Nepal 2 - Trekking the Himalaya

Hang on - this isn't the trek we booked!

After a couple of days taking in the sights of Kathmandu, we decided to follow suit and booked on a seven day trek around Gosaikund and Helambu, two 5000m plus mountains about 100km north of the City. We never made it on to the trek we'd booked. we were robbed and our guide nearly ended up in jail. Fortunately, things turned out well, and we had one of the most memorable weeks of the whole year. Read on....
How we failed to reach the trailhead... It was an eight hour journey to the trail-head at a place called Daunche, 7 hours of this on unpaved roads skirting round steep sided valleys with outrageous drops. Owing to the recent Durga festival, the bus was crowded with locals making their way back to their homes after living it up with families in the city. There was certainly no room inside the bus, and even the roof rack had about thirty people crammed on to it as well as all the luggage and two squashed looking goats. We staked our claim to a place at the front of the roof. It was so full it was hardly possible to find handholds to steady yourself with as the bus lurched painfully round the mountains.		The Himalaya - Manosulu (8147m)
It was fun at first, dodging low branches of trees, sliding around and chatting with the locals, but after lunch at a place called Trisuli, 5 hours out of Kathmandu, things took a turn for the worse. The already full bus filled up even more. We tried to find a place on top, but it had become very uncomfortable and quite dangerous. Some locals started arguing as more people tried to board, it looked like there was going to be a punch up on top of the bus as we were moving. The goats, crushed under piles of arms and legs started to panic and Katie found herself being butted in the bum. It was too much. We demanded to be let off, and descended just outside a small hamlet, only to discover that at some point in the melee of people my sleeping bag had been stolen from our rucksack, our water bottle had shattered under the crush and all our belongings were soaked. It was obvious we weren't going to make the trek we were booked on. We made our way back to Trisuli in a foul mood.
How our guide nearly ended up in Jail In Trisuli, I decided I'd better go to the police to get the necessary incident report for insurance purposes. We found the police inspector lording it with a bunch of chums in the shade of a gazebo. He was less than helpful. "I think we should throw your guide in prison!" he exclaimed. "You pay him lots of money for this trek and he failed to look after you properly, he's a thief a rogue. He should pay you for your sleeping bag". Our guide, Madhu, looked completely dumbstruck. "Oh dear" I thought. The policeman did have a point, but this was hardly going to help me recover my belongings, and if our guide was hurled in a cell, we wouldn't be going on any trek at all. We told the police man that we didn't think our guide was entirely to blame, but he kept on, "You're British, we have good relations with Britain, just think what damage this does to our reputation. You won't return to Nepal if you think its a country of thieves". Just as it started to look like my lost sleeping bag was about to start an international incident, the garrulous officer was called away on some more pressing matter, so we managed to slink off.
Back in town. I calmed over a couple of ice cold beers and we considered what we might do next. madhu suggested that we could do an alternative lower level trek across to Gorka, which we agreed to.

Day 1 Trisuli to Tharpu

The events of the previous day had receded and we settled into what turned out to be a marvellous trek. This is not one of the main touristed routes and as such we were more readily welcomed by shouts of 'Namaste' in the many rural villages we passed through. Despite the obvious poverty, the way of life out here is pretty relaxed. Most villagers operate as subsistence farmers without the benefits of machinery, fertilizers, electricity or regular supplies of fresh water.
Villager shows off her huge earrings	It was a hot humid day as we set off, climbing out of the small town of Trisuli, following the course of a river up through lush paddy fields. Hundreds of Nepalese schoolkids were scuffing along the dirt road to their lessons with the snails gait that characterises school kids everywhere. The valley was cluttered with small settlements - farming communities. All of the farming is organic, and all of the labour is manual. There are no tractors, only water buffalo. After an hour or so, we stopped to rest at a small farm, where some locals were chattering. A middle-aged woman (pictured) was very proud of her earrings, which were fixed by what looked like a high rod through her upper ear. Goods are transported up to the hills by hand in baskets, on peoples; backs usually. Everything from tins of paint to bags of flour is manhandled up and down these tracks to and from remote villages. We decided to take lunch at a tea house (these are ubiquitous in Nepal) opposite a school. As lunch was being prepared, Katie and I cooled our feet in the run-off from a watermill, where a leathery old man was squatting in a loin cloth. Dust and smoke billowed from within the mill, where his wife was busy grinding millet for use in chapatis. Lunch was great. Our guide, Madhu, had brought with him some bread rolls and tuna from Trisuli. This was to be the last decent meal for a few days! It was also lunchtime in the school opposite, and it seemed like the entire school came over to gape at these two strangers. It was disconcerting at first, so we decided to break the ice with a few songs - including that old favourite 'Old Macdonald Had a Farm', which works for every culture! I had them all in stitches laughing.
The gradient became progressively steeper from our lunch spot to the top of the valley. Heavy monsoons this year had caused landslides which had turned the track into a narrow treacherous path in places. We passed through a sleepy village where a group of sun-wizened old ladies were gabbling away and puffing on a huge chillum. They offered me a try, but I declined, being far to breathless from the climb, and somewhat doubtful of what I might be smoking. Smoking is a very popular pastime in Nepal, particularly amongst women of a certain age. I heard them cackling as we staggered off.
It was arduous work getting to the top of the valley, where there was another village perched on the col between two mountains. We thought we were dreaming when we found a shop with a fridge. (Electricity is a rarity up in the mountains) We were even more staggered to find they had a stock of rusty-capped cold drinks. Fanta orange never tasted so good. I had two.
We seemed to walk for ever that day - another four hours to be exact from the col. Everywhere the villagers were preparing for the forthcoming Diwali festival. The Hindu festival of lights, one of the biggest events in their religious calendar. There are similarities with our New Year celebrations, houses are scrupulously cleaned and repainted, out with the old and in with the new. The local tipple is an evil brew of fermented millet known as Raksi. Before the trek was out we would have had more than enough of this concoction. We passed several clay stills preparing supplies for the festival.
The Big Wheel - Nepalese Style	Tharpu It was almost dark by the time we reached the hilltop village of Tharpu, our resting place for the evening. Just outside the village, someone had constructed a 'big wheel' from bits of wood. It had four seats and was being manually propelled by an army of hyperactive kids in dirty T shirts. They were thrilled to see us, especially since we showed a willingness to help with the propulsion, before of course having a go ourselves. Then it was time for a bit of kung-fu practice. Not that I know the first thing about Kung Fu, but the sight of a tall westerner doing Jackie Chan was hugely amusing to the kiddies, so I felt obliged. The village of Tharpu has a solitary Tea House. Every village has a tea house, which serves basic food - no menus here, and basic accommodation, where usually you are on the menu for a variety of crawly things. However this tea house managed to unearth some old bottles of San Miguel, which was most impressive. I bought all the beers for the guide and porter. The highlight of the night though was an astronomical lightshow. There are billions more stars in Nepal than anywhere else on the face of the earth. Or at least you can see them in Nepal, due the absence of pollutants and ambient street light. Tharpu is an electricity-less place, and the sky was formidable. We were treated to the sight of a meteor shower, lasting well over an hour, every minute two or three meteors would streak across the sky, leaving us agog with our grog.
Before bed, we went for a wash. There is a solitary water pump in the village, and we had to queue with a procession of villagers clutching their pots and pans before we could splash the cold water over our sticky faces. Life here is very intimate. There can be few secrets between people in such a place. Bed was in a small dormitory on straw mattresses above the cattle stall, but despite the bed bugs, sleep came fast and deep.

Day 2 - The trek to Khahari

I woke early for some reason, perhaps the mountains were beckoning. I pushed open the wooden shutter to see the stunning sight of Manosulu, one of the highest peaks in the world at 8147m peaking out from behind thin wisps of cloud. Villages were already out and about, creeping off into the fields trying to find a spot for their morning 'movements'. We were intending to hike all of the way to Khahari, Madhu's home village today.
About an hour out of Tharpu, we came across a bearded man sat on a rock looking like the world had ended. His young son was shuffling about in a state of confusion, not comprehending why 'Dad' wasn't responding to him. The man's wife had died that day in childbirth. He was on his way back to his village to observe the complex mourning rituals required of him. This would include shaving off all of his hair, including his eyebrows, and sitting in a contemplative state for 13 days!
Buffalo plough the fields in Khahari	Elsewhere in the valley, people were out gathering fodder for their precious buffalo, strapping it in huge bundles to their backs, so that they looked like walking hedges. We climbed high again, up the side of the valley and rested under a large Banyan tree. From this vantage point we could see far below us a wide fast-flowing river bordered by lush paddies and three or four villages. "That one is my village" said Madhu. We were going to stay at his house for the night. It was currently being lived in and looked after by his brother and family, whilst he and his wife were in Khathmandu. It took us a calf-aching toe-blistering two hours to reach it.
Madhu was greeted like a king. It had been several months since he'd last been back to the village, and nobody was really expecting him to show up until the end of the trekking season. It took us quite some time to get through this gauntlet of well wishers. We eventually arrived at his house, a simple adobe place with a room for cattle, and a kitchen downstairs and four bedrooms upstairs. There was no furniture in the kitchen, only a clay oven and various utensils spread out on the floor. We were greeted by his brother and sister in law, who to be honest were a bit shocked to see us all. We rested outside in the yard on straw mats as the house was rearranged to accommodate these unexpected visitors, which probably involved evicting several children from their normal sleeping place. The family are fairly well off, in that at least they have some good riverside land, where they grow rice, millet and vegetables. They also have a few livestock, buffalo for working the fields, some goats and chickens.		By the river in Khahari
Katie freshens up in the river	We had been walking for days under a searing sun and had been staying in fairly unhygienic tea houses en route without the benefit of a proper wash. Whilst Madhu's house didn't exactly have a shower it had a fast running river nearby. Madhu's nephew, the elf-like Vijay was dispatched to show us the way. We followed him through a maze of lush paddy fields, tight-roping along the muddy banks that separate each paddy until we reached the steep banks of the river. We descended the and crossed about half a mile of sands to the edge of the river. It was flowing at about twenty knots but we managed to find a safe place to bathe. Vijay and some of his pals began swimming in the rapids, shooting by us at a fair lick, stark naked. We joined them in the fresh cool glacial waters. It was utter bliss.
Back at the house, word had spread that Madhu was back in town, with a couple of foreigners in tow. Village kids had collected out of curiosity, or maybe expecting sweets, so Katie and I organised a game of British Bulldog. This took quite a bit of explaining, given my lack of Nepalese, but kids learn very fast, and soon we had a riot of bodies hurling themselves from one side of the yard to the other. It was getting dark by the time Madhu appeared with his brother and some of the beers we'd bought earlier. Madhu's neighbour, an amiable chap by the name of Jeet Bahadu, also joined us. Miraculously, the riotous children melted into the shadows and sat demurely keeping out of the way. The women all remained indoors. It had been four months since Madhu had returned to his home village, a cause for some minor celebration. Two of the family chickens were slaughtered, a really big deal where the staple daily diet is Dal Bhat, lentil stew and rice. Jeet Bahadu told us how pleased he was that we'd come to town. Madhu had missed the recent Durga festival, so there was time to be made up and some hard drinking to be done. (Nepalese Hindus are much less hung up about drink than Indians)		Madhu's family and friends outside his house.
Celebration Time - Vijay was the expert	Jeet Bahad with a big cheesy grin brought a few bottles of Raksi over. Raksi is a deceptively potent home brewed distilled millet wine. The entertainment was provided by Jeet's son, an accomplished Maadal player (a double sided drum played with the hands). Jeet began singing folk songs, and one by one people got up to dance, including us. The dancers use facial expressions and delicate movements of the body and hands to provide a moving interpretation of the words of the song. Since we didn't understand a word of what was being sung, this was a bit difficult, but we tried our best to cries and laughs from the family. Jeet Bahad said how happy he was to see his friend Madhu again, and to be honored by the presence of two foreigners, but it was us who felt privileged to experience this charming piece of village life. Several bottles of beer and Raksi later Jeet's sister appeared, squat down before him and begged him to come home.
He was having far too good a time for that, so she resorted to bargaining with him, "if you can dance using all the right steps without falling over then I will bring you more raksi. If not, then you will come home with me now." The deal was struck and Jeet staggered to his feet, took a couple of faltering steps and fell over. It was time for bed. I helped his sister to heave him off to his house at which point he did his cheshire cat grin, and shook my hand for an inordinately long time in the way that drunks do. "It's been even better than Durga" (the recent festival) he said and collapsed into his house. Madhu invited us to stay in the village for another day, which we readily accepted.		Jeet Bahadu - Happily drunk
Children in Nepal go to school six days a week, but Saturday is their day off. We were attracting quite a sizeable crowd of would-be British Bulldog players. It was like running a youth club. I found myself taking swimming lessons in the morning, portrait sketching in the afternoon, interspersed with games and lots of tomfoolery.
Jeet reemerged late in the afternoon looking a bit rough from a hangover, and announced that he wanted to repeat the previous night's partying only this time he wanted to slaughter a goat. A really momentous thing in these parts. Goats cost about $50, a vast sum of money for these guys. In the event, his hangover got the better of him and he disappeared back to bed. When the time to leave finally came, we felt more than a little sad. Especially since we now had a gruelling 10 hours trekking ahead of us to make up the time we had spent lazing in the village.

Day 4 - Khanchock

We had some ground to make up, and set off early from the village. It was sad to have to say goodbye, but I sensed some relief from Madhu's brother. The first two hours were relatively easy, following the course of the river along the valley. We spotted our first motorised vehicle, a tractor. Lord knows how they got it here, since the only way into the village is to cross the river, and the only way across is a hugely precarious rope pulley system. Maybe they floated it over in a raft.
	We left the valley and climbed hard up a rocky trail to a broad perfectly flat plateau. There were villages up here too, even though the water supply was poor. The crops looked more bedraggled up here. Nepal is a densely populated country with over 22m inhabitants. People scrape a living wherever they can. Life up on the plateau was more primitive than on the valley below. We spotted a couple of human treadmills, where a whole family would labour for three to four hours just to produce a couple of litres of cooking oil from sesame seeds. In the more affluent valley, they were using diesel powered grinders.
Red Alert - Maoist Insurgents about! Descending steeply into a valley on the other side of the plateau, we came upon the pleasant town of Arughat. There was a basic hotel here, where they served an alternative to the ubiquitous Dall. Bhat. They had instant noodles, which we readily accepted. From here we climbed steadily up a remote and forbidding valley. It was a very steep sided valley, almost a gully. Madhu told us to watch out; "We need to be little bit careful. There may be bit trouble with Maoists" he announced matter of factly. The Maoists are quite a powerful movement in Nepal, driven underground by the government, they hide out in remote valleys such as this one and take pot shots at policemen and soldiers whenever they can. In recent years the government response has been to step up counterinsurgence in the regions affected. Over a hundred suspected maoists have been shot on the spot by heavily armed police squads whenever the opportunity arises. I gazed up at the tiers of rice paddies, gently blowing in the warm breeze, dolefully expecting at any minute to be involved in some awful shootout. The left hand side of the stream was heavily wooded. We followed the brook like a group of (sitting) ducks for about two hours, which was hard going, since we had to keep taking our shoes off to cross. There were relatively few people about. A few fishermen congregate near an old hut, but there were no villages up here. .
At last, we took a small path up the side of the valley and climbed steeply. The climb seemed never-ending. Just as you thought you'd reached the top, another summit would appear. Eventually, our destination, Kanchock, came into view on the opposite side of a heavily wooded valley. It seemed to take aeons to skirt around and up to it. We were held up following a herd of buffalo up the narrow path into the rapidly darkening streets of the village. I didn't much like the look of this place. It was dirty and had bad vibes. We found the guest house. There was no water to wash in, just a small and very smelly outside loo. Things seemed to improve after a change of clothes and a beer.
Nepalese villagers trekking for days back from market	As we waited for dinner, a large group of Gamangas turned up. "Wild hill people" as Madhu put it. These mongolian looking people live high up in the mountains and only make the trek down into the valleys a few times a year. They were on their way back from market where they had been to trade Yak skins or something, an eight day trek from their home. They looked quite colourful in bright spangly dresses and were certainly high-spirited. "This place is like a five star hotel to them" explained Madhu. "normally they just sleep in the fields and eat what they can." He went on "They don't wash for months at a time, especially in winter, when its too cold., they almost certainly have lice and many other bugs, and they're wild." They don't observe any of the normal taboos of the rest of the Hindu world. "They all sleep together like animals" said Madhu, by which I guess he meant they were polygamists. When dinner was served up, the hill folk gobbled it down avariciously with their fingers, and took full advantage of the free re-fill rule that applies in most tea-houses. The owner of the lodge didn't look too impressed, especially when they all complained that they'd been overcharged. We retired to bed, which was a pretty nasty experience. I had major problems sleeping, despite my fatigue on account of all of the other fauna that was sharing the bed with me.

The final leg to Gorka - and the Dashain Festival

We climbed steadily from Kanchock to a ridge where reputedly the views are stunning. Unfortunately for us, cloud cover hid much of what might have been seen, though we did get tantalising glimpses of Anapurna, Manosulu and Himal Ganesh, the holy mountain, which it is forbidden for foreigners to climb.
We tagged along behind a young family. The man had a chicken in in a basket on his back and a baby goat in his arms. I assumed he was going to market, but Madhu explained; "Today is Dashain, the time when many devout Hindus go to the shrine at Gorka to make sacrifices to the gods. You might be lucky and see some in the temple". Katie didn't look as if she felt lucky about this. The temple at Gorka is one of the most important shrines in Western Nepal, and sacrifices take place on allotted days throughout the year.
Nepalese temple - where we stopped for lunch	After a steady ascent of about an hour, we reached a small settlement where we decided to rest and buy a cold drink. We unwittingly walked into a major local row between the woman shop owner and a truculent banana merchant. The woman ranted for over fifteen minutes at the man, and the man spat her, to which she responded by hurling burning logs from her stove at him. We bought our drinks from elsewhere and sat in the shade of a banyan tree as a steady stream of porters emerged from the path below. They were struggling under vast loads crammed into reed baskets hung from straps on their heads. There were tents, tables, chairs, pots, pans, crates of beer, mattresses and even a western style toilet seat. This vast entourage was followed by a group of about five surly Germans complaining about the climb with their minuscule daysacks on. These were the first westerners we'd seen. We thanked our lucky stars that we'd ended up on this unconventional trek and not one of the mainstream slogs up to Anapurna base camp etc. We continued the trek, up and down valleys, stopping briefly for lunch at a ramshackle town, where there was a lovely little temple.
It only took another hour from the lunch stop to reach Gorka. We knew we were getting close long before we got there, since the procession of people carrying animals to and from the shrine became more evident. Those walking towards us were carrying headless goats, blood dripping on the flagstones, looking mightily pleased with themselves.
Things became more gruesome as we got closer to the Durbar. The path was spattered with blood, and we came upon a group of acolytes doing makeshift butchery on their recently slaughtered pets in a spring beside the path. The water ran red, and various examples of goats entrails were strewn all over the walls and hedgerows. Men stood beside huge steaming barrels of water, which they were using to steam the carcases to loosen the fur. The stench was overpowering. We continued up to the notch in the ridge, known as Hanuman's pass (after the Monkey god). The place was busy with devotees relaxing in the shade after their treks. We saw the young family that we'd followed from Kanchock at the start of the day, with headless chicken and big grins on their faces. Live goats were being coaxed or carried trembling up the steps to the imposing Durbar, perched on the edge of the ridge overlooking the town hundreds of feet below. This was originally the palace of Prithvi Naryan, built in the 1700s. It has outwardly sloping wood panels supporting the roof, which are finely carved with a collection of obscene frescos. Inside, there is the 'eternal flame of Nepal', where legend has it that if it ever goes out, then Nepal will cease to be unified.		Gorka Durbar
After a few moments rest, we climbed the few remaining steps up to the gates of the temple of Kalika Mandir, where we removed our shoes to go inside. The flagstone courtyard was thick and sticky with blood. The first sight was a wooden chopping block, which was used to decapitate the chickens amid a flurry of feathers. I made my way around towards the inner sanctum. Ordinary folk are not allowed to enter. This is where the goats are done. I glimpsed a huge pile of goats heads inside the door. The monks get to keep all of the heads, which hey later eat. One can only guess at their dinner table conversation ... "Whats for lunch brother Vijay?" "Not goats head stew again! And boy am I sick of brain blancmange. Can't we have dall bhat?" The killing is done by professional slaughterers using a sacred curved killing knife. It is these same knives that were used with such brutal success throughout the centuries by the infamous Gurkha soldiers.
It is important that the sacrifice is completed with a single blow of the knife, which requires considerable strength and dexterity. It's a very swift process, conducted with production line efficiency. As I stepped down into the bloody courtyard, I narrowly avoided a fresh carcass being flung aside as a new goat was led in for its nemesis. A single thud and a momentary thrashing of legs, and it's all over. It was the first time that Vishnu, our porter had ever visited the shrine, and he was visibly thrilled. "One day I would like to return here with my wife and child to make sacrifices to the gods" he exclaimed.
We descended a thousand steps into the town. Civilisation at last after days on the road, we had our first hot shower. It was the end of our trek, and we celebrated with oodles of cold beer and good hot food. The hotel was nothing special, but it seemed as though we were in the Ritz.

You are reading the story of Adrian and Katie's travels through the India and the Far East between August 1998 and February 1999.
Adrian and Katie have put the rat race on hold for a year to travel the world.

              

Adrian & Katie's World Tour News - Nepal                                                Last Updated: 21 October 2000
Web Page by Adrian Ball  (email: adrian.ball@virgin.net)