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Text by Matthew JanneyPhotography by Harm Van de Poel

When Dutch photographer Harm Van de Poel arrived in Langtang Valley, during a two-month trek in the Himalayas, he sensed a dark history. “People seemed to be distant compared to the other places I’d been, as if hurt,” he says. “When I eventually learned what happened here, the story was everywhere. On the people’s faces, interiors and landscapes.” On 25 April 2015, a devastating earthquake struck the Langtang Valley, resulting in a huge avalanche of ice and rock falling from Langtang Lirung, the 7,234 metre-high peak that looks over the valley. Of its 450 inhabitants, 310 lost their lives, while a further 100 remain missing, presumed to be buried under rubble. Van de Poel’s series, Lama Hotel, captures this “open wound” that lives on in the mountains, present in the devastated landscapes and knowing gazes of those who remain. For Van de Poel, spending time in the Langtang Valley revealed the sharp reality of life in the Himalayas beyond its identity as a glamorous destination for extreme trekkers: “The Himalayas have always been very romantic and captivating to anyone, with their grandeur and isolation,” he says. “You get the feeling you’re walking in this medieval stone fortress all by yourself where time appears to have stopped. But gradually that feeling fades the longer you stay and you see more of the daily lives people are living – their homes, surroundings, joys and struggles.” Though the images in Lama Hotel reveal the scars of the region’s history, Van de Poel wanted to capture something of the village’s present, as it looks to rebuild itself after the disaster. “It’s the intuitive mood of a place which captures my focus,” he says, “which is often hard to define. It’s a never-ending conversation between what I feel and what I see.” ◉