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Concept

Sherpa (Nepalese people)

Images

  • Nepal; town life in the Khumbu, 1986. As N0022572C. Namche Bazar (altitude 3446 metres) under snow. The climate in the Khumbu can be harsh and unpredictable. The tents in the foreground belong to a European mountaineering expedition. The yaks are unperturbed.
  • Nepal; town life in the Khumbu, 1986. Namche Bazar (altitude 3446 metres), a bustling and prosperous market town, is the largest Sherpa settlement in the Khumbu. Many of its Tibetan-style houses devote the ground floor to animal shelters while the family lives upstairs. Most have windows and doors at the front of the building only, the back being built into the side of the mountain. Firewood is stacked against walls, and small terraced fields grow staples (potatoes, barley, wheat). At left is a Buddhist shrine or stupa, on each side of which is painted the eyes of the Buddha. Prayer flags are strung out from its summit.
  • Nepal; bridge over river in the Khumbu, 1986
  • Nepal; cremation on the Baghmati river, 1986
  • Nepal; Kathmandu Valley, 1986. The Kathmandu Valley is situated in Nepal's Hill Region ('Pahar' in Nepali - altitutides 1000-4000 metres), and is the country's most fertile and urbanised area as well as being its political and cultural centre. The hills, sculpted into a vast complex of terraces, are extensively cultivated. Hill farmers produced food staples, mostly rice and corn, although this is still a food-deficit area. Other crops include wheat, millet, barley, sugarcane, tobacco, potatoes and oilseed. The climate is mild with summer temperatures reaching 30 degrees C and winter temperatures about 10 degrees C. The most common trees are oak, alder, jacaranda and rhododendron.

Catalogue

    • Digital Images
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    Nepal; wooden suspension bridge over a canyon

    Carole Reeves
    • Digital Images
    • Online

    Nepal, Sherpa children of the Khumbu, 1986

    Carole Reeves
    • Digital Images
    • Online

    Nepal; agriculture and subsistence in the Khumbu, 1986. Area as N0022565. Farmland on the lower slopes of the Himalayas (altitude 2900 metres). Sherpas are Buddhists and their houses are surrounded with prayer sticks flying cloth flags. A sherpa group with yaks travel along

    Carole Reeves
    • Digital Images
    • Online

    Nepal; yak transport in the Khumbu, 1986. Sherpas drive a pair of heavily laden yaks along a narrow path on the long climb from Lukla (altitude 2827 metres) to Namche Bazar (3446 metres), the main town in the Khumbu region. The yak is the beast of burden in the Khumbu as well as providing wool, milk, cheese and butter. Yak butter is burned in votive lamps and drunk in tea. The animals command a high price and are carefully nurtured by their owners.

    Carole Reeves
    • Digital Images
    • Online

    Nepal; tenements, old and new, Kathmandu, 1986. Builders erecting new apartments on the site of an old tenement block. Once erected, the residents of the existing four-storey tenement block will have their daylight extinguished. A woman picks her way across the building site from her home to the street.

    Carole Reeves
All works (2)

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