Trying to blend with the locals.

We started planning our trip four months in advance; a group of friends who have been running together twice a week for the past twenty years. We started as a group of seven but by D-day we were down to four. A fairly typical cross section of Israeli society from the Sharon area: a Swede from Malmo, a Londoner, a Jo'burger  and an Israeli. The youngest, sixty one and the oldest seventy. The plan was to go by taxi to Amman and then to fly via Bahrain to Kathmandu, Nepal. Ten days in Nepal and eight days on a jeep trip from Kathmandu to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

We were met at the airport in Kathmandu by our hotel driver, who whisked us away at a snail’s pace through the mayhem that is Nepal's road system. I had stayed in the same hotel on a previous trip and so was pretty sure that it would be acceptable to everyone. I had not taken into account that for the past year Kathmandu has been without electricity for sixteen hours a day. Thus on our arrival at 10 am there was neither electricity nor water in the hotel, electricity being needed to pump the water to a holding tank on the hotel roof. I convinced everyone that things would or could only improve and that it was good preparation for the rest of our trip.

We planned to spend a week in Nepal trekking and the remaining few days seeing the sights that Kathmandu valley has to offer, including the most loved hobby of all good Israelis, shopping for presents. I will concentrate on only one aspect of the trek. Not the beautiful mountain scenery which, at this time of the year has the rhododendron shrubs in full bloom, nor the interesting villages with their welcoming people, but rather on us and how we coped with the trials and tribulations of hiking in the Himalayas.

We chose a trek that would not require too much traveling to get us to the start or home from the end, and one that suited our available time. Helambu is a trek that starts less than an hour's taxi ride from Kathmandu and according to the guide book, required a three hour bus trip to get back at the end. Six days trekking time was what our guide book suggested and considering that we were all in good shape, it seemed that we should manage quite easily. I emailed Bikky, the porter/guide that I had used on my previous visit to Nepal a year and a half before, and arranged for him to take the bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu, an eight hour ride, and to bring a friend with him, so that they could accompany us once again. They arrived the day before our trek started and it was wonderful to see how excited he was to see us and to receive a scarf for each as a sign of respect and greeting. It was agreed that they would come to our hotel at seven thirty the next morning and would arrange for two taxis to take the six of us to the start of the trek. Each porter would carry one haversack as we had left all our unnecessary clothes behind in the hotel storeroom and shared one haversack between two of us for the duration of the trek.

The trek started at an altitude of about 1200 meters and we climbed steadily for a good few hours before reaching the first night’s stop at 2300 meters. My three companions were in a state of shock as the going was really tough and not, as they had thought, a gentle stroll in the hills for a couple of hours. Added to this was the fact that one of the group had, almost from the beginning of the trek, been cursed with Delhi Belly, a not infrequent problem in this corner of the world, requiring frequent pit stops. Accommodation the first night was decent by trekkers-standards, somewhere around minus three stars with a warmish shower on the roof and choice of rice or noodles for supper, which we shared with a group of five Swedes. We were all tired and in bed by 9 p.m.

The second night's guesthouse was only another 170 meters higher than that of the first night. It seemed that it would be a really easy stroll in compensation for the hard climb of day one. We started off with three of us feeling really perky and the fourth making periodic dives into the bushes. We walked for nine hours, descending and ascending three peaks and gradually realizing that although we were sleeping only 170 meters higher, we would climb around 2000 meters with an equal amount of down hill that day. By day’s end we were all tired, but our Delhi Belly friend was exhausted. Once again a warm shower and reasonable rooms. Life was good. Well, reasonable.

We were warned by trekkers coming from the opposite direction that day three would start with a very long steep climb but that after lunch it was "Nepali flat". Once again we started out early. We climbed steadily to about 3600 meters for lunch where we met a group of Germans coming the other way and thanked our lucky stars that we had not chosen the route that they had come on, as it had entailed going over a pass at 4500 meters. At 3600 meters we were feeling the effects of the altitude and needed to walk slower and rest more often. After lunch it was flat. No, not flat, but rather "Nepali flat" which, when translated into English, means that it goes up and down but not too drastically. Half way through the afternoon it started to hail/snow, obviously a common occurrence in this area, as the path for the next hour or two was covered in snow that had frozen hard. The path was slippery and it was necessary to concentrate and walk carefully so as not to slip off the path and crash down the side of the mountain. For someone with a fear of heights this is a nightmare and, of course, we had someone with a fear of heights. Slowly, slowly with the guide helping him across the parts where the path was narrow, we eventually reached our guesthouse. Minus five stars. No shower. In fact no water except in the kitchen where they had a barrel of water. As far as the toilet is concerned, a missing plank in the wooden floor served as the marker to be crouched over as the freezing wind whistled through the cracks in the thin plywood walls. I now realize where the saying "to freeze your arse off" must come from. We were all exhausted, but sat around the warm fire in the common room until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer, as the alternative was going to our below-freezing rooms to try and sleep, a feat made more difficult by the high altitude. I was lying in bed with all my clothes on, under an eiderdown that was so heavy that a lesser man would, undoubtedly, have been crushed to death, when there was a frantic banging on the door. My roommate suddenly began snoring loudly, making me realize that he expected me to open the door. One of our group was seriously worried that he was suffering from altitude sickness and was having great difficulty in breathing. A pump of his Ventolin spray, a liter of ginger tea, chewing a large tooth of garlic and some tablet that I found in my pouch, helped and he began to recover, but spent the rest of the night running to the toilet to get rid of all that ginger tea.

Bikky, our guide, hinted that considering the pace we had set on the first three days, we might have difficulty in reaching the fourth night's stopover and that we should consider taking a short cut which would allow us to skip having to make a two thousand meter drop and then a thousand meter climb on day four. My suggestion that we postpone the decision till our lunch stop on day four where we would either take the short cut or, if we were feeling good, carry on according to our original plan, was met by threats of pushing me off the path and mumblings about committing suicide if we didn’t take the short cut. In the end the decision was made for us, since after going downhill for about three hours we stopped for a break and, while sitting on a log resting, one of us keeled over and fainted. A definite sign from the gods to spend the night at our lunch stop and to take the short cut.

Day five was a long but pleasant " Nepali flat" hike, mostly spent walking a couple of hundred meters above the river running in the valley floor. We eventually arrived at our end point where we spent our last night before taking the bus back to Kathmandu. The end of our hike, but not of our adventure. Day six saw us on the 7 a.m. bus to Kathmandu, with one of us not being able to walk as his knee, which had taken a pounding going down the mountain, was massively swollen and could not be bent.  To make us a little less happy, we were told that it was not a three hour trip but rather three hours to the tarred road from where it would be another two hours to Kathmandu. Twenty minutes onto the tarred road and the bus pulled over onto the side of the road. There was a road block and no-one could get through. One of the nearby villages had had their water supply turned off and they were demonstrating their displeasure by closing the road. It was about 10 a.m. and the roadblock would probably be removed at 4 p.m. We immediately started looking for alternatives that would allow us to get to Kathmandu sooner but were limited by one of the group not being able to walk. Then Bikky had a brainwave. He would call the hospital and tell them that one of the foreigners was injured, that he needed to get to hospital and they should send an ambulance. An hour later the shrieking siren heralded the arrival of our savior ambulance driver. Then the bargaining started. He would only take the patient (who put on an outstanding performance to supplement his swollen painful knee). Then it was the patient plus one, and eventually it was all four of us but not the porters nor our luggage. Even a bit of bribery was not enough to change his mind. So off we went to Kathmandu, siren screaming and the club wielding strikers letting us through. The porters would follow with our bags when the road opened.

A good meal, a hot shower and a good night’s sleep were what we were looking forward to, as we only had one day to recover before leaving on the next stage of our trip, an eight day jeep trip in Tibet.

If the above description gives you the impression that trekking in the Himalayas is not child's play, then you are correct. However, let me assure you, we had a wonderful time, or at least that's what we told our wives.

Without Bikky, our guide/porter, some of us are certain that we would not have been able to get off the mountain at all or at least, not in one piece. Our gratitude to him for his constant assistance, patience and care is boundless and while we hope that we showed the full extent of our gratitude in the usual way, I know that he would appreciate my recommending him to anyone going trekking in Nepal. I would also be doing you a service as I am sure that you would appreciate his tender loving care and his desire to make your trek as pleasant as possible.  So it's Bikky Lama, email:                           bikash-lama@hotmail.com; cell phone +977 980 651 2895 and his internet site is        www.treknclimb.blogspot.com

 

 

 

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Brian Braude

Brian Braude passed away on August 3, 2011. He was born in South Africa in 1948 and came to live in Israel in 1974. He was married to Jehudit, who was born in Morocco, and altogether they have five ch...
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