A 25 Year Old Family Photo Revisited - Nepal

Dave visited the Kanchenjunga region 25 years ago, in 1999, with KE Adventure Travel and trekked the approximate same route we were due to take also with KE Travel in just three weeks time.

Meeting over a coffee in Lincoln City centre we chatted about the trip, and Nepal in general, Dave having visited several times whilst this would be my second visit. The Kanchenjunga base camp trek is still regarded as one of the more challenging routes in the Himalayas, and one of the quieter ones. I was staggered to hear that Dave had visited 25 years ago, Kanchenjunga is now expected to be one of the ‘next big’ trekking routes.

The family from Kesewa, captured 25 years ago.

Dave gave me his photo album from the trip to browse through, including a photograph of a young family, taken in a village visited during the early stages of his trek. As he’d passed through the village of Kesewa, he’d stopped to interact with the family, and take their photograph. Before he left them he’d even made a note of their ‘address’, hoping that a print posted upon his return to the UK would somehow find it’s way to them.

The photograph is viewed and discussed in Kesewa Village

And so, three weeks prior to our own trip, Dave handed me a copy of the photo, a 6x4 print, in the hope I could take it with me as we visited the village ourselves.
Would it really be possible to hand the photo to one of the subjects in the picture 25 years later?
So many things could have happened in those intervening years, we estimated the youngest child would now be 30 years old.

It was just the third day of our 16 day trek as we dropped down into a deep valley with steep sides planted with rice crops in terraced fields and entered the small village of Kesewa, really just a scattering of half a dozen houses across the slope.

I handed the photo to our trek leader, Prem Sherpa, explained the story behind it and he offered to ask someone in the village about the family. He quickly identified the best people to speak to and before long an animated discussion was taking place around the photograph.

The family were recognised!

Kesewa Village

Eventually Prem turned to me to share the news. Yes, the family were recognised, but unfortunately the father had passed away some years ago and it was believed the family had moved away to the Terai region for work.
One of the villagers thought there might still be some members of the family living locally, further along the valley, and he kept the photo in the hope of passing it on.

To have the family recognised and for a connection to have been made exceeded our expectations and felt like a success.

We left Kesewa and continued descending into the valley, wondering whether we might meet someone along our trip who will be reminded of our meeting in 2049.

Leaving Kesewa behind