Divergent roads to tourism: Kuri
On a ‘working holiday’ the team travelled to the small town of Kuri, located at 3600 meters above sea level and operating as the tourism base for the Kalinchown Bagawati temple at 3950 meters. We embarked, on foot, on the five hour hike up to Kuri from Charikot, to the amazement of everyone we spoke with. On the way up we utilized the old trail, which we found is gradually falling into disuse. This neglect was due to the construction and steady improvement of a motorable road running in long switchbacks from Charikot all the way to Kuri. At the top, there is now a new gondola system under construction, which will allow travellers to avoid the final, steep climb from Kuri to the temple itself.
As the old path transected the expanse of road at regular intervals, we were passed by numerous Jeeps and their dusty wake, trucking tourists up to the temple. The road, funded by the district government, is undergoing continued improvements with the intention of increasing domestic tourism prospects in the area. Its widely agreed that for most domestic tourists, the prospect of a trek to a site of interest tends to be a deterrent rather than a main attraction. Support for the domestic tourism industry, and development more generally, has also motivated the construction of roads in other remote, tourist-driven places across the country (for example in the Everest and Annapurna regions). These projects have been denounced by the trekking industry and foreign tourists coming to Nepal in search of a sense of remoteness and sublime nature with tensions emerging from conflicting visions of ‘development’ with roads and infrastructure playing a central role.