Nepal’s vibrant tourism begins at home

KATHMANDU — The temperature is reaching 42 C in Barauli, a village in Nepal’s southwestern Terai region, but nobody seems to care — despite the unforgiving morning sun, locals and travelers have come together to play a cross-cultural game, and the fun beats the heat.

The village women of the local Tharu ethnic group usher a group of female tourists into a bedroom and take turns to dress them in traditional robes. Once the tourists are clad in long linen skirts and black and red blouses, two local women lead them to the mud wall of a traditional house. A bowl filled with water and rice makes the rounds as the Tharu teach the foreigners how to dip their hands and use their palms as brushes to draw patterns on the wall — as locals have…