(Black & White edition) A remarkable thing happened in Nepal in April/May 2015. There were two major earthquakes and hundreds of aftershocks, with an official death toll of over 8000. But the biggest aftershocks may well be the changes that were already starting to manifest across the country. Suddenly hundreds of thousands of local people were mobilised not by greed, money, power or status, but by a need to pull together and rebuild their country. Many were city dwellers, who had rarely trodden beyond the ring road and were unused to the rough conditions of the rural areas. Others deserted Kathmandu for their ancestral villages in the devastated countryside. All were motivated to help the earthquake relief efforts in any way they could, not waiting for foreign aid to arrive.Having visited Nepal for several decades in the overland and trekking adventure business, we have made many friends and witnessed many significant events, but nothing like this. For us this was a unique but shattering experience. The quakes were 7.8 and 7.3, but the magnitude of the destruction is uncountable. The text is illustrated by 152 black & white photographs of the quake, the people, the efforts and some of this stunning country to inspire readers to visit Nepal as soon as they can!This is our short story: thirty days that shook us and millions of others.Note that this book is available in both colour and black & white paperback editions as well as Kindle. Proceeds from book sales will go towards our earthquake relief projects.
About the Author: Siân Pritchard-Jones and Bob Gibbons met in 1983, on a trek from Kashmir to Ladakh. By then Bob had already driven an ancient Land Rover from England to Kathmandu (in 1974), and overland trucks across Asia, Africa and South America. He had also lived in Kathmandu for two years, employed as a trekking company manager. Before they met, Siân worked in computer programming and systems analysis, but was drawn to the Himalaya en route from working in New Zealand. Since then they have been leading and organising treks in the Alps, Nepal and the Sahara, as well as driving a bus overland to Nepal. Journeys by a less ancient (only 30-year-old) Land Rover from England to South Africa provided the basis for several editions of the Bradt guide Africa Overland, including the sixth edition published in May 2014. In Kathmandu they previously worked with Pilgrims Publishing, producing cultural guides - Kathmandu: Valley of the Green-Eyed Yellow Idol and Ladakh: Land of Magical Monasteries - and a historical look at the Guge Kingdom, Kailash: Land of the Tantric Mountain. In 2007 they wrote the Cicerone guide to Mount Kailash and Western Tibet, as well updating the Grand Canyon guide. During 2011 they returned to Tibet, this time driving the same old Land Rover back from Kathmandu to the UK overland via Lhasa, through China, Kazakhstan, Russia and Western Europe. Their Annapurna trekking guide was published by Cicerone in January 2013, with the second edition in February 2017. For Himalayan Map House they are writing a series of trekking guidebooks (Himalayan Travel Guides) covering the newly developing Great Himalaya Trail. So far their publications include a guide to Manaslu and the Tsum Valley (second edition); Upper and Lower Dolpo; Ganesh Himal (Tamang Heritage Trail); Everest; Langtang, Gosainkund & Helambu (Tamang Heritage Trail); Rolwaling & Gauri Shankar (Lapche, Bigu & Tashi Lapcha); Mustang; Kanchenjunga; Makalu; and Nepal Himalaya, covering all of the above and most of the Himalayan range. A faithful hound named Kanchi followed them to Makalu Base Camp and wrote her own book entitled Kanchi's Tale, also in colour, B&W and Kindle. They were in Nepal in May 2015 and have also published an account of what happened (and didn't happen) after the earthquakes in Earthquake Diaries: Nepal 2015. Also available are their autobiography In Search of the Green-Eyed Yellow Idol, a pictorial guide to the Horn of Africa, and a trekking guide Australia: Red Centre Treks.