It is a late afternoon in the monsoon season, and the sun finding its way through the clouds. The fields around the village of Bulung, on Nepal’s north-eastern border with Tibet, are steaming after the rain, the snow-capped peaks of the surrounding Himalayan giants glittering like holograms. With EcoHimal staff, I walk from village to village, checking on the progress of the Rolwaling Ecotourism project. Ahead of the group, I reach a small hamlet, which with its lush subtropical vegetation looks like a picture postcard: women in colourful dresses and decorated with brass jewellery are weaving cloth, men with broad knives at their belts are weaving baskets, infants are sleeping in rocking cradles, cattle and goats are grazing, water buffalo are wallowing in the pond, a hen with her chicks is out hunting for maize grains or juicy leeches, and a few dogs are dozing off.