About Charikot & Jiri

                                    Jiri Bazar

Between Charikot and Jiri the road descends to 845 metres and to our surprise is bordered by plantations of sugar-cane. Above these slopes are forests of dark oak, fir and pine, interspersed with tangles of bracken and fem all in the embrace of clinging orchids and coloured in the springtime by the rhododendrons, the national flower of our mountain land.

Mosses cling to the shaded rocks and in the forests are wild strawberries, loganberries, red berries and thyrne. The shy Nepal Babbler chitters away ‘Wich, Wich, Wich’ in the damp, dark woods below the hir of the mountain eagle whilst in the early autumn foaming white waterfalls rush over the river moulded rocks.
Some of these lichen and moss-covered banks hide crevices in which lurk black krates, orange and black patterned rock snakes and the dull green grass snake. Higher up and even higher are the slate-grey cliffs where the yellow flowered gorse clings to the hst breath of life between the hostile rocks. Higher still lies the Himalaya an abode of snow against a sky sometimes of azure, sometimes turquoise or even clouded, brooding and forbidding all intervention from below.

Against the winds of this world the prayer flags dance in a plea for communion with the divine which only can offer solace in the immensity that is time on the face of the highest mountains on earth.