A Scranton Boy at the Top of the World

"It is quite common here to live to a very ripe old age, climate, diet, and mountain water you might say, but we like to believe it is the absence of struggle in the way we live." From Lost Horizon by James Hilton

I have never been one to give much thought to time. But a year here, and a year there and next thing you know 41 years have gone by. But as luck would have it, a quirk of my industry called "garden leave" left me with an excess supply of time this past summer. What exactly does a middle-age Scranton boy who suffers from a fear of heights do with an entire summer off from work? For me the choice was simple. I spent most of it with the family then went to Nepal - the highest country on earth - for a bit of trekking in the mountains with my mate Matt. A journey of discovery? Perhaps. I'll leave you to decide.
The "picture": funnily enough, it rains during the rainy season
While none of us like to admit it, part of the reason we take ourselves to far away places is to get "the picture" - a snapshot of you standing in front of one of those things you normally can only see in a postcard. The picture of course, is then put somewhere for everyone else to see. In Nepal "the picture" is you standing in front of one of the highest mountains on earth. Getting the picture should be easy. After all, eight of earth's fourteen 8000+ meter mountains are in Nepal. The only problem is August is Nepal's monsoon season. And in the monsoon season, it rains.. and rains.. and rains.

The monsoon complications started early. Having flown from Chicago to London to Delhi to Kathmandu and finally to Pokhora, we arrived at a tiny "airport" at 6:00 am to catch our last 30-minute flight. It would be in a 10-seat puddle jumper through one of the highest valleys on earth. Unfortunately, the monsoons left visibility at virtually zero. Luckily Binod, our guide, booked us on the 2nd flight of the morning. When I asked why, he smiled and just insisted we didn't want to be on the first flight. By 11am the first flight did take off. Forty five minutes later Binod's logic sunk in. The passengers of the first flight to Jomson returned having never landed - their white faces pretty much saying all that was needed about navigating a tiny plane through a Himalayan valley during the rainy season. It was time for Plan B. We abandoned the scenic Jomson valley trek and drove two hours to the south entrance of Annapurna national park to begin an alternative 5-day trek.

Two days into walking and I started to wonder whether I would ever get the "picture". While day one was perfectly sunny, we were too low to see anything. Then in the early hours of day two the skies opened up and I had my first real experience with the power and persistence of the monsoon rain. With our schedule tight, we had no choice but to press on. So we walked seven hours and 1500 vertical meters (nearly 5000 feet for the Scranton folk) in torrential rains. By the afternoon I was drenched, tired and in despair - having flown halfway around the world to get a picture of me in front of a Himalayan peak, I found myself trekking through scenery that could pass for any rainy day in the Pocono mountains.


Then, as we arrived in the hip trekker town of Ghorepani the rain stopped, the clouds thinned and I began to spot the mountain gems of the Annapurna range. First came Annapurna South (7219 meters; I am pictured in front of it), then Annapurna I (8091 meters, 10th highest in world), then the Dhaulagiri range (Peak I is the 7th highest in the world) and the next day Machapuchare, known as fishtail for its unique peak (Matt and I are having a beer in front of it). Admittedly, these ranges get far less attention then eastern Nepal's Mount Everest. But the Annapurna region is no less beautiful and has proved more treacherous. The fishtail mountain has never been climbed successfully. And Annapurna I has had only 103 successful climbs - and 53 deaths. Waking up alone at 4:30 am on Day 3 to watch the sunrise hit the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges, I came to realize I was in Nepal for more than just a picture.

Language barriers: beware of those "lay-jes"
While I am known for having many skills, language is not one of them. So like any American who travels the world, I have grown used to expecting those around me to speak English, except of course in Paris and most of Scotland. English is pretty common in Nepal. But as I often find, language barriers can come in many shapes and forms. There are translation barriers. When I spoke to Binod ahead of my trek, I was very clear about what I was aiming for - an easy walk in the hills of Nepal where I can see a few mountains and experience Nepalese culture. No problem, he assured me. But "moderate trek" does not translate easily into Nepalese. Our "easy" day was five hours of trekking in the mid-August sun. Thereafter, I struggled to find anything easy. Day two was seven hours of walking up 1500 vertical meters. And while days three and four were virtually flat, in Nepalese flat means spending the day alternatively walking up and down 1000 meters to reach the same altitude. By day five, we technically went down hill, but my withered body didn't notice.

Then there are also those tricky accents. Most Nepalese guides speak decent English. But it doesn't always sound quite like the English you are accustomed to. Early into the trek, Binod kindly warned me to stay away from the "lay jes". Since I had mentioned my fear of heights, I figured he was telling me about some upcoming mountain ledges. Not quite. Binod was warning me about something I would have known myself had I read my Nepal guide book. During the rainy season blood-sucking, genuinely icky leeches are everywhere... and I mean everywhere. And while I'd like to think they are equal opportunity blood suckers, those "lay jes" seemed especially attracted to me. By the end of the trip, I had managed to be bitten 10 times and had lost a non-negligible amount of blood. The rest of my party - Matt, Binod and our porter "Donna" didn't manage 10 bites between them. The picture above is my foot after one of my "special" post-trek discoveries.

Culture: Tuxedo-clad Nepalese men singing "Hey Jude"
Most people I meet assume that my business travels have introduced me to many different cultures. Fair enough. But to be honest, most of my trips blend - a mix of wandering through airports filled with western duty free shops and sitting at a Grand Hyatt sipping single malt while listening to a local sing Broadway show tunes. This trip started out the same. After two consecutive overnight flights, we checked into one of Kathmandu's only 5-star hotels. For our first night we figured the hotel's buffet and promise of "local" music would be a good introduction to Nepal. While there was nice local barbeque, the pasta and French wine list made it feel a little fake. Then, as I noshed on my tiramisu, a guy in a white and blue tuxedo walked up to the microphone and started singing "Hey Jude" in a harsh Nepalese accent. It occurred to me this wasn't quite what I had in mind when I decided to come to Nepal. Fortunately, once you leave Kathmandu and head to the mountains, you leave all elements of 5-star behind you. Trekking culture is an interesting mix of mountain Nepalese, slick city-born english-speaking guides and western hippies in search of Shangri la (not the hotel). I am pretty sure I was the only investment banker (technically Matt is a fund manager).

The core of trekking culture is the Tea House. For $1-2 per night, you get a "private" room with a musty old mattress and quite a few insects. There is usually one toilet (a hole in the ground) and one shower, typically in the same room as the toilet. But the heart of Tea House and its main allure is the central gathering room. All houses have them. Here all the activity takes place. You eat your meals here. While all Tea Houses offer western dishes, the local food is normally safer for the stomach and better tasting. A beer is normally 2-3 times more expensive than the room, but you are usually too tired to drink much anyway. The central space is where you go to warm yourself by the central (and only) fire. And the central fire serves as the central (and only) dryer (pictured).

Importantly, the central space is where you swap stories with fellow trekkers. There was the clueless young American couple, who managed to miss the path one day. By the time they arrived in the central space they were covered in leeches, their constant smiles still in place (still smiling in the picture). Or the idealistic social-worker from Seattle, who spent one night speaking to a wandering holy man who didn't speak much English. There was the asthmatic Italian on his way to Annapurna base camp at 17,000 feet. He made my fear of heights look trivial. And the middle-age, chain-smoking Polish couple, traveling with an odd German mother-son combo. In the world I live in, the chance of meeting any of these people is remote. But for a few nights, we shared beers and stories with a comradery gained from our days on the mountain paths. Even better, Tea House culture is mainly class free. My fondest evening was the one where our guides and porters broke out their Nepalese drums and filled the central room with music and dancing that took me far away from the man in the tuxedo singing "Hey Jude" - see a video below of my Matt dancing to one of those tunes.

New perspectives: keep the toilet paper dry!
I suppose what I will most remember about the trip was the perspective it brought. As I said in a previous blog, 20 years of living an urban, mainly banking life style has made me a little soft. Ten days in Nepal made me realize how soft. While I managed to make it through the trip with no major stomach problems, Matt was not as lucky. On our trek through torrential rain, he gave me my first sense of perspective. During a morning break he quickly opened his bag to check the belongings. In our world, the first priority would probably be whether his expensive camera equipment had survived the rains. On a Nepal trek the only thing that mattered was his roll of toilet paper was still dry. It was, which served him well a few hours later in the middle of the trail - literally. Better to lose some dignity than be swarmed be those pesky "lay jes".

Parts of our trek took us off the beaten track. So much so that not all Tea Houses offered bottled water. After sweating off a few liters on one particularly tough day, the absence of drinkable water left a feeling of thirst I have never witnessed, nor wish to witness again. To fill the void, we drank the entire stock of Fanta the Tea House had to offer. When we left the next morning we were significantly poorer (ironically a Fanta will cost you 3-4 times the cost of the room) and had bladders full of orange piss. Oddly, it was the only day I wasn't bitten by leeches.

But perspective in the mountains is only half the story. Nepal's economy is hugely dependent on the trekking crowd, so the country goes to great lengths to service their visitors. One night in Ghorepani we played snooker with Binod and Donna on a regulation English table. Since there are no roads, we learned that porters had to carry the table up in pieces, all to provide the trekkers with a little bit of home. You gain real perspective on Nepal when you leave the mountains and drive through Katmandu. The city is pretty appalling. There is no infrastructure. And the bumper-to-bumper traffic allows you to witness in slow motion the sheer level of Nepal's poverty. GDP per capita is $340 per year - the cost of an moderately upscale night out in Chelsea. 55% of the population is below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. Adult literacy is 57%. And infant mortality is ranked 57th in the world (actually a big improvement from 20 years ago). It is a tough existence. That said, it is the only perspective most Nepalese know. And with this, they manage the be generally friendlier, more open and seemingly less stressed than many people I know in London. Perhaps Nepal truly is Shangri la. I suppose I'll need to go back again some day and investigate.

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