I even bought some hiking socks, North Face they said on them, as fake as a dolphins smile, they would write North Face on a banana it they thought it would double the value. The preparation continued with the purchase of 8 cinnamon and raisin energy bars. I was ready for a high altitude encounter with Himalayan hospitality.
Of course we are going to trek; this is where the term ‘trek’ was born. Another much associated phrase with this mountain range was ‘heroic failure’. George Mallory’s failed expeditions in the 1920’s eventually resulting in his death on his third Everest summit attempt. Its unknown as to whether his demise was on the accent or decent. In 1953 Sir Edmond Hillary became the first man to summit and he did it on the day of the Queen’s coronation; so it would have been a neat bundle of coincidence if I could make it to Annapurna Base Camp for her grandson’s wedding day, not as an act of patriotic common mounting you understand, just to avoid the bloody thing.
Compared to some expeditions, this may be snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef but its still participating in what’s on offer. Be it under the sea or atop a mountain.
One of our party had a runny tummy, if there is one travel trauma I can emphasise with it’s that one. No worries, we’ll wait it out. But it ran on and took with it all her energy. If you have to be ill this is the place to be. Good food of every description, clean peaceful guesthouse, a lake and mountain views. I know how it feels to have no energy; Nepal knows how it feels to have no energy. Electricity cuts are a daily occurrence and last so long it’s remarked upon when there is power not when there isn’t.
After several days of listless low pressure whether and a self inflicted high pressure to get better. Both had a turning point. The muggy humidity bought a storm that flashed and cracked and hammered down olive size hail stones. If I had had a G&T in hand and a helmet on head I would have stepped out and caught a heaven sent ice cube in my cocktail glass. Instead we stayed in the shelter of a local restaurant and watched in silent respect at the power of the whether, because talking over it was impossibility. The hotel attached restaurants did well that night.
The next morning bought a clear sky and the snow capped 6000m peaks were beckoning. Well they were to me. My friends’ decided they couldn’t do it. I hadn’t seen it coming; I hadn’t heard it coming, the dilemma must have been debated in Deutsch. I was quite happy to wait. So simultaneously shocked and disappointed I found myself once again in solo traveller mode. An easy but still quite sad and mainly unexpected transition. I got my trekking permits and headed out into thin air.
Some people take porters to carry their luggage, helping the local economy it their excuse for their laziness. Some carry their own packs and hire a guide. Some travel independently in groups. Some carry ski poles because they want to look like utter twats; well they look like ski poles to me, maybe they’re just dip sticks. It’s not advisable to trek alone but it’s not really alone. A 10 day trek to the Annapurna Base Camp is well trodden, even at this end of a quiet season time of low traffic trek, there’s not much solitude.
It’s easy to get in trouble though, I realized turning round on a bridge over a river to view the mountains and losing my balance.
But it’s easy to be ok too. Theft and mugging is a slight threat but isn’t it everywhere? Landslides and falls are a rick too but as my friend said the other day when she was contemplating pulling my ponytail to wake me up. ‘No risk, no excitement’
I was looking forward to some extreme exercise in contrast to my beach and hammock malaise.
You jump in at the steep end. Climbing out of the taxi and straight up stone steps from the valley floor. I soon adjusted to the temperature of sweat and exertion. That kind of feel good gym type pain. And with a funeral march type pause in my step I left the valley. Every time I strayed from the right track a local was in the vicinity to shout and point.
The first mountain village was a tourist trap where the food is still pizza and apple pie and the trekkers sit gasping for breath or at scenery and speculate as to whether they have bitten off more than they can chew. It’s the first proper view of all that’s to come and I take off my pack and take it all in.
A tattooed mountain lad approaches me and starts the obligatory conversation; I'm tired of it, so I can’t imagine how the instigator feels. ‘Where from? Where to? How long?’ The small talk before the offer, ‘want marijuana?’
‘No thank you kind sir, I have come for a natural mountain high’ and anyway the only thing getting stoned ever made easier for me was... sorry forgot where I was going with that one.
Later an old man sitting in the shade of his hovel gave me the ‘Where from?’ And followed it with an unexpected, ‘What city?’ Ooo I thought, are you going to tell tales of enlistment into Ghurkha regiments and displays at military tattoos held in reverence of my home town audience? No it was just a twist on the same prefix before he offered me hashish. Shit, the stuff grows wild anyway, its more common that stinging nettles and if the strength of the sting in the Nepalese nettles is anything to go by the weed is gonna... well you know... like, totally get me stoned or something.
I was pleased with my ability to stay on the path, get up the hill and carry my gear. All’s well, I carry on. When I trek I like to do it alone even if I'm not. Like fishing, it may not be done absolute isolation but you are left in your own space with your own thoughts. I suppose motorcycling has that aspect to it too, strange how my favourite pastimes all involve an element of solitude. Still if you’re not familiar and comfortable with your own company how can you know what aspects of it are worth sharing?
Step by step I forge ahead. The annoyance of the noisy group becomes even less tolerable, once you’re into your personal mountain climbing space. I go to a tiny unattended food shack to order my noodles. A big healthy plate of stir fried vegetables and greasy carbohydrates. Yum. Now will I stop before my designated nights rest or beyond it?
Another half predicable conversation ‘First time Nepal?’
‘No second’
‘Yes, looks like it’ the man said with a sort of rhetorical wisdom.
The one down side to hiking alone is when you’re not hiking, typically the day ends early. 7 hours of up or down action is enough. (And the same rules apply to hiking) That's when the boredom can set in. My own company may be enchanting but you can have too much of a good thing. There was no way I was taking unnecessary weight such as a book, I did, at the last minute remind myself that an iPod is only the size of a cassette and 7000 songs were never so easy to carry, then discovered I had left it on last time I used it, so that too was staying with the majority of my luggage at the Pokhara guesthouse.
I reached the village where the obedient majority spend their first night; it was predicable busy, dip sticks everywhere. Yuk. But then I never gave ‘em a chance, I wasn’t looking for company, that's not why I go up mountains. I carried on. Anyway it was still early. And that, right there, was the massive mistake. That and probably the speed in which I got there. Not exertion beyond my capabilities but perhaps a little to rigorous for a body of recent leisure. And the third thing I have come to reluctantly admit is, if I’d have taken dip sticks, maybe, just maybe my knee would not have exploded. The ladder wound; it’s been many years now but it’s been longer since I did a serious hike. The 20 foot fall from a ladder, landing on a pea shingle drive way, on my knees! I've never been the same since; but I got better. Barley a twinge these days.
It took a long half hour to find a quiet room for the night.
A half hour that could have implications for a long time to come.
‘How much?’
‘100’ Humm 89p, under the circumstances I don’t think I will haggle.
I took an ibuprofen, a big pink one for special occasions. Finish trekking at 3pm, eat my curry at 5pm and stand around looking at the imposing mountains of ungaugeable perspective as it gets colder and darker, until 7pm and then bed. I felt it throb and grind all night as I fidgeted in my rented down sleeping bag of questionable cleanliness.
‘The only thing you will find at the top of a mountain is what you took with you’ is a quote I read in some spiritual enlightenment magazine once, or maybe it was the inside of a portaloo door at Glastonbury, I forget. But it wasn’t true, I left with phone reception and fitness and now I have neither.
I was up where I belonged, close to the unfeasible large peeks. It’s all the incentive I needed to carry on into the wondrous vastness of the world’s highest mountain range. But incentive was not an ingredient that was lacking.
By 5am 10 hours sleep was enough, I had a whores wash* under the cold shower, (*whores wash - pits, tits and private bits) as the sun came up I took photos of pink mountains and took more pink pills.
Usually in such an environment I'm quite content with the sounds that surround me, the distant crashing water over rocks in the river bed. The ritual of the dawn sweeping of the dried hardened muddy yards and the bird song. I rarely miss my iPod in such situations. But last night’s discomfort was all the more painful due to an annoying song in my head. ‘He’s on the ball, he’s on the ball’ where did that come from? Some connection to football injuries? No, in the morning song, I realized one irritating spices sings the first 4 notes of that song over and over the only 4 notes I know the words to, if only the dawn chorus had a verse it wouldn't be so repetitive.
Ten minutes into the next day’s trekking and despite being bound in tubigrip and knew that it was over. I came to the fork for the alternative route back. With utter disappointment, frustration but mainly pain I took the low road. A decent of uneven stone steps to a river at the bottom of a steep valley. Every pace was a 2 step process both feet on every step before I went to the next one.
The only consolation was that I was heading back. But the regret was as big as any mountain that eluded me. There are fatties and oldies doing this and I bloody cant.
I met an Englishman with a relatively cool stick, more like a staff; who told me he hurt his knee yesterday too but had taken some codeine and was carrying on. I wasn’t about to play knee hurty one-upmanship but I'm dam sure he didn’t hurt his the way I hurt mine. He offered me some codeine, well it makes a change from marijuana, but in a non masochistic way I would rather feel the pain and not fuck my knee up entirely.
I left town wondering how long my cameras’ battery would last and retuned running out of things to photograph.
A small plus to doing the alternative route back is no one was on it. Not even me. I was shouted at, in a nice way, from a stone built house on top of a terrace of paddy fields. ‘Naya Pul?’
‘Yes Naya Pul’ they gestured I turn around. I did, and then they shouted again, well what then? An old man nimbly scurried down to my assistance and led me over the narrow divides which are miniature dykes and keep the water in the irrigated rice fields. He led me back to the path; I was falling behind with my limp. I was yet mastered it with any consistency; it just looked like I was trying to get a sick note from the doctor. He continued to lead me to the next fork, a choice of route where I would inevitably have made another mistake. He didn’t ask for it, or indicate that he expected it, but when I shook his hand I slipped him 50 rupees like ya grandma used to when the visit was over. (If you grew up in Nepal and visited granny who had such western habits, I’m assuming she did that when you went to leave. It’s the 50p pushed into your palm before you jumped into the back seat of your parents’ car and looked surreptitiously to see what half expected wealth she had gifted to you this time.) He was genuinely surprised and equally grateful. I think it was the right amount and the right time. Always a tricky equation to figure out, but his smile and glee told me I had got it just right. Now fuck off ya longhaired trespassing cripple, with ya idealistic childhood memories, he didn’t say.
Cripple I may be but the path flattened out as it followed the river, and strolling presented not significant pain. I managed to catch up with a group of English youths led by an insufferable older colonel type. ‘Right everyone pay attention, everyone, that means you too Samantha. I want you all smiling in this one, righty-ho, say cheese. Sorry it took so long’ not as sorry as I was. I got past two of the oblivious troop when they finally realized they were not the only people on the path. But decided I would sit in the shade and let attention deficit disorder Samantha and her dominated friends go on ahead. In the hope my progress would not be thwarted again by colonel flustered with the dip stick in the noodle restaurant, when he orders 7 different dishes for his party. Some people don't have a clue.
The kids started asking for rupees, the litter became more evident, the locals were drunk and the path had turned into a dirt road. Concrete and re-bar half built monstrosities were appearing all around and I was back at the alternative starting point. The only advantage I can see of starting here is the incentive not to turn back.
I caught a local bus for the 90 minute trip back to town.
I wandered back into Pokhara, I've been gone a day and a half, my friends have gone, left for Kathmandu and their room, the entire guesthouse was fully occupied. Baba the owner looked after me; I knew he would, a man of ample size hospitality and kindliness. Yeah that’s just what I want to do, limp around trying to find a room for the night. But he called around for me and led me to a neighbouring guesthouse.
I wonder if I should have taken a day off in the mountains and then carried on, but a stole round the lake two days later was enough to convince me I wasn’t up to it.
Alone and gimpy I do the homeless shuffle, I have 10 days to kill, I will find somewhere cheap and lovely to stay. As I go from guest house to lodge my introduction changes form, ‘can I see a single room’ to ‘I’d like to see you best single room, I'm alone, and will be staying a while’ that always gets their attention, I'm a marlin on their hook and they want a prize 10 dayer in their hotel at almost any cost. Without baggage I can easily escape their clasp and they need to bait it well to keep me interested. I find an end of terrace, cable TV, Wi-Fi, bit of a view room and haggle it down to 400rps a night £3.60 ‘I will come tomorrow, and don't be putting any 10% service charge on top of that.’
Its cut, dried, decided and singed for but for some reason I hobble into another lodge, down the driveway past the vegetable garden of cauliflowers and cannabis. ‘I would like to see your most wonderful room’ its sumptuous, windows on 3 walls, a private balcony, writing desk with a TV on the end, no nearby building work, a double bed with marshmallow pillows, carpet, and a flower garden to eat my breakfast in.
Very nice and how much will this one be? I'm thinking I’ll stretch to 600rps for this.
’2700 per night sir’
‘What?’ Oh shit, show me the steak when I want a burger.
We haggle, my 10 day duration casts its spell but he wants bigger wad that my wand can produce.
1170 plus tax. I walk away, that walk is always a slow one, wait for the call to come back. Even with the reluctance to leave such splendour and a dickey knee the call does not come. So I return anyway; I've shown my hand but dam it, I'm worth this place. I deserve such magnificence we settle on 1000rps all inclusive that’s less than £9 per night. The room even came with a long legged beauty included.
So I live on sandwiches, haven’t had a drink in 8 days, beer has western prices here and I can eat dinner for less the cost of 650ml of San Miguel.
And that's my Himalayan experience. At sunrise and set I climb to the roof to remind myself what I'm missing and simultaneously why I'm not there.
I hope it’s not the end of my hiking days; I'm going to have to slow the pace and possibly resort to dip sticks next time, because if I can’t carry my own load I'm not going at all. Well at least I still have biking, I dying to get back in the saddle and start leaning and stop limping.
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