When planning my latest trip to Nepal, I realised that this would be the fourteenth time to my favourite destination on Earth. I was quite shocked that I had been so many times, but was still full of excitement and anticipation; not only because I was going to meet up with some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while, but because I was going for an altogether different reason than my previous visits – this time, professional photography was on the agenda.
On this trip, I teamed up with one of the UAE’s best photographers – Leo Edwards, of Leo Edwards Photography. Initially an unlikely partnership to some, we quickly realised we had a common passion for the beauty of the Himalaya. I love to climb it while Leo loves to capture it. In many ways I was very jealous of Leo’s skills. His ability to create timeless memories of the world could only be matched by my “shoot from the hip” approach to documenting my treks and climbs. Needless to say my photographic evidence didn’t inspire Leo with much confidence for our adventure.
To my surprise, Leo still agreed to join me despite my best efforts to put him off with the photographs I showed him from my previous trips. From the first moment of our whirlwind,four-day trip, Leo was surrounded by inspiration. Without even wanting to check-in to our hotel, we met my business partner in Kathmandu, Nima Lama, who whisked us off to
Pashupatinath – One of the world’s most important Hindu Shrines, celebrating Lord Shiva. This was a bit of an eye-opener for the Nepal first-timers on our trip, as nowhere else in Kathmandu is the culture shock more stark. Pashupatinath is an incredible explosion of Hinduism where we were met by Sadhus – wandering holy men who live off alms and perform extreme acts of self-denial to improve their spiritual well being. In exchange for donations, we were able to get some incredible shots of them living in the grounds of this holy shrine.
After several hours wandering in Pashupatinath, we broke for lunch before heading somewhere altogether different. Boudhanath is one of the world’s largest Buddhist stupas, and the spiritual centre of 
Nepal’s Buddhist Tibetan population. The site offers a Zen-like experience to tourists and pilgrims alike, and it is common to see the pilgrims circling the stupa (clockwise, as is customary) on their hands and knees, in order to make the journey harder for themselves, and therefore more rewarding. As twilight fell on our first night, we managed to get beautiful photographs of the stupa itself, as well as Tibetan street sellers and pilgrims taking it all in at one of their most important sites. We were greeted with open arms by the monks of the surrounding monastery and it felt good to be back amongst familiar faces.
Day two saw an early rise and a short trip to the domestic air terminal, where we would get to fly on one of my favourite routes – along the spine of the Himalaya in a Jetstream 41 – for those of you who are not plane savvy, that’s a tiny plane with a couple of propellers attached. Unfortunately, being the monsoon, the mountains were completely hidden behind cloud, but the journey was fun nonetheless, with the cabin crew preparing the usual coke in a plastic cup and earplugs to drown out the noise of the turbo props. My excitement always grows as I approach Pokhara, as I see the place as the Chamonix of the Himalaya, perhaps only lacking the five-star spas and the odd Ferrari or two. Pokhara is Nepal’s second city, and you’ll be able to start some of the world’s most amazing treks from here, as well as go paragliding, zip lining (plummeting off a mountain attached to some wire cable – not as dangerous as it sounds!) and whitewater rafting.
But we weren’t here for that, this time. Leo was keen to see a more rural side of the country and none of us were disappointed. As if by magic, within two hours of arriving in this great place, the clouds parted and we were treated to a stunning view of Machapuchare, or Fishtail Mountain in English.
Machapuchare is one of Nepal’s sacred mountains. At 6,997m it is not the highest, but it stands alone, thrusting straight out of the foothills in majestic splendor. It’s no surprise that the Nepali people revere it. It has been attempted in the past, but no one has ever managed to summit, and these days it is completely off-limits to any alpinists.
Pokhara seemed to be the city that kept on giving, because on our way back to our hotel, we were driving past wave after wave of rice fields, and as July is prime planting season, the farmers were out in force. Not to miss an opportunity, I asked Nima if he could ask some of the farmers if they would mind being photographed (no photos on our trip were taken without express permission of those involved) and after facing no resistance, we lugged our equipment over the mud walls separating field from field to capture the incredibly hard work the farmers engage in day after day.
We spent our third day trekking and getting great shots and footage of the many paragliders on Sarangkot, a beautiful lookout point to see the wonderful Annapurna Panorama. The monsoon kept us guessing though, allowing us brief glimpses of the mountains. The rest of the day was spent driving back to Kathmandu from Pokhara on one of Nepal’s “highways.” This highway consisted of a two-way road winding through the Himalayan foothills, tracing the mighty Trisuli River, a major whitewater rafting destination.
Our remaining day was spent back in Kathmandu – a city that would take weeks to explore. We captured more photos, stocked up inevitably on gifts and hung out with a few old friends before commuting back to the UAE in the evening.
A wonderful four days, the personal highlight being spending time with the farmers in Pokhara. How lucky we are to be only four hours from such an exciting and diverse destination.
Matt and Leo will be running commercial adventure photography trips to Nepal from November 2012.
Photos by: Leo Edwards
Published in August 2012
