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the people you meet on the trek
The end of the Manaslu circuit meets up with the beginning of the Annapurna circuit, and there really was a stark contrast indeed between the crowd on the two. The Annapurna circuit seems to attract a hashtag-bucketlist collection of folks — young, tough, fit people carrying way too much and romping down the trail in cotton T-shirts — whereas we were surprised to find ourselves, it seemed, in the bottom decile of age range on the Manaslu circuit. In part, this might be because the Manaslu circuit is lesser known than the Annapurna circuit; in part, it might be because guides are required by law on the Manaslu circuit (and, anyway, most of the teahouse owners don’t really speak English). But even yet, we met the acquaintance of a handful of interesting folks along the way.
Early on in the trek, we met two Swiss folks, Miriam and Pascal. They thought that Kempy had a great idea, having brought Swiss chocolate with her for a taste of civilization every now and again. (I agreed.) I kept calling them in my head “Andre and Claudi”, because Kempy had two friends from back home in Zürich that she usually went on mountaineering adventures with, and they hashed into the same bucket (of course, neither the real Andre nor the real Claudi are Swiss!). They were completely reasonable folks; Pascal liked to draw, and kept a journal with a great many scenes he had captured. Their guide was very pleasant and knowledgeable; we more or less kept pace with them until we added an extra day in Namrung, and from there we just assumed that they had made it over the pass in one piece.
In the middle of the trek were the Utahns. I don’t remember what their names were, but they were definitely on the “as weird as the hikers you would expect” side of things. Before I left, a coinhabitant of my coworking space, Monica, when discussing all of the yak things one could get in Nepal (yak wool, yak milk, …), gave me one piece of advice: “don’t get yak poo”. Of the two Utahns, the boyfriend had clearly violated this rule. They had stopped in Namrung for lunch, and he had gotten a yak burger high up in the mountains (something that Binod had advised us against, really); upon arrival in Lho, however, the girlfriend was very busy trying to convince the boyfriend to eat dinner, and the boyfriend looked increasingly unhappy with the concept of eating dinner, and retreated to the nearest squat toilet to, well, yak, and poo.
It came out that they had done the Tsum Valley trek previously (a common link with the Manaslu circuit), and while they were up there, he had previously contracted some yak poo, and had been battling it on and off, all the while refusing to take antibiotics. We advised them to get a move on in the morning into the next town (Sama-Gaon) as soon as possible, where there was to be a medic. Sure enough, in the morning, Kempy and I had our usual leisurely breakfast, and as we were packing up, Mr. Yak Poo made a beeline from the kitchen to the squat toilet, looking very green indeed.
Astonishingly, not more than five minutes after we arrived in Sama-Gaon, who comes marching in behind us but: the Utahns, including one surprisingly perky looking Mr. Yak Poo? He reportedly hadn’t had anything to eat that breakfast, and instead simply took the ground by storm, perhaps with somewhat less mass to haul up the hills than the day before. Also, he came with the report that the medic in Sama-Gaon was on vacation and wouldn’t be back for a month.
Mr. Yak Poo made it over the pass without incident.
The folks that stick out in my head the most, though, were the three Irish guys. Two of them — Peter, and Brendan — were brothers, and the other — Aidan — was a friend who was tagging along for the trek. We originally met up with them in Sama-Gaon on our first night there, after we arrived to an incredibly fucking cold dining room, and they had ordered a large pot of tea that they shared with us. They and Kempy and I got on well, and I went on a hike up to Pung’en Monastery with them the next day, while Kempy rested her knee a little bit. They’d found that one of their phones could both connect to the teahouse WiFi ($3/device, available whenever there was a break in the clouds) and be a hotspot at the same time, so for their $3, they had enough connectivity to go around; Kempy tried to sync her Kindle from their phone, but just as she did, the cloud(s) went down, and so did our connection. We decided we’d try to match pace with them, and shoot for the same lodges as they were in; we quite enjoyed their company, after all!
This plan, of course, was complicated by the apparent unwillingness of Manaslu guides in general to coordinate with anyone in particular at any point. We had hoped to meet with them in Samdo; Binod got us a place at the Yak Lodge (where the dining room did have a wood stove, as promised, but we failed to ask whether they would light the stove), but the Irishmen stayed at the Three Sisters (per their report, two wood stoves, both fueled and burning). They got a somewhat earlier start than we did over the pass from Dharmashala into Bimthang; Binod grabbed us a room in Bimthang that we were somehow irrevocably committed to before we got a chance to look around town to see where they were staying. On the road from Bimthang to Gho, however, we caught up with them just as they were leaving the lunch stop — and, somehow, managed to get the two ornery guides to speak for long enough to agree on a teahouse!
We reunited in Gho, and now at our lower altitude, having descended from the pass, were all plenty happy to split a bomber or two of Tuborg (one of the three standard beers available in Nepal — the others, of course, being Nepal Ice and Gorkha). We all sat down for dinner together that evening, too, and as such things do, the conversation turned to politics; it turns out that we were mostly aligned in our disdain for both American and British leaders. I regaled the Irishmen with fantastical stories of being an American, like the mindboggling experience of COBRA, or, indeed, American health insurance in general; they were shocked to hear that my monthly premiums were $768.34 (“you pay that even if you don’t get sick?” “well, yes” “but then they pay for your medical bills, right?” “well, no, not until I pay another $1,800” “but then they pay?” “well, no, then they pay for 90% of it”), and that became a recurring punchline for the evening (“of course I can get international data roaming, but I just didn’t bring my phone” “of course he can, but it’d cost $768.34!”). It was, perhaps, somewhat shocking to hear an outsider’s perspective on the kind of fucked up messes that we were used to, but then again, here they were on the precipice of blowing each other to bits over whether they were going to be able to drive for a day trip to the North, so I suppose you win some and you lose some.
Just before dinner arrived, Peter snuck away from the table; the wifi was working, and he had a VoIP call to make. Aidan also seemed to be having a bit of residual yak poo, and was away from the table, returning just in time for dinner to show up. Dinner showed up, and we waited for Peter to start eating; instead, Peter returned to the table, asked for Brendan for a moment, and advised us to chow down anyway. Aidan seemed as surprised by this turn of events as we, but we all ate anyway.
Five or ten minutes later, Peter’s and Brendan’s dinners were definitely getting cold, and they came inside to grab Aidan for a moment; the three of them had a conversation, and Aidan came back inside, while Peter and Brendan continued to confer. Aidan explained: the brothers’ father had apparently become quite sick quite quickly — complications of some or other chronic condition that had been going on for quite some time — and was in the hospital, and they’d planned to get moving as quickly as they could.
As quickly as they filled with adrenaline, I did too. Kempy and I seemed to be in the same boat. I tried to convince them to eat, which they were having none of; they quickly retired to their room to pack up. I offered them the inReach, not that it would help, since they had WiFi on their phones; the “trying to send message” light on the inReach blinked tauntingly at me as I tried to relate the experience to friends back home. Kempy and I tried to be useful, but there was nothing that we could really do. While they were packing, we ordered some bread (and a few other packable snacks) to give them to take along; but having exhausted everything else meaningful to do, all I could do was pour myself another cup of tea, pick up my journal, write, and wait.
Writing came out of my pen, but it didn’t feel like me doing it; my gaze was unfocused, and the words just seemed to be… happening. Every so often, Kempy and I shot each other a look. Neither of us had a father anymore, either, and we didn’t have to say anything to know that we were both having a similar experience. Porters rushed around, hurrying to make accommodations in the next town for this or for that. Kempy picked up her Kindle to read; I scribbled a little more in my notebook, and then I did too.
Around 8pm, the three Irishmen got on the road. It was probably a 4 hour walk in the dark from Gho to Dharapani, where they’d be able to take a 4x4 out of town; presumably they’d sleep for a few hours, and then get moving once again back to Kathmandu. They were originally planning on spending a few days in Istanbul at the end of their vacation, and Aidan seemed to be left in the lurch as to what he was going to do with his new unexpectedly solo vacation. We handed them the jackets that they’d left in the dining room and the chapatis that were fresh from the kitchen, bid them well, and away they went, headlamps doing their best to burn small holes in the dark.
The next day was the second to last day of the trek, and I had the powerful urge for company by the time we made it to Tal. I felt oddly on the verge of tears all day, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. The day was physically tiring, but I spent most of the morning thinking about the brothers, and replaying scenes of Dad in my head. For the first hour or two of our own walk to Dharapani, we mostly found ourselves walking in silence. Kempy later confirmed that she spent the whole morning thinking about the Irishmen, too.
We spent a good chunk of the rest of the trip trying to get Binod to call the Irishmen’s guide and to get us contact information for them. Binod gave us occasional updates on their whereabouts, varyingly claiming that their father was stabilizing, that they were on an airplane, and then that they didn’t manage to move their flights after all, but he couldn’t — or wouldn’t — get us a way to get in touch with them. He gave us the name of a trekking service eventually, but it turned out that trekking service had never heard of anyone named Brendan, Aidan, or Peter. We never did manage to get in touch with them.
Of all the people we met along the way, the Irishmen are the ones I don’t think I’ll soon forget.
There's a few more from this series coming. If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, but you want to get notified so you can read more things like this when I write them, I also have an e-mail list; I promise I'll only send mail for things that I write that go here on this blog.
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Also wanted to say how much I like the exposure on your top picture! That looks super-tricky to have pulled off, but it came out great!
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I have a few more posts queued up to write, though oddly, none of them are about the experience of shooting film. On the trek I *only* brought an old Nikon SLR (and eight rolls of film), and no digital camera. I haven't shot film since high school, and even then, only a roll or two; I was curious as to whether I was a 'good enough' photographer these days to be able to make do without live feedback, and only a mid-80s through-the-lens light meter, and beyond that, to get any meaningfully composed photos out of it. I was joking beforehand that if I got a single usable shot per roll, I'd call it a success, but as it turns out, the results were way better than that; I think my hit rate on 'usable photos' was a shocking 40% or so, which is something that I'd never dream of on digital. It turns out there is really something to being limited to about 14 photos per day, and having to be extra judicious about where I spend them, that makes me consider each one just that much more carefully!