I was standing on the bank of a rushing river that flowed perpendicular to a rocky scree. Somehow the path had petered out and I was wondering where I should cross. On the far side, a fellow trekker shouted words of caution above the roar… “Don’t try to cross! Use the bridge further down! If you cross here you will definitely drown!” I weighed up his words and decided to ignore the warning. There was no way I would drown, after all, just how deep could the water be? No sooner had I thought this however, I remembered a friend who had drowned whilst on a trek in Alaska a few months before. I remembered my shock at the news and the outpouring of grief from his friends and family. Even in light of this I decided that the bridge 200 metres below represented too big a detour and that the risk was worth it.
I waded in.
In an instant the glacial melt enveloped me and sucked me under. Swirls of bubbles and eddies of gravel rose up to fold me deeper into the river’s clutches. The water was suddenly not clear at all. Instead it was a milky suspension in which there was neither up nor down. I bounced and rolled downstream, my breath failing. How long could I hold on? But then a last sliver of hope – a tree trunk lodged between the rocks. If only I could grasp it…
I awoke in a chilly veneer of sweat, my head buried deep inside the hood of my sleeping bag. I was gasping for breath as though I’d been holding it for at least a minute.
Cheyne Stokes breathing. According to Wikipedia – “an abnormal pattern of breathing characterized by progressively deeper and sometimes faster breathing, followed by a gradual decrease that results in a temporary stop in breathing called an apnea”. Cheyne Stokes breathing, coupled with hallucinatory nightmares, is a common condition amongst trekkers and climbers who have gained altitude too quickly. Since setting out from Sangye, we had gained over 1600 metres in two days though technically we weren’t really high enough to be feeling the full effects of altitude.
Such a rapid gain in altitude is generally not a problem below 3000 metres, though cases of altitude sickness have been detected as low down as 2200 metres above sea level. Higher than 3000 metres however, trekkers are advised to observe something called the “rule of threes” which, simply put, prescribes the following: over 3000 metres never let your net gain in altitude (between sleeps) exceed 300 metres per day – and every 3 days take at least 1 rest day. In addition, never drink less than 3 litres of water per day – in fact, try to drink a good deal more if you can.
Complying with the latter injunction is a good deal harder than it sounds in Nepal where, in spite of its surfeit, very little water is fit for human consumption. In cases of glacial melt, the liquid is too saturated with minerals and extensive filtering is required. In the case of the deceptively limpid mountain streams one can never rule out the existence of a village somewhere above where one is drawing water. In fact, it is safe to assume that no matter how high up you may be, there is always someone higher up than you are who is polluting the system. One may go to bed feeling on top of the world but when morning comes and the clouds have parted, one invariably catches sight of some isolated hamlet clutching tenuously to the hillside higher up.
In light of my discomfort over the use of bottled water, I found it a constant challenge to keep my Camelbak hydration system suitably replenished. Also, the higher up you go, the cost of a litre of water begins to spiral radically out of control. Take bottled water as a yardstick: in Kathmandu, a traveller can purchase a sealed 1L bottle of ozonated water for as little as 15 Rupees (R1.50). Now as we entered the Manang district, the same bottle had skyrocketed to 200 Rupees a unit (R20). A litre of boiled water procured from a tea-house kitchen (by no means a failsafe solution) could cost anything between 100 and 150 Rupees. Invariably, the answer was to draw water from a nearby spring and treat it with chlorine and a portable UV device called a Steripen. Another option – by the far the best but not always available – was to buy ozonated water from community run filter stations which a New Zealand non-profit installed recently to combat the bottled water problem. At 40-50 rupees a litre, this was competitive but a number of these were temporarily closed due to breakdown and lack of spares. In short, proper hydration was not only a gamble but also a constant preoccupation.
Another challenge associated with water was consuming it in the requisite quantities – and then dealing the obvious implications. Because many teahouses had fewer than 3 toilets, the queues that formed outside these were often sizeable. This, added to the woeful prospect of a nighttime visit to these noxious pits, meant that many trekkers simply resorted to alternative arrangements. The result was that the surroundings of many pristine and beautifully appointed lodges smelled overwhelmingly of stale urine.
*
As we walked deeper into Manang district and passed through towns like Koto, Chame, Pisang and eventually Manang itself, we encountered more and more of the Buddhist influence in the lives of the local people. As we sat down for breakfast in Koto for example, an acrid smoke wafted into the dining room and before long had us choking. “Sort that bloody smoke out before it ruins my breakfast!” someone shouted rudely at our host. It turned out the smoke was emanating from a tiny ceremonial burner on the stone wall outside where juniper branches were being burned to ward off evil spirits. It was a practice we saw frequently over the next week and I became quite comfortable with the fragrance.
Ornate prayer wheels in Lower Pisang - the ancient bronze wheels have been beautifully crafted. As they break they are often substituted with Nescafe coffee tins
Nepalese Children are very cute indeed!
In addition, a large and ornate Buddhist Chorten heralded the entrance to every town. A brightly decorated archway containing copper prayer wheels followed soon afterwards. The expectation was that travellers, pilgrims and residents would spin the wheels as they passed through, thus activating the prayer inscribed on scroll contained within.
Buddhist Chortens - these should be passed on the left
*
Before leaving SA, I’d read about the region’s much-maligned road building projects and had pushed for a change in itinerary to avoid the worst sections. Now that we encountered them however, it seemed we’d over-reacted. A muffled “boom” the previous afternoon had advertised the presence of teams blasting their way along a particularly steep hillside that flanked the river. But in spite of the use of dynamite, the scale and pace of the effort was so small and slow as to be almost non-existent. Mostly, we encountered terribly undermanned and ill-equipped construction teams, seldom numbering more than 7 or 8 people, many of whom were feeble children and undernourished teenagers. We found them in the most unlikely places where almost no geographical feature was too big an obstacle. Stubborn rocks and boulders that remained after blasting were systematically broken down - first by the application of fire and then the old fashioned way – by hammer. We encountered dazed, exhausted road builders, shrouded in chalky dust and with gazes so vacant they looked more like phantoms. Every now and then, we would pass young men, no more than 16 or 17 years old, carrying head loads of fine gravel and sand weighing at least 50kgs. It’s impossible to say when the road will be complete to say nothing of what its full effects on the area will be. For now, it is man in his most primal state contending with the greatest mountains in the world. Will the Chinese soon step in to dramatically escalate the scale of the undertaking? If so what will remain of the circuit?
This section of road was once a vertical cliff-face. There's very little that a stick of dynamite can't sort out...
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