Nepal in the Rainy Season

Having just turned 55, and experiencing the first aches and pains of old age, I felt it was time to do something to prove my invincibility. Trekking in the Himalaya appeared to fit the bill! With my twenty-something daughter, Sigrid, as companion, it was off to Nepal.

Several guidebooks had recommended against a trekking tour in July, since this is the middle of the rainy season, but as an academic I was limited to taking my vacation during the summer months — rainy season or not. New York to Frankfurt was uneventful. We realized , however, after boarding Royal Nepal Airlines in Frankfurt, that we were indeed entering an unfamiliar culture. Rather than the usual culinary delights of “chicken or beef,” the sari-clad cabin attendant offered us “rice or noodles.”

Nepal was shrouded in heavy clouds on our arrival. No sign of the snow capped mountains promised by the coffee-table books of that country. Green jungles crisscrossed by huge, sandy river beds. Then low hills with terraced fields. Kathmandu from the air looked like a wet, bombed-out city.

Our taxi from the airport wound its way through loud, unruly traffic and incredible air pollution to the Kathmandu Guest House, an older, modest but clean hotel, located in a lovely green oasis, smack in the middle of the maze of narrow, shop-lined streets which make up the old town. The hotel was frequented mostly by European and Australian tourists cum trekkers and left-over flower children from the North American continent. In the evening, these travelers surrounded the TV screen (permanently tuned to CNN) in the lobby and told the trekker’s equivalent of “big fish stories”: frightful tales of successful or not so successful attempts to breathe at 6,000- meter altitude, etc.

In the past, Kathmandu must have been a breathtakingly beautiful city. It is full of temples and shrines, with uncountable Hindu deities dusted with vermilion powder, and formerly stately buildings with intricately carved window and door frames. But like the capitals of many other developing nations, Kathmandu’s infrastructure cannot keep pace with the influx of people from rural areas. My daughter, who was experiencing her first encounter with serious poverty, and openly visible hunger and sickness suffered a major culture shock. I sensed that she would not have minded abandoning our trekking plans and moving to the Shangri-la to wait for our return flight in the comforts of this luxury hotel. But mother had come to go trekking!

• • •

After a good night’s sleep, we stop at one of many trekking agencies to arrange for our first “outing.” I consider it wise to start “small” and stay close to “civilization”, to make certain my middle-aged, overweight frame can take activities which are more strenuous than walking from the classroom to the office and from the office to the parking lot. The agent recommends a three-day trek in the foothills near Kathmandu, assuring me that I will not need to walk more than five hours a day.

Early the following morning, Amar, our wiry, thirty-something guide who has excellent English skills picks us up and takes us by taxi to “the end of the road,” a forty-minute ride–dodging cows, pedestrians, and potholes.  One more cup of tea (the national beverage, consumed with lots of fat milk and sugar) and off we are, strapped into our backpacks. The first two hours we walk (up-hill, of course) through farmland, frequently passed by Nepalese men and women half my size who carry  three times my load on their backs. The narrow path is the only access to their farms and houses. The next two hours (up-hill, of course) bring us through less inhabited areas, crossing raging waters over log bridges. Encounters with other humans become few. Tired, but still in good spirits,  we arrive at a  saddle between two mountains  where we consume the remainder of this day’s food ration and take a final rest before the estimated ninety-minute descent to a tea house (simple rural guest house) where we are to spend our first night.

Quite suddenly, without much warning, the clouds close in and it starts to rain. And I mean RAIN!  Amar decides against taking the direct path through the forest, because, he explains, “the leeches come out in the rain.” Instead, we take a partially washed-out jeep road, which had been established by the Royal Nepalese Army. After an hour and a half of trekking in the rain (up-hill, of course), by now totally soaked, Amar decides that we will not be able to reach the tea house by night fall this way,  and that we should return to the saddle. He is certain that on the other side of the saddle we will find an army post with a tea house where we can spend the night.

Back to the saddle in unrelenting rain. All three of us make use of the supply of moleskin in our backpacks. Amar assures us that “around the ridge in twenty minutes” we will find the army post. It is starting to get dark. The path we are on is being visibly washed away. We have not seen a living creature for hours. It becomes evident why this combination of terrain and climate is inconquerable by “modern development.” The geography changes visibly with every rain.

After three times “around the ridge in twenty minutes,” we arrive at the army post. The tea house has closed because of the rainy season, but the soldiers inform Amar that “around the ridge in twenty minutes” is another tea house.

A change of moleskin. The backpack is getting unbearably heavy. Since I did not have the good sense to cover the pack when it started to rain, everything is soaked. We walk. Thank God, it is no longer uphill, but my lungs are aching, my throat is burning, a bilious substance wanders between my mouth and stomach, my knees are shaking. Conversation has ceased long ago.

In the growing darkness several buildings appear on a ridge nearby. We reach them over a narrow, washed-out path. We find an abandoned school compound. No sign of life. The rain continues. In the distance we hear thunder. I suggest that we stay overnight in one of the abandoned classrooms. But Amar rejects the idea “because of the leeches.” He is sure that we will find a tea house a short distance away. He leaves us at the abandoned school and promises to return to pick us up after he finds lodging. (Dear God! I pre-paid this nightmare! What if he doesn’t come back?) We are surrounded by blackness and thunder.

About forty minutes later, a flashlight comes bobbing toward us. It is Amar and a boy. There is indeed a tea house “around the ridge in twenty minutes.” The boy carries my backpack, I stumble behind him. Suddenly, although I have never seen any of the famous leeches which are said to pursue anything warm blooded during the rainy season, I know they have found me. There is an unmistakable pain on my leg–sharp, as if I were stuck by a burning needle. Lack of light makes it impossible to go after my tormentors immediately. I trudge on, burning.

We arrive about ten o’clock: a set of buildings in the middle of nowhere. The hoped-for “trial trek” of five-hour duration had turned into a soggy, twelve-hour nightmare. I now understand how the soldiers must have felt on the Bataan Death March in 1942.

Amar removes two healthy looking leeches from my leg. Sigrid, only half jokingly, offers to call for an evacuation helicopter. There is no phone, no electricity, no two-way radio. I tell my daughter that this vacation is my revenge for everything she did to me during her teen-age years. She makes me aware that I am suffering more than she is.

Amar informs us that there is only one room left at the inn. In spite of my exhaustion, my western-trained mistrust leads me to suspect that he either wants to save money or sleep with American women. (I still feel guilty that I suspected that gentle, loyal, unassuming and honest soul of any questionable motives!)

The only place where I can hang my wet clothes and sleeping bag is in an open hallway. I hope someone steals the damn stuff so that I don’t have to continue carrying it. (Unfortunately, no such luck!) The constantly coughing owner of the place fixes us daal bhaat (a mountain of rice with a spicy lentil sauce). Amar inhales his meal. Sigrid and I are too exhausted to eat.

I am in such pain that I can barely climb the stairs to our room. Sigrid and I claim one bed (a piece of plywood with a dirty foam mattress on cement blocks), sharing a damp sleeping bag. Amar beds down on the other.

About two in the morning, I feel a gentle nudge. My daughter quietly announces that she has a leech on her face. Suspecting hysteria or a bad dream I grope for the flashlight. On her left temple clings a swollen-up leech almost the size of  my little finger. We must have brought it in on our wet clothes.  Obviously it has feasted on my daughter’s blood for quite some time and  it lets go easily. Amar sleeps through it all (or pretends to).

The next morning I wake up incredibly sore. Everything is still wet. I have to slide down the cement stairs on my derrière. My legs only function on flat terrain.  I decide against a shower, because the walls of the bath house are covered with leeches (in their hungry state they are thin, black, worm-like creatures which move like caterpillars). We meet the other guests– a young Italian couple– who assure us that this trek is more difficult than many they have taken in the high Himalaya. They are so disgusted with the weather and lack of facilities that they have decided to return to Kathmandu. Amar promises us hot water and a beautiful view tonight, so we continue as planned.

After a breakfast of dried-out pancakes (I still can’t eat) we re-trek the ten or so kilometers to the saddle and up the washed out jeep road. Everything is wet, but the sun comes out and burns away the fog. Below us are lovely views of terraced rice paddies and green meadows. At the first village we get to in the mid-afternoon (the one we were supposed to reach last night) I decide that I need a porter for the remaining distance to today’s destination: Nagarkot, a popular tourist resort. Getting a porter, is not as easy as I thought it was. Many men are in the fields, and those who are not can sense that the older, foreign woman is tired and will probably pay anything they ask. But Amar refuses to meet their demands. Finally he settles for a young man who is willing to carry my pack the two hours to our destination for 60 rupees (approximately $1,20).

The porter takes off like a streak. I have difficulty following and reconcile myself to the thought that my Gortex jacket, for which I had paid the average annual income of a Nepalese farmer, was gone forever. (Maybe that was God’s punishment for spending so much money on a stupid jacket while so many people go hungry?) Twenty minutes later, we find the porter crouching by the wayside, waiting for us. Amar translates that the porter wishes us to hurry because he wants to get back to his village before nightfall. We hurry as much as possible, but I am getting again to the point where Amar has to coax me with his “around the ridge in twenty minutes.” The last hour up to Nagarkot is an almost vertical climb. Sigrid is concerned that my beet-red face is the sign of an impending stroke. Women who look twice my age and are loaded down with firewood or other treasures stop to gawk at me and giggle. Even the porter slows down. Dear Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma–or whoever is in charge in this part of the world–please give me the strength to make it!

In Nagarkot we are rewarded for our efforts: clean sheets,  pails of hot water for our showers, a delicious meal, and the next morning a glimpse of the high Himalaya range during a two minute break in the clouds which usually shroud these snow covered giants in the rainy season.

Our next destination is Bhaktapur, the fascinating old capital of Nepal, about 14 kilometers east of Kathmandu and about a four-hour trek down from our mountain top where we are. Amar wins my undying gratitude by making arrangements to have us driven down in  the hotel jeep together with an Indian family (9 people and their luggage on the back of an open jeep!).

Back in Kathmandu that night (by bus), and quite exhiliarated by our experiences and the unaccustomed exertions, we decide that we are now ready for the high country.

• • •

Two days later we left with Amar on an eight-day trek, starting in the Annapurna Conservation Area and partially following the old salt route from Tibet to India. The Italians had been right. Trekking was much easier and much more enjoyable 3,000 meters up and days from the next road than an hour out of Kathmandu! The country side was breathtaking, although we only caught occasional glimpses of the near-by cloud covered peaks. But these glimpses were enough to make us decide that we had to come back one day in the dry season.