Nepal

At 62, the American woman was a novelty on the Nepalese trails up to 12,000 feet, because she trekked alone, hired her own porters, and her companions were all under 30. She had to exchange money for muscle, and stay in charge. Her reward was exquisite euphoria at top of the world

On a steep rise near Lumle a Nepali woman passed me, a doko basket loaded with twigs straining against her forehead. She reached out, grabbed both my hands in hers,and cried, “ Namaste , mother!”

When I arrived in Nepal I thought namaste meant hello, but it’s a blessing--more, I am told, like, “I salute the divine within you!”--and always delivered eye to eye with the hands uplifted as in prayer.

My Nepali sister prayed that I would make it up the hill. Dismayed, I sucked in my stomach and tried to look strong. Soon I realized that, at 62, I was a novelty traveling alone up the Kali Gandaki River gorge with my banner of white hair.

Some quick research on my fellow travelers (the Western ones) led me to discover that they were from many countries, with an age range from 18 to 30. Half were on college break while the other half had just ditched their first careers to reappraise their futures in an affordable Third World place. I was the only one with blue rinse in my duffel.

If this had been the route to the Everest Base Camp a dearth of seasoned citizens would have been no surprise, but this was a moderate trek, mostly under 10,000 feet, hardly a thin-air ordeal.

It’s about 60 miles from Pokhara to Jomosom, another 15 to the medieval border town of Kogbeni (9,200 feet) and east up to Muktinath at 12,475 feet.

My plan was to go as far as I could, but I had serious doubts about that last, steep climb. I knew that at Jomosom there’s an airstrip and a choice of flying out instead of returning by the same route.

The Pokhara to Jomosom trail follows an ancient trade route where there have always been inns for the traveler in almost every town. Reservations (unless you’re with a group) are unnecessary. So is hauling in a tent, a camp stove or dehydrated noodles. This trail is, in fact, the classic choice for what has come to be called Teahouse Trekking, or sometimes Soft Trekking. It is the trail known for the spectacular variety of its people and its landscape.

The Katmandu Valley, where all the international flights land, is an emerald bowl rimmed on the north and the east by the Himalayas. There’s enough history and art here to keep a curious visitor busy for months. But the city, with its cars and hotels, hawkers and tourists, has been flirting with progress since Sir Edmund Hillary conquered Everest in 1953 and brought the world in after him.

If you want to find the old ways now, you have to go to the end of the road and walk up into the mountains. Anyone who enjoys walking a few miles a day can do it, anyone, that is, who is willing to accept the sudden turn of the weather in the mountains and the jolt of another culture.

Crucial for wimps and the unconditioned, however, is the porter system. Let’s face it: Plenty of people, at any age, never consider the idea of trekking because the sight of a backpack gives them a headache. They don’t want to carry an ounce, the body being enough of a cumbersome burden, especially climbing uphill.

The porter system solves all that. In the gateway towns of Katmandu and Pokhara young men on every corner fight to carry your load. At first I worried about exploiting them (the rate was less than $5 a day); then I felt guilty because I could use only one at a time.

My first porter found me at Lake Phewa at Pokhara, and I found my second, his replacement, in the lodge at Ghorepani, five days on the road. Both were soft, foothill Hindus of the Chetri caste, not as prepared as they thought for the high country.

Purna, 28 and married, with good English, had much charm but got homesick. Five days from the lake was like five years to him, and the great festival of Dessai was coming up. He wanted to be home to receive the red tika on his forehead from his uncle and eat the goat especially slaughtered to pacify the terrifying goddess Durga. When he developed a stubborn cough, we agreed he should go home.

Ram Chandra, 21 and unattached, was waiting in the wings. He was thrilled to travel north and practice his English; but he didn’t tell me that the shorts and sandals he had on were his only clothes, till we got to 9,000 feet and the goose-bumps appeared.

To both I was mother, an antique of uncertain durability who had to be protected. Purna liked to walk ahead and call back, “Watch out for that loose stone!” and Ram got me over the trembling log bridges by pulling me across with both hands, while I walked forward and he walked backward.

When they needed money they came to me (I bought the long pants), and when I needed muscle I went to them. When we had simultaneous blisters, we split the moleskin. It was an arrangement I’m familiar with.

The essential issue was to set my own pace. Trip planners worldwide, I have found, design for the restless voyager, the one who’s checking off cathedrals. With ample time but untested stamina I knew I wanted to walk, at most, five or six hours a day. I wanted to browse.

“No problem!” said Purna, until, out on the trail, his patience was tried as he waited for me to record flute music, watch millet being ground by a foot-hammer and photograph the work-dance of men twisting dried grass into skeins, all, to him, the dull occurrences of every day.

Along this major path between Asia and China we know that both men and animals have been moving goods since before the 7th Century. Salt and wool came south; rice, sugar and kerosene, north. The traveler today still spends a lot of time leaping sideways as he hears the warning donkey bells, then watches the plumes of red-dyed horsehair bob past.

Animals in upper-crust pack trains wear Tibeten carpet bridles over their noses, and blankets you could proudly hang on the wall. Other beastly hazards are the sleek, black water buffalo, who, it is rumored, enjoy lunging at tourists.

In October, skittish hordes of goats, their silky, long hair brushed with fuchsia and ochre markings, traffic-jammed the trails more than once. Like Purna’s family tribute, they were coming down for the big kill.

As in India, life is on the street, highly visible. By the side of the trail, hair is cut, teeth are pulled, people sleep, cook, visit, work and pass the news. On their way to school, two sisters climbed a while with me up a winding stone staircase. “One, two, three, four, five--rest--and pant!” I repeated as we ascended together.

They giggled hysterically, and memorized my strange words in minutes. An old man in a Ghandi dhoti with no teeth but the legs of a runner shot past me barefoot and windless toting a bulky, lopsided bundle held together with rags, bouncing from shoulder to shoulder.

At the ridge, where I dropped out of line to gasp audibly, he looked at me in my hiking boots, Velcroed into my Gortex vest, and had the grace to say sympathetically to my porter, “Tell her not to go so fast!”

Evening at the Inns

It was bliss to fall into the inns in the evening. In the first, at Nagdanda, we were sitting at a trail-side table sipping the hot, sweet, spicy “milk tea” from a glass when an old woman grabbed my mending from me and finished the chore.

In the last, at Kogbeni, our rooms overlooked the stable where the grandfather of the house spent all morning sharpening a stick of soft wood to a fine point.

About lunchtime he tethered his bullock to a post and pierced the nose of the howling animal. Next morning he led it out to work by its new iron ring. Elizabeth from Newton Abbot, Simon and Anne from London were there with me; we were about 30 miles from the Tibetan border, and had all come closer to the Middle Ages than we wanted.

The inn floors where the family lived were mud. Bedrooms, added for guests, were second-level, wooden cubicles, often with a window that opened out over the Annapurna range. Somewhere near was a tap of cold, running water; hot arrived in a big bucket, on request. Toilets were a slit in a dirt floor, or porcelain set into the floor, usually more pleasant than the facilities in most Stateside parks.

The best thing about the inn food is that it’s all fresh, cooked to order. Someone is always chopping veggies in the corner of a Nepali kitchen, while some form of chapati bread brews in the outdoor oven. Purna and Ram ate dal bat (rice and lentils) twice a day, but my favorite was Swiss rosti , a potato pancake stuffed with diced onions, carrots, celery and cabbage.

Clean and Comfortable

I found that the inns that often, in the distance, looked poor and shabby were, at close range, clean, orderly and comfortable. At any rate, I never went to bed hungry, cold or dirty. The average charge was 20 rupees (90 cents), while two meals cost about $2.

Better to me than the bed or the food was the chance to enter the world of our hosts, to sit in the kerosene light on a mat put down over the adobe floor, and talk through the porters.

“Has she been married?”

“Has she children?”

“Is she alone?”

Purna and Ram answered these questions for me every night by the kitchen fire, as we talked about how it is with their house and mine, with their children and mine, with their women and those of my own country.

In all its elements, the constant on the trail is change. Its surface can be mud, or gravel, or pine needles, or rocks or a stream bed. At the start, just north of Pokhara, we began at 2,600 feet in a lush, green, steamy land where banana and pipal trees flourish and women stand patiently in the furrows of the rice fields, fishing.

On the second day we pushed up 4,000 feet to Ulleri, then down again all the next day, my hot knees shaking.

At Tatopani we picked up the Kali Gandaki River and, from then on, would never be far from its wild flow, muddy and frothing in the fall runoff from glaciers.

As we moved steadily upward, tourists thinned out and, when I least expected it, I started catching up with Ram. He kept looking back to find me matching his stride. It was easy to stay high, sniffing conifers and crisp air as majestic Dhaulagiri, at more than 26,000 feet, seemed to be following along over my left shoulder, wearing her ermine cape.

Beautiful Women

Many hill tribes passed us as we climbed, the women a gallery of vivid beauty, smashing in their burgundy velvet jackets and baroque gold nose-rings, their bosoms weighted under luxuriant strands of yellow, red and orange beads. As they glide past in their long wrap skirts, the colors knock you out, and the faces look you steadily in the eye, full of pride and curiosity.

As we went deeper into the gorge the river became wider, the pines disappeared and many of the traveling families were on pilgrimage. Their destination was Muktinath, a place mentioned in the Hindu “Vedas,” where a spring and a flame of natural gas have offered, for 1,500 years, eternal salvation to believers.

From Marpha on (8,750 feet), the barren hills, prayer flags and faces are pure Tibet. Jomosom is gray and somber, perched on the edge of an alluvial plain.

A horseman in a fur hat with the features of a Tartar crossed the wide river bed. Boys sold ammonite fossils by the road, relics of a time when this region was an ocean floor, before northward-pushing India created the Himalayas. The imprint caught in the ebony stone is a prawn-like mollusk that the locals call “the mark of the gods.”

Stark and Windy

Kogbeni, as far north as we went, is a stark place. My hat was pulled down against the fierce wind, and Ram made himself a turban from my wool scarf. We were on our 10th day, an age away from the muggy sensuality of Pokhara.

In the end I took a day trip on a balky white horse up the 3,275 feet to Muktinath where I felt lightheaded, but not too weak to pull my nag home afterward.

Retracing to Jomosom, we flew out the next day, Ram turning his head ever so cautiously (for fear he might tip the plane over too far) to look down on the thin white ribbon of river as we whizzed back to Pokhara in half an hour.

In all their moods--hidden, peeking out, exposed in the dawn at Poon Hill--the mountains never disappointed me, and the effort of getting up into them paid off in an exquisite euphoria. Coming down after two weeks on the trails, my pants were loose and my mind was calm. I know I will be back.

To go Teahouse Trekking, solo, begin by burying yourself in Stephen Bezruchka’s comprehensive preview of the culture, “Trekking in Nepal.” He describes my trek under “North of Pokhara” and others where food and lodging are available en route. Accurate and indispensable.

Lonely Planet’s slim guide, “Katmandu and the Kingdom of Nepal” will orient you to the main entry point by air. It lists places to stay in every economic range, cable and telex numbers of the Top End Hotels, phone numbers for Mid and Bottom End. Even without a reservation, with this book in hand you can head for the phone and find a room. Thamel is the trekking district. Hard to go wrong there. Many choices.

A visa is required for every foreign visitor and also a trekking permit. Details in the guidebooks.

October/November is the prime time because it’s cooler, drier, clearer. February, March and April is a less crowded season when plants and animals thrive, but heat and dust bring haze.

“Trekking in Nepal” includes a report on altitude sickness. Get your shots early. Ask for “drinking” water in the inns, then drop in an iodine tablet. Be suspicious of meat; peel the fruit, and take some antibiotics, in case.

Carry Light Load

Take as little as possible of sturdy, light layers of clothing in a medium duffel or pack. I trekked in loose pants, T-shirts, light boots or tennis shoes, had polythermal underwear, a Shetland sweater, wind/rain parka and, for over 8,000 feet, a Syncilla jacket.

Other musts are a brimmed hat, goggles and cream, water bottle, flashlight with extra batteries, toilet paper and a money belt (for convenience as much as safety). You can rent a sleeping bag or a backpack in Thamel for a modest fee. Take a flannel liner with you. Locals my age carry a walking stick, and I would not go again without one, for stream crossings and the steep spots.

Porters. Two choices: First-class, through a trekking agency (the major ones are listed in the guidebooks). He will, most likely, be better equipped, have better English and be more experienced--for double the price. The other option is to go for the free-lancer. Give yourself some time for this; mingle in Thamel with other trekkers, ask about trail conditions, rates and good men. Comparison shop. Ask for references. Don’t assume that he has clothes for the higher elevations or that he knows the trail. Don’t advance wages and don’t lend your gear (lending means you don’t need it). Pay as you go and stay in charge.

Don’t be frightened. Nepalese are the least sinister people I know, easy, kind, open-hearted and anxious to please. You are their gateway into the First World.