Concluding the diary, recorded on the trail while trekking in Nepal.......
Yesterday, Thursday, Mohandra implemented his previously-announced change of itinerary, and we had a very long day's walk bringing us down to just short of Tengboche - Tengboche, the place with the barren hillside and the monastery being rebuilt. Tengboche for the next couple of days, coinciding with the full moon, is the site of a local festival and we're promised plenty of things to see during that time. The camping spot at Tengboche where we were a week ago was most inhospitable and it was, I recall, the first occasion where we had a really cold night and frosty morning. Today we're camped about twenty minutes walking distance on the upside, in one of the most attractive sites we've been. There's simply a lodge
Tape 4 - Side 2
and a sort of open cookhouse and a large field where the tents are pitched which we share with the occasional yak. But completely surrounded with mountains and craggy tors; and we have one of the most splendid views of Everest that's been obtainable. Next to it Lhotse, looking majestic; and closer to us, much closer to us, Ama Dablam - the most beautiful of all.
So Thursday had us getting up very early despite the tiredness left over from the day before, and had us trekking for - on the road - for some eight hours. A big day, but it was nearly all downhill, and pretty easy going, not much scrambling down over rocks and ledges. I'm sure we were all glad to have made the effort to come this far. The start of our journey was over land we'd traversed before, but after a while we were on a new track - because on the way up the mountain we'd come across, cross country, from Dinboche. We weren't going back that way, and instead we carried on through Periche, the place where the medical clinic is located. That gave the opportunity for Pam to see the doctor about her persistent cough, and gave me the opportunity of getting a fresh supply of suppositories. Otherwise everyone was well, and not in need of medical attention at all.
It's an indication of the length of the day's trekking that we didn't have our lunch stop until about one p.m. Typically we've been fed at eleven-thirty, or at least stopped at eleven-thirty wondering why the heck we were not hungry. But by one o'clock yesterday I think we were hungry. In the afternoon we were re-tracing some marvellous scenery that we'd visited previously, a lot of it around the side of hills looking down into a very steep canyon some thousand feet below us, the river rushing wildly.
A group of children and adults is passing by at the moment, obviously on their way to Tengboche and to the festival. It promises to be quite a gathering from the nearby hills although, as I've remarked previously, in this part of the world there's not much evidence of isolated farmhouses. It's too steep, with no terracing, no agriculture, and no basis upon which people can subsist; they must therefore be coming from outlying villages.
We did a detour on the way down, to a place called Pangboche; and there's a monastery there, and the town is quite delightful. It has about the same look as Namche Bazaar because the houses are built in a semi-circular fashion around a hill of the same shape, and the place is totally filled with pine trees. Most attractive. The monastery is the usual collection of wood and tired paintwork, and pathetically poor. Quite a small affair - I suppose the building would be forty feet square. But downstairs, which we couldn't visit, it would contain a large statue of the Buddha, and a couple of other statues, and is presumably the place of worship.
Pangboche was a delightful detour. We met there the elderly Swedish gent who'd been tagging us in the early part of our trek from day one. Sadly, he's not been well, and again this morning we saw him on his way down - he's trying to get an early flight out of Lukla. His health has deteriorated. Somewhat surprising, because when we'd seen him in earlier times he was obviously looking fit, wiry, and striding it out. Accompanied by his guide and his porter he was doing a sentimental journey to those parts of Nepal that he was very familiar with from years ago when he was involved in the tour industry.
We arrived here in camp around four yesterday and I think most of us took to our tents, just to keep warm, rug up until dinner time. I think the bit of a rest did us all good, and after dinner there was a fair bit of cards played until around nine o'clock; and to hear tell most people had a very good sleep and a restful night. Very cold though.
Now that we've descended in altitude I'm casting off, have already cast off the thermal underwear, and with any luck they'll never be used again. That part of the trail we traversed yesterday brought us back through the birch forests, those beautiful salmon pink birch trees. You see further up on the hills the older specimens - much more gnarled, bark perhaps blackened, but essentially it's the colour that's quite unusual and charming. Mixed in with the birch are some of the spruce with the lovely grey tips; and a lot of juniper. At this altitude the juniper is a tree that looks rather like a Mallee pine. It grows to about fifteen or twenty feet and is covered in the small blue berries. Yesterday morning when we left the camp and came downhill through quite barren and desolate uplands - the sort of country I would expect the Russian steppes to be - there was this stunted pine tree species, covering the mountainside really. Very small specimens, no higher than a foot to eighteen inches; and, looking closer, I could see they too had the blue berries. So it's clear that there's more than one type of juniper, depending on the altitude, and/or the soil I suppose. Makes me wonder whether juniper is indigenous to this part of the world only, or whether it also exists in the cold lands of northern Europe. Did the English invent gin or did they discover it when they got to India and then make it their own? Gin is not made from juniper. It is distilled from a mixture of grains, and is flavoured with juniper. It originated in the Netherlands and "took off" in England in 1688 when it became illegal to import French brandy. The juniper is not confined to the uplands of Nepal. It is widespread in the Mediterranean region.
One of the features that surprises us is the lack of birds. I've mentioned previously the eagles that fly high near the smaller mountain tops, and I've mentioned crows - which seem to be everywhere - but not many small birds at all. Right at the top, at our highest campsite on Wednesday - Tuesday and Wednesday - there were some delightful birds twice the size of a sparrow, big round chests, russety-coloured under-bellies, very attractive birds: but even they were feeling the cold and actually nestling under the flies of the tents - obviously a warmer spot than right out in the exposed air. Otherwise not a sound from this forest here. All the walk yesterday afternoon produced not a tweet, no movement in the trees.
This morning has been R & R, really. Some have been down to the creek for a bathe. Not yours truly. I managed to scrounge the water left over from the pre-breakfast ablutions and have done some laundry in a small basin. The tents are now connected by clothes lines, with clothing hanging everywhere, and the sleeping bags draped over the tents, being aired. It's a beautiful sunny morning. Hard to tell what the temperature is but possibly fifteen degrees, but with no wind at all, not the faintest of breeze - not at this moment anyway. It's not cold, and I've made the change back to short-sleeved shirt, and I should think by tomorrow I'll be back into shorts.
We had a late start, no six-thirty wake up. Back on Wednesday when Pam and I were the solitary occupants of the camp [the others having left early for Kala Pattar], the 2IC cook boy, Jit, obviously had no idea of our need for a sleep-in, and duty over-rode logic, and at six-thirty we were awakened with the obligatory cup of tea. Ten minutes later we were given our hot bowls of water for washing with the message that breakfast would be in about fifteen minutes' time. Oh! We coped with that; but after breakfast were told that lunch would be at ten-thirty. This was too much - because I had already promised Pam lunch in the lodge, where we could have a total change of scene and work our way through the menu. So it took some convincing Jit that we didn't want lunch at all; and certainly didn't want it at ten-thirty. At around eleven-thirty he came back to say "now had we had lunch or was it all organised with the lodge", and I said "no, we hadn't got around to that yet, there was no hurry". Then at twelve-thirty he arrived with the message that "lunch is served". Not at the lodge! So we had once more to have a trekker's lunch and to miss out on the joys of something cooked by the local lodge.
This morning we were not awakened until eight, and even then not really wakened - they just set up tea in the mess tent, and if you wanted to stay in bed you could. It's been totally leisurely all morning, the message being that lunch isn't until one. The cook boys, taking advantage of that, have been playing cards all morning. Three of our number, Dunbar the First Sherpa and Owen and Brad, decided last night that they would climb the mountain behind the campsite, and they set off around seven to do just that. Just the three of them. We've been watching for them quite anxiously, and we saw them on a lower ridge around a quarter past eight, but we haven't seen any sight of them on the top - which certainly would have been another hour's hard work to get there. As I look now there's still no sign of them; and I can but believe that they were there, they waved at us, we didn't see them, and they're now well on their way back.
There was a small party of Americans camped at this site last night. Shannon had a long chat with one of them and it happens that they are part of a large expedition that climbed Mount Lhotse. Lhotse's the one right next to Everest and very tall indeed, so they've done famously well to climb such a mountain. Apparently, after having achieving that the group then broke into two parts. There were some who wanted to go on to conquer another peak and others, those who were camped near us, who'd had enough and decided to evacuate back to Lukla. It must be a very well organised expedition and very well financed. They're taking several more days to get to Lukla because they have to meet up there with the specially chartered helicopter that will take them out to Kathmandu. The woman with the group we've noticed a couple of times in the last week or so, very overdressed and prim and proper looking, and riding a yak. It appears she's one of the ladies financing the expedition. Hard to tell the age, but she could be sixty; and doing it somewhat in style. There was a problem yesterday because the yak got a potato caught in its throat and was quite unwell. They didn't manage to get it well again until someone put his arm down the throat and physically removed the spud. So the yaks we had in the campground last night were the lady's riding yak and their porter yaks. At the moment they have left, and they've gone off to the festival at Tengboche and left us alone and yackless. Very docile beasts, although we have a cry on the trail "yak alert" - which means get off the trail because there's a yak caravan passing through, and they stand aside for no-one. Nonetheless, we've seen no violence from them and no sign of a short temper that you might expect from a beast of burden. I'm amazed at their hoofs. If you got horses to walk over the rocky ground that these yaks traverse daily they'd need to be shod regularly. Yet there's no sign of the yaks wearing yak shoes, and they just must have hoofs made of much tougher material. Horses' hoofs grow continuously. In the wild, as with Australian brumbies, there is enough day-by-day wear to compensate for that growth. Workhorses and racehorses, however, are shod to counteract the greater wear inflicted by their environments. But their hoofs continue to grow beneath the shoes, and re-shoeing is typically necessary every four to six weeks. I was wrong to suggest that because yaks are not shod their hoofs must be "of much tougher material". That material is keratin, likewise with many other animals, including horses. Working beasts such as bullocks are sometimes shod, but because their hoofs are cloven it is necessary to put two "half" shoes on each hoof. I have not ascertained whether yaks have ever been shod, but presume not; and presume that the natural growth of their hoofs is nicely balanced by the abrasion over rocky terrain. Today a lot of the yaks passing by seem to have ribbons through their ear holes and I suppose this is to do with the festival. Everybody, even the yaks, has got to get into the spirit of the thing.
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It's Monday morning, and it's great to be alive. And we all are alive. I think all the major ailments have left us behind and the only problem seems to be the persistent Khumbu cough. Pam's has got no better. She saw the doctor again yesterday and the diagnosis once more was: "no real problem, nothing in the chest, a bit of pharyngitis, stick with the Strepsils". The cough really is pervasive. Quite a number of us have had it at various times through the day and during the night, but the real feature is that it starts up in the mornings the minute we hit the trail, the dusty trail. The Khumbu cough is directly related to the Khumbu dust, very fine dust in many parts of the trail, which is half dust and half yak shit. It's no wonder that our tender throats and lungs are not used to this, and react in fits of coughing. The doctor yesterday indicated that everybody in the region has the cough so we shouldn't feel as though we're being discriminated against!
We left Namche Bazaar this morning. We spent Sunday night there in the backyard of the same lodge as previously. The wretched barking dog was at it again, but Shannon either felled it or frightened it with a well-aimed stick, and it gave up for the rest of the night. I'd forgotten what a climb there was up to Namche Bazaar, but it was brought home very clearly this morning. We've descended about 2000 feet to the river below. It's been the busiest track we've encountered so far. I guess all the trekkers who spent the night there are on the way down - all left town around the same time. But there've been plenty of porters; and plenty coming up the hill as well. Not so many yaks, so at least it was reasonably easy to negotiate. But I suppose just within observing distance of our group there would have been close to a hundred people on the trail, and all raising the dust and adding to the Khumbu cough problem.
On Friday and Saturday nights we camped a little short of Tengboche. It's not correct to say we camped above it, although in one sense we were on the upside, but the campground was some twenty minutes short of Tengboche but down in a valley below it. There had been snow in the area since we were there a week earlier, and the twenty minutes climb up to Tengboche - which we did on Friday afternoon - was extremely difficult, quite steep, all uphill, and alternating muddy slush (very slippery) and parts of the track that were frozen ice and mud (even more slippery). The purpose of our excursion to Tengboche was to see the annual festival where the monks bless the people. When the blessing came there was a great crush of people, and any semblance of an orderly queue was soon abandoned. The idea is to have a scarf and to roll some money in the scarf, and in the process of passing by the lama the money is taken and you are splattered with sacramental oil and no doubt come away a much better person. What Anne hadn't realised was that the scarf would be whisked away as well. Having just bought the scarf for all of eighty cents she was somewhat miffed - not for the value, but that it was a very fine nice white fabric, not one easily replaced.
The blessing ceremony was preceded by almost an hour of lead-up during which various of the temple instruments were played - the gongs, the cymbals, the short trumpets, and the long Tibetan horns. Surprise, surprise, these horns collapse in sections so that you can actually have one of these ten- or twelve-feet-long instruments all squashed up into about two feet. Even with the joy that goes with being blessed by the lama I think it's fair to say that not too many of our number regarded it as a scintillating afternoon.
Down the slippery slope and back to camp, and another cold night; and an early night - the lodge attached to the campground had no space for us to use indoors, and our meal was served in the mess tent, and it was rather too cold for us to stay up playing cards for very long.
The Friday night we'd been the only group in the campground. Come Sunday there were three or four other groups, perhaps fifty tents all told. Quite a tent city.
Saturday we mooched around in the morning and then broke camp so as to arrive back in Tengboche around lunchtime. The big event of the day (as I've previously indicated) was the early-morning excursion of Owen and Brad with our Sherpa, Dunbar, to the top of a peak behind the campground. They set off at first light, and didn't arrive back in camp till around one o'clock, just on time for lunch. But they'd mastered it; and it turned out to be a peak just a little bit lower than Kala Pattar. They were deservedly proud of their achievement.
Reverting to Tengboche and to the second day of the festival - which is described as the dancing part of the festival: well, interminable delay again before anything happened, and when it did happen it was once more the monks filing into their marquee. I guess, in normal times when the monastery is rebuilt, this will all occur within the walls of the monastery, but at the moment it's under temporary canvas awning - and rather more accessible to the crowd as a result. Despite the fact that this is an annual and important festival there were far more trekkers standing around than there seemed to be Sherpa people. Eventually the monks arrived and then they went through the ceremonial music-playing procedure once more, and it was well over an hour before the dancing started. Then it was simply half a dozen of the monks dressed up - very colourful clothing - staging in succession three formal stately traditional dances. No sign of the people at large being involved, and to our western minds a rather strange sort of festival.
We had to leave around three to get to our next camping ground. The plan was to detour, and not to traverse the track we'd come up from Namche Bazaar; and over the next day-and-a-half, Saturday afternoon and Sunday, we had a most diverting time on tracks with far fewer people, and sights and scenes that were most rewarding. The trail took us through some higher country, but not too difficult to manage, and we didn't reach our Saturday night camping ground and lodge until it was almost dark.
The lodge seemed to be recently built, with a large central room where we were able to have our meal, saving the bother of pitching the mess tent; and we were able to play cards until a respectable hour, I suppose around nine o'clock! The camping ground was a little constricted, but very picturesque with great craggy rocks behind us.
In the morning, Sunday morning, up and over, behind where we'd been camping. And into some lovely plateau country; and the great surprise of finding a village that appears to be considerably larger than any village we'd seen previously in this upland country. Certainly bigger than Namche Bazaar, but somehow a little off the main trekking route, and not what you'd call a major commercial centre. Khumjung.
Sunday's the start of the week in Nepal and we were able to visit the local school, primary and secondary, and to see the school week start with assembly and saluting the flag and callisthenics. Three-hundred-and-eighty pupils. The school at Khumjung ,while not exactly founded by Edmund Hillary, was given a new lease of life by him, and he and his supporters set up the secondary school and a boarding arrangement for children from outlying regions.
Then from the school back through the town - which, like Namche Bazaar, and like Pangboche, is sited on a round sweeping hillside, semi-circular in shape - to visit the old temple. Everything about it is old - the building, the decorations, the ornaments. There's a stark contrast in my mind between the old churches of Europe and other old temples of the East. The Nepali ones, certainly, are really just filthy, ill-kempt. I guess a simple reflection of the way in which the people here regard life and the after-life and cleanliness in general. I find hardly anything about their temples attractive at all.
Then, to conclude our visit, the lady who was the keeper of the key produced for us the yeti skull, or at least the scalp - which some of our number immediately pointed out as a fake, or at least so their guide books told them. And then we went from the temple, across quite a distance to the hospital.......words missing..... Throughout all of this travelling across country we were passing down walled tracks in built up settlements. So this place, all told - although it may comprise two or three separately identified villages - is quite a large community.
I've commented a number of times on the scarcity of people and the fact that a lot of the places where we've stayed or pulled up for lunch carry a name, but have two or three houses only. The answer I suppose lies in the fact........
Tape 5 - Side 1
......the reason simply is that above Namche Bazaar, that is to the north and to the east, there are a mere eight thousand Sherpa people. So one can't expect to see the countryside dotted with villages with hundreds of houses in each.
The hospital was set up by Edmund Hillary, or more specifically by a Canadian charitable foundation that bears his name, and is manned by volunteer Canadian doctors, and funded by donations and fees charged to trekkers. It's pretty primitive but gets by. There is a three-bed ward for in-patient treatment and then there's a six- or seven-bed ward for long-stay patients. Rather inhospitable. Each of the beds is in a sort of cubicle with little outside light, and to stay there I fear may be rather equivalent to a jail sentence. The regular doctors were away on furlough and the hospital was being looked after by a relieving doctor who'd flown in especially from Canada. That doctor was an elderly lady, a most charming and vibrant person, who gave us a conducted tour and told us quite a deal about the local health situation. She'd done this relieving stint quite a number of times over the years, and was obviously pleased to come back again and again, even though it must have been extraordinarily arduous for her at times. She said sometimes she'd had to walk in from Jiri, as we did; other times she'd been able to fly in to a point closer. But you're never very far away from steep rocky climbs, whether up or down, and walking is the method of transport.
Amongst the local people the most serious health complaint, and quite prevalent, is tuberculosis. There's a lot of conjunctivitis, and the usual coughs and colds. Otherwise there seemed nothing particular worth mentioning. There's no local requirement to register births and deaths, so there's no indication of what the infant mortality rate might be. The doctor said they sometimes give some prenatal assistance, and then hear no more, and no child appears and they slowly ascertain that the child was born at home and died and that was that. She estimated, very roughly, that there could be an infant mortality rate of as high as twenty percent, but has no real evidence to go on. Though some of the mothers come forth for some sort of prenatal treatment, certainly none ever come for postnatal assistance........unless there's a drama with the birth, and then the hospital will be called in. The hospital is equipped to do some surgery, but they prefer not to. Their x-ray machine is broken. All in all a noble effort, principally because the community has not learnt and will not learn the value of hygiene.
I omitted to point out that the village down by the school has the longest mani wall we've seen - far and away, at least a kilometre long. The word mani comes from the most widely used Tibetan Buddhist mantra, om mani padme hum. There is a belief that saying the mantra (prayer) out loud, or silently to oneself, invokes the powerful benevolent attention of Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion. The written words are often carved on tablets and placed on view - hence the mani walls, prayer walls. The prayer wheels are called mani wheels. I think I've mentioned previously that when somebody dies in these upper reaches they're cremated, and their ashes are scattered further up in the mountains. That's only half the story. A commemorative tablet is then made and that tablet is placed on or by a mani wall. So we have these rock walls with tablets standing up beside them, or sitting on top of them. The local superstition is that you must always pass the mani wall on the left. So many times our trail up and down the mountains has been split by a mani wall with two tracks, one each side......and we non-superstitious westerners sticking to the left, with most of the local people totally ignoring the wall, and passing to the right if it so suits them!. The younger generation, it seems, have lost the belief. This mani wall, as I said, went for a kilometre right across the plain. A most impressive edifice given that it was all done in a random sort of way without a guiding hand.
From the hospital we went up and over the not very steep hill towards Namche Bazaar, coming by what you might call the back way. Most spectacular; and it represented for us a wonderful bonus. Our detour off the main track had given us the hospital and the school and a large settlement; and also gave us relief from all the other trekkers on the trail who were taking the direct route between Tengboche and Namche Bazaar.
Passing over the top of this great hill we came upon an airstrip. The airstrip was built by the Japanese a few years back at the same time as they built a five-star hotel. Japanese workers have very short annual holidays, and certainly would not have the time to do a four-week trek as we have had, and that means they also don't have the time to acclimatise themselves to altitude, and are therefore prone to succumbing to altitude sickness. So the idea of this plush hotel was to fly them into their own landing strip, get them into the hotel, ply them with all good things, provide them with personalised oxygen, and to flash them up and down the mountain continually supplying oxygen to keep them free of the illness. We don't have this as an authentic story, but we're told that the whole venture is in disarray because so many Japanese tourists have become ill nonetheless.
I had to pause to conserve my breath while going up a steep pinch, over the top, straight down the other side - and then confronted by a waterfall, about seventy feet. Not great volume but most attractive indeed.
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Here we are fifteen minutes later with a few ups and downs in between - and another waterfall. This time twice the height, this would be a hundred and fifty feet. Cascading into a Tarzan/Jane-type rock pool. Has Hollywood discovered this place?
So yesterday afternoon we appeared over the rim of this great baffle board upon which Namche Bazaar sits. The steepness from the brow of the hill was at least equivalent to the steepest gods level in any theatre; and then we had to scramble down the hill to our lodge and waiting tents. It hadn't been a long day, despite our detours to the school and the temple and the hospital, so we had plenty of time in the afternoon to visit the shops, to have a hot shower, and to call into one of the cafes for apple pie, hot chocolate, cheese on toast.
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It's Tuesday afternoon. We're in Lukla. Again a brilliant sunny day. We're in our last camp and tomorrow morning, weather permitting, we fly to Kathmandu. The way from last night's campsite up to Lukla this morning was quite steep in parts, certainly upward all the way, but there was a spring in our step. The trek for all practical purposes is over, and I think to a man we're now anxious to get back to Kathmandu, catch up with a bit of news, get some clean clothes, do some shopping, and be on our separate ways. Our campsite last night was at a place named, rather unfortunately for Western ears, Phakding. We'd been there before, on our day up the mountain, and had not taken much notice of the place. Last night it was extremely crowded. There were literally a hundred tents, trekkers going in both directions, but most of them outward bound, not so many having concluded their treks like we had. We were able to eat inside a lodge so it was rather more cosy than in the mess tent where we'll be eating tonight. The weather's much warmer than it was some days back above Namche and it brings with it rather happier dispositions. The only blemish on our night there was the fact that Pam's boots were stolen. Our tents comprise a standard tent with a fly over the top, and there's a zip on the tent and a zip on the fly, and frequently we've left our boots outside the tent but under the fly. This was the case with Pam's boots last night, but some louse nicked them. She had to use her runners for the walk up today, suffered no harm - but thank goodness none of us lost our boots any earlier in the trek otherwise we'd have been in severe trouble. Our boots have been marvellous; heard no one complain. Some of us have worn plaster on our heels and toes to prevent blisters, but the boots have really made the walking easy. There have been a few sore knees. On occasions Anne has borrowed an elastic bandage to put around her knee for downward stages, but no one has suffered at all to speak of with their feet or legs, and that's been a great blessing.
Lukla is quite a big settlement in local terms, but it's further down the mountain and, once again, we've encountered the smell of human excreta as we've approached the town. So the people in this part of the world seem to be that much less fastidious than the people above Namche Bazaar - the Sherpas who somehow disguise the smell or are a bit more discreet about where they lay it down.
Tremendous amount of building going on here, as you'll have heard in the background. Hammers and saws. A new lodge is being put up; new buildings. And every Nepalese house seems to be of some substance. A number of rooms, two floors, sometimes three depending on the slope, and here there's no exception. I guess typically the buildings are being constructed not solely as private houses but as private houses plus trekker accommodation. All made of stone. There seems to be a lot of sizing and shaping and trimming of the stone so that it fits fairly neatly, although not always into square blocks. The intriguing part is the wood, which has obviously just come out of the forest somewhere. It's all pale yellow, looks like pine, but never seems subjected to drying first. Some very accomplished joinery for the doors and windows, the woodwork put in as the stone is raised around it, and I presume never to bend and bow and sweat again. Sometimes it seems to stay for a long time unpainted. Usually the exposed woodwork is painted bright blue or green, so quite a colourful architectural landscape.
We arrived this morning to see two inward flights of the fifteen-seater that will be taking us back to Kathmandu. There are usually four flights out a day per plane, but not necessarily four planes. It's a forty-five minute journey only. And we've also seen three helicopter landings. There's quite a small 'copter that's brought in some people, and then there's a rather larger one that seems to hold around the same number as the conventional plane. The airstrip is not very long and, as I've remarked before, somewhat like a ski jump. Very dusty. It's been sealed, if you can use that word, with small rocks, but there's a lot of dust around as the plane gathers momentum and takes off. It's even worse when a helicopter takes off because of the dispersal of the dust in all directions by the rotor.
As we've been told many times, flights can be cancelled - but usually because of thermal currents, obviously experienced by the previous plane on a given day. Or sometimes cancelled because of fog at Kathmandu; and I guess they can be cancelled by very inclement weather up here at Lukla. There's absolutely no sign of that, and we should be okay for an early morning departure tomorrow. There is a limit on the amount of weight each person can carry in terms of baggage, so our instructions are to put on the World Expeditions fleecy parkas and to fill the pockets with the heaviest things that we have - cameras, books, and so forth - so that our luggage (the combination of our duffle bags and our backpacks) will weigh in collectively at less than fifteen kilograms per person. If we overtip the scales then something gets left behind; and Mohandra, our guide, says that what will be left behind is his bag, his clothes. He can always pick up some more in Kathmandu, and have one of the porters carry his bag back to Jiri and then on the bus back to Kathmandu in a few days' time
Tonight's the last night, and there'll be something of a party both for us and for the porters. They'll be paid off in the morning. We're each asked to put in five hundred rupees for distribution amongst the porters and the kitchen staff, and that will all happen this evening. We're also leaving behind any clothes that we don't want, and those will be distributed among the porters.
The porters were recruited at Jiri at the end of our bus ride three weeks ago, and because Dunbar our Sirdar, our chief Sherpa, comes from that district most of the porters are known to him. This has - we've only just found out today - this has added immeasurably to the amount of loyalty and co-operation that we've received from them. Typically on these treks it seems that the porters arrive in camp each day, dump the tents and everything else, and then just settle down for the night, light themselves a fire, go into a huddle, and that's the last that's heard of them. And it's up to the Sherpas to see that the tents are erected and the bags are distributed and so on. This hasn't been the case at all with our trek, and the porters every night have helped to erect the tents, and then brought our duffle bags to our tent, and been totally co-operative and extremely friendly. The message that we've been getting back from Mohandra is that this has been one of the friendliest and happiest groups that he's led - and it's permeated right through, from top down and from bottom up.
Tonight's the last we'll see of Dunbar and of Cheering our boy Sherpa. Both of them live at or near Jiri, and they'll be skedaddling tomorrow down the mountain, and apparently will make it from Lukla to Jiri in one day. The uphill equivalent took us four or five, I think.
There was an incident on the trail this morning. We came upon a chap who'd fallen off the edge. Quite a distance. It seems he and his mate come from a remote area of Nepal, and they had two water buffalo that they'd been droving up the mountain for some time preparatory to selling the beasts in Namche Bazaar. He was leaning over the edge of the cliff cutting some grass with a sickle, and fell over - tumbled head first down about seventy or eighty feet. Quite a fatal drop I should have thought. We were on the scene very soon after he'd fallen, and Dunbar and Tendi raced down the rocks to do what they could do for him. After a thorough examination it turned out that he had no broken bones, but a severe gash on the head and no doubt shock and concussion. They managed to pick him up. He was walking wounded; then up to the trail. With Mohandra's help, and the help of a passing person with medical training, they decided that he'd have to come up to Lukla for some medical attention; and certainly couldn't keep on his way to Namche bazaar. He was quite groggy, understandably. They left the two buffalo just tethered on the track. Goodness knows what will happen to them, and how the owners will be able to retrieve them; and whether they'll be able to continue on their way. A very nasty incident that could easily have been fatal for the man involved.
When we got to Lukla there in one of the small shops was a row of Foster's cans, and some of the fellows - for sentimental reasons only! - decided to have one each. There was a well-expired date on the cans but it seemed to make no difference to the enjoyment. Later. That great frivolity was the sound of our Tuesday night party, our farewell party to Lukla.
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And now it's Wednesday morning and we've commenced the long wait for our flight out. We're booked on the fourth flight out of Lukla but, according to Mohandra, the fourth flight doesn't necessarily leave in fourth place, and we could easily be on the first flight. The logic escapes us. We were told to be ready by eight; it's now twenty-five to nine. There have already been three flights in, but they've been two army aircraft and a helicopter. It seems, however, that the army planes are conscripted into civilian use, Lukla being a very busy place, an exit point for so many trekkers who've walked in from Jiri and who want to fly out from Lukla.
The party was great fun. With our evening meal we managed to have some rum and coke, and before the meal we'd had some local concoction which they affectionately call rocket fuel - fairly noxious flavour, and no doubt fairly noxious effect. We also had our first and only taste of yak butter tea. As the name says, it's made from yak butter, and tea - with a lot of salt. Very salty. It appealed to some of our palates, but not many. And at tea-time we had some of their more palatable local liquor, called chang. Also known as chhaang. Chang is made from millet. It doesn't seem to ferment for very long because successive doses of it had different flavours. Before the meal had concluded we were outside. The kitchen boys and the porters had set up with bongo drums and pannikins to rap on the table, and the party began. A great time was had by all - except the trekkers in nearby lodges who wanted to sleep, and asked........[words, possibly expletives, missing]......to bed at around twelve-fifteen.
Our bags have been packed, our daypacks as well. They've been taken over to the airport, about a hundred yards away from where we've camped, to be weighed. We're all now sitting around waiting for the call. We've got our heavy parkas on with the pockets stuffed with heavy things like cameras and books, and I suspect that a period of great boredom is about to begin. The tents have not been struck just in case there's some hiccup today and we're stranded here - if so we'll have to crawl back into the tents tonight. Last night there was a collection of cast off clothing from our group, and just now Tendi has laid all the clothing out on a tarpaulin and the porters have been helping themselves to old beanies and raggle-taggle jumpers and dirty tee-shirts. In fact we can be sure that every piece of clothing they've taken off our hands is dirty, if nothing else. The only unfortunate aspect of last night's entertainment was that somehow Anne has lost her parka. When I say her parka, it's a parka belonging to World Expeditions. It remains to be seen whether it's covered by insurance and we don't have to make good the loss. Neither of us has any recollection of what transpired.
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Endnote: In re-reading the transcript I am conscious of a recurring complaining tone, not too persistent, but there nonetheless - principally about Nepali toilet habits, lack of sanitation, and poverty generally. I think that today I would be more accepting, and less concerned with such matters. The Nepali people might have resented the trekkers and the adverse impact intruders were having on their country, but we saw none of that - they were universally friendly and welcoming. The grandeur of their country speaks for itself, although I employed many of my 35000 words speaking for it.
There is no doubt that for Anne and Gary the trek was a milestone experience; not that it changed us in any spiritual way - it was just a great thing to have done.
Gary Andrews
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