Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra through Nepal is Chaotic

Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra through Nepal is Chaotic

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Major General Mrinal Suman

The Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra is considered to be the ultimate pilgrimage. Taking a dip in the holy lake and offering prayers to Lord Shiva in his abode of Mount Kailash is a sublime experience. The feeling of celestial ecstasy overwhelms all.

Unfortunately, a number of unscrupulous entities have been exploiting gullible and trusting pilgrims through misleading promises. Very cleverly, a number of sponsored or paid-for emails are circulated to convince unsuspecting pilgrims about the credentials of the tour operators.

I received an email in June this year, purportedly sent by a pilgrim who was full of praise for a tour operator. We booked ourselves with the recommended tour operator for the helicopter tour of 05 Sep 14. Firsthand experience is shared herewith to caution those who may be planning to visit Kailash-Mansarovar.

The whole yatra is controlled by a mafia network that involves tour operators, hotels and the airlines. Safety,comfort and welfare of pilgrims are totally neglected. Worse, even after charging exorbitant sums up front, they conspire to swindle every one of additional INR 10,000 or more through the extortionist ploys. 

Utter Lack of Medical Care

Induction into high altitude areas is carried out without any acclimatization. We moved from Nepalgunj (490 ft) to Taklakot (13,025 ft) in a single day. As was to be expected, a large number of pilgrims fell sick with varying degrees of high altitude effects. There was no medical aid available at all. Outrageously, every pilgrim is encouraged to buy an oxygen cylinder at Taklakot.

We were fortunate that there was a lady doctor in our group. She treated all of them and administered oxygen to many. Every group is not that lucky. Nearly 30 percent pilgrims feel adverse effects. Some perish.  Others have to be evacuated to lower altitude to save their lives. In case of acute medical emergency, a helicopter has to be requisitioned from Kathmandu and it costs Rs 1.5 lacs extra. Worse, it may not arrive in time. The mafia ensures that such incidents are kept under wraps and never publicised.

Chaotic Air Transportation

Air transport in Nepal is primitive, unsafe and totally disorganized. The scene at Nepalgunj airport is worse than that of a bus stand in India. Pilgrims have to wait for hours. They are made to travel on fictitious names in haphazardly chartered 12-seater aircraft as the tickets are purchased underhand. At Simikot, the runway does not even have a fire tender or an ambulance. Against all safety norms, helicopters are refueled with jerricanes as a routine.

From Simikot to Hilsa, pilgrims are taken by a 5-seater single-pilot helicopter. Our group strength was 51 and the single helicopter did 10 sorties of one hour each to transport all of us. Pilgrims had to wait for long hours at every place to let the whole group fetch up. It was scary to see the lone pilot flying continuously in high altitude area for 10 hours. When spoken to, he admitted that his feet had got swollen but he could not decline being on a chartered duty.

At Simikot, a group was made to board a chopper which had brought the dead body of a pilgrim from Hilsa in front of their eyes. According to the locals, these are common occurrences.

Helipad at Hilsa is neither paved nor marked. There is no wind-sock, no smoke candle, no ground support equipment and no ground support staff. It is free for all as local laborers do loading/unloading. Safety concerns are totally absent.

Filthy Accommodation

The quality of accommodation provided is pathetic and appalling. Despite the fact that they pay huge tour costs, Indian pilgrims are lodged in cheap, filthy and unhygienic conditions. They have to use beddings that have never been washed and stink of urine and vomit. They feel small and humiliated as far superior accommodation is readily available where the Western tourists stay.

At Taklakot, we were lodged (three in a room) in a dilapidated barrack of a good hotel. All bathroom fittings were broken and nothing worked. Latrines were choked and sewage was overflowing. There was no water in the bathrooms. It was appalling, to say the least. Many pilgrims found the conditions to be intolerable and hired rooms in the main building of the hotel at their own cost. 

After the holy dip at Mansarovar, we were driven to mud shacks for the night halt and lodged 6 to 8 in a room. The conditions were filthier here. Everyone had to defecate in the open.  The whole area was like an open latrine with excreta lying everywhere. 

It was the same scene at Darchen – filthy accommodation for us while many good hotels have come up in the area. Darchen is the base for a number of treks that are very popular with the Western hikers.

Visa and Permit Scam

Nepalese tour operators obtain Chinese visa and Tibet permit for their groups. Group visa is a big racket perpetrated on unsuspecting Indian pilgrims to swindle them. Local Chinese officials are active partners in the scam.   

We found a large group of NRIs fighting with our tour operator in a hotel in Kathmandu. They had paid all the charges for the trip well in advance. On arrival at Kathmandu, they were informed that their visa to Tibet could not be managed. They were furious. They had spent considerable time and money to travel from Canada and the US, all to no avail. Declining to refund their money in full, the tour operator was trying to convince them to do sightseeing in Nepal itself.

In another case of group visa, 18 persons who had paid for a longer tour to include Parikrama of Mt Kailash were fraudulently clubbed with a group of 41 persons who were on a shorter tour. As a group visa cannot be split, they were forced to forego Parikrama and return to Kathmandu four days earlier. Worse, they were made to pay for their stay at Kathmandu. After unrelenting efforts, the police agreed to record FIR against the tour operator for cheating.

There are numerous cases of such nature.

Total Lack of Contingency Plans

Travel in mountainous and high altitude areas is always prone to uncertainties due to climatic, terrain and medical factors. Bad weather can affect air services while landslides can disrupt surface transport. Although such exigencies are common, tour operators have no contingency plans. As a matter of fact, they consider them to be God-send opportunities to fleece stranded pilgrims. The extent and magnitude of the racket has to be seen to be believed.

  

A Pune-based group considers it to be a case divine intervention that it did not suffer any fatalities during its trip of August 2014, despite gross criminal negligence by the tour operator. Due to high altitude sickness, 35 members of the group had to be evacuated from Yumdwar and Darchen. They were sent back in a coach with no medical assistance other than oxygen.

   

According to the Group Leader, “They were made to walk from the border to Kailash Hotel (2 km) in rain, made to wait for three and a half hours for a room and then told that no rooms were available in the hotel. Our tour operator was of little help. After half an hour’s wait in rain, the complete group of 35 persons with baggage was loaded in a rickety 22-seater local bus and taken to an alternative hotel.

“The next day, we were taken to the makeshift airstrip at 1100 hrs and told that we would be the first to be airlifted. We waited and watched the foreign nationals getting priority. The first batch of our group left only at 1600 hrs, literally after people started shouting. However, only 14 people could be airlifted by 1830 hrs. Others were taken back to the same hotel. Thus, we had spent the whole day from 1100 to 1830 hrs in rain – without any shelter, refreshments or even water.”

Swindling the Pilgrims 

The mafia has invented ingenious ways to swindle helpless pilgrims.  Without any prior intimation, the Pune-group was forced to shell out INR 15,000 for heli-lift across a landslide on Kathmandu-Kodari Road. Although the tour operator knew of the landslide well in advance, he kept the group in the dark about the heli-lift charges. The group ended up paying INR 6,800 for porter, INR 1,760 for visa cancellation, INR 1,800 for hotel stay on return at Kodari and INR 30,000 for two-way heli- lift.

Another trick tried by the tour operators is to coax pilgrims to return early from Darchen. They are warned about the unreliability of helicopter flights. Fearful of missing their flights ex Kathmandu, nearly 30 percent pilgrims get convinced to abandon stay at Darchen and return to Nepal two days earlier.

The moment they agree, they are asked to shell out INR 6,000 per person for additional expenditure. Thereafter, they are asked to pay for their stay at every place on the return journey, although they had already paid for it in the package. It amounts to paying twice for the same facility. It is pure and simple blackmail and extortion.

In case pilgrims get stranded due to bad weather, no arrangements are made for their stay. They have to pay huge extra costs for substandard accommodation. It is a well-organised scam. The loot is shared by the tour operators and the hoteliers. Four persons may be forced in a room that is meant for two. Dishonestly, all are charged on per person basis.

The return journey is more mismanaged. Due to the availability of a single helicopter, it is well nigh impossible to transport all pilgrims in time. Most of them reach Kathmandu late and miss their flights. Many lose their baggage due to the prevailing confusion.   

Rude and Apathetic Chinese Officials

The Chinese officials are rude and insensitive. They make Indian pilgrims feel unwelcome. Indians are made to go through numerous checks, spending hours at times. There are checks by immigration, custom, local police, frontier police and military. They go through the complete baggage and all cameras to see if any material concerning Dalai Lama is being smuggled in. At times, one feels humiliated. 

Demeanour of the Chinese officials is totally indifferent. In one case, the officials at Kodari border post sent back a group of 59 persons as some pilgrims were slow in appearing before them. Due to the uncongenial behavior of the Chinese, the whole group had to spend another night in Nepal. As the group had no hotel reservations, it went through a harrowing time.

Finally

After reading the above, it is natural for a reader to wonder as to why such details have not become public so far. There are three reasons for the same. One, many devout pilgrims feel that a pilgrimage, once successfully performed, should not be faulted, lest the divine blessings lose their effectiveness. Two, many feel that a pilgrimage without challenges has little value. Finally, most suffer from sheer lethargy and inertia to take the trouble of sharing their experiences – a trait of social irresponsibility. Resultantly, the mafia thrives. 

High altitude areas are hazardous. It is foolhardy to challenge nature. Flippant and casual statements like ‘yatra is very easy even for the old’ can mislead the uninformed and prove perilous for some.

Indian pilgrims should avoid going through Nepal altogether. One is at the mercy of the Nepalese and Tibetan organisers who are unethical and unscrupulous. Let us wait for the promised Nathu La route to become operational. It will be much safer.