Greetings dear blog followers. Those of you who don’t hang out in the virtual world of Facebook and Instagram won’t have seen the links to Jane’s awesome blogs about our recent trip to Nepal. So, here’s the links – as usual the most recent post shows up on top, so you need to scroll to the start – or read them backwards – that works too. If you’re curious about where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to, click and read:
Those blogs tell a comprehensive story, but like all great publications – there are always odd outtakes – the ludicrous moments – the peculiar and ridiculous – that didn’t get recorded. So here are a few that might give you a chuckle. Warning – I’ve violated a cardinal rule of blogging – keep it short because who has the time to read a long one – I count myself in that number – but this is the only blog you’re getting from me about this last trip – so how about reading it over a couple of morning coffees instead of just one. The photos, for the most part, have nothing to do with the stories.
Let’s start with Steri-Pens – cool electronic devices that purify water. Essential gear when travelling to places with undrinkable water.
Jane and Rob brought theirs and I brought mine. Of course, we put in new batteries and tested them before leaving home – where they worked. In Kathmandu, they both decided not to work. There is no logic to the vagaries of electronics. Way to go Steri-Pen. After an extensive search, Rob and Jane found another in a small outdoor gear shop – box very dusty – and it didn’t work either. Perhaps that shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
We were left with the options of using bottled water – oh that never-recycled plastic – or using boiled water. Obviously boiled water made most sense – right? Well at lower altitudes – sure that works – as long as someone is making sure the water has really boiled for the required minute. But what about higher altitudes? At 4000 metres water boils at less than 90°C. If it boils longer, will it achieve the same effect? Is it appropriate to use the extra precious fuel – in some cases yak dung, in other cases propane transported on the back of a yak – to do so? Such a conundrum.
So, at lower altitudes we had our water boiled and at higher altitudes – with guilt – we purchased bottled water. Bottles carried up to remote guesthouses on the backs of commercial porters who are underpaid for the work they do. Not really a happy solution. Lesson learned? Yes. We won’t be trusting Steri-Pens again.
I promised weird stories, didn’t I? Maybe three Steri-Pens deciding not to work at the same time isn’t weird enough? Well stay with me.
While on the subject of hydration, let’s talk tea. A symbol of hospitality. A reason for a rest. We drank more tea … too much tea. Jane recorded 150 cups of it – each. Ringi – Tendi’s son and my porter – described it as a tsunami of tea. But there’s an odd thing about tea as a symbol of hospitality. We got invited into many places – friends of Tendi’s – to have a cup of tea. It was always important that we accept these invitations – even when they came just minutes apart. We’d be shown into an uncomfortably chilly dining room. We’d sit, be served tea, then left in solitary while everyone else crowded into warm, sometimes smoky kitchens to drink their tea. Sometimes we never even met whoever it was who’d invited us into their home.
Unable to unravel complex notions and practices, we drifted between bemusement, acceptance and in the end – when we really couldn’t stomach another cup – a desperate avoidance.
Sipping too much tea in too chilly dining rooms brings me to the subject of doors. Our Western habit of closing them to keep warm air in our homes and cold air out, is not a custom in Nepal. Doors are closed and locked at night but otherwise they’re left open for the wind and cold to blow in along with the odd chicken, goat, or dog. We even watched attempted entry by a yak. One would think that when a yak tries to come into a dining room, the door would be closed – but not in Nepal. More puzzling than animals coming in, is heat going out. Fuel is scarce, when a dining room stove gets let and begins producing heat, guests, porters, and guides crowd around to enjoy relief from freezing temperatures. Even so, no one ever bothers to close doors. Our bleated mantras, “please close the door,” would fall on deaf ears or be met with puzzled expressions. We too remain puzzled – and no doubt – doors remain open. And that you will agree, I am sure, is weird.
Now let’s combine tea breaks with cold dining rooms. Imagine lovely warm sunny mornings with stunning views of the world’s highest peaks. We’d come to a teahouse with a sunny terrace and be encouraged to go sit in a dark, draughty – due to open door – cold dining room for the morning’s tea break. This was a daily occurrence, yet every time we said we’d sit outside in the warmth to enjoy the views, our requests elicited surprise. Are we sure? Despite our very peculiar behaviour, our tea would be served outside. Our crew however always behaved more appropriately and took theirs inside – beyond the open door.
On to meal servings. They were always massive, so we soon developed a strategy to avoid wasting food – although food left on plates is rewarmed and fed to the livestock. The three of us would order two different meals and share. We did this every meal for three weeks. Nearly every time there would be some consternation from the kitchen about our need for three plates and three sets of utensils. On the rare occasion three extra plates were offered, we dished as if from two serving plates – a simple procedure. But most of the time only one extra plate was made available, so we’d take turns performing feats of splitting pasta, potatoes or rice into three equal servings with just one spare plate. This performance was always much to the bemusement of our team who worried we didn’t have enough to eat and who seemed fascinated by our desire to have more than one food item for any given meal. And let’s face it – mashed potatoes and pizza is a weird combination. Why the consternation? Consider this: average price of a bed USD5.00 per night. Average cost of a meal USD7.00. Perhaps our desire to be responsible diners wasn’t appreciated.
Now let’s have some fun with guesthouse etiquette. There’s a way of “being” in these settings. Trekkers, guides and sometimes porters greet each other and swap stories. Some are boastful but most people just want to share experiences. Often, we laugh and grumble about the same things. The grumbling is usually lighthearted, “my pants are muddier than yours.” There’s a happy solidarity in our shared triumphs and challenges.
There are the odd exceptions, and while in Gokyo we had the misfortune to share the small dining room with a fellow Rob nicknamed Mr. Magoo. Very disrespectful of the real Mr. Magoo in my opinion. In all the times I’ve trekked in Nepal, I’ve never come across anyone who came close to this guy for rudeness. His loud voice and opinions echoed throughout the dining room for hour after hour. At one point everyone else was sitting around the ineffective stove while Mr. Magoo explained his world view and the rules of backgammon to his companion and – incidentally – to everyone. Those of us around the stove were silent – eyerolling and smirking – listening to the nonsense. Mr. Magoo was a uniting misery more powerful than the cold.
On the morning of our departure, a wallet was found.
One of the guides called out, “Who’s wallet is this?” a couple of times.
“Oh, that’s mine,” said Mr. Magoo, interrupting his own ridiculous narrative about how he was planning to cross 5420 metre Cho La in sweatpants and running shoes.
The guide handed over the wallet.
Mr. Magoo took it, then after a moment, and without saying thank you said, “I guess you want money.”
The room went silent. Horrified by this colossal insult, everyone stopped everything.
The guide was a gregarious man. Kind and funny. But now his habitual smile turned to thunder.
“You are a very bad man,” he said. “A bad, bad man. Full of bullshit.”
Several of us had to suppress the urge to clap. Mr. Magoo remained oblivious and went back to his loud babble.
Another one-of-a-kind moment that left us both flummoxed and impressed took place at the guesthouse in Junbesi. The fire had just been lit. I went to one of the two small tables closest to the fire, placed my book and iPad on the table and sat on the bench at the table, back to window, feet to fire. Jane and Rob would join me in a couple of minutes. The other fireside table – and all the other tables around the room – remained empty. After a moment, a woman entered the dining room, walked over to table where I was sitting and sat on it – her back to me. These were small tables – about one metre by fifty centimetres. I resisted the temptation to poke her butt with my pen and was about to shift over to the other table when the woman stood up, shifted and tilted the table – dumping my iPad and book – which I caught. Jane and Rob arrived in the middle of this, and we settled at the other table. But the story doesn’t end here.
Psang and Rengi arrived and sat in chairs between the woman’s table and the fire. Psang leaned back just a wee bit and rested his elbow on the table. Now Butt-Claiming woman did not like this move one little bit. So, she – now settled on the bench – opened her map and flapped it against Psang’s shoulder. Psang’s response – with a slight body shift he leaned back – now with his back to the woman – but elbow still on the table. So subtle. He looked over at the three of us and smiled his sweet smile. By the way – Butt-Claiming woman never spoke a word to any of us.
Our takeaway is that while butt on table has higher claim than seat at table, elbow-claim trumps map-slap.
While Mr. Magoo was the rudest, Butt-Claim took a close second place, but here’s a funnier incident that claims fame as the oddest breach of guesthouse etiquette. Perhaps anybody’s dining etiquette come to think about it.
A young Chinese woman and her three friends arrived in Bupsa after dark, just before our dinner was served. We’d had a long day with a very muddy detour. These people were clean. White running shoes. It turned out that they had arrived in a jeep – by road. They hadn’t started their trek yet while we had been on the trail for six days already. We were digesting the weirdness created by the road/trail dichotomy when our meals were set on our table. The clean white-shoed woman leapt from her seat, rushed across the room, bowed over our food bringing her nose to within inches of it.
“What you eat?” she demanded.
We gave her the stink eye but told her. She went back to her seat. We performed our meal-share magic and ate.
The next night we were again at the same guesthouse as the foursome – who had walked but still had clean shoes. And when our meals were delivered, the same woman leapt up and bowed over our food.
“What you eat?”
My response, “Please remove you face from our food,” didn’t answer her question but did discourage further incursions. Definitely weird.
Rob nicknamed her “Face-in-Food,” and that was the beginning of our naming game.
Can you guess how “Pees-on-Trail” got his name?
At lunch one day we met two young Nepali men trekking without a guide. They were going to Junbesi as were we. They left the lunch spot about an hour before us.
Later in the afternoon, as we trudged along, a voice called from the trail behind, “Rob, I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.”
The young men had been lost and Rob promptly named them the Lost Boys. We stayed at the same guesthouse in Junbesi and chatted. One of the men – Rupesh – told us about his Café de Genre in Thamel/Kathmandu. Three weeks later, when we returned to Kathmandu, Rob found the place on Google maps, and we dropped in for a visit and lunch. Rupesh was both surprised and pleased to see us old folk from Canada again. We enjoyed the ambience of his lovely café but mostly we all felt the joy of connection.
And now a ludicrous story with the joke, as it were, on me. Let me set the scene – and yes, this image has everything to do with the story.
We had to cross that sketchy looking “bridge” – once on the way up and again on the way back. On that return trip, as we came down those steep steps, we met with several mule trains coming up. Jane and Rob were ahead and got across before the influx of mules. Tendi, Psang and I stopped at the corner you see below the steps.
“I am not crossing that bridge at the same time as the mules,” I announced. “Not doing it.”
Tendi and Psang agreed, so we huddled against the cliff while mule after mule nudged by. Finally, one of the mule drivers told us that if we hurried, we could cross before more mules arrived. We started, but the next mules were in a hurry and started coming across when we were half way.
I was for retreat, but Tendi and Psang had a different idea.
“Climb up here,” they said, pointing out a ten-centimetre-wide rock ledge just above the bridge.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No Didi. Climb up!”
“Oh my God. I really don’t want to be on this bridge.”
“We aren’t on the bridge,” said Tendi. “We are on the ledge.”
There was no arguing with that logic. The mules crossed, the bridge did not collapse, we climbed down and continued before the next lot arrived.
“Tendi, that was not what I had in mind when I said I wasn’t crossing with mules,” I sputtered.
Tendi and Pasang just ginned at me. “Don’t worry Didi. I have small powers,” said Tendi.
That’s trekking in Nepal – never a dull moment.
The last story of this blog is arguably the most ridiculous of the lot. I developed an ugly cough the day we arrived in Nepal and feeling quite sick, debated not going on the trek. How wise is it to trek to high altitudes with some sort of respiratory illness? (Don’t answer that.) As you know, I did trek. What Jane’s blogs don’t mention is that my cough persisted, and I was often very short of breath. I found the journey really challenging. By the end I was exhausted and returned home to a diagnosis of pneumonia. Six days later – on antibiotics – I’m beginning to feel better. Energy that I haven’t felt since landing in Kathmandu in early October is returning. So why didn’t I just come home early? Good question. I felt too ill to travel and anticipated getting over the cough – presumably by magical cure – by drowning it in tea or something like that.
Now, if you haven’t already taken the time to read and enjoy Jane’s fabulous blogs – go on – pour another coffee. https://discovertheoutdoorsnepal.blogspot.com The blogs are filled with a sense of endless amazement – and will fully explain the reason I choose to trek with good friends in an astounding place. No regrets.
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