Trekking in Nepal: the whole story
Copyright L. Shuttleworth
Flying in the small Royal Nepal Airlines jet over the snow-covered mountains from New Delhi to Katmandu, I couldn't stop Bob Seger from singing in my head: K-K-K-K-K-K-Katmandu! I think I'm going to Katmandu./That's really, really where I'm going to." These lines kept playing until we landed, and there, in the customs lineup, several other passengers told me that they too had been plagued by Bob Seger singing the Katmandu song in their heads.
Outside the airport, I was captured by a mob of aggressive taxi drivers. They snatched my backpack and frogmarched me outside, pulling me back and forth, fighting over me and yelling out their prices.
"But I only need one cab," I told them deliriously. I stumbled back and forth between battered old cars. After the long, sleepless flight from London, my decision making faculties were at an all-time low. I couldn't decide which cab to take. How did I know they were legitimate cabs? None had any official signage.
I finally settled on the cab with the cheapest fare. My pack got locked in the trunk. Fatalistically, I expected to be robbed, raped and killed.
We careered along narrow dirt streets, past falling-down, old two and three-storey buildings with carved wooden gables and frames. Raggedly dressed children played in the streets, vying for space with lounging boney white cows. Women in saris browsed along the street markets where vendors were selling anything and everything, and noisy motorcycles roared around us. The smell of incense, car exhaust, and garbage blew in the window. I was overwhelmed by how different everything was from England, where I'd just come from.
I spent the evening in my room at an upscale guesthouse, pretending Nepal wasn't just outside my window. I was too tired to cope with it. I slugged back Irish whisky, deliriously greeted my friend Sharon when she arrived jet lagged from Canada, and then we tried to sleep.
For two days we stayed in Katmandu, getting over our jet lag, securing trekking permits and airline tickets to the mountain village of Lukla on the Everest trekking route, and riding rented bikes to Baktapur, through narrow streets full of people, motorbikes, three-wheeled bike taxis, cars, trucks, buses, cows, dogs, people pushing wagons full of vegetables, all going in different directions and constantly blowing their horns. Out in the country we passed fields of wheat with women threshing the long sheaves of grain. A mist rose up, revealing green foothills. Buses and trucks roared by, missing us by inches, and spewing clouds of noxious black smoke.
Although there was heavy fog the next morning, at the airport we found our flight was still on. In fact, the Nepal Airlines Twin Otter left right on time. We flew up into the cloudy sky. Through breaks in the clouds I could see green, terraced, steep hills below us. I was really nervous-more than I ever had been flying before. Within the last month, two large commercial jetliners had crashed into the hills around Katmandu in bad weather, killing everyone on board.
We continued flying through the clouds, and after 20 minutes, we landed on a short, grassy airstrip surrounded by hills and clouds. Everyone clapped. But the pilot turned around and told us this wasn't Lukla. He said the weather was too bad to go on to Lukla, so we would wait here for 20 minutes for the clouds to clear.
Sharon and I sat outside on the grass. Sprinkles of rain fell on us, and clouds floated by. The air smelt wonderful: fresh, warm and scented with plants and trees.
An hour later, the pilot came out of the small airport shed and announced we would have to head back to Katmandu because it was "impossible" to go on to Lukla. Everyone filed disconsolately back onto the plane. We took off from the tiny landing strip into the clouds and rose above the mountains. No-one said a word.
Then the pilot yelled something to the air hostess, who told us he was going to "try" to get to Lukla. A British guy behind me mumbled, "What does 'try' mean?" I said, "It means if we don't succeed, we crash." Sharon, the practical-minded economist, wondered aloud if we had enough fuel on board to get back to Katmandu.
It was still cloudy, but we could see some of the valleys below. Rivers flowed through green fields, surrounded by extremely steep, forested hills. I was now more scared than I had ever been in my life, and was convinced that at any minute we would crash into one of the hills.
We banked over a mountain, did a quick turn, suddenly landed on an uphill grassy runway, turned sharply, and stopped in a square at Lukla. Everyone clapped and cheered. As I got off the plane, my legs shook uncontrollably. We retrieved our packs and slowly, breathlessly walked uphill to the Himalaya Lodge at the top of the village. My heart pumped furiously, and I couldn't seem to get enough air.
"I thought we were going to crash," I said tightly.
"Me too,"Sharon admitted.
We got a double room for about $1 each. The lodge was made entirely of wood, with stucco on the outside walls. It was owned by a Swiss woman and her Sherpa husband. She was about 50, and dressed in Sherpa clothes: a long blue dress with a white apron. Down in the diningroom, we sat at at a table beside a wood stove, eating delicious rice, daal, and perfectly cooked vegetables. I drank a large bottle of beer to settle my nerves, which caused the Brits and Germans to raise their eyebrows.
"It's medicinal," I explained.
Later, we went for a walk through the village along rocky, cobblestoned streets. Kids chased after us, and we had to step around large shaggy animals called dzouchuks, which are a cross between a cow and a yak. There were stores selling food, drink, sweaters, and other clothing; cafes; and dozens of trekker lodges. Down at the end of the runway, we noticed a plane, identical to the one we'd arrived on, with its nose smashed into the ground. It had crashed on takeoff three weeks ago.
I took some 222s to kill my 2,600 metre altitude headache, and sat in the diningroom of the lodge talking to the two British guys who'd been on our flight. One of them had sprained his ankle a week ago, but he was still hoping to hire a porter to help carry his climbing gear up to the high mountains.
Also in the diningroom were two Swiss climbers who had been part of a successful Mount Everest expedition. Windburnt and hyperactive, they seemed completely high, like they were in another dimension of reality.
We slept relatively well that night, and had oats for breakfast. An arrogant French woman bossed the Nepalese staff around. "Please take this plate away," she ordered, and, "Why not serve my omelet with my potatoes?
Outside, the clouds parted to reveal two pointed, rocky mountain peaks, impossibly high up in the sky. They were so beautiful I got a chill up my spine.
We hiked out of Lukla, from village to village along the Dudh Kosi valley, which followed the raging, frothy, turquoise Dudh Kosi River. The clouds cleared, the sun began shining brightly, and everything looked idyllic - high, forest- covered hills, cliffs, and crags, stone and timber houses, tiny gardens full of vegetables. As we passed through villages, little kids asked us for "bon bons, chocolate, pens."
We passed other trekkers, porters - men and women carrying humungously heavy loads on huge, bulging leg muscles - and wagon trains of dzouchuks with long pointed horns. We had to press ourselves against the cliffs to let them get by. Most were carrying loads from completed Everest expeditions.
The scenery kept getting better the farther up the trail we went. My pack wasn't too heavy, and carrying it didn't feel like torture. Even the altitude was not much of a problem, since the inclines up hills were gentle. But we wanted to acclimatize gradually, and checked into a lodge in Monjo, only 200 metres higher than Lukla. We took a tiny wooden cubicle with two skinny beds.
I sat downstairs talking to an old American hippie named Sully. Having moved to Australia 20 years ago because of Richard Nixon, he now owned 2,000 acres of land in the countryside. He was heavily into astrology, and said it was easy to astral fly in the hynogogic state.
"It sure beats hell over using your body to climb up and down Himalayan mountains," he said.
Lying in bed later, we could hear the Sherpa family sitting around the kitchen table talking and laughing. Without TV and radio, they had to talk to each other and be more sociable than families who sit watching TV all night like zombies. Sherpa people have amazing verbal capacities. Even tiny babies can speak a few words of English.
Sharon woke up sick the next morning. I suspected she'd gotten an infection through drinking water from her expensive water filter. I was using iodine pills. She thought she had altitude sickness. The lodge family found a porter to carry her pack up to Namche for her. Sully decided to come with us, but warned he would be slow.
We gained 600 metres in elevation from Monjo.The first stretch up the trail was not too hard. At the entrance to Sagarmatha National Park we stopped and paid about $18 each, then walked along a gentle dirt and gravel trail that followed the river up the valley full of evergreen trees. We crossed on three suspension bridges, one of which had been built by Swiss engineers in 1989 and was made of heavy-duty steel and iron.
We hopscotched with a convoy of Nepalese porters who were carrying about six wide wooden planks each. With them was a young Nepalese woman carrying a huge basket full of pots and pans. They would stop to rest, we'd pass them, then we'd stop and they'd pass us. After the last suspension bridge, the trail climbed steeply through the forest, switchbacking up the mountain. The views down the valley were tremendous.The higher we went, the harder the climb became because of the diminishing oxygen. Also, we'd only eaten small breakfasts. From then on, we always ate two breakfasts before beginning a trekking day.
The last stretch up to Namche Bazaar was the hardest because it was so steep. I had to stop every two feet to get my breath back. After I stopped, I'd take a few steps, thinking it was going to be easier, but it just got harder. My breath was ravaged out of my throat. I couldn't believe how hard it was to get enough oxygen. My formerly light pack felt like it weighed 100 kilograms now.
Namche was a horseshoe-shaped village with buildings climbing up the hills on three sides, and in the middle on the lowest ground was a temple with a pointed roof and an eye painted onto the base of the point. We checked into the empty Sherpa Trekkers Lodge. I suggested that since the rooms were only $2 each, we get separate rooms. But Sharon said she'd prefer if I stayed with her. It was then I realized how ill she'd become. She looked pale, and said she felt "weak and weird."
For lunch in the diningroom I had mushroom soup and a big plate of delicious new potatoes with butter and chili sauce.
"You eat so much!" Sully exclaimed.
Sharon stayed in our room while I walked uphill to get her pack, which had been left at another lodge. Then I walked around Namche. I really liked it. It had a unique, other worldly atmosphere. The dirt streets wound up and down the hills, and they were lined with vendors selling jewellery and handicrafts, and white stucco stores selling wool clothes. It was quiet because there were no automobiles. There was electricity, P.K., the lodge owner told us, but it came from the river and was only available at night, and the wires were underground. The guesthouses were built of stone and wood. Prayer flags hung from posts, herds of mules trotted through the narrow streets, and dzouchuks were herded along with their bells clanging. Roosters crowed, kids played, and Sherpa guys walked by horking.
I had a huge dinner in the diningroom, and killed my altitude headache with 222s. Sharon said she still had a headache and diarrhea. We went to bed around 8:00, and Sharon snored all night, keeping me awake. She was convinced she had altitude sickness.
Sully sat with us at breakfast, and we talked about Tibetan Buddhism, alien kidnappings, homeopathic remedies, Canadian TV shows that should be exported to Australia, drugs, and the fact that he couldn't stop burping and farting.
"When we're on Gokyo Peak, we'll be able to hear you on Kala Patar, and you might even cause an avalanche," I told him.
Namche was wreathed in fog. There weren't too many trekkers in town, I noticed, though when I went down to fill our water bottles and wash at the stream, there was a crowd of locals washing as well. No-one in the village had running water, so it had to be transported uphill from the stream in big plastic containers. And trees had to be cut down so logs could be burned to warm trekkers. But P.K said that once the hydro electric power had a higher capacity, people would be able to heat their homes with electricity. This was supposed to happen within the next year.
For the rest of the morning we stayed in our sleeping bags in bed. I heard cows and yaks mooing, and a cute billy goat outside the window baaaing. I baaahed back. There was a stiff breeze, and the sun kept trying to shine through the fog. I felt zonked. I told Sharon I wanted my own room so I could sleep properly, but I knew she didn't want to be alone. She was paranoid about dying of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). I felt she was literally worrying herself sick, and I tried to calm her down, but I was beginning to get worried.
Sully wanted someone from the lodge to wash his clothes for him, but men in Nepal don't do laundry. He even half-jokingly asked Sharon and I if we would help him. Sharon said, "Not for 40,000 rupees!" We laughed as we watched him grumpily walk down to the river to wash the laundry himself.
Sharon began to complain about ringing in her ears. I thought it was from taking too many 222s for her headache. I realized the trek to Gokyo Peak might not happen if she didn't get better. I had asked her what she'd think if I left her in someone's care in Namche and trekked alone to Gokyo, and she had said she wouldn't like it. But I still took a room for myself down the hall. I needed a good night's sleep so I could think straight.
P.K burned incense in the hallway. There was a picture of the Buddha in the diningroom, though P.K. was a Hindu Nepalese, not a Budhist Sherpa. I thought Sully was a Buddhist, because he chanted before he ate. He lived in a pyramid house in a New Age community. With red hair and freckles and a weather-beaten face, he looked like an overgrown Irishman.
Sharon's condition seemed to be worsening. She had terrible diarrhea, a bad headache, and felt like she was about to die. I took her some soup and bread, and she ate a bit. We moved her down to a room with a toilet so she didn't have to go to the outhouse in the dark.
Back in the diningroom, Sully and two Swiss guys were playing cards. I talked to P.K. about Sharon. He was convinced she had some type of bug, not altitude sickness. He said a woman trekker who'd stayed at his lodge had thought she was dying of altitude sickness, so her boyfriend paid 50,000 rupees (about $1,000 U.S.) for the army to fly in a helicopter. P.K. had recommended that a horse take her down for about 6,000 rupees, but she had insisted on a helicopter. By the time the helicopter arrived, she was walking around using her video camera. P.K. said trekkers often got mildly ill, freaked out and assumed they were dying of altitude sickness, then immediately ordered a helicopter to fly them out.
He said the Nepalese never worried if they got a bit sick or had a headache. They just lived with it. He went off, roaming around the lodge, singing.
I had french fries, and toast with peanut butter for supper. I tried to figure out what to do about Sharon. I realized it was out of the question for me to leave her alone.
I finally got a good night's sleep, and woke up feeling more myself. I could see mountain peaks across the valley. I rushed to Sharon's room to tell her to take a look, but she was too sick to care. Miserable, she had spent the night in the bathroom.
Just after I'd ordered breakfast, P.K. told me a Belgian trekking expedition camped nearby had a doctor. I rushed up a steep hill to their camp and brought back with me a retired Flemish doctor who said he'd been on 15 Himalayan expeditions, and his wife, who was also a doctor. They sat in the diningroom and talked to Sharon. Both said her symptoms were caused by altitude sickness, so they gave Sharon an anti-altitude sickness drug called dinroxin.
Sharon popped all the pills, and we ate breakfast. P.K. said he'd been in Namche for five years, and before that he'd lived in Lukla for 11 years. He was from a village between Jiri and Katmandu. He owned the lodge with his sister. By Nepalese standards he was a rich man.
It was Saturday, market day. Held on three dirt terraces, the market was a colourful scene, with Nepalese and Sherpa people from all over the region, most wearing traditional clothes. The wildest-looking women were barefoot, had a long braid of hair with fabric wound around the bottom, multi-coloured cloth head-wraps, layers of cotton skirts and blouses, and big gold rings through their nose. They had very wide faces, dark skin and narrow eyes. There were men with cloth wrapped around their heads, men with woven caps, and men in jeans and jean jackets.
For sale were live chickens, carcasses of meat (people would walk by with a buffalo leg slung over their shoulder), grains and seeds, onions, peppers, live goats, cooking utensils and pots, running shoes, Western clothes, and biscuits and chips. I couldn't find any garlic, which all the Nepalese had been recommending as a cure for altitude sickness. You were supposed to eat it as well as rub it on your forehead.
Starving, I went back to the lodge. At lunch, Sharon ate like a sparrow, and said she felt a tiny bit better, but was getting side effects from the drugs. She reeled back to bed, and I left the lodge.
I walked up one of the steep hills behind the village. At the top, the trail levelled out, and I followed it the length of the valley. At one point, I made a detour and found myself crunching on bone fragments. I had stumbled on the sky-burial cremation grounds. I hastily looked around to make sure no-one had seen me, and found the trail again.
I sat on a boulder looking down at Namche. A Tibetan family, dressed in Western clothes, came along and rested beside me. The man spoke English,
"My child will never know Tibet," he said. "It's being taken over by Chinese men." He'd been selling Tibetan curios in the market, but the day had not been very successful. Trekkers were his main customers. He and two women and a little girl were carrying their goods back to Tengboche where they lived. He sold his Tibetan souvenirs there as well, he said.
It began to get cold. The sun disappeared, and the wind began to howl. At the Namche market, a flock of large ravens was noisily eating all the garbage.
I sat around the stove in the diningroom that night, talking to PK, two well-dressed Sherpa women vendors and three staff boys. One woman was wearing what P.K. called "very expensive" jewellery.
He told me people in the mountains lived a long time. Someone in Namche had died two weeks ago at 130. I wondered if I had stepped on her bones that day. Another guy's grandmother had been 103 when she died. PK said Westerners weren't tough, because they had everything too easy. Porters, he said, could sleep on the ground and get a good night's sleep.
He was the life of the party. He kept jumping up and down, acting out the stories he was telling, wildly gesturing, flashing his funny smile and laughing. He had a captive audience, and he was in his element.
The next morning, Sharon wanted to walk to the clinic at Kunde to see a doctor who could give a second opinion on her symptoms. She was still not feeling well and was driving herself crazy with worry.
It was another foggy, cloudy, rainy, cool day. We slowly set off up what I had thought was the trail to Kunde, but at the top of the steep part of the hill, an old woman with a basket on her back passed us and asked if we were going to Thame. We continued until it dawned on me that we were on the path to Thame. So we had to turn around and walk back to Namche. By this time, we were both starving, and had no energy to try and find the right trail to Kunde.
At another lodge, we climbed two flights of stairs to the warm, well-lit diningroom. On the walls were beautiful carpets from Tibet. The young manager said he went on foot to Tibet once a month to buy carpets. It took him 16 days, using yaks, and he charged accordingly; one small carpet cost 25,000 rupees.
Back at PK's, we talked to a Swiss German couple named Rita and George, who were both pharmacists. The man was a university research physicist, working on new drugs for the central nervous system. He claimed there would be a cure for AIDS in 10 years.
They told Sharon she shouldn't be taking the altitude sickness drug because she didn't have altitude sickness. Instead, she should just drink black tea and coke and eat boiled potatoes. P.K. had earlier advised her not to eat potatoes. Sharon obediently drank black tea and read War and Peace.
The Swiss couple volunteered to take Sharon's temperature, and it turned out she had a fever; in fact, she'd probably had one for the last few days without realizing it. She immediately began gulping down antibiotic pills that cure dysentery, and stopped taking the altitude sickness pills wrongly prescribed by the Belgians.
"I'd better make sure I never get sick in Belgium!" Sharon muttered bitterly.
The next morning, her fever was gone, and she felt 100 per cent better, though still not back to normal. I left her alone again for the day and went hiking.
The sky was brilliantly blue, and I could see several peaks in the distance, including the unclimbable-looking Ama Dablam, with its vertical snow-covered cone. I walked down to a wonderful forest of birch trees with green Spanish Moss hanging from their branches. The leaves were yellow, and some had fallen on the ground.
The trail went along the sides of the mountains. On one side was the vertical slope straight up; on the other side, there was a vertical drop to the river below. The river cut through a deep rock gorge, surrounded by huge boulders.
Most of the houses in the village I passed through were poor looking, with thatched straw roofs and rock walls. The more upscale houses were made of stone, mud or cement, and wood paneling, with tin roofs.
It was completely foggy all the way back to Namche. A Dutch group that had reserved all the private rooms had arrived, so Sharon and I had to move into the dorm where Rita and George were staying. It was freezing cold, but Sharon at least said she was feeling better.
I had a San Miguel beer, french fries, onion soup, and an omelet. Sharon still had a fever, but it was a lot lower than the previous night. She wanted to leave the next day to continue the trek, using a porter to carry her pack.
A blond English guy came in and sat alone in a far corner of the diningroom. His face was scraped and his lips were swollen and bruised. I asked if he was okay, and he said, yes, he was fine; he'd just come from Kunde and had used his torch to see in the dark.
I actually had the best sleep since I'd come to Nepal, in spite of being in a dorm with a few other people. In the morning we found out the English guy had fallen down a mountain. At the bottom, he had dragged himself through a river and slept at the other side in soaking wet clothes and sleeping bag. In the morning, he had dragged himself halfway up the hill and collapsed. Fortunately, two Scottish trekkers had found him and carried him to the hospital at Kunde where he'd stayed for two days. He still looked shell shocked and exhausted.
P.K. found a local teenager to carry Sharon's pack. Named Surya, he was the son of the richest family in town, and he was on holiday from university in Katmandu. He spoke excellent English, and would charge Sharon 110 rupees a day. For a week's portering work, he'd earn more than he would for a month's work in an office in Katmandu after he finished his education.
We slowly climbed the hill out of Namche, with Surya leading the way. The weather was perfect, and we could see the high, snow-covered peaks looming up into the sky. They were beautiful and awesome and seemed close enough to touch.
Sharon was weak, but much better. The antibiotics seemed to be working. I was immensely relieved.
We walked slowly along the trail. Surya speeded ahead with his walkman on, listening to Indian film music. We stopped at a teahouse in the birch forest, and sat outside in the sun watching kids chase crows and New Zealanders climbing up a rock face. Surya took our orders and brought us our food.
"I could get used to this," Sharon giggled.
"It's like having a kept man," I said.
After lunch we climbed straight up a mountain to 3,700 metres, then all the way back down almost to the river, to Phortse Tenga, a two-lodge village. We checked into one of the lodges. It was very basic, with a small room containing a row of beds. One of the other guests was a woman from London named Cal, who had been away from home for 10 months and wanted British news. I told her about the Royal Family scandals, and the ban on smoking in public buses.
The New Zealand rock climbers arrived. A few days ago they had climbed Island Peak, a "trekkers' peak" that you only needed a basic grasp of climbing techniques to get up. But they were each carrying 25 kilogram packs. Mine weighed only half that, and felt like a cruel punishment. The Kiwi group, consisting of Grant, a 44-year-old, two guys in their 20s, and a girl of about 25, had gotten together after Grant had put an ad in the paper.
Over dinner, one of the Kiwis said that at a one lodge, they'd all ordered different kinds of soup, and had gotten identical soup. I ate a tasty spring roll and rice with vegetables. A kerosene lamp provided light, and with so many bodies jammed into such a small space, it was quite warm. Around 8:00, the Sherpa woman put out the lamp, and everyone went to bed. It was the warmest night yet, again due to the closeness of the bodies. I didn't sleep all that well, though, and neither did anyone else. People kept getting up to go to the toilet, snoring, tossing and turning, so I could only sleep in snatches.
Over breakfast, Surya told us it would take four hours to get to the next village, Dole. But it took us two hours, even though we crawled the 600 metres uphill. The trail wasn't as steep as I'd expected. Although there were some straight-up climbs, mostly the trail ascended gently up along the valley above the river. We hiked through fragrant pine, birch, and juniper woods. The ground was covered with yellow birch leaves, and streams spritzed down over rocks to the river. The views of the high snowy peaks were becoming even more magnificent, with the sun shining brilliantly.
Dole was a tiny village of stone buildings, including three inns. We chose the biggest, newest one. Rather than being perched on the edge of cliffs like the other villages, Dole was situated in a relatively flat, large valley, with stone paddocks for the dzouchuks.
I immediately ran down the hill to the river with my t-shirt and bra, and washed them in the glacial water, hanging them to dry on the rocks. For lunch in the glass-enclosed diningroom I ate lentil soup, a vegetable omelet and hot chocolate. Then Sharon and I got a kettle of hot water from the kitchen, collected a container of cold water from the river, and went behind the lodge so she could have a quick sponge bath and I could wash my hair.
The five Kiwis checked into our dorm, without Cal. She'd said earlier that she wanted to walk really far so she'd be tired enough to sleep. There was a Czechoslovakian couple staying in the lodge, along with two American peace corps workers who lived in Nepal. One worked as a fisheries technician at a fish farm; the other taught English.
The Kiwis argued about how high they should go the next day. They were split between going all the way to Gokyo and going only halfway. One said they'd heard someone had died the previous day at Namche of altitude sickness.
"I don't want to hear stories like that," Sharon said.
I kept bashing my head on low doorways.
"I'm always doing that," Grant said. "My head is corrugated."
That night, I only slept for about two hours. Everyone in the dorm was snoring, and my heart was racing from the altitude.
Once it was light, I walked down to the river to wash my face, cracking the ice to get to the water.
It started to warm up over breakfast. In fact, it was a brilliantly sunny day, with blue sky and no clouds. We left Dole around 9:30 and climbed the steep hill up out of the valley. I felt completely exhausted due to lack of sleep.
The trail was fairly level the rest of the way to Macherma; it was a gradual ascent up to 4400 metres. After passing through a bush of junipers, we left the treeline behind.
As we climbed higher, Sharon and I became very silly and light-headed. It must have been the lack of oxygen. I kept mooing at the dzouchuks coming towards us. And we sang "On Top of Old Smoky," but changed the words to "On top of Macherma."
There was a spectacular mountain peak at the head of the valley. A long scree slope, covered with avalanche debris led all the way down to Macherma.
At the inn, the Kiwis had arrived, along with the Swiss couple and the French couple. There were only two beds left. I claimed one, but went outside with Surya to set up my tent in grass covered with drying yak shit. At this altitude, with no trees, yak shit was the main cooking fuel.
We ate a big lunch in the little kitchen. The Sherpa woman was a whirl of activity, juggling a frying pan with a kettle and a cooking pot. Like all Sherpas, she cooked on a big mud and wood stove. The kitchen had a hard-packed dirt floor and walls made of mud, stone and wood.
Feeling delirious, I began singing about the Momo Man from Macherma. And I kept falling and tripping over my own feet.
"I have Altitude Attitude," I said.
That afternoon, the sun disappeared behind dense clouds, and everyone sat squashed around the table in the kitchen trying to stay warm. The two Sherpa kids, a boy and a girl, were entertained by Surya's walkman. He and I eventually started drinking the local brew, called Chang. I was the only trekker drinking alcohol, and everyone told me it was a bad idea, as it would amplify the altitude symptoms. Sure enough, I developed a splitting headache.
Around 7:00, everyone started going to bed. I tromped down through the field in the pitch black to my tent. Above me, billions of stars blinked in the cold sky. I felt high and happy. I got into my tent and lay there waiting for my sleeping bag to warm up.
I thought about the line in my guidebook that said the only "credible" Yeti attack had been on a Sherpa woman at Machermo. The night was silent. Then I heard tiny sounds, and began to wonder if they were not dzouchuks but yetis.
My sleeping bag and clothes warmed up, but I couldn't fall asleep, because I was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. I couldn't seem to get enough air. I wondered if I was going to die of altitude sickness right there and then. My thoughts spiralled completely out of control.
I began gasping for air. My heart pounded, and I thought, This is it! I became convinced I had the advanced stages of altitude sickness, and there wasn't much chance of my surviving the night. Terrified, I lapsed into a semi-psychotic state in which I confronted my own death, and obsessed about the deaths of my grandmother and my friend Mickey.
Then a bullet of logic pierced my brain. Attention, Lynne! it said. You have zipped shut all the tent windows to keep out the cold air. This is not a breathable tent!
I unzipped the windows, and cold air flowed inside. I realized I'd been suffocating in the tent because it hadn't been allowing in any air. I lay there breathing in the cold air, and shivering with cold.
Grabbing my things and feeling extremely foolish, I stumbled up the hill to the lodge. When I banged on the door, the Sherpa woman let me in, as if she'd been expecting me. I lay in bed, breathing deeply, and finally, I fell asleep for about three hours.
At breakfast, the Sherpa woman said she lived in Kumjung during the winter; she spent the trekking months in this lodge while her husband went on trekking expeditions. I really admired her; she never stopped working, and she was extremely nice.
I sat in the sun, and began to feel better. Surya carefully, almost tenderly cut the hair of the little Sherpa girl, who sat on a stool very still while he worked. At each lodge, he did a small chore for the owners in exchange for a free bed. Sharon paid for his food, and complained that he was eating too much.
We waited around all morning to make sure my headache was a stress headache, not an altitude headache. When it had subsided to a dull roar, I decided it was safe to head up to Gokyo. After lunch - pancakes for Sharon and I, vegetables and rice for Surya -we packed up and headed out of the valley. The trail wound uphill gradually.
The higher we climbed, the more barren and rocky the landscape became. We climbed past huge boulders, alongside rushing, icy rivers. It was really windy and cold, and snowflakes fell on us. Everything looked cold, hostile and inhospitable. The snow-covered peaks towered far above us.
The higher we got, the harder the trekking became. My pack felt unbelievably heavy. Surya whizzed ahead with his walkman on. We passed two small glacial, turquoise-coloured lakes, and then reached the big one, Gokyo Lake. Golazo was a collection of stone lodges beside the lake, surrounded by boulders and small shrubby plants. The biggest lodge, which had a glass building in which trekkers were sitting with their faces turned to the sun, was full. I was amazed that the glass panes had been carried up so far without breaking.
We claimed beds in the small Namaste Lodge, which had a dorm closely packed with rows of bunk beds. A Japanese trekker was sitting doing a beautiful oil painting of the mountains.
Sharon and I both had bad headaches, so we took 222s and sat around eating. We felt very weak, and even just making up our beds required a lot of effort. The yak-shit burning stove kept us warm. Surprisingly, the smell was not unpleasant.
I asked the landlady where the toilet was, and she laughingly said, "Out there," which meant "just go out there and find a private spot behind some boulders."
After a huge meal, I stayed in my sleeping bag all evening reading a funny English book about a hiker and his smelly dog. Surya talked animatedly to the two pretty Sherpa women who ran the lodge. Later, he told me he thought Sherpa women were beautiful, but of course he could never marry one. He had a girlfriend in Japan, and she had bought him his walkman.
Everyone was in bed by 7:00. I lay there for about an hour, but around 11:30 I was surprised to find I'd actually been sleeping. The other trekkers snored, moaned, coughed and whispered to themselves. I snatched more sleep. At 6:00, Sharon ordered me out of bed, and breakfast came fairly soon after that.
The weather was completely clear and sunny. Since none of us had a headache, we set off to climb up Gokyo Peak. It felt so good to climb without a pack, it was like being released from bondage. The slope was really steep and dusty, but the trail switchbacked all the way up.
The views were absolutely incredible. The higher we climbed, the more high peaks we could see. It was a perfect day; turquoise Gokyo Lake sparkled below, and the sun blazed down on the blindingly white snow.
At the halfway point, the altitude really hit us. We breathed great gasps of air. But, buzzing with adrenaline, I raced up to the boulder-strewn summit ridge.We'd made it! I was ecstatic.
We took pictures, and I walked over to the far end of the ridge, where Cal, Grant, and a few other trekkers were sitting on boulders soaking up the sun. Everyone looked buzzed with happiness. In the distance, the black triangular bulk of Everest loomed above the other high peaks.
Below in the valley, clouds began to roll in. Surya told us about the pilgrimages every summer by Nepalese and Sherpas to the source of the Gokyo Lake glacier. He said people prayed to the gods for fertility, among other things. His mother had had five sons after a pilgrimage. No doubt this pilgrimage has roots that are thousands of years old, before Hinduism and Buddhism, dating back to Mother Goddess religion.
When the wind started to pick up, we began to head down the mountain. It was a lot easier descending, but the dust made the trail slippery. Surya raced down ahead of us.
Sharon and I sat outside the lodge, soaking up the sun, eating delicious cheese and potato pastries and garlic soup, and talking. We were both so happy we'd reached Gokyo Peak. We laughed at a little girl who was walking around with her pants around her ankles and her bottom bare.
Once it got windy and the sun disappeared, we came inside and looked at the itinerary. We were on schedule for getting a flight out of Lukla. Sharon said she probably wouldn't want to trek to Jiri. I said I probably would. She asked how I felt about going alone. I said I'd have to think about it, whether it was safe in terms of health and crime. She said she wouldn't mind being alone in Katmandu, because there were things there that she wanted to do, such as visit temples. I said I didn't want to spend 10 days in Katmandu; I'd rather be out in the country. We concluded we'd make decisions later, once we got back to Namche. I expected I'd be able to tell Surya my decision by then.
I climbed up a ridge to see the glacier up close. It was immense: a long swathe of gray gravel and rock, dotted by creepy-looking holes filled with green or turquoise water. I could hear water gurgling and ice crashing even though I couldn't see any ice; it was all below the surface of the gravel.
I went back to the lodge, and sat beside the stove. Sharon sat eating coconut cookies.
Being more acclimatized, everyone slept a lot better that night. Some of the trekkers were taking a dangerous journey on foot across the glacier to Everest Base Camp. I was tempted to try it, but Surya said he didn't know the way, and was afraid to go.
The day was clear and sunny, with a few clouds. After a late start, we set off down the trail we had come up. I asked Surya if he thought it was safe for me to trek alone from Lukla to Jiri, and he said it was. He walked far ahead of Sharon and I for the whole day; we never saw him until Dole, though he kept relaying messages to us via other trekkers coming in the opposite direction.
At Machermo, we stopped to eat and get water. We met some Canadian trekkers who told us the Toronto Blue Jays had just won the World Series.
Just up the hill outside of Machermo, we met up with Sully and his girlfriend Amanda, a big, strong-looking woman of about 40. They sent their porter down to the lodge. He was a small boy of 12 or 13. They jokingly called him their "kid," but I doubted they would load down their own kid with such a heavy backpack.
It took longer to get to Dole than we'd expected, mainly because we were so hungry. We kept thinking Dole would be just ahead around the corner, but no; it was a lot farther. We passed a cantankerous old German woman who ordered us to book a room for her in Dole. Once we got there, we ignored her order. I later saw her remonstrating in the kitchen with Surya, who just smiled and nodded.
Surya had booked two beds in the dorm for us, but since a private room was available, we took it. We sat waiting for our food. The kitchen was a total disaster. I found Surya sitting on the floor peeling potatoes to expedite my order of french fries. An hour and a half later, I finally got them.
Cal arrived too late to get a bed, and had to continue on to Phortse Tenga in the wind and fog, alone. Why didn't I offer to let her sleep on the floor of our room? My feeble excuse is that I was spaced out and exhausted.
When I took off my socks, I saw my feet for the first time in about a week, since I always slept wearing socks. I was shocked by how dirty my feet were. In fact, my whole body was grimy, since I was sleeping in the same clothes I was trekking in. My fingernails were full of dirt. But I didn't care. Why fight it?
The toilet facilities were becoming disgusting-not because of the Nepalese; they, after all, didn't use the toilets. It was all because the trekkers didn't know how to squat properly, and consequently, were missing the holes. There was shit piled up all over the floor boards. I was beginning to avoid the outhouses and walk off into the fields to squat behind boulders instead.
We ordered dinner shortly after eating lunch, hoping that by the time we were hungry again we'd be served our food. Sharon sat all evening chatting with a young woman doctor from New Zealand. I deserted her, and joined Surya in front of the stove. Dinner never arrived, so Surya and I decided to order a small bottle of Nepalese rum instead. Surya got a cup of hot water, poured the rum into two glasses, and added the water. It tasted delicious, and within minutes, we were both dizzy.
Three Sherpa boys joined us, and a party started up. We talked and laughed for hours. I was having so much fun, I forgot where I was. Meanwhile, across the room, Sharon was having a sober discussion with the New Zealand doctor about their jobs.
Not having a flashlight, at bedtime I staggered downstairs in the pitch black, stumbling over sacks of rice.
"Sharon!" I yelled. "Where are you? I'm lost!" She had to light a candle so I could see where she was.
I fell asleep right away. But four hours later I woke up and knocked myself in the eye with my watch. Amazingly, I saw a bright explosion of lights.
For breakfast, we grabbed a spot in the chaotic kitchen. The Swiss woman doctor said that after two months of travel in this part of the world, she still couldn't get used to how dirty everything was, especially the kitchens.
"Just don't look," I advised her. I went into the diningroom and woke up Surya, who was crashed out on the floor under a blanket with one of the Sherpa boys. When I got back to the kitchen, the obnoxious old German woman had sat almost on top of Sharon in my place. Sharon seemed morbidly fascinated by the chaos and filth of the kitchen.
Surya shook hands with us and said, "See you in Namche," then disappeared over the hill with Sharon's backpack. We walked downhill for about five hours. It was cool, but the sun kept shining.
We stopped for lunch in the birch forest at the Ama Dablan Lodge, then race walked back to Namche in about an hour. Light snow was falling, though Namche was still bathed in light. We climbed down the hill and checked into PK's place. Surya had left Sharon's pack and departed. For lunch we ate delicious spaghetti and tomato sauce and cheese.
"I've decided to fly out of Lukla, as I have no desire to trek to Jiri," Sharon stated.
"I've decided to trek to Jiri," I said.
We toured the main streets of Namche, which now seemed big and sophisticated.
Back at the lodge, Surya arrived, having showered and changed into a yellow shirt, baggy black pants, and a black leather jacket. He said his brother from Japan, the karate teacher, had just arrived today by helicopter.
I was cold all night, after going to bed with wet hair from a candlelit shower. I felt about 10 pounds lighter without the dirt that had built up on my body.
We walked out of Namche after breakfast, and ran down the hill that had been so hard to climb up. The weather was clear and sunny. By noon we were in Monjo and starving, so we stopped at an inn for lunch and ate outside. We talked to two American doctors, a couple, who'd just finished a six-month stint at the Pheriche clinic.
"We were kicked out of the U.S. for malpractice," said the man, laughing.
"We practised herbal medicine in Pheriche," the woman said, and the man responded, "Yeah, marijuana and hashish."
They were on their way to their next assignment, in Somalia.
Sharon and I rushed up the trail. At one point, we had to push some dzouchuks out of our way or they could have stabbed us with their horns. Sharon was in a big hurry to get to Lukla to find out about her flight, so we really pushed the pace.
On the trail we met two men travelling together: Chris, a 21-year-old skinny, blond, funny Brit, and George, a wry 50-year-old American photographer. Chris was an engineer and had recently travelled all over Africa alone.
At Lukla, we took beds at the Himalaya Lodge. Sharon confirmed her flight. George and Chris invited me to trek with them and George's Nepalese guide Lal in the morning.
After watching Sharon's plane fly out of Lukla, I followed the men down the trail. Two hilarious Frenchmen came with us - Philipe and Oliver, tall blonds from Bretagne. When I asked one to take a photo of me poised at the edge of a cliff, they pretended they were cavemen and couldn't figure out how to work the camera. A group of elderly people trekked past us, some being led by the hand by young Sherpas. Philipe and Oliver made jokes about what would happen if one of these old trekkers died: plastic body bags would be thrown over the cliff.
We spent the day trekking up and down extremely steep hills. We were surrounded on all sides by lush jungly forests of ferns, flowers, big oak trees, vines, and Spanish Moss.
At Puyan we stopped for lunch, sitting at a picnic table outside in the sun. A tiny old woman stalked around the lodge with a bare-bottomed baby. When I got my food first, Philipe and Oliver tried to distract me by pointing out imaginary parachutes and airplanes. The bench I was sitting on almost collapsed, sending the waitress into a giggling fit. Then Chris tried on a porter's basket with a forehead trumpline, and he almost fell over backwards.
After Puyan, we continued climbing up and down through the beautiful green forest. We saw hardly any other trekkers; it seemed most were flying into Lukla.
We passed a convoy of pack mules with wool tassels on their forelocks. All the pack animals had little baskets attached to their snouts to stop them from eating along the trail.
Around 4:00, Philipe and Oliver sped ahead of us to get to Khari Kola. They wanted to make the seven-day trip to Jiri in four days, so they'd be walking in the dark at night. We continued down another outrageously steep hill to Bupsa, a village halfway down a valley. There we checked into the Everest Hotel, a new place with an indoor squat toilet and clean dorms with pictures on the walls of Bruce Lee, Buddha, and Rambo. I washed outside in the back yard.
We sat around the kitchen reading and eating by kerosene lamp. Chris and I talked about childbirth, marriage, careers, love and work. George, who was 50 and had completed the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, said he wanted to celebrate his 60th birthday on the summit of Mt. Everest.
Somehow, the inn owners' two little boys dragged me into a game of catch with balloons and ping pong balls. Music played on a ghetto blaster, while the women prepared our dinner in the kitchen, which was also the family's sleeping quarters.
Chris said, "Imagine sleeping in a room with all kinds of vegetables above you."
He was very enthusiastic about everything, and said "Stonking good!" a lot. Twenty-two years old, he had left home to travel the world after getting his engineering degree at Cambridge.
Supper was reasonably good, dressed up with "Everest Ketchup." Everything in Nepal was named after Everest: Everest Toothpaste, Everest Shampoo, and lots of Everest Lodges.
I woke up in the morning with an extremely sore throat. In fact, my cough seemed to be getting worse. George said it was due to the high altitude, and it happened to nearly everyone. He and Chris were also coughing a lot.
We left the lodge at about 8:00. Chris and I hiked ahead of George and Lall, along the sides of mountains. The sun shone hotly on the subtropical vegetation.
We entered a region of wonderful, peaceful farms and villages. Khari Khola was an exceptionally idyllic village, with kids and baby animals playing in the street, electricity, little general stores, a woman in a store sewing on a machine, a few lodges for trekkers. The difference between the villages at this elevation and the ones above Namche was that here, catering to trekkers was a sideline, not the reason for existence. The farms around Khari Khola were agriculturally oriented because the climate was good for growing food. The hills were terraced and ringed by marigolds, and the fallow fields were full of mustard plants.
We stopped for tea at a perfect inn with a fantastic garden of flowers, fruits and vegetables. Sitting at a picnic table in the front garden, we were surrounded by flowers. Even the outhouse seemed amazingly clean.
We continued to head down, right to the bottom of the Dudh Kosi Valley. We crossed over the river on a suspension bridge and left the river behind. This was the beginning of the climb up to the Trakshindo Pass (3,050) metres. It was a grueling, almost vertical steep climb, up along a boulder-strewn dusty trail. A big, fat brown snake crawled across the trail and disappeared into the bushes. Flies and butterflies buzzed around our legs.
Further up the trail, we got to Nuntala, which had a flagstoned main street flanked by lodges, houses and shops. Women and men were sitting threshing corn and grain by hand. Kids and chickens ran everywhere. Teenage boys lounged around. A few porters passed through the village.
We had lunch in the first big lodge, where a sleek grey cat and its tiny, cute kitten ran around us. The kitten played with the straps of my backpack, and occasionally sprawled at the edge of the clay oven, which was roaring full tilt.
"Destroying a whole forest!" Chris sniffed.
At the Sherpa Guide Lodge, we found a room with four beds, all of us swearing up and down that we didn't snore.
I walked down to the stream and washed, then sat outside in the sun. Chris and I walked to the "Shopping Centre", as he called it, a neat well-stocked small store, where I bought toilet paper, and Chris bought a huge bag of candies to ease his dry throat and hand out to kids.
Back at the lodge, the temperature dropped like a rock as soon as the sun went down. A group of French trekkers in matching turquoise baggy pants and fleece sweaters had arrived. They all took showers, and then the two women began complaining because the stove wasn't on. Chris and I sat sneering at them. He kept calling me "Buggaluggs." I was aware of some strange politics between him and George, and I was afraid of getting in the way of their friendship. I suspected George resented my presence.
The food was terrible, and I wondered how the French were able to eat it. It was extremely greasy and flavourless, and the Sherpa Stew tasted like it had been made a few months ago.
"It's like greasy carpet!" Chris said.
When I tried to light a match for my candle, he asked why I didn't buy a torch. "You're probably so technically incompetent you wouldn't be able to use it," he teased.
We went to bed around 8:00. Chris told funny stories, and I couldn't stop laughing. He told me about a friend who, during a do-dare game at a party, decided to dress in women's clothes and run down to the pub.
"Why is it that so many English men are transvestites?" I pondered.
In fact, no-one snored, and I slept well. But I woke up at 4:30 or so, my stomach churning. Feeling nauseated, I lay there hoping the feeling would go away. I knew the Sherpa Stew was responsible for this. Just thinking about it made me gag.
At 6:00, Chris rolled over and announced he felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. Neither of us could eat breakfast. We lay in our beds, complaining about how terrible we felt. Chris thought he had giardia, and I thought I had food poisoning. But we decided to get up and leave.
I slowly walked up the trail. When I looked back, I saw Chris talking to Lall and George, and then go back. George said Chris had decided he was too sick to trek; he would stay in Nuntala for a couple of days and dose himself with anti-giardia medicine. I cynically thought, yeah, men are such sucks when they get sick....Soon he and Lall passed me, as I had to stop and rest every 10 minutes. They left me far behind.
I ate a granola bar and drank a half litre of water. It took me an hour to walk up the steep slope to the top of the pass, and I felt really weak and nauseated. I knew I should have stayed in Nuntala for the day, but just the thought of the food in that kitchen made me want to throw myself off a cliff.
Agricultural land gave way to subtropical forest, interspersed with small farms - wooden shacks with kids playing outside, some saying Hello or Namaste, or just putting their hands together, some asking for pens, one offering a potato, one offering an apple. Little boys were washing clothes, and fathers were taking care of their children.
Trekking alone was an altogether different experience. People reacted to me as an individual, not as one part of a group.
Just before the pass, I reached a big monastery. Beside it was a big house. I went in and asked a severe old woman if she had any food. She had only Dhal Bhatt and rice, which she and her two grandsons were about to eat. I sat in the kitchen with them and ate plain rice, with tea. I had to force it down, because I was feeling incredibly exhausted and weak. The carbohydrates did the trick, though. I felt an energy rush kick in. Another 20 minutes straight uphill, and I was at the top of the pass. Right at the ridge, prayer flags flapped in the breeze. I left one valley behind, and entered another. Just down the slope, I bought two apples at a small store. The people hanging around stared at me strangely.
I found the trail to Jiri and followed it down through an evergreen forest. A German trekker said Junbesi was four hours away. I decided to try to get there. On the way, I passed some big lodges surrounded by apple orchards. Women smiled brilliantly and greeted me. I continued down to the river, and sat on a rock eating apples. Then I had to start climbing all the way back up. Because I still felt ill, this was really hard.
Eventually I got to the village of Saluna. At a store, I had rara noodle soup and a package of coconut cookies. A young Dutch couple came by with their two guides. The girl sat the guides down and berated them.
"I'm very angry because I'm paying you, and you're laughing at me, or ignoring me and always playing your radio," she said. "I'm upset because I wanted us to be friends."
Junbesi, she told me, was still four hours away. I decided to continue, even though I was worried about getting there before dark. It seemed every four hours, Junbesi would still be another four hours away. The trail was mostly level now, so I walked fast up and down the hills and around the sides of the mountains, across streams, through forests of lush green vegetation, past farms where people were plowing fields with oxen.
At one lodge, I asked a Japanese guy how far it was to Junbesi. He said one hour. Relieved, I marched on, seeing hardly anyone. Around a corner, I looked down and saw Junbesi, at the bottom of the valley beside a small river. At a big lodge at the top of the village I found Lall and George in the front yard hanging out laundry. George didn't look particularly happy to see me.
"I thought you'd turned back," he said shiftily.
As it was only 50 cents, I took a private room. The couple who ran the lodge really seemed to have their act together. They had a cute little baby and a girl of about five.
I sat in the diningroom, completely exhausted.
Miraculously, I felt fine in the morning. I left the lodge at 7:30, following behind George and Lall. George was very quiet, responding to my comments only with grunts. We started climbing up to the 3,500 metre Lamjura Pass. He stopped to ostensibly look at a berry on a bush, and waved me on. I realized this was a ploy to get rid of me. I stomped off ahead of him and Lall, trying to figure out why he'd asked me to trek with him and Chris in the first place.
I trekked up the steep hill through the forest of huge, old spruce trees covered in moss. It was quiet, and I felt really negative; I kept thinking about how alone and alienated I was. George and Lall passed me while I was sitting resting on a rock. George said nothing, but Lall greeted me warmly. I tromped slowly up to the top of the pass, where there was a large chorten with prayer flags.
I drank hot lemon at a lodge just down from the pass. This is where I met the trekkers who would be my companions for the next week- a laughing, bearded Australian man named Martin, and his two British companions - Justin, a redhead, and Mark, a blond. They too were on their way down to Jiri. There was no question of our trekking together, however; since they were serious athletes, they were much too fast for me.
After the pass, the trail followed along the top of a ridge before it began relentlessly switchbacking steeply 2,000 metres down to the next valley. I passed many groups of porters coming uphill with gigantic loads; most were teenage boys, and they always smiled and stared at me and said "keti," which Lall had told me meant "girl." I still couldn't believe the size of the loads the porters carried. They walked barefoot, or wearing rubber ankle boots or flimsy canvas shoes, and their legs were short but bulging with muscles.
Little kids playing in the dirt greeted me. Women smiled. My mood lifted as I carefully picked my way downhill. Philipe and Oliver passed me with three other trekkers.
I said, "I thought you guys would be in Jiri by now!"
They replied: "Well, we were, but we left our toothbrushes behind and had to go back for them." They said they were heading for Bandar, which was really far away. I didn't believe them.
I had planned on staying at Sete. When I got there, though, I found only a couple of rundown lodges on a dry, dusty hill, not near any water. Way at the bottom of the valley was a village on the river. Because it looked green, fertile and inviting, I decided to keep going. It took two hours, and the trail got even steeper and rockier. The climate zone changed back to subtropical, and the heat got more intense as I descended. Loud cicadas buzzed in the trees. I saw clumps of spider webs hanging between trees with huge spiders suspended in the middle of them.
The village at the bottom was called Kenja. I was now travelling without a map, as my map only covered the area around Namche. At the biggest, best-looking lodge I checked into a private room that cost only 20 rupees. I washed my hair and some clothes, and pigged out in the diningroom.
Lall came in and sat with me. He said he lived on a farm with his parents, brother, sister-in-law, nieces, wife and two-year-old daughter. They had cows, sheep, buffaloe, bulls, and grew many crops.
I had some homemade apple cider, which relaxed me. The cheerful Norwegians I had met at Gokyo were there. George sat reading in a corner; I supposed he felt safe from me now. I hadn't really wanted to trek alone with him, anyway; with the loss of Chris, the dynamics had changed for the worse. I was beginning to like trekking alone. I could stop whenever I liked, go where I wanted, and interact with people on my own terms.
The Germans who'd been at Gokyo were also staying at the lodge, along with another German couple, and two American girls on their way up. The young Sherpa girl working in the lodge seemed to be having a great time. She was 13, spoke sketchy English, and ran back and forth to the kitchen relaying news about what was and wasn't available.
I woke up feeling more myself. George announced at breakfast that he'd been awake all night sick. I secretly felt glad.
I set off around 8:00, and for about 10 minutes, my pack felt light. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the valley looked beautiful; it was green, with grain waving in the breeze, kids going off to school, lush plants everywhere. The trail followed the river through the valley, gently ascending. Then it started climbing steeply. My pack began to feel heavy. I panted and puffed my way up to Bandar, a prosperous, spread-out village on a large, flat plain, surrounded by green mountains. Pigs, buffalo, cows and chickens wandered everywhere.
At the top of the valley I saw the Germans and Norwegians having tea at a picnic table outside in the garden of a lodge. A pretty young Nepalese girl was serving drinks. I had cinnamon tea and an omelet, thinking that would be enough for the rest of the 1500-metre climb up to the Bandar Pass. But as soon as I started up the extremely steep and rocky final ascent, I went wobbly and dizzy, and had to keep stopping to rest.
"I hate being passed by Norwegians," I told the Norwegians, as they sped past me. In Norway, everyone including people in their 60s, had passed me on mountain trails.
At one point I almost bumped into a Japanese guy carrying a mountain bike. He said he was carrying it all the way to Kala Patar. I started laughing at him. He whipped out his camera and took a photo of me pointing in disbelief at him.
"You're crazy," I told him, and I could hear him and his porter laughing all the way down the mountain.
A woman and her little boy hopscotched with me. Each time, the kid would hold out his hand and say, "One rupee." I was surprised, because they were well dressed and didn't look poor. I saw a pair of exotic birds - big, black, and white, with long black and white tail feathers, flitting from tree to tree. Everybody passed me.
"I'm dying...." I groaned melodramatically. Finally, I reached the top of the pass. Dewali, a small village, was perched on top.
I checked into the Lama Lodge, and sat outside at a table, talking to the German couple and their funny goateed friend. The Norwegians, Brits and Aussie took off for the cheese factory 45 minutes away and returned with big hunks of cheese. We pigged out on yogurt- the best yogurt I'd tasted in my life. We kept ordering bowls of it with fruit until there was none left.
Rats ran around the extensive mani walls in front of the lodge. Dogs chased the rats, and little kids threw rocks at the rats. The blond Norwegian barked at the dogs.
Four little Sherpa boys, all with dirty faces, white teeth, and cute smiles, crowded around me. They pointed to a donkey, and made me repeat the word in Sherpa, along with the word for "man." We exchanged names. Because they were writing all over the restaurant menu, I gave them a sheet of paper. But they ripped it into strips, put in sand, and rolled the strips into fake cigarettes!
I wondered who my roommate for the night was. Originally, I had been billetted in a three-bed room with the goateed German, but the owner apologetically moved me into a room with a mystery backpack sitting on the other bed.
The sun disappeared, and it got dark and cool. The next day would be my last trekking day.
Suppertime was a party, with everyone talking at once and telling funny stories. The Norwegian read from a book that said there were jackals in these hills, and we all started howling. Martin had a hearty, infectious laugh, and seemed to find everything utterly hilarious. He said they'd been eating kilos of cheese a day each, and that it was great for "bunging you up."
"Nepal is the only country in the world where upon meeting someone, you "Nepal is the only country in the world where upon meeting someone, you immediately enquire about the consistency of their stool," Justin said. He told me that a year ago, two trekkers had been murdered at the pass where everyone had stared strangely at me.
It turned out my room-mate was the blond Danish guy. I woke up when he looked at me and climbed into bed. He was silent all night, and I slept soundly.
I dreamt I was trekking with a group, and we walked into a Chinese restaurant in New York City. Inside the red velvet interior, we ordered vast quantities of food, but all they had was dhal bat and fried potatoes!
I was the first person up. I'd found over the weeks that the key to a quick breakfast was to get up before everyone else, go straight into the kitchen, and place your order in the hands of the cooks. In minutes, I was eating museli and hot milk, bread and jam, and more delicious fresh yogurt. I packed up quickly, and left before the other trekkers.
It was quite cool, but as I trekked downhill, the temperature rose, and the sun came out. I trekked down to Shivalaya, a small shabby village, then crossed the river on three logs, and started walking uphill to the next pass. This climb was not too hard because the steep parts alternated with gradual ascents. I began passing trekkers fresh from Jiri. They looked ridiculously fat and clean, and were smiling happily like they'd just breathed in laughing gas.
Jiri was a lot farther away than I had expected. A big town at the bottom of a valley, it was full of shops, lodges, and houses. It looked junky and rundown. As I walked along the main street, I was hailed by George, who was sitting in a little restaurant with Lall, eating dhal bhat and drinking beer. He said they'd be boarding a mini-bus or taxi at 2:00 or 3:00 but had dumped their luggage at the Sherpa Guide Lodge, which was my destination. I walked down to the lodge and took a room, then sat on the top floor restaurant eating dhal bhat.
For the rest of the afternoon I sat outside in the sun, drinking beer with Justin. The Norwegians, the Germans, and the Dane arrived. Justin said he'd met the two Scottish trekkers who'd rescued the Brit who fell down the mountainside. They'd thought he was incompetent. A goat with marigolds around its neck walked by, and Lall hugged and patted it.
Justin said he was an engineering graduate, and had to go back to England soon to find a job.
"Did you graduate recently?" he asked.
"Flattery will get you nowhere," I replied, refusing to tell him my age.
At 4:00 the minibus arrived, and the Germans and George and Lall boarded it. I didn't want to go with them, as the bus wouldn't get to Katmandu until early in the morning, and who knew where I would have found myself at that time of night? Also, I was really comfortable sitting out there in the sun with my beer.
The sun faded away, replaced by a quarter moon. Two porters sat on the step with me. I decided I liked Jiri, and that it was not a junky dive after all; it was its own universe. There was so much life: women breast feeding babies, kids playing ball, or carrying their baby siblings on their backs; chickens, goats, dogs and cows roaming around; people walking up and down the street; teenagers hanging out; Nepalese music playing, the sound of many conversations and laughter. It was beautiful, and I felt completely high and happy.
But the lodge was noisy. About 20 porters were partying right above my room. Finally, things settled down around 10:00 or so. I slept on and off until 4:00, and got up in a hurry.
I walked in the dark with Justin, Martin and Mark down the main street to the bus stop. The bus was jam packed with people, three to a seat, so, according to plan, we climbed up on the roof, which had a steel railing all around it. Martin claimed it would be safer up there if the bus went over a cliff; we'd be able to jump off rather than being trapped inside. Only a few weeks earlier, a bus had plunged over a cliff, and about 40 people had died.
The bus went quite slowly, though, so we didn't have to worry about accidents. At the first police checkpoint we lay down because we didn't want to have to get off the bus to sign papers. We also had to duck down to avoid being hit by tree branches.
It was dark and freezing for about half an hour; we huddled and shivered, watching the stars. I even saw one shooting star. Then the sky turned pink, and the sun eventually slid up from behind the mountains.
It felt strange to be watching the scenery roll by instead of trekking through it. It was like watching a movie, and it felt unbelievably lazy.
We rode up and down mountains along the paved road. Rivers had been slowed down by gravel grades, and they flowed shallowly across the road. Dry slopes had been reforested with evergreen trees.
Kids kept running after the bus and jumping on for free rides to school. Other kids would wave hello to me. One woman saw me up there on the roof, laughed, yelled "Namaste!" and folded her hands, smiling brilliantly. I did the same. It was one of those priceless travel moments.
Once the sun had come up, it was quite warm. A lot of Nepalese men rode on the roof with us, sitting on sacks of potatoes and onions, and sneakily trying to inch their way over to sit on my pack.
We stopped at more police checkpoints. A skinny nervous man got on with us and secured two suspicious-looking packages under a pack belonging to a New Zealander travelling inside the bus with his wife.We figured he was a dope smuggler, but after the last checkpoint, he laughed with relief, and told us the packages were bolts of raw silk from Tibet.
We stopped for lunch at Lamosangu, a tumbledown slum on a big, beautiful, turquoise river. I stayed on the bus, and ate biscuits and oranges, and stretched my legs and watched the packs. Across the river about 30 kilometres away was Tibet, but foreigners could only cross the border if they were with an organized tour group.
The next time we stopped at a small village, I saw a four-year-old girl belly dancing on the step outside her house, looking like she was having the time of her life. Her mother and another woman were sitting there in the sun laughing, and everyone who passed by would look at the little girl and laugh.
Along the river, men were fishing with long rods or nets. In fields, people were threshing grain by hand or ploughing fields with water buffaloe. From atop the passes we could see whole ranges of snowy mountain peaks.
About an hour before Katmandu, we got kicked off the roof because of the tram lines, and had to stand inside the bus in the aisle, uncomfortably bent over. After we got off the bus downtown, Martin and I walked quickly to Thamel. I checked into the Katmandu Guest House.
I was almost finished a long, hot shower when Sharon arrived, just back from a three-day organized tour of Chitwan National Park. She seemed a lot more relaxed, and just wanted to hang out at the hotel while I went for dinner with Mark, Martin and Justin.
At Helena's, a large cafe, we sat outside in the courtyard and ordered beer and heaps of food. Martin said Mark ate so much because of Ernie, his pet tapeworm. I had broccoli with cheese sauce, salad, curried chicken and vegetables, and chocolate cream pie. Everything was absolutely delicious. We sat there stuffing ourselves for two hours, and drank, and laughed, and told funny stories while the Eagles played in the background. A big source of amusement for us were the new arrivals who had fat bellies and clean white clothes.
Sharon left first thing in the morning to catch her flight back to Toronto. I wandered around Thamel alone, and checked into a cheaper room on the second floor of the Manaslu Guest House. A balcony overlooked the street.
I walked to the Amex office. There was no mail for me. Later, I found out that about 10 people had sent letters to this office, and everything had disappeared into a black hole. Postcards Sharon sent to Canada never arrived.
I wandered around the city, through Durbar Square, which was full of old, carved wooden temple buildings, and fruit markets, and crowded Freak Street/New Road area. Although I was wearing a calf-length skirt and long-sleeved top, all the teenage boys in the streets stared at me. Some said "hello" or "namaste", and some made comments such as, "Madam, I love you."
Katmandu before the trek had seemed chaotic, dirty and shabby. Now it looked modern, tidy and organized, especially the touristy Thamel area. Sweepers were always cleaning the streets, though there were piles of garbage in back alleys. The streets were full of rickshaws, women in saris, hip young guys in Western clothes, trekkers and tourists looking like brightly coloured, bizarrely dressed moving targets, bicycles, touts wanting to change money or sell you cocaine or hash, motorcycles, bikes, a few beggars, vendors squatting on the ground selling identical merchandise, occasional trucks and cars, wandering dogs and cows and even an elephant, a few Sherpa women, poor Nepalese, uniformed kids on their way to and from school, men driving motorcycles with saried women riding side saddle, a monk in wine-coloured robes, boys walking along with their arms around each other, a man playing a flute, the sound of tooting horns.
Sitting on my balcony looking down on the street, I spotted Justin riding by in a rickshaw, and then I saw Chris. I raced downstairs to catch him. He had just arrived back from Jiri, and he looked high and delirious, the way I had no doubt looked the previous day. He said the ride from Jiri had been "as fast as shit on a stick." We arranged to meet for dinner the next night.
I met Martin, Mark and Justin for pizza and chocolate cake, and we dined by candlelight, as there were enforced power blackouts every evening. After, we walked over to Tom and Jerry's Pub, which featured all kinds of beer and loud, recorded American pop music. It amazed me that in Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, there was a place like this. A few Nepalese men were hanging out. Mostly the place was packed with young foreign men. We drank beer and got really silly. Martin told us about the Safe Sex Positions Manual, which had illustrations of couples on a bed, with their backs to each other, or the man hanging from the ceiling and the woman lying on the bed.
Before 10:00, when the bars and my hotel closed, I walked back. I felt no threat on the streets at night. There were lots of men, but I didn't feel afraid of them. The staff boys wanted me to sit and talk to them all night.
"You have a very strong face," they said, and were highly impressed that I had hiked most of the Everest trek on my own.
I had a hard time sleeping that night. First I heard a man crying and coughing in the alley, as if he'd been beaten up. Around 2:30, some dogs began having a bark-fest, and by the time they finished, the street noises had started up again. I arose around 6:00, and met Justin and Mark down the street. We walked through the misty early-morning streets, full of silent dogs eating garbage, across the dirty river and uphill to the Monkey Temple. There were 300 steps up to the big gold stupa, and colonies of little monkeys were scurrying everywhere, in the trees, up on the stupa, on the steps...A mad boy kept saying hello to us and making strange bird noises.
We wandered around. Mark and I went inside the temple where there were big statues of Buddha. Two chubby, old monks in red robes approached us and demanded money. I pulled out a 5-rupee note. One monk was about to snatch it out of my hand when the other monk lunged forward, tripped over my foot, grabbed the money, and fell on the stone floor, losing one shoe! They laughed like maniacs and then stalked away. I later saw one of them trying to grab a balloon away from a little girl who earlier had been standing with a marigold in her hand when a monkey came up and snatched it away.
From the temple complex, we could see the mist-enshrouded city below us. Katmandu was more like a collection of villages than a city. We walked down the steps and back across the city to Thamel, the modern oasis of new buildings and big trees. In the road, a man wearing a towel was standing with his two naked little boys helping them bathe at a water faucet. More (silent) dogs were fighting over garbage with a man in rags. People had stretched out long strands of wool on the sidewalk, and piles of raw wool were drying in clumps by the river. At an open-air meat market, big hunks of meat lay festering on the ground, waiting to be bought.
Mark went back to his hotel to crash, but Justin and I went to the Pumpernickel for breakfast: museli with yogurt, and scones and tea. I loved his Sheffield accent. It seemed familiar, because my father's family came to Canada from Sheffield.
We both had a coughing fit.
"It's the Himilaya Hack," I said.
"The Khumba Cough," he said.
We walked east to the Boudinath Stupa, the largest Buddhist monument in Nepal. On the way, at a temple, we saw two men, one in full drag as a woman, dancing to Hindu music played by five musicians squatting on the ground.
The stupa was huge, white and round, with big eyes painted on all sides. We climbed up on top and wandered around.
"I love this stupa," Justin said happily. "It's natural and beautiful." Sherpa and Tibetan people were walking around the stupa clockwise, spinning the brass prayer wheels. They believed the prayer wheels sent prayers up to heaven.
I was supposed to meet Chris for dinner, but he didn't show up. I suspected he'd met George, and George had told him not to meet me. I still couldn't figure out what George had against me. I flounced back to my hotel, and went to bed at 8:00, sleeping until 6:00 the next morning.
I went on another walk with Martin, Mark and Justin.
"I'm soon going to be in a Stupid Stupa Stupor," I said. We walked through different neighbourhoods, across the filthy river, and into Petan along old narrow streets with crumbling old buildings that had ornately carved wooden window frames, doors and posts. We found Petan's Durbar Square, another complex of old temple buildings, vendors, stores, and teenage boys hanging around trying to earn money by being guides. The Krishna Temple was a hive of activity, full of saried women singing, dancing and praying to the gods.
Hungry, we went for lunch at a restaurant with a fourth-storey patio overlooking the city. The service was slow, but we didn't care, because we were having so much fun. When I said I'd told a rickshaw driver I didn't need a ride because I had legs, we went off on a tangent about legless tourists arriving by plane and having to take the emergency chute down to the ground because they couldn't walk.
"The cab drivers would gang up to have tourists' legs amputated so they couldn't walk and would have to take taxis everywhere," Martin said.
"You're sick people," Mark said.
Martin further proved his sickness by saying he'd been down by the river earlier in the day to the cremation ghats. He had picked up a charred leg and put it back into the fire.
Justin and Mark caught a tuk tuk, and Martin and I walked back to Thamel, going for ice cream cones at a Baskin-Robbins-style cafe which was full of rich, trendy young Nepalese.
At an excellent Indian restaurant for dinner, we met a Canadian couple from Calgary. The woman said she was originally from Chatham, Ontario.
"The armpit of Ontario!" I exclaimed impulsively. "I can't imagine how anyone would ever want to be from there." Then I wondered why the woman didn't hit me. She merely smiled.
The other tables were occupied by groups of men smoking huge hookah pipes, and couples holding hands across the table - probably married, we decided. A band came on stage and played desultory belly-dancing music, with a man and woman taking turns on mournful vocals. We speculated about the words - were they about love lost, or were they just about picking vegetables in the garden and cooking dinner? Martin sat there laughing like a maniac.
Stuffed with food again, we went to the Maya Pub. Justin and I discussed our lack of a work ethic, and I suggested he travel through Afghanistan.
Before my hotel curfew time, I said goodbye to everyone, with real regret. I had so much enjoyed hanging around with these men because the group dynamics had been amazing.
The next morning, my taxi whizzed me through the streets to the airport. I saw small children wrapped in blankets sleeping on the sidewalks beside piles of burning garbage. I got on a big jet, and flew to Bangkok, which was another world entirely, and another story.
