Michel Peissel (1937–2011) was a French ethnologist, explorer and author. He was an emeritus member of the Explorers Club and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He has produced, directed, or initiated 22 documentary films on his various expeditions.
A strange land, Nepal... its existence is due more to the work of surveyors than to any very definite modern administrative unity. Mountains are the only common denominator, mountains and mountain people from east to west, north to south, from the damp pestilential terai jungle up through the rice-terraced foothills on to the mighty snow-covered peaks of the Everest Range, the Annapurna Range, and the Dhaulagiri Range, which separate Nepal from the invisible but ever present psychological mass of Chinese-occupied Tibet. From the bar I could see the snow-capped mountains beyond which looms the specter of communism and mysticism combined, representatives of which occasionally come down to the sunny Valley of Kathmandu, where Tibetan monks brush elbows with silent employees of the Chinese Embassy.
As always, the hotel was buzzing with projects and intrigues, millionaires and princes. Boris had just returned from Hong Kong, barely in time to cater successively the banquets given on successive nights by King Mahendra of Nepal in honor of Nehru and to Nehru in honor of the King. Sir Edmund Hillary of Everest fame, now engaged in building schools for the Sherpas, was scheduled to arrive the following day. And Boris told me of his pleasure that Russia’s space couple, Valentina Tereshkova and her husband, Andrian J. Nikolayev, were due in on their honeymoon the day after, accompanied by another cosmonaut and his wife. The depressed, bearded members of the ill-fated Italian expedition still haunted the corridors of the hotel, wearing blue jeans and smelling of Tibetan butter, amid American tourists complaining that in Nepal conditions were not up to pay, having forgotten that the country, to use Boris’s expression, “was still in the seventeenth century, having already in ten years moved up from the Middle Ages.”
How I was to get to know Boris in such a whirlwind was a question that no one could answer. Being around Boris was like touring the world in a capsule. One unusual character after another appeared, seemingly with each round of whisky, ranging from the Russian cosmonauts on their honeymoon to the newly arrived German ambassador, whose room adjoined that of the Pakistan ambassador. Both were waiting for their new legations to be built.
“How do you think you can catch him alone?” remarked Inger, Boris’s beautiful young Danish wife. “In the fifteen years we have been married, I have spent only two evenings alone with him.” Upon which Inger hurried off to have the tea ready for the Tibetan refugee committee that would meet in their private flat before the king’s brother, Prince Basundhara, arrived with his American fiancée.
Just how, I wondered, would I find out about Boris in Russia, Boris and the ballet, Boris in World War II, Boris and the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Boris and Hollywood, Calcutta, politics, Saigon, tigers, elephants, and Nepal?
The day after our arrival a slight noise awoke me at dawn. The room servant was bringing my “morning cup of tea,” a detestable colonial custom of British India that requires that the white “sahib” have a cup of tea left by his bed at five in the morning. Needless to say, the only advantage of this custom is that when you get up three hours later the tea is cold and you have to order more.
That morning I could not fall asleep again. I therefore rose and strolled out of my room into the park. There I was surprised to see rows and rows of maidens coming in through the gate. Girls of marriageable age, they were covered with heavy gold and silver trinkets that dangled upon their black, tight blouses, which were tucked into the broad belts that held up their long pleated skirts. They laughed and joked as, bent in two, they carried in heavy loads of pink wood cut from the rhododendron forests that cover the summits of the green hills that enclose the valley on all sides. In Kathmandu there is no modern fuel. Cow dung is the most common source of heat, and as Boris could hardly use cow dung, he has had to resort to the services of the Tamang tribe, a mysterious people notable for their jewelry and the way they put their young women to use. It is the privilege of the members of this tribe to bring each morning to the hotel the wood necessary for the clients’ daily baths. The isolation of Kathmandu and the primitiveness of services in Nepal have resulted in the slightest convenience becoming a complicated ritual. A good example is the preparation of a hot bath.
The wood carried in each morning is stacked in neat bundles in a corner of the gardens, and while the Tamang girls await their pay (given in silver coins, as paper money is still regarded with suspicion by the peasants), a lowly caste of half-naked coolies, wielding primitive axes about their bare feet, go about smashing it up. Once this operation has been performed, the hotel room servants, known as “bearers,” come and collect the wood and bring some to each room. As central heating would be unthinkable in a land where lead pipe is unknown, every room has a small, archaic oven, along with its own boiler and water supply. Such a complicated system, through careful synchronization at the expense of the hurried guests, can occasionally provide a tepid bath at about ten A.M. This is the time when Boris himself gets up and grabs a book to retire for an hour in his bath, a morning ritual that he misses only when in the jungle.
Immediately after the Tamang girls have disappeared, the hotel sees its grounds invaded by the goldsmiths and other merchants who come in to take up their positions by the small showcases that cluster the ground floor gallery of the hotel. Ever since Boris first proved that Nepalese handicrafts were beyond doubt one of the greatest attractions of the country, the artisans of the valley have been busily at work. Most of them speak Tibetan, as their best clients before the arrival of American tourists were the monks and wealthy nobles of Lhasa, where thousands of Nepalese craftsmen used to resort to carry on their trades before the takeover of the Tibetan capital by the Communist Chinese.
The Nepalese seem to excel in filigree copper work encasing thousands of semi-precious stones, and their wares vary from bejeweled miniature birds to great representations of Kathmandu’s pagodas executed with a refinement worthy of the most precise scale model.
Kathmandu, which has no regular modern industry whatsoever, is still a medieval hive of goldsmiths, wood-carvers and engravers, and remains the greatest market town of all the Himalayas.
Strolling out of the hotel gate, I stepped out into the road. A few hundred yards away from the hotel is the end of what seems like a small footpath. This is in fact one of the twenty or so trails that lead into the city from the hinterland. Unimpressive to see, these paths nevertheless lead on for hundreds of miles over hills and down valleys, winding a network of communications all over Nepal.
Here I could watch the porters and coolies jogging to the sway of the bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders. From before sunrise till after sunset a constant flow of humanity brings to the capital the varied fragrances of all the districts of the nation of Nepal. Here can be seen every dress, every costume, every cargo, and every type of man from the innumerable different regions of the country: wool coming in in large bales carried by red-dressed, sweaty and often smelly Tibetans; small steel ingots brought in by the kami, or steelworkers, from Those, where mines thousands of years old are still worked. Here also come the wealthy merchants with their leather bags containing gold and precious stones: turquoises from the high Himalayan plateau, coralline and other semiprecious stones from the hills. Over these paths also travels rice, the great commodity of the country, which pours in incessantly to feed the thousands of city dwellers. Along these same tracks come peasants with great baskets loaded with chickens, or driving herds of thousands of goats to be either killed in sacrifice or simply shorn of their wool in the main squares of the capital.
Food is a great problem for the inhabitants of Kathmandu, who are forever menaced by a rice shortage. It is almost as great a problem, however, for Boris. In Kathmandu the only meat available is buffalo meat. Practically everything else has to be imported. This forces Boris to spend much of his time fighting the customs officers; not those of Nepal but those of India. The primitive postal service further complicates transactions for Boris. Until recently all mail had to be sent through the Indian Embassy, as Nepal had not yet joined the International Postal Union. Boris has now finally helped set up a customs office in Nepal, explaining to rice-eating clerks the origin and ingredients of such things as caviar and salami. In fact there is not a single dish served at the Royal Hotel that could not tell of an incredible journey. And between Copenhagen and Calcutta more than one precious cargo has been lost. Usually this happens in Calcutta, where goods are frequently mislaid, and very often are found only when the smell of their putrefaction finally succeeds in attracting the attention of negligent customs officials.
His towel wrapped around him after his one-hour bath, Boris then begins his daily fight to keep the hotel supplied with necessities, sending endless messages to customs offices in India to the border towns of Nepal.
In 1954, when Boris started the Royal, he had had no experience in hotel operations. Even in his former activities as executive secretary of the famous 300 Club, which he had founded in Calcutta, his functions had been primarily social. It came as something of a shock to discover that in Nepal almost everything, even providing the guests with baths, had to be arranged from scratch.
It was only as the years went by that it grew somewhat easier for the most urgent necessities to find their way into the valley. The newly built road from the Indian border to Kathmandu was the first great leap forward. Although it looked at first as though this masterpiece of engineering would revolutionize the valley overnight, much patience was needed before it came into full use. The lack of vehicles was the first problem. Then the Indian government delayed in building a linking road between the Nepalese border and any Indian town of significance. The nearest large Indian town was more than 200 miles from the border. All this led Boris greatly to enlarge and develop his own vegetable gardens on part of the hotel grounds. In these gardens a variety of vegetables new to the country now grow in abundance under the influence of Kathmandu’s exceptional climate.
I have always marveled at what has drawn foreigners away from the peaceful countrysides of Europe and America to establish themselves in outposts of civilization. In that respect Boris was to me a mystery. Why would such a man as he have chosen the strange hardships of Nepal, when all Europe and the West were open to him?
Though I had at first regarded Boris as a sort of efficiency expert, I was soon to discover other facets of his personality when, upon climbing a rattling, spiral steel staircase, I was first introduced into his private apartments. Situated above the hotel in a studio-type loft, Boris’s flat, the inner sanctum of the hotel, is lighted by the great windows rising to the ceiling and looking out over the rooftops of Kathmandu. Here, tucked away and aloof, Boris directs his small world.
To know Boris it is essential to know his wife Inger. Twenty years younger than Boris, she has now been sharing his life for fifteen years. Inasmuch as Boris is an exuberant extrovert it is she who protects the privacy of their personal lives. In her flat she attempts to bring up their three sons, Mikhail (nicknamed Mishka), Alexander and Nicolas, out of reach of the slightly mad atmosphere of the valley.
Boris’s flat reflects clearly the varied aspects of his personality. Beside a huge fireplace, welcome in the cool Nepalese evenings, stands a grand piano on which rest the photographs of famous ballet stars with whom Boris has danced on the stages of Europe and South America. Beside golden Buddhas from Tibet stand the autographed portraits of Queen Elizabeth II of England and King Mahendra of Nepal, reminders of Boris’s important role in the nation.
A huge cabinet stretching around the room harbors Boris’s incredible record collection, ranging from the music of Stravinsky, which Boris knows so well, to the folk dances of his Ukrainian homeland. Here in these surroundings Boris is the artist and musician of his youth; here are collected the souvenirs of a life so varied and full that at first I was at a loss to grasp its scope.
So unusual is life in Kathmandu that the business affairs that fill a large part of Boris’s days are a strange combination of the modern and the medieval. Tourists arriving daily from the airport, with their minds still vividly impressed by the luxury of the great hotels of Hong Kong and Calcutta, naturally expect the same conveniences in Nepal. In this they are in for a disappointment, and they have to learn to adjust to such peculiar requirements as ordering a bath two hours in advance. On the other hand, Boris has laid out for them sight-seeing trips that would send not only the most blasé tourist into ecstasies, but even the most sophisticated and best heeled travelers.
One of the marvels of Nepal is Patan, the sister town of Kathmandu, which up to the present has entirely escaped the encroachments of Western ways. Patan is a dream city in the same sense that Venice is: not a single structure is out of place, its narrow, brick-paved streets separate large blocks of pink brick houses whose wooden frames are covered with the most delicate representations of dragons, goddesses, and other carvings. The imperial city of Peking cannot have been more beautiful. But there is nothing imperial about Patan, nor is it, like so many of the great historical sights of today, a dead city. You do not have to close your eyes and imagine how the city was four hundred years ago, for nothing has changed. In each little workshop craftsmen perpetuate their trades and one encounters goldsmiths with their minute anvils and small hammers, bell founders with their antiquated blast furnaces, and every sort of artisan imaginable. High in the attics of the houses can be seen those who spend their lives setting jewels into the delicate work of the coppersmith.
In the city each block of houses, surrounded by its streets, encloses a vast stone-paved courtyard where rise the shrines of the district’s gods and goddesses. Once a year the thousands of copper divinities are taken out of the surrounding pagodas and exposed in these courtyards. The Newars are Buddhists of a primitive sect that has survived nowhere in India or in the rest of Asia. Distinct both from Tibetan Buddhism and from that of Southeast Asian, the Buddhism of the Valley of Nepal is descended from religion as it was practiced in India two thousand years ago, shortly after the death of Buddha. Hinduism has now gained much ground in Nepal; the fact that the local population practices both religions has simply resulted in every other day being a religious festival.
These festivals, if they are the delight of travelers, are one of Boris’s main headaches. There is no written calendar, and often it is only after one of these holy days has arrived that Boris realizes that there are no cooks or servants to run the hotel.
All these problems soon have the head bearers running up the small, rattling spiral staircase to see Boris, who, before he has finished his bath, suffers at least ten interruptions. Then comes the moment for the accounts, methodically kept in a great ledger by a medieval clerk who spends most of his day squatting by the kitchens keeping an incessant eye on all that goes on. The paying off of cooks, room boys and coolies goes on all day long. If there are no unions or syndicates in Nepal, Boris still has to tackle similar problems when he runs into the incompatibility of various castes and religious groups. Sweepers will not do beds, bed doers will not sweep, servers will not cook, and cooks will not associate with anyone of lowlier occupation.
Once he is dressed Boris immediately makes for the kitchens, which offer the casual visitor a vision of Dante’s Inferno... a dozen vast, smoke, dark rooms whose walls are blackened darker than coal. Boris cruises about through the kitchens like some sort of steamship caught up in fog. Years ago in India he learned that everything must be supervised and watched, and not the slightest thing is done without his advice or orders.
The other side of the kitchen partition shows a different picture that does not let the tourist suspect what goes on behind the stage. Here white-dressed servants flutter around, barefooted or in slippers, with their usual smiles. Practically none speak English, Nepal never having been a British colony – a source of frustration for the guests, who are rarely understood. The servants smile wider and wider as certain guests grow angrier and angrier, all this ending in a confrontation of all involved with Boris. So the day moves on, and Boris shifts constantly between the two strange worlds of the valley – the modern one he has helped to create and the ancient world with all its picturesque ways and customs.
Outside the hotel gates the valley continues in its leisurely, centuries-old tempo. The introduction of bicycles, today the most popular means of transport among both local people and foreigners, is the only widespread concession to Western manners. One rapidly learns the art of weaving in and out among coolies and porters, over and around stray dogs, and through and in the midst of swarms of flies and rats. The streets of Kathmandu are alive with a great variety of fauna. One might assume the animal life of the town ended with pigs, sacred cows and bulls (the fierce bulls seem to keep to certain well-defined districts where none of the inhabitants dare to go out of their homes except in sprints and dashes). This is not so; the valley is alive with animals, insects, and various birds. Giant flying foxes share the sky with countless flocks of crows whose chorus is the most characteristic background music of the entire valley. More picturesque are the hundreds of white cranes that majestically pace about the rice paddies, treading slowly above their hazy reflections, when not clustering in hundreds like great blooms upon the tentacular branches of the bodhi trees, the sacred trees of Nepal, which grow out of many wayside shrines.
Behind all the activity of the streets, and floating like a mist above the valley, is the mystery of Nepal. Although intangible as such, it can be felt in everything. It has something to do with the thin air and the lofty mountains, ever present at the end of the slightest alley or behind each monument, that remind one that Nepal and Kathmandu are truly the lost paradise of the Himalayas. There is a sense of intimacy in the valley derived from the great peaks that cut this small part of the world off from the rest of our planet.