Village Tourism
Bright Prospects Exist

By Uttam Maharjan

NEPAL is a country of villages. Most of the Nepalese people live in the rural areas and engaged themselves in agricultural and allied activities. But the standard of living of the rural people is very poor. Due to the seasonality of agricultural activities, the rural people remain idle for some months of a year. Development planners are not oblivious of the fact that without rural development, overall national development cannot be achieved.

Small and cottage industries may be run by the villagers themselves to supplement their income and to contribute their mite to the national economy. For this, they may obtain low-interest credit from rural banks, finance companies and cooperatives. One such industry that requires low investments but that can generate handsome income is tourism industry. Nowadays, village tourism is catching on among the tourists who are attracted to rustic lifestyles, traditions, culture and natural beauty.

Nepal is blessed with unparalleled topographical features—lofty mountains, hills and knolls, rivers, lakes, waterfalls and gorges. The country is also rich in historical, archaeological, cultural, social and religious heritages. That the country has ten heritage sites inscribed on the World Heritage List and some places are in the process of being listed is a matter of glory for all of us.

Similarly, Nepal is very rich in bio-diversity. The country has to its credit 700 species of phanerogams, 600 species of butterflies, 181 species of mammals, 850 species of birds, 147 species of herptile vertebrates and 170 species of fish. Besides, the country has a large variety of plants and cereals.

There are many ethnic communities having their own peculiar lifestyles and traditions scattered over the length and breadth of the country. The quaint lifestyles and traditions of such communities, together with fascinating rural landscapes, would certainly attract tourists from all over the world to the country. Wallowing in busy life, sophistication and so-called modernity, tourists would heave a sigh of relief in the rural settings marked by simplicity, naivete and natural beauty. They would also enjoy typical Nepalese food at typical rural resorts.

In our context, the concept of village tourism was propounded by Dr. Surendra Bhakta Mathema. And the Sirubari village of Syangja district is the first tourist village developed on this concept.

It is obvious that not every village can be developed into a tourist village. Just having fascinating natural beauty and quaint village lifestyles is not enough for a village to be declared a tourist junction. For this, several infrastructures-water, electricity, health care, hygienic food, transport and other amenities—need to be in place in order to develop a potential village into a tourist village.

These days, the Maoist insurgency is raging in several parts of the country, making public life insecure and precarious. Although Maoist attacks on tourists are rarely reported, the tourists would not run the risk of being attacked. So security is of paramount importance to encourage the flow of tourists.

Village tourism, if properly developed, will lead to community development in the rural areas. On the one hand, it will contribute to raising income for the rural folk, while on the other it will help the rural folk utilise locally available resources. Besides, it will also help curb urban migration, which has given rise to a multitude of problems in the urban centres such as congestion, pollution and joblessness.

To foster village tourism, coordinated efforts are forthcoming from various institutions at central, regional and local level, which would enable local communities to carry out tourism business on their own, thus paying the way for developing and promoting tourism entrepreneurship and human resources at local level. In this context, it behoves the government to arrange for low-interest credit to the local entrepreneurs through rural development banks, finance companies and cooperatives.

Today, quality tourism counts very much. Tourism being a multi-dimensional industry, attention should be paid to rendering quality services to tourists. For this, local communities should be given basic training in hospitality and accommodation. And local entrepreneurs should be grounded in the operation of village tourism business, focusing mainly on marketing and promotion aspects. What is more, a feedback mechanism may be developed to elicit tourists’ responses.

The current Ninth Plan (1997-2002) has also made provision for formulating strategies to develop and promote village tourism. It may be hoped that the forthcoming Tenth Plan will also prioritise this industry.

It may be noted herein that the inflow of tourists to the countryside of the nation might result in some problems like pollution, environmental degradation and sanitation mismanagement. The damage to the environment cannot be remedied in the short run; it may take a long time and entail a huge cost. so it is imperative that a sustainable balance be maintained between human activities and the environment. After all, we cannot afford to promote tourism at the cost of the ecology of the country, which is already fragile.

At a time when the whole tourism industry is suffering a debacle for internal and external reasons, the promotion of village tourism will certainly prove to be a boon. Therefore, various potential areas should be explored and developed into tourists areas. The Nepal Tourism Board and other tourism-related entities can play a big role in this regard. This will, no doubt, contribute greatly to tourism development in the country.

Exercise For Sound Health And Mind

By Hom Sharma

PHYSICAL exercise is very important for a healthy life. Ponder a moment about animals in the forest or even pet dogs and race horses. They all have a natural instinct, inclination and tendency to exercise. So was it with human beigns. Unfortunately, in the confusion and clutter of modern civilization we lost this instinct and inclination. In the animals, whether they are herbivorous or carnivorous without exercise they either starve or become food for somebody. It is only man who has mastered by his intellect the art of gathering food and keeping at bay the predators without exercising. While this is a great advantage and has no doubt contributed immensely to the success of the human race (to the detriment of the rest of the animal kingdom), it also carries with it a heavy price of disease associated with lack of exercise.

When you go out of the practice of exercising, the first casualty is your weight. You start putting on weight and fall a prey to all the problems associated with obesity like high blood pressure, diabetes, and as a consequence, heart disease. Incidentally you might have noticed that most animals in the forest do not suffer from obesity. On the other hand, by subjecting yourself to exercise, you subject your body to a number of physiological changes, which are not only extremely useful but are in fact vital. For example, your heart rate goes up from a resting state of 80 to about 190 beats per minute. The blood pressure goes up temporarily when the heart contracts more vigorously increasing its output to 6 to 7 times the normal even if you are untrained. In a trained person the heart can improve its output even more.

The beneficial effects of exercise to not stop with the heart. It has even more impressive effects on the blood vessels. Medical science has now established that the inner lining of all the blood vessels in the body called "Endothelium" is active during exercise and releases a number of beneficial chemicals into the blood. These chemicals reduce the blood pressure, increase the blood flow, dilate the blood vessels and help in flushing out the waste products. Obviously this will be denied to a person who does not exercise. Sweating commonly associated with exercise is an excellent method of losing salt from the body. This is equally beneficial.

Most of us take our lungs for granted. Like heart, the lungs are loyal and quiet servants who keep doing their job of taking in oxygen and throwing out carbondioxide from the first breath of our life to the last. But we insult it by not stretching it to its capacity even once a week. Though at its peak the lung can take in and throw out 5 litres of air, under normal circumstances it works at a quiet and placid pace of taking in and throwing out 400 to 500 ml. every breath. Obviously one tenth of your lung only is in use at any given time –90 per cent lies unused, untested and therefore unreliable. It may let but you down when you most need it. On the other hand, exercise increases the rate of berating from 15 to 50. So you can appreciate the enormous potential of your lungs, which are lying dormant. So much for the heart, blood vessels and lungs.

What about the muscles and joints? Nature has provided us with muscles and joints for mobility. Look at the speed of hunting dog or a cheetah. It is achieved entirely by a combination of muscle power and joint mobility. As I mentioned earlier, animals in the forest run the risk of starvation of being eaten if they don’t risk running. I wish it was true of mankind—half their medical problems would be over. Muscles get an increased dose of blood supply with exercise, their tone improves, and they become stronger, bigger, more supple and larger. Besides the joints go through their full range of movement during exercise. Otherwise you get awful aches and pains the day after you have unaccustomed physical exertion. Hormones, those silent and powerful chemical controllers of the body get the necessary stimulation with exercise resulting in tuning up of the whole body and bringing it to a pleasant healthy hum which you may realise and appreciate only when you lose it.

Liver and kidneys, the great portable, compact chemical factories each one of us carries within us, have to work harder and better when you exercise because the waste products of exercise have to be handled by them. Wouldn’t you like them to function at their peak efficiency at least sometimes?

Perhaps the most important beneficiary in all these dramatic changes, which occur in you during exercise, is the brain, the headquarters controlling and coordinating the entire body, which constantly receives and sends messages to all corners of the body. Similarly, it brings changes to the eyes. Unfortunately, only about 10 to 20 per cent of their capacity is used by most of us. During exercise, they receive added blood supply, and more oxygen. Your master-computer is charged fully, so to speak. It is a common experience that all unpleasant thoughts are excluded from your brain during exercise.

This explains the calm feeling which one experience during exercise. Also, certain pleasant chemicals called endorphins are secreted towards the end of the exercise. These have opium like effect on the body. That is why we have an excellent sleep after good exercise. This is also why people get addicted to exercise. This addiction is sanctioned by nature as a reward for your efforts. Because of these beneficial effects of exercise on the brain, the mind becomes calm and solutions to difficult problems come up spontaneously.