Trekking Nepal: Episode III
May 23, 2010
Featuring:
A himalayan Hilton–a Mermaid mountain–a 25-year-old memory–and a mirror of another world.
Around the bend and up a small hill is the town of Dhampus, with its celebrated view of the Himalayas. Even better, it is home to one of the poshest hotels along the Anapurna base-camp route. After hours of hot and sweaty trekking, followed by a slog through torrential rains, we are eager for some dry clothes and hot food.
When we step into the lobby of our two-story hotel, we immediately feel like tramps. We are dripping from every crevice. Muddy pools collect at our feet and spread like oil slicks across the clean tile floor. A concierge in a red vest looks up from his mahogany desk and asks, “Please, may I be helping you?”
For once, J.V. engages. He discusses our reservation with the concierge in flurries of lilting Nepali. The concierge smiles and nods. I assume J.V. also apologizes for us spattering the floor, because the man makes a sweeping gesture at us with his arm and says, “Not to be worrying, I am cleaning.”
“I hope he doesn’t mean he’s cleaning us,” I say to Dad, chuckling.
A bellman shows us to our room: a second-floor corner suite with a view, a private bath, a shower, and wonder of wonders, a flush toilet. How this was built 5,249 feet above the valley floor without the benefit of roads, makes me shake my head for the hundredth time this day. In my world, it would take helicopters and hoists to build this place and I would have to be a movie star to enjoy it. But this is not my world. Here, where the per capita income is $473.00, it’s cheaper to hire hands than helicopters. And there is no shortage of hands. The region is heavily settled by the mid-hills tribe, “Gurungs”, who were once the famous Gurkha soldiers of the British Indian Army, known for their bravery and strength. British officials designated the Gurkhas as a “Martial Race”, thinking them naturally warlike and aggressive in battle, possessing qualities of courage, loyalty, self-sufficiency, physical strength, resilience, orderliness, and the ability work hard for long periods of time. As British Field Marshal Adian Tormey once observed, “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha.” So, maybe it’s not so outrageous to imagine these people carrying toilets and two-by-fours on their backs all the way up here. Heck, according to the Brits, a Gurkha would probably still have energy to spare for a friendly arm wrestling match.
I shed my soggy pack and hit the shower. Amazingly, it is hot. I change clothes, comb my hair, and emerge looking something like a demur English explorer with my Khaki pants, leather belt, Rockport shoes, and polo shirt. This is “camping” like I have never experienced it.
Because of the lingering rain clouds, we cannot see the mountains. I stand for about an hour on our room’s balcony with Dad, squinting into the gloom, hoping to catch a glimpse of the legendary Machapuchre, “Fishtail Mountain.” Eventually, my eyes ache and I call off the search and walk inside. Suddenly, Dad calls out, “Marc, you’d better come back out fast, I see a peak coming through.” I step out, and there, in the fading light of sunset, much higher in the sky than I judge possible, floats a lone craggy peak, dusted with snow. It looks both nearer and farther away than I can calculate. My heart leaps and I stammer something hopelessly inadequate like, “Wow.” Dad just nods, gripping his slack jaw as if it might fall off his face. Then, as quickly as it appears, it disappears. Like an apparition in the mist, it leaves us wondering if we have actually seen such a beast, or if it was merely the projection of our starved imaginations.
The mountains remain cloaked the rest of the evening. Over dinner we compare notes with a couple from Connecticut, Roland and Barbara, who are well into their 50’s and lead an active international life. Roland is a member of some foreign council that meets periodically in New York (not the United Nations, but he will not elaborate). The couple is hardy, especially the wife, Barbara. I spend all evening trying to figure out who she reminds me of, with her eagle nose, coarse mannerisms, quick laughter, and tendency to interrupt her husband. Finally, it comes to me from the depths of childhood: Diane Hotell, my first babysitter, a face I have not seen since I was four or five years old.
I verify my observation with Dad and then shake my head at the queer workings of the mind. I find it incredible that I should so vividly remember a woman I have not known or thought of for more than 25 years. I listen, fascinated as Barbara tells of her glob-trotting adventures with her husband, of shaking Gorbachev’s hand, of meeting the Dali Lama, of scaling China’s Great Wall, and on, and on.
Finally, the lights go out and the maitre-d brings us candles to illuminate the way back to our rooms.
The next morning Dad is up early. It is twilight but he insists I get up too. “This may be your only shot at the mountains,” he says. I stagger out of bed and fumble for my jacket.
Outside, Barbara is up too, pacing the porch like a wind-up doll, camera in hand. Dad is motionless. A thin wall of clouds stands before us, just barely hiding the massive hulks of Anapurna South, Fish Tail, and Anapurna II. There are lesser peaks in the mist too: Hunchuli, Madri Himal, Rankarka. In Nepal, a “lesser” peak means a chunk of rock only 14,000 feet high or so, roughly the size of Mt. Rainier, the highest peak in the Cascade Range–so much for lesser. As yet we cannot see anything. Shafts of light from the east warm our backs and creep over our shoulders, while in front of us, directly west, sit three dark and fantastically huge cotton balls, sculpted and teased by wind.
“Man I wish the clouds would move,” I utter. Dad grunts his agreement and strokes his beard. His eyes remain fixed on the shrouded giants.
I stand around for a while, shifting my weight from foot to foot. Then I duck back inside to fuss with my pack. When I emerge again, nature is staging an exhibition I will never forget.
First, the curtain rises on Anapurna South. I recognize the same snowy crags I glimpsed last night floating high in the sky–only now they are connected to flying buttresses and hulking supporting structures that reach far down into the valley, freshly dusted white. Immediately I hear the whir and click of cameras. Dad and Barbara are like snipers, aiming and clicking, aiming and clicking. I know they will not succeed in reducing their prey onto crisp celluloid. The depth and breadth of these mountains is beyond the reach of any lens except the naked eye, and even that seems inadequate now.
Within seconds, an opaque curtain of cloud sweeps back across the mountain, blocking it from view. Still, we are nearly breathless with excitement at having witnessed it at all, as if it were some rare and magnificent animal we have been tracking for months. We would be happy to pack up and go home right then and there, we tell ourselves.
But nature is not finished with us yet.
No sooner do we stop congratulating each other on our good fortune, than the clouds over Machapuchre (Fishtail) scroll back, revealing a stunning spire of rock and ice that twists some 22,000 feet into the air. The uncanny match between this mountain’s name and its shape makes me shiver. Imagine a mythologic fish, four miles long, diving into the crust of the earth with its tail twisting gracefully into the jet stream, the wind whistling across its silent stony scales forever. This is Machapuchre. She is a holy mountain, revered by the local population as especially sacred to Shiva. Climbing her is strictly forbidden.
Again, the show lasts only a minute or two and then, like a mermaid, Machapuchre turns tail and vanishes. We never see her again, except in our pale photographs.
We file away from the scene in silent awe, each going his or her separate way to contemplate the meaning of something so massive and beautiful. I find myself shuffling along a grassy shore by a lake. The morning sun is high enough now to flood the foothills with light, and in the mirrored surface of the lake, the landscape around me appears molten. Slant rays ignite every blade of grass, every rhododendron, every stalk of bamboo. Golden veins of light surge within the leaves, as if they never did contain chlorophyll, but only embers of the sun.
Under the ripples of the lake, a whole world flickers into existence: temples, mustard fields, flowers I cannot name, rainbow-colored birds flitting from tree to tree, and flotillas of glowing clouds overhead. The longer I look, the lighter and more light-headed I feel. It is not even eight o’clock in the morning and already my head is bursting, punch drunk with natural beauty. I ask myself if this day can reveal any more magic, if I can take in one more pang of longing, one more stunning glimpse of beauty. There must be a natural limit to this kind of thing, just like there’s a natural limit to how many pints of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Macadamia a person can eat in one day.
As if to read my thoughts, a breeze riffles across the water and erases my inverted paradise. I blink and turn toward the west. The sky is surprisingly dark. Great spools of cumulonimbus are boiling up, flattening themselves into anvil thunderheads.
Isn’t it a little early for rain? I wonder.
…to be continued.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to read the rest from this author. Marc is a local writer, musician, and physician. He is a regular contributor to ConneXions and has written reviews for Spectrum: Adventist Forum. He loves words and music, windsurfing, and going on adventures with Janine and the kids.(Read more from this author) 
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