This story appears in this week's Durango Telegraph.
photo by Steve Eginoire
Though he is
from a remote corner of Nepal, Karma Bhotia feels right at home here in
Durango. Bhotia, owner of the downtown restaurant Himilayan Kitchen and the
adjoining retail space, Dreams of Tibet, has followed his dreams and his heart
to the mountains of Colorado.
In a story
that unfolds like a classic novel, Bhotia, who is 46 years old, was raised in
the Mount Makalu region, located in northeastern Nepal. He was the third man
from his village to graduate from high school, and his wife, Jyamu, was the
first woman. During his childhood he also studied as a Buddhist monk. One of 12
children, his family hoped he would become a teacher, but his dreams were to
pursue photography and the mountains.
“My dreams
were bigger than what my family thought,” he said.
Mountain
guiding ended up being his ticket to pursue his dreams, and for 15 years, he
led clients to peaks all over India, Nepal and Tibet. Even though the work was
dangerous, he enjoyed it immensely.
“It was the greatest time of my life,” he said. “It never felt like work, it
felt like I was on vacation.”
During his
guiding years, he summited Mount Choyu, the sixth tallest peak in the world,
and he also guided on Mount Everest. Starting as a porter, and then as a sherpa,
he worked his way up to the position of sirdar, which meant he was in charge of
expeditions up to 34 clients and 280 porters. He said the greatest challenges
were fighting with the weather, and the variety of personalities of his
clients, who were mostly European. Despite a deep love for his work, he did
witness a fair share of tragedies.
“Anything can happen in the mountains, and
many people lost their lives,” he said. “My family was always hoping that I
would return and that someday I would quit my job (as a mountain guide).”
One thing
that Bhotia learned while working in remote corners of Nepal and Tibet was the
uses of herbs and spices from the region’s people.
“People in
these small villages were very creative with growing their own herbs and
spices,” he said.
Sadly
Bhotia, who is of Tibetan descent, was unable to continue guiding in Tibet because
of the police presence there. He was detained on one occasion without a reason,
and no longer felt comfortable working there.
“When I was
detained they did not give me a reason, but maybe it was because they thought I
was a spy for the Dali Lama. In Tibet you can go to jail for simply having a
picture of him,” he shared. “The Chinese want to destroy Tibetan culture.”
Through some
contacts he made mountain guiding, Bhotia moved to Austria for a while, where
he worked as a cook and did some climbing. There, he enjoyed ice climbing, and
was able to work on his English. He also met Austrian Heinrich Harrer, author
of Seven Years of Tibet, who at the time was building a Buddhist monastery.
In 2000 Bhotia
made his first visit to the United States with plans to present slideshows of
his photography and possibly attract some clients for mountain guiding.
Serendipitously, he ended up in Pasadena, Calif., and discovered that the
Nepali restaurants there were not true to the essence of what the food should
taste like. He ended up buying a restaurant called the Tibet Nepal House.
His
restaurant flourished, and though he missed mountain guiding, the business was
safer than climbing Himalayan peaks. However, he does note some similarities to
the food business and mountain climbing.
“It is a big
responsibility to run a restaurant,” Bhotia reflected. “The customer is blindly
trusting you. Food can heal you or make you sick.”
With the
success of the Tibet Nepal House, Bhotia was motivated to open up another
location, and found his way to Durango in 2007. It was love at first sight.
“We arrived
at night, and checked into a hotel,” he said. “Then in the morning, wow, I saw
the river, the mountains and then downtown.”
The quaint
downtown of Durango reminded him of some places in Europe he had visited, and
it was an easy decision to open a restaurant here. Shortly after in 2007, he
opened the Himalayan Kitchen.
“It is a
perfect place, maybe God meant us to be here,” Bhotia said.
In 2010 he
opened Dreams of Tibet, located next door to the Himalayan Kitchen. The store
sells Tibetan artifacts and imports from Nepal and India, like jewelry and
clothing. It is his way of trying to protect Tibetan culture.
Bhotia is
still interested in photography, and his work graces the walls of the Himalayan
Kitchen. Two of his sons, Wang and Kejok, attend Fort Lewis College, the
oldest, Nima, lives in Pasadena.
Bhotia loves
the Durango community, which he describes as the nicest people of all three
continents he’s been to.
“I am trying
to reach everybody’s heart,” he said. “Durango is very special to me.”
His
philosophy is to stay busy, which he manages to do with his two businesses. He
still travels back to Nepal to visit family and purchase items for Dreams of
Tibet and spices for the Himalayan Kitchen. He hopes to give back more to
Nepal, with dreams of building an American style school there, funded by sales
of his photography.
In other
words, Bhotia has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
“There is a
saying, 'free time is the devil’s time,' if you’re busy you always focus on
positive things,” he said. “I am always thinking positively.”
With what
little free time he does have, Bhotia enjoys hiking in the mountains with his
family and taking photos. He says he feels at home within the mountains.
As for mountain
guiding, he does miss it and reflects fondly on his years helping others reach
the summits of Himalayan peaks. This holds especially true in the fall, the
season he traditionally guided in.
“In the
autumn, my imagination always goes to the mountains,” he said
Luke Mehall is the publisher of The Climbing Zine.
