Nepal 2018: Nigel’s
Chronicle
Prologue
Dateline: Toronto, March, 2018
I’m working from my home office and the phone rings. I can
see that it’s Arthur Murdoch following up with me on a discussion we had about
a trip he is leading in November to Mount Everest Base Camp. When we left off a
few days ago, I said I’d think carefully about it and now he’s calling to try
to close the deal. My adventure partner Shelley has already committed - and her
sister Ainslie is close to doing the same - so I’m feeling the pressure from
her too.
The NFL schedule won’t be out for another month so I have no
idea how many games or which games I’d be missing by leaving the country – and
the continent – for three weeks. I won’t use that as an excuse when I talk to Arthur,
I thought; maybe I’m not fit enough and I don’t even like hiking that much
anyway; I’m quite scared of heights and what about those suspended bridges? I
don’t sleep well in a dorm setting; I often catch a GI infection when I travel
to third world countries (as if I really do that very often); maybe I’d be in a
better situation to do the trip in a year or two…..
“Hello Arthur, how are you?”
“Good. I’m trying to finalize the group for Nepal and I’m
hoping that you will be joining us. Have you made a decision?”
He was clearly ready to deal with all of my excuses. In
particular, he shot down the idea of waiting a year - or until next time.
“Enough delay will allow you to use the excuse that you’re now too old to do it
so that’s a good way to guarantee that you’ll never go”, he offered.
He was right. And I had nothing to counter this point. After
addressing my remaining questions and promising me that single rooms would be
available in the teahouses on the trekking trails, I had nothing left. Like a
salesman who had overcome all of his prospect’s objections, he had me. I knew
it and so did he.
Arrival
The streets of Khatmandu and the chaotic traffic they carry
were relatively calm for our first encounter. After all, it was well past 11pm
when we were all finally issued our tourist visas, collected our luggage and
proceeded outside the airport to meet Connor, our Outward Bound Canada (OBC)
lead course instructor, who had arrived the previous day to finalize and
confirm some of the more important arrangements. With him was a man named
Mingma who works for a tour company called Ang Rita in Khatmandu which OBC
hires to arrange ground transfers, hotel reservations and other logistics.
Mingma presented each of us with a marigold garland as he shook our hands and
welcomed us to Nepal. The flowers were real.
After a short drive in a van with our luggage tied on top in
a way which would probably be illegal in Ontario, we arrived at the Yak &
Yeti hotel which is a quiet, gated oasis amidst the mayhem of the city. It
looked and felt like a normal western hotel with crisp bed sheets and a
television that worked. I tuned in BBC World News for a few minutes as I tested
the electrical outlets to see if I could charge my phone (I could). After a 15
hour flight to Hong Kong where our newly formed group spent most of the day
roaming around the busy streets and sizing each other up, followed by an
evening flight to Khatmandu, “tired” only begins to describe how we were
feeling. Breakfast, we were told, would be at 9.30am. Connor reminded us to use
only the bottled water to brush our teeth. Good night.
After a good sleep and a shower, we caught the last 30
minutes of the breakfast buffet and had our first full team meeting around the
hotel restaurant table. “What was each of us hoping to get out of this course
(trip)?”, we were asked. I had been forewarned that there would be plenty of requests
to share our feelings, hopes, concerns in a quasi-group therapy format. Sure, I
can play that role, I said to myself, and being the team player that I am, I
volunteered my bit early on in the session (an approach I stuck with throughout
the trip and one which generally served me well): “I do a lot of wilderness
canoeing in Canada and I’m hoping to find some of the same kind of enjoyment I
get from that in this very different kind of adventure…” or something like
that. Others talked about their goal of meeting the clear objective of reaching
the “top” (not of Mount Everest itself of course but to make it to Base Camp
and to the top of Kala Patthar) and the opportunity to learn some of the
culture and history of a part of the world to which few of us had ever ventured.
As I now know, OBC programs are called “courses”; the OBC
staff who lead them are called “instructors” and, by extension, I suppose the
participants are “students” in some sense. Nomenclature aside, I gather that OBC
courses are intended to be journeys of self-discovery but within a team setting.
Sharing in an open and safe environment was an integral element of the course I
describe here and I was generally happy, if not eager, to share and to absorb
and process the thoughts and feelings of my team-mates.
After our team breakfast meeting, we re-boarded the van en
route to the “Monkey Temple”. This mid-morning journey through the streets of
Khatmandu was our first real exposure to its chaotic traffic with directional
flow and lanes serving as only vague guidelines. There are easily 20
motorcycles/scooters for every car with various sizes of vans and trucks also
mixed in. Traffic moves the way schools of fish do; at first glance, it looks
like utter chaos with no rules of order. But as we moved between small streets
and major thoroughfares on what felt like an untraceable route to the temple, I
noticed that the flow of traffic actually does follow a logic – just one very
different from the comparatively rigid traffic rules of Canadian streets. I
also realized that there was something distinctly different about the use of
horns. In Toronto, horns are usually used to express anger and as a means for
the honker to point out that she has been wronged in some way by another
driver. In Khatmandu, horns are used to sound brief warnings that the honker is
about to enter or come through a particular space or that another driver may be
getting too close (as in less than an eighth of an inch) to the honker. Horn
use in Khatmandu appears to be about communication, cooperation and civility, rather
than anger, indignation or aggression.
The Monkey Temple enjoys a prominent location offering views
of the city and the surrounding valley. Dogs and small monkeys peacefully
co-exist with tourists and vendors; they appear fully at ease with the daily
throngs who pass through. Most dogs happily relax or sleep while the monkeys
seem pre-occupied with searching for and perhaps stealing food if they get the
chance. After an hour or so, we were back in the van and back in the mayhem (I
use the words “chaos” and “mayhem” interchangeably in this piece to describe
the traffic in Khatmandu) en route back to the Yak & Yeti.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent with final duffle
bag packing and inspection by our OBS instructors with plenty of time to feel
the stirring of butterflies in our stomachs as our trek to Mount Everest Base
Camp - the reason we came all this way - was about to begin. The morning would
come early with a 5am departure to the airport and the last leg of our air
journey – to Lukla, known as the most dangerous commercial airport in the
world.
After a somewhat chaotic check-in for the flight, I realized
that I had I left my Kershaw knife, which I have had since 2002 and use
exclusively (until now) on canoe trips, in my carry-on daypack and not in my
checked duffle bag. By the time I realized this, the duffle was long gone
through the check-in desk and probably on a cart on the ramp beside the plane.
“If you have sharp objects in your bag, you will lose them”, declared the
security official as she passed the carry-on bags through the x-ray scanner.
Resigned to having lost my knife, in the hopes of minimizing the scene around
its imminent seizure, I tried to make eye contact with the person who was
watching the screen as my bag passed through. I was unable to do so because he
was reading a newspaper. My daypack emerged from the scanner; I grabbed it and
walked away. The only use I found for my Kershaw knife over the course of the
trek was cutting 250mg Diamox tablets in half – something I did every day
except for the two days we were above 5,000 metres (when I doubled my dosage).
The 27 minute flight to Lukla was uneventful in clear
weather with the snow-capped Himalayas coming clearly into view to the north.
The landing was smooth on the uphill runway and we were on the small ramp a few
seconds later. As we got off the plane and started making our way to a teahouse
for tea and a final team meeting before we set out, I noticed the faces of the
trekkers waiting to fly out. They had just completed the journey we were about
to begin and it reminded me of the scene from Platoon when Charlie Sheen’s
plane finally arrives near the front line in Vietnam and he sees the
hollowed-out faces and distant, blank gazes of those whose tours were finally
over and were heading home. Except these trekkers looked just fine. Maybe a bit
chilled but happy and healthy. If they can do it, so can we, I thought.
“Please share any fears you have” was the subject of the
last official team meeting as we drank “milk tea” around the varnished pine cabinet-like
tables which look partly like desks and are typical in teahouses. “I worry
about having a GI issue”, I offered, embellishing a little by adding that I
stopped going to Mexico years ago because I would come down with a case of the
runs every time I went. Others mentioned trepidation around the physical
challenge, the altitude and the cold. Unspoken were the reservations I’m sure
we all had about spending the next 12 days with each other, uninterrupted, and
in the context of whatever challenges – known and unknown - lay ahead of us.
The Trek Begins
After retrieving our trekking poles from our duffle bags,
they were zipped up, placed in white grain bags then mounted and tied on the
backs of three yaks which would accompany us on the entire trek. These
particular beasts of burden were actually a cross-breed between yaks and
cattle. Two of them seemed relatively docile but one had an attitude which
would flare up a couple of times later on. The “yak driver”, a very cheerful
man in his 60’s named Childress, was tasked with marshalling the yaks to
Gorakshep, site of the furthest and highest teahouse on our journey, and back.
They didn’t often travel alongside us but were either behind us or ahead of us somewhere
along the trail. Sometimes they would pass through as we were eating lunch.
They usually arrived at our nightly teahouse destinations within an hour of our
own arrival, giving us time to relax, have some tea and peruse the dinner
menus.
Day one of the trek took us mostly downhill from Lukla
through various villages with plenty of teahouses, shops and small farms. A
misty fog moved in just before we stopped for lunch where we were introduced to
“Sherpa Stew” which is a thick, mostly root vegetable soup. Janet, an executive
coach from Vancouver, presented the first of her “conundrums” which, after
exhaustive questioning and analysis, we eventually solved. The poison was in
the ice cubes.
After lunch, we came to our first suspended bridge over a
deep valley. Being fearful of heights, I had worried about my ability to cross these
bridges which allowed clear views, for those daring to look, through the strips
of sheet metal under our boots at what was usually a raging glacial river far
below. But much of my fear magically dissipated upon seeing the much higher
level of anxiety shown by Mark, a media executive from Toronto. Mark and I became
suspended bridge crossing partners. I led and he followed close behind me,
repeatedly counting the stitches on the outer compartment of my day pack. We
eventually learned to proceed first across these bridges so as not to be
impeded by those who followed and wanted to stop to take photographs.
A second bridge led us to the west side of the river and the
village of Phakding where we would stay the first night. For dinner, Mary and I
each ordered something called a “pizza set” which included what looked like a
pizza but didn’t have the texture or flavour of pizza as we know it in Canada.
I mostly avoided pizza after that. The bedrooms were decent with en suite
bathrooms. A small crying puppy awoke us in the night and had to be let outside
by Shelley.
I ordered porridge for breakfast. Another mistake. It was
thin and soupy. Later in the trek, I and others would discover muesli and hot
milk. We departed on day two just after 8am in fine, clear weather en route to
Namche Bazaar.
Namche
“Gore-tex sucks!” declared Connor. A cool afternoon mist had
rolled in as we neared the end of the steep climb to Namche and, having felt a
bit of a chill at a rest break an hour earlier, I had donned my Marmot Gore-tex
jacket and a clammy perspiration was now getting the better of me.
“I have my pit zips fully open”, I replied, wiping my brow
and wondering if I was feeling a bit of late afternoon hypoglycemia.
“Gore-tex doesn’t breathe nearly as well as they want you to
believe it does. What you need is a windbreaker; not a raincoat. I can help you
find one in Namche.” Connor offered.
Namche is the largest community in the Khumbu region,
nestled along the side of a valley surrounded by steep mountains. With an
elevation of 3,440 metres, its name is actually Namche Bazaar which describes
the market which was in full swing as we arrived. We ascended past rows of
vendors offering vegetables and other foodstuffs as well as a range of clothing
and other basic consumer goods on the way to what seemed like a never-ending
set of stairs to the teahouse where we would spend two nights to acclimatize to
the altitude. It would also be the location of the last shower we would have
for eight days. Part of Namche looks like a Swiss tourist resort with many shops
catering to trekkers and selling all conceivable kinds of trekking gear,
clothing and accessories – some of it actually name brand but much of it in the
form of cheap and crappy knock-offs. And at least two “Irish Pubs” as well.
Our “acclimatization day” in Namche did not involve much
sitting around. Instead, and to change things up a bit, we had a hike planned. And
what a hike it was. Among other things, we got our first full view of Mount
Everest after climbing straight up for a couple of hours to an exposed ridge.
The visible part of the top of Everest is striated black rock and its peak
showed the iconic plume of cloud spilling off toward the east. We continued on
to the Everest View Hotel where we sat on the sunny deck, drank tea and took in
the stunning mountain vistas.
We then descended northward into a picturesque valley and
the village of Khumjung, home to a large monastery and a high school built by
Sir Edmund Hillary in 1962. Our lead Sherpa guide Lhakpa attended the school
where he learned sufficient English to become a trekking guide. After a
satisfying lunch of noodles and mixed vegetables, we toured the school (it was
a Saturday so classes were not sitting) before we made our way past a
government yak farm and back to Namche.
Namche is also home to a monastery where the sitting monk happens
to be the uncle of our Sherpa guide Mingma. Some of us went with Mingma to
visit the monastery and his uncle who welcomed and blessed us each individually.
He said to me that I would live to the age of 108. I was feeling quite buoyed
by this revelation until I shared it with the others who reported that they
each were told the same thing. Turns out that the number 108 is significant in
Buddhist liturgy. Before we left the monastery, Janet handed her iPhone to the
monk and asked if he would snap a photo of us. Standing in his bright red robes
in the ancient monastery, he did that and then, without prompting or
instruction, he switched the phone to selfie mode, turned, stood with us and
snapped a hilarious shot of the group with himself in the foreground. As he
handed the phone back to Janet, he asked her how she liked the iPhone 8S as he
was thinking of upgrading to it himself.
Before dinner, a few of us joined Connor for a shopping
outing. I was in the market for a non-waterproof wind jacket – which I easily
found at one of the legitimate stores. I paid 14,000 Nepalese rupees – or about
$140 USD – for a light Black Diamond jacket tested by Connor for breathability.
The test is quite simple: literally see if you can suck air through it with
your mouth and, if you can, it will breathe. I also got a sun hat with the blue
eyes of Buddha above the word “Nepal” on the front and a buff.
Moving Above 4,000 Metres
Day 4 was bright and clear in the morning as we moved onward
and upward from Namche toward Phengboche. After lunch, some minor group issues
emerged with Shelley, a professor at the University of Toronto and Mary, an IT
manager from Orangeville, feeling that our pace wasn’t quite fast enough for
them. The issue was aired, the OBC instructors emphasized that the team would
not split into faster and slower groups and we resolved to maintain cohesion
and move on together. In retrospect, what was really needed was simply better
spacing between us – especially on the steep and narrow sections with trekkers,
porters and yaks clogging the trail in both directions at times. Shelley told
me 30 minutes after our group discussion on the trail that she was happy to
have had the chance to express her mild frustrations and that she had regained
a peaceful state. Mary seemed to take a little longer to come around.
In the afternoon mist, we passed the large monastery at
Tengboche (which we would visit on the descent) and descended again toward the
river and another suspended bridge. The longest day of trekking so far brought
us to the teahouse in Phengboche at 4pm. The rooms had exterior curtains
hanging outside the doors.
Dinner was particularly good - for me at least – with
delicious cheese and potato spring rolls and pasta with tomato sauce. After
dinner, we split into groups of two to re-connect with what we were hoping to
get out of the course and what success might look like for each of us. I paired
with Evan whose long history with Outward Bound (including being a former
member of the International Board) makes him well-versed in these touchy, feely
group sharing moments which are much less familiar to me. When we reconvened, I
talked about how pleasing it was for me to be cultivating meaningful individual
relationships with each member of the group. Before bed, the cribbage board
came out. Mark learned quickly. Connor took the game. Janet showed us a card
trick.
Day 5 was bright and clear and cold. After breakfast, we
watched Childress preparing the yaks for the day’s journey. Two were docile and
deferential but one was much less so. We watched with a measure of nervous
tension as Childress, who presumably has decades of yak driving and handling
experience, very carefully worked a
rope around the horns of our ornery yak who stood calmly but fixated on
Childress. The look on his face said “I actually had other plans for today so
you may want to re-think this business of getting that rope on my horns and
then loading me up with duffle bags”. In the end, of course, he acquiesced.
After an early ascent to warm us up, a rather short and easy
walk along an open meadow plateau brought us to Pheriche (4,300 metres and well
above the tree line) and the Himilayan Inn, a teahouse where we would stay
three nights in total. It has a large common room and the bedrooms are clean
and comfortable with en suite toilets which require that the tank be filled with
a jug from a large barrel of water for each flush. After lunch, Shelley and I
circumnavigated the village and its many walls of piled stones. Ama Dablan, a
strikingly steep and elegant peak overlooks the village from the south. At 3pm,
we made our way to the Himilayan Rescue Association Medical Clinic for a
presentation by the young staff doctors there – one from Minnesota, one from
Belfast and one from Australia - on the effects of altitude on the human body, the
various acclimatization strategies which are usually followed by trekkers and
an in-depth look at the two main kinds of serious altitude sickness. It is the
highest medical facility in the Khumbu. Multiple games of cribbage were played before
and after dinner and I finally won a game.
Day 6 was our second acclimatization day. After a leisurely
breakfast at 7.30am, we set out for our day hike which would take us above
4,800 metres under spectacular clear skies. Along the way, Janet floated her
second conundrum which I eventually solved after listening to relentless
questions from some of the others. I wasn’t really trying to solve it; it just
came to me: the man who the bartender pulled a gun on had the hiccups.
As I now know, Outward Bound courses often include a “solo”
element and our instructors decided that our Day 6 acclimatization hike would
be a good time for it. So we dispersed around the slope – some higher, some
lower, some around corners and none within eyesight of any of the others for a
period of about 40 minutes. Upon regrouping, I spoke about the concept of
geological time and how the mountains which surrounded us are the result of the
momentum of the continents coming together and pushing the land skyward. Mark
mentioned menu planning. Evan explained how he lay prone with his head facing
Ama Dablan. Afterward, some of us walked a bit higher before returning to
Pheriche for lunch. In the afternoon, I wrote a piece in the group journal
about time machines and tourism in the Khumbu. After dinner, the three-handed
cribbage game was razor thin with all three players within two points of
victory. Connor won the game. Again.
My day 7 breakfast was apple muesli with hot milk and two
boiled eggs. The weather was clear and cold. Again. We made our way to Lobusche
at 4, 910 metres. For the first time, I did experience a very slight altitude
related headache for the first couple of hours after arriving at the Oxygen
teahouse in Lobusche. Extra water and some down time were the remedies. The
ibuprofen and Tylenol I took had no effect.
As the dinner hour approached, the sunset on Lhotse was
spectacular and easily visible from the east window of the teahouse common
room. Just after the sunset, an equally spectacular almost full moon rose
behind Lhotse. Many of us went outside for a better view and hundreds of
photographs were taken.
After dinner, more cribbage was played. Most of our group
retired early but I stayed up with Connor and Lhapka. As we sat, Connor, who is
planning a trip to EBC with his family, asked Lhapka to list the names and
prices of the teahouses we had stayed at so far. He obliged. I noticed that the
teahouse prices for accommodation seemed low (I had only seen the food prices
on menus). This led to a larger discussion about economics in the Khumbu and in
Nepal generally.
Lhapka is a 27-year old trekking guide whose English is
excellent. As our lead guide, he was highly knowledgeable, endlessly patient,
always helpful and never unavailable. When Connor and I asked questions to dig
deeper into the issues of exploitation, poverty and corruption in Nepal, at
first he seemed reluctant to share his thoughts on these matters with us, his
clients. But, seeing our keen interest in pursuing these questions, he soon overcame
his reluctance and painted a compelling picture for us of how difficult life is
for most Nepalese citizens. The plight of porters (whose back-breaking work is
described in the epilogue) seems particularly harsh as they need to spend a
large proportion of their earnings on food, all too often at full tourist
prices. After his jarring description of the reality of life in Nepal, I
retired to bed feeling sad and conflicted by what I had heard.
The Summit
Day 8 was going to be a big one. If all went according to
plan (including having clear weather in the afternoon), we would reach Gorakshep
(the highest village in the Khumbu and the “end of the line” in terms of indoor
accommodations) and then, in the afternoon, the summit of Kala Patthar at 5,545
metres, the highest point on our journey and the closest we would come to the
peak of Mount Everest.
The trek to Gorakshep was difficult for me. Not that it was
overly physically challenging but most of the trail consisted of narrow
passageways over and through rocky and undulating terrain, around large boulders,
and over glacial streams. Most challenging was that it was particularly crowded
with trekkers, porters and yaks moving in both directions, making for a
claustrophobic and unpleasant experience. But we arrived at our teahouse in
Gorakshep before lunchtime. The weather looked perfect for a sunset view of
Everest from Kala Patthar.
After lunch, we set out up the steep but easy trail with
Mingma in the lead and Lhapka sweeping. We reached the peak after a couple of
hours and settled in to watch the setting sun, take photos, congratulate and
hug each other and eat Pringles chips and Snickers bars.
Nuptse creates an optical illusion from Kala Patthar as it
looks to be a taller mountain than Everest. It’s just physically closer and
when the sun has almost set, it shines on the top of Everest and only on the
top of Everest, thereby proving – as if it was needed – that Everest is indeed
the highest point on earth. I took one of my best photos ever of the
orange-coloured sun on the peak of Everest a few minutes before it set. After
sunset, we descended two thirds of the way then stopped to watch the full moon
emerge from behind Everest.
Back at the teahouse in Gorakshep, we relaxed for a few
minutes before learning that the next morning would be a very early one with a
5am departure to Everest Base Camp. As we absorbed that news, Mark regaled us
with a poem in anapestic tetrameter (like “Twas the Night Before Christmas)
where he cleverly incorporated a humorous reference about each of us in the
group and even worked in a mention of the ghost of Outward Bound founder Kurt
Hahn.
My room at Gorakshep was a very small single along a narrow
hallway with three other rooms just behind the common room. As I was drifting
off to sleep, trekkers piled into the other rooms, stomping around like
elephants and talking loudly in Eastern European voices and laughing for about
half an hour. I returned the favour at 4.45am after I dressed and packed for
EBC. Closing and locking the padlock mechanism on my door made a noise which
could wake the dead. And easily wake sleeping Eastern European trekkers.
We did the trek to EBC in darkness for the first 90 minutes in
rocky, barren terrain. A cold wind picked up after day break. EBC, which sits
at the base of the Khumbu ice-fall, is nothing more than a flat rocky area
within what looks like a gravel quarry – except that it lies beside the world’s
tallest mountains. There are strings of prayer flags and some simple
inukshuk-like monuments from previous groups. We stayed maybe 20 minutes, took
some photos and had another set of congratulatory hugs. It felt anti-climactic
especially after experiencing the wonder of the sunset on Everest from Kala
Patthar the previous day. But we had made it to the furthest point on the
journey and that felt significant. Now the long trip home was about to begin.
Tonight, we would sleep in Pheriche, again.
The Descent
Anyone who has read Into Thin Air knows that the descent
from a climb can be more difficult, more dangerous and more emotionally
draining than the climb itself. I realize that the parallel between the 1996
Everest disaster and our trek is far too dramatic but the fact is that,
although everyone in our group made it to Kala Patthar, attrition began to set
in immediately afterward. Three were not up to the 5am trek to EBC and chose to
sleep-in that morning. Those same three would not finish the walk back to
Lukla.
After breakfast in Gorakshep, we began to re-trace our steps.
The rocky terrain leading to Lobousche which I found so claustrophobic the
previous day was easier and faster (and less crowded) as our pace was greatly
increased from that of the previous eight days. We descended past the area of
the climber’s memorial to one of our previous lunch spots from the ascent.
Ainslie, an insurance underwriter from Moncton (and Shelley’s younger sister)
had suffered through the night at Gorakshep with a GI issue which precluded her
from having lunch this day. Others were suffering from head and chest colds
with persistent coughing. The entire group would make it to Pheriche later that
day but for Ainslie, it would be the end of her trek.
Lhapka addressed the
group after dinner. At the urging of Connor and me, he talked about the
economic and political issues facing Nepal that the three of us had discussed
two nights earlier - and expanded on them with more historical context.
Being a university professor, Shelley became interested in
one subject which Lhapka spoke about: the state of the public schools in Nepal
which is, apparently, terrible. The next day, she explored this further with
Lhakpa and learned that a child in the Khumbu could attend a good (or a much
better) quality private school for the sum of about $1,200 USD annually. Seeing
the opportunity, Lhapka mentioned his niece (the daughter of Tenzing, a Sherpa
mountain guide who joined us in Pheriche as an assistant guide on our ascent)
to Shelley as an example of a child who could benefit from better schooling. She
is six years old and lives in a village three hours walk from Namche – where we
would arrive the following day. Shelley offered to sponsor the girl and cover
her school tuition through the next several years. Tenzing arranged for his
wife and daughter to meet us in Namche.
It was decided the following morning (day 10) that Ainslie
could not muster the energy she required to walk with us. A chopper was
ordered. She, Judy (an OBC instructor from Vancouver) and Mingma stayed behind
to wait for the chopper to Lukla.
The descent from Pheriche was easy at first
on another fine, clear day but led to some challenging ascents after we crossed
the river. Before lunch, we lost another group member, Carmen, a lawyer from
Toronto (and Mark’s wife) to fatigue brought on by her chest cold. She hit the
wall and needed to complete the day’s trek on horseback. Miraculously, she
arrived at the Ama Dablan View teahouse in Kyiangjuma at exactly the time the
rest of the group arrived on foot. She reported that the ride was harrowing at
all times and particularly terrifying on the steep descents. The teahouse rooms
were spacious with en suite automatic flush toilets.
In the morning of day 11, it was decided that Carmen would
chopper out to Lukla to join Ainslie, Mingma and Judy. Our group was now
reduced to nine: six OBC course participants, OBC instructor Connor and Sherpas
Lhakpa and Tenzing. We forged onward to Namche where we toured a traditional
Sherpa house, a mountain climbing museum (which included a slide show) and paused
to take in a statue of Tenzing Norgay before lunch at the teahouse where we had
stayed two nights on the ascent.
It was here that we met Tenzing’s wife and six-year old
daughter who had walked the three hours from their home to meet us and, in
particular, to meet Shelley (and to briefly see her husband on his way to
Lukla). I said to Mark “its like someone called central casting asking for a
cute six-year old Sherpa girl with pigtails”. She was nicely dressed, shy and
simply could not have been any more appealing. Mother and father expressed
their gratitude to Shelley for her offer to cover their daughter’s school
tuition. It was a touching moment.
Late afternoon brought us to a teahouse in the village of
Monjo which had hot showers in each bathroom (without a stall or tub – just a
shower head on the wall beside the toilet and a slow drain in the floor). As I
remarked at the time, in the ordinary course of our regular lives at home where
most of us bathe every day, the shower in the room in Monjo would have
qualified as quite possibly the worst shower ever, with weak pressure and
constantly varying water temperature. But when it was hot, it was really hot
and since it was the first shower for any of us in eight days, it was among the
very best showers I have ever had. We shared some popcorn before dinner – by
hygeinically pouring small amounts into small cups so as not to spread our
germs any further. After dinner, more cribbage before Connor, Evan and I
reflected on the trip so far and discussed some possible changes to itineraries
for future EBC expeditions.
Day 12 would be our last on the trekking trails. It would
take us through a lush valley where we stopped to watch a farmer steering his
two oxen with a single plough blade. Industrial farming it wasn’t. I had the
most delicious large spring roll for lunch before crossing the last two
suspended bridges with Mark continuing to count the stitching on my day pack.
He knows exactly how many there are. We arrived in Lukla around 2pm – earlier
than some of us expected due, I believe, to a successful strategy of
expectation management on the part of Lhakpa who had prepared us for a longer and
tougher day. Trek over. We had done it. Now to re-unite our team.
Lukla to Khatmandu
As we walked through Lukla on our way to the teahouse for our
last night before returning to Khatmandu, I noticed a barber shop offering
shaving for men. After lunch, Evan and I paid it a visit. It was a cold shave with
a straight razor in a covered outdoor stall for 300 rupees. Without realizing
what I was in for, I opted for a “face wash” for another 300 rupees which
involved a somewhat unpleasant and rough rubbing of the dead skin from my face,
followed by applications of various creams and ointments. Evan wisely declined
the face wash.
Before dinner, we topped up the tip envelopes for our Sherpa
guides. Connor read a quote from Mark Twain about the completion of a difficult
task: “I’m glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I
shall never have to do it again.” Quotes were read most days – usually at meal
times – and, although I generally indicated a positive reaction to them, the
truth is that some of them seemed to me to be a bit too long, too clichéd and
not always relevant. But not this one from Mark Twain, however. I will quite
likely never trek to EBC again. Not because it wasn’t a worthwhile thing to do.
It was entirely worthwhile. But because there are so many other adventures to
pursue before I can imagine being ready to consider undertaking this particular
one again.
Tuesday morning in Lukla and we were off to the airport
which was less than 100 metres away. The chaos that is the Lukla airport early
in the morning is something to behold: dim lighting, confusing check-in and
luggage procedures, long security line-ups and overflowing crowds of would-be
outgoing passengers clogging the terminal. Flights from Khatmandu arrive and
depart early so as to minimize the possibility of cloud cover or mountain mist grounding
them. The airport is strictly VFR (visual flight rules). With our boarding passes in hand, we watched
several flights arrive and depart as the terminal slowly thinned out. Finally,
it was our turn. Pointed downhill on the east button of the 06/24 runway, the
pilot throttled up while holding the brakes before finally letting them off.
The plane accelerated down the hill (the runway has an almost 12 degree slope)
along the 500m runway with the pilot rotating just as the plane was flung off
the side of the cliff and into the air. We were in Khatmandu less than 30
minutes later.
Another journey through the traffic and we were back at the
calm luxury of the Yak &Yeti hotel by mid-morning. As we waited for our
rooms relaxing and napping by the pool, a gathering of high-ranking military
personnel wandered outside to take photos. Most of them looked like Central
American strong-men wearing full fatigues, tall black shiny boots, military
baseball caps and aviator sunglasses.
Goodbye Nepal
After our rooms were ready, I had a sauna and then Ainslie
and I navigated our way through the mayhem of the city streets to a pharmacy to
get a supply of Sudafed for Shelley to cope with the flight the next day. By
this point, she was in the depths of a miserable sounding cold. On the way
back, we saw what looked like a lost but very cute puppy aimlessly wandering along
the chaotically busy thoroughfare and looking up at passers-by as if to say
“will you take me home?”
We had a group celebration dinner at the somewhat famous Rum
Doodle restaurant, about a 20 minute walk from the hotel. It has long been a
gathering place for Himalayan mountaineers and Everest climbers and bears the
signatures and photographs of many of them, including Edmund Hillary. The margaritas
were good but then Mark ordered a bottle of Australian Shiraz of which we only
managed to drink two thirds – among the 12 of us. It was that bad. But the food
was good and we had a fun night.
The next and last day in Khatmandu started with a team breakfast
and a final group meeting which consisted of a thoughtful exercise where we sat
together and passed around ten separate pieces of paper - one for each of us -
where we each took a few minutes to write a personal note to each of our
teammates. I have looked at mine, and its nine separate handwritten messages, a
few times since returning from the trip. I predict that one of my nieces will
throw it out, hopefully about 50 years from now.
In the afternoon, we did some shopping in the Thamel district
of Khatmandu where I confirmed just how poor a negotiator I am with the
purchase of one of Nepal’s most expensive small yak bells. Then back to the Yak
& Yeti, something to eat and some more waiting around. Just before we left
for the airport, Mark recited another brilliant poem, this time a ballad, in
the form of the Robert Service poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. He named it
“Retreat From Kala Patthar”.
With a couple of hours to kill, we attracted considerable
attention in the check-in area of the Khatmandu airport by playing cribbage on
top of a pile of our duffle bags. Card playing is illegal for Nepalese
citizens. Finishing the last game cost me about an hour in the check-in,
immigration and security line-ups. We left on time and arrived in Hong Kong at
daybreak. Those of us going to Toronto had 12 hours before our next and final
flight. I spent the first couple of hours chatting with Janet before her flight
to Vancouver departed and the remaining hours reading, having lunch at
O’Leary’s and wandering the massive airport.
Epilogue: in honour of the porters
who haul freight on the trekking trails
The Things They
Carried is a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories by Tim
O’Brien about a platoon in the Vietnam War. The author was drawn to the small
items – some sentimental, some eccentric and some bizarre – that American
soldiers carried with them to remind them of home or to help transcend them
from the hell of war as time allowed.
On our trek, the trails were quite busy at times as some
50,000 tourists come to the Khumbu valley every year. We learned to step aside
(always to the uphill side) for yaks, donkeys and for the hard-working people
known as porters.
As we encountered these porters who were carrying truly and,
in some cases, literally staggering loads on their backs, I kept thinking that The Things They Carried should really be
a story about Nepalese porters. The size and weight of some of the loads we saw
on the backs of these poor souls defy proper description. Cardboard cases of
dried chicken soup mix stacked eight feet high, massive loads of bottled water,
cases of beer, chocolate bars, fuel cans – all destined to the teahouses where
trekkers like us ate and slept - sheets of plywood, dimensional lumber, rolls of
flooring and carpets, the duffle bags of countless trekkers; we even saw a
porter carrying a full kitchen counter
literally with the kitchen sink installed. Once at a rest stop we counted
the amount of beer in one porter’s load as he was buying something in a shop.
There were 12 cases of 12 beers each; that’s six cases of 24. I don’t buy cases
of 24 anymore because I find them a bit heavy to carry the 25 feet from the
trunk of my car to the back door of the cottage. But carrying six cases up
steep and rocky trails, at altitude and for hours and/or days on end? This
truly is grunt work of the most basic kind. Porters are paid by the kilogram so
they’re motivated to carry as much as they can. Even so, most earn around 1,500
rupees (about $15 USD – which is a high wage compared to the national average)
a day and then they have to eat – usually every day. We were not surprised to
hear that many porters last only a few years before back problems force them
off the trails.
I would like to thank these Nepalese porters for carrying
the food and supplies we consumed at the teahouses. I hope that some improvement
can be made to their remuneration formula – either in the form of higher wages
or lower prices for the meals they need to sustain their bodies.
