Ghorepani – Ghandruk: Trek, Day 3

The hardest day.

Fortified by breakfast and by the transcendence of dawn on Poon Hill, we set out for Ghandruk. It lay in a valley ten hours distant.

The day before, Day Two, had been a steady climb. Unending stone stairs, upward gravel paths, a few flat stretches. I had turned to Krishna at one point and asked about Day 3: downhill almost all the way, ten hours’ worth. But we would be going up first for an hour or two, which added to the downhill grand total. That will be tough, I said, and Krishna nodded knowingly. Anyone who has hiked, walked, or run over up and down terrain knows that the downhill is harder. But so far my knees had held up.

soon after we set out - Annapurna South

Almost all of the distance was through mountain forest, starting with some spreading rhododendron trees, then a variety of deciduous species that reminded me of forests back in Canada. By now, the packs of the porters were lighter: we had eaten quite a bit of the food, used up quite a bit of the fuel, and drunk quite a bit of the water. While Krishna, Kubiri, Joan and I went ahead, the others packed up. Shortly they overtook us at a considerable pace, seemingly in a good mood to be going downhill. The girl with the flip flops and pedicure passed us for the first of several times.

Joan and Krishna - Annapurna South

Lunch was tasty, at a small hamlet of about eight buildings, two of which were guest houses and the rest of which seemed to be subsistence farms, with a small mixed garden, some chickens, goats and donkeys. Here we were witness to a rare sight: some donkeys actually losing their footing – not on a steep section but rather when one of them decided it was time to roll around in the dirt, which brought a couple of other animals, bedecked in their mountain finery to the ground. Our mood was still good, the sun was still shining, and it was time to hit the trail.

It was about two hours later that the toll of the downhill started to announce itself. I started to feel the twinges in my knees, the ITBS that I hadn’t felt in months, except when I started on a bout of jogging. The discomfort increased gradually, as we moved inexorably lower and lower in altitude, hopping down steps, goose-stepping down gentler inclines (keeping the knees straight helped the pain). Joan was having her own difficulties; Kubiri, still carrying his pack, always seemed to have a free hand.

Even in retrospect, several months later, I still found this one of the most challenging tests I have experienced. What made the last couple of kilometres possible were some signs indicating that we were close to Ghandruk, and then, finally, as daylight started to be absorbed by the approaching dusk, the sight of a considerable town spreading out below us. It was a tidy and sprawling village, of a couple of thousand inhabitants, low houses built of stone, all crammed together, separated by little yards. The path was now wide, built of flat gray stone. My knees were killing me. The rest of our team, who had gone ahead, were nowhere to be seen yet, which worried me: how much further did we have to go till we found our resting place?

Krishna went ahead and the returned with two of our porters in tow. Apparently they had overshot the mark, and we had to walk back a few hundred yards. Our tent was pitched in the yard of a very commodious guest house as dusk fell, in near-complete darkness: once again our handy forehead flashlights came in handy. One of the curious aspects of ITBS is that once you stop going downhill, or stop walking entirely, the pain stops. I wasn’t so sure this would be true today, after the downhill pounding. Things did feel pretty tender.

Krishna knew the owners of the guest house well, and told me and Joan to go inside and wait while they cooked our dinner. As we walked along the path next to the building, we peered into the dining room of the guest house, where other trekkers were already dining. The light was provided by candle light; it wasn’t time yet for the electricity to come one. It was warm inside, candles glowed, convivial chat in several languages surged and faded. Near us was a table of German travellers, just tucking into something appetizing. A candle was lit on our table, I went to the counter, also illuminated with candles, and returned with beer for Joan and Bagpiper for me. My knees were feeling better by the second.

Krishna joined us. Soon our meal appeared. We ate, bought our team some beer, then retired to our tent. Some dogs barked in the distance. The next sound I heard was the crowing of roosters. A good night’s sleep.

nepal trek – morning, day 3: Poon Hill

We awoke in the dark, at 5:30 a.m.. Sunrise would be at 6:30, and it was a 30 – 40 minute climb, several hundred metres. Our basin of hot water appeared outside our tent flaps. Although this was the customary morning routine, I wasn’t expecting now, so early, and in the dark. The smiling, eager-to-please face of Kubiri, who had taken a special shine to us, was humbling: even though it was his work, the cheerfulness with which he administered his tender attention was heart-warming. It was freezing out. The tent flaps were hard with ice. In the dark I took a few pictures for Joan to show friends and grandchildren to prove how hardy we were, sleeping out in the Himalayas where a quarter inch of ice, not mere frost, coated the outside of the tent. We finished bundling up, pulled down the ear flaps on our new wool hats, strapped our flashlights to our foreheads, and stepped out briskly and intrepidly on our climb.

up early - ice on the tent

It was worth it. The sun was starting to overflow above the mountains to the east, glowing with an almost nuclear impressiveness over the sky and mountainsides. Very quickly, the Annapurna range opposite, to the north and west, was coated in the mushrooming light. The clarity and shadows of the distant snow peaks required sunglasses; further down the mountains where the snow stopped the light became hazier, bluer. Several hundred people shared the grassy hill with us, taking pictures, posing against the sublime backdrop.

Annapurna, Annapurna south, Annapurna II

I took pictures and a short video. We had a short conversation in a mix of English and French with a young Dutch fellow who had a camera much more elaborate than mine. He was travelling on his own, and had set up his tripod to take pictures of himself with the timer. I offered to take the pictures for him. He took pictures of us in return. He was finishing the Annapurna circuit, he said. The Annapurna circuit is a gruelling trek of 18 – 21 days, the most challenging portion of which is a one full day trekking in a pass above 15,000 feet, dangerous enough that people have died on that leg, caught in bad weather, or victims of altitude sickness. Prior to that, he had trekked for two weeks across the border in Tibet. We were to greet this bright-eyed wandering spirit several times over the next couple of days. The last time I was to see him was back in Pokhara, with several Australian girls whose company he was enjoying enough that he only separated himself for a minute or two to ask after us. Anyone who completes the Annapurna circuit earns my undying respect. They also get lumped into the same grab bag of intense obsessives who complete marathons and Iron Man races.

picture taken by our Dutch friend

We climbed the tower erected for the purpose of a better view, a structure sort of like a fire tower in the wildernesses of Canada. After recovering from the minutes of breathtaking awe, we climbed back down, declined a cup of tea from the stand, and descended. The sun was now warm, and we took off our hats and sweaters.  Joan wasn’t feeling that great, from something she ate the night before, we concluded, but she persevered with dignity. Before breakfast, we had already trekked for two hours. While Joan approached the pancakes, porridge and coffee with less relish, forcing some food down so she would have energy for the day ahead, I tucked into it with gusto. Apart from being famished, I didn’t want to disappoint the chef.

sunrise from Poon Hill

Nepal trek day 2 – tikhedunga to ghorepani

The wind had died by morning, and I had slept badly, the consequence of the tea and beer. It was cool, but not cold; the sky was blue but the sun had not yet made it over the mountain tops. We breakfasted amply on porridge and pancakes, coffee and juice, then tied up our trekking boots, and followed our porters along the stone path.

Stone paths were the norm here, until one got to more gentle inclines in wooded areas or farmland, when the paths were dirt or gravel. But anywhere it was steep, we climbed on stone stairs. Without doubt, most of the stone stairs were hundreds of years old; people who lived in these villages had been using these paths for centuries. Occasionally the sound of bells would approach from around the next corner, and a team of donkeys, often laden with rice, or wooden sticks for fuel, would pick its way either up or down the steepness. Donkeys had been using these tracks for centuries too. As in Morocco and Jordan, the donkey was a central link in the transportation of people and goods, picking up the baton, so to speak, when motorized transport handed it on.

donkeys - primary mountain transport, all decked out

Soon, we were well and truly in the mountains, the Annapurna range appearing ahead of us repeatedly as we wended our way higher and higher. We continued to encounter groups of other trekkers. Some of them groups were very organized – all the members of a group might have the same sweatshirt, backpack and caps, as if they were competing with some other team. Other groups were as small as ours: two people and a bunch of porters. We did meet again an English girl trekking on her own, with the required guide. Homely and cheerful, she told her story of solitary travel in different parts of the world, mainly the Asian subcontinent, including India, Nepal, Thailand, and China. She had spent the past six months living with a Nepalese family in Pokhara, teaching English. She was happy to be moving on, to India next, and her reward to herself was this trek, the same one we were doing, except that she was taking five days, which was the recommended time. Unlike us, she didn’t have a huge pack, nor did her female guide; she was staying in guest houses, and paying for her food as she went, which was not uncommon. It certainly wasn’t a bad idea, to travel light like that.

Our destination that day was Ghorepani, right at the top of a pass that led to the Annapurna range and the steeper, higher, more challenging treks – the Annapurna Circuit, as it is known, or the Annapurna base camp. The Annapurna region was climbed and explored before the Everest region. The mountains were nearly as high, and somewhat more accessible. In the old days Everest used to be climbed from the Tibet side; now it was climbed nearly always from the Nepal side. But the Annapurna region had a long history of exploration, climbing and trekking. It included three of the ten highest mountains in the world, which we would be able to see when we got to Ghorepani.

About two hours before we got to Ghorepani, the terrain changed, and we entered hillside forest of heavy trees like arbutus trees, and glades of rhododendron trees, some of them thirty or forty feet high. The climb was steady, winding, and challenging. The forest thinned, and some rather larger structures appeared, a few guest houses in somewhat gaudy reds, yellows, blues and greens. Then the buildings got more dense, and we were clearly in Ghorepani itself. A sizeable, thriving village, a crossroads in the mountains, and a bit of a destination. Here was another checkpoint where we had to let the authorities look at our trekking visas and permissions.

Ghorepani - police checkpost

It was cold. When we arrived at the guest house on whose patch of grass we were going to pitch our tents, the owner, whom Krishna knew well, went to the trouble building a fire in an old oil drum converted to a woodstove. In about ten minutes we were warmed, and within another five minutes we had to leave because the smoke was so thick. Smoke didn’t seem to bother our Nepali team mates. We found our tent pitched, and the sun pouring down before it set. It lit up the sides of the mountains to the north, and Krishna pointed out the peaks: Annapurna, Annapurna II, Dhauligiri I, Dhauligiri II, and others. Three of the peaks we looked at were among the ten highest peaks in the world. The highest of these Dhauligiri I,  was particularly burnished by the sunlight as its orange faded to the blueish light of dusk.

the oil drum woodstove

It was getting even cooler. Before darkness fell we decided to wander through Ghorepani. Numerous elaborate guest houses, colourfully painted in combinations of blue and red and yellow offered rooms, hot showers, and “western cuisine” or “German bakery.” We foraged for something to wear to warm our heads, and each bought some hats knitted from thick, soft wool. Then came the mittens. The selection of wine and liquor was considerably greater here than anywhere else. We bought some Everest Beer for the porters. I had found the Everest Beer didn’t entirely agree with me, although it tasted good. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label hunched its dusty shoulders at me, but I resisted – after two days my curiosity and sense of adventure got the better of me: I bought a half bottle of Bagpiper Whisky. Outside, we stopped one last time at a table of crafts – handmade silver and leather and stones – where a young woman tried to convince us to buy something, anything. She was practically pleading. Showing us a particular ring, she pointed out the significance of its six points, each point a syllable from the chant om mane padme hum, so that we could remember the rarefied air of Ghorepani and meditate. And for the third time we saw another young woman pass us, a trekker, scantily clad in a shirt and leggings, bare feet and bright red toenails protected only by flip flops. I commented on the flip flops, which I consider a blight on the sidewalks of the city, let alone the Himalayas. We were to pass and be passed by her several times on the next day’s gruelling descent to Ghandruk, flip flops bouncing from rock to tree root to rock. From her backpack a pair of hiking boots dangled by their laces. She evidently liked to show off her red toenails.

Bagpiper

We retreated to the comfort of a room next to where our tents were pitched. Our beer and Bagpiper, laid out on the long coarse wooden table, had a sort of pre-banquet look. Our hats, with their ear flaps, fended off the worst of the cold. Our crew filed in to have some beer, and brought the plates and cutlery we would use to eat, while in a shed thirty feet away the gas cookstove heated  our food. While the tanned, leathery hands of our team filled their glasses with Everest Beer, I uncorked the Bagpiper. No one else was interested in it, and I concluded that they were either confirmed beer drinkers, or they had tasted the Bagpiper before and knew something I didn’t. It was the moment of truth; I sipped. I sipped again. I looked around at the waiting faces and pursed my lips, nodding. Not bad, I said. And it wasn’t. I sipped again. Actually, it was quite good. Kind of like a blend of bourbon and rye and scotch. But very drinkable. I had found my cup of solace for the end of the trekking day.

A cup of solace, a moment of reflection

We settled into an hour or so of pleasant conversation as fluent as their limited English and our non-existent Nepali would allow. The owner of the guest house, a wizened fellow who earlier had started the fire in the home-made barrel woodstove, joined us. Within a few minutes, seeing how cold everyone was, he scurried off and returned with a galvanized bucket in which he started a fire of paper and some scraps of wood. Flame, then smoke filled the room, and while Joan and I coughed and sputtered the others smiled and nodded, impressed with the improvement in temperature. Once the flames were extinguished, and the fire in the bucket turned to a persistent glow, the owner picked up the bucket by its handle and waved it in long arcs like a priest waving a ciborium, barely containing his smile as he showed us the glowing embers. Then the bucket, truly hot, was placed at our feet under the table. Everyone was so proud of the quick effort made on behalf of everyone’s comfort. By now the fumes and smoke were giving me a headache, and I had to go out for fresh air. I picked up my friendly glass of Bagpiper, and went out into the cool, fresh air. Krishna, our guide, did understand what was happening, and indicated that the fumes would subside in a short while, and all that would be left was a bed of hot coals. I didn’t have the Nepali and he didn’t have the English for me to explain that the carbon monoxide and other toxic fumes rising from the bucket were making it unbearable for me, and were also harmful to him and everyone else. Before long the bucket was removed, everyone laughed, and the place became bearable again. It was just about time for dinner, anyway, and everyone dispersed to their various duties. Joan and I nursed our glasses of beer (for her) and Bagpiper (for me), cozy in our wool hats and warm coats and whisky, the dark completely cloaking the panorama of mountains outside the window to the north.

Tomorrow would be the highlight of the trip – a pre-dawn climb up the hill behind us, Poon Hill, to watch the sun rising on the mountains. It was a ritual not to be missed, apparently, and the weather forecast for clear skies helped to whet our appetites. We crawled into our sleeping bags in the subzero weather, impressed to discover that the sleeping bags justified their temperature rating of minus 10 degrees Celsius. I had one of my best night’s sleeps in several weeks.

Nepal Trek 1: Nayapul to Tikhedunga

After picking up a few things – a forehead flashlight, a camping towel, a pair of fleece pants for night time – we left for Nayapul, a distance of about 30 kilometres, one hour. In ten minutes we had passed out of the north end of Pokhara past fields planted with rice and mixed vegetables. The car swerved around bicycles piled with bales of insulation or large blocks of paper towels bundled with string, and around scooters encumbered with three or four family members clinging happily or stoically, depending on their age; past the occasional donkey, pace unaffected by the a weary-looking owner tapping its haunches with a stick. We climbed up switchbacks, around frequent potholes that cratered the whole width of the road and which required us to crawl around on a single, less-rutted path.

The Buddha Hotel - sumptuous surroundings

Finally, Nayapul. Joan, Krishna and I  piled out. The Buddha Hotel, our meeting point, was a three storey affair with a tiny ground floor shop that sold chocolate bars, candy, Nepalese beer, water, a few potatoes, bags of rice, and Bagpiper Whiskey (the largest-selling whiskey in the world, made in Nepal under licence from the parent company in India). Out back, a toilet one steeled oneself to visit. A couple of Caucasian guests of the Buddha Hotel descended the stairs, put on their shoes (shoes not worn indoors, by and large), and disappeared into the town, presumably on a trek of their own.

We met our team: in addition to Krishna, our guide, there was the cook and his assistant, and two additional porters. Five of them for the two of us. We were not to carry anything except a small pack containing a couple of bottles of water and perhaps a sweater and cameras. Everyone else, on the other hand, carried the stipulated burden of 25 kg, about 60 pounds, in a wicker basket supported on the back by means of a strap that went around the forehead. True, they were used to it, it was their livelihood, but it felt a little much to be so spoiled. Little did we realize how much we would need our energy and resources – we who exercise frequently and who consider ourselves in good shape.

kubiri and his load

Joan and our porter, Balram

Off we went. Through the town of Nayapul, whose economy was built on trekking. A dirt, stone and mud roadway soon petered out and became a wide donkey path, flanked by simple shops that sold food, dusty and mainly ignored appliances, trekking gear, maps, and all kinds of dubious looking medicine. We checked in at the guidepost – all trekkers have to check in at various posts, and submit their itineraries, along with their trekking visas.

The trek begins

This first day was pretty civilized. One mountain village gave way to another, the distance between them gradually getting greater, until eventually we walked about fifteen or twenty minutes between one village and the next. These villages were tidy, the dwellings tidy, low, dark structures whose few windows made them dark inside. In each village was a guest house or two where you could get a meal or a simple room for the night, and a shop selling potato chips, chocolate bars, Nepalese beer and the ubiquitous and curious Bagpiper whiskey. Since we came with our own cook and food (a good idea, we were advised, because this arrangement guaranteed that the vegetables would be washed in sterilized water, and the food would be sound). I wasn’t sure what to expect in the way of cuisine. At lunch the first day we stopped at one of these guest houses. Joan and I sat at a red-painted wooden table under a carved wooden gabled roof, while everyone else disappeared around the back to prepare lunch.

A Guest House advertises its fare

The path at this point, in this little village, was not dirt but well-fitted stone – as I said, quite civilized. Next to us the establishment formed a spacious courtyard of similar stone, next to the path. On the opposite side of the courtyard a woman was flailing at a pile of millet, separating the grain from the chaff, a steady, slow regular pounding of the millet on a blanket, her colourful sari adding a few brushstrokes to the green of the adjacent foliage, the gray and brown of the buildings, the blue of the sky. At one point a large brown water buffalo came lumbering into the enclosure where the woman was pounding the millet, quickly followed by a much older woman who beat the beast with a thin stick that was remarkably effective. Soon afterward, the woman working the millet stopped, stood up and started tossing the millet in the breeze, the breeze separating the lighter chaff, which blew to the side, leaving the heavier grains to fall directly onto her blanket. Low tech, but effective, as the centuries had proved.

separating millet

Lunch: we were surprised to see some pieces of chicken, along with fried tomato and cheese sandwiches. Ketchup even. Sweet tea. A salad of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, some mushrooms and peppers. Cookies for dessert. Our porters and cook on the other hand, when we visited them afterward out behind the guest house, ate an appetizing concoction of rice, vegetables and chicken. Apparently they weren’t going to risk local cuisine on us. We used the toilet, among the cleaner toilets we were going to encounter – a basic squatting facility, that you sluiced with water afterward – took a couple of pictures and started out again.

The climb was relatively slow, and we passed many groups coming down, or going up. Closer to Nayapul one did encounter groups out just for the day – twenty or so in a group speaking Japanese, or English, or German, or French, or Korean. These groups thinned out as we climbed, but it was still pretty busy. So busy, in fact, that our planned stopover for the first night was packed – no room at the inn, so to speak, and we continued to the next village, twenty minutes further, a much less busy spot called Tikhedunga. This tiny village consisted of a poor hovel of a farm harbouring some sheep and a couple of water buffalo, a guest house, and a couple of other poor structures perched on a steep hillside. The village was announced by a long sturdy bridge suspended over a picturesque gorge down which a river plunged in small falls, rapids and pools, disappearing eventually amid the fields and outcrops below in the distance.

We prepared for our first night of camping. The porters pitched our tent and laid out our sleeping bags, while the cook and his assistant took off, returning about 45 minutes later with two pairs of white-feathered chickens dangling from their hands, to be plucked, eviscerated and prepared for dinner. Joan and I explored our little hamlet briefly, seeing that one could get a meal at the guest house if you ordered before 4 p.m.. The little shop sold the usual combination of apparent essentials in the mountains: potato chips, cigarettes, soft drinks, pickles, spicy sauces, Nepalese beer, and of course the Bagpiper whiskey whose label of kilt and skirling piper didn’t really impress me with authenticity. We arranged to buy some of the Nepalese beer for ourselves and our crew, a gesture that Krishna said would be much appreciated. As we returned up the twisting stone steps to our campsite, we looked in on a girl of perhaps twelve, still in her uniform, c her homework by the last light of a slanting sun, a picture of diligence. Tomorrow I would ask where the school was.

As Krishna predicted, the beer was appreciated. We drank it with our chicken dinner, and settled into our tent for the night. Joan made one of her regular comments about her caveat from the time when we were courting: “I don’t camp.” But here, with the white tops of the Himalayas just peeking behind the steep hillsides – we could glimpse Annapurna II through a cleft in the hillsides – the river cascading below, and the walls of the tent breathing irregularly in the fresh clean mountain breeze outside, it became clear why one camps to begin with – you can get to places that otherwise you could only imagine.

Tikhedunga Bridge

Joan and her tent

Pokhara – The Ghurkas (16/11/09)

The Ghurka Museum, just down the road from the British Ghurka training station

I have described our arrival at the Kathmandu international terminal. Today we were departing from the domestic terminal. Security involved sending our suitcases through a large device as soon as we were through the door to the terminal. I think this process was a placebo: many people were coming and going; officials in their worn, wrinkled uniforms would talk or remonstrate with a few people who were walking in and out seemingly in ignorance of the need for security, but the remonstrations seemed, again, for show. A shrug, and then they resumed the air of vigilance they had cultivated to satisfy their superiors, perhaps: not as if to show they were doing a good job, but as if to say they were doing the best job they could, under the circumstances, and were screening most of the passengers, anyway.

Inside, we checked in on Buddha Air. I wondered if the mode of transportation was going to be yogic flying, but in the end our airplane was very modern, the flight attendants very professional and friendly, the pilot clearly competent. Once we had our boarding passes we went through another security check – manual, this time, men one channel and women another: one of the formal proprieties of Nepalese Hindu life which no one explained. The waiting room inside was quite a mélée, and a cacophonous, disorganized one. The room was low-ceilinged, there were a couple of rows of benches and chairs. Occasionally there were announcements that were impossible to hear, a reality that the airlines recognized because after each announcement an official would stride through the room repeating the information at the top of his voice, gathering behind him a trail of travellers like the pied piper, depositing them at the gate where, again, men and women went to their planes through different doors. Two screens flickered with flight information, updated every thirty seconds or so. All the flights to the environs of Everest were cancelled – it was snowing heavily, apparently. Trekkers and their gear stood forlornly watching as yet another flight was cancelled. We were safe from that eventuality: Pokhara was in the same valley as Kathmandu, and it was a sunny, warm day.

Seated next to Joan was a young woman reading Breath by Tim Winton. I happened to be reading the same book, and asked her how she liked it. It turned out that she was Swedish, returning from a furlough of a couple of months in Australia to a town in the lowlands of Nepal, close to the Indian border. She worked for an NGO there, mediating disputes that were labelled political but which were more often simply personal or commercial: people feuding, trying for commercial advantage, settling old scores, under the cloak of political differences. Her phone rang, and she started a rapid conversation in French. Joan and I marvelled at her expertise in languages, since she obviously spoke at least three fluently (including her native Swedish). It was her boyfriend. She grimaced. Her NGO frowned on “couples” working together; I suppose it created complications if they wanted to separate them.

Flying to Pokhara, we found clear skies, and our first glimpse of the Himalayas. A week later I would have been able to name some of these peaks, but for now they were simply anonymous and overwhelming. The driver who met us at the Pokhara airport was cheerful and young; he took us to Fishtail Lodge, a well-appointed lodge to which you were transported by means of a small ferry barge, built on metal drums, and propelled by a ferryman who tugged steadily and rhythmically on a heavy rope attached to the opposite shore.

We had a day with our guide in Pokhara, and certainly the highlight was the Ghurka museum. The Ghurkas represented, for young Nepali men, a ticket out, an escape from the numbing life of hardship and poverty in the mountains. Every spring the British army vetted the applicants, all of whom would have trained to perform physical feats of weightlifting, dexterity and endurance consistent with the reputation the Ghurkas have always had for incredible toughness, bravery and loyalty. The reigning Rana clan, during their century long authority in Nepal, were strongly pro-British, an affinity that remains by and large to this day. The Ghurkas fought in the British army in nearly all their fierce engagements for over a hundred years, including desperate operations as far back as the Sepoy Rebellion in India, Gallipoli in the First World War, and so on. Much of their activity was in India, and after India achieved independence in 1946 the Ghurkas were also divided between the British army and the Indian army, so that now there are two armies that seventeen year old boys can aspire to. On our way back to Fishtail, our guide told us that he had been such an aspirant, but hadn’t competed successfully with the other trainees; his consolation prize was to show people like us around. He probably was in the top 5% of wage earners in Nepal.

That night we treated ourselves to a fine dinner looking out over the lake, just slightly nervous about our trek which would start in the morning. It was a modest trek, only four days, and only to a height of about 10,500 feet. In the Annapurna region, rather than the Everest region, it probably has a longer history of mountaineering than Everest. We had bought hiking boots for the occasion, had the right clothing, and we were physically fit. In the morning we would pick up any other necessities – flashlight, for instance. We were ready.

Bhaktapur pastiche (15/11/09)

…Marigolds staining the shrines, marigolds in profusion – a garland of marigolds for me and Joan when Mr. Rana greeted us at the airport… garlands of marigolds hanging from the openings of shops and market stalls…

…The tawdry streets, uneven pavements, cows lounging beside the crowded sidewalks and the traffic, chewing the sparse dusty roadside weeds, cows being sacred, this a Hindu country.

…The buses, dirty and belching diesel. The smaller minibuses, boxes attached to scooters, tiny little battered vehicles stopping wherever anyone flagged them down, even in the middle of honking traffic… the honking almost forlorn rather than impatient. Boys, young men, hanging crazily from the running boards, swaying down the busiest streets.. hopping on and off…

…Trying to find a bank machine outside Dwarika’s Hotel, the broken sidewalk, trying machine after machine fruitlessly… occasionally getting the equivalent of a hundred dollars. Pushing further in search of more bank machines in the darkening dusk…eventually night, the street becoming a market, crowded and bustling, baskets of fruit in front of a wizened figure, or a box of bok choy, or string beans, cultivated from one of the little patches I saw so often behind a house, between streets, in an abandoned corner next to a pile of rubble… or a basket of fish, small silvery fish like the large sardines I saw in Turkey, and which one sees in poor towns everywhere. One imagines little boys being sent out at dawn to handline for these little creatures, and coming home at the end of the day so mother can make a few rupees…

…The kindness and softness of the people, their eagerness to please… their tiredness, glimmers of hope so quickly extinguished if you didn’t buy something.

…The school children in their uniforms, only later aware that their school uniform is likely their best item of clothing, their schooling their best hope of a future…

Bhaktapur (15/11/09)

Mr. Devendra Rana, who organized our trip in Nepal for us, was related in some distant way to Mr. Madhukar Rana, whom I felt was our host for the trip. The Rana clan had ruled Nepal for a long time – Nepalese royal history was as fraught with dethronings and upstarts as other royal history, and the Ranas’ official authority ended in the 1950s. The Ranas are still considered of royal lineage, however, although they were from the warrior caste, not the Brahmin caste. I am not sure if that makes much difference in the grand scheme of things, but to the rigorous adherents of the caste system I suppose it does.

Wikipedia gives a good overview of Nepal.

At any rate, Madhukar, looking at the itinerary Devendra had arranged, quickly re-drew it a few days before we arrived. We had to see Bhaktapur, he said. The other Mr. Rana complied happily.

Our guide’s name was Krishna, after the Hindu god. He was an old, retired teacher, a historian, who spoke good English.

There is one lane on each side of the road from Kathmandu to Bhaktapur, a journey that should take about 15 minutes. A new road was under construction between the two places, with a continuous line of bumper to bumper traffic stretching as far as the eye could see. Cars and trucks belched fumes and smoke. Because of the construction, the way was scarred with ruts, detours and big ditches, and our progress was further impeded by a bicycles, scooters, donkey carts or small groups of pedestrians weaving placidly off the verge and into the crawling traffic.

It was a beautiful day, and now that our car journey was over, we could enjoy it. Sunny, as every day was in Nepal for us. We entered the old part of Bhaktapur – the old city, a world heritage site – with a group of uniformed school children who quickly scrambled off to their destination. It was mid-morning. Immediately we were struck by the old, weathered but well-preserved detail of so many of the buildings. Ornate woodwork, brick of different shades, curled eaves on roofs tiled and stained. Narrow streets, with tiny shops chiselled out of the ground floor of many of the structures. Krishna advised not to take pictures of people – they would ask for payment. I am never inclined to take random pictures of people anyway, automatically a respecter of privacies, but several times we were in fact invited to take a picture by someone imagining they were picturesque – a group of smiling women, swaddled in vibrant saris gathered in a small stone square for a mid-day natter, for example – but we declined.

Numerous temples, tiny streets, even a few small schools giving out onto the street. One of the most remarkable features of this visit were the “rest houses”. These were smallish, open, post and beam structures with benches inside. Invariably, the denizens of these rest houses were old men, sitting and looking out over the walls, or sitting inside on benches, just looking, rubbing their limbs, occasionally saying something to a neighbour before returning their gaze to passersby. The rest houses were provided for old people who could no longer work, and who had come from the countryside, most of them. They had nowhere to go, most of them had nowhere to live, and they idled away their hours in these rest houses. I don’t know where they slept.

Among the distinguished and dignified architecture were many small shops offering artefacts and curios with a local flavour. Many of the offerings were banal, brass copies of peacocks and other birds, knives, figurines, buddhas and candle holders that we had no interest in. Because we were away for ten weeks, we had imposed a frugal and successful discipline on ourselves when it came to shopping. We were going to succumb only to the most singular, exquisite and inexpensive items, that could easily fit into a suitcase. We had brought along one extra duffle bag, imagining that the modicum of shopping we were going to allow ourselves would eventually bloat our suitcases, but to this point we hadn’t unfolded it.

We made two purchases on this day’s excursion. One of the little knick knacks that caught our eyes was a raised hand of Buddha, forefinger and thumb making the enigmatic circle whose meaning I don’t know. This little knick knack was a small door knob, suitable for a drawer or a cupboard. After asking in about five or six places for a good price, we finally found a satisfactory price, lower than anything else we had bargained for, at a stall just at the end of our tour.

The other purchase was an original painting in a style known as thangka. These paintings are usually either Hindu or Buddhist in content, and extremely detailed, very colourful. Our artist came from the mountains near Everest, originally, where the painting originated. He was friendly, one of the tallest Nepali I met, and in his modest way he was clearly one of the more successful practitioners of his art. We felt unnecessarily thrifty, almost mean, when we paid him for the painting – but that was the going rate, and we still had the markets of Bangkok ahead of us.

The trip back to Kathmandu, and our new hotel, Dwarika’s, was as long and tedious as the drive out. But we knew we were returning to this remarkable and exceedingly comfortable resting place, a structure finished with either authentic or replica traditional Nepali woodwork, to the extent that Dwarika’s itself had been named an World Heritage Site. We ate in the traditional Nepalese dining room that night, on cushions on the floor, our shoes left at the door. Retired fairly early, because tomorrow we were off to Pokhara, Nepal’s second-largest city, at the foot of the Annapurna mountain range, a day closer to our trek.

Kathmandu – first blush (14/11/2009)

Actually, “first blush” is an unthinking irony; Kathmandu, for all its exotic echoes, is more like a faded and decaying courtesan, caked with make-up.

We emerged from the down-at-heel immigration and visa process into a large vestibule about the size of one of a standard airport waiting rooms. It was seething with porters and hopeful men holding placards with names written on them. One of these had our name on it – or rather my name on it: “Mr. Bob”, by which name I was addressed for my entire visit. The card was held by a surprisingly tall man, our Mr. Rana. Mr. Rana, our contact, had organized our entire excursion in Nepal, including our trek in the Himalayas. Beside him was our driver, who picked up our bags.

Nepal is mainly a Hindu country, with a growing Buddhist population. Buddha himself was born in southern Nepal, although the growth of Buddhism has nothing to do any nationalistic connection. In Nepal Buddhism and Hinduism mingle quite easily, and attempts to be doctrinaire about one or the other seem to be treated by people as rather pedantic. I later learned that both ways of life are riddled with rituals and superstitions, of more pagan or animist natures. This chaotic and jejune democracy, where the memory of the massacre of the royal family within this decade by one the king’s son is still a vivid memory, is both threadbare and pragmatic. The rural Marxist party that indulged in some kidnapping and threatening behaviour in pre-democratic days now has become respectable: it won the most seats in the last election, but not a majority. Nevertheless they cobbled together a coalition that fell apart when they sacked the head of the armed forces, an act that violated the constitution. It was beyond their authority, and led to their demise. They now sit in self-righteous and unco-operative opposition, while the other parties try to get on with the pragmatic demands of running the country. Our eventual hosts in Kathmandu, who had long been involved in public life and various long term projects to improve the place, grimaced briefly at the mention of the Marxists: “they are all Brahmins, not really interested in the people or the country, just after their own status and power.” This deeply rooted sense of caste and background was never far from the surface in Nepal, and if we had not had the good fortune of friends to illuminate us, we would have been oblivious.

The largest source of income in Nepal is foreign aid; the highest paying jobs are those of aid workers.

We had seen the melee of taxis and traffic at airports elsewhere in the world; the difference here is that the taxis are scruffier and the traffic dustier. Not far from the airport, a bridge over a slow, shallow river festooned with a plastic bags, abandoned bicycles, crates and tatters of old clothes. A makeshift market on the left side of the road, covering perhaps an acre, goods of all types laid out patchily: piles of shoes and shoe boxes, stacks of t-shirts, dresses, gaudy pashminas, pots and pans –everything a family might need.

Finally : the Hotel Annapurna. Or as it is known on all its brochures and website, which is all in English: L’hotel de l’Annapurna. Pourquoi, you might ask? I don’t know. Mr. Rana was apologetic that we weren’t staying in Dwarika’s Hotel, which I will describe later. Listed as a five star hotel, the Hotel Annapurna struggles to live up to more than three. Mr. Rana was dismayed that the room he had booked for us, a deluxe room, was not available. The problem was straightened out, and we were shown to our deluxe room. Sort of a cramped Holiday Inn type of room, some dubious wet patches on the floor, air conditioning that didn’t work. This accommodation would cost the average Nepali six months’ income. I did a wool-dispersing workout and from the treadmill looked out onto a large swimming pool green with algae. Afterward we went for a walk to the market. Chaotic traffic outside; at the end of the street the walls of the old palace. Close to the market, signs flashed a bit, hand painted placards invited us in to buy music, t-shirts, traditional clothing, or to sing karaoke. Bars, most of them upstairs from the street, specialized in “shower dancing”, showing a pictogram of a girl in a bikini under a shower. I never asked, and therefore never found out, what I was missing. Every third or fourth shop front was a company that either organized Himalayan treks or sold trekking equipment. Begging women huddled back on their haunches against a long brick wall. Further along, a small group huddled empty-eyed around some garbage burning right at the curb. It was warm to us, but the locals were shrouded in shawls and warm clothes. It was about twenty-two degrees. On our return to the hotel, the huddled group had gone, but the fire was still flickering.

Back to the hotel for dinner, at the Chinese restaurant, recommended by our hosts. There was only one other table dining, and waiters and busboys hovered, almost colonial in their attention. Dinner was spectacular. One of the best meals of our entire trip. Breakfast the next morning was likewise outstanding. We ate amid a crowd of medical practitioners, there for a conference. They all looked a bit sheepish, I thought, as they dawdled over the extensive buffets. Most of them were in need of more exercise and less of the dough and pastry and fried dumplings than their conference would recommend.

After breakfast I went out in search of a bank machine. Paying Mr. Rana for his services was proving to be a labyrinth as nightmarish as our Indian visa experience, consisting of failed visits to Western Union offices, failed VISA transactions, and now failed ATM visits. My card wouldn’t work. I tried bank after bank, and no luck. I called my home bank in Victoria on Skype, and there was no problem at their end. Poor Mr. Rana was obviously getting worried that I was working a good-natured and elaborate scam. It was only the good name of our mutual connections that kept our arrangements cordial and efficient, I am sure. Fortunately, he was not really out of pocket yet, since I was paying our hotel bills. But soon we would be into other costs, for guides and air travel to Pokhara and so on. I just figured that thousands and thousands of travellers managed to pay for things in Nepal, so one way or another they must have sorted out how to get their money. I was much less worried than Mr. Rana.

En route to Nepal – November 2009

It needs to be said that the people I dealt with at Aeroplan, to re-route our visit (twice – once when I believed we could get our Indian visa and new routing in a few days, and a second time after I learned that the labyrinth of the visa process was going to cause us to miss India entirely) were outstanding. I can’t remember if I spoke to them twice or thrice, or more perhaps, but they understood our predicaments, bent over backwards to help, called their superiors for special permissions and enabled us to continue our travels still on our air miles tickets.

Our route from Istanbul to Kathmandu was through Frankfurt and Bangkok. We know the Frankfurt airport well, having stopped there many times on our way to or from the south of France. It is a large (one of the largest in Europe) and efficient airport, with helpful people, all of whom seem to have a smattering or more of English – and what’s more, they seem to want to help you, as if you are doing them the favour of allowing them to practice their English, an experience I have had numerous times in my travels. The lounges in the Frankfurt airport, however, are utilitarian, crowded places, not quite the haven one expects, largely because they are busy at all times: always travellers coming and going to places listed on the departures screen above the desk: small towns and cities in eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Asia – including places I have never heard of, which is impressive because I am a cartophile, a lover of maps. The flux of these travellers somehow rendered these places less exotic, mainly because they were clearly nearly all travelling on business, speaking into cell phones, consulting spread sheets on their computers, punching their blackberries, and gobbling down the functional food and more elaborate drink that was available.

I left the lounge early to see if I could get the Thai airways check in counter to seat Joan and me together – the one miracle the Aeroplan people hadn’t been able to work was to seat us together for this leg. At first the women said it was impossible – the plane was packed. Something tugged at her, though, and she found us two seats together in the very last row – a change we were grateful for until we discovered this row of seats did not recline. A bit of purgatory for the 8 hour flight. A petite Thai women was a couple of seats over. She was friendly, in her mid-thirties, I guessed. She was being sent back to Thailand from somewhere like Denver, apparently, sent back by her gang, she said, for not behaving. We were shocked. She said it so casually, so relaxed, as if she were telling us about the weather. I looked at her more closely, and started to think I could see a more hardened person under this amiability – she was pretty enough, nail polish a little chipped, eyes tired. Or was I simply transforming her now that she had revealed this questionable background? Our conversation headed in other directions, we tried to sleep, and read, and said good-bye to her on the ground.

Another layover in Bangkok, about four hours. Airports can’t be said to be “lovely”, but the ugliness of some of the more desolate ones make certain airports beg for attractive adjectives. And the adjective that the Bangkok airport does tempt you to use is lovely: bright, spacious, somehow soothingly quiet, broken up with gardens.

And lowering our defences for the low-ceilinged, dog-eared waiting rooms and immigration lines in Kathmandu. So this is what an airport in one of the world’s poorest countries looks like, I thought as we waited in line to get our visas. It was the first stamp in my brand new, white temporary passport. Because the temporary passport only has four pages in it for visas, I wanted to make sure the immigration official didn’t waste pages by putting the visa on one page and his stamp on another. He seemed to understand precisely what I wanted, and left me with three blank pages – important because I still needed full pages for Laos and Cambodia.

We had been travelling a long time, and emerged out into the crowded, disorganized life of Kathmandu, met my Mr. Rana and his driver, thankfully. Off to the Hotel Annapurna.

Catching up, Jordan notes (November, 2009)

Thinking, for the purposes of the record, that I will catch up on this blog. Keep the account going, so that there is something to come back to.

So: while in Turkey, we make a side trip to Jordan, the purpose of which is to visit King’s Academy, which  I write about in my Head’s blog on the SMUS website.

Jordan is a dry, hot country, a deliberately outward-looking country, and therefore comes across as a country with a secure personality. Muslim, like Turkey and Morocco, with a cosmopolitan King who wields great influence, like his father.

Taxi drive in the dark to the Meridien Hotel, a hotel which had received schizophrenic reviews on expedia, but good reviews on tripadvisor. We found it very good, with one odd exception (a bad bottle of wine, which the bartender had a hard time coping with. He was polite and accommodating, he just didn’t know what to do until a superior arrived who told him. Quite unused to wine, I suppose. They replaced the bottle.)

Having arrived in Jordan, a visit to Petra was compulsory. Arranged a taxi driver to take us – by far the best plan, if you don’t mind spending a little extra money – and really considering the distance, it was not expensive. He was very pleasant, cheerful. We went through some brief sandstorms as blinding as any white-out I have driven through in a Canadian winter.

The entire distance to Petra from Amman a desert. Occasionally some sheep, or camels in the distance. A stop at a coffee or tea shop, with some artifacts for sale, where Joan bought post cards. I had some coffee that was literally the consistency of mud. Very sharp, very tasty.

Petra – very early start, around 7:30. Definitely the way to do it. A taste of the old ruins on the initial roadway, before entering the high-walled passageway of rock, about a kilometre long, that ends at the Treasury. Camels, rather sad looking but still majestic, waiting for riders who want to pay. A few donkey carts that have brought tourists the kilometre from the entrance. Then away from the wide amphitheatre of the Treasury and into the part of the site that represents dwellings, and more complex life. Absolutely fascinating. We climbed to the top to the ruin of the old Christian church whose name I now forget. There are signs warning pedestrians that you shouldn’t go up the path without a guide. Ridiculous. It was a comfortable climb, a few poor vendors on the way, and one particular scary moment with a brother and a sister of perhaps four or five were squabbling at the edge of a precipice, and the girl was pushed toward the edge. The mother, scarved and berobed, came running and scolding out, clearly frightened, but also clearly not new to this squabbling danger. For certain, if the girl had gone over the edge, she would have been dashed on the rocks 50 or 60 feet below. About 40 feet away, on the opposite side of the path from the cliff, was a primitive dwelling made of a ragged plastic tarp and smooth sticks. Perhaps this was a dwelling, perhaps only a shelter. Elsewhere on the path, a few families huddled in the caves that once upon a time, had in fact been dwellings.

Finally arriving at the top. Very few people had braved the path, frightened off unnecessarily by the signs. A majestic facade of the old monastery. A cup of expensive mint tea, a few pictures, then our descent. When we arrived at the bottom, it was near noon, and the place was packed. Groups of tourists everywhere, the small coffee shops crowded, guides declaiming in various languages: English, German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and more.

Back to the hotel, retracing our steps. Memorable.

Then back to Amman, our visit to King’s Academy, then back to Istanbul