It really is hard work overtaking someone at this altitude and on such a steep slope, because not only do you have to go past them, but you have to make sure you put enough distance between you and them before having a rest and a chance to catch your breath. Otherwise you have the ignominy of them catching and overtaking you once more. Then you have to wait for a time until the path is suitably wide and safe for you to overtake them once more; and heaven forbid, that may be a fair while away.
I climbed for perhaps three minutes without pausing to distance myself from the yanks. I turned around, realised they weren’t in sight and then slumped down onto a boulder, barely able to suck oxygen into my lungs. We were perhaps at 3700m (12150ft) and I could really feel the air beginning to thin. I sat there for a good long while, wondering how long it would be before the Americans came into view and I’d have to get up and keep on going. But they never came. Must have turned around.
Eventually I regained my feet and plodded on. As we took the final few steps and gained the ridge, I was treated to my first real Himalayan view. Immediately in front of me sat Ama Dablam, (6812m, 22350ft) my personal favourite mountain of all time. What a moment it was. Everest and Lhotse could be seen gracing the northern-most horizon, while Taboche Peak (6542m) stabbed the sky in the forefront of the picture. South of Ama Dablam we had the epic, fish-tail summit of Kangtega (6782m) and her Siamese twin sister, Thamserku (6608m), joined at the hip by a monstrous ridgeline. Looking back across the steepest valley yet – back over the top of the now invisible Namche Bazaar – we could see, through the lightest of hazes, Kongde (4250m) and Nupla (5885m). Take your pick. I had an awe-inspiring, 360-degree view of some of the most famous mountains on the planet, and it was just Subash and myself there to take it all in. I smiled, then laughed. This is what it’s all about.
We sat on the mound for a good thirty minutes, snapping pictures and loving life. I gave Subash my camera with the largest lens and he enjoyed using it as a telescope, zooming in on the surrounding summits. I was a bit obsessed with Ama Dablam, with its two peaks and a mighty glacier flowing down between them. There are mountains, and then there are mountains, and Ama Dablam had an utterly unique shape. It stood by itself, unjoined to any other mountain, while its proud pyramidal prominence rose confidently over the valley. It was hard to pry myself away from that view, but eventually my stomach grumbled and I had to leave in search of sustenance.
On our way down we saw six Nepali men running (yes, running) up the slope towards us. We were descending via a different path to get a slightly different view, but we stopped now to watch them. As they came close enough for conversation, Subash stopped one of them and asked them what all the commotion was about. The man spoke for a good two minutes in Nepali (unbelievably, he wasn’t even out of breath) before turning his back on us to sprint up the slope and catch his mates.
‘What the hell is going on, Subash?’
‘You remember those American trekkers we is going past?’
‘Yeah I remember, I think they turned around.’
‘No, one of them is falling,’ he said. ‘Maybe just after we is going past them. One of them is falling more than 10 metres and he is breaking his legs. So now they must carry him to the flat ground for helicopter back to the Kathmandu.’
‘Oh shit, do they need any help?’
‘Nothing we can be doing man,’ he said, matter-of-factly.
We carried on, taking extra care to place our feet on sturdy rocks.
‘You have to make the smart choices in the Himalaya,’ Subash said after a while.
‘I am a smart man,’ I answered him. He gave me a dubious look, followed by a gentle smile. We walked past a Buddhist prayer wheel about the size of a house, and it took both of us to spin it. It was very satisfying when the wheel completed a full rotation, announced by the ringing of a bell, and we both began softly chanting ‘Om Mani Pädme Hum’, sending out positive thoughts to the injured trekker.
*
Back in Namche, I spent the afternoon getting a longer and warmer sleeping bag, as well as a down jacket. My jacket was pretty good, but I was unsure how it would fare against -30°C weather. I bought some more hand sanitiser, had a fight with the ATM that only allowed me to take out $100 at a time, stocked up on Snickers Bars and then basically just chilled out.
I found a dish called ‘rosti’ on the menu, which was essentially deep-fried potato with flour and a couple of fried eggs on top. It was exquisite. Whoever cooked it should go on Masterchef Nepal. It was a meal that combined pure stodge with pure protein. It was nothing short of a trekking masterpiece.
‘Hey Gorong, excuse me very much,’ Subash interrupted me while I was doing some writing. ‘Gorong, today is the last of the days where the drinking of the beer or the alcohol is allowed. Tomorrow we is going up high into the mountains, and alcohol is no good for the mountain sickness. If you is drinking the alcohol, you is getting the dehydrate, and is getting the mountain sickness for sure.’
‘Well we better have a drink then!’ I said while slamming my laptop case shut. I don’t need much of an excuse to have a drink at the best of times, but heading into the mountains for two weeks of tee totalling is definitely a reason to drink.
‘What is the local rum they have here, mate?’
‘This is the Kukri Rum. It is meaning “dagger”.’
‘Sounds great, should we drink some of that?’
‘Ok man.’ He grinned and went over to order us some drinks. It was great having a guide. From getting a room for the night, to covering the bill, to ordering food and drinks, Subash did it all. He checked the bill thoroughly every morning to ensure they weren’t trying to overcharge me, dealt with the locals for me when they couldn’t speak English, and took control of every police or army checkpoint situation when they needed to see my permits. He did everything.
He returned with two glasses of streaming rum.
‘You drink warm beer, now you’re telling me you drink boiling hot rum too? I asked him with one eyebrow raised higher than the other.
‘Is the Nepali way!’ he laughed. ‘Is the Kukri Rum with hot water.’
‘Ok,’ I grimaced. ‘Cheers!’
Well it wasn’t too bad. It instantly warmed, nay, scorched my insides, but the taste was actually quite pleasant. I had one of them, and then informed Subash we would be having the second one with coke. The Australian way.
‘I don’t like man, it’s too cold,’ he said, and I laughed so hard I almost spat rum and coke across the room. I finished his and told him to go up and order another hot one for himself.
‘Is that the local rum?’ an Australian man asked me from another table a few metres away from us.
‘Yeah, mate.’
‘Is it any good?’
‘Yeah it’s actually pretty good with coke, I’m quite surprised.’
‘When in Namche Bazaar,’ he answered, and went off to order himself one. I started talking to him and his friend. They were Steve and Rob, firefighters from Melbourne. They were also attempting the Three Passes Trek, but were planning to do it the opposite way, attempting the incredibly difficult and dangerous Kongma La pass first. They wanted to do it without either a guide or a porter.
Subash was listening intently to our conversation, but couldn’t take it any longer.
‘You is crazy to do Kongma La pass first.’
‘But the guidebook says it is better to go that way because you don’t gain the altitude too quickly,’ said Rob. ‘The way you are going, you go up too quickly.’
‘Namche 3600, Thame 3800, Lumde 4300, Gokyo 4800,’ stated Subash in the bluntest of ways possible. ‘You tell me, guide of Nepal, how this is too much quickly.’
Subash was offended, and I could see why. How would two blokes from a ‘flat country’ know more than Subash about altitude sickness? When they didn’t answer him, he continued. ‘Kongma La pass may not even be opens now. So you want to go over there with no guides, no porters and you want to open up the pass with a
new track? I think you very stupid.’
He turned and put his back to the chair once more and folded his arms. I put my hand on his shoulder and he immediately calmed down. I raised my glass and we did a ‘cheers’ and carried on drinking.
Four Virgin Australia air hostesses on their way down from Everest Base Camp checked into the lodge, came into the dining room and began to talk to Steve and Rob. They told them a story of a rugby team that were on their way up the mountain. They said that the boys, in an attempt to prove how ‘macho’ they were, ignored all AMS safety procedures and tried to get to Base Camp as fast as their legs would take them. Apparently, every single one of them succumbed to mountain sickness and had to be airlifted back to the capital. In return, the firefighters told stories of fire-fighting. They were people, you see, that lived and breathed their jobs, and therefore had nothing else to talk about.
‘Remember that car we found that time on the road that had that blue-heeler dog trapped it in?’
‘Oh yeah that time I had to get a grinder and cut the roof off?’
‘Yeah that time. It was awesome hey?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What about that time a cat got stuck up that palm tree, but we didn’t have a long enough ladder to get it?’
‘Oh yeah, that time we had to go back to the station and get a bigger ladder?’
‘Yeah that time, we never used a ladder that big before.’
‘What do you do for work, Gordo?’
‘Build roads.’
‘Oh how interesting. Steve remember that time that bitumen tanker crashed and…’
Namche Bazaar
I rolled my eyes at Subash, being ever so glad he was there for company. The hostesses left (I don’t blame them) and Rob and Steve began talking amongst themselves. After a while Steve announced, ‘Sorry Gordo, think we will be following you round like a bad stink. We’ve decided we will take your guide’s advice and go around the other way.’
Perfect I thought, and then I was treated to an epic tale involving water actually being deliberately placed on fire.
*
We almost had a full guesthouse in Namche on that second night. A group of nine Koreans checked in, along with the four Virgin Australia air hostesses, a solitary German man, the two Melbournian firefighters, two Italians blokes and all the accompanying guides and porters. What a noise emanated from that place that night. My goodness gracious me. You would have thought these people were adults, but someone needed the toilet every 15 minutes. Combine that with a few, rickety stories knocked together with creaky wood, and you have the perfect recipe for an appalling night’s sleep. I had my new sleeping bag though and I was warm and cosy, so it didn’t bother me too much I suppose. If I was awoken, I’d casually fondle around in the dark until I heard the rustling sound of a zip-lock bag, sneak my hand inside and help myself to a delicious sugarless vitamin C tablet. I’m not sure how good it is for one to gorge on those things, but I didn’t have a cold.
Chapter Twelve
Into the mountains
I had a late breakfast that morning of rosti and two fried eggs. Loaded up with energy, and wondering why on earth I’d just paid $100 to stay in a room the size of a double bed, I skipped eagerly into the waiting sun. I immediately pulled off my jacket and tied it to my backpack, then hit the trail with the keenness of a man that knows he is embarking on his easiest trekking day in a month. We steeply climbed the steps out of Namche Bazaar, our path well and truly deserted, as the ‘Khumbu Highway’ carried on north, bee-lining for Base Camp. As we approached the final turn that would see Namche fall out of sight, the roar of a helicopter’s propellers came into earshot, and we stood gobsmacked as the machine took off from a pad about 100 metres ahead of us, before soaring what felt like inches from our heads. Subash and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and carried on trekking. A few minutes later we heard the sound of horse hooves from up ahead. A moment later a soldier in full battle kit tore around the corner on bareback, and without even acknowledging our existence he took off at full speed. I had taken the lead (Subash needed to relieve himself) when I was startled half to death by a screaming sound. I looked up at where the sound had come from, and staring me dead in the eye was a green-looking pheasant. It was a good-looking bird. I reached for my camera, but the bird had already gone.
‘It’s all happening today,’ I said to Subash as he joined me once more.
The path was pretty flat. I wasn’t even becoming Nepalised, it just was. We could see our target for the night, Thame (pronounced Taamay), sitting a little higher than us on the other side of the valley, I’d say about 5 kilometres away. It did look very close indeed. The dusty track initially descended from the helipad through dry-looking pines trees that were interspersed by the occasional Juniper bush. The little shade we were blessed with did wonders on a day that was fast heating up. On the left, Nupla rose dramatically up before disappearing into some rare early morning cloud. Along the valley floor the river Bhote Kosi roared, causing masses of erosion just below the path. Huge sections of hill-face had simply broken off and collapsed into the valley. It was quite ugly if I’m being truthful.
We came across the village of Thamo, where we found a nice old lady that was prepared to make us a cup of tea (I say us because Subash, Nima and myself were now on the same schedule as the two firefighters). We sat in the sunshine and sipped at our tea while taking in the spectacular view of Thamserku and friends standing guard at the end of the valley.
After tea, we continued to drop down until we joined a fairly old-looking bridge, the only thing separating us from the violent white water rapids below. Painted on the cliff face were several different Buddhist figures of different colours.
‘The green Buddha will be watching,’ said Subash.
‘Is that meant to be scary?’
‘No!’ he laughed. ‘You watch, the green one is looking like it sees you everywhere you go.’
Sure enough, we walked along the face, but only the green one watched me pass. And then it was all the way up to Thame. It was probably only 40 minutes of climbing. It was pretty much straight up, but that didn’t worry me anymore. My legs were strong and I was well acclimatised to this altitude. I found my plodding rhythm and barely stopped on my way to the top. The firefighters were a long way behind by the time we were half way up. We came across several little open stone buildings that housed a multitude of prayer wheels, which we dutifully spun while chanting ‘Om Mani Pädme Hum’.
Then we were in Thame, elevation 3800 metres, and what a lovely little place it was. Even though we had walked further away from Thamserku, it stood at the end of the valley, and a trick of the eye made it look bigger than ever. The town was built on a rare patch of fairly flat ground. Their greatest natural resource, stone, had been put to near obsessive use, as stone walls were everywhere, and divided almost anything that was divisible. As we strolled through town a pair of ladies were sat in the dirt in the middle of a small paddock, and were digging with their hands to unearth a crop of potatoes. Similar fields of dust were scattered around the area.
In a place as remote as this, you must be self-sustainable. As we continued, we came across the school and the Sunshine Lodge, a quaint looking building with a backdrop as spectacular as anything you will ever see. Patches of snow were dotted around the place, indicative that the temperature never really gets above freezing at this time of year.
I enjoyed a generous plate of Dal Bhat, washed down with four cups of ginger and lemon tea, before spending the afternoon just standing in the front courtyard in the sun and thinking to myself how lucky I was to be in such a beautiful place. I stood there all afternoon, just lapping it all up, as content as a man could be.
Later on, sat in the dining room, a solo Israeli trekker came barging in and introduced himself to everyone. He all but slapped my book out of my hand so that he could shake it. The serenity of my afternoon had just taken a turn for the worst.
‘Ok my friend, I h
ave a big plan for us,’ he said.
‘For us?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow you and me, we get some crampons and an ice axe. I already spoke with the owner, he tells me he can rent me some for the day. Then we will go and climb that mountain behind Thame for an acclimatisation day. What you think?’
‘I think you’re crazy mate,’ I answered him in a matter-of-fact-cum-utterly-bemused kind of way.
‘No, it will be perfect. We can trek and still get to conquer a mountain in the Himalaya.’
‘Do you ever really conquer the mountain?’ I asked in an attempt to change the subject.
‘Yes man. And it is 5300 metres, so we will already have the perfect acclimatisation for the Renjo La pass. Can’t you see it’s perfect?’
‘No it’s not perfect. I am a trekker, not a mountaineer. I came here to see the mountains, not to climb them.’
‘But it’s ok,’ he retorted. ‘We will have an ice axe and crampons.’
‘I’ve never used an ice axe or crampons before, have you?’
‘No man, but we’ll figure it out. And the owner of the lodge said I won’t even need the ice axe and crampons.’
‘Then why did you still hire them?’
‘You know, in case of an emergency.’
‘Honestly mate, I think you’re a bloody idiot and I’m not going anywhere with you,’ I said abruptly, getting a bit frustrated. At the time, I wrote in my travel journal: Israeli idiot came barging in, such a wanker that I can’t even bother to write about him now.
He actually wanted me to change my entire schedule, including flights from Lukla, just so that I would climb a mountain with him that he knew absolutely nothing about. We went outside and he pointed to the mountain.
The Nepali Flat Page 8