Over the hills and far away

Sunday, 02/12/2012 – 171 A.D.

Namaste!

This morning we were up at 08:00 and down for breakfast shortly afterwards. A table was free for us to sit at, but there was also a floods-worth of water on the floor, which the cleaning ladies were doing their best to brush out of the room and into the street. Had there been some kind of pipe leakage or was this just routine cleaning? We weren't sure, but the door was open again, though this time I had worn an extra layer.

Come 10:00 we were down in the lobby again and ready to get go on our day of trekking in the Kathmandu Valley! Sujan briefly introduced us to our guide (i.e. "Here is your guide." No name or anything). The driver was there as well, giving it the old bowed head greeting. Jeez, will I have to tip him as well? I hate to be cruel, but his motor was not in the best shape and did not look like it could cope with the kind of potholes you get in Kathmandu - so deep they go right to the Earth's core. Sujan had described the car that picked us up from the airport as "the worst car in the world", and assured us our own private car today would be better, but in all honesty...it weren't. 

The drive is supposed to take an hour, and it does, though 40 minutes of that is spent navigating our way out of the capital. Our guide's name is Bikesh and he makes smalltalk as we go and naturally tales of our round the world trip come out. I am ashamed to admit it, but I tell the one about the train in Thailand hitting the cow. I have that nagging feeling that anything could happen today...

So, after an hour we are out in rural Nepal. The car pulls up at the village of Sankhu, famous for nothing in particular, but a decent place to begin the trek we've booked onto. Actually, Sankhu has some excellent examples of traditional architecture and we stroll through the village to look at the buildings. With the clear blue sky overhead, I am already back on the suncream - who'd have thought I would be applying it in December?

In his leather jacket and casual shirt, Bikesh looks dressed to go to a club, in stark comparison to Tim and I in our four layers...make that three...make that two - they're rapidly coming off! Bikesh assures us he doesn't need to eat lunch and buys only a bottle of water. How tough a trek will this be? I've done overnight in the Forest of Bowland in a November frost and I need a challenge! 

The unnamed driver leaves us and we go off on foot along the dusty road. We decide to get our money's-worth and waste no time in questioning our local guide about all things Nepalese. Some of the things we learn about Bikesh are:

- Age unknown, semes to get older as the day goes on, but then again, I probably do as well! And he sweats more than I do early on, which I take as a source of pride, but it's mainly because he was on the sauce the night before, belatedly celebrating the country's second largest festival.

- He is Hindu by birth, but is an atheist by choice.

- He is a professional guide who used to be an exporter. Sorry, that's ex-porter, he didn't transport goods out of his country - geddit???

- He is of the magar caste and could've been a Gurkha if he wanted to (five of the numerous Nepalese castes can). But he didn't want to be and left the army after six months after something to do with his commanding officer ordering him to uproot a tree with his bare hands.

- He has a wife and one son who always loses his pencils in school.

- Before he had a wife and one son he went on a trek for 92 continuous days. He did this with two German men (ouch!)

Some of the things we discuss throughout the trek:

English football (of course!), Nepalese football, the price of a quarter bottle of whisky locally, Maoist revolutionaries, the assassination of the previous Nepalese royal family, why Chinese tourists are not adventurous, what religion means for the average person, why you never see cats in Kathmandu, snakes that aren't venomous, tigers that aren't fierce, gangnam style (must have been number one in the UK by now?), how to pass the time over 92 days with two German men, and cheese. 

At first the trek was pretty much what I am used to back in England. I didn't expect to be up in the mountains with crampons, but I kinda wished the scenery looked a little less like New Zealand in the warmth - been there, done that. Seeing rural Nepalese going about their daily business made it a little more authentic though. Bikesh reckoned about 25% of people in Nepal can speak English, but give it a few years and this percentage will be a lot higher. However, when walking through Thamel it seems like everyone can speak English, probably because most of them are - bloody tourists! But there were none of them out here.

[At a rest stop to nosh some choccy, Bikesh tells us of the time he chased away a tiger that was going to eat his goat by throwing his radio at it (which he never found afterwards).]

Bikesh is a cheery fellow who's done pretty much every trek you can do in the countries of Nepal and Tibet (let's not get into the debate on whether it's part of China or not!) He seemed a bit surprised that we were doing our walk so late in the day and not early in the morning when the views are better. We admitted that we fancied laying in a little and not getting up at the crack of dawn, but he still couldn't comprehend the logic. 

The road up into the hills got higher and higher, and the sun overhead got hotter and hotter. Now it was starting to feel like a proper trek, even though Bikesh kept telling us to slow down and relax. I had to explain to him that being a lanky boy I naturally walk fast, and when I'm camping up in the hills I'm often engaged in a race against the failing sunlight to pitch my tent, so it's natural for me to rush. Once again, he didn't comprehend the logic. Still, at least he seemed over his hangover. And come early afternoon we reached the summit of the road and looked out over yonder...

The mountains in the distance are the Himalayas themselves, right on the border between Nepal and Tibet. It was a fantastic sight to see, especially because I'd always wanted to visit Tibet, but been logistically denied on this trip - to get so close was a real bonus. It's the kind of sight you can stand there and talk at and not feel any embarrassment at all.  And I would have sat down and meditated for a bit, maybe even said a prayer to The Road for future safekeeping, but with Bikesh being an atheist I didn't want to make him feel uneasy. Or think of me as a nutcase - England's honour to uphold, and all that. 

After staring at our glorious view for sufficient time, we checked our watches again and realised that we were well ahead of schedule. Just nearby was a steep route up a nearby hillside that Bikesh said he had never been up, so we suggested we take it and see what was up there. It turned out to be a small temple to the Hindu deity Ganesh, presumably worshipped at by people from the local village at the bottom of the hill. I have seen many places of worship on my travels, but to find a little concealed place like this that our guide had not seen before gave me a real buzz.

A short walk away from the tiny temple we found a load of grey bunting hanging in the trees, which Bikesh said indicated a burial ground. Immediately I checked my footing in case i was walking over someone's graves, but he pointed out the small pits in the earth where bodies are burned and ashes are left. He did tell me which type of tradition this is, performed by which castes, but by this point my head's Daily Informtion Holder was full and starting to leak a little. But again I was happy to have stumbled across a sacred place so high up in the hills that was deserted and accidentally discovered by random trekkers like us. Chinese tour people would never have ventured this far up the hillside!

[Everest is not far away...]

[Back at the bottom of the hill, at a conveniently-provided resting place.]

Despite our little detour up the hill, we were still ahead of schedule and I was trying desperately to shorten my strides. One thing we discussed with Bikesh was the Moaist revolution that they had here recently. Effectively, a civil war, Moaist guerrillas waged a war of terror until the government were forced to integrate them politically, and things died down. Bikesh told us that when he would be taking people on treks he would run into Maoist soldiers everywhere and would have to pay, usually 5,000 NPR, to be allowed to go on the trek. He'd also be given some kind of badge so that he wasn't charged again at a later checkpoint.  

We made our way through the outskirts of what was effectively our final destination, the village of Nagarkot. Didn't seem like anything special, apart from the presence of lots of hotels on the top of the hill that provide spectacular views of the `Imalayas for the tourist who wants to wake up with them outside their bedroom window, just like Bikesh did when he was growing up (Everest first thing in the morning? Didn't mind if he did!) Things got a bit strange when Bikesh suggested we have some tea or coffee in one of the hotels (relax, not a scam), but instead we climbed up to the top and went and sat out on the roof. It seemed our contract with our guide was to provide us with views at sunset, which as at 17:15, but it was only quarter to 4. Although the views were indeed spectacular, was I willing to sit up on this chilly rooftop for the next hour and a half to wait for the sun to go down? No way, Limbu! Instead I told Bikesh the joke about the guy at the world cup final who has an empty seat next to him (he nearly wet himself at the punchline) and suggested we keep walking a bit longer. 

Down the hill we descended, looking for somewhere a little less expensive than the hotels in which we could drink coffee. We tried the Cafe At The End Of The Universe, but there was only a small child inside, no adults who could serve us drinks. Next along the windy road was the Chill Out Restaurant where we had three black coffees for 70 pence (altogether). This was much better than being in a stuffy hotel - chilling out in a proper locals' place and throwing a bit of trade their way. Obviously the facilities were pretty basic...

...and the toilet-cum-shed out the back left a lot to be desired...

...but that's hardcore travelling, isn't it? 

17:15 was approaching and the sun was setting. Bikesh led us past the havoc that was the locals going about their daily business in Nagarkot and up to a small hill to observe the sunset. A great end to a great day's daylight on our trek, it was pretty chilly, but also pretty cool.

It wasn't long after the sun went down that our car came to collect us - different vehicle, different driver. This car was at least a lot more modern than the last, and it coped ably with the winding roads in the pitch darkness, avoiding the fires lit by the local people by the roadside for goodness-knows-what. However, once in Kathmandu and maybe 15 minutes from our hotel, the driver pulled over due to "engine heat". So we sat there for a while as he poured in some water and gave it some revs. I decided that I wasn't going to tip Bikesh the 5 US dollars that I'd planned (supposedly the going rate), I'd instead give him the 50 yuan note I still had from China - hey, he goes to Tibet all the time so he can spend it there (he was very grateful for it). If you fancy checking out his website and going on some treks with him next time your're in these parts, check out www.tripstonepal.com

And eventually our driver got the car going going, getting back to our hotel room a little later than we thought we would, but that's not surprising. And guess what else wasn't surprising? That's right, the power was off.