This Offbeat Life
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Everest

by Mark J. Van Ryzin

Once in their lifetime, every person should journey to a place where legends live, where everything is bigger than life. For me, Everest has always represented nature at its most powerful, most awe-inspiring, most unconquerable. The allure of seeing Everest up close was one of the driving forces bringing me to Nepal in the first place, and now for me the dream was close to being realized. On Wednesday, November 17th I set out for the Solu-Khumbu region planning to spend three weeks walking among the highest peaks on earth.

In the Everest region everything in on a scale so fantastic that it defies credulity, prohibits measurement in conventional terms. For example, the last stretch of road leading to the village of Jiri, the trailhead for the walk to Everest, was constructed by hand using local labour. Over one hundred kilometers of road, through some of the steepest terrain imaginable, was built foot by foot, mile by mile, each individual stone cut with a hammer and laid in place by a local inhabitant. This was not a totally civic gesture - traditional road-building equipment doesn't exist in this part of the world, and couldn't be used anyway in this sort of rugged landscape.

The road was a Swiss-sponsored project, as is much of the foreign activity in Nepal - either the Swiss building roads or bridges, or the Japanese organising cheese factories - and we felt very lucky to have it. When Edmund Hillary set out to climb Everest, the roads of Nepal didn't reach much farther than Kathmandu. He started his trek from the village of Bhaktapur, shouting distance from Kathmandu and nearly 200 kilometers from Jiri, the starting point of our journey.

To get to Jiri on the big day, I conspire with my trekking companion, an American named Dennis, to hire a taxi, which turns out to be a tiny well-worn minivan with tires the size of large English muffins. The spare tire is almost completely bald, and when we stop to check tire pressure I run my finger along its smoothness and Dennis and I laugh nervously. The driver, unfazed by any of this, proceeds along the mountains roads at breakneck speed, tossing the van into every curve and whipping past any locals unfortunate enough to share the road with us. The ferocity of nature in the Solu-Khumbu makes itself felt almost immediately - along the road to Jiri we encounter several landslides, some containing rocks as large as our van. We also encounter several local buses crammed to overflowing with people, both Nepalis and trekkers, reaffirming our decision to hire our own transportation. When quizzed later about the experience of taking a local bus to Jiri, every trekker without exception uses the word "hellish" at least once, often amplified by more colorful language.

The trek from Jiri up to Everest crosses several smaller mountain ranges, each of which must be scaled and descended in turn. As a result, the better part of a week is spent either walking straight up or straight down, often 1000 meters or more in a day. The traveling in arduous, but has its benefits. Not only does it get you in proper shape, but as the terrain gradually rises it also serves to kick-start the acclimitisation process, where your body compensates for lower levels of oxygen in the atmosphere by increasing the number of red blood cells in your circulatory stream. With your metabolism continually redlined to compensate for the constant physical exertion and the increasing altitude, your appetite increases enormously, and despite eating like fat pigs both Dennis and I manage to lose weight. However, the climbs gradually become easier as we round into shape, and the continual exposure to cold temperatures brings about another interesting adjustment - extra hair appears on my legs, arms, and stomach.

Despite its arduous nature, the walk to Everest has its own kind of magic that we experience every day. We visit a small monastery located near the village of Junbesi and are enchanted by the magnificent scenery as well as by the hospitality of the monks. Without speaking a word of English, we are quickly able to organise a tour of the buildings and access to the temple. Within the temple, a monk records our visit in the monastery's journal using flowing Tibetan script, with the sacred teachings wrapped in skins stacked in rows behind him. Over his head hangs a picture of the Dalai Lama posing with the local lama, Lamesh Rimpoche. Brass bowls filled with water line the walls, and sunlight streams in the small windows. Dennis comments on the slow pace of life here, and I mentally compare this place to some of the frantic, chaotic places I have been in the past few years and shake my head in amazement. Geographically this place is not so far from the western world, but in terms of lifestyle, and spirit, this is a world apart, so far removed it may as well be on another planet.

Outside the temple we stop and thank the monks for their hospitality. They are fascinated by our camera equipment, and Dennis gives one monk a crash course in photography. Soon he has borrowed Dennis' camera and is shooting away happily at anything that moves, which includes not only us and his fellow monks but also passing villagers, who, after some initial confusion and shyness, willingly join the party. Caught up in the spirit of the moment, another trekker in our group, an Australian named Brendan, decides to get his head shaved in the Buddhist fashion. He manages to communicate this to the locals and they eagerly rise to the challenge. Quick as a flash, they have him soaped up and are hacking away excitedly at his thick hair and beard. When they offer to shave his chest hair, though, Brendan politely declines, much to their disappointment.

On our return from the monastery, we encounter a primitive electrical works established as part of Edmund Hillary's legacy. It consists of a wooden conduit directing water from a nearby stream to a small generator, which provides electricity for the monastery as well as the village of Junbesi. We sit for a minute in the warm sunshine contemplating the gorgeous valley scenery and listening to the birds singing in the trees and the whisper of the stream far below. A group of monks, school-aged children led by an older man, makes their way up the valley toward us. The old man moves slowly, each step carefully considered, while the children flow around him, skipping and running, their colourful shawls flapping in the sunshine and snatches of their laughter reaching us on the hillside. I am reminded once again how lucky I am to be here, in a land where images such as these are bestowed upon you like precious jewels, each to be savoured and experienced with all senses before being set aside. This also leads to some frustration, though, as the journalist in me attempts to re-create these images in words or pictures and finds that even the best efforts can only hope to capture a fraction of their magic quality.

The walk in from Jiri also affords us the opportunity to experience some of the local culture. On our third day we enter a small village that appears strangely vacant. Nobody is moving about the trails and all the buildings are shuttered. On the outskirts of the village we discover the answer to the riddle: today the village is celebrating the passing of a neighbour who died exactly three years ago. In this region, local custom dictates that every death is honoured on its first three anniversaries with a party thrown by the deceased's family to which everyone in the village is invited. In theory, these celebrations ease the spirit's journey in the afterlife and ensure an appropriate rebirth. In practice, it seems like an excellent method for easing the grief normally associated with death and strengthening the communal bonds within the village.

Later that week we are treated to a home-cooked chicken dinner at a small lodge in the village of Jubing. In this case, though, the chickens are still alive and kicking when we arrive. We have the unique opportunity to watch them being strangled, plucked, chopped, and boiled in their own blood. When the meal is served, we notice that the blood has colored the meat a dark brownish-red, which isn't really all that appetizing. Even less appealing, we find that the entire bird was thrown into the pot, including such savoury items like the head and legs. Gert-Jan, a fellow trekker from the Netherlands, lifts a chicken head dripping from the pot, and I quickly lose my appetite. The Nepali guides in our party simply shrug their shoulders and continue crunching away at the bones until the entire bird is consumed.

The guides are a unique bunch. They usually start as porters, carrying a load to earn their daily bread while working on their English and becoming familiar with the trails in the area. A porter's life is a hard one, carrying up to twice your body weight more than 16 hours a day for very small wages. Every porter's dream is to become a guide, and as a result many will engage you in conversation along the trail in an attempt to improve their language skills. Once a porter becomes a guide, the standard of living increases markedly - guides are able to afford good food and decent clothing, and often have enough money for "luxuries", such as sunglasses or proper hiking boots. In contrast, porters are often seen dressed in rags and sandals, subsisting on a meager diet of rice, lentils, and potatoes.

For most of Nepal's history, porters and others members of the lower castes had little hope of working at anything beyond the most menial jobs, generally manual labour of some kind, while members of the upper castes were able to control the land and enjoy the fruits of their labours. However, increasing levels of education and the growing influence of the west has tended to blur traditional lines, and in some cases break them down completely. Younger Nepalis tend to pay less attention to caste when choosing friends or partners, and members of the lower castes are able to aspire to a life beyond their traditional place. While this appears to be positive progress to some, many of the traditional members of the upper castes, including the ruling classes of Nepal, fear a loss of power and are not at all receptive to Western influence. In many cases the government of Nepal has actively encouraged an anti-western sentiment, decrying a "loss of culture", in order to maintain the status quo. Nepal today is engaged in a tug-of-war between these two very different ways of life, one traditional yet oppressive, the other personally liberating but culturally bankrupt. One can only hope that the two will eventually meet in a way that offers all the people of Nepal the chance for a better life but still manages to preserve some of the traditional beauty and wisdom of the ancient Nepali culture.

page 2 - Namche and the knife-edge between life and death