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Show Impressions of I lie Middle last Editor's note This newspaper news-paper is grateful for this series ser-ies of articles written by Gary Lawrence reviewing activities and some of the experiences of the BYU entertainment troupe touring the Middle East, under auspices of the State Department. Depart-ment. Nepal Fascinating and novel are the two words used most to describe Nepal, the "Switzerland "Switzer-land of Asia." Nestled among the Himalayas, the world's most rugged mountains, Nepal finds herself so remote that tourist trade is relatively unknown. un-known. A closed .country until 1951, it has been only recently that a navigable road has been blazed from India to Kath-mandu, Kath-mandu, the capitol city. Still, however, most cargo coming in, must come by air. As our plane skimmed over the washboard wash-board type terrain, we felt that we were journeying back in time. Cars and roads appeared scarce except in the larger cities. Since flat valleys are unknown even steep hills must yield to cultivation. The flight itself is a harrowing one. Since Kathmandu is surrounded surround-ed by mountains a plane can't fly over them and drop fast enough to make a smooth landing. The only alternative is to fly between the mountains. moun-tains. At times it would appear ap-pear that the wingtips on both sides are going to scrape up a little dirt. Kathmandu presented us the strange combination of 12th Century architecture and customs cus-toms combined with 20th Century Cen-tury technological advances. She is one of the rare cities in Asia that hasn't been touched by colonialism or recently by war. Kathmandu is also the seat of the government, a full-fledged full-fledged monarchy with the king being the absolute ruler and not just a figurehead. At one of our performances, the crown prince attended and we got a taste of royal traditions in observing the actions of the people towards him. Kathmandu .is also the stepping step-ping off point for all major assaults on Himalayan mountains. moun-tains. It was from this point in 1963 that an American expedition ex-pedition started off in an assault as-sault on Mt. Everest and ended up by placing six Americans on the summit. One of these was Dr. Willi Unsoeld who shortly after his successful conquest returned to Nepal as head of the U.S. Peace Corps. Prior to our last performance, we had the privilege of meeting meet-ing him and spending an afternoon after-noon talking with him. Thus far on this trip we have had the privilege of meeting men and officials with various rank and status, but never have we met a person who, in spite of his amazing accomplishment, accomplish-ment, who has been so genuine and down-to-earth. He along with one other American has succeeded in conquering the western approach to Mt. Everest. Ev-erest. It was such a grueling assault that Dr. Unsoeld lost all but one toe through freezing. freez-ing. But this fact only added to his witty sense of humor as he remarked, "Who needs them anyway ? They only get in your way when you have to hang on tightly to a cliff." It was this extra something that stayed with us so indelibly . . . this extra element of being able to release tension through humor that must be added to all the qualities of perserver-ance, perserver-ance, stamina, determination, organization, etc, before these qualities can function effectively. effective-ly. As we flew out of Nepal the next day and looked at the formidable slopes of Everest, we knew that having the ability to honestly appraise yourself and laugh at a situation situ-ation when necessary is a necessary nec-essary Ingredient in any degree de-gree of accomplishment. |