Relativity and sneakers in the mountains of Nepal
Misty paths on the Poon hill trek and Mr. Mahindra leading the way, Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
I didn’t have to think twice when my boss walked to my desk on a Thursday afternoon and asked me if I wanted to represent him at a conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, starting the following Monday. The opportunity to visit a region I only knew from National Geographic Magazines, a place that seemed not only far but also unreachable, was intriguing. To spend a long weekend after the conference in a new country and get the chance to explore it was too tempting. The internet articles I read that evening were made by and for people who had time to prepare weeks in advance, and I wasn’t one of them. So, I decided to get there and figure it out on the way and spend the remaining time to prepare for the conference.
The weekend flew by and the conference started. In the late evenings, I tried to figure out what to do while optimizing for budget and time – two things that usually don’t go well together. I knew for sure that reaching the summit of Mount Everest in those four days was not an option; I didn’t have the time, money, or training. So what was the next best option? After asking local conference participants and some local tour guides, I learned that I had three feasible options. First, take a helicopter to see Mount Everest. Second, do a trek in the Kathmandu valley. Third, do the Poon Hill trek. Taking a helicopter to see Mount Everest seemed not only ridiculous but also would have felt like cheating as it was too touristy. The Kathmandu valley didn’t feel adventurous enough because of its urbanization. So only the Poon Hill trek starting in Pokhara remained – a five-day trek in the east of the country that I had to do in three days. My decision was made. Looking at other travelers and the gear they carried around, slowly the realization crept in how poorly prepared I was. I didn’t have hiking boots, gear or waterproof clothing. The fact that this level of preparation didn’t bother me at all was a direct result of an abundance of reckless spontaneity and ignorance. My excitement muted all potential doubt about the upcoming adventure. A guide and a flight to Pokhara was everything I thought I needed. Wearing sneakers and jeans, I was ready to go. What I didn’t have in gear, I had in motivation in my heart, a smile on my face, and a camera in my hand. I didn’t know yet the saying that every dead body on Mount Everest was once a motivated person.
Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a motivated person
The next morning, I arrived at the local terminal of Kathmandu airport. Calling the building a terminal was an euphemism; it was more a large waiting room. After checking in my backpack, I had to pick it up behind the counter and carry it through security. A small propeller plane waited for us on the roll field, where everyone had to stow their bags in the cargo area. After boarding, I looked around me, it felt more like a bus than a plane. To fill my time until takeoff, I started reading up on Buddha Air, my airline for the day, which turned out to be a mistake. The fact that Buddha Air was on the European Union blacklist for flight safety was very reassuring. The buzzing sound of the propeller announcing the take-off drowned any further thought. 30 minutes later, the plane was already decending. After landing I took my backpack from the cargo area and followed the crowd to the exit, in other words: I walked over the roll field to an opening in the fence. I stopped in the rain and wondered how I was supposed to find my guide? A man who seemed to be in his mid-fourties in full hiking gear smiled at me, “I am Mr. Mahindra, your guide. You must be Ziad. Let’s go; we are already late.” His weatherbeaten face was a attestation of how many hours he had spent in the mountains. He didn’t make an athletic impression until he shook my hand and I felt how strong he was. Without any further introductions or small talk, he stopped a taxi and we embarked on a two-hour drive to our starting point in a mountain village. The roads were in a desolate state, covered in gravel and even worse in some sections lanes were either covered by landslides or eroding and falling into the valley. I had to trust the driver and his local experience, it was too late to chicken out. After two hours we arrived in our destination and the first order of the day was grabbing lunch. We had Dal Bhat, a lentil soup, and some vegetables, before starting our ascent towards Poon Hill. The next two days would be spent climbing stairs while being fueled by lentils. The first thing I learned was that this was the monsoon season, the time of year where it rains all day - the worst time of the year to be in the country.
Waterbuffalos roaming on the paths, Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
We started our march and were greeted by mud. After the first hour, my sneakers were wet; they wouldn't dry for the next three days. I had to get used to wet and cold feet. But the lush greenery and the sound of the river next to us made me forget about my unsuited equipment. I was lost in the vegetation and couldn’t stop photographing. Mr. Mahindra would always take the lead, up to a few hundred meters ahead of me, while I was taking pictures. As soon as I was done, I would sprint to catch up with him, unless something else caught my attention and the cycle would repeat itself. If you weren’t careful enough and walked too close to plants, a leech might stick to you and start sucking your blood. The leeches sat on leaves or stones, lurking for their prey, as soon as they sensed movement or heat they would stick out to catch an all-inclusive ride on a clueless water buffalo, mule, or hiker.
The first hours passed without much conversation - I was left speechless by the misty mountains, and busy trying to avoid touching any plants, still afraid of leeches. After getting used to my surrounding Mr. Mahindra and I started bonding.
“I have been in the trekking business for 25 years, I started when I was 19 years old and over the years I have been to almost all mountains in Nepal, Tibet and India. In all of these years I saw nothing comparable to the mountains of Nepal I truly love the mountains. Just seeing them makes me happy” he explained “I am through and through a mountain man, which means I never get headaches and I never get altitude sickness.” Trekkers at high elevations, starting from 2500 meters, with low amounts of oxygen can suffer from dizziness, vomiting and headache among other things. He continued “I was born and grew up in a mountain village at a height of 3500 meters, I had to walk for two hours to school, up and down, up and down, just like life.”
Teahouse Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
He found it amusing that Poon hill, which we were about to climb was higher than the highest mountain peak in Germany. Our conversation was interrupted by yelling behind a large rock ahead of us. We hurried to the source of the noise and found a terrified older tourist standing behind his haggard guide facing a cobra. The guide picked a stone and threw it at the Cobra. Unfazed by the bombardment, the Cobra held her ground. I wondered about that approach. It seemed unintuitive, if not idiotic to me; it went against everything I learned from documentaries. I looked at Mr. Mahindra and asked him, “Is that right? Is this how it is done?” He nodded. I ignored my intution and grabbed a handful of stones and introduced the Nepalese mountains to the concept of cluster bombing and made it rain stones on the Cobra, which now started hissing and got into an upright attack position. I looked at Mr. Mahindra in disbelief who returned a stern look “You said this is how it is done” I defended my bombing. He didn’t waste any time explaining, held my hand and after a few seconds that felt like an eternity – he shouted “run!” and we ran for our lives. It turned out that nodding means “No” in Nepali culture, which explained the misunderstanding. I swore to myself to never imitate random people again, I felt like an idiot. Rushing into a new adventure has its unique thrill, but going in this oblivious to cultural differences could easily get you killed. At sunset, we arrived at a teahouse, which is a roadside inn, where you will find food and a bed for the night. During monsoon season most teahouses were left unoccupied. Our teahouse was a very rustic two-story wooden house, painted in bright colors from the outside, making it stand out in the fog. The common area was furnished with plastic chairs and tables on a terrace. The rooms on the ground floor could be reached from the terrace while the rooms on the second floor from a wooden balcony. After dinner in the the common areaI I met a young Tibetan man, who told me about refugees from Tibet in Nepal. Since the Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1950s many Tibetans fled to Nepal and India. Until today they suffer from exclusion and lack of access to education and employment due to the Nepali government not issuing them identity cards. The plight of refuges is universal across the globe, so it seems.
Schoolboy taking a picture with an imaginary camera, Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
As soon as it got dark outside, I excused myself to fall into a deep sleep to recover from a day of travel and hours of hiking. The next morning came quickly and I was woken up by the rising sun. The view of the rice paddies in the valley, kissed by the morning sun and the symphony of birds and buzzing insects seemed like a scene out of a documentary. I went to look for my clothes I had hung to dry, the humidity made drying impossible I found out. They were still as wet as the day before, and the rusty clothesline had left a mark on my clothes. Another day with wet shoes. For breakfast, we had Dal Bhaat, just like for dinner and lunch the day before. Every teahouse had its own spin to the dish, which made it feel like a new dish every time. We got packed up and started our ascent for the second day. That was the day I stopped trying to avoid puddles by jumping over them, If your shoes are already wet it doesn’t matter. An hour later we encountered three young boys in school uniforms on their way to school. The older two seemed to be discussing a serious topic while the youngest was running ahead and kicking stones. When the first boy spotted me, he started imitating me taking pictures. Their curiosity made them forget about school and instead they wanted to see my camera, I showed them the pictures I had taken of them, which they found hilarious, pointing at them and laughing. I inquired if this was their way to school to continue the conversation, which they affirmed. Every day they had to leave their home at 8 am and walk for two hours to be on time for school at 10am. This didn’t bother them at all, after all this is what they knew. I was already out of breath after one hour of trekking and these boys were jumping from stone to stone like gazelles seemingly never losing their breath, just like Mr. Mahdindra whose superior agility and strength seemed to be uncorrelated with his age. These boys will have stories to tell their children about their way to school, I thought. Climbing mountains to school every day. It is just like the memes. They are the OGs.
Mules on their way, Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
After a few hours I noticed that with our ascent the vegetation around us started changing: the dark tropical green of unfamiliar plants was slowly replaced by birch and oak trees, which I was familiar with, and the green tones became lighter, and finally, the rice paddies disappeared altogether. On the second day we didn’t see any roads, not even improvised roads like the ones we used in the beginning. Now, only winding paths and sometimes stairs led up towards the summit. Mr. Mahindra explained that the villages pool money together to pave the paths to their villages with stones and have stone stairs in dangerous spots. The government would stay out of any infrastructure in the mountains. In addition to that any goods that were delivered to the villages and teahouses had to be transported on the backs of mules or porters. These two reasons explained why prices started rising with every step we took. I asked Mr. Mahindra about how he had experienced the earthquake in 2015, whose traces were still visible three years later in many buildings in Kathmandu. “When the earthquake happened I was in the office talking to a friend and suddenly: the earthquake. It was so strong. I had never felt something like this before! Everybody ran out of their buildings. The first thing I did was to run home to my family and make sure they were alright, luckily nothing happened to them. Others were not as lucky, many people died in a matter of moments with buildings collapsing on them. 80 people in one building closeby. It was a disaster.” After this depressing memory of Mr. Mahindra, we continuied walking in silence.
With increasing height it started getting cooler around us and the humidity started to decrease which made the trek much more tolerable. We arrived at our teahouse in Ghorepani, the last village before the summit, after almost eight hours of trekking, to be greeted by a sea of clouds. This was the last night before the ascent to the summit of Poon Hill. Due to the cold on this height this teahouse had no outside area, and instead a common area with worn-out sofas around a stove. We tried warm up around the stove with the lady who ran the teahouse. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties. I posed her and Mr. Mahindra my favorite question about the popularity of tourists from different nationalities. And they agreed that British and German tourists in Nepal were the most likeable, because they accepted prices and usually didn’t negotiate aggressively unlike Israeli tourists, some teahouses would even refuse them entry because of that. All of this seemed very surprising to me. They cited the monsoon seasons as the reason for the current lack of tourists, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I traded mountain views for solitude in foggy mountains. I believe it was a good deal. Out of the blue Mr. Mahindra interrupted my reflection and explained to me his unrequited love for the lady running the teahouse.
“I asked her if she wants to be my girlfriend”, he explained
“And I told him multiple times: No,” she explained her position.
“Why not?” I inquired, “Mr. Mahindra is a mountain man and he's also handsome”
“He has a wife,” she replied, laughing.
“No wife, no life,” Mr. Mahindra explained, “And I need a wife and a girlfriend.”
Climbing to the top of Poon Hill before sunrise, Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
We had good laugh and went to sleep as we had a long day ahead that would start at 4 am. At 3:30 am, I was woken up by my alarm. In disbelief, I checked the time on my watch, only to be reminded of the concept of relativity again. What had felt like 5 minutes of sleep were in fact 7 hours. Enough to keep going for the last day. I reminded myself of what was ahead of me and stretched to wake up. I was ready to climb the last 400 meters of altitude to see the sunrise, as unlikely as actually observing it was. This allowed me to postpone thinking about the 30km descent for now. I didn’t expect to find my shoes dry, but I was still let down by how wet they were. I wondered if they would ever dry again – I ignored the wetness and smell, put them on and was ready for the day. We climbed the stairs in the foggy darkness our path illumniated by an old flashlight. I wondered if there would even be a sunrise. At the summit, there was nothing to be seen beside prayer flags waving against a backdrop of clouds. The prayers written on the flags, carried by the wind, are believed to spread good luck and positive energy wherever they go. The only indication that we had reached the summit was a sign stating “Poon Hill – 3210 meters.” I vainly hoped for a spectacular view of mountains painted red by the rising sun. But what I had imagined to photograph had to stay in my fantasy; maybe in another life, I would take that picture. I asked myself if I regretted going this unprepared – absolutely not was my answer. Was I disappointed to meet a sea of clouds covering summits and sun, not at all. Instead I was happy and proud of how far I got with my little preparation. I had conquered all my pain, wet feet and enjoyed the solitude of the mountains. Even though I trekked on beaten paths, I felt like an explorer. But maybe exploring and climbing new summits was not what mattered, instead the true prize was learning more about myself. I tried to stay as long as possible at the summit, hoping that I might catch a glimpse of a peak, which turned out to be a vain hope. We started heading down to first grab our bags from the teahouse in Ghorepani and then head back towards Pokhara. On the way back, suddenly the sea of clouds was punctuated by the peak of Annapurna; peeping out like sharkfin in the ocean. I stopped and asked Mr. Mahindra if this was Annapurna or if I was just having hallucinations. He confirmed my hope. I was standing on a height of more than 3.000 meters and the peak of Annapurna was smiling at me form 8.091 meters - It felt incredible. This was the most dangerous mountain to climb on eath with a 30% fatality rate. Only 300 people at that time had reached its summit and almost 100 had died trying. These odds for not even being the first one on top sucked. Having feasted for a few moments on the sight of the deadly summit we continued our decent accompanied by constant bursts of rain and still having to cover 30 km. At least now the rest of me was equally wet, and not only my feet. Mr. Mahindra and I stuck to our ritual; him walking at a constant speed and me stopping to take pictures left and right and me then sprinting to catch up with him. I kept myself going with the prospect of a hot shower in Pokhara and some internet to tell friends and family what I had just experienced.
Prayer falgs on Poon Hill, Annapurna Region, Nepal, July 2018.
The rain bursts on this day were the most intense. Every time the rain became too strong we stopped in sheds waiting for the rain to calm down. To pass time Mr. Mahindra sang Nepalese mountain songs. The rest of the decent was relatively monotonous until the late afternoon. We noticed that nightfall was catching up with us and we had to rush to reach Pokhara, otherwise the roads would become too dangerous. At this point of time I had no energy left for photography. I played the Shire music from the Lord of the Rings on my phone to motivate myself and get back to the high energy spirt. Every trekker who passed me and heard the music died of laughter. Trekking in the mountains, surrounded by the Nepalese flora and feeling like a bootleg hobbit - it was quite the vibe. I was just waiting for the rest of the fellowship to appear from behind a bush. After 10 hours in total we finally reached the taxi spot, the end of our journey by foot. My phone notified me that I had never covered such a long distance in my life by foot on a single day. To get the best price Mr. Mahindra used a classic trick. He asked for the price, stated that it was too high and walked away. And suddenly the taxi driver turned on the engine and started driving next us and negotiated with Mr. Mahindra while one was rolling and the other one was walking until an agreement was reached. We got it and the driver put on Nepali music and was ready to hit the road. The drive back felt more like a mountain rally, the driver kept my adrenaline high through constant speeding and racing around rocks that laned on the street through landslides. It turned out that just like the mountain paths villagers were also responsible to clear the moutnain roads and not the government. After two hours on bumby roads we reached Pokhara and I checked into my hotel. This was the end of a three day adventure and all I had in mind was a hot shower.
This trek in Nepal taught me a few lessons: First and foremost, only mountains with snow are worthy to be called mountains; everything else is a hill. I ended up hiking up what I thought to be a mountain for two days and reached its summit only to be told this is a hill. This proves one thing: there are not many things in life that are not relative. Mountains are relative to their surroundings, and if you are surrounded by mountains higher than 8000 meters, 3210 meters are nothing in comparison. And if you only have one pair of wet shoes, you’ll still put them on instead of walking barefoot.
PS: If you wondered, all my attempts to get the smell out of my snkeakers were unsuccessful, and I had to throw them away.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to”
