Into the Mountains

‎"There are times when being right feels wrong. What do you say about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die." –Hunter S. Thompson

I’m back in a bus, heading out for an eleven-day solo trek through the well-developed Annapurna Circuit deep in the Himalayas. I arrive in Pokhara, a mellowed out tourist haven nestled in between rice paddied jungle and a placid lake beneath epic mountains I can’t actually see due to cloud coverage. Ke garne? (Nepali term/general South Asian attitude meaning “what to do?”). The billboard pictures will have to fill in for the real thing I suppose. I take a hatch back cab to the permit office and my fifty year old driver flips on his audio system. We cruise down the quiet and surprisingly clean streets of Pokhara bumping Justin Bieber for the entire subcontinent to hear while my driver harmoniously sings along to the lyrics of “Baby Baby” waving his finger back and forth…Keepin’ it real…My eyes slowly drift from right to left and then straight ahead. Irrefutable evidence that human evolution reached its capacity a long, long time ago. I suppose I am also a reflection of that statement. Ke garne?

I catch a bus after getting my permit for the national park and head to the town of Besi Sahar. I pass a cow munching on burning garbage with a large blood crusted hole on the side of his cheek. His head is swollen like a poorly inflated watermelon. I mistake a snow-capped mountain for a white puffy cloud—surreal. I make friends with a Nepali named Kalvin and another named Raj who shares his cigarette with me and another dude on the bus. A man in front of me slowly sips on a can of Tuborg beer. Substance abuse and driving are not mutually exclusive events in Nepal. I watch an old Nepali lady with a nose ring attached to her ear wearing a sarai with tattoos covering her arms and legs wack goats with a stick and yell, “Huah huah huah!” a few times, as people fight to jump on our bus with baskets of moldy bananas, stale chips, cold looking water that is probably warm, and these odd cucumber looking vegetables with spicy dip to sell. I have two bottles of water and as I am drinking one this sweaty middle aged nepali man with a twisted look in his eye and a mouth full of pulsating red beetle nut, rotten teeth, and bleeding gums holds a water bottle up to me and goes, “EHN?! EHN!?”…Thanks but no thanks…He leaves me alone after 8 minutes or so.

The next day I head to the bus station and hop onto the roof of a jeep with an older dude. We then embark onto a newly built road, which is actually really just a combination of large rocks and thick mud. The jeep breaks down after 30 minutes and I hop aboard a bus for around an hour and then I’m forced to grab another jeep—back on the roof. However, this time we are literally bulling our way through three feet of fat mud and as we throttle forward we begin to tip heavily to the left side a solid 45 degrees with the tires almost coming off the ground. An injection of adrenaline and fear runs from the base of my spine through my veins and into my heart as I prepare for the vehicle to tip over completely onto its roof with me on top. I begin to stand up to jump off but just as I do the driver plants down on the accelerator and the jeep spins off left, right, and the violently forward, plowing through the muddy soup in front of us. The people in the caged compartment below all begin laughing and clapping as does the old man and myself—this exact scenario happens at least four more times. We have to exit the vehicle at one point to walk across a section with a waterfall while our drivers leap out with pick axes to chop up the rough sections of the “road”. They pick us back up about 15 minutes later and we roll on. A few lizards skitter across us and we pass villagers farming rice, vegetables, and cannabis, soaring past hundred foot waterfalls splashing down into the churning river alongside our trail. We reach the end of the drivable path shorter than I planned due to a recent landslide. I later found out that five people had died taking jeeps on the other side of the trail a few weeks ago. I pay double the local price and continue on foot for the next ten days, headed for the desolate Thorong La pass at 5416 meters near the Tibetan border and the fabled arid snow-desert Kingdom of Mustang (pronounced Moo-stang).

The scene is similar to King Kong or Jurassic Park. Dozens of waterfalls pouring into the vibrant greenery, many of which are several hundred feet with giant jungled mountains carved into gnarled shapes from the furious Marsyangdi River. The river can really only be described as violent, getting close to it sounds like a hundred airplanes taking off and there is no doubt in my mind that if you fell in you would die—Instantly. I cross the river back and forth on hundred foot steel lined suspension bridges, maneuvering my way between farting donkeys carrying propane tanks and local porters bringing the most important and essential goods for survival to the villages; things such as Snickers bars and Pringles. What would we do without them? The porters tend to carry five times (no exaggeration) the amount of weight as foreign trekkers while wearing shorts, t-shirts, and rubber flip flops of shoddy quality. They strap the baggage to their head in order to avoid loading their back too heavily. Tourists in fanny packs, waterproof hundred dollar hiking boots, under armor and walking sticks huffing and puffing, getting passed by their fifty year old porter carrying his body weight in their unnecessary gear wearing a tank top in frigid weather walking across a waterfall in handed down crocs while smoking a cheap cigarette. I stop after a few hours of trekking and begin cooking Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on a camping stove I borrowed from my volunteer position back in Kathmandu. A porter comes by and stares at me without saying anything for about two minutes. I offer him some of my adolescent pasta. He doesn’t react. Three minutes of stillness later he leaves. Marijuana grows wild like crazy throughout the trail. I’m sitting next to a massive pot field, cooking macaroni and cheese in the Himalayas near several hundred plus foot water falls with no one around but that single porter for miles—and some grazing cows with bells attached to their necks. The river makes it both quiet and loud, depending on where my focus of attention is.

I roll silently and steadily for the next couple days as my thoughts breakout into uncontrollable spins due to a lack of human interaction. People really do ground you I’ve found. If you don’t believe me, then go do a 10-day Vipassana course and then you will find out how insane you truly are alone. I’m trekking in the off-season and there are virtually no tourists in the area. I am the only one at my guesthouses and I have not seen another westerner for days. My conversations are limited to telling people coming down from the mountains that I am from America or saying “Namaste” to a toothless man carrying a steel-wired crate full of clucking feathery white chickens. Things come and go. I realize stillness is something to be found, not made, which is why I find formal meditation to be unnecessary and most of the time useless—most of the time. Waves of despair, stress, bliss, rapture, boredom, nothingness, and all that in between float through and around me.

I cross waterfall after waterfall, unfortunately soaking my feet and blistering my soles to the point where I have to awkwardly walk on my heels at night to avoid the stinging pain of placing weight on my toes. Like rusty nails coming through the floorboard with every step. At least I can order Apple Pie with a Mars bar baked into it so complaints are at a minimum. I come across one waterfall that is aggressively spilling onto the trail, causing one tour group to go down, around, and then back up to avoid the danger. However, I don’t want to spend an extra 15 minutes doing this and I figure I’ll go for the main trail since the porters aren’t bothering to waste time and are going right across the gushing water. I follow one dude in flip-flops carrying a basket of one thing or another strapped to his head. We get halfway across the fall and I realize instantly I made a really really big mistake. The water is powerful—way more powerful than I realized. Its pushing me with a unrelenting tenacity and I realize in a jolt that I won’t be able to walk across it. I’m going to have to run or else I’m going to be blown off the edge of the falls, which unfortunately for me is a straight 70-foot drop into sharp rocks below. I move in synch with the porter in front of me, leaping two to three feet from rock to rock about 8 inches from a freefall of certain death. The rocks are all submerged in water and one slip will be all it takes, as I am carrying a pack of around 50 pounds due to my cooking equipment. No thought takes place. I just move silently and gracefully across the fifteen-foot pass and land safely with a thud onto dusty sand and rock. I look back at the Nepalis on the other side who watched me cross and I begin laughing and nodding my head, feeling deeply shaken. I scold myself for doing this and promise out loud not to do it again…I later cross paths with this 1500 meter slab of rock that curves up and over like a massive skateboarding ramp. Locals call it the gateway to heaven and say that souls have to pass over it to reach the divine. I see no souls but I did see some construction workers and lots of cow shit—not sure if there is a connection there. I will report back if I find one.

Seven days, two Canadian friends, eight Snickers bars, and one massive mouth watering Yak burger later I am at Thorong Pedi—4500 meters up. I’ve been travelling with two Canadians for the past few days. They were volunteering down in the steamy malaria infested Terai for the summer. I crossed paths with them on a side trip back from Mila Repa’s Cave in the village of Manang. I’ve mentioned Mila Repa before. He was a Yogi in the 13^th century who learned Black Magic, using it to create a hailstorm to kill thirty people before becoming enlightened. The people he actually killed were mainly his extended family. In his defense, it was his mother who requested him to do so, as it was over a land dispute I believe. I like the story because it reveals that not all holy people are really holy—at least in the beginning. The Karmapa, who I’ve met several times on this trip, is a direct descendent from the lineage of Mila Repa, cool stuff. At Thorong Pedi I play chess with a Chinese couple’s Nepali guide (forgot his name), drink some local whisky (Roxie), and experience a sense of disillusionment upon discovering that wireless Internet exists here. A guide tells me a Spanish woman who got altitude sickness had to be helicoptered out with her family for several thousand dollars. People die up here (about three a year) to the extreme conditions of cold, terrain, and altitude—yet wireless Internet and small movie theaters are comfortably at home in the “isolated” Himalayas like yak. I suppose if I want authenticity I have to go on a “cultural village tour”—what? Globalization and the post-modern world is actually far more interesting than Shangri-la if you can get over the initial culture shock that maybe you really haven’t left your American reality that far behind…12,000 clicks really isn’t that far these days it would seem…That’s one of the most important things I’ve learned on this entire trip, aside from the real journey is within but then again, someone told me that last bit way before I left. Complexity and the relationship between ancient tradition and technological innovation. However, far west and east Nepal is actually untouched and the Great Himalayan Trail has been calling my name for a while so we will see what we see I suppose as time unfolds.

My Canadian friends inform me that there is no such thing as Canadian Bacon, that their socialized healthcare system is excellent, education is a fraction of the price compared to the states, and that there are lots of crack heads in Vancouver. All very useful information. I want to loosen my load and feed my friends so I decide to cook some Mac and cheese for them. I set the stove up in the concrete bathroom attached to our room and lit the petrol. I’m supposed to close the valve after lighting the flame but instead I accidently open it up to its near capacity, spilling petrol all over the place and igniting my bathroom floor in a chemical fire. Fortunately, I remain calm and manage to put it all out in a two minutes time. I’ve been in this position before. Once when I was 12 years old I was playing with aerosol cans, gasoline, and fire because, you know, I’m a responsible and intelligent person. I set my garage floor, door, and wall on fire with gasoline after accidently spilling it all over the place (heavy canister). I then tried to stomp it out but because of the liquid—I slipped and fell in it, lighting both my legs aflame. I then ran screaming out into the grass to roll around to put it out. My buddy found the fire extinguisher, saving the garage. I spent the next couple months peeling bandages and painfully torched skin scabs off my leg—good times. So, as you can imagine when I ignited our Himalayan toilet, I could handle the situation with composure and experience. Our bathroom smelled like a combination of shit and gasoline for the next several hours—I think they should make that an Airwick flavor. It could be the next big thing, you would just need to market it to the scat fetish and gas huffing crowd. You know the type—people in Arkansas and Mississippi.

…Sorry…

We wake up at 4:15 A.M. for breakfast and begin heading up a vertical blue haze trail of broken slate at 5 A.M. with the Chinese couple, a Belgium couple, and the Nepali guide who I played chess with the day before. We reach a desolate empty moonscape of broken crust and smoky fog. It is silent, crunchy and very cold. Several hours of wandering at over 5000 meters we reach some Tibetan prayer flags and a pile of stones. Each step feels like a thousand at this altitude. We are at 5400 meters at this point and 15 minutes from one of the highest trekking passes in the world. A massive wall of rock and ice looms off in the distance towering over us, partially hidden behind the eerie fog. I stop and rest. The group continues on without me. I pull out some prayer flags from my bag and write “Papa” on them and string them up for my grandfather who passed away two weeks ago. My hands are so frigid that moving each finger takes conscious effort, as if I can hear them cracking in the joints. I stop and look at the flags. It is dead silent here—very quiet, not even wind. I can hear my breath and each step echoes off into the distance. I am alone. I look around. I take the scene in. A deep feeling moves and shifts inside of me. I realize something important. Oliver, my friend from Canada comes up a moment later and says in his Montreal accent, “Hey, are you okay? Everyone else is on the other side of the ridge waiting for you, we just wanted to make sure you are okay…We are almost there.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Come on man, lets do this, lets go to the top.” I reply, taking my hand and moving his shoulder towards the final stretch, walking away from the prayer flags and turning my head back towards them one more time, as they rest silently without movement, fading forever into the fog.

‎"The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with." - Pema Chodron