Being completely absorbed in a majestic, large-scale natural environments for days on end can render man-made divides as petty in the grader picture. One gets this sense from travelling through the Annapurna region of the Nepalese Himalayas. The inspiring landscape of the Himalayas is well-documented, but what requires closer investigation is the diversity and multi-culturalism present among the towns scattered through the mountains and along the rivers. Continue reading
“The jeep road to Manang is no good for trekkers and no good for locals – no good for no one!” proclaims an exasperated Purna Gurung. He recently opened a guesthouse in Chame, Nepal, along the world’s most famous trek: the Annapurna Circuit. He blames the newly-built road as the source of his business struggles.
“I don’t know why they built the road, or who it benefits. The government decides, and that’s all.”
“I wanted to do something for Baikal, for infrastructure, for ecology, and this was a chance,” says Irkutsk native and local entrepreneur, Sergei Redkin, as he explains his reasons for volunteering with the Great Baikal Trail (GBT).
GBT is an organization whose name may seem evident at first glance. It is a trail-building establishment near Lake Baikal in Russia’s Siberia. In addition to trail building and maintenance of pre-existing paths, the group also promotes ecological education in the region.
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