Change to itinerary

Today I changed the itinerary of my flights. As I’m finding out more about myself, and how I like to travel, I realised that I would probably feel a bit restless spending a month on the beaches of Tonga and Samoa. I also, after speaking to other travelers and hearing from my sister, felt that I hadn’t given myself enough time in south-east Asia. When I booked my ticket I’m ashamed to admit that my geographic knowledge of New Zealand let me down; both my stops were on the north island. I even had a flight booked between the two stops. I’ve now changed this so that I fly in to Christchurch (on the south island), and fly out of Auckland (on the north island). This gives me just under a month to make my way north and the flexibility to meet up with my friends Jason and Els wherever they may be. Why am I writing this like I need to justify myself?!

Let me know if you want to know the exact details. This is the summary of my amended itinerary:

18 Feb Trivandrum > Singapore > Hanoi
29 Apr Bangkok > Singapore > Sydney
21 May Sydney > Christchurch
18 Jun Auckland > Tonga
22 Jun Tonga > Samoa
28 Jun Samoa > Los Angeles > London

Trains

There are two ways to make the 88km journey south from Darjeeling to the town, and transport hub, New Jalpaiguri. A jeep will make the trip in 2 hours, the train takes a more leisurely 8 hours. Of course I chose to take the train.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, known affectionately as the toy train, rolls along on a very narrow gauge (2 foot) track. It needed to be that narrow to give the track a small enough curve radius to wind in, out, and around the West Bengal hills. The carriages are smaller too; I think about 9 metres long. As such a small track was used, and also I expect because trains ran so infrequently, the landscape did not seem to make so many concessions to the railway. There were no tunnels, embankments, bridges or level-crossings; the track had to share its space. Like a tram, the track would often sit in the road, but it would also go through vegetable patches, back alleys, small streams, and under washing lines.

The railway used a couple of clever tricks to get the train down (or up) the steeper gradients. If there was space, the track would make the most of its tiny curve radius by corkscrewing under itself. If there wasn’t space, the train would zigzag down the side of the hill. The train would do this by alternating between going backwards and forwards. Every time it switched direction somebody would need to jump out to change the points and blow the whistle to inform the driver. I preferred traveling backwards, as at an average speed of 11Km/h , when traveling forwards the sulphur rich diesel fumes would comfortably waft back through my window.

I spent the rest of the evening at New Jalpaiguri railway station. When I wasn’t sat in the waiting room (getting infuriated by the man pacing up and down), I would stand on the platform and watch the wildlife. At first I counted rats, but then I lost count so only counted the albino ones. When I got so tired that I was content just to stare in to space, cows started to magically appear. Often they would turn-up from the strangest places; the ladies toilets, the station master’s office. But nobody else on the platform would batter an eyelid? A pigeon would have got more attention. I do love that about India. In the most mundane places; a train station, on the side of the road; there’s always something interesting to see.

At 11:30 PM I boarded the Guwahati Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Express for the 46 hour leg of the journey to Mumbai. It’s a good thing I had got my appetite back. The men in the compartment bought me cups of tea. The women stuffed me with sweets, cherry cake, sesame biscuits and cheese straws. For breakfast I was served toast, potato cakes and chili sauce. For lunch and dinner it was roti, rice, dhal and aloo gobi. Well fed, lying on cotton sheets; my bunk was perfect place to read the final volume of Harry Potter.

Roots

Monday was my last day in Darjeeling. Not surprisingly I didn’t feel like eating the day away. I read somewhere that drinking flat Coke was an effective way to relieve an upset stomach. So that was my sustenance for the day. It seemed to work, though I had forgotten about the weakness and lethargy that followed vomiting. To be honest I didn’t really give it much thought. I was on a mission!

If I had known I was going to end up in this part of India before I left home, I would of course done a lot more groundwork. But I hadn’t. All I had to go on were rough memories of conversations I had had at Christmas with my grandfather (on my mothers side), Donald. I knew that until the mid 1930s he had lived in the area with his parents and siblings. My great-grandfather had worked on the railways, and for some reason I associated my great-grandmother with horse-racing (gambling not riding them).  As far as geography was concerned, all I could remember was Darjeeling. In the window of a photo printing shop I noticed a collection of  “bygone” photos of the city. Inside the shop, I found the same photos, but on “Now and then” postcards. Other than one half being in black & white, the two images on each postcard were remarkably similar; same tin-roofed wooden buildings, a few horses here and there. I find it’s hard to tell how old things are in India. I’ve seen 120 year-old locomotives outshine their 5 year-old carriages. I’ve walked past shells of buildings not knowing whether I should be appreciating their historical significance, or waiting for the builders to come back from their tea break. Darjeeling, judging by the postcards, still contained many of its Victorian era buildings. What had changed was the spaces between them. The once white picket-fence lined lawns around each building were now bustling bazaars or blocks of concrete. In between the cracks Darjeeling’s history could still be found.

Going past the square, where indeed children still rode donkeys as they did 80 years ago, I accidentally found the city library. Inside I couldn’t see any books, just a few women reading newspapers by a roaring fire. As I glanced at the fire I was relieved to see that it was burning coal (and not the books). I was relayed between librarians until I was introduced to an old man who understood enough of what I said to figure out that I was interested in local history. Firstly, he proudly gave me a tour of the library. The books were in the basement. Again I wouldn’t have guessed that one half was built in 1874 and the other in 1982. In the librarians office, where a red-hot wood-burning stove was burning, the librarian pulled out a key from his inside pocket. I got the impression that he didn’t often get visitors (especially foreign ones), and even less frequently did he get the opportunity to use the key. The key opened a safe from which he took out a book that he presented to me with both hands. I don’t remember the exact name of the book. I think it might have simply been “A History of Darjeeling”. It had only been published in 1969, yet I could tell to the librarian it was his Gutenberg Bible. I treated it as carefully as I could without having a face mask and white gloves to hand. I wanted to prove to the librarian that the book was worth cherishing. For every piece of information I got from the book, I made a point of involving the librarian: “Ah yes, the municipal records office. That’s by the clock-tower?”, “The Governor’s house; It still exists?”, “So census’s are taken every ten years?”. The librarian’s grin grew bigger with each answer or confirmation. By the time I returned the book and did the two hands together  “thank you” gesture, he was nearly crying with joy.

As I passed the church, I wondered how Christian the overseers really were. Wasn’t the church more of a pillar to the ex-pat community? Next to the church, I found the gentlemens club. I guess the two formed a typical Sunday; church in the morning, then lunch and the afternoon at the club. The receptionist very kindly gave me a tour. The club was constructed in 1909, and as far as I could see hadn’t been renovated since then. Inside there was a banquet hall, a very dusty library, a couple of bars and lounges, and a sports hall. On the walls were more photos of bygone Darjeeling including shots of Lebong horse-racing ground. Was this where my great-grandmother spent her days and the family fortune? I was told by receptionist that if I came back later, the club manager could dig-out the guestbook and  membership records from the 1930s.

Further along the road, I came across the Governor’s house. Surrounded by rolling lawns, lakes and monkey puzzler trees, it would have been easy to miss. The man with the double-barreled shotgun wouldn’t let me inside the compound, but I was permitted to take one cheeky photo. With its blue doomed roof and golden lion crest, the building was both imposing and beautiful. Until now I never really thought the British presence in India was to be taken seriously. Every now and then they would decide to get out the big train set, the locals would humor them, but for most the time it was a life of leisure; cricket and horse-racing. I imagined small, close-knit communities where everybody knew the Governor. Seeing this white castle made me re-evaluate the scale of it all.

Back down the road, I walked in to the municipal records office. After the staff has ascertained that I wasn’t lost, the conversation level dropped  so that everyone could listen-in on what I had to say. When I asked to see the census the room went silent. When I asked to see the 1931 census they gasped!

Later that day I got an email from my grandfather. I had got my facts all skewed. My family had occasionally holidayed in Darjeeling, but for most of the time they lived nearer Calcutta. To be honest it didn’t really matter that I had been barking up the wrong tree. My aimless quest had given me a chance to interact with people and go to places off the usual tourist circuit. The people I met didn’t want to sell me anything, or anything in return. They were genuinely happy to share their time and knowledge with me. The tiniest fact etched an increasingly vivid picture of the past in my mind. Making history personal had bought it to life for the day.

Lazy days

Darjeeling sits on the side of a really high hill covered in tea plantations. Because the freshest leaves are continuously picked off the top of the tea plants, they end up with a very distinct flat-top haircut. The city therefore looks like it’s sitting on a giant blanket of broccoli florets. From the north, Darjeeling is only accessible by jeep up a very steep track. At the jeep stand on the way here, I met a guy called Tim; also from England. Tim was on his way from Sikkim to Calcutta, stopping at Darjeeling for some R&R before starting a month of volunteer work. I’m really glad I bumped in to him. I ended up checking in to the same hotel where for the past two days I’ve been living in a world of coziness.

On Saturday morning I had my first encounter with the Indian postal service. I needed to send home the memorabilia I had collected along with my photos and surplus clothes. The actual posting part was very straightforward and surprisingly inexpensive. The spectacle of the process was the packing. A Jiffy bag would of course be too simple for India. This was a job for a professional. The packer waddled out from behind the post office counter with a small table in one hand, and a toolbox in the other. He set the table down in the middle of the hall, and instructed me to place my items on the tabletop. He arranged them in to a compact bundle, and placed them inside a paper bag. From his toolbox, the packer produced a sheet of muslin that he wrapped around the bag. With a curved needle and a thick thread, he sewed the fabric together. Next out of the toolbox was a candle, a stick of red wax, and a seal stamp. These he used to seal the seams of the muslin. The customs slip was of course sewn on and sealed too. I wish I had taken a photo. I hope my brother will when he eventually receives it.

Other than sending the parcel, all I’ve done here in Darjeeling is eat and drink. I’ve been working my way through the contents of a local bakery with two lovely girls from Seattle, Helen and Melissa. For breakfast, and usually again in the afternoon, we sat in wicker chairs in the bakery’s sun lounge eating cakes, pies, and marzipan sweets. On the table there was always a pot of hot, fresh Darjeeling tea. I’ve been saying a long goodbye to the menu of the Tibetan restaurant downstairs. As I travel south, dinners of mo-mos, noodles, soup and spring rolls will fall off the horizon with my Himalayan view. I’m pretty sure I’ll be tasting banana lassis again though. I can’t imagine the sweets can taste better anywhere else than they do here. I can spot the syrupy brown and white balls in the window of a shop across a street full of traffic. I don’t know their names, I don’t know their ingredients; I don’t care. Kingfisher beer, I last night found, is at its best when smuggled in to hotel (by the hotel staff) wrapped in newspaper. To open them we used a dagger and the rim of a teapot. The Jack Daniel’s miniatures my grandparents gave me for Christmas were well appreciated by my American friends and I.

Right. I’m off to the sweet shop.

A couple of hours after writing the above, my guts started to feel odd. It felt like snake eggs had hatched inside stomach. I curled up in to a fetal position, thought happy thoughts and in a couple of hours, I assured myself, the feeling would pass. I drank a little water to dilute the contents of my digestive tract. The water on only made me feel more bloated to the point where I could hear a sloshing sound whenever I moved my body. My stomach was letting nothing past it. In an instant I vacated its contents through my mouth and nose in to the rubbish bin. Thankfully not a drop made it on to the carpet. The bag that was lining the bin swelled; a good sign it was not perforated. I now felt so much better. I hid the bag of vomit somewhere on the hotel roof. I wasn’t ashamed of it, I just thought it would be better off out in the fresh air.

It can’t be a coincidence that after bragging about my gluttony I get food poisoning for the first time in 9 years? Maybe there is more to the world than meets the eye? Whatever force was at play, I’m comforted to know that it has very devious sense of humour!

 

Keeping it real

  As planned I woke up at 5 AM on Tuesday. I got dressed and left the hotel where taxi was waiting outside. The taxi was there to take me to Kathmandu airport for a mountain flight. I had gone through the same routine on the previous day and, as I had been warned could happen, the flight had been cancelled due to poor visibility. Again today I wasn’t going to let myself get excited.

  At the airport I got approached by an American guy who I had met on the previous day. The conversation got on to how in a hundred years or so there will probably be a lot fewer currencies in the world. At one of the museums I visited recently, the former King’s coin collection was on display. The collection contained many of the pre-Euro currencies. Looking at the French francs and Spanish pesetas flooded me with memories.

  The francs took me back to a camping trip to Brittany in 1990. It was the first time I had had paper money, which compared to coins seemed more precious. I had to spend it wisely. In the campsite shop I discovered these new chocolate bars called Dime. Also there were two other types of Mars bars in France; with almonds and dark chocolate covered. Of course I didn’t spend all my money on chocolate. Some of it went on hiring a pedalo to impress a girl from Bolton. Her brother threw sand in my face later that day.

  200 pesetas was my family’s daily budget for food in Madrid in 1992. At the vegetable market I would buy one kilo of tomatoes. In the supermarket I would point at the baguettes and say “dos”. With the change we could treat ourselves to either crisps, Nutella or cheese. I didn’t share these memories with the American. They’re too precious to me; meaningless to anyone else. Maybe if I had the American wouldn’t have shared his
  “Oh man, yeah I remember Guilders. Got my first hooker with Guilders 20 years ago”
I looked at him blankly.
  “Oh man, don’t tell me you’ve never been with a hooker?”
I shrugged.
  “Dude! You can’t be serious? How old are you?”
  “28. And you?”
  “41 and keeping it real!”
I said nothing. He stared at me smiling in amazement. In his eyes I was too old to be naïve of such things. By my age he had probably experienced the sex trade in as many countries as he had visited. I guess he figured I was a late starter; and so out of politeness he changed the subject
  “Dude. How much luggage you got?”
  “About 8 kilos. You?”
He smiled smugly and turned to show me the daypack sized bag on his back.
  “This is my lot”
I faked an expression of curiosity. He came closer to me and in a lowered voice said
  “I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 7 days”
Again I faked intrigue. He proudly nodded and smiled. At the departure gate, the attendant called out a flight number.
  “That’s me”
As he walked towards the gate he smiled and gave me the thumbs-up. In his eyes he had imparted the golden knowledge. He had opened the door and showed me the way.

  A flight across along the Himalayas to Mount Everest and back in a 20 seater turbo-prop sounds pretty cool. Maybe in expectation of the flight being cancelled I had numbed myself to the experience. Somehow I knew this wasn’t really true. I could figure it out later.

  In the afternoon I started my journey from Kathmandu. The first leg was a 17 hour overnight bus journey to Kakarbhitta; a border-town on the east side of Nepal. On the bus next to me were about a dozen cardboard boxes. Each box contained about 20 chicks. The joint chirping of 200 baby chickens was actually a really sweet sound. I was a little worried how the stench of ammonia might build-up over the hours, but I assured myself it would be too gradual to notice. Unlike the mountain flight, I had the feeling I was going somewhere. When the bus accelerated, my window would slide open. It was too low for me too fall out, but a perfect height for whatever was on my lap to bounce out. The bus would only brake when whatever was in front would not respond to the horn. This didn’t leave much time to brake. With every application my shins were slammed in to the square-edged metal bar at the base of the seat in front of me. My favourite surprise was when the bus would go over an unexpected bump in the road. My whole body would shoot up out of my seat. This would make me giggle like a girl, but also slam my head in to the luggage rack above. This in turn would set the chicks off in a frenzy of chirping. For every moment of the journey I was feeling something. It felt real. I felt great.

  At Kakarbhitta, I said goodbye to Nepal. I walked across no-mans land to India. The India I entered in West Bengal felt so very different to the place I left in Uttar Pradesh. This India felt relaxed and airy. Maybe it wasn’t just India that had changed? I felt comfortable, in control and confident. For the next seven hours I took many jeeps and taxis. At one point sixteen of us were sandwiched in to (and on to) a jeep; five of which on the same seat row as me. We were so compacted that if I breathed in enough air, the old man to the right of me would let out a little cry; my expanded ribcage was crushing him. To the left of me, on the lap of its parents, was a eight month old baby. If the baby was facing in my direction it would tug at my arm hair and tickle me by sticking it’s fist in my armpit. When it was faced in the opposite direction it would try to crawl out the window. Flanking us at the windows were two soldiers with big grins and big guns.

  When I got in to my final taxi, I had a pounding headache behind my eyeballs. The taxi drivers choice of music worked better than any painkiller; Vengaboys, Wigfield and Backstreet Boys. At the end of two intense but great days on the road I was in Sikkim.

  I only gave myself one day in Sikkim. To make the most of my time I got my hotelier to make me an itinerary of the local sights, and hired a jeep with driver for the day. I spent the day being driven through lush jungle stopping every now and then at waterfalls and monasteries. By mid-afternoon I was rattling my brains as to why I felt so numb and melancholy again. I was in paradise, why wasn’t I feeling it? As I was driven along the winding roads, I tried to recount all the times I had felt this way during my trip. The penny dropped. I don’t like sightseeing. My happiest times have been adventures, encounters with people and animals, getting lost, going places; not looking at something and taking a picture. I need to be in the picture. At our next stop, a serene and sacred buddhist lake, I tested the theory. I walked straight past the visitor centre, the place where you take “the photo” and charged in to the jungle. Much better.

  I’m now in the lounge of a very cosy hotel in Darjeeling. It reminds me of the Gryffindor common room in Hogwarts. Lots of bookcases, a very hairy dog at my feet, and the warmest wood burning stove ever. There are lots of other lovely travellers here, who for most of the evening I have sadly had to ignore to write this.

  We went to dinner at a Tibetan restaurant. I’m now back by the fire chatting with them.

Catch up

The last days of the trek were long, hot slogs. But that didn’t matter because like many experiences when they near their end, the days miraculously become golden. Every animal I saw was cute and young; Muscovy ducklings, yak calves, mountain dog puppies. Rainbows appeared in waterfalls, new and lush plants sprouted. Every person I passed was smiling, children would wave and say “Namaste”. On the penultimate day I spent the afternoon sat in a natural hot spring. It was next to a waterfall, the water felt and smelt incredible, but best of all I had the whole place to myself. As I was floating in the water looking up through the jungle it hit me. I’m on holiday for six months. I can do as little  or a much as I like, and it’s just started.

On the last day of the trek, Deepak invited me round to his place for dinner. This time I didn’t refuse the invitation.

Back in Pokhara I caught a reflection of my hairy face as I walked past a barbers. My moustache was growing in to my mouth and my neck was covered in red hairs. In the hotel I would have to shave with cold water and very little light. I didn’t have any scissors to trim the tache so I thought perhaps I could singe it to length. Then I thought this was a silly thing to think and went in to the barbers for a cut-throat shave. Wow! I got shaved three times with new blades. The guy avoided shaving off the mole on my neck, or the tip of my adams-apple. The back of my neck, my nostrils and my eyebrows all got unexpectedly trimmed too. After the shaving, the barber sprayed my face with Flash and rubbed it in with a rock. Then came the massage. The man knew exactly what I needed. He cracked his knuckles on my skull, pushed my eyeballs deep in to their sockets, punched me in the back of the neck, slapped me across the forehead, twisted my arms behind my back, gave my wrists Chinese burns and finished off  by cracking all my fingers and thumbs.

Deepak’s place was a small room on the ground floor of a large house. Half of the room was consumed by the bed, and in the remaining space stood a wardrobe, a cupboard and a kitchen unit. He lived there with his beautiful wife of five months, Anu. Together they made me the best meal I’ve had so far; dhal bhat and buff (buffalo) curry. I had had the dishes before, but never with such fresh coriander and chillies; nor with such perfectly cooked rice. After dinner we drank tea and looked though their photos. When invited in to someones home, and especially for dinner, I know it pays to crank up the charm and the compliments no matter how alien or inaesthetic I find the place. Maybe I did it so much I brainwashed myself; because for that evening as I ate good food next to a tree full of birds and a view of the mountains, it felt like a better life than I and many others have in the world I came from.

The next morning I caught a bus to Chitwan national park in south Nepal. I had signed up for a 3 day package at one of the park’s resorts. Also joining me were a Finish couple, Tiina and Juhis, Wencong from Shanghai, and Sandy from Tibet. We visited the elephant stables, the park’s museum and watched the sunset over the Rapti river.

The next morning we were punted along the river in a dug-out canoe. It was so foggy the banks of the river were barely visible. Still we managed to see lots of kingfishers and lovebirds. Back on land we did a bit of tracking; checking out poo, footprints and dry patches of ground where animals had lain. Walking in to the jungle we startled some wild boar and deer, but didn’t bother the peacocks perching on the treetops. We visited the elephant breeding centre and met a pair of twin calves born in 2008 (twins are quite rare for elephants). Some of the calves had been chained up. Unlike their parents, who were chained up to stop them throwing cars and demolishing houses, the calves had been detained to control their diet. I understood why when I saw a tourist feeding one the free roaming calves a bag of plastic rubbish. The urge to punch a middle-aged woman in the face is an interesting one. I stared daggers at her hoping I’d at least expose some guilt or afterthought. There wasn’t any.

The highlight of the day was the elephant bath-time. When I waded in to the warm water, my elephant was lying down. I crawled up on to her back, and she steadily rose. Her mahout spoke a command which made her fill her trunk with water and spray it in my face. The second command made her jolt her body sideways tossing Juhis, Wencong and I in to the river. To mount the elephant now she was standing, I had to grab hold of her ears, walk up her trunk and frog-leap over her head. It was actually a lot easier to do than getting out of some swimming pools. Again she hosed us down and chucked us in to the river.

In the afternoon, and after we had dried off, we got in to the back of a jeep and drove in to the jungle for some safari. Within ten minutes we spotted a male rhino. He had lost one of his ears fighting, and was known to be aggressive. Standing in the back of a jeep staring at this prehistoric looking monster for a moment felt like I was in Jurassic Park. The jeep moved closer and closer until the rhino got pissed-off  and chased us away. Over the next four hours I saw a sloth bear, monkeys, crocodiles, wild boar, deer and lots of birds. In some ways the anticipation and suspense of a keeping a look-out was more exciting than observing the animals.

In the evening we celebrated Sandy’s birthday. A Dutch girl and couple of Japanese guys joined us at our table. I broke 4 weeks of teetotalism by having a couple of glasses of beer. My face got decorated by with tikka, and we played a couple of drinking games. One game involved passing tissue paper between our mouths using only our mouths until the paper got so small we were practically kissing each other. We also played a typically filthy game of “I’ve never”.

The following morning we safaried on the back of an elephant. It was amazing to see how we were now completely invisible to the animals; all they saw was the elephant. We got very close to deer and a family of rhino.

I’m now in Kathmandu where I’ve been doing the sights with Wencong and Sandy for a few days. It seems that so many of the notable buildings, squares and other places to visit here are related to religion. Yes I can appreciate what I see technically and aesthetically, but any spiritual or religious significance is met with a void in my head. Here, where everybody belongs to a religion, I’m now questioning whether there is something missing inside of me. Can billions of people really be slightly mad?

ABC Day 8

I think eating ginger gives me strange dreams. I dreamt that I was trying to get my family’s Springer spaniel, Morgan, out of Islamabad by punting through the city’s underground water network on an upturned break crate. To protect us, as I expertly navigated the sandy caverns, I had a Uzi 9mm stuffed in the back of my trousers. This and other equally farcical dreams were interuppted not by animals, but by small avalanches. They make such a pleasing sound. Crunching, rumbling and cracking; kind of a cross between thunder and walking on fresh snow. The other sound in the otherwise silent Annapurna  punchbowl was the glaciers. Every time a part of these icy giants moved, expanded or contracted, the sound would ripple across the entire glacier. Like a que of a million ice cubes groaning as they reluctantly edged forward one millimetre.

I woke up with a mouthful of blood. I had had another nosebleed, but where I had lain horizontally it had trickled down the back of nose in to my mouth.

Yesterday the landscape had made euphoric, today I now felt that it could chew me up in an instant and not give a dam. Where I was there getting all humbled and emotional, the mountains would probably be happier if I never existed. I now wanted to get away from the place and I wasn’t looking forward to the return journey. Not only would it be the pinnacle of come-downs, I would also have to go back the same route. Even on the more mundane trips to work, the shop, or the station, I don’t like to retrace my footsteps. To do so feels like I’m annulling or erasing part of my timeline. I guess Deepak picked up on this or felt the same way. With our descent not limited by altitude change, we left the Annapurnas determined to cover as much distance as possible.

We had been walking for over 13 hours, the sun had set and now it was pitch black. We were somewhere in the jungle. Just before sunset we passed a lodge, but we had stayed there before. To stay there again would be to see the place through a sickening mirror image; and so we carried on. I had hoped for some starlight, but as we descended we entered an area of thick condensing fog. I turned on my headtorch hoping that my choice of Chinese batteries, and not Duracell, would not backfire on me. The light from the headtorch was perpendicular to my line of sight. As I could not see shadows, variations in the path such as tree roots or rocks were not discernable in the usual sense. I noticed that the rocks and silt on the path contained a pretty even concentration of very shiny metallic particles. I could roughly tell how far away the path was by how spangley it was. I also used my cane in the style of a blind man; sweeping  it left to right across my path ahead. This is how I walked for many hours.

I’m too tired to write about the noises of animals in the jungle, the way the lights of the village seemed to disappear or move away from us, how good the hot shower felt, how perfect that mutton curry tasted and most of all how good it feels to finally be in bed.

ABC Day 7

I’m now at Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), the climax of the trek. It wasn’t porridge or sleep that got me through this mornings hike. Once I had the snow-covered peaks in my sight, I was carried by rushes and waves of the most amazing feeling. It was like a new vital sign suddenly came to life. Tingles bouncing up and down my spine made every hair on my body stand on end. I couldn’t feel my legs, the weight on my back, or the temperature. I just wanted to get as close to the mountains as possible, open up all my senses and let go; and that’s exactly what I did.

I now realise that it’s not about personal achievement, boasting about altitude, or if you were the first or the last. It’s about a place, a time, and how you feel for that moment in your life.

ABC Day 6

Again a great morning thanks to lots of sleep and porridge. Today’s leg should have taken 5 hours, but Deepak and I stormed through it in 3. Next to complete it was the Ecuadorian, and finally the Australians. I had the energy and would have liked and would have liked to have walked for a lot longer, however to avoid altitude sickness it’s best to limit the amount of ascent per day and give time to acclimatise. Our speedy walking was helped by the sub-zero temperatures and walking in the shade. The downside of this was that my shoes and clothing retained a lot of moisture both from the air and my perspiration. Once we arrived at our destination, I had to strip off as much of the wet clothing as was socially acceptable and find some sunlight to dry it in. The low temperature also made the walking conditions more treacherous. I had to walk across a waterfall on ice-covered wobbly stepping-stones. Weighing what I do it’s a pretty scary thing to do. The bigger you are, the harder you fall.

I spent the afternoon sitting in the lodge dining hall watching the snow fall and chatting with the other trekkers. My first impression of the Australians was a bit harsh. They’re actually very easy to get along with and aren’t really bigoted at all. The Ecuadorian girl is nice too, and again I feel bad for prejudging her as being offish on the basis of her having a female guide. I suppose having so many English speakers around me made me feel less special and unique. It was narcissistic of me to believe that I was some kind of explorer venturing in to the unknown. In reality I’m walking on an established trekking trail in the footsteps of hundreds of thousands from all over the world. With my ego in check, I had a wonderful afternoon and evening with my fellow trekkers. We ended the night eating Daal Bhat together by the light of a kerosene lamp.

I also discovered (new to me of course) a type of animal. It’s a herbivorous rodent about the same size as a small guinea pig. It didn’t have a tail and didn’t seem as timid as a rat or mouse.

ABC Day 5

Twelve hours of dream packed sleep and a large bowl of porridge with honey was a great way to start the day. The massive nosebleed I had after breakfast only made me feel better. Maybe I needed to equalise my blood pressure with the lower atmospheric pressure. With my aches and pains no longer on my thoughts, I spent most of the day chatting with Deepak as we walked. I was shocked to find out how much the caste system shapes peoples lives in Nepal. You’re born in to the caste of your parents. You can only marry someone of the same caste. Well you could marry someone of a higher caste, but they would be shunned by their family, or you would not be welcome in their family home. Deepak’s caste prevents him from getting a government job or owning a business; even a small lodge or tea house. When you introduce yourself you’re required to state your caste. If you don’t you cannot escape that it is printed on your ID card and will never ever change. I’m trying not to apply my western values to my experiences, but this is a hard thing to come to terms with. Am I missing something?

It’s a bit of a mash-up at my current lodge. A group of Korean girls are begrudgingly staying here. They wanted to keep on walking but it got dark. There’s an Ecuadorian girl with her guide from The Three Sisters agency; a very popular agency who provide female guides for female trekkers. The most prominent guests are two middle-aged Australian brothers accompanied by their teenage sons. There’s also a handful of guides, the lodge madame, and her 15 month old daughter.

The Australian men are holding court in the dining hall. They’ve been drinking all afternoon and are now making racist and sexist jokes. Thankfully the jokes have gone over the heads of the Koreans, but the Ecuadorian has just stormed off to her room. The guides are in fits of giggles having just had a cheeky smoke, and the lodge owner is politely laughing along. I don’t think the teenage sons are even cringing with embarrassment; it’s just another day with dad. I’m sat outside in the dark writing this and wondering whether to join the fun or go to bed?

I went to bed.