Manthali (Ramechhap), 17 October (Kartik 1): Autumn is a good time for tourists. It is at this time that those who visit beautiful tourist spots from mountain climbing go on a journey. During this time, a queue of foreign tourists can be seen from Manthali in Ramechhap via Lukla to the base of Mount Everest, but the weather is not always the same. During the season of Lukla and Manthali, bad weather happens from time to time. Therefore, when tourists have to be ‘held’ in Manthali, the hoteliers here are struggling to meet the demand. The same is happening now.
Some tourists who were stopped on Monday and Tuesday flew on Wednesday, but with 18 flights, there were not enough flights due to the deterioration of Lukla’s weather again. More than a thousand foreign tourists have stopped at Manthali.
For the past four years, during autumn, tourists have been brought to Manthali by road and sent from Manthali to Lukla on a daily basis. But hoteliers say that sometimes foreign tourists have to stop at Manthali due to bad weather and there is a problem in management. Shekharman Shrestha, the outgoing president of Ramechhap Association of Hotel and Tourism Professionals, says that more tourists than their capacity are struggling to manage their accommodation. At this time, as the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu is very busy, the tourists going to Lukla are being transported from the nearby Manthali Airport. Various companies in Kathmandu bring to Manthali by road and send them to Lukla by air from Manthali.
Hiron Kumar Shah, head of the Civil Aviation Office Ramechhap, says that except for the cases that are stopped due to bad weather, there are about 55 flights in good weather. He said that many tourists have stopped at Manthali due to bad weather for the past few days. Tourism assistant Chandra Bahadur Lamichhane said that when more tourists stay in Manthali than the capacity, there is a lot of difficulty for residential facilities. He said that some of them went to Lukla by helicopter and some by road because their travel schedule would be spoiled, but the number of tourists who had a flight schedule the next day were re-entering Manthali.
About 50 hotels in Ramechhap have the capacity to provide residential facilities to only 1,000 people, but the number of tourists staying in Manthali is more than 1,300 since the flight is stopped, said Shrestha, the outgoing president of the tourism business association.
Hemant Budhathoki, the information officer of Manthali municipality, said that the municipality is aware of this because the tourists stopped when the weather is bad and there are not enough hotel facilities here. “To ensure that tourists entering the district are not cheated and that they can easily reach residential facilities, the municipality has provided training and necessary equipment for the operation of passenger assistance rooms and homestays in the airport premises. It needs systematic use”, he said. Bipin Bhattarai, a local social activist, says that infrastructure should be created to create an environment where tourists who have entered the district can spend a night in Manthali by providing maximum facilities and this will contribute to making Manthali a tourist hub.
