We had all had a rough nights sleep at Lobuche. At 4940 meters we were far beyond the relative comforts of the lodges on the lower slopes of Sagamartha National Park. More telling though were the effects of the altitude - up the steep climbs your muscles cry out for oxygen in the thin air, and at night when your heart rate drops the symptoms of AMS (acute mountain sickness) appear to a degree in everyone.

From Lobuche we made our push to the highest camp at Gorak Shep (5150m). I was keen to drop my pack off here and charge on to Base Camp after lunch. The ascent to Gorak Shep was slower than hoped as the rest of the group was feeling the pinch more than I was. Our guide, Wangdi, the beefiest guide on the mountain didn’t look ready to charge off with me, and the others were still tossing up whether they could make a further ascent to Base Camp at 5350m. Pasang, Nick’s porter, acclimatised and the fittest man among us was even enthusiastic to lead me there. So he and I took off again on the 5 1/2 hour round trip. Cloud was already rolling in as it did each afternoon, no matter how blue the morning skies looked. The rocky terrain didn’t make for much of a track. Looking back from a high stack we could see the others had made a start too, and light snow was already beginning to fall.

* Panorama image above: From Kala Patar, Mt Everest appears as the second largest mountain, slightly obscured by the sun. Nuptse (7864m) appears larger as it is closer.

Pasang and I were really moving, and watched in awe as an avalanche thundered down a mountain on the other side of the glacier. Some way off we sighted the encouraging specks of yellow and orange tents. After passing a wrecked helicopter in the glacier the size of the coloured spots grew more quickly until we were upon an incredible sight - a tent village, base camp, the point from which Hillary and the British expedition first ‘knocked the bastard off’ in 1953. It had taken 8 days trekking to this point and I felt a real buzz of achievement. I sat looking across the activity and tents of expedition teams to the top of Kumbu ice fall over which Base II lies, carelessly dreaming of one day going a bit higher, a bit higher again…

As an expensive permit is needed to stay at Base Camp, Pasang and I headed back with the conditions now really closing in.. Visibility was dropping and the snow falling heavier when we ran into the others who still had a third of the way to get there. We made it back to the lodge in an impressive 4 hours to hot orange juice and peanut butter Chapatti. On the walls hung flags and t-shirts scribbled with the accomplishments and boasts of past trekking groups. The Pomes, Paul and Nick, made it back in the dark a few hours later covered in snow, tired but happy.

By that evening my next plan was already hatched - to climb Kala Patar, a nearby trekking peak that gave up a breathtaking panorama of 8850m Mt Everest and massive neighboring peaks. Again Pasang was up to the task and at 5:30am next morning we set off alone. We powered up to the highest point of Kala Patar (5650m) overtaking everyone on the way, but moments too late to beat the sun from flaring out from behind Everest. I will always remember this perfect panorama of the Himalayas, never mind the nuisance the sun made in my photos. Pasang and another Sherpa strung up prayer flags. I emptied my mind to be still. These most powerful peaks invoked in me a real thankfulness for my legs and my eyes, and humbleness before nature.

A day or two earlier I had discussed another plan with Sherpa Wangdi that I wanted to tackle. Rather than go up and then back down the same well trodden route, I wanted to cross Cho Lo Pass, a high pass at 5300m, which could take me in a loop across to Gokyo lakes and then join back up with the others at Namche Bazaar. For me, a linear path is disinteresting. Wangdi judged the others weren’t up to this more precarious crossing, but was helpful enough to organise another guide to take me across this rough trail, at extra cost to me. So back at Lobuche I split from the English lads, who had been good value (never short of a stir) and kicked me at cards, while I retired undefeated at Backgammon.

Cho Lo pass, I had heard, was a beautiful and rugged minor trail. My new guide, Prem, didn’t speak a lot of English but he’d made the pass before and that was more important. We took an early start to beat any cloud that might come in and disorient us. It didn’t take long to reach the bottom of the pass, walking across open barren land and iced up streams, always under the eye of one peak or another. As we ascended I quickly gave up some respect for this trail. There wasn’t much of a track to speak of as we forged a few hundred metres up the rocky slope, avoiding ice and thankful it hadn’t snowed last night.

We weren’t the only ones making this approach. We came across a few Nepalese porters, rugged, almost unbreakable men, carrying ridiculous loads of Kerosene, food, and even building materials in stacked woven baskets strapped across their weathered foreheads. On the lower slopes we had seen these pocket Hercules carrying as much as 100kgs, and here, even on this precarious pass they struggle, poorly equipped with maybe 30-40kgs to be paid by the kilo if they make it to the other end.

Then at the top the pass leveled off to a snowy expanse edged with great ice falls. I trudged in Prem’s tracks as the early cloud seemed to tail us. And then the flat white broke to an unsurpassed vista with a plunging, endless, valley cut at the bottom by a rapid river. Colourful Prayer Flags flapping furiously greeted us at the top of the Cho Lo pass. We took a moment to take it all in while behind us the porters emerged from incoming cloud.

The path down looked worse than the path up. I couldn’t believe my eyes when these porters, exhausted one moment, almost ran down the pass inventing their own trail as they went. The icy, sometimes unstable rocks and boulders checked my descent, somewhat slower than that of the runaway porters. It probably took a further hour to reach the bottom, and looking back to the tiny U shape between the peaks I was thankful I hadn’t needed to cross the path from the opposite direction. My longest day wasn’t finished yet though, there was still the Ngozumpa Glacier to cross, a great expanse of unstable rubble that crumbled at the edges of the emerald lakes scattered throughout the glacier. But at last, admittedly fatigued, we arrived at a Gokyo settlement lying idly by a pristine half frozen lake backed by mountains.

My next mission stood impressively right at the foot of the settlement – Gokyo Ri, a 5350 meter peak that had fresh views of Everest and Cho Oyu (another 8000m+ peak). I managed to charge my camera from a solar powered battery in the hut that evening. The climb next morning was more of a challenge than Kala Patar as it was a greater height to ascend from the bottom, and so we left with head torches and Tibetan bread at 4:30am. My disorder that drives me to the top of such peaks ‘just for a view’ was still unchecked despite the hard day earlier. But unfortunately cloud had settled low the night before and stubbornly refused to shift. Climbing up I saw nothing. However, the eternal optimist, I still raced to the top, probably by now out of habit. And there the reward revealed itself for scarcely ten minutes. At the summit the clouds parted to reveal Everest and friends in a pre dawn light, while in the west a setting moon hung above the minor peaks. A small rainbow was painted on the clouds below. And then, just as another group approached the top, the clouds closed back up like stage curtains and they sat in the cold waiting for a repeat act that never came.

This was my last decent climb and I could reflect with some personal satisfaction on my little expedition that took me up Chekung Ri Point, Everest Base Camp, Kala Patar, Cho Lo Pass and Gokyo Ri, all over 5000 meters. Not a bad effort I thought. From Lobuche at 4900 meters I would guess that as many were forced by the altitude to descend as had continued to the privileged heights of Base Camp and some of these other peaks. The rescue helicopter could be seen flying every day. Loss of appetite is one symptom of AMS, but my enormous appetite fueled by multiple servings of Dhal Bhat was never seriously threatened. Few people I came across in the lodges could match my haul of peaks and passes, and none carried their own packs up the mountain. (An exception were a mad group of runners making time trial crossings of the National Park, training for the highest marathon on earth at the end of May)

Descending back down to Dole and Namche Bazaar it was a stunning change to walk through flowering Rhododendrons and Magnolias and more sheltered valleys. I was stoked to get a hot shower at Namche Bazaar, my first in over a week, and ordered a yak steak, roast potatoes and veg. For desert I scoffed an apple pie and mused on the irony that in India a steak isn’t possible and that I had to go half way up the worlds highest mountain to get one! When the burners fuelled by Yak shit died out everyone retired to their down sleeping bags.

I didn’t meet up with the others as they obviously moved faster down the hill than up it and flew out of Lukla a day earlier. Down again at the lower altitudes I came across more Yak lugging supplies, though with less hair than their pure bred, high altitude brethren. When you hear their neck bells ringing or see them approaching you stay mountainside. Despite their placid nature, if hemmed in they can freak and knock you down the valley. Wait your turn when a herd are crossing the narrow, high cable bridges over the Bhote Koshi river.

I had had a lucky escape at Namche on my approach visit when, whilst admiring the monastery, a runaway horse came bolting down the 3 meter wide path and I was caught on the edge of a 5 meter drop, braced to get knocked off. And before I could take in what just happened a second, black horse, tore after the white one. I hadn’t even moved. It was like they materialized from nowhere – there was no paddock up around the corner, nothing chasing them, and the path led only to the main bazaar where Tibetans sell imitation North Face gear. I never saw them again. But I quickly did a circumambulation of a massive prayer wheel, and went inside the monastery to see if Buddha knew anything about what had happened.

The Tibetan Buddhist culture added a spiritual element to the trek, which is respected by Hindus, sherpas and trekers alike. Mani stones (prayer stones encraved in Tibetan script), prayer flags and Chorten (Stupas) are frequent features, blessing trekkers with a safe journey. Memorials of stacked slate further up the mountain (before Lobuche ) remember the many who have lost their lives on the mountain including kiwi Rob Hall who died in the tragic 1996 Everest tragedy. Mendan (a long wall or stack of Mani stones) should be passed on the left side or circumambulated clockwise, which takes a bit of getting used to when one split in the path that forks around the stacks of Mani stones looks enticingly shorter; like obeying road cones laid out by a drunken traffic officer. The monastery at Tengboche 3,867 meters (where we stayed on day 4 of our ascent) gave a peaceful insight into remote monastic life. We were privileged to sit in on an evening prayer session listening to the guttural harmonies their mantras. The blowing of the conch shell from the Monastery window sounded the start of that new day.

On Day 14 I arrived back in Lukla and flew out off the short downhill sloping runway the next morning. From my window seat I farewelled the Himalayas peaks that stabbed through the cloud boldly claiming the domain of the sky. I landed, still invigorated, to a drizzling Kathmandu.

I watched with some Indian soldiers the last ball finale as Inzammam guided Pakistan to victory over India in the 6th one dayer at a shack restaurant outside Siligiri station. I arrived to find Calcutta had turned the heat up another notch. The monsoons are now only a month away and the heat on the West Bengali plains is egged on by a stifling humidity.

Calcutta had some fame as the first capital of British India, with haute couture and gentlemen’s bars barring ‘Dogs and Indians’. Mother Teresa’s grace in this desperate city made headlines in the later 20th c as did the book and motion picture ‘City of Joy’. Reading it here bought the fiction alive to a very real level. The only major city for hundreds of miles, the city has had a lot of work done to it to lift so many thousands of desperate, displaced rural people out of the scum conditions of the 80’s.

For the traveler Sudder St offers what some of India’s maddest cities don’t – a street of refuge where overpriced comforts, like a beer in a western style café make things better. Never mind the other leeches that attracts. I booked my flight to Kathmandu, flying solo as Gareth wimped out over a few Maoists. I’d done my research and knew that the situation would be easier to judge when I was there.

So with a few days before my flight I checked out the city Indian style. Indian tourist style that is. I can again confirm Indians are as mad as they come. On a tour bus with Indians from all around the country we literally rocked around the city. Our guide was biased that Calcutta must be the greatest city in India. Of course the Bangalorians wouldn’t agree to that and neither would the couple from Orissa, which degenerated into ‘Fight for the Mic’. And then instead of doing the usual ‘who’s from where’ introductions our bus became ‘Popstars’ on wheels and the Bollywood songs (that even I know) were belted out with unchecked enthusiasm by young and old. They really were a fun group of people and seeing how Indians see there country was even more interesting to me (the only westerner on the bus) than some of the fine sights of Calcutta. Some educated Indians enjoy a philosophical debate and in the gardens of Victoria memorial it was put to me that the difference between me (the west) and them (the east) was that we are bought up with the emphasis on developing a personal identity that accumulates personal gain. (This was the gist). This bollix was quite long winded but I did enjoy deconstructing the dichotomies of East/West, Us/them suggesting that while these terms were convenient divisions for old empires they don’t make any sense in today’s world of globalization in which Indian’s more than contribute in. ‘Where does the east begin and end today?’ I asked. ‘Geographically New Zealand is even further East than India.’

I jumped off the bandwagon after lunch when the bus went near Sudder St, cutting short an intensive tour. I met up with Cella and a friend who volunteers (as many do) in the orphanages around Calcutta. We headed for a coffee shop a few blocks away. I prefer to let India work for me, so I suggested taking a rickshaw. The rickshaws in Calcutta presented a moral dilemma for the girls, but not me. Here Man-drawn rickshaws, human horses, persist while being long extinct in most other parts of the world. I can see how you might think it must look like slavery carrying me in a carriage while a subservient Indian hauls barefooted through the obstacles of Indian streets. But let me shed light on my perspective – what is crueler, to accept a ride with payment or to leave a man without a fare, with the options of going hungry or turning to begging. There are enough skeletal beggars. So I take the ride and the girls decide to walk. I know I don’t weigh the same the fat sari’d women in the rickshaw behind me, or the 4 school girls occupying the same carriage going the other way. Yeah, I felt like the king of the world, carried on my elevated throne moving through the streets and markets of Calcutta by my happy Rickshaw wallah. Of all the random things you might see even in Calcutta I was pretty surprised to see sheep herded across the main road, across blocked traffic and beneath billboards. I arrived ahead of the others to find the café closed. While I waited I asked to give the ‘running man’ rickshaw a go for myself and run the giant 2 wheeled carriage down a side street. He wasn’t too keen but I took it for a spin anyway, just up the road, and quickly appreciated the strength to achieve equilibrium when starting and stopping. The girls arrived and my happy Rickshaw wallah give his prize customer a big smile. A westerner is a good catch because we pay more. All the same I always try to bargain down to local rates, pay the agreed fare with one hand, and add a tip with the other. Otherwise, by simply throwing a tip straight in it’s just assumed you’re a rich man and rather than being thanked, you’re usually taken for granted, never to get a fair price in that town again.

After a round of Dosa’s and (a great find) Icecream coffees we all walked back on some footpaths more bustling than normal. I didn’t know it straight away but it was a night before Bengali new year. Buses and shops were draped with lavish garlands of orange Marigolds, Puja (blessings) offered for a prosperous new year.

I couldn’t hang around for the party next evening, my plane left at midday. On the approach to Kathmandu I was sitting on the right side of the plane eyeing the highest mountain range in the world from the window.

***
Ps. My camera is back in action thanks to some Indian know how.

I upgraded my train ticket out of the riffraff of third class and into the alien freezer of an aircon class that typically didn’t fit the full length of my frame. I passed through Calcutta in just a day (to return later) and booked a night train to the hill country of Darjeeling, renound for its views of the Himalayan and its famous tea. Calcutta had been an admin day, a day I occasionally set aside to take some deep breaths and play ball with a frustrating bureaucracy. One such task was to find somewhere to fix my digi camera, which after dropping it 2 months ago finally died. I know, I know… no more pics

From Siligiri station a 2 hour jeep ride took us into the hill station proper, the road prominently featuring on every bend a warning to slow down. In typically goofy English they read ‘if you are married divorce speed’ or ‘speed kills but thrills’ and countless other (forgettable) wisdoms. I wanted to do a bit of trekking up here and stretch my legs out after having them crossed.

Two Eerish girls, Cella and Michelle, and myself teamed up, and made preparations for the hills. After a false start (when Michelle left her passport in storage in Darjeeling and the park guard made her go back to get it) we left Manybanjeng on the first leg of our 5-day trek. The general route was a lowish altitude track that zigzagged along the Indian/Nepali border with views that punched up to Kanchenjunga, the world 3rd highest mountain, and to the colossal Himalayan range. The first day served up a soupy broth of low cloud that steamed below us and quickly rose in the afternoon and cut our visibility to about 10 metres. But for me it was a fog of dreams, taking us further Out There, along a cobbled path that I thought, even before Cella said it, must be something like Ireland. Every now and then a furious fluttering of prayer flags clued us to Buddhist Stupa’s on a nearby high point.

Our first night was spent at Tongla as planned, about 10km from Manybenjeng. We’d decided against a guide and since I was the boy had the map and was the fastest walker I became the defacto guide, to the indifference of the girls. We carried our own packs, which to all our credit were pretty small. Sitting in the hut’s kitchen we were all pretty happy with a good first day, the dorm room we had to ourselves and the big servings of Dahl Bhat and Chapatti that kept on coming.

Two other groups highlighted the brilliance in the simplicity of our preparation the next day. Booking from the UK, a couple of Pomes had organized 2 horses, 3 porters, a cook, a guide, and (an obligatory) boy. A bigger group of Germans likewise had all the extras including Leki poles, a few more cooks, and tents. They could keep their tents, because on arriving at Sangtapu I was glad for my lodging. Day two had been brilliant for views but a bit of an uphill slog where I even took up Michelle’s pack for a bit. The previous nights gale lifted the cloud to expose the beauty of the Himalayas. The long climbing path lined with Gilligan sized Rhododendrons bloomed without shyness. Only (ahem) once did we go off track when I got a bit keen with the sherpa shortcuts that presented themselves here and there, and got one wrong.

The thin curtains let the light flood in early next morning and only the biting cold put second thoughts into our minds about jumping out of bed and heading up to the viewpoint, closer again to the big mountains. The day ahead followed an isolated but flat road at 3600m. We had planned to reach the corner of Nepal, West Bengal and Sikhm but we were forewarned that a school trip had booked out the minimal accommodation up there. Well stocked with chocolate, lunch, chocolate, extra water and chocolate we followed the same route to Phalut, but detoured at a point to Molley. A Sherpa tipped us onto a minor path that lead off the exposed ridge on which a few wooly yaks grazed. We’d kind of cut a corner on the map, meaning we’d shave a day off the trip.

By cutting back into India, the valley inside opened up, at first gently with small streams and wild flowers, and then completely revealing plunging terraced agriculture. In a day we steeply descended 1000m passing through Sri Khola, where a Hindu women reminded us of the difference in warmth and kindness the Sherpa people had given us. But also here the people were working hard, and the kids especially found us intriguing. One small rustle in the bushes and out popped a wee guy, maybe five, with a basket strap over his head and carrying a load of firewood bigger than he was. Later we encountered a shuffling human bush laden with leafy bamboo, like a tree in a pantomime.

The final day had been punishing on our knees coming down, and Michelle’s coloured up with the swelling. But we were all pretty pleased with ourselves, finding our own way and with no one else setting the tone. Most importantly for me I got my calling from the Himalayas. They impressed me from a distance, but as with most things and me just seeing isn’t enough. I knew I wanted to be closer. I wanted to walk among giants.