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  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Nepal; village pump in the Terai, 1986
  • Nepal; town life in the Khumbu, 1986. A street in Namche Bazar (altitude 3446 metres). Men relax outside a store. In the mid-1980s, Nepal was rigidly patriarchical although Sherpa women had more autonomy than other groups. Women generally had limited access to markets, education, health care and local government. Malnutrition and poverty hit them the hardest, and female children were usually given less food than male children, especially during food shortages.
  • 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.
  • Nepal; fruit seller in Kathmandu, 1986
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. Pangboche (altitude 4200 metres), showing the tiny, walled terraced fields on which Sherpas cultivate their staple crops (potatoes, barley, wheat). Potatoes are rarely grown beyond 4000 metres but barley is grown at higher altitudes. Scattered juniper and birch trees share this terrain with sub-alpine grasses. Few people live permanently beyond this village amid the last scattered trees below the treeline.
  • Nepal; village in the Rapti Valley, Terai, 1986
  • Nepal; children of the Terai, Rapti Valley, 1986
  • Nepal; wooden suspension bridge over a canyon
  • Nepal; Sherpa traders of the Khumbu, 1986
  • Nepal; bullock cart in the Terai, Rapti Valley, 1986
  • Nepal; agriculture and subsistence in the Khumbu, 1986. Sherpa with young yak. The economic emphasis of the Khumbu is on animal husbandry, and the breeding and tending of yaks and cattle was an important occupation when this photograph was taken. Yaks command a good price. On walled, flat terraces, Sherpas cultivate their staple diet of potatoes, barley, buckwheat, and in lower areas, rice. In this picture, taken at altitude 2900 metres, the land sustains the commercial cultivation of medicinal herbs although increases in production are limited by environmental degradation, largely through soil erosion.
  • Nepal; Sherpa children of the Khumbu, 1986
  • Nepal; foot transport in the Khumbu, 1986. A young Sherpa takes a 'breather' by resting his load on a walking staff. Sherpas carry enormously heavy loads on their backs and many of the raw materials and goods which move through the Khumbu are transported in this way. The tree on the right of the picture is a Rhododendron aboreum which grows to fifteen metres and bears the national flower of Nepal. Photographed near Lukla (altitude 28287 metres).
  • Nepal; agriculture and subsistence in the Khumbu, 1986. Farmland on the lower slopes of the Himalayas (altitude 2900 metres). In the late 1980s, food grains contributed 76% of total crop production but production of milk, meat and fruit had not reached a point where nutritionally balanced food was available to most people. Staples (potatoes, barley, wheat) were occasionally augmented by green vegetables in the monsoon season (June-October), yak cheese and milk which was not consumed in large quantities, and fruit which was rare and expensive.
  • Nepal; Kathmandu Valley, Bhaktapur, 1986
  • Nepal; street cleaning in Kathmandu, 1986. In the mid-1980s, Kathmandu was a mix of medieval architecture and urban sprawl. Television was a late-comer to Nepal but by the 1980s, the skyline of urban areas had become peppered with television aerials. Copying western culture and values became fashionable, and drug addiction amongst the young increased significantly during the decade.
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. As N0022569C, different aspect. Pangboche (altitude 4200 metres), a view of the village with its walled, terraced fields. The houses are built with their backs to the mountain. Only the fronts have windows and doors.
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. Growing potatoes at Phortse (altitude 4000 metres). At this altitude, in breathtaking but inhospitable terrain, potatoes are the principle crop of the Sherpas. Phortse is one of the highest permanent village settlements on the journey to Sagarmatha (Mount Everest).
  • Nepal, Sherpa children of the Khumbu, 1986
  • Nepal; preparing the Bisket chariot, Bhaktapur, 1986
  • 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
  • Nepal; Sherpa children of the Khumbu, 1986. Two smiling children share an amusing moment in the village of Phakding (altitude 3000 metres). Their clothing highlights the poverty of some of the Sherpa families.
  • Nepal; air transport in the Khumbu, 1986. As N0022554C with aircraft taking off above the
  • Nepal; Kunde hospital in the Khumbu, 1986