Local Study Tour to Gangga Town

With an aim to better introduce local environment and other sustainability issues to our trainees of the three-month Nature Guide Ecotourism English Training program, the Pendeba Society took a local study tour to the heartland of Mt. Everest region in Gangga Town on January 20, 2011. 25 participants went on this one-day tour, among whom 10 were women.

Before the study tour began, Mr. Tsering Norbu, Executive Director of the Pendeba Society, gave a vivid introduction of local geographical settings and environmental conservation to all the trainees in the exhibition hall of the Pendeba Society Training Center. By observing topographical sand modes, the trainees gained a visual idea and due knowledge of what their living surroundings were and became familiarized with the visiting site of the next day’s study tour.

After three hours’ driving, we stopped at the Snow Leopard Guest House where our trainees were introduced with some general hospitality manners. The manager of the guest house first led us to a meeting room to give a brief introduction of their guest house and then further developed some knowledge that a good attendant working in a guest house was supposed to have. Then we were guided to a standard double room where the manager introduced to our trainees some basic work and skills in room service. 

Then we left for a view point in Gangga Town where the Mt. Everest, Mt. Makalu, Mt. Lhotse, and Mt. Cho Oyo were clearly presented before our eyes with large areas of wetland down lying in the basin. Right in front of the stone monument carved with former Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s inscription of the “Qomolangma National Nature Preserve,” Norbu gave another elaboration on environmental conservation and how to carry out tourism in QNNP in an ecologically friendly way. In the meantime, the students were able to apply what they have been learning from both the English and environmental courses to what they saw in reality that day.

Additionally, given 14 of our participants are from Qudang Village in southern Tingri County, home of the world famous Gama Valley hidden in the Himalayas, this tour study was timely beneficial and has provided them with an opportunity to better know their living environment and the importance of developing ecotourism among their communities to generate household income in addition to traditional animal husbandry and cropping. This is also one of the goals that the Pendeba Society holds to carry out the Ecotourism English Training for local Tibetans to gain pertinent English skills for them to reach broader employment opportunities in a booming tourism industry in the QNNP region.

The Study Tour ended in later half of the day and we all arrived home with satisfactory smiles. We were glad to know that many students expressed their appreciation of being involved in this program and we would like to thank once again the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives to allow this happen.