It was time to get my pre-trip shots, and my doctor had spent quite
a lot of time in Nepal [she has credits for the Health section in a few
Lonely Planets, but not, ironically, the Nepal 6th edition, which is
what I have]. October or November? "It's lovely that time of year",
she said, and so it is. And - there had been just a little insurrection
around that time - what of the Maoists? "Oh the Maoists aren't too
bad. They'll demand money but they'll give you a receipt."
Excuse me? Did I hear correctly? I did.
Somewhat bewildered, I mentioned this to Brett. He dug around in
his folder of TourLeaderDocuments and pulled out one of those fabled
receipts. He'd once had a group baled up by a Maoist checkpoint but
had managed to beat the price down from a thousand rupees each to a
hundred rupees each. On the next trip he used this receipt to avoid
paying anything. This was reassuring: I now knew that our leader had
the stones to safeguard our budgets from members of an armed group
involved in a civil war that had killed over thirteen thousand people.
None of these thirteen something thousand dead were tourists, though;
noone in Nepal wants to kill the golden goose of tourism, though
tourism is only just starting to recover after taking a bruising in
recent years. The worst that's happened lately, so rumour has it, is
that an anti-communist Polish trekker was beaten up and wounded for refusing to pay.
On our first morning in Nepal, driving down to Dhulikhel from the
Chinese border, the bus was stopped briefly at a piece of cord across
the road by some villagers - kids, really. The bus driver hurled some
abuse at them in Nepali - a refusal to pay, I'm guessing - and drove
on. Not long after that we stopped at a more authoritative checkpoint
with a red flag and genuine Maoists. Brett got out, showed the
receipt, and after some discussion we were waved through with our
wallet, bus, and skin intact. They're not meant to be extorting
tourists any more - their nominal leader, Chairman Prachanda, has said
that they're not, but you get the feeling from reading the newspapers
here that the Maoists are a conglomeration of smaller organisations each with their own slightly competing ideas about how things should really work.
It's ceasefire time at the moment, which means that the soldiers
manning the sandbagged bunkers with their garlands of barbed and razor
wire can relax. Such bunkers feature at government checkpoints and
around public buildings and structures, the Maoists having targetted
them for bombings before. The Maoists control most of the country,
though, including the trekking routes. The government presence on the
Annapurna Sanctuary trek is limited to a couple of Tourist Registration
Certificate desks - the former checkpoint at Doban, for instance, has
been abandoned.
I paid the government their 2000 Rupee fee to be allowed to enter
the Annapurna Conservation Area, though this was never checked.
According to my guide Shyam those travelling by taxi are stopped, but
we went by public bus. At Landruk, at the tail of the first day we
encountered a Maoist checkpoint. There were no weapons on sight, and
apart from the Maoist operating it and his non-descript offsider there
didn't seem to be anyone other Maoists around. He was polite; I was
surly but restrained. There are certain things it's good to be known
for doing first in Nepal such as climbing Everest, but I'm afraid that
I lacked the stones to safeguard my budget from members of an armed
group that had yet to kill a tourist. He was, by the way, the most
Maoist-looking figure I've yet seen in Nepal, being black-clad with
glasses (which few Nepalis wear) and sporting a black goatee (a fair number of
Nepali males are mustachioed but I don't think I've seen another with a beard).
I was allowed to pay the Maoist Tourist Tax so I did, and was issued a
receipt. It's a glossy blue and white rectangle, issued by the "Tamuwan
Autonomous Republic People's Government" for the sum of a hundred
Rupees a day; 700 Rs in total. Shyam said that it's better than it
used to be: a 1500 Rupee flat fee no matter how long the trek.
Under section 102.6 of The Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005, it
is an offence to provide funds to a terrorist
organisation but fortunately the Australian Government doesn't consider
the Communist Party of Nepal a terrorist organisation. As of May this
year neither does the Nepali Government. Americans visiting Nepal may
be in for problems, however. The headline of today's edition
of the Kathmandu Post reads "Maoists to remain on US terrorist list",
and as the US State Department lists the CPN as a Terrorist
Organization under the Terrorist Exclusion List of the Immigration and
Nationality Act and under Executive Order 13224, it's technically
illegal for US citizens to contribute funds... for instance to pay the
tourism tax. For that matter the laws probably apply to foreign
backpackers too.
At Birethanti yesterday, on the last day of trekking, I showed my TRC and got signed out by the government
worker seated at an open-air desk. Beside him were three Maoists whose
desk sat under a red canopy. Whether "Maoist" is quite the right word,
though, is another matter as the troika's middle figure was badged with
a shiny red Lenin silhouette, and a picture of Lenin was affixed to one
of the poles. I showed my receipt, and Shyam and I continued on to the
bus.
Unfortunately I believe that in most cases it's not trekkers who are
really affected by the tourist tax but the Nepali guides and porters
whose baksheesh is affected. I provided Shyam with a breakdown at the
end:
Budget: 14000 (PM 6/11/06 to AM 13/11/06)
Costs/Fees: -5850
Food/Water/Accommodation: -5805 [I ate quite a bit of Dal Bhat...]
Transport: -310
Maoist Tourist Tax: -700
Total Spent: -12665
Total Remaining: 1335
Tip (Rounded): 1400
Dhanyabad! [thank you]
