Sherpa, Pemba, who had wanted to join his brothers as a high-altitude porter on the expedition. He was happy to see me, and said he would take Lobsang’s place until we caught up with the expedition. He still hoped they would take him on as a high altitude porter in place of Lobsang. He brought his climbing gear and come to my house on the campus, where he put all his equipment into my knapsack. Consequently, there was no room for provisions or my camping equipment in it.

“I will get a Tibetan porter for you,” he said, “I only guide and cook. I don’t carry.” Soon he appeared with Tun Din, a very big Tibetan from the lower refugee camp, and a large basket to carry our provisions. There was no room for a tent, so we counted on staying in caves or villages along the way. Since Sherpas and Tibetans are closely related in language and customs with the people of northern Nepal, my companions easily established a good rapport with the villagers, and we had no trouble finding shelter, and even food, in food-deficit areas.

We were two days behind the Austrian expedition, but since their group included over 70 porters, we thought we would b able to travel faster and catch up before the high passes. As we started walking north toward Hyangia, Pemba said we would need another porter, as we were going into a food deficit region and should bring extra provisions. Just then we met Atam, a Tibetan who had been with me on other treks. He agreed to join us after leaving word with his wife and getting his large pack. Atam’s merry sense of humor kept us in good spirits.

When we caught up with the Austrian expedition several days later, they refused to exchange Lobsang for Pemba as they had enough high altitude Sherpas and Lobsang was going to be their mail runner.

Pemba agreed to go with me on terms equal to the two Tibetans, and the four of us made a very congenial party. When we had a snow storm at the base of the pass, they wove a shelter for me with willows and tall grass. Atam proved invaluable to the Austrians as well as me when he revealed that he had gone over the pass as a Tibetan refugee. A wrong turn had trapped the expedition in a cul-de-sac, and none of the Sherpas or 70 porters knew the way. After we arrived at the northwest side of the mountain range, our little group spent a month traveling to the west and back to get pictures of mountain flowers, while the Austrians climbed their peak. Tun Din had trained as a Buddhist lama. He had a gentle reverence for life, and an ability to chant prayers. Atam and Pemba were both impressed that this older Tibetan could read and write, as they had never had the chance to learn to do so.

After our trek to the west, we arrived at the Austrian base camp the day before they descended from successfully climbing Dhaulagiri II. We continued, however, without the Austrians, over a 19,000 ft. pass and down to the Kali Gandaki Valley between the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna Ranges. We followed the river and took the main trail back to Pokhara. We were welcomed as celebrities at the Hyangia Tibetan Camp.

This camp at Hyangia now has a monastery and very beautiful Buddhist temple. The road through there is now paved, and buses make the trip. The walk is no longer as attractive, although it is better than it was when the road was very dusty. Many of the Tibetans from both camps can be found at shops along the lake. Others carry their wares to places along the trekking routes. I have often been invited to attend Tibetan New Year’s celebrations since my Dhaulagiri trek, and I am happy to see that it is now possible for the children to attend school and also retain their Tibetan culture.

Journal of Late Dorothy Mierow
(We are very thankful for her contribution to Pokhara, May her soul rest in peace)