DREW'S DELIBERATIONS

Our first true taste of Nepal began immediately upon arrival at the international airport. At most ports of entry there is an official to check your passport Nepal had five. The function of all of these officials was unclear but as we were to discover this duplication of effort is quite common as Nepal is so poor and unemployment so high that efficiency is not the goal. We attempted to contact our host family by phone only to be informed that the phone was out of order. An ill fated attempt at leaving the terminal was immediately abandoned as we were swarmed with taxi drivers and people selling hotel rooms. After retreating back into the terminal Michele managed to get the clerk at the hotel desk to let her use the phone. Anu (the elder daughter of the Surana family) gave us directions to their house. I relate this episode as it so clearly demonstrated much of what we were to experience in Kathmandu. The city is surrounded by foothills with spectacular snow capped peaks visible when the smog lifts, which is not too often. The geography is ideal for setting up an inversion that combines with the traffic and poor condition of many of the vehicles to create terrible air pollution. The only discernable traffic law is "drive on the left side of the street unless you think you can get away with it on the right", utter chaos. Garbage is everywhere and as in Thailand the people seem to have no concept of "litter". Of course even if you want to dispose of trash properly there are no containers and if you are lucky enough to find a container there is no guarantee that it is not just dumped in the street. The buildings are mostly reinforced (minimally) concrete frames with brick or stone walls filling between the columns. I don't even want to think about the carnage that will occur when the next big (or not so big) quake hits, and it will hit! The tourist area of the city (Thamel) consists of tightly packed shops and hotels that offer every imaginable commodity and service that a tourist could want. It was our great fortune to stay with the Surana family on the other side of town which allowed us to go to Thamel when we needed to but we got to go home to our incredibly generous family. Our week in Kathmandu was spent getting our trekking permits, shopping for "ethnic" stuff and visiting local temples.

Trekking Solu-Khumbu

From our extensive pretrip research, based on both published and verbal recommendations we chose Gokyo in the Solu-Khumbu (Everest) region as our trekking destination. Although it is possible and quite popular to fly into Lukla at 9000' to begin this trek we chose to start in the town of Jiri at a much lower elevation to help us acclimatize. This adds a good week to the trek. Choosing Jiri to start also divides the trek into two unique experiences: the below Lukla section and the above Lukla section. Only about 20 trekkers a day set out from Jiri in the high season whereas 200 a day set out from Lukla making the experiences above and below quite different, not just geologically. A typical journal entry from the lower portion of the treck is given below
…We had a nice lunch in Jiri with the guys and then it was time to hit the trail. We thought we could get a half-day of walking under our belts as we wanted to start slowly until our muscles warmed to the task. Out of Jiri the scenery is dominated by steep green hillsides covered with terraces for farming. The human labor that went into shaping this landscape is beyond comprehension! Terraces on every side of every mountain in every direction…
This lower section of the trek heads east, perpendicular to the principal river valleys draining south from the High Himalaya. This translates to many 3-6000' accents and decents until the Du Kosi drainage is reached and followed north up to Namche Bazaar, the gateway to the high country. Our plan was to fly out of Lukla on the way down so on the way up we stopped there to arrange our flight. What a zoo that was. People trying to get out on limited flights due to flight cancellations…mayhem! It was in Lukla that we first started to understand how prevalent and serious acute mountain sickness (AMS or altitude sickness) was in Solu-Khumbu. We talked to several people who had had to carry people down from high elevation, one succeeded in saving a life one unfortunately did not. During our month in this area we heard many stories of people getting sick with mild to moderate symptoms of AMS, had some experience ourselves (more on that later) and were told of several more deaths including a Nepali porter. Bottom line, AMS is for real, is very serious and is not to be taken lightly. We arrived in Namche Bazaar early in the afternoon of our second day out of Lukla. Namche is perched in a hanging valley at 11,300'. Every Saturday there is a market where locals sell their wares delivered almost exclusively by human porters. From Jiri to Namche the trail is dominated by porters carrying staggering loads up to 150% of their body weight! The loads are carried in a whicker basket on the porters back supported by a strap around the far-head. Up and down the steep hills they carry these loads for weeks. Above Namche the scenery becomes dominated by 20,000' plus high snow capped monolyths. There are very few permanent settlements above Namche, the trail becomes dominated by trekkers and yak trains supporting large trekking groups, which are quite numerous. Michele and I chose to do our trekking witout a guide or porters. We never regretted our decision and felt that in the popular trekking areas "independent" trekking is the way to go. We slept in lodges the entire way, usually in a private room. We ate three squares a day and spent approx. $8 a day down low and $15 a day up high for the two of us room and board. The organized treks generally carry their own food and camp beside the lodges in tents. We met two englishmen who had 15 Nepalis supporting them. From Namche we headed up to Goykyo, a settlement of tourist lodges on a lake at 15,700'. The walking was not too difficult and the days short as it is important not to put on too much elevation in one day. We arrived in Gokyo on our fourth day out of Namche by lunch time. By dinner Michele had developed a small headache (not rare for her). Her appitite was still good so we were not too worried about AMS. We had planned a moonlight accent of Goykyo Ri for 4:00 am the next morning. By midnight Michele was feeling worse and by 3:30 am we were doing a moonlight decent to get her to a lower elevation. She actually got pretty sick before we dropped significantly. We got down to the town of Dole (13,000') by about 9:00 am and spent the day there resting. Michele was 80% better by the time we got there and felt fine the next day. I was very proud of her for making the call to decend early enough that she was able to get herself down. Our other destination in the high country was Chhukung where we managed to get up to 16,500' with no problems (didn't sleep higher than 14,500'). Great views here of Lhotse, Nupse, Ama Dablam and many more. An uneventful couple of days back to Lukla where our plane tickets awaited us. We climbed into a "Twin Otter" on the grass airstrip in Lukla after not seeing an auto for 28 days and climbed out 45 min. later in Kathmandu where we were almost killed 15 times in 15 min. by our cab driver. We met many nice people along the way. Many Nepalis down low and fellow trekkers up high. A few days in Kathmandu and we were off to Pokarah. Pokarah is a 6 hr. bus ride west of Kathmandu which we survived with minimal damage. The tourist area is on a lake and consists of a zillion restaurants, lodges and shops. The views of the Annapurna range are spectacular. We found a nice guest house relaxed for a couple of days and then headed out for a short treck to the town of Ghandruk. This is the first major stop on the way to Annapurna base camp. This was luxury trekking as the lodge we stayed at was very comfy with amazing views right from the sun drenched deck in front. We finished off our stay in Nepal with 4 days back in Kathmandu watching the Surana family prepare for Anu's fast approaching wedding (Dec. 12th).

We meet Dana tomorrow in Indonesia to begin the next stage of the adventure!

© 1998 michele_drew@hotmail.com

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