Five minutes later I was back in my room, doing a happy dance, and, being mindful there were other guests the other side of paper-thin walls, I began to mime Ashford and Simpson’s tune, Solid as a Rock!
*
I needed a change from Tibetan bread for breakfast, so I went with the porridge and apple option. I’m sorry for talking about toilets and bodily functions so much, I really am, but it was a huge part of my day-to-day existence. I’ll cut this one short though. Nepali porridge with dried apples gives you a Himalayan amount of wind. Not exactly what you want when you’re still in the post traumatic, not-really-sure-what-is-coming-out-of-your-bum stage. Enough said.
We left the guest house a little after 8am, and immediately began a steep climb up rocky stairs. It went on for a good few minutes and by the time I’d reached the top I was dripping with sweat, but absolutely loving it.
‘I feel born again!’ I said to Subash as we took the highest point in our stride. We then began a small descent by lightly tip-toeing over a gently flowing stream.
‘Really? You is feeling like a this?’ he asked.
‘Yeah mate, I feel awesome.’
Not only had the taking-it-easy approach for two days cured my illness, but it had given my tired legs a chance to recuperate. I was powering up slopes and attacking hills with a vengeance before I realised I might be overdoing it. And so I slowed my pace a fraction. It is amazing what happens to the body once it becomes accustomed to climbing up and down all day, every day. You kind of plod up the steeper slopes in a rhythmic motion, always moving, but conserving energy. Yet when you come to a lesser incline, you can actually manage to turn it into a rest. Looking back on the first few days of the trek, this was not even remotely a possibility. Up was up, and that was the end of it.
We climbed up for about an hour before the path levelled off and we came across a decent-sized place called Chheplung.
‘Here the path from Lukla is joining,’ Subash said.
I braced myself. I have been reading about the Khumbu region of Nepal for close to a decade, and if there’s one thing that everyone makes abundantly clear, it’s that the path from Lukla to Everest Base Camp is crowded. I was expecting London’s M80 rat race at rush hour. I grimaced and stepped onto the new path. I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, looked around and realised I was the only tourist in sight.
‘I reckon you blokes are at least half full of shit,’ I said to Subash.
‘What it means?’
‘You tell me here too much busy, but all I can see is you and a yak.’
‘No problems man. In Namche you see.’
‘This is like when you tell someone a movie is going to be rubbish, but they watch it anyway, and it seems great because they are having a low expectation,’ I explained slowly, making sure he was following me.
‘What you mean man?’
‘I mean that everyone told me this was going to be too busy, so I formed that idea in my head, so now it seems empty.’
‘Yes I get it man. Very good.’
‘Yes very good.’
We crossed a massive steel suspension bridge at least a hundred metres long before we began a gradual descent over unbelievably easy terrain. After crossing the Lamjura Pass, this seemed like a stroll in the woods.
‘You are feeling hungry man?’
‘No not really,’ I answered. ‘I can wait until Phakding for lunch.’
‘Man we is already in the Phakding.’
I looked up. So we were. This was our destination for the night and it was only 11.30am. I wanted to keep going, but common sense prevailed. I’d only felt better for about 12 hours, so a nice easy day seemed like a good idea. We would be in Namche Bazaar the next day and it was supposed to feel like Las Vegas compared with where we had been.
I checked into the guest house called Beer Garden Lodge. It didn’t have a beer garden, but it was absolutely huge. I was somehow shunted up to the third floor, and the steps to get there were steeper than anything I’d encountered on the trail that day. I had a look around, as per usual. I saw a mirror in the hallway. I started making noises like ooooh and ahhhh. Everything about this place was on a different scale compared to the poor lodges between Jiri and Lukla. I looked into the mirror, the first time I had seen my own face in 9 days, and recoiled in horror. Well not really, but my nose was incredibly dry and shedding everywhere. I snuck over to the bathroom (I felt like I was snooping around someone else’s house), stuck my head in and had a look. I closed the door. I made my hands into fists and raised them both straight above my head in triumph. I would not be squatting tonight.
*
I had a good old lazy time in Phakding. I dined on spaghetti with tomato sauce for both lunch and dinner. The thought of rice or noodles made my stomach churn, so I turned to the Italians for solace. I casually strolled up and down the town in very light rain. It was refreshing. This was the flattest township I’d seen yet on my travels in this Himalayan kingdom. Subash and I explored the lodge, walking around its many levels. It was like a big wooden castle without the turrets or beer garden. We wandered around the back of the place where there were extensive vegetable patches. A couple of young boys were out picking the spinach and what looked to be some kind of Chinese vegetable in preparation for dinner tonight.
‘See that?’ asked Subash, pointing to a dead-looking mound of shrubs.
‘Yep.’
‘This is the marijuana tree,’ he said.
‘What’s it doing there?’
‘It is a growing naturally here. But maybe the owners no like it, so they kills it and leave there. Maybe also so not possible to get in trouble with the police.’
‘That’s unbelievable, that would be worth a fortune in my country,’ I said.
We strolled back into the dining room, ordered a couple of lemon and ginger teas and sat drinking them in silence while listening to the various languages echoing across the large wooden hall. A rather obnoxious Australian woman grabbed a plastic chair, moved it over to the large steel oven that doubled as the room’s heating, and put her hands over it mockingly as if to say to the staff, ‘Why the bloody hell isn’t this fire going?’ It was, you understand, about 30°C in that room. Large glass windows lined the entire perimeter of the rectangular building, and early afternoon sunshine was streaming in, sending dust particles into a frenzy. I’m from the tropics and I was toasty.
Then her even more obnoxious husband came in. He was about 50 years old, and was obviously one of those bastards that liked to speak so that everyone could hear what he was saying; deliberately, as if he were the Dalai Lama or the Pope. Then he got out his laptop and started playing 2014 chart-smashing pop songs by even more obnoxious bastards like Justin Bieber.
Get some fucking headphones you disgrace for an Australian, I wanted to shout at him, but of course I am far too polite for that. The couple were on their way down from Everest Base Camp, so naturally they thought they were better than everyone else on their way up. The obnoxious lady did the rounds, moving from person to person and offering advice. She walked past me and I glared at her. She kept walking. Good choice lady.
An American woman – a real eccentric hippy type – got off the bench and made for the open floor, and then right there in the middle of the dining room began practising yoga. I felt sorry for the people eating lunch who had to swallow their food while her old, saggy butt was in their faces, executing the downward facing dog pose. Then she quickly changed her pose and almost knocked a big plate of Dal Bhat out of the waiter’s hands. That was it. This was too much for me.
‘Where did you bring me, Subash?’ I asked.
‘What you means?’
‘I mean this is like a bloody circus for old people. I’m going to my room.’
The long suspension bridges were a little unnerving at first…
Chapter Ten
The path to Namche Bazaar
The next morning dawned as bright and beautiful as ever. For some inexplicable reason I ordered t
he apple porridge again, which came out in a watery slop and had much the same effect as the previous time. I was excited this morning. We were off to Namche Bazaar. The general consensus is that this is where the mountains truly begin. It did involve about 1000m of climbing that I wasn’t too thrilled about, but I was optimistic nonetheless. I was packed, had eaten and was ready to go by 8am. The path quickly joined the Dudh Khosi River and we were to follow it for much of the morning. After a few minutes we came to a long suspension bridge, but were halted by the crossing of one solitary mule. I’d already removed my jacket in anticipation of the long, warming climb ahead, but now standing in the shade I began to shiver. Frost lining the ground indicated it was still below freezing. I began jumping from foot to foot in an effort to warm myself. Subash looked at me like I was mad.
I distracted myself with the view. Immediately off to our right a pine-clad, v-shaped valley dropped down to meet the white water rapids that had shaped it across the vastness of time. Framed in a near-perfect mirror image was a snow-dusted pyramidal peak soaring high above into a cloudless sky. The valley and the mountain formed a diamond shape that was intersected by a horizontal ridgeline, almost forming a line of reflection. It was just a remarkable piece of geology.
For the next 30 minutes or so the path was most enjoyable. We went a little up followed by a little down. It was even fairly level for a time. The river below was positively roaring. We crossed back over the river, something that we were to repeat a fair number of times. We joined a section that was made up of perfectly rounded stones and we had to be careful where we placed our feet. This was ankle rolling country. We were surrounded on both sides of the river by rhododendron and pine forests, and we could have almost been in Europe.
A suspension bridge loomed high above us. That was to be our last crossing of the Dudh Khosi River, Subash told me, but first we had to climb up to it. On the bridge I became stuck behind a little old lady carrying way too much rice on her back. I would struggle with such a load over such a long distance. She was groaning under the strain and was moving pitifully slowly. I did feel sorry for her, but at the same time I did just kind of want to get off that bridge. Suspended high up on a rickety old suspension bridge, hundreds of feet above ice-cold glacial melt water doesn’t strike me as the safest of places to be stuck.
The wind was howling down the valley, sending the thousands of prayer flags lining the bridge into a state of delirium. It was bitterly cold and my beanie was almost wrenched from my head on several occasions. The bridge was swaying slightly. I looked down. It was a long way down. Even if you somehow managed to survive the fall, you’d end up in the glacial melt water, catch pneumonia or hyperthermia and die. I glanced up to Subash who had overtaken the old lady, but there was no way I was getting around her. He was gesturing for me to look around and take in the view. I put on a fake smile and nodded my head, but dared not take my eyes from where I was placing my feet. On the other side, safe and sound, the little old lady put down the sack of rice with a terrible groan. I gave her a sad face, but she just hawked and spat on the ground, picked up the sack like it was a teddy bear and climbed stoically upwards.
This was the start of the climb and it was hard work. I was to some degree prepared, this being somewhere around the tenth day in a row I had been trekking. One by one we picked off all the people that had arrived by plane from Lukla and soon there were no tourists in front of us. The path was sufficiently wide enough to easily overtake the masses of porters carting goods up to Namche Bazaar. This path was a little uncertain what form it wanted to take. It kept changing from fixed stone stairs to loose scree, to just plain old dirt, while other areas were so overwhelmed with tree roots protruding from underground that they formed their own sort of stair system.
About half way up we came across two girls selling mandarins. Subash treated me, so I sat there sweating, catching my breath and enjoying beyond words the sweet flavour of fresh fruit. It was delicious.
‘Only a gradual up from here,’ Subash said.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Yes really man it is a true,’ he assured me.
‘Yes but you have said that before and we still had 400 vertical metres to climb, and by rights we should have had abseiling equipment.’
‘That was a gradual up also man.’
‘That,’ I paused for effect, ‘was like climbing a ladder.’
‘That was the Nepali flat man,’ he said, looking deflated, and I felt good about it. He had raised my hopes for the last time. Sure enough, the gradient changed not one bit. It was as steep and tiresome as ever. We plodded on, rhythmically, as was our style, until eventually we plopped onto a large square flat area with a set of loos and another group of girls selling mandarins. What’s going on here? I wondered why there were trekkers of different nationalities sprawled around the place.
One of the older girls immediately took a liking to me and so she began to hassle me. I am a sweater. There is no hiding from that fact. Always have sweated heaps, and always will. This day was no exception. I was absolutely drenched and my face looked like it had just been submerged in a lake.
Speaking in Nepali, the girl went on a huge rant at me. Funnily enough, I think I knew what she was saying. It went something like this:
‘Excuse me sir. Are you aware that there is a great deal of water coming out of your face? In Nepal, we only have one cure for this foreigner disease. It is your lucky day. It comes in the form of this lovely mandarin and I happen to have a whole basket for sale right here.’
‘No thanks, I already had one down there,’ I said, pointing back down the trail.
‘Just one sir? One is not enough to cure this illness.’
‘No really, thanks. Puyo (meaning I’ve had enough). I don’t want. There is no cure for this,’ I added, circling my sweaty face with my pointing finger.
I looked up at Subash and he was laughing hysterically.
‘What?’
‘I think she likes you man. And it was like you know what she was saying. You guys having perfect conversation in different languages.’
‘Whatever. What is this place?’
‘This is a second Everest viewing place.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked.
‘Surprise.’
I grabbed my camera and followed Subash over to a ledge. There was a small window between two large pine trees, and there she was. Chomolungma, ‘The Goddess Mother of the World’, sat much closer this time, with her bodyguard Lhotse on her shoulder. She was conjuring some magic with the clouds above her. Lhotse, at 8516m (27939ft), was perched on the right-hand side and appeared and disappeared in wisps of swirling cloud, while Everest had cloaked herself in a dome of fluffy cloud. The dome sat there like a cape, seeming not to move; then very suddenly, Everest wished to be viewed no longer. It was as though she had suddenly sucked the dome forth, and within seconds she had disappeared completely. The jagged summit of Lhotse, the world’s fourth highest mountain, poked her head through the clouds, as if to keep an eye on us. If we’d arrived 10 minutes later, Subash would have pointed into a white wall and announced that somewhere in that direction, we could have seen the goddess mother.
I turned to see that Nima had already remounted my backpack and was halfway up the next visible ascent, so I duly grabbed my day pack and began to follow him. It didn’t take a great deal of time before a few stone buildings came into view, and before long we were staring at a town built on a steep slope, in the most unlikely of locations. Often described as a ‘natural amphitheatre’, Namche Bazaar is built on the side of a hill that curves around the township, and with the terraces for farming suspended above the settlement, it is easy to see why people call it so.
The buildings were either blue, red or green and the lodges were of a completely different scale from anything I’d seen thus far. As we made our way through the town, dozens of trekker shops lined the pavement. We passed a pub. We passed well-stocked shops with fruit and vegetable
s. It wasn’t quite the Las Vegas I had in mind, but they had internet. Yes, internet. And telephones! I could find out rugby and cricket scores. I could reconnect with loved ones. I couldn’t wait.
‘Our lodge is just up here,’ said Subash as I struggled my way up an incredibly steep final few stairs. Sitting on the veranda of our intended lodge were Dale and Andy, playing a game of cards with the Swedish blokes.
‘Well if it isn’t Seabass, Nemo and Mr Alex,’ laughed Dale. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
I explained my plight while Subash went to find me a room, but came back with a grave-looking face.
‘I’m so sorry Gorong, but there is the no vacancy here.’
‘I don’t care mate, take me somewhere better. There are hundreds of lodges here. Give me Wi-Fi and a hot shower and I will be a happy man.’
I took my leave from my past travelling companions and we climbed even further into the town. Before long I’d checked into a place and was enjoying the sensation of removing my boots from my wrinkled, white feet.
Chapter Eleven
Acclimatising in Namche
Some major catastrophe always seems to befall the world when I go off the radar for a while. This time was no different. I entered into a world where flight MH370 had completely vanished, just days after I had flown Malaysian Airlines out of Kuala Lumpur. I was quite shocked that such an event could happen so near to me while I was utterly oblivious to it. I guess it really hit home just how remote my location was over the past fortnight.
Australia had wiped the floor with cricket’s top ranked test side, South Africa, while my rugby team, the Queensland Reds, had recorded their first victory of the season. I checked my emails, let everyone know I was still alive and kicking, and other than having a heaven-sent, steamy-hot shower, I did nothing for the rest of the day.
I was to spend two nights in Namche Bazaar, the idea being altitude acclimatisation purposes. So, after sleeping quite well, Subash and I began an acclimatisation climb the following morning. It was hard work. It was steep, the trail was plagued by masses of loose rock, the air was cold and beginning to thin and I was just entirely buggered from the day before. We climbed out of Namche and after perhaps 15 minutes we overtook a group of three American men, perhaps in their mid-twenties.
The Nepali Flat Page 7