Return of the Kiwis

This post bought to you by the bedraggled team of monkeys frantically smashing their foreheads against their keyboards to bring the the wondrous WWW to Nepal at break-neck speeds hitherto not seen since the 80's. And not forgetting their associates in the electical supply authority who are generally overtaxed by the task of attempting to keep the grid up for more than an hour and a half at a time in Kathmandu (they are collectively responsible for the lack of piccy's in the following).

We have just returned from our 20 day hike to the bowels of the Himalaya's and back, along the way we have checked off the usual notable destinations; and all learned a valuable moral lesson or two;

1/ If a chick you are trying to impress asks you if you want to get high, make sure you find out exactly what she is talking about before you agree.
2/ Drugs are good, M'Kay?

I kept a diary, but will not go crazy with detail (it bores even me).

We started out badly, a day and a half spent sitting in the Kathmandu Airport waiting for the weather and every other person in the airport to leave first so that we could finally enjoy the last flight to Lukla, gateway to Everest and a pretty scary airport. While waiting I weighed myself at 100kg pre-trip. Nice flight and fun landing (really!) on a short and steeply uphill strip perched at 2800m on a mountainside ridge. Note that tourists are charges several times the Nepali rate for many things; it cost $US35 for Arjun, our guide's flight, we were US$100 each.

Walk in was pretty good, led by Arjun, who is studying for a master's in sociology - financing his uni habit by guiding for the last 9 years. He definitely made life easier by conversing with accomodation and food providers, but a little research would eliminate the need for a guide (though it only costs $20-30 a day to have one). The countryside is a bit like the Alps in Europe but with everthing magnified in scale. Because it's a warm climate (same latitude as florida) all the usual features of alpine environments are similar to what we know in NZ but lifted by 2-3000m. For example the treeline is about 4000m (Mt Cook is 3800m), and there is limited cultivation and farming at 4500m. Walk in to Everest base camp is at low speed, 3-4 hours per day, due to the human body's limited speed of adaption, you can only increase your sleeping altitude by about 300m per night above 3000m without risking serious altitude sickness (which is also where the drugs come in - thank you Diamox, a drug which alters your blood pH to speed adaption, at the cost of huge volumes of urination day and night).

During walk-in we spent a few hours a day slogging up hills, and a lot of time sitting around doing sod all, talking, reading or sleeping. A couple of rest days to acclimatise were included, and they are needed - a very fit dutch based polish couple we met had to turn back when Piotr came down with a bad dose of Alt sickness on second day at 4400m. Pretty disappointing for them after 16 days walking in. Surprised me a bit too as I don't have good lung capacity and am asthmatic but on this trip had no problems other than poor initial physical fitness and fatigue on long hard uphills (probably not eating enough), on one or two days at altitude I was even happier than Jane who is far far fitter than I.

Getting up to the highest point really started to drain us. Apart from planting the flag and bragging rights, above about 4000m really wasn't much fun; Fatigue, poor sleep, monotonous food (cuisine based mainly on potatoes and rice), hard breathing and cold all diminished the appeal, curious were the vivid dreams that everyone seems to get. We did the obligatory jaunt to Everest Base Camp (5360m) and Kala Patthar (5545m) that overlooks the sprawling Base Camp sitting on a glacier at the foot of Everest and affords a decent view of Everest that is otherwise curiously hidden by other mountains for almost all the rest of the trip. 5545m (18100 feet) is above half the world's atmosphere, you have half the avialable O2 in each breath, and after the overhead (literally) of keeping our oversized brains and other ancilliarys going, this leaves sod all for those pesky leg muscles. 5545m is also a 1 minute freefall to the sea level, over a mile higher than Mt Cook (3800m) twice as high as Mt Ruapehu (2800m) and about 3 minutes drive on the motorway. A Bloodly long way up! Everything is an effort at this altitude, and hardest by far for me was the hard 400m climb up the hill of Kala Patthar after a night at 5150m at Gorak Shep.

There were a lot of interesting things to see along the way, the amazing Porters who usually carry 70kg and can carry up to double this! All supported on straps over their foreheads. Saw one or two in bare feet and one fellow scurrying along with the usual load and two completely club feet (like 90 degees). Pretty horrible in some ways to see humans reduced to beasts of burden, but for them it's a job and an income in a country with massive under/unemployment. They compete with but far outnumber the small cattle (Yaks/Naks Male/Female - best to politely decline if offered Yak cheese, but Nak cheese is good - like a hard gouda). And the Yaks showed that yes indeed horns are a prerequisite for all Nepali vehicles.

Birds also amazed me, Goraks? - like a large pheasant living on lichen covered hills at 5500m and the ubiquetous crows everywhere up to and including this altitude. Also telling were the additions of modern technology; micro-hydro power schemes have proliferated (do a good job) but the things that have made the biggest difference to their lives are polyethylene pipe for water reticulation, steel wire for bridges, and modern shoes, clothes and radios. We saw a lot of discarded technocrap like satellite dishes and solar cookers strewn about the place.

I have lost almost all respect for the Everest climbers - physically it might be pretty clever, but it is an incredibly selfish persuit, massively expensive, kills huge numbers of people (so many Sherpa widows), and ignores the needs of families and loved ones who stand to lose so much. Met one American lady who had just heard her husband was still alive after one month out of touch, and a Swiss woman who's boyfriend was trying to drag an armless climber to the top of Everest - this is just ridiculous, lets all just try to get our kicks without needlessly endangering others I say. US70,000 for a climbing permit for six months and a 10-20% chance of dying if you attempt to summit. Twats. I could arrange a roughly equivalent game of Russian roulette for far less.

After a few days at high altitude we were keen to get back down to more manageable heights. So what followed was a quick descent back below 3000m in 3 days and then the loong 7 day walk out to Jiri (bypassing Lukla Airport and the let-your-wallet-do-the-walking set, (I guess this includes us partially), who outnumber the walk-in option probably 50:1). I found this part physically much harder, with some days climb exceeding 1000m and descents as big. Hard on knees and legs with less developed tracks and more primative accomodation. Where we had seen hundreds of tourists per day now we saw only a couple. This area from Lukla to Jiri has been hurt pretty badly by the development of Lukla Airport and the Maoist insurgency of recent years (now ended) with many empty teahouses. They survive on their ridiculously inefficient subsistence agriculture (eg individually cutting the heads off buck wheat, and in more accessible areas threshing it by laying it on roads for buses to run over), but they can only benefit from better road access and infrastructure, something that the current government has been abysmally bad at developing. The tracks and towns are covered in litter at this point, cleanliness is obviously a rich persons luxury, and the Nepali's generally don't give a crap, most common are the two minute noodle wrappers that the porters eat raw.

Finally got to Jiri, had a celebratory beer (first of trip), a night's sleep and then enjoyed the super-express bus ride back to Kathmandu at an average speed of maybe 25km/hr for 7 and a half hours on a major arterial road that would be put to shame by most NZ driveways. We are now decompressing and planning our next excursion. Haven't weighed myself yet but feels like I've lost 5-10kg.

It is definitely interesting times in Nepal, they are in the process of pulling the monarchy's teeth, with elections scheduled soon and the Maoist's look to have lost some of their impetus. On the down side they have the massive problem of excess population to deal with 5-22 million in the last 50 years. And more topically it will be interesting to see if there is any petrol left for us to drive out of Nepal next week after the Indian Oil Corporation cut off Nepal's trucked in supply this week (No trains!!!) for non-payment of bills.

Overall I would say Nepal has a nice climate, not as unpleasantly hot as India and there is incredible potential for hydroelectricity and tourism development, with a lot of English speakers and very low wages, but they will always be dirt poor unless they can get past their religious desire for massive families that is currently producing 3% population growth per year.