Kevin and I in India

by Frank Kusy

  Kevin’s ‘breakfast’ didn’t finish until lunchtime. I let him go ahead, did my morning chanting, then wandered down to the Oasis. By the time I arrived he had already packed away a huge platter of omelettes, toasted sandwiches and banana cake. Then he decided to start all over again, just to keep me company. ‘I couldn’t possibly eat another thing!’ he declared as I sat down, ‘Now where’s the menu?’ By noon, Kevin was absolutely glutted. He sat opposite me holding his stomach, he eyes glazed right over and an idiot smile on his face.

  The problem with Kathmandu, we decided today, is that it simply eats up money. We spent the whole day spending: on irresistible food (mainly cakes and confectionery), on attractive clothes and souvenir curios, and on entrance fees to temples. The very worst place we found for expense was Durbar Square. To linger here for an hour or so was to invite trouble, for a whole week’s money disappeared before you knew it. Kevin accused me of trying the buy up the whole of Freak Street.

  We also paid a quick visit to the unique Kumari Devi, an 18th century red-brick building full of exquisite wood-carvings, in which the famous Kumari (‘living goddess’) is housed. She is a young girl, always a virgin, who is hardly ever seen. She apparently only emerges from her secluded prison to bless prospective kings of Nepal, or to tour the city at the end of each monsoon. At puberty, the current Kumari is replaced by a younger one. The new Kumari is selected by placing ten small girls in a small locked room and frightening them to death for a whole night. The infant who is least paralysed by fear in the morning becomes the new Kumari.

  March 23rd

  Today was another festival in Kathmandu. This one was in honour of Hanuman, the Monkey God. The occasion was marked by twenty young men weaving drunkenly round Durbar Square carrying a huge effigy of Hanuman on a flower-decked chariot. Such was the weight of this thing that the carriers had no idea of where they were going. Before they had reached the end of the square, they had mown down one itinerant beggar, two stray flute-sellers, and finally a sleeping policeman who lay across their path. Then, as the wild panoply of noise and colour reached its climax, one of the youths – a giggling, bug-eyed character – detached himself from the carriage and snatched up a duck from the roadside. The duck didn’t know what hit it. One second it was strolling along the gutter minding its own business. The next, it was being hoisted up in the air by its feet and stuck under the processional chariot. As it squawked and flapped away in furious protest, everybody nearby clapped and cheered raucous appreciation. The duck was evidently a necessary addition to Hanuman’s curious retinue.

  Back in Freak Street an even stranger sight came into view – two young Nepal boys break-dancing on the pavements. Both wore leather jackets, tight trousers and dark sunglasses. They were both chewing gum and trying to look as ultra-cool and as much like Michael Jackson as possible. As time went on, we noticed more and more Michael Jackson clones wandering up and down the street. By the evening, we had learnt that Michael Jackson was, after the King of Nepal, the single most popular person in Kathmandu. The city was littered with Michael Jackson lookalikes, T-shirts, records, cassettes, stickers and badges; everyone here seemed to revere him as some sort of gum-chewing, highly fashionable Messiah.

  March 24th

  Getting up at 5am, Kevin and I walked down to the bus-rank by Bhimsen Towers, and bid our final farewells. Kevin dearly wanted to go on with me, but he was just about out of money. So his coach for Varanasi went in one direction, and my bus for Pokhara went in the other. For the last thirty days of my tour, I would be travelling alone. Or so I thought...

  It was eight long hours later that the crowded, uncomfortable ‘luxury’ bus deposited me in Pokhara, at the foot of the Himalayan mountains. My backside was destroyed. A fellow passenger assured me that things could have been much worse, for had I taken the cheaper ‘local’ bus, I might well have arrived with no backside at all!

  A wiry, grinning Nepali cycled up to me at Pokhara. He introduced himself as ‘Juggernaut’, and put me up in a private hut in the middle of a potato field for just eight rupees. Then he brought in a friend of his, Basu, who offered to be porter and guide for my forthcoming mountain trek. Basu was a clear-skinned young Nepali with a shock of black, greasy hair who smiled a lot. He agreed to take me up to Poon Hill, which affords one of the best views of the western Himalayan peaks, and then back again for a daily rate of NR40. We didn’t discuss whether or not this rate included his meals and accommodation. This was a bad mistake.

  Returning from the popular Baba’s Restaurant, which looks over onto Pokhara Lake, my torch batteries suddenly gave out and I tripped over something in the dark road. It was a bookshop owner, who was lying here with his leg in plaster. He told me that he had broken it the day before in a glass factory. I asked him why he wasn’t in bed, and he replied that his injury was good for business. ‘If I am lying here like this,’ he confided, ‘people are feeling so sorry that they buy my books to make me happy!’

  With no torch, finding my way back to the potato field in the pitch-dark was fraught with difficulty. It was not long before I stumbled knee-deep into a muddy quag at the side of the road, and resigned myself to the loss of yet another pair of precious socks. Another twenty minutes passed before, squelching my way miserably round the potato field, I happened on my small hut. I fell asleep, fully clothed and damp, as soon as my weary head hit the thin, dirty pillow.

  March 25th

  Having completed an excellent ‘Big Breakfast’ at Baba’s, Basu and I hitched a lift into Pokhara Town from a passing Swedish resident in a jeep. Then, in view of our late start this morning, we opted to take a further jeep on to Suikhet instead of making the dry, dusty and dull five-hour trek there by foot.

  This jeep ride was like taking part in a stock-car rally. The sturdy little vehicle charged relentlessly over pitted dirt-tracks, ploughed over rock-piles, plunged down into river gorges, and finally aqua-glided over rushing streams before depositing us, some two hours later, in the tiny trekking outpost of Suikhet.

  On this journey I had two companions from Seattle, USA. Both of them sounded exactly like Henry Fonda. The three of us spent the bone-crunching trip with bandanas tied over our mouths and throats, to keep out the clouds of dust blowing regularly into the jeep. Basu, and the other Nepali passenger, looked at us mystified. They didn’t seem to think this expedient necessary.

  Basu’s indifference to the dust had him coughing and blowing gouts of phlegm into his tracksuit sleeve the whole journey. As we alighted, shaken and breathless, from the jeep I realised that he had come down with a stinker of a cold. I asked him whether he wasn’t better off back in bed, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The ghost of a brave smile passed over his pale, fever-racked features, and he moved on ahead.

  Tucked away at the foot of the mountains in a dry valley bed, Suikhet town seethes with all the pioneering activity, and all the raw, rugged energy, of a Wild West trading post. Here, around the few rough eating-houses and lodges, local pilgrims, trekkers, mules, guides and porters laugh, and shout, and jostle each other cheerfully as they prepare to head up the mountain trails. The whole place is quite electric with the excitement of impending adventure.

  From Suikhet (3,650ft above sea level), Basu and I set up the steep, rough-hewn stone stairway that marked the start of the trekking trail, and came one hour later to the lively little hill-village of Naudanda (4,675ft). It had been a hard first climb, and I took a glass of lemon tea to replenish lost perspiration. Naudanda’s dry, dusty street was alive with goats, lambs and chickens, all running wild. By the roadside, local women – heedless of shame – bathed naked to the waist. Everywhere else, mucky, tousled children ran about, begging ‘sweeties’ from visiting trekkers and shyly picking their noses as they awaited a response.

  I was just emptying my pockets of chewing gum for them when my meal arrived. It was a bowl of tepid, green curried water with two spinach leaves floating in it. The waiter called it ‘vegetable soup’. I called it
inedible slop. A faint sparkle appeared in Basu’s moody, feverish eyes. His look dared me to eat this thin gruel, and to enjoy it. I let him eat it instead.

  The warmth and companionship of the trekking trail soon enfolded me in its friendly embrace. All along the dry, dusty path, passing travellers shouted jolly greetings of ‘Hello!’ or ‘Namaste!’ – welcoming me into the camaraderie of the trekking circuit. I picked my way along the narrow trails, and soon noticed the long mule trains carrying heavy climbing equipment and trade goods up into the mountains. The ‘lead’ mules, wearing twice as many bells at the others (along with long feathered head-plumes), were instantly distinguishable.

  Coming up towards Khare (5400ft), I began to take in the magnificent scenery. Way down in the valley below, Lake Phewa wound and glistened like a jewelled snake in the reflected light of the noonday sun. On the hillsides, women threshed wheat with powerful strokes of long cane sticks. Opposite, on the shaded mountain, slate-roofed Buddhist dwellings nestled in tiny rock clefts. Aged, wrinkled grandmothers walked up the track, bearing impossible burdens of firewood and fuel. An English-run ‘nursery’ for fresh fruit and vegetables appeared, set up on the edge of the slopes to catch optimum sunlight. And all around lay the massive black mountains themselves. Dark and forbidding, encircled by heavy mist, these sleeping giants awoke now and groaned in pain, as the warship prows of massed rain clouds clashed in wrath over their tranquil peaks, their wounded tears streaking downwards to bring, at long last, rain to the dry, cracked river-bed valleys below.

  I had just left Lumle (5300ft) when the first drops of rain began to fall. And I welcomed the slight drizzle, for it tied the dust down to the trail and drove the close heat from the air. I came into Chandrakot soaked, yet refreshed. A look at the dark, lowering sky told me that a real storm was, however, not far away. Consequently, Basu and I agreed to remain the night in Chandrakot.

  This was a small, quite primitive, village with just one or two lodges for travellers. Like most of the other buildings in town, the simple chalet we stayed in constructed mainly of wood, with some labs of mountain rock included, and the roof was neatly tiled with thin, resilient sheets of slate. Like most trek lodges, we were charged just Rs2 (five pence!) each for our tiny, bare dormitory cells, but were expected to eat all our food there.

  I was becoming worried about Basu. He was getting more woebegone by the minute. As we sat down to supper, and as he studied me with hangdog hopeless dejection, I wondered again where his big smile had gone. I hadn’t seen it since leaving Pokhara. To make matters worse, there was no electricity up here in the mountains, and a long, gloomy evening sitting in the dark, unable to read or write, was an unbearable prospect. Soon, the sun’s last rays faded over the storm-dark horizon, giving a last brief glimpse of the two ice-streaked giant peaks nearby. They reared up from the inky depths of the black hills like twin white whales, wreathed in a spray of ice-white mist.

  I was saved from an evening of silent mourning with Basu by the unexpected arrival of two boisterous New Zealanders. They kept me entertained with stories of their travels late into the night. They were so entertaining indeed, that the lodge owner joined us, together with his three young sons. Everybody, including the children, were soon busily rolling up hash cigarettes and passing pipes of peace. A very mellow evening was had by all. Except poor Basu.

  March 26th

  Travelling up this damp, chill climate dressed in just a thin tracksuit, and armed with no sleeping bag, is not a sensible action for a mountain porter. Especially a porter with a bad cold. Consequently, Basu woke up this morning with double-pneumonia. It didn’t seem to concern him at all. As he coughed and shivered his way downstairs to me, the only worry he had on his mind was his food and lodging bill. He wanted me to pay it.

  This request came as a surprise. I had thought Basu responsible for his own expenses. Further, I had already spent nearly half the NR450 in local currency which I had brought on trek, most of it on buying Basu expensive fizzy drinks. When I explained my situation to him, he just shrugged and showed me his empty pockets. With a sigh, I paid his lodge expenses and told him to go home to bed. I wouldn’t be needing his services anymore.

  Proceeding on down the trek trail by myself, I took one look back. Basu was still standing where I had left him, staring after me. And his face hadn’t changed. It still wore the same shocked look of surprise as when I had told him I was going on alone. He seemed to think I was crazy.

  For the first few hours, I would have agreed with him. After almost getting trampled to death by donkeys and nearly falling off the cliff-face a couple of times, I began to realise how dependent I had become on following a guide’s practised footsteps. With a heavy rucksack on my back, and little experience in negotiating the treacherous, crumbling rock paths, my trek suddenly transmuted from a jolly holiday into a gruelling forced march. It took me some time to realise the advantages of travelling alone – namely, that without a guide, one is not only saving money, but also able to rest where and when one likes, as well as meeting a lot more people. At first, however, all I could think about was survival. If you have an accident way out here, I had heard, the only way to get back home alive is to send out to Pokhara for a helicopter pick-up. I couldn’t even afford a messenger, let alone the helicopter.

  Having battled through the mule-trains, I came down the steep bath into Birethanti (3400ft). Then my heart stopped in my mouth. Way above me, my next objective, Hille (4800ft), towered a daunting two-hour climb up a sheer rock face. By the time I reached it, I was bathed in sweat and barely able to stand. Hille was a quiet place, a small Gurung-type native village with just a few empty cha-shops, wood shacks and traveller’s lodges to its name. Coming into it, the dust-caked rock trail gave way to neatly layered stone paving. Packs of mules stood tethered in small corrals, resting after their hard climb. Elsewhere, a couple of ponies were rolling about in the dry dust. Red, white and blue flags fluttered on long bamboo poles, painted with prayer inscriptions. Hille was evidently a Buddhist village.

  Feeling filthy but determined, I pushed on into the wild, rugged hinterland, beginning now to savour the pleasure of not having Basu around. Crossing over the charming rope-bridges at Tirkhedhunge (4900ft) indeed, I was actually enjoying myself. But then I looked up...and...up...and up, searching for the next point on my route. It was Ullere, a dizzying 2000 feet above me, at the top of a mountain. And the ascent was one sheer, unrelenting slog. It never levelled out at any point. Even passing pilgrims, on their way to Muktinath Temple, were having problems with it. Seasoned climbers all, they were without exception fagged out. A red-faced, sweating Australian chap passed me, going down. ‘What a sod!’ he puffed as he drew alongside. ‘I tell ya, mate, I’ve climbed them all: Jomsom, Dhaulagiri, many other major peaks. But this bastard takes the biscuit!’

  This climb finished me for the day. The views it provided, however, were spectacular. Rippling yellow harvest of corn and wheat stretched out below. Natural waterfalls gushed out of gashes in the mountain walls. Vast, yawning gullies dipped down into dry river beds. Meadows and fields shimmered gold and green in the glint of the sun. This was all very beautiful. But nobody I met who had done this climb ever wanted to do it again.

  I had been trekking some seven hours when I finally came into Ullere. I took a room at the Annapurna View Restaurant and collapsed on its veranda to die. Here I met the only other guest, a Dutchman called Joseph. He congratulated me on arriving just in time. ‘Just in time for what?’ I croaked. He pointed at the lowering sky and told me that a bad storm was coming. And he was right. Minutes later, the heavens gaped and the rain came down in sheets. Twenty-five other travellers crept into the lodge as evening approached. Every one of them was soaked to the skin.

  The storm raged through the night. We sat under a canopy on the veranda to watch it. The black clouds crashed together like titans, sending claps of violent thunder rolling over the hills, and brilliant sheets of white lightning ripping open the
dark canvas of the night sky. It was the most incredible natural firework display any of us had ever seen, and it sent the village dogs crazy. They howled their anguish right through the night.

  I ate my evening meal of ‘dal bhat’, boiled eggs and curried vegetables in very mixed company this evening. Around the dim, candle-lit table were ranged travellers from France, from Switzerland and Germany, from Holland and Belgium. Few of us could speak each other’s language, but all of us had by now discovered the lodge’s unique ‘outside toilet’ and this provided a humorous conversation piece which transcended all national barriers. This outside loo was located in a small hut on the edge of a precipice, and the lodge owner wouldn’t let you use it unless you promised to lock yourself in with a special key. Everybody thought this odd, but they understood his concern once inside. The loo was just two parallel blocks of wood laid either side of a big hole in the floor. You went in, squatted down on the blocks, felt the gust of chill air wafting up your nether regions, looked through your legs, and watched the bottom fall out of your world for a sheer drop of two thousand feet! The reason for locking the door was obvious. Any unwitting interloper who swung it inwards when you were squatting over that hole was certain to knock you off your perch and straight down it. And that would be a one-way trip to oblivion. With your trousers round your ankles.

  March 27th

  Last night’s rain had washed the mountains clear of mist, allowing a magnificent dawn view of Annapurna II summit from the lodge veranda. I watched this with Joseph, and with two friendly young Germans, Peter and Thomas, before setting off with them up to Gorephani Pass (9300ft).