trek

May 12 -- 10:12am

I sit in a 30 seat propeller plane which will take me to Pokhara, 30 minutes away. I'll start my trek from there.

I'm flying on Yeti Airlines. It sounds made-up, but it’s actually called Yeti, which is awesome. We're next in line for takeoff, right after a small plane from Buddha Air.


May 12 -- 5:01pm

Trekking is hard. It’s long and strenuous. Seems like it’s just one uphill stone step after another. And just when you reach what you think is the top step -- bam! -- ninety more. Then another two hundred after that. I like to walk, but walking all day is tiring. Maybe I'm just old and out of shape.

By Trekking standards, I'm doing a very short trek -- just four days. Day one is done. I can’t wait for day four. Tuesday afternoon. Just getting back to where I started from, taking the one hour car ride back to the small Pokhara airport. Sounds restful.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful up here in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. Walking along a stony path past churning waterfalls, elaborate steppe farmland, roving oxen and horses, cute little villages. And the rickety suspension bridges are cool too.

For the first few hours, the sun is shining. Since I burn easily, I (finally) decide to put on some sunscreen. I apply it liberally, then look up as ominous dark clouds form overhead. Then the rain comes. Nothing torrential, just enough to make me feel silly for slathering on the sunscreen. My timing sucks.

Now I sit in one of the surprisingly comfortable twin beds in my room at the Chandra Guest House in the little village of Tikhedhunga. I write by the natural light that comes in the window since the electricity doesn’t come on until 7pm. Oh well, I'm just glad they have electricity at all.


May 13 -- 7:41am

I sit in the Chandra Guest House's restaurant. I pour some sugar from the sugar bowl into my coffee, but I accidentally pour in way too much. Coffee and sugar/coffee sludge spill all over the table. I'm such a slob. Of course my porter (the guy who carries the bags) immediately runs over. He cleans up my mess and brings me a fresh cup of coffee. It’s odd -- when eating at these little restaurants, my guide (Ang Kazi Sherpa) and my porter (I forget his name, he only speaks Nepali) go in the kitchen as the food is prepared. They make sure everything is sanitary and such. I asked Ang Kazi if the restaurant workers are offended by this. He said they aren’t, that it’s pretty standard along the trek routes.

My guide and porter eat in the kitchen (also standard, it seems). I wish they'd eat out in the dining area with me. It’s weird eating alone while the few other trekking parties eat with their groups, keeping to themselves. It’s not the busy trekking season so there aren't that many people around. If there were, I' m sure I'd end up talking to some of them, which would be nice. Oh well. At least the scrambled eggs are tasty.


May 13 -- 9:32am

An hour and a half walking up a mountain, up (roughly) a zillion stone steps. I am exhausted, though my calves love the workout. Stupid calves. Today is Sunday. Tuesday afternoon feels so far away.


May 13 -- 11:00am

The path goes from steep incline to not-as-steep incline. It is wonderful -- like a vacation for my feet. I have a fine pace going but my guide wants to stop at a restaurant for lunch. Fine, whatever. Guess I could eat. So now I sit outside at a little table with a spectacular view of the hills and valleys that I’ve spent all morning climbing up. I wait for my potato rosti (with egg) to be served.

I have a nice conversation with two British girls (Grace and Kate), med students. We'd passed each other numerous times on the way up to this point, climbing the (roughly) zillion stone steps. There's a small handful of trekkers that I’ve repeatedly passed and been passed by, depending on where we'd all take our breaks. A few travel solo but most go with guides. And sometimes porters. I was against it at first, but I quickly embraced having a porter to carry my heavy backpack. It’s strenuous enough without a twenty pound weight (or whatever my bag weighs) strapped to my back. And these porters do this all the time, they're good at it. My porter (I need to find out his name but I' d feel weird asking again) has it easy compared to some of the others I’ve seen, carrying up to four (!) backpacks at once. Impressive.


May 13 -- 11:20am

I just talked to a nice couple from Holland. They're on day 20 of a 21 day trek (with no porter or guide), on the tail end of a post-graduation, five month trip through Asia. That’s awesome. Wish I did that after my graduation.

I am glad that I'm meeting and talking with people a bit now. I don’t need to do it a lot just enough to break up the monotony. Because I am quite enjoying all the “me” time.


May 13 -- 5:28pm

According to a map I just bought, we ascended 1210 meters today. 3939 feet. That’s a lot of ascension, at least for me. But I have grown to dread declines in the path even more than inclines. Because I know that the more we walk down, the more we'll have to walk back up later. I love steady, flat ground. Steady, flat ground is my friend.

I'm staying at the elegant Kamala Lodge in the relatively large village of Ghorepani. What makes it so elegant? The bathroom is indoors! And on the same floor as my room! I mean, sure, there’s no real toilet, but still...

I watch some Ghorepani guys play volleyball on a paved court. They have some skills -- they' re more fundamentally solid than we are at our games in Santa Monica (pass -- pass -- THEN hit!). And the stunning Himalayan vista certainly beats our view of the beach. The only drawback here is when the ball goes off court over the adjacent schoolhouse. It takes a player ten minutes to climb down and retrieve it.


May 14 -- 6:34am

We start trekking toward Poon Hill at 4:30 in the morning, leaving our bags in the lodge. We'll be doubling back after watching the sun rise against the snowcapped mountains. Poon Hill is the highest elevation we'll reach on the trek. I forget how high it is exactly, I forget where I put the elevation map.

Guided by the light of the crescent moon, we go up and up and up. 500 meters up in the 45 minute journey. My right knee is killing me. Every time I step up with my right foot (which I do, surprisingly, every other step), a sharp pain shoots through my knee. It started hurting yesterday afternoon, so I was sure to stretch when I woke up this morning. It didn't help. Neither does the frigid temperature. I can deal with the pain, I guess. Not much other choice.

We reach the top of Poon Hill...finally. A few other people mill about. Within half an hour, there are sixty. Ang Kazi tells me that during the busy season, thousands of people show up every morning.

The sun rises behind Fishtail Mountain (I forget the traditional Nepali name for it), illuminating its shape. It’s pretty, but not as spectacular as I'd hoped. Aren't sunrises supposed to be shades of red and orange and such? Or is that just sunsets? I forget. I haven’t been awake for many sunrises.

I eat breakfast and sip coffee back in the Kamala Lodge. The Nepali bread is okay, but the scrambled eggs are amazing. They have an ever-so-slight sweetness to them. I don’t know how they do it, but those Nepalis sure can scramble an egg.

Soon we will start our overall trek descent. I can't wait. My knee doesn't hurt as much walking downhill and, obviously, it’s just plain less strenuous. I'm enjoying seeing so much nature out here but I'm glad I'm only doing a four day trek. Anything longer than four days and I'd lose my mind. Or my leg might fall off.


May 14 -- 7:38am

From the top of some big hill (dagnabbit, I thought we were done going up big hills)...

Right after breakfast I had a pleasant conversation with a girl from Korea. Finally another person (who admits) that trekking is hard, that it’s not really her thing. I'm sure others feel that way too, but are too macho (or for girls, ‘macha?’) to admit it. She was on day three of her trek too -- but she had six more to go. And she was not thrilled about it. I wished her luck, playfully told her to be strong and was off on my merry way.


May 14 -- 10:07am

I’ve complained a lot about the trek (mostly the going uphill part) but it really is beautiful. Crossing stunning mountain passes, over riverbeds, through quaint Nepali villages with cheerful Nepali people. They seem to talk a lot. Sure, I don’t know what they're saying, but I can appreciate that they say it in a friendly manner. And only occasionally do I suspect they're talking about me.


May 14 -- 4:41pm

For a while, it’s just up and down, up and down. The rough stone stairs are horrible when there’s hundreds of them in succession. Walking down, I now feel pain in both knees, especially the right one.

A “village” here usually means a lodge, a restaurant, a few trinkets for sale, a few families, wide stone slabs covering the ground and random wandering chickens. And most villages also have a big hand-painted map of the trekking region. It doesn't list the distance from one place to another, it lists the time it takes to get there. I have learned that, say, a nine inch distance between two points marked as three hours is WAY better than a three inch distance marked as an hour and a half. Why? Elevation changes. When the times seem unusually long for what appears to be a short distance, you know there will be a lot of up and down.

So when I see that the village of Ghandruk, today's destination, is three very spread out hours away from my current location, I am excited. And with good reason. The trekking is mostly flat (hizzah!), through a gorgeous rhododendron forest. Surrounded on all sides by lush (I’ve noticed I use the word "lush” a lot. I like that word. Lush.) green plants and trees. Thick moss sweeps over rocks and sticks, creeping over anything in its path. The beauty here is sublime. This is why I went trekking.

We arrive in Ghandruk around 2:30 in the afternoon. So early! Much time to relax and rest. I notice one lodge that looks nicer and more modern than the others (and nicer and more modern than any lodge I’ve seen the last three days). Please let this be our lodge, please let this be our lodge. And it is!

The Annapurna Guest House is da bomb. It's a five star Hilton by trek lodge standards. The room is comfy with big windows and an awesome view of the snowcapped Himalayas. There are electrical outlets. And the bathroom has a shower with hot water. And it’s indoors. And there’s a toilet! A real toilet, not just some ceramic-edged hole in the floor. (Sure there’s no toilet paper, but why quibble over such unimportant details?) It's amazing how being without modern amenities for a few days can really make you appreciate them.

After gaining cleanly refreshment, I walk through the village to purchase necessities: bottled water and candy bars. It would also be nice to find an internet cafe, but that is the longshot of longshots.

I like Ghandruk a lot. It's a village of 8000 people, which is ginormous out here. The locals are friendly. I exchange smiling "namaste"s with many passing villagers and uniformed schoolchildren (a few kids follow up with "want a sweet?,” which I politely decline). Even an adorable two year old, wobbly in his footsteps, gives me a "namaste.” That’s cool.

I pay an old man thirty Nepali rupees to go inside a tiny museum and see the traditional items that the local Gurung people use. I'm done in four minutes. Afterwards, the old man invites me to sit down. He seems friendly, so I oblige. The younger woman who runs the adjacent shop (the old man’s daughter?) joins us. I chat for a little while, mostly with the daughter since she speaks decent English. My Nepali is a tad rusty.

The daughter shows me the men’s traditional attire: a wraparound vest-type thing. She invites me to try it on. I have no idea how so they old man helps me into it. It’s neat -- just a random bit of hanging out with genuinely friendly villagers. And I think they liked having someone new to talk to.


May 14 -- 7:14pm

Mmm...tuna fish pizza. Now there’s a fine dinner. Actually it’s not bad, though it could do without the tomatoes.


May 15 -- 12:19am Okay, so this lodge isn’t so perfect after all. Turns out to be infested with fleas and a few other little pests. Yuck, gross. Not what I wanted to find all over my mattress.


May 15 -- 10:37am

Well, the trek is practically finished. We spent the first hour walking down another lovely long series of stone steps. After that, it was (mostly) flat, walking alongside a narrow river until we hit a point I remember from the first day. I write this from the same little outdoor restaurant we ate at when the trek began.

My calves have grown so rock hard I could hammer nails with them. I never want to see another stone slab. The trek was really tough and grueling at times. But it was amazing and beautiful too. But too often, I couldn’t really look around aimlessly as I walked, instead having to carefully watch the ground in front of me. Trying to avoid slipping or tripping or falling and sprawling, cracking my head open on the rocky terrain. I probably slipped 80 times these last four days, at least half those times yesterday, when my legs were really tired and I wasn’t lifting them high enough. Thankfully, after each trip, I'd manage to catch myself and not actually fall. Though I would get paranoid right after and close my mouth tight. My thinking was that if I did fall and my face hit the rocks, at least with my mouth closed I couldn’t knock my teeth out.

It was neat seeing how the Nepali people lived in their little villages. Seeing how they carry everything -- stone slabs, laundry, leafy green plants -- with their heads. Whatever items need carrying would be in a large bag or basket, the wide, flat handle of which would rest against their forehead, bearing the weight. I don’t know how they do it. They must get lots of headaches.

Much of the time, they would just carry baskets of these leafy green plants. I asked a village woman what the plants were called and she just said "jungle vegetables.” They collect them from the forests, then dry them out.

Despite my original misgivings, it ended up being good to have a guide and a porter. A few times I felt a little self conscious (many other trekkers just had one guy to do both jobs), but whatever -- this is what I ended up with and it was fine.

Ang Kazi, the guide, was helpful arranging which villages to stay at overnight and such (he obviously knows the area a little better than I do). And he was pretty good at answering the numerous Nepali-way-of-life questions that I peppered him with, all of which I had never wondered about until that very moment.

Ang Nima, the porter (aha -- I got his name!) was cool too. In the villages, he’d randomly burst into song to make the young lady shopkeepers laugh. Or swing on a random vine hanging over the trekking path. He seemed like a really funny guy. It’s just too bad we didn't share the same language. I'd like to have known what he had to say.

In a few hours, I take the little Air Yeti plane back to Kathmandu. Then tomorrow I fly back to Bangalore, then back to the states the day after that.


purty pictures from the trek: CLICK HERE

and then i flew to Kathmandu

May 11 -- 10:29am

I’m sitting in the Delhi International terminal, my stopover before I jet off on Jet Airlines to Kathmandu, Nepal. I’m excited about going to another country. After five months and three weeks, I’m India-ed out. Tired of the queues, tired of the crowds, really tired of the rickshaws. Seriously, I don’t ever want to see another auto-rickshaw ever again. I don’t know why, I just don’t.

I’m ready to go back to the states. Back to my American creature comforts. Back to rest. I’ve had a really good time at this end of the world, but I’m ready to go back now. Hopefully a short trek in Nepal will rekindle my adventurous spirit, at least for these last few days.


May 11 -- 11:45am

I’m on the plane, which is taxi-ing to the runway. Guns n’ Roses’ “November Rain” plays quietly over the intercom. Surprising choice, though not a bad one.


May 11 -- 12:25pm

More unexpectedness, this time in the air, as the flight attendants give everyone a Heineken. Free beer -- pretty cool for just an hour and a half flight.


May 11 -- 6:49pm

Customs at Kathmandu’s airport is challenging, it takes a while. Not because the lines are very long (in fact they’re quite short), but because I have to pay for a short visit visa to enter. It doesn’t cost a lot ($30 American), but they don’t accept my Indian rupees at the customs desk. So I go the currency exchange counter. They don’t take Indian rupees either, not even to exchange. They tell me there’s a cash machine outside the airport. So I go there and, with only a passing knowledge of what a Nepali rupee is worth, take out a fat wad of Nepali cash.

I walk back into the sparsely populated airport. Passing by the two bored security people, I start to explain my situation, telling them why I need to get back in even though my flight had already landed. They barely listen, instead just waving me in with a ‘yeah, whatever’ attitude. Works for me.

I go back to the customs desk to pay for my visa. Unfortunately they don’t accept Nepali rupees. In Nepal. They don’t accept Nepali rupees in Nepal. I’m taken aback, but I deal. There’s not really any other choice. So I go back to the currency exchange counter, exchange a few thousand of my Nepali rupees for thirty American smackers, use that money to pay for the visa and I am set to jet. Finally.

On my way out of the airport, I notice a clock. Apparently Nepal time is fifteen minutes ahead of Indian time. Where that extra fifteen minutes comes from, I have no idea. I’d originally wanted to trek by myself, to enjoy the peace and solitude of being alone up in the mountains. But everyone I’d spoken to convinced me that this was a bad idea, that I’d get lonely or get harassed (or worse) by Maoists. So I relented and tried to latch onto some group trek. But I couldn’t find one to latch onto, so I enlisted the services of a company recommended by a friend, Snow Leopard Trek.

One of the good people from Snow Leopard Trek meets me at the airport and takes me to the office. They really are good people. They're ever so friendly. And I honestly don’t think it has anything to do with the healthy sum of money I'm paying them. We discuss trek details, then I'm off to my hotel. My trek doesn’t start until tomorrow.

Snow Leopard had given me a choice of local Kathmandu hotels back when I made my reservation a month earlier. I chose the one noted as being comparable to a five star hotel since it was at a good location and only cost $70 (US). Yep, 70 bucks for a five star hotel. I'm always fine with a simple Motel 6 back in the states, but I'm not complaining now.

The Hotel de L'Annapurna is nice -- but not too nice. It’s got the standard doormen in funny hats and the bellboys to carry your bag to your room, but it’s not as fancy schmancy as other swanky hotels, like yesterday's in Calcutta. And I mean that in a good way. The carpet isn’t spotless and the walls are a little worn. It’s a little grubby around the edges. But it’s comfortable, and so much more my style than those uber-pristine hotels where they seem to encourage snobbiness among the staff. It’s like when I was a kid and I'd go to a rich friend's house. It would have all this neat expensive stuff, but it all felt so antiseptic, like you'd be afraid to touch anything because you might break it. I always preferred to be in the slightly messy house where you could throw a ball around until your mother told you to stop, which was handy since that’s the kind of house I grew up in. The Hotel de L'Annapurna is like that house. Except now I don’t have a ball to throw around.

I resist the desire to watch the second half of "The Queen” in the comfy confines of my hotel room. Instead I brave the on-and-off rainfall and walk to the nearby district of Thamel, looking to buy four things that could be useful for my trek: a rain poncho, a rain poncho for my backpack (it’s rained every day of my trip so far, monsoon season is rolling in), sunscreen and a big floppy hat (for the rare moments when it’s not raining). I actually bought a floppy hat back in Bangalore but it’s rather ugly (too orange). I bought another on the street yesterday in Calcutta but it’s rather ill-fitting (too small). So now I have two floppy hats I don’t want to wear while I look for a third. Yeah, I' m logical.

Thamel is very cool. Narrow, meandering streets packed with trekking gear shops, knitwear shops, Nepali tchotchke shops -- really just a ton of little hippie shops tightly squeezed together. I love hippie shops. This is a great place to buy my first souvenirs on this trip, but I can’t go pverboard buying stuff just yet. I have limited bag space. And besides, I should have a little time back in Kathmandu after I finish the trek. That would be a better time to shop. Right now, I just need to find my four things.

I find the backpack rain poncho and the Jeremy rain poncho in the first trek shop I enter. I'm halfway to my goal. After a few failed attempts, I buy some sunscreen. But the big floppy hat proves more difficult. There are tons of big floppy hats for sale (Thamel seems to be a leader in the big floppy hat industry) but none of them feel right. The patchwork ones are too colorful, the plain ones are not colorful enough, the ones that say “trek Nepal” are too touristy, the hemp ones are too heavy. I admit it, I' m a picky bastard. I end up not buying a big floppy hat. I guess I can wear my ugly orange one.

The shopkeepers in Thamel are similar to the ones in India. If you pause to look at anything, they spring into action, ready to assist and/or pester you. But unlike in India (generally speaking), the small shopkeepers are more polite here. They don’t keep badgering me when I walk away. They don’t act nearly as desperate for a sale.

As I wander, it starts raining harder and harder. I don’t realize just how hard it is until I'm completely soaked. I remember that I have a freshly-purchased rain poncho with me. Feeling a little silly since I'm already sopping wet, I put on the poncho. And of course the rain immediately stops.

Now I sit here at Nepali Cholo, a restaurant recommended by one of the trek company guys. I'm in my socks, sitting on a flat cushion on the floor, watching a woman dance with a candle on her head. Someone in a furry Yeti costume comes up to me and shakes my hand, then playfully squeezes my head. All in time to traditional Nepali music.

The food is excellent -- 12 courses (!), though each is very small. The local whiskey is strong and the entertainment is entertaining. It all makes for excellent background ambience as I write this (I can’t see the dancers most of the time anyway since my view is partially blocked by a wall). But I do wish I had someone to share the experience with. I wish she was here with me, instead of being back in L.A., going about her daily life. I don’t talk about it much (at least in my writing), but it really is hard being away from her for so long. I'm glad she's stuck with me as I quench my wanderlust. And I'm glad she'll be there when I return.


pix from Kathmandu: CLICK HERE