What do people say about their trip to Nepal?

"The city was somewhat overwhelming for me at first. I've never been to southeast Asia before, and the sights, sounds, and smells can be bewildering. But I always felt safe in Thamel. There are westerners everywhere you look, most of the signs are in English, and people are friendly and courteous, for the most part. Some sales people are pushy, but that's part of the charm. We took a walk to Durbar Square, a collection of temples and shrines. We wandered a bit through non-tourist areas and had a great time." -- David Metsky, a trekker holding a 200 mile journey around Annapurna.

"Nepal is a wonderful place for trekking. If you like to walk, there is no more inspiring place to do it... Traveling to Nepal is actually not very difficult, and the country is well-prepared to receive trekkers. I encourage others to discover this beautiful part of the world for themselves. " -- Scot A. Yost, an American citizen spending six weeks in Nepal in 1994.

"I could start with some cliche about my trip to Nepal. It was the best summer ever, the most incredible experience or that it was the most empowering thing I’ve ever done in my life. All of these are true, but nothing I can say can really demonstrate or justify the emotion, growth and love that I gained. Sometimes I try to explain what I did or what it was like, but the words seem feeble in comparison to the reality. There is something magical about Nepal. Maybe it’s the mountains, the people or just the smell of incense in the street. I remember looking up to the clear sky at night, gazing up at the stars. I miss waking up in the morning and seeing the sea of clouds below in the valley. The air has tranquillity in it and is spiritual in its own way." -- An Australian, Cassandra Mok, a World Youth Overseas Action participant.

"With its ancient culture and the Himalayas as a backdrop, the land locked Kingdom of Nepal has for many years been the destination of choice for foreign travelers in search of adventure." -- BBCWorld

Making Natural Skincare Products
October 19, 2007
Building an Aroma
The perfect fragrance can be hard to find. There are countless fragrances on the market, and hundreds on FromNatureWithLove.com alone, but sometimes you have a product that needs that extra special touch. A uniquely blended fragrance has the potential to take your product from pleasant to unforgettable in just one whiff.
Fragrance Blending BasicsFragrances can be comprised of many different ingredients. Some of the most common are essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, attars, and synthetic fragrance oils. The fragrances are then carried in an oil, a solid balm, a perfume, or directly in a product, such as a lotion, soap, or room spray. Building a great fragrance has been compared to architecture, musical composition, or even madness! The most notable comparison is that of the process being musical. Musical terms are found throughout perfumery. There are three sections of a fragrance:

Top notes are the first aromas to be experienced by the user. They are often sweet or fruity, sometimes fresh, green, or even spicy. Top notes are a great place for playful scents because they are the first to fade away. They make up the smallest part of your fragrance at only 15 to 25%. Some good examples of top notes are:
Apple, Basil, Bergamot, Black Pepper, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Eucalyptus, Grapefruit, Green Tea, Lavender, Lime, Mandarin, Neroli, Pear, Pine, Spice, Tangerine, White Peach

Middle notes, also referred to as heart or bouquet notes, act as a bridge between the top and bottom notes. Their scents are usually distinctive aromas, such as florals, herbs, or spices. Their aroma blooms after the top note has faded. Middle notes make up about 30 to 40% of the total fragrance. Some examples of middle notes are:
Cedar, Chamomile, Coconut, Clove, Gardenia, Honey, Jasmine, Lily, Petitgrain, Magnolia, Oakmoss, Rose, Rosemary, Tiare, Ylang Ylang

The base or bottom notes make up the bulk of the fragrance, usually comprising 40 to 55% of the total formula. They are the longest lasting element in a fragrance. These notes are often deep, heavy scents, like woods, resins, and spices. Some examples of base notes are:
Amber, Frankincense, Ginger, Musks, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Tonka Bean, Vanilla, Vetiver
For a detailed list of aromas categorized by note, please visit our Aromatic Notes page.
When you have achieved a fragrance that you are happy with, there are many ways of using it. Fragrance blends can be used to enhance products or they can be showcased in perfumes. For more information on making perfumes and blends try one of these great books from the FromNatureWithLove.com Bookstore!
The Aromatherapy Companion by Victoria H. EdwardsThere is a lot more than just perfumery in this book! It is an indispensable resource to me and I’m sure you’ll find it to be the same. Pertaining to this subject, it has a great chapter on making natural perfumes and shares a lot of expert advice on blending essential oils.
Perfumes, Splashes and Colognes Book by Nancy M. BoothA more in depth look into creating perfumes and other fragrance based products. There are a lot of great recipes in this book and is great for someone who really wants to dig their teeth into perfumery.

Mt. Everest in Nepal

Environmental campaigners call on UNESCO to put Everest National Park on Danger List because of climate change.


Environmental campaigners and lawyers are today calling on UNESCO to place Everest National Park (Sagarmatha National Park) on the World Heritage Danger List because of climate change, so that the legal duty to protect the area is respected. They warn that unless urgent action is taken, many Himalayan lakes could burst, threatening the lives of thousands of people and destroying a unique and irreplaceable environment.

Pro Public (Friends of the Earth Nepal) and record-breaking Nepalese climbers, will deliver their petition by hand to the World Heritage Committee in Paris tomorrow (Thursday 18 Nov) at 9.30am. Petitioners include Sir David Attenborough, Sir Chris Bonington, Reinhold Messner and Stephen Venables.

The melting of Himalayan glaciers as a result of climate change has swollen the Himalayan lakes, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding. There is wide agreement that many lakes are at risk, but a lack of adequate monitoring means that there is no realistic assessment of how close they are to bursting. Putting Everest National Park on the Danger List would mean UNESCO would have to assess Nepal’s glacial lakes and stabilise those most at risk.

Temba Tsheri Sherpa, said: ‘Everest is the pride of the nation, but more than this, it is a gift to the world. Lake Tsho-Ipa has formed near the area where I come from. Local people live in fear that the lake will burst.’

Pemba Dorjee Sherpa, the fastest ever climber of Everest, who has climbed the mountain four times said: ‘Last year when Edmund Hillary
came to Everest, he told me that so much snow had melted in the fifty years since he first climbed Everest. In 1953 snow and ice had reached all the way to base camp, but now it ends five miles above. Everest is losing its natural beauty. If this continues, then tourists won’t come any more. Our communities rely on tourism. It’s my livelihood, as a tour guide and climber, and if we lose this, there will be nothing for our children.’

Peter Roderick, Director of the Climate Justice Programme said: ‘Glaciers and coral reefs are the canaries in the coal mine. The World Heritage Committee must urgently investigate these sites and ensure
that everything necessary is done to maintain their world heritage status, to keep people safe and to pass them on intact to future generations. Legal duties require this action, including the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and these duties must be respected both within the UNESCO and Kyoto processes.’

Catherine Pearce, Friends of the Earth’s International Climate spokesperson said: ‘The UK is a member of the World Heritage Committee, so we hope that they will support this petition when they next meet in June 2005. This will be the first time the World Heritage Committee has been asked to danger list a site due to climate change. We hope that UNESCO will demand that states take action on climate change, which is the root cause of these problems.’

Sir Chris Bonington, one of the petitioners, said: ‘Sagarmatha National Park not only has the highest mountain in the World – it also has some of its finest mountain scenery. It is also a place where its inhabitants, the Sherpas, live and work. Both the beauty of this magnificent area and the livelihoods of its inhabitants are threatened by global warming.’

River system
Nepal can be divided into three major river systems from east to west: the Koshi River basin, the Narayani River basin (India's Gandak River), and the Karnali River basin. All ultimately become major tributaries of the Ganges River in northern India. After plunging through deep gorges, these rivers deposit their heavy sediments and debris on the plains, thereby nurturing them and renewing their alluvial soil fertility. Once they reach the Tarai Region, they often overflow their banks onto wide floodplains during the summer monsoon season, periodically shifting their courses. Besides providing fertile alluvial soil, the backbone of the agrarian economy, these rivers present great possibilities for hydroelectric and irrigation development. To date Nepal has not made extensive use of its hydorlelectric resourses. All of them make use of the natural elevation differences, diverting water from the river and running it through turbines further downstream. The latest one is the Kali Gandaki hydroelectricity project a few km north of Tansen. Building dams in Nepal has remained a disputed issue, mainly because of the high risk of earthquakes in the region. None of the river systems support any significant commercial navigation facility. Rather, the deep gorges formed by the rivers represent immense obstacles to establishing the broad transport and communication networks needed to develop an integrated national economy. As a result, the economy in Nepal has remained fragmented. Because Nepal's rivers have not been harnessed for transportation, most settlements in the Hill and Mountain regions remain isolated from each other. As of 1991, trails remained the primary transportation routes in the hills.

Nepal's towns, villages, rivers and peaks
The eastern part of the country is drained by the Koshi River, which has seven tributaries. It is locally known as the Sapt Kosi, which means seven Kosi rivers (Tamur, Likhu Khola, Dudh, Sun, Indrawati, Tama, and Arun). The principal tributary is the Arun, which rises about 150 kilometers inside the Tibetan Plateau. The Narayani River drains the central part of Nepal and also has seven major tributaries (Daraudi, Seti, Madi, Kali, Marsyandi, Budhi, and Trisuli). The Kali Gandaki, which flows between the Dhaulagiri Himal and the Annapurna Himal (Himal is the Nepali variation of the Sanskrit word Himalaya), is the main river of this drainage system. The river system draining the western part of Nepal is the Karnali. Its three immediate tributaries are the Bheri, Seti, and Karnali rivers, the latter being the major one. The Maha Kali, which also is known as the Kali and which flows along the Nepal-India border on the west side, and the Rapti River also are considered tributaries of the Karnali

Climate

Satellite image of Nepal in October 2002
Nepal has a great deal of variation in climate. Its latitude is about the same as that of Florida, and a tropical and subtropical climate exists in the Tarai Region. Outside the Tarai, however, the climate is completely different. The remarkable differences in climatic conditions are primarily related to the enormous range of altitude within such a short north-south distance. The presence of the east-west-trending Himalayan massifs to the north and the monsoonal alteration of wet and dry seasons also greatly contribute to local variations in climate. Scholar Sharad Singh Negi identifies five climatic zones in Nepal based on altitude: the tropical and subtropical zone of below 1,200 meters in altitude; the cool, temperate zone of 1,200 to 2,400 meters in altitude; the cold zone of 2,400 to 3,600 meters in altitude; the subarctic climatic zone of 3,600 to 4,400 meters in altitude; and the Arctic zone above 4,400 meters in altitude. In terms of natural vegetational regimes or distribution patterns, altitude again plays a significant role. Below 1,200 meters, the dominant form of vegetation consists of tropical and subtropical rain forests.
Altitude also affects annual rainfall or precipitation patterns. Up to about 3,000 meters, annual rainfall totals increase as the altitude increases; thereafter, annual totals diminish with increasing altitude and latitude. In addition to this latitudinal differentiation in rainfall, two other patterns can be discerned. First, given the northwestward movement of the moisture-laden summer monsoon (June to September), the amount of annual rainfall generally decreases from east to west. However, there are certain pockets with heavy annual rainfall totals, for example, the Pokhara Valley in central Nepal. Second, the horizontal extension of hill and mountain ranges creates a moist condition on south- and east-facing slopes whereas it produces a major rain shadow on the northern sides of the slopes. The aridity increases with altitude and latitude, especially on the northern slopes, and reaches its climax in the inner Himalayan region and on the Tibetan Plateau. Eastern Nepal receives approximately 2,500 millimeters of rain annually, the Kathmandu area about 1,420 millimeters, and western Nepal about 1,000 millimeters.
The towering Himalayas play a critical role, blocking the northwesterly advances of moist, tropical air from the Bay of Bengal, and ultimately leading to its conversion to rain in the summer. In the winter, this range prevents the outbursts of cold air from Inner Asia from reaching southern Nepal and northern India, thus ensuring warmer winters in these regions than otherwise would be the case.
In addition, there are seasonal variations in the amount of rainfall, depending on the monsoon cycle. Bishop divides the monsoon cycle into four seasons: premonsoon, summer monsoon, postmonsoon, and winter monsoon. The premonsoon season generally occurs during April and May; it is characterized by the highest temperatures, reaching 40 °C during the day in the Tarai Region and other lowlands. The hills and mountains, however, remain cool.
The summer monsoon, a strong flow of moist air from the southwest, follows the premonsoon season. For the vast majority of southern Asians, including Nepalese, the term monsoon is synonymous with the summer rainy season, which makes or breaks the lives of hundreds of millions of farmers on the subcontinent. Even though the arrival of the summer monsoon can vary by as much as a month, in Nepal it generally arrives in early June, is preceded by violent lightning and thunderstorms, and lasts through September, when it begins to recede. The plains and lower Himalayas receive more than 70% of their annual precipitation during the summer monsoon. The amount of summer monsoon rain generally declines from southeast to northwest as the maritime wedge of air gradually becomes thinner and dryer. Although the success of farming is almost totally dependent on the timely arrival of the summer monsoon, it periodically causes such problems as landslides; subsequent losses of human lives, farmlands, and other properties (not to mention great difficulty in the movement of goods and people); and heavy flooding in the plains. Conversely, when prolonged breaks in the summer monsoon occur, severe drought and famine often result.
The postmonsoon season begins with a slow withdrawal of the monsoon. This retreat leads to an almost complete disappearance of moist air by mid-October, thus ushering in generally cool, clear, and dry weather, as well as the most relaxed and jovial period in Nepal. By this time, the harvest is completed and people are in a festive mood. The two biggest and most important Hindu festivals-- Dashain and Tihar (Dipawali)--arrive during this period, about one month apart. The postmonsoon season lasts until about December.
After the postmonsoon, comes the winter monsoon, a strong northeasterly flow, which is marked by occasional, short rainfalls in the lowlands and plains and snowfalls in the high-altitude areas. The amount of precipitation resulting from the northeast land trade winds varies considerably but increases markedly with elevation. The secondary winter precipitation in the form of snowfalls in the Himalayas is important for generating a sufficient volume of spring and summer meltwaters, which are critical for irrigation in the lower hills and valleys where agriculture predominates. Winter precipitation is also are indispensable for the success of winter crops, such as wheat, barley, and numerous vegetables.