IT is peak climbing season in the Himalayas. But a Nepali friend, a mountaineering guide, laments how the devastating Aug 26 glacial flood at the Nepal-Tibet border is having a dampening effect on the tourist trade impoverished Nepal heavily relies on.
This friend works only a few months in a year, during spring and autumn when mountain trekkers come, to support a wife and young child through the entire year.
As trekker numbers are down to a trickle, he considers changing jobs but there are few which pay a decent, liveable wage.
That is also the reason why many Nepalis are driven to find better-paying jobs abroad, including Malaysia.
Life may be tough on the roof of the world, but climate change is making it infinitely worse.
