‘Thank you!’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s ok.’
‘Ta.’
‘You bet.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No worries.’
‘Thank you!’
‘Ok.’
I just smiled at the last seven people. I’d had enough. The track widened out and before long we had entered a full-blown valley. It was a weird valley. Most are either v-shaped (formed by water) or u-shaped glaciated valleys, but this was a mixture of the two, alternating as the miles carried it further and further away from my sight. I’d have to say that it was an old v-shaped valley that had its interlocking spurs only partially carved out by a later glacier, but that it was a very long time ago so that erosion has begun to mask the actual shape of the glaciated valley.
We could see Pheriche, far away at the end of the valley, but before long the clouds rolled in, dumping more snow and shielding the town from our view. We wandered through little channels, perhaps about knee-depth, I guess formed by heavy monsoonal rain or even by the floodwater from seven years ago. There was certainly only evidence of a small stream flowing gently through this valley now. The channels were complex and gave us many different paths to choose from, but invariably all headed roughly in the right direction. At times streams in varying widths flowed off the valley walls and these we forded by way of stepping stones that I presume had been placed there for our benefit, although they almost looked like they existed there naturally.
I stumbled upon Pheriche rather unexpectedly at first. I had been so consumed with where I was putting my feet that I realised I hadn’t looked up in ages. We were at the end of the valley and I found myself having to negotiate some oncoming traffic in the form of widely spread out yaks. They were normally in Indian file, so this was uncharted waters for me. I had just been thinking about what on earth I was going to call this story. Nothing obvious had really jumped out at me. I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be good if I got chased by a yak for about two feet, then I could call the story Yak Attack, or Attack of the Yak. Then I looked up and saw the size of these hairy beasts and retracted my mental statement immediately.
‘I could call it No Yak Attack,’ I muttered to the first yak that came my way, then I began dodging them with the agility of a new-born giraffe. I emerged out the other side unscathed, but still without a title.
‘This place is alright!’ I said enthusiastically to Subash and Nima while I was theatrically turning my head around. It wasn’t huge – a dozen lodges were dotted along a very wide main ‘road’ – but it certainly was agreeable. Maybe everything was agreeable compared with Lobuche. We ducked into one of the lodge/restaurants for a spot of lunch.
‘Oh my God they have rosti!’ I shouted. I was way too excited over potatoes for a man my age. On the wall stood a poster advertising something called Sea Buckthorn Juice. It was made from the sea buckthorn berry and was grown right here in the Khumbu region. It was meant to contain more vitamin C than oranges, and it said that I’d be supporting the local farmers if I ordered some. Down the wall a bit was a picture of the Dalai Lama, who appeared to be sitting in this very room. He must have paid a visit.
‘I’ll have rosti with two fried eggs, a cup of milk tea and a sea buckthorn juice please Subash,’ I said, and he went off and placed my order. We were in a large, rectangular wooden building with ginormous windows that stretched from the chairs, which lined the perimeter of the room, to the ceiling. As we sat there the clouds lifted and dissipated slightly and a stream of daylight came pouring into the valley. The temperature of the room went from a little above freezing to way above it and I had to remove my jacket.
A very small, middle-aged lady came out moments later with my drinks, but to my disappointment the juice had been heated up. It was so hard to get a cold drink in this country. The first sip of this bright orange tonic was tongue-shrivelling-ly sour, yet I went back for more. After becoming accustomed to the taste, which really was by the time I was at the bottom of the glass, it had actually become quite agreeable. So I ordered one more. It was the first vitamin C I’d had in days that hadn’t come in tablet form so I lapped it up. The rosti was just OK. Yet, it was wonderfully filling, which is of course why I ordered it in the first place. We still had a couple of hours to make our way to Pangboche, where we’d be laying our weary heads that night, so sustenance was required. I was also really getting sick of Snickers bars. I’m sad to say it but it’s true. I will have to have another go at sea level to make sure it isn’t just the altitude playing tricks with my mind.
I paid the bill and we got up and walked out, just as a monster cloud engulfed the sun and began trying to systematically bury us in snow. That’d be right, I thought, as I was instantly forced back inside my jacket and beanie. Looking back at where we had come from it was getting dark. It looked like Lobuche was about to get smacked by a real snowstorm. We’d gotten down at precisely the right time. Everything had been timed well really. Imagine being up there in that miserable weather with all those people? That would be a real nightmare. I shuddered, or maybe shivered, then put my feet into gear.
The valley abruptly turned on a dog-leg to the south-west, or to our right as we were looking at it, and we were forced to climb out of Pheriche over the Pheriche pass before plunging down the other side to join the roaring Imja Khola River. Had we wanted to, we could have turned 180 degrees and followed this river all the way to its source, taking us to Chhukhung and Island Peak Base Camp. But that wasn’t our path. We were going back to civilisation. Well, Kathmandu. If that counts?
‘Why did we just have to go all the way over that pass to come back down here to the same level?’ I asked Subash.
‘This is the paths, man,’ he answered.
‘Yes but it was so unnecessary.’
He stopped walking and turned around to face me. He had a strange look on his face. It could have been disappointment.
‘Look, all I’m saying is that you go over a pass if you have no possible alternative. I would have built that path following that lovely river down there on flat ground. But you Nepalese see a hill and think: “I’m going to build a path right over the highest point of that,” whereas in Australia we avoid tricky feats of engineering at all costs. If we were putting a road here, I guarantee you we wouldn’t be going all the way up there.’
He shrugged, smiled, and kept on walking. He knew I was ranting now. Wasting breaths. Wasting time. I saw a big hill as time to climb. Subash saw flat ground. He went up that slope like it was flat ground. If you really prompted him further on the subject, he might cave in and say it was ‘a gradual up’, but then he’d most certainly say it was flat because we went down the other side, thus rendering the climb invalid. Tis the Nepali logic.
We could see Pangboche now. It was about five kilometres straight down the valley. We couldn’t see her, but we were standing right at the base of Ama Dablam. Every now and then I’d look up and try to pierce the clouds with my vision, but to no avail. This was the closest I’d ever be to the mountain that had first inspired me to come to this region, and I couldn’t even see it. We had been incredibly lucky with the weather, so I was still content. You can’t have it all. The going was easy too. A little up, but mostly we headed down. The snow followed us all the way to Pangboche and in fact became thicker the more we descended. At some point we dropped below the 4000m mark for the last time. It felt wonderful.
We strolled through a couple of small villages, paused to make stupid noises at some new-born puppies that could barely open their eyes, and before long we were in Pangboche. It was a decent-sized place, but every building was a lodge. We wandered most of the way through town before coming to the Eco-Holiday Lodge, a quaint-looking two-story building. There were bricks for the ground floor and white timber boards for the top, capped with a green corrugated iron roof. It had a large grass courtyard
out the front that was intersected by a raised, stone path that headed for the entrance. However, there was a half-yak, half-cow standing on this path staring at us, blocking the way. Half a Yak Attack – I thought, here we go; but Subash turned cattle herder once more and shooed the dopey creature away.
‘Later this whole yard will be a full of the yaks,’ he said.
My room had three single beds pushed together, which made it look king-sized. I was startled to realise that today we’d come all the way from Gorak Shep with that two-thirds-of-a-single-sized bed, and all of a sudden that felt like a very long time ago. I was delighted. Nima strolled into the room a few minutes later. I thanked him and told him to go to the dining room while I changed my shoes.
I was a little bit excited, you see, because I had been taken off the booze ban. We were now at 3900 metres and going down, so alcohol was back on the menu. I bought the boys many drinks as thanks for their hard work. We started with Everest Beer, but it wasn’t long before we got stuck in to the local Kukri Rum. So we passed a snowy night, huddled around a yak shit fire, drinking cheap, cheap rum from the bottle, and telling stories from home. We were all away from home, after all. The yard filled with yaks, as promised. They were all different shapes, colours and sizes, much like humans I supposed. They seemed to just walk down the lane through Pangboche and then turn into the yard all by themselves. They were completely unsupervised, but they just knew what to do. Definitely not like humans.
*
I awoke with daylight streaming in through the curtains, which weren’t large enough for the window frame. I remembered the night before, trying to find some equilibrium in the final curtain resting place, but in the end decided that a large gap down the middle was better than two gaps on either side. It seems trivial now. I’d drank a litre of water overnight, and that, combined with lower altitude, fresh mountain air, a comfortable bed and a good night’s sleep saw me emerge into the dining room fit and ready to go.
I dined and paid the bill. I was gobsmacked. One night’s accommodation, dinner, breakfast and a tonne of drinks came to about $40. I felt like I was ripping them off. Then I felt even worse, knowing that Nima and Subash could not afford to drink beer and rum at these places, despite the costs seeming so low to us foreigners. What to do?
We wandered out into the crisp, fresh air and looked back from whence we had come. There was Ama Dablam. We had walked right past it. It was windy at 6800 metres. Ama Dablam was doing an Everest impression, having snow wind-blasted from its summit. Right next to us, and just as spectacular, Kangtega rose above to dizzying heights.
My obsession with Ama Dablam continues, the view this time from a different angle once again...
Before long Tengboche came into view, perched up on a little pass in a clearing, but surrounded by a snow-cloaked pine forest. We spent the morning heading downwards before crossing Imja Khola and heading back up on the far side of the bank. This area was sheltered from the sun and was quite icy. We climbed for about two minutes, but were forced over to the cliff face by the largest procession of yaks I’d seen in three whole weeks. They weren’t together, but each herder probably had between five and eight yaks under his control, but all-in-all there would have been close to 200 of them plodding down the hill. There was nothing for it; we had to wait.
We climbed a little rise to get off the path, and stood there in knee-deep snow and waited. It began to get really cold. Well, it already was cold, it’s just that I’d stopped so I really began to feel it. We were there for probably half an hour before we could get going again. The only difficulty now was that the snow on the ground had been compacted by a hundred tonne of yak, and it was now extremely icy and difficult to walk on. We laboured up the slope slowly, slipping occasionally. Nima had had enough, so he once again broke a new-yet-precarious-looking trail a little higher up on a steep slope. Only he could do that. Well only a Sherpa anyway. Even Subash did not care for it. We came to a little section where the path headed back down. It was only 30 metres long, but it looked like a bob sled track. Subash turned and said, ‘There is only one way to do this.’
He turned and faced the ice. Then he did something entirely unexpected. He assumed a really, really girly running technique and took off down the slope with arms flailing everywhere. It bloody worked too! He didn’t fall once.
‘See how I did it?’ he called. ‘Your turn.’
I looked around for a lucky egg to kiss, but didn’t find one; then remembered that Sanka always crashed anyway, even with the lucky egg. I took off and started flapping my arms. It really worked! Every time I began to lose control of my foot, this would be offset by a flapping arm and I would regain my composure. Before I knew it I was down.
‘Now you know how to get down icy slope,’ he said.
‘Yeah, it’s fine, as long as no one is watching.’
‘Watching no problems.’
‘Ok.’
And we were off like a bride’s nighty, charging up the slope to Tengboche. It was so easy. I barely had to breathe at this altitude to get enough oxygen. My lungs were chock-full of red blood cells and they had the easiest job in the world at the moment. A pack of yaks (or whatever a group of yaks are called) began to catch us as we climbed. Ahhh a challenge! We quickened our pace and climbed into the sunshine through the heavily scented pine forest. The extra warm air began to melt the snow, and before long a little trickle of water began to flow between the stones that formed our path. We climbed twenty minutes into ever-rising temperatures before wading through some deep mud infused with yak poo poo. The gradient was easing off and before I realised it we were strolling casually into Tengboche.
A porter being hired to carry an epic amount of recycling off the mountain, providing him with a much needed job...
That kept happening to me. At the beginning of the trip I’d gasp my way into a town, always looking around the next bend and hoping for civilisation. Now I was stumbling on them by accident. They were almost coming up too soon. I looked down at my boots and with more than just a touch of pride, I can announce that there was about one millimetre of mud lining the side of my soles and my pants were yak-crap free. I beamed. I wish those locals from all those days ago could see me now.
Tengboche was an agreeable sort of place. We came across the monastery and sat down on the stairs to recover. A monk was out the front sweeping dirt off the stairs. I had really wanted to see this monastery, but it was closed in the morning for meditation and reflection and we had arrived too early. Instead we gazed back the way we had come. Ama Dablam was beginning to attract a bit of attention in the form of some persistent morning clouds that, discounting the day before, we had yet to see. We were really so lucky with the weather. Anyone arriving in the mountains this morning would have been left bitterly disappointed, as Mount Everest was already disappearing into a swirl of grey and white. I sat there and watched it for a while, the largest mountain in the world; but in a matter of moments it was gone from view again. She liked to hide, old Chomolungma.
‘Will I see Everest again?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ said Subash. ‘You see it from Phakding to Namche so maybe you also is seeing it from the Namche to Phakding, no?’
‘Ah yes, of course.’
Of course it didn’t matter. I had been circling Everest for weeks like a hunter circles its prey. I had seen it from more angles than most people have the privilege of doing. I was a very lucky man.
There was no point in hanging around in Tengboche. It was a lovely little place, and under different circumstances I could have stayed there and relaxed for a little while. It had the spirituality, the mountain views and a bakery. What more could you want?
It was more or less straight down for 400 vertical metres to the next village, Phunke Tenga, which essentially sits at the confluence between the Imja Khola and Dudh Khosi rivers at 3250m above sea level. It was steep going down so I felt sorry for the poor buggers puffing and panting their way up in the opposite direction. Even most of t
he porters I passed were sitting on their little ‘T’ sticks enjoying a well-earned rest. Of course it didn’t take long to drop the altitude and we cruised into a warm Phunke a little after 11am. It was too early for lunch and we were still two hours from Namche Bazaar, so Subash was trying to force feed me some tucker. I wasn’t hungry, but I appeased him when I ordered some dried noodles in a packet to munch on. The rest of the morning we’d spend regaining a lot of that lost altitude.
‘I’m sorry man but we must going ups,’ said Subash as I was chomping on the noodles.
‘No problem man, not many of the ups left,’ I said. ‘I am going to try and enjoy it.’
You know what? I did enjoy it. I was fit and healthy and on holiday. I liked what a guide book on the region had said. Just paraphrasing here, but it said something like, try not to think of it as walking to your destination, but more that you have already arrived, and now you’re just on a nice pleasant stroll enjoying some of the greatest scenery on earth. I like that a lot.
We went up past little tacky villages selling tacky touristy crap before going past the township of Khumjung. Here the path widened out enough to accommodate a car, but of course it had no way of getting there. An old man sat on a stool by the side of the path with a donation box and ledger. Subash told me they took donations to build this path, and they would continue to take them to improve other paths in the area. He told me that a few years ago this fantastic road we now wandered was in an awful state and they desperately needed foreign investment to improve it.
The Nepali Flat Page 15