by Dom Joly
Richard’s father-in-law was a very charismatic Irish ex-Marine. He was most definitely a man’s man and I felt that, on the inside, he had to be howling with laughter at his effete son in law and his Brit girlfriend.
He was polite enough to keep his thoughts to himself and ushered us inside where a roaring fire was burning and several bottles of rather good red wine awaited us. Never had I been so cosy or so happy. We started to tell him about our experience and make light of it but I realized that we had made a really stupid mistake; it could have all gone very wrong.
We headed out for dinner with his neighbours. I sat in the back of his pickup truck on a veritable arsenal of guns and loose bullets and hoped that nothing would go off.
The neighbours were extraordinary people – uber-smart Berkeley types who had got away from it all. We were fed ginormous steaks and given more wine. Out of adversity come the best things.
At about ten I looked over the table and saw that Richard was nearly asleep. Our adrenaline rush was fading and we were cream-crackered. My foot was hurting really badly. We headed back to the cabin and, after a final tumbler of single malt, I hit the sack and slept the undeserved sleep of kings.
The next morning we woke early and headed back up the Go Road to retrieve our car. We had two big pickup trucks equipped with powerful winches and strong, tough men. As we reached the halfway mark a pickup truck roared down past us going towards Orleans at a rate of knots. Everyone joked that the Indians had found the car and pillaged it.
We passed the point where St Peter picked us up and I asked the guys to stop so we could look at the tracks – but it had rained hard overnight and the slope was washed clean. We kept on climbing. It was a very long way up to the car and even Richard’s father-in-law was quite impressed by the distance we’d covered. Eventually we got to the car. It was safe; nobody had broken into it. Everyone had a good laugh at my bark-track attempts and Richard and I were gently moved aside as the real men winched the vehicle up and pulled it out. I then drove it gingerly backwards for a mile down the hill until I found a turning spot. We were free.
It felt really good to be under our own steam again and not reliant on others. Also, I had learnt a valuable lesson: I am a moron.
We headed back to the cabin for some beers in the sunshine. Then we went on a tour of the property. Richard’s father-in-law was a very devout Catholic and he’d built a beautiful chapel on the edge of a cliff. Richard had met his wife at a retreat here. I realized how different Americans are to us. Back in the UK, if someone’s Christian it kind of defines him, whereas here in the USA it’s a sort of given.
‘Have you seen Bigfoot?’ I asked Richard’s father-in-law, anticipating the stock answer.
‘No. I don’t believe in that stuff. The Indians will tell you any old story you want to hear.’
At last, a different perspective.
We said our goodbyes and headed back to Willow Creek. I had been going to drive to Garberville to talk to the head of the Cannabis College but she hadn’t emailed me back so I figured that I’d stay on in Willow Creek for another night. When we got there, however, my room was empty. All my stuff had gone and I panicked, thinking it had been stolen. It turned out that the owners had rented the room to some fishermen and moved my stuff out. They’d booked me into the Bigfoot Motel. Suspecting that even Bigfoot wouldn’t stay there, I passed and decided to drive through the night to San Francisco.
Richard and I went to the Mexican place for a last meal. I asked Gonzales, the owner, if he had seen Bigfoot.
‘No, I have not personally, senor, but I know many, many people who have . . .’
On the way out of town Richard suggested that I pop into Bigfoot Books, a small bookstore that was the centre of the new generation of Bigfoot hunters. I spoke to the owner, Steve Streufert, who was initially a little suspicious of me but eventually warmed up. He showed me some photographs of a trip he’d made to the Patterson Gimlin site in Bluff Creek. It was unrecognizable, but he was convinced that they’d managed to pin it down. There were various arrows pointing to trees and other identifiable things from the original film. I tried to take a photograph of the photograph on his computer but he got a bit shirty about it all. It reminded me of people hiding their JFK assassination ‘evidence’ from others. Surely we all just want an answer?
I asked him the question.
‘No, but I know a lot of folk who have . . .’
I picked up a copy of the Bigfoot Times and said goodbye.
Outside in the car park I bade farewell to Richard. We’d shared quite the adventure and there’s nothing that bonds people together quicker.
On the drive down to San Francisco I had time to think about matters Bigfoot. Before I’d actually gone to the area, my main problem had been that it was simply impossible for a largish tribe of Bigfoot to be roaming an area of the United States without them having been scientifically discovered. Now, having been right into the heart of this vast region of almost impenetrable and empty forest, I was more convinced. The sheer volume of sightings by people who lived in the area and were not likely to mistake a tree stump for a bear, along with the disinterest in publicity a lot of them shared, made me think that there was something out there. As for the Patterson/Gimlin film, I remained uncertain. I really wanted to believe it, and that was maybe the problem: it’s almost too good. A man goes off in search of Bigfoot with a sixteen-mil camera and hits the jackpot? It would be like a comedian sitting in his hotel room and spotting a monster in the lake through the window . . .
Everything is possible.
Six hours later I spotted the flickering lights of the Golden Gate Bridge through my windscreen. I had a little bit of time to kill before heading off to the airport so I went for some breakfast at the farmers’ market in the ferry-terminal building. A lot of tourists had confused it with the nearby Occupy San Francisco shantytown. I watched as one woman peered into some grebo’s tent and was spat at as she tried to take photos. Meanwhile a weathered-looking Indian woman was screaming at a policeman who had taken a piece of paper off her. She had been brandishing it in his face while refusing to vacate a seat reserved for ‘Seniors for Peace’.
‘This is my land! I was here thousands of years before the blue eyes came . . . !’
Everyone gathered round to watch the fight. Meanwhile some Maoists were having a huge argument with some anarchists. It turned out they were both supposed to have a stall in the same place and nobody was giving an inch. It was a truly depressing place. The only unifying thing about the whole encampment was the noxious odour of the great unwashed that floated off them all.
In a way they kind of reminded me of monster-hunters. Everyone obsessed with their particular theory or exclusive photo and not wanting to share it or listen to anyone else. It was Crazyville.
I headed off for a pulled-pork sandwich. Rather aptly it was called the ‘Pigfoot’.
Yeti
‘There is precious little in civilization to appeal to the Yeti’
Edmund Hillary
The call for my flight came over the Virgin Lounge Tannoy.
‘Would all passengers bound for New Delhi please proceed to Gate 22.’
I was off: first to New Delhi and then on to Kathmandu, where I’d catch another little plane high up into the Himalayas and then trek up into thin air looking for the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman. The Himalayas are so vast that I’d been slightly at a loss as to where to go for this particular quest. There’s a monastery in Khumjung, within sight of Everest, that claims to have the actual skull of a Yeti. It would be a hard slog to get there and I eventually figured that this should be my destination; I would learn what else I could along the way.
My favourite Tintin book has always been Tintin in Tibet. Quite why it’s called Tintin in Tibet has never been clear, though, as Tintin clearly landed in Kathmandu. I presume Tintin in Nepal just didn’t sound as good. Maybe Hergé couldn’t resist the alliteration? Whatever, Tintin had headed off to Nepal to try t
o find his Chinese friend Chang, who had been in a plane crash. The Yeti made a guest appearance in the book. I was rather hoping that he might make a similar appearance in mine.
Along with the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, the Yeti is probably the most famous monster in the world. Pre-Buddhism a lot of Himalayan peoples reportedly worshipped a ‘wild man’, an apelike figure said to carry a stone for hunting. From the moment Westerners began to attempt to climb the peaks of the Himalayas, starting in the early twentieth century, reports came both of sightings of a bipedal, apelike figure and discoveries of footprints. Probably the most famous of these were the photographs Eric Shipton took of huge footprints. Shipton was a respected mountaineer who was attempting to climb Everest. He took them at an altitude of about 19,500 feet and the footprints looked human except for the size and the fact that they were made by someone or something wearing no shoes. I came across these photos as a kid and was blown away by them. I think it was the fact that so many reports and sightings came from well-known mountaineers like Edmund Hillary (he saw footprints in 1953) who were not in the business of self-promotion. A lot of them were serious, scientific types and this gave the sightings great credibility. Of all the monsters I’d been after so far, to me, the Yeti was the most credible given the extraordinary remoteness and inaccessibility of the Himalayas and the constant drip-drip of sightings from visitors to the region.
The flight to India was uneventful except that Virgin seemed to have kindly upped my minor-celebrity status as at least three people came up to my seat, shook my hand, and hoped everything was fine on board. Then, when we landed in New Delhi, a lady was assigned to meet me at the plane and take me through immigration to get my luggage. There was no queue jumping and no special doors; just the normal procedure but with someone in uniform standing next to me all the time. It just made me feel like a rather simple child being shown how an airport worked.
Flights to and from Kathmandu are notoriously late so I hadn’t booked any connecting flights on the same day. I’d therefore decided to spend the night in the Indian capital, which was no real hardship.
I awoke the following morning at four and packed before heading downstairs to the lobby. As I got out of the lift a man standing in the middle of the lobby wearing a trendy leather jacket said, ‘Mr Joly?’
I nodded at him and settled my bill before following him outside. I got into a tiny old Ambassador, the signature car of ‘old’ India. I slumped down in the back seat as another man drove us out of my hotel, amusingly named the Claridges. An armed guard at the gates bowed as we exited on to the relatively empty streets of pre-dawn Delhi. The airport was only twenty minutes away and we drove in silence for about ten minutes before the man in the leather jacket turned to talk to me from the passenger seat.
‘We will stop somewhere for breakfast on the way,’ he said.
I thought this very kind but a touch unnecessary.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’m OK, I’m not hungry.’
‘OK, we shall see later but it is up to you.’ Leather-Jacket Man wobbled his head about in that peculiar Indian fashion.
The car drove on and I started to think about Nepal. It was late February and, technically, still too early to trek: things normally don’t get going until March as the weather is too cold before then. I was going to climb to about 13,000 feet (that’s two and a half bloody miles straight up into the sky, if you’re reading this on a beach). I worried about whether I was fit enough to do this.
‘First time in India?’ Leather-Jacket Man was talking to me again.
‘Uumm, no . . . I’ve been twice before: Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Hampi and Agra.’
The man looked at me in surprise.
‘You have been to Agra before?’
I nodded, not sure why this was odd.
‘The Taj is truly magnificent but normally people do not revisit; there is so much to see in India.’
I half-nodded, not really taking in what he was saying.
‘Is there any specific part you would like to visit that maybe you were unable to do so on your last visit?’
His sing-song voice suddenly caused me concern.
‘Sorry what do you mean?’
‘I am saying that if you would like, we can organize a different itinerary than possibly the one you did on your last visit to the Taj . . .’
‘I’m going to the airport . . . To get a flight to Kathmandu . . . You know that, right?’
‘You are Mr Crawley?’
‘Joly . . . I’m Mr Joly.’
‘Oh blimey . . .’ said Leather-Jacket Man. ‘You are the incorrect fellow.’
By this time we’d been in the car about thirty minutes and were well on our way out of Delhi towards Agra to start Mr Crawley’s tour of the Taj Mahal. Leather-Jacket Man was very kind. He ordered the driver to take me to the airport while he telephoned the Claridges to tell a no-doubt concerned Mr Crawley that he was on his way.
I was flying on an airline called JET to Kathmandu, which was a short hour-and-forty-minute flight. The flight was two and a half hours late, though – which, according to the guy sitting next to me, wasn’t too bad. Apparently you need 8,000-feet visibility to land in Kathmandu, as there’s no facility for an instrument landing. Visibility was currently 160 feet. This was a predictable problem when you wanted to land in one of the world’s highest capitals. I was disappointed to learn, however, that Kathmandu, at an altitude of some 4,400 feet above sea level, only just slips into the top-ten list. What’s the world’s highest capital city, then? The answer is quite complicated. It should be Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, at 11,975 feet, but since the country has been annexed by China Lhasa is now technically not a capital. The honour, therefore, should really go to La Paz, in Bolivia, at 11,811 feet. Unfortunately, although La Paz is the default capital of Bolivia, with most of the government institutions there, the official capital is actually Sucre. So the world’s current highest capital is Quito, in Ecuador, at 9,350 feet. There’s one for the pub quiz.
The first thing to hit me as I got off the plane in Kathmandu was the sweet smell of incense and a sense of restrained chaos. While filling out my form for a visa I managed to leave my iPhone on the desk. I discovered this only in the luggage hall. In most countries that would be it: there would be no way you’d be allowed back into the immigration department. Nepal, however, is a relaxed place and I wandered back through the airport without anybody even questioning me. I gratefully retrieved my phone and exited the terminal building. To my delight the weather was glorious: very sunny with clear blue skies. There was no sign of the mysterious thick cloud that had delayed our arrival.
I hopped into a car that had been sent to meet me and headed towards my hotel, the appropriately named Yak and Yeti.
The hotel was very plush and filled with Buddhist monks all bustling around a sumptuous buffet in the ground-floor restaurant. I chucked my bags into my room and went out to have a look round the city. I needed to get some hiking equipment for my trip and I’d been told I could rent it. I wanted a warm down jacket, a walking stick, a decent hat and a couple of maps. I turned on to the Old Kings Way and walked down to the Royal Palace before turning left and heading into Thamel, a bustling area of little streets containing hundreds of shops groaning with trekking stuff, hippy gear and Nepalese/Tibetan art shops. The streets were packed with tuk-tuks, motorbikes and little cars all hooting and barging their way past pedestrians. I loved it. Every hundred yards or so, however, men walked past very close and whispered, ‘Grass?’ or, ‘Wanna smoke something?’ or, ‘Marijuana sir?’ This was definitely not my bag so I walked straight on, trying to look as though I knew my way around. This is always the secret in these types of places. If you look hesitant for even a second then you’ll be swooped upon. Fortunately there were far greener horns than myself wandering about and I was mainly left alone. There was one ratty-looking little guy who spotted me and made a beeline towards me. I tried to swerve and move but he was fast and right next to me in secon
ds.
‘You want tiger balm?’ enquired my new friend in hushed tones.
I looked surprised. ‘Tiger Balm?’ I asked him.
‘Shhh, police! You want tiger balm? I have best tiger balm in Kathmandu.’
I was confused: wasn’t tiger balm some muscle relaxant easily available at any major pharmacy? Why was this guy ‘dealing’ tiger balm when it wasn’t even illegal?
‘No, thank you. I’m OK for tiger balm right now.’ I tried to dismiss my new friend with a lofty wave.
‘My friend, this is best tiger balm in Kathmandu – premium gold standard, sir . . .’
I really didn’t know what to say and just kept walking until he finally gave up and picked on someone else. I walked on wondering whether I’d possibly misheard him. Maybe he’d been selling tiger bum? Maybe this was a new dastardly area of Chinese medicine now that they’d finished with tiger penis and dolphin nose? Were they experimenting elsewhere? Sadly I shall never know.
I rented a thick down jacket, a water flask and a walking pole for my Himalayan monster-hunt then walked back to the Yak and Yeti. There I had to meet Robin – an Englishman who had been in the Gurkhas and had then driven out to Nepal in 1978, literally moments before Afghanistan and Iran made that particular trip inaccessible. Robin had lived in Nepal ever since, and was helping me with my expedition. He’d arranged a Sherpa guide for me. His name was Mingmar and he’d come along with Robin to meet me. The plan was to fly into Lukla, one of the world’s most spectacular airstrips, perched on the edge of a cliff. From there we were going to trek up the Khumbu Valley towards Everest and the town of Namche Bazaar (two days’ walk). From Namche it was half a day’s walk to the monastery at Khumjung where I hoped the monks would show me the scalp of a yeti. Mingmar had been born in Khunde, a village right next to Khumjung, and knew everybody up there. He had a very wide smile and seemed to be happy that we were trekking at this time as there would be very few people about.