The Nepali Flat

by Gordon Alexander

  I thought of some of the walking tracks I’d stumbled over and how dangerous some of them were, and so I gave a small donation to the man. He’d not said a word when we got there, or as I donated the money, yet as soon as the rupee note hit the bottom of the box he became animated and thanked me very much while calling out: ‘Namaste! Namaste! Darnaybaad!’ I almost jumped off the path.

  ‘Thank you man,’ said Subash as we were leaving.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  We carried on the wide road all the way to Namche Bazaar, passing a good many Buddhist Stupas and prayer flags as we went. I was beginning to get tired and hungry. The first houses of Namche Bazaar appeared at about 2pm and I was so unbelievably happy to be entering the top of the town this time. On the way up you get to town, but still have to climb up for 15 minutes to get to your destination, which doesn’t sound like a lot unless you are the one doing the climbing. The Sherpa Village Guesthouse awaited me, as did a big, delicious plate of rosti with two fried eggs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lukla

  Nima, Subash and myself hit the beer. Then we smashed the rum. There was no responsible service of alcohol at this bar. Back home alcohol is measured out in units or shots, but here the jigga was the size of a mug of tea, and the lady filled it right to the brim. Sometimes she didn’t consider this to be enough and so she added another splash for good measure. It wasn’t long before Nima was absolutely hammered. It happened so quick that it was entirely unexpected. He stumbled around the lounge room, tried to hold conversations with me in Nepali, but when he realised I was, in fact, his client, he reverted to his pigeon English to tell me the same story for about the sixteenth time. It was all very sloppy. At 7pm he was essentially kicked out of the dining room by a combination of Subash and the management and it took him 25 minutes to say goodnight, which included a 10-minute hand shake. Finally he left.

  ‘Wow that was interesting!’ I said to Subash.

  ‘The Nima is the very drunk.’

  ‘Oh no he’s back!’

  Nima fell through the door, picked himself up and said, ‘Good night, sir, I going the sleep place now, sir.’

  ‘I don’t know that you are, but good night!’

  ‘Yes sir. One time Japanese expedition chun fi trip shwaga da.’

  ‘Ah yes, that’s the Japanese story you have already told me seven times.’

  Subash grabbed Nima gently by his shirt and said something to him in Nepali.

  ‘Good night, sir!’ Nima shouted, causing everyone in the packed room to turn around and stare at us, before he left the room once more.

  ‘You know he is going to the porter’s houses and he will be drinking more stuffs for sure,’ Subash told me.

  ‘More? He is absolutely hammered, he shouldn’t be drinking more.’

  ‘The Nima is a man. The Nima can do whatever he is liking to do.’

  Nima walked outside and he went the wrong way, so it wasn’t long before I saw him stumble back in the opposite direction. My eyes drifted to the door. It opened and then shut again without him coming back in. I think maybe the cold air had sobered him up ever so slightly and he’d come to his senses.

  I ordered the Yak steak, I had to try it. It came out in the tiniest of pieces and was drowned in gravy. It was a little chewy, but I quite liked it.

  *

  The morning weather had returned to its former glory and the stroll down the mountain was most pleasant. I ignored the pain that was shooting through my knee with every downward step, knowing full well that most people had sore knees on this stage of the trek. I could only hope that it wasn’t going to give up on me now, having come so far and being so close to the finish line. Depending on my knee, this could be the last day of trekking for us. If I was in too much pain we’d halt once more in Phakding, if not we were aiming to get to Lukla, the place with the scary airstrip carved into the side of a mountain that we were due to fly out of in two days. But flights were forever being cancelled and rescheduled as the whole operation was weather permitting.

  It was advisable to get to Lukla as early as humanly possible to reconfirm flights and jump on them if the weather was clear. We heard many horror stories about people being stuck in Lukla in a cloud for over a week, which caused them to miss their international flights back home from Kathmandu. It worked the other way too, with people being stuck in Kathmandu for days on end before they are able to fly to Lukla to begin their treks. I thought Namche Bazaar had been very quiet while I was there, because on the way up the mountain the place was humming. It turns out that flights had been interrupted from Kathmandu, and some people were now three days behind schedule. Should have walked in from Jiri, I thought from my high horse.

  The Everest viewpoint was choc-a-bloc with people and for good reason. The skies were cloud-free and the air was crystal clear, and Everest sat there looking rather proud and important. It didn’t look that far away in the radiant sunshine. I said my good byes, snapped a picture over the shoulder of a middle-aged man and then continued going down. We meandered our way down the slope, but occasionally we made our own, much steeper path directly down, the shortest distance between two points being a straight line. We were heading back the same way that we had come, so we did the necessary crossings of the Dudh Khosi a good five or six times before wandering into Phakding at about lunchtime.

  I dined once more in the Beer Garden Lodge, delighted that I was the only one in there (no goddam restaurant yoga practising hippy types with smug, Australian middle-aged women). I ate my delicious bowl of spaghetti, washed it down with an even nicer cup of masala tea, stood up and did a few practise hops on my bad knee, and deciding that it wasn’t too bad I paid my bill, summoned Subash and hit the trail for the final time. I was a little bit sad and solemn until the track started heading back up a steep slope. It reminded me of 25 days of pain and weariness and all of a sudden I was delighted. A faster changing of the tune had never before happened.

  ‘Man I am feeling the bads,’ said Subash randomly and breaking a long period of silence.

  ‘Why man, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I speaks to the chef yesterday, he my friend, and he is saying this was not the Yaks.’

  ‘You mean what I had for dinner?’

  ‘Yes man, it was not the Yaks.’

  ‘Oh God, what the hell was it then?’ I asked, alarm beginning to enter my voice. All I could think was dog, dog, dog, dog!

  ‘I am so sorry man. It was the buffalo.’

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘Not dog then?’

  ‘No not the dog!’ He shouted while bursting into a fit of laughter. ‘We don’t eat the dogs, man.’

  ‘Oh thank God! That’s not so bad. I’ve eaten buffalo before many times back home. It’s pretty bad though, advertising they have yak steak and then giving you something else. They should have said, ‘Sorry, we don’t have any yak, would you like buffalo instead?’ That is seriously illegal in Australia.’

  ‘Yes man but the yaks is very rare and expensive. They never is having the yaks. The yaks is worth more money alive.’

  ‘Doesn’t make it right, Subash. They are lying to people. But thank you for telling me, I appreciate your honesty.’

  We passed the turn-off for Jiri and kept going straight after Subash had enquired if I was certain I wanted to fly out. I had never been more certain about anything in my life. We continued going up until the final pass came into view, emphasised by a walk-through archway and a cluster of prayer flags flapping carelessly in the surrounding trees. We gained the top as a group of school children laughed and carried on in the archway. We were in bloody Lukla.

  ‘You didn’t tell me the town was right here!’ I cried, a little bit peeved that I couldn’t enjoy the last few steps of the trek. They were already taken.

  ‘Another surprise,’ Subash said smiling, and I joined in. It did actually feel really good to be here. Lukla felt a bit like Times Square after where I’d been. There were people eve
rywhere, and all of them were talking on mobile phones. It was quite surreal. We made our way most of the way through town to our lodge for the night. I was promised a hot shower in my room, but the hot water system was broken. What was one more night? I could wait until Kathmandu.

  It was incredibly novel to have a western toilet in my room. I hadn’t had that kind of luxury for close to four weeks and now I wouldn’t have to go through that whole getting-dressed-in-the-middle-of-the-night charade in order to go to the dunny. The bathroom itself had a huge window and no curtain, which afforded excellent views of Lukla while sitting on the throne, but didn’t offer anything in the way of privacy. To combat that I just sat as still as a statue and pretended I wasn’t using the toilet. I’m not sure how effective it was, but it was all I had.

  We sat in the smokiest of dinner lounges and drank some Kukri Rum, poured in even larger measuring jiggas than in Namche Bazaar and eavesdropped on some of the conversations fellow trekkers were having around us. Most of them were ‘on their way up’, heading into the High Himalaya having flown into Lukla sometime that day. Everyone was drinking and everyone was excited. I wonder how excited they’ll feel when they have to tackle the Himalayan-sized ascents with a hangover, I contemplated, but didn’t feel the need to pass on that insight. I wasn’t going to be that wet blanket. Besides, I was drinking a quarter bottle of rum in every cup, so who was I to pass judgement?

  People began to disappear early from the hall. Perhaps they weren’t that silly. I took my leave of Subash and went up to my room. It was only 8pm, but I was stuffed. It had been a big day. It had been a big three-and-a-half weeks. I walked into my room and switched on the toilet light, which did a supernova impression and ended up being easily the brightest thing in Lukla. It made heads turn as far away as Europe. I imagined using the toilet lit up like a Christmas tree for all to see, flicked the lights back off, but kept the door to my room slightly ajar to allow a controlled amount of light to creep in. I knew everyone could see me, but what the hell? I was flying out in the morning and I’d never see these people again.

  *

  I awoke just as the sun began to change the sky from black to dark blue, meaning that it was early, but not that early.

  ‘Mmmmm, 5.45!’ I guessed out loud. It was 5.52am and I was getting good at this. I’d had more than enough sleep, but we were still in the mountains and it was still cold, so I pulled the covers tight and smiled. You don’t have to walk anywhere today you lucky so and so! I did that thing where you squirm around the bed, but it doesn’t matter what position you end up in because every position is divinely comfortable. I laid there, recounting every single day of the trek and I was filled with a sense of wonder. Holy shit, I’m in Lukla! And that meant one thing. One thing that I had been dreading for perhaps the last five years: the flight out of Lukla Airport’s airstrip.

  I ordered the rosti with two fried eggs, but it only came with one. I was disappointed, but not to the point of whingeing, realising that I was likely to sit on my arse for the rest of the day (if I didn’t drop off the face of a mountain), and that two fried eggs were probably a little bit extravagant for a non-trekker. Subash told me that it hadn’t been possible to get Nima on the same flight as us. The price we pay for a Nepali to fly with us is considerably less than the cost of the ticket we buy as tourists (I’m not exactly sure, but I think their ticket was less than half the cost) so obviously the airlines try to fit as many foreigners on their planes as possible. Lowly porters are last in line, I’m afraid, and there was no ticket for Nima that day.

  I now knew that I only had about 10 minutes with Nima left, which made me quite sad. I thought of all the times I’d seen my Sherpa friend carving his way, knee deep, through virgin snow while a perfectly good path loomed just inches from him. He loved it. Nay, it was in his blood and it was all he knew, and he was more at home in the mountains than anyone else I’d seen in my days in the Himalaya.

  I knew the amount of money that Nima was paid by the agency to carry my backpack around all day, and while it’s not my place to divulge such information, I’m sure you can guess that it is not a lot of money. Both the guides and the porters rely on tips from their clients to beef up their salaries, and I felt bad that they sometimes take out backpackers that had spent all their money already on the trip, with nothing left over to reward the people that had shared these memories with them. I am a very fortunate person in this world, in that I can afford to travel to other countries to see places and see how people live their lives, and I was deeply moved by the simplicity in which my friends Subash and Nima lived theirs.

  ‘Nima, I want to thank you for everything that you have done for me,’ I said, deliberately slowly, so that he would absorb every word I’d said to him. ‘Without you, I would not have made it over the passes.’

  ‘No problem, sir,’ he said, although there was sincerity in his voice.

  ‘I want you to have this,’ I continued, handing him an envelope that he quickly tucked into his jacket, out of sight.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said while looking up uncharacteristically into my eyes. I put my hand out to shake his, as we do in our culture. He grabbed it and shook it for a few seconds before moving my hand up in between his into a praying motion. He then moved all three hands up until they stopped just below his chin, which he then met with a slight, but controlled bow of the head.

  I choked back a lump that had formed in my throat, nodded my head, picked up my day pack and said, ‘Take me to the airport!’’

  ‘Ok, sir!’ Nima kicked back into porter mode, dived into the straps of my bag for one last time, and was off like a porter with a pack.

  ‘Even the bloody way to Lukla airstrip is uphill!’ I complained in good spirits one last time.

  ‘This is the mountain,’ replied Subash, who turned around and burst into laughter when he saw that I was joking. ‘This is looking a very flat me.’

  I relished every cobbled step that I climbed, positively hopping and skipping from one to another. I bet I looked a right knob-head. Sorry, just finished watching Billy Elliot. But I’m sure I looked pretty silly. I saw a gigantic airfield sock flapping in the breeze, and we walked around the perimeter of a barbed-wire fence before looking down on Lukla runway where I stood dead in my tracks and just stared. The horrifying steepness of it was only superseded by its length, which seemed to drop off a cliff within spitting distance.

  First things first. I’m not a wuss and I’m definitely not an adrenalin junky, but somehow I have found a happy equilibrium in my life. I have bungy jumped once, which was utterly terrifying at the time, but immediately after it was finished I wanted to do it again (although I was happy at the same time that it was too expensive to do again). I love roller coasters, but I’m still undecided as to whether or not I’d throw myself out of a plane.

  According to an article in Britain’s Daily Mail in March, 2013 that followed the Sita Air Flight 601 crash of September the previous year:

  ‘The old dirt strip was tarmacked in 1999, but landing at Lukla is still a challenge. Just 1,500ft long and only 60ft wide, the runway ends in a blank mountain wall and has an uphill gradient of 12 per cent.

  Only STOL (short take-off and landing) aircraft, like the Dornier 228 or Twin Otter, are able to land in such a short distance. Overshoot and you crash into the hillside at its end. Undershoot and you plough into the steep hillside beneath.

  Both have happened. The approach can only be attempted in good weather as there are still no navigational aids.’

  Something had red-flagged this moment in my brain as something I should be worried about. A plane has crashed while attempting to land at Lukla seven times in the past seven years (even discounting the Sita Air flight that was bound for Lukla, but had to turn back minutes after take-off after apparently flying into a vulture. They crashed on the way back to Kathmandu, killing all 19 people on board, including seven Brits, five Chinese and seven Nepalese). There hasn’t been a crash involving a plane since 2010
, although in September 2013 a helicopter crashed after its tail came in contact with the barbed-wire fence surrounding the perimeter. So I guess Lukla was due for another one.

  Granted, there had been tens of thousands of flights take off and land in Lukla since the last crash, but somehow it was just the fact that we’d be dropping off the side of the mountain that got to me. One week away from my departure in February, 2014 to Kathmandu, I jumped on the internet and did what you do from time to time, you Google things. On this particular occasion I Googled Nepal, hit enter, and was deeply disturbed to read about eight articles with the sub label ‘two hours ago’ about that horrible crash involving a Nepal Airlines flight from Pokhara that disappeared into the mountains, claiming the lives of all 18 people. Nepal’s air-safety record is absolutely woeful, to say the least.

  There is such a thing as the ‘EU Air Safety List’, which details lists of banned airlines by country from landing in any European airport. They list 18 banned airlines for Nepal, or all of them.

  Fast forward to 2016, I typed ‘Nepal’ into Google’s search once again, and this was the article, once again updated ‘two hours ago’ on CNN.com:

  Two days after fatal crash, another plane goes down in Nepal, killing two

  ‘A plane crashed in the mountains of northwest Nepal on Friday, killing the two pilots and injuring nine passengers, authorities said. This was Nepal's second aviation tragedy in just three days.

  The Air Kasthamandap flight involved in Friday's crash was carrying 11 people. The single-engine plane was heading from Nepalgunj in the country's southwest to the Jumla district in the northwest, said Bhola Guragain, director of the Tribhuvan Airport Operations Department.

  Witnesses told the Kathmandu Post that the plane descended steeply and crashed nose-down.

  The plane crashed in a field in the mountains in the Kalikot district, said Binod G.C., a police officer in the district.