The question arises on the way to the airport. They find themselves changing trains, alighting at platform 1, with minutes to spare to reach platform 24 and their onward connection. The two of them have packed carefully for their 30 day trek to the world’s highest mountain. They have done their research and are prepared for all eventualities. Except one.
L – Stop. I can’t. I’m breaking.
D – You’re not breaking. You’re fine.
L – We need a trolley.
D – There are no trolleys. We’ve got to carry it.
Each slung about with rucksacks and duffel bags and day packs, shoulders straining and knees buckling, they make their way uncomfortably along the underpass, breathing hard. They stop and look up.
L – I’ll never make it. You’ll have to go without me.
D – It’s a flight of steps. You’ll make it. And anyway, I can’t just leave you here for a month, you’ll get in everyone’s way. Come on – we’ve got 2 minutes.
Red faced, panting and sweating, they stagger upwards, twenty-two steps and two more big ones onto the train. They set down their loads and regard the pile with dismay.
L – How is one porter going to carry all this up and down mountains for a month when the two of us can’t heave it up a flight of stairs between us?
D: Not all of it’s going up the mountain. We’ll leave a bag at the hotel. With the snorkels.
L: Yes. The snorkels.
D: And maybe some other stuff.
L – But how am I going to climb Mount Everest when apparently I can’t climb the stairs?
D – We’re only going to the bottom. Not the top.
L – Still. I thought I was fit. I’ve been for four runs!
D – In three years.
L – Oh.
*****
Doha Airport. 2am. Waiting for flight connection to Kathmandu.
L – It must be a deliberate tactic to stop people falling asleep. So as not to miss their planes. Or make the place look untidy.
D – What must be?
L – All the bright lighting and uncomfortable benches and super-annoying armrests so you can’t spread out.
D – I’m trying to sleep.
L falls quiet. D shuts his eyes.
L – Don’t you think that economy long haul flying must be just like childbirth?
D – WHAT? How would watching films while having meals brought to you possibly resemble childbirth?
L – You know what I mean.
D – I truly don’t.
L – It’s appallingly uncomfortable but no-one really talks about it, and when you’re experiencing it you swear never to go through it again, and then you forget, and a year or two later there you are again. Just like childbirth.
D – Right. No. No, I think it’s probably nothing like childbirth.
L – I’m going to ask some people.
D – You do that. I’m asleep.
*****
Kathmandu airport at 10am is calm. There’s no fuss. Getting their visas is quick and easy. Retrieving their luggage takes longer. The baggage carousel is busy with Nepalis collecting imported TVs and suitcase-sized bundles wrapped in intricate webs of knotted rope.
Outside, throngs of people stand in groups – women in brightly coloured saris or tunics and scarves and loose trousers, beautiful splashes of crimson and marigold and fuchsia, and men wearing close fitting topi hats of orange patterned fabric.
L: Why has everyone got a red smudge on their foreheads? A tilaka is it? Isn’t that Hindu? I thought the Himalayas were mostly Buddhist.
D: They are – in Sherpa and Tibetan areas. But we’re not in the Himalayas. There’s a lot more of Nepal than the mountains.
L: I know, but…
D: The country’s something like 80% Hindu and only 10% Buddhist.
L: But Buddha was born in Nepal.
D: Yes, and then Buddhism spread outwards from here, including over the mountains and into Tibet, but since then, Hinduism has taken over in most of Nepal. Lots of the monasteries in the Himalayas seem to have been founded by Tibetans fleeing across the border into Nepal and bringing Buddhism back with them.
Their hotel has provided an airport transfer. They are greeted by a man who takes charge of their towering trolley and sets off with it across the car park. They follow. In the hazy March sunshine, the temperature is a pleasant 27°C. He passes ranks of gleaming SUVs and minibuses, and stops next to a small, battered hatchback. He smiles and waits.
L: (whispering) Oh. I think maybe we should tip him.
A second man steps forward and loads their luggage into the boot and back seat of the car. He smiles and waits.
L: (whispering) I think we should…..
A third man turns up and gets into the driver’s seat. They set off. On arrival at the hotel the driver gets out, smiles and waits.
L: (whispering) I think we….
Two porters swoop down the hotel entrance steps, heave the luggage out of the car, and disappear into the building. D&L check in and are shown to their room. The porters arrive and set down the bags. They smile and wait.
L: (whispering) I think….
D: I know.
They wander the maze of narrow mostly-pedestrian lanes of Kathmandu’s Thamel district. Many are unpaved, dusty, with rubble-filled potholes. Crumbling buildings reach 4 stories overhead, festooned with electric cables which meet in clumps of aerial spaghetti at every junction. Dust hangs heavy in the air, mingling with the aroma of spices and incense. They pop into The North Face and inspect a deliciously warm looking down jacket. They peer at the price tag.
Not all are there for the tourists though. Two women squat in the sun washing roof tiles whilst a group of men rest idly by. A monkey ambles past chewing a piece of fruit. A tiny boy dances amidst a rising cloud of pigeons. A youth dozes in a temple doorway and an elderly gentleman pauses to read his newspaper, the roof above his head providing welcome shade and supported by beams carved with graphic sexual contortions. In one peaceful courtyard, the blank windows hide the Royal Kumari – a little girl worshipped by Hindus as the Living Goddess of Nepal. It is believed the goddess within her leaves at puberty, at which time she will be sent home and replaced with another.
L: The runway is ludicrously short, with a massive cliff to fall off at one end and an enormous mountain to bump into at the other. And no runway lights. And high winds. And thick cloud.
Their tiny room has plywood walls and ceiling, two narrow single beds – each with a foam mattress, bedcover, duvet and pillow – and a padlock on the door. There is a bare light bulb and curtains on the windows. There is a plug socket in the room, and astonishingly, wifi, though neither of these actually work. This is the template for pretty much all their accommodation throughout the month-long trek.
Angtu sets a steady, sustainable pace, leading the way, and L is relieved that she can keep up. Phurba walks with them, and the two Nepalis chat and laugh their way up the hill. They cross, and recross, and briefly follow the road. The road is not actually a road, but a road-sized sandy ribbon, winding its way ever deeper into these hills, promising long-awaited access for remote villages to schools and doctors, markets and jobs. For now though, the only people on it are builders and engineers and surveyors. Those on foot keep away – there is too much dust and not enough shade – and no-one has a vehicle anyway.
L&D have filled their pack with coloured pencils and crayons to give to village schools. They walk across the dusty yard, where a number of tiny children in lilac shirts and dark trousers are emerging from the building. They have crocs on their feet and a few are wearing ties. L&D greet the three female teachers. They rummage in their pack and hand out pencils and crayons as the kids crowd around them. The teachers explain that the school has 25 pupils aged between 6 and 15, though today there are only 20. They seem younger, none of them much older than 9.
Bhandar is idyllic – a widely spaced scattering of attractive stone buildings on a gentle slope of green meadow. It was badly damaged in the earthquake of 2015 and lots of rebuilding is going on. The lodges around the central square are full of road-building engineers, so they continue to the very bottom of the village. At their whitewashed, blue balconied lodge, sunshine streams through the windows. The mattresses are very thin. Downstairs there is one indoor squat loo, but no water has been provided.
They drop towards the river, peeling off layers of clothing as they go. The day is warming up under a strong sun. A track winds around the hillside, where deep red rhododendrons and pink-blossomed fruit trees are in flower. They descend through wet, irrigated gullies of cardamom plants. As they dash to dodge the sprinklers Angtu explains.
Kinja sits where a confluence of rivers force a widening of the valley floor. There are enormous boulders strewn about, possibly ancient remnants of glacial moraine, as they do not appear to have tumbled from the mountainsides above. The village was badly shaken by the earthquake and there is plenty of construction taking place. A couple of boys clatter past, to and fro along the neatly paved alleys, with wheelbarrows full of building stone. The end wall has fallen off a house nearby, and another is crumbling and abandoned, used only to tether a goat from a doorpost. Laundry is spread out on a woodpile to dry, and a solar kettle reflects the sunlight from its enormous mirrored dish to a blackened pot suspended at its centre. Flowering nasturtiums crawl over a low wall and a cactus tree provides an incongruous foreground for the distant snows beyond.
D&L wait patiently outside the guesthouse for Angtu, Phurba and the hostesses to finish flirting and taking selfies with each other. The sky is cloudless but a little hazy. They climb steeply passing isolated dwellings in impossibly inaccessible places, frilled all around by the narrowest of terraces – some barely a metre wide. Under one spreading tree – a cloud of white blossom – a man slowly drives a pair of cattle and a wooden plough through the dusty earth.
Unlike yesterday’s balmier climes, it is 4°C in their bedroom this morning. They poke their noses out of the nest of bedclothes.
Eventually the terrain flattens and opens into wide alpine meadows with cattle enclosures. At the edge of Taktor they pause at a tea-house. On a wall is a large basket – a doko – full of rhododendron leaves collected from the forest for cattle fodder. Indoors a cat sits on top of the hearth, next to a cauldron of hot water. Their hostess prepares noodle soup – feeding the fire carefully with wood, and removing it again once it has served its purpose – preserving it as a scarce resource.
High above Jumbesi, below the monastery, towers an immaculate white and gold stupa. Four layers of niches wrap around the circumference, and in each little midnight-blue alcove sits a tiny golden Buddha. Prayer flags stream from the pinnacle in all directions. Mani stones, mantra-covered boulders, and prayer wheels mark the onward route.
In one courtyard nuns have spread maize kernels on large tarpaulin sheets. One is kneeling, crushing the kernels under a rock, whist a shaggy white pony stands at her shoulder hoping for a meal of husks. At a waist-high wooden pestle and mortar, the maize is further ground by two more nuns, heavy wooden clubs raised and lowered, pummelling rhythmically, wood on wood.
D: A black dog!
The following morning they try again.
The day is overcast but dry. The landscape is beautiful – a gentle path undulating around meadowy hillsides, through clumps of fir trees, past grazing cattle and (clockwise) around stupas and prayer flag poles. They cross a river on a swaying steel suspension bridge above a group of mani boulders painted in multi-coloured mantras. Despite the mild gradient and the fact that they are still at well under 3000m, L walks slowly, panting like crazy, as though her lungs are battling the thin air of high altitude. She is coughing so much that her chest hurts and her stomach muscles are sore. The three hour walk to Ringmo takes five and the final 200 metre climb finishes her off. She staggers into the first guest house they come across.
The early morning light drapes the hillside with a chilly blue hue, but the sky above is clear. In the distance a curtain of morning mist opens briefly to reveal an immense white pyramid, and then closes again, as though they imagined it. They climb steep cobbled lanes, past orchards and neatly fenced paddocks, and, still cobbled, still steep, on a sunken lane through woodland. At the top a covered gateway leads them to the Trakshindu La. The 3070m pass is scruffy and windswept – a bare earth farmyard with a lodge, barns and animal enclosures. Contradicting all outward appearances, inside the lodge dining room every table has a pretty cloth and a vase with fresh flowers. Near the door is a huge copper basin filled with water, in which freshly picked marigolds float on the surface. An elderly woman arranges them lovingly. It is entirely unclear where in this harsh landscape these flowers could possibly have come from, or whom they are for.
The trail becomes punishingly steep, a waterfall of dust and boulders. They continue down, glad of knee supports and trekking poles. Below, they can hear, and then see, an icy blue river and a huddle of huts. This river is their first glimpse of the Dudh Kosi – which they will follow for the next two weeks, all the way to its source, where at 4,700 metres it flows from the Ngozumba Glacier through Gokyo’s sacred lakes.
Angtu has been firm again, and in the morning they are on the trail by 7.30am – heading uphill pretty much all day. The landscape is stunning, the sky is blue, and the temperature pleasant. They wish they could dawdle – taking two or even three days to cover the ground instead of just one. Ahead on the path a woman, stick in hand, gracefully flicks cattle dung from the ground into a doko basket on her back. Bamboo, fruit trees and even the occasional palm grow beside the trail. Angtu and Phurba chat and laugh. Phurba sings and quacks like a duck.
At the top of a steep flight of stone steps they pass through a monastery gateway. There is a choice – more steps to the gompa itself, or a pause for a tea-stop. L opts for tea and basks in the sun. D heads for the steps. At the top, prayer flags flutter and the gompa door is open. Inside, his socks slide on the polished wood floor. The walls and ceiling are alive with colour, shapes and patterns. Layers of fabric forming cylindrical frills, in reds, greens, yellows, blues and white, hang from the ceiling. One wall is made up of niches for prayer books. Two green-skinned drums stand sentinel over low cushioned benches for monk meditation. Outside again, the sunlight is dazzling and the lush green valley is spread out at his feet.
In a tea-house in Bupsa they order noodle soup and omelettes. The owner’s tiny son shares a bench with D, playing a game on his mother’s phone. He edges along the bench, studiously ignoring D. D peers towards the screen and gives advice. The boy takes no notice, loses the game and slides closer to D. They both study the screen. The boy loses the game. He hands D the phone. D loses the game. The boy rolls his eyes and reclaims the phone. He loses the game. The boy gets comfortable, turning sideways, leaning back, using D as a back rest, feet on the bench, phone on his knees. D drinks his tea. The boy loses the game.
They climb back up the bank and onto the path, still behind the donkeys, and follow them into Paiya. At the entrance to the village there’s another hold-up. A workman has left a hammer on the narrow metal bridge, and there is no way one particular donkey is stepping over that hammer. No way. After some ineffectual shouting and pushing, the hammer is removed and the donkey train continues.
They come to Moshe, a medieval-looking collection of tiny stone cottages and doorways in rock-faces. The land is worked – divided into little stone-walled fields and compounds. There are no shops or lodges or tea-houses. More than anywhere they’ve walked through so far, this place seems utterly untouched by tourism and modernity, separate, forgotten. Lukla’s town and airport are invisible and yet just a few hundred vertical metres above them. They are right in the flight path. Some days 1000 people pass over their heads, but each is oblivious to the other. They are worlds apart.
There is also a hybrid third group – the expedition porters. These guys tend to look and dress like trekking porters – young, fit and reasonably well equipped. However, it seems that they too are paid by the kilo as they carry ludicrous loads, the furthest distance, to base camps at the foot of the world’s highest mountains, covering many miles a day. They are doubled over under towers of chairs, rolls of carpet, steel folding tables, mattresses, drums of climbing gear, cooking gas cylinders, pots and pans. It’s seasonal and punishing work, but lucrative if they can get it.
Angtu acts as translator and go-between, making sure they have everything they need.
D: Are those yaks?
L: 3%. Hardly any. And guess how much is barren land over 5,000 metres?
It’s still spitting when they make their way alongside the river bed, on a path of worn-smooth river stones. Ahead across the river are two long suspension bridges, one above the other, reaching from one hillside to the next. The lower one is no longer used. The higher one is a very long way up.
There’s good news – the hotel is giving Angtu free accommodation and meals.
He takes them up to a viewpoint above town. On the northern horizon, the clouds shift briefly.
They cross the yak paddocks in Thame. Yaks are lying or grazing, wearing woven collars and big bells and wisps of crimson wool. On their withers is tied a white prayer-flag with Tibetan script printed in gold.
A crumbling path rises vertically behind Namche Bazaar. Angtu groans loudly at intervals, grinning widely, as they climb 400 metres in under an hour, overtaking a steady stream of panting, less acclimatised trekkers.
All day they walk towards Ama Dablam pointing haughtily skywards, a backdrop to stupas, prayer-flags and picturesque yaks. It photo-bombs their pictures. It demands to be admired. It’s the most beautiful peak they’ve ever seen.
Often, pushing trekkers too high too fast is simply down to a battle by tour companies to offer competitive prices and so a tightly timed itinerary. Sometimes though, the reasons are a lot more sinister. There are scams where companies deliberately cause their clients to become ill, with altitude sickness or food poisoning, and then call in a helicopter which delivers the trekker to a private hospital. There are plenty of winners – kickbacks for all – the trekking company and guide, the helicopter company and pilot, and the private hospital. There is also one big loser. The trekker gets a curtailed holiday, a life-threatening illness, a helicopter ride, a stint in hospital, and a gigantic bill.
Birch and rhododendron woods line the path, moss hanging from tree branches and the river is occasionally visible far far below. Frozen waterfalls and torrents of snow and ice stripe the cliffs overhead and cross the trail, incongruous in the strong sunshine and soft woodland.
L: And what are the symptoms? Apart from feeling tired and breathless.
At a lonely teahouse skirted by stone-walled yak paddocks, they stop for tea. The sun gleams off the blue tin roof, the pristine whitewash and the silver dish of a solar kettle.
At the top of the pass they enter a long valley strewn with boulders. They pass the first of Gokyo’s sacred lakes on which a pair of orange Brahminy ducks glide and preen on the metal-grey water. Further on they reach the second sacred lake. It’s fringed with decorative cairns, placed there by Hindus and Buddhists for whom these lakes have religious significance, or by trekkers taking selfies.
A train of yaks lumbers by, calmly picking their way across the rocky ground, and swinging their big gentle lethal-weapon heads from side to side. Some have untidy white face markings on otherwise black woolly coats, as though they have been apple-dunking in a trough of whitewash.
In this remotest of backwaters is a cluster of trekking lodges. Their bedroom has a carpet, a lake view and clean linen on the twin beds. The internet works and there is a plug for charging phones. A skylight lets the sun heat the space in the day. They look in wonder at the en-suite bathroom with Western loo, a basin and a shower tray.
And Then They Went 