Tea or Coffee? The Soul of Ilam

Before entering the Nepalese winter (relative to Kathmandu, it never freezes, but the weather is getting chillier all the same), and to escape the pollution that is starting to set in (the rice fields of the plains have been harvested, the stubble burned, which infests the entire north of the continent with persistent smoke), we take advantage of the Tihar holidays (one of the main religious festivals in Nepal, equivalent to the Indian Diwali) to escape to the far east of Nepal, in Ilam.

It is a region surprisingly left out of the classic tourist circuits, wrongly so as we will discover.

Landing in Birathnagar, at the south-eastern end of the Terai plains, we first progress through the typical landscapes of these plains, which we have already known in Bardhya or Chitwan: rice fields where the rice is finishing ripening, alternating with Sal forests and jungle islands. Nature here is still as luxuriant, we tire of saying it, not of being surprised by it.

As always in Nepal, the exit from the large plains of the Terai is brutal. Without transition, the road climbs violently: we gain 1000m in a few dozen minutes, at the cost of the usual bends of these "hills". The gain in altitude brings with it its change in temperature, and we suddenly go from the tropical climate of the plains to a fairly fresh mist through which the crests of the surrounding mountains pierce, we almost think we are in Scotland in this foggy atmosphere. Not the dirty yellow mist that clutters the Kathmandu valley for a good part of the year, but banks of clouds clinging to the sides of these first hills that they meet after forming above the Bay of Bengal, forcing them to slowly fray, creating these mystical landscapes in shades of gray similar to Japanese prints.

Our progress on the crest of these hills already brings us towards the first slopes covered with tea plants that line the road. Signs praise the landscape of tea plantations standing out against the backdrop of the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas…should I specify once again, at the risk of boring the reader, that we have seen nothing of it: our karma is following us, there are definitely no snow-capped mountains in Nepal!

Arriving in Fikkal, a large town clinging to the confluence of several fertile valleys, we are welcomed in our guesthouse by a young Nepalese woman of Tibetan origin who, with some associates, has decided to set up a charming little hotel here to develop the tourist potential of the region. It is a building built entirely of compacted earth, simply but nicely decorated, overlooking the surrounding tea plantations.

Accustomed to the rusticity of the country's hotels, we are pleasantly surprised. Nepal needs more initiatives of this kind, promoting quality tourism and integrating discreetly into local life. A little publicity for Sunshine Villa Fikkal once is not customary!

The next day, our host had organized a visit to a coffee plantation in the neighboring valley. Because if Ilam is known for its tea plantations, in recent years, entrepreneurs have also developed coffee. The altitude and climate are ideal. After leaving the 4x4 at the edge of the track, we descend to the bottom of the valley, crossing fertile fields in the process of being harvested, scattered along the edge of the forest, framing a small river winding through the trees.

On the other bank, under the cover of a slightly thinned jungle, we discover the young coffee trees, most of which were planted less than 5 years ago. They spread out in this valley over 50ha, making it the largest plantation in the country.

A modest building houses the bean extraction and drying machines. The director, a passionate Nepalese who lives there year-round, gives us a tour of the property. They are just starting out, but hopes are high.

The main investor is the coffee shop chain "Himalaya Java Coffee", the great success story of Kathmandu, which has created a local (and much better) version of Starbucks, and is now looking to source its coffee from the country. During the harvest season, he hires women from neighboring villages. This is also one of the main risks of the adventure - besides the strictly agronomic ones -: labor here, as everywhere, is scarce because of emigration. He shows us the future lodge that will be able to accommodate tourists wanting to get away from it all and discover this lush nature, on the banks of the river, already equipped with a swimming pool (well, the concrete basin of a future swimming pool!). We wish him good luck and promise to come back!

Finally, later in the day, it's time for the king of the region: tea. It is grown here as an overflow from the adjacent Darjeeling region in India, world-famous, within sight of the hilltops, just across the border. We are in fact at the eastern end of Nepal, bordering Sikkim , an ancient kingdom (like Buthan) separating Nepal from Bangladesh by a thin isthmus of land. Conveniently attached to India in 1975 shortly after the creation of Bangladesh, which allows India to have territorial continuity across the entire border, all the way to Burma. Geography remains the mother of geopolitical issues... Almost where we are, Bangladesh is only 17km away as the crow flies.

Visit to the largest tea factory in the region, unfortunately closed due to holidays.

Nepal is lagging far behind its huge neighbour in the development of this product, but this company seems to be able to catch up. They are suppliers to a major German brand, producing a variety of high-end teas that can help them gain market share. But here too, the lack of manpower is a threat.

We return by crossing the valleys covered with these "tea gardens", as they are called here, effectively similar to immense parks that the regular picking of leaves allows to maintain and preserve this appearance of rows of shiny bushes perfectly ordered as in the most beautiful botanical garden.

We continue to the last village in the valley, which serves as a border post. Despite our visas being in order, we cannot cross because it is not a post authorized to let foreigners pass…a stamp and the man holding it are missing.

We bow without insisting before the all-powerful combined Nepalese and Indian administrations: no one is required to do the impossible.

On the way back, stop at a cheese dairy, which again bears witness to the diversification attempts of this region. Huge cheeses made with milk from the very thin local cows (dressed these days in their Tikha because they are revered during this festival period), you would think you were in the Swiss Alps.

In fact, we will learn that it was Dutch aid that allowed the establishment of this cheese factory. Budha Gouda.

The next day we set off on a long hike winding through the valley our hotel overlooks. Nepalese tourism is always a bit adventurous, so we have only very vague directions from our host and the hope that GoogleMaps, once again, can show us the way just in case. We first wind our way through rows of tea bushes on the hillsides, always dazzled by the diversity of nature here.

We descend gradually, crossing small hamlets where people watch us pass with that contradictory mixture of indifference and curiosity that is quite typically Nepalese. We are reassured by asking for directions, to which we are answered with a lot of hasty gestures that "it is always straight ahead, and further on to the left". Several forks and a few hours later, we undertake the ascent of this valley which is decidedly much longer and deeper than it seemed. We finally meet a group of children in their Sunday best who have just finished their family Tihar meal in their farmhouse perched on the hillside.

The Nepalese welcome is not a legend. The teenager of the family offers to take us himself to see the waterfall that we had spotted on the map but which had eluded us until now. No chance of finding it ourselves: we have to cross several farms where buffalo and goats graze, walk on indistinct paths in the forest, to finally, suddenly, emerge at this magnificent waterfall several dozen meters high gushing from the jungle.

The young boy insists that we return with him by the same path, but we prefer to try our luck and climb the mountain along the waterfall, hoping to emerge on the ridge and thus return to our starting point. He watches us leave with a vaguely worried air, full of circumspection about these Western tourists that one never meets in these parts.

The climb is very steep. A staircase often invaded by the jungle was cut in times when this waterfall was a destination for walks, which is clearly no longer the case.

We finally come out on a well-marked path and a network of tracks that finally leads us to the summit. A roadside stall even allows us to have a welcome Nepalese tea at the end of this long walk.

At the top of the ridge sits a strange, immense veiled Buddha. Islamists in Ilam? We are reassured, it seems that the statue is not quite finished and that the face of the prince will not be revealed until it is completely finished.

Almost another hour of descent along the winding road at dusk over the top of the tea plantations, bathed in a splendid golden light. These 6 hours of walking and a few days spent here have given us a splendid glimpse of the landscapes of Ilam, certainly less striking than those of the peaks of the Himalayas, but once again offering another face of Nepal, which only asks to be better known.