Himalayabout

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Christmas is for the kids.

At least that’s what they tell me.

Which is funny, as back as a nipper I recall folks banging on about the birth of the baby Jesus, and sending me off to sing carols in cold unwelcoming churches, which wasn’t my idea of fun at all.

These days, everyone knows the whole thing’s a sham, solely for the benefit of those two most disparate of parties: the Capitalist Pigs, and those of a less wealthy porcine persuasion, who find it impossible to get a snog anywhere but the Christmas Party. If Jesus was involved at all, it must have been as part of the latter group, as let’s face it he was no millionaire, and never had much of a reputation as a ladies’ man.

No, if you want to pick a day for children, look no further than the Hindu celebration of Holi. This is exactly the kind of caper kids would go for if they were given the choice themselves. As with Christmas, the real purpose seems to have been forgotten long ago. These days all that’s important is to make sure you stock up your arsenal, for this is a combination of Halloween and Armageddon, not so much Trick or Treat as Trick or Trash the Place.

Come the big day, kids of all ages are out on the street, armed to the teeth with pretty-much any non-lethal weapon they can lay their hands on (water-bombs, eggs, and paintballs are the big three) running riot, and quite literally painting the town red.

For us, Holi was just one more reason to flee Varanasi, where it is celebrated particularly exuberantly, as to set foot from the door is to volunteer for target practice, and I’m quite sure there’s extra points for rich white tourists. A few of the little buggers had already tried out some preparatory volleys in the days before, luckily none quite hitting the mark.

Off we set for quieter pastures, a two day trip to Nepal seeming just the ticket. Day One certainly went smoothly enough, cocooned within our air-conned coach with fifty-odd other relieved escapees, waving India goodbye to overnight at Sunauli, a little town just over the border.

Immediately Nepal got off to a good start. The people proved utterly charming, and what’s more have a language with separate words for ‘pavement’ and ‘rubbish-dump’, making getting around on foot a good deal easier than of late.

That night we shared beers with a few of our brethren, mostly a mix of Brits and Aussies none of whom, like us, seemed too heartbroken at leaving India behind. Tomorrow we’d split, half headed for the joys of Kathmandu, half to Pokhara, centre of that trekking heartland, the Annapurna Region, one of the most keenly anticipated destinations of our whole expedition. After India, we couldn’t wait to get out to the fresh mountain air of the Himalayas, escape the crowds and really get away from it all. None of us lingered too long in the bar, as both buses were off at the crack of dawn.

And that’s when things all started to go wrong...

Back in the latter half of the Twentieth Century Nepal was a reasonably stable monarchy, slowly opening up to the rest of the world. Actually this isn’t strictly true, as in Nepal it’s already 2066, due to a disagreement over where the counting should start. The locals aren’t too bothered about the birth of an upstart hippy Jew a thousand or more miles away, which makes you wonder, on reflection, why are we?

Anyway, early in our Twenty-first Century the entire country was stunned to its core when the Oxford educated Crown Prince, presumably miffed at missing out on millennium celebrations, took it upon himself to machine-gun the rest of the family to death, before turning the weapon on himself.

This, as you can imagine, led to something of a power vacuum.

A handful of Maoists began kicking off, and in remarkably short order found themselves in the seat of power, after which everyone else joined in, and has kicked off more or less all the time ever since.

These days in Nepal, if you have a complaint about almost anything, from your 140 hour working week to your tea-break beverage having slightly too much sugar, you call a general strike, and the whole country grinds to a halt. It’s a bit like Britain in the 1970s, but without Bullseye or Sale of the Century. Actually, I think maybe they do have Sale of the Century, which may explain why you haven’t heard from Nicholas Parsons for a while.

Today, it turned out, someone near Kathmandu got no HP with their egg & chips, and as a result no-one was going anywhere. By contrast, near Pokhara the sauce was flowing freely, putting them in better spirits, and by way of concession they agreed to allow our tourist-bus through as a special case, no doubt with a few palms greased along the way.

This led to one very obvious problem. The bus to Pokhara was a 25 seater. By now, though, there were 55 of us eager to make the trip.

“Don’t worry, no problem. Everything will be fine!”

The more naive of us took this to mean there might be another 30-seater coach waiting in the wings, while the more battle-hardened realised they’d create 55 ‘seats’ on this one.

And so it proved.

The lucky few got the real 25 seats. They then managed somehow to squeeze seven in the driver’s compartment. That left nine more in the aisle and the rest of us up on the roof.

Now in my younger days I’d have shot straight up the ladder and made myself comfy on a soft bag or two, but with age comes wisdom, or possibly cowardice, particularly if you’ve already seen someone come off a bus roof once before. What’s more, this was to be a seven hour trip, and with dawn temperatures not much above freezing, I didn’t fancy it would be too cosy up-top, so reluctantly we joined the queue for the luxury seats on the floor instead.

In the end I lucked out, managing to wangle half-a-bum-cheek’s worth of cushion over the engine cover, while Debbie bagged a single tiny stool in the aisle, leaving her in a class of her own, able to lord it over those on the floor while trying to avoid the gaze of the smug bastards in the proper seats.

And so off we rattled, the bus swaying more than a little from its top-heavy load of baggage and frozen roof-surfers. Every few hundred yards, until the road forked off for Pokhara, we were stopped and questioned by disgruntled condiment sympathisers, checking our credentials passed mustard, but that turned out to be the least of our worries.

Out on the open road an altogether more dangerous hazard lay in wait.

Holi, it turned out, wasn’t just big in Varanasi.

All along the highway kids had long stockpiled their WMDs, only to find that some grumpy Scrooge short on the sauce had stopped all the traffic, cancelling Christmas. What the Dickens were they supposed to do now?

And that’s when they heard it.

Almost too faintly to believe at first, but gathering in volume all the time. The sound of a solitary diesel engine, winding its way up through the hairpin curves from the valley below.

In short, us.

In no time, we were hijacked every five minutes or so as we rolled into view, the road roped off by a band of militant toddlers. Behind them was arrayed a ramshackle group of slightly older drummers and singers who couldn’t quite believe their luck; a coach full of tourists... extra points! They’d strike up, before demanding payment from our conductor for safe passage. This explained the hefty 50 rupee a head luggage charge they’d suddenly slugged us with that morning.

This was the Trick.

The Treat came as we drove off, a hoard of older kids springing out to pelt us from all sides, particularly bad news for the frozen buggers on the roof, but not much better for us inside, as this bus had far from a full compliment of windows, leading to much ducking and screaming all round.

Within the first hour my ducking worries were over, a particularly boisterous bunch mounting a raiding party the moment the conductor opened the door. In response the driver immediately gunned the engine, the head honcho wheeling round at the sound, realising he had at most 2 seconds to release his volley before making a jump for it.

And that’s when our eyes met, the perfect target just waiting for him perched on the edge of the engine cover.

Before I could raise an eyebrow he had my cap off and slapped down an egg neatly on my scalp, followed directly by powder paint of several different hues, all ruffled through my hair.

Cap replaced, he offered up a smile and a Hi-5 that melted any thoughts of retaliation. I mutely responded as he leapt for safety, aware suddenly that a) the guys on the floor weren’t looking so jealous any more, b) a thin trickle of yolk was slithering down my back towards my pants, and c) that it was a good 2 hours till lunch-stop and any chance to move so much as a muscle.

Fortunately, come lunchtime, there was no chance for others to crow or rub salt into my egg-bruised ego as the moment we stepped from the bus we were assailed from all sides, and everyone ended up in pretty much the same state. Such was the spirit of fun and frivolity that nobody could help but smile, though I did notice the Kiwis on the roof looking slightly smug as we got back on our way, and not just because the midday weather was a good deal warmer; they’d taken the opportunity to arm themselves. This, coupled with by now a steady trickle of traffic coming the other way, made for a most buoyant and entertaining afternoon, coaches passing like pirate ships hurling volleys at one another, or every so often screeching to a halt to launch raiding parties.

During one such attack late afternoon a gang of local teenagers raced up behind to hang from the ladder on the back of the bus, and a voice sounding uncannily like my mother’s piped up inside my head.

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye!”

On queue, and to the sound of an almighty crack, the ladder gave way, sending all eight of them tumbling onto the road below.

Just goes to show, she may always seem nice, but she can be a right bitch when she wants to, my Mum!

Luckily they didn’t fall too far, and the bus was only going at running pace, so most bruised were their prides, and after a good dusting off they all proved to be largely unharmed.

All of which would have been just fine and dandy, if only one of our Aussie boozing partners of the night before hadn’t been resting his legs atop the ladder, only to be catapulted in a perfect arc a good fifteen feet to the road below. Luckily he cushioned the fall with his head.

Like any good Aussie, this didn’t seem to bother him too much, but the fact that he’d broken his camera, as well as his arm, and lost a good deal of skin to go with his concussion, did put a bit of a dampener on the rest of the trip.

Thereafter he was transferred to a proper seat inside right opposite my own, and spent a the remaining 4 hours of the trip repeatedly waking up with a ‘Where the hell am I’ kind of look' and asking “I’m sorry, but why are you guys all covered in shit?” On being appraised of the situation, he would unfailingly respond “Did you just say I fell off the ROOF of the bus?” before promptly falling back asleep. It was alarmingly akin to sitting opposite a six-foot heavily bandaged goldfish.

And yes, I did say 4 hours, the whole disjointed trip taking over 13 hours and depositing us in Pokhara in the hours of darkness, by which time neither Debbie nor I could feel our arses, which wouldn’t be the same again for months. Meantime the rooftop Kiwis, having long-since run out of both ammo and circulation in their fingers, were feeling considerably less smug.

Fortunately Pokhara turned out to be the perfect place for a day’s rest before heading off into the hills for a spot of trekking, and all would have been well if I hadn’t used the day’s rest to get colossally ill.

It started with a head cold, which I was sure I would shake in a day or two. In any case, the weather was dodgy, an almighty haze having descended and completely obscured any views of the hills. We tried to climb above it at the nearby World Peace Pagoda to take in the Himalayan vistas, only to find the fug up here too. Postcards in the shop showed a beautiful lake below us surrounded by a panoramic sweep of snow-capped peaks, but in all this haze, we were struggling even to make out the lake. It was all most frustrating, like turning up at the Louvres the day all the paintings have been carted off for cleaning.

The haze hung around even longer than the head-cold, which by now had in any case been replaced by another nasty dose of Delhi-belly. For more than a week I was confined to my room, unable to stray more than a few yards from a toilet. At least we had hot water and satellite telly, but even that was of limited use due to the vagaries of the Nepali power grid, which runs for about 4 hours each day, seldom in one stretch. I’ve never missed the end of so many films in my life.

Eventually the antibiotics kicked in and my bottom was cured, but that was just the start of my worries. I’d been relying on that old stalwart Flagyl, a common enough antibiotic, one I prescribe routinely myself as it always seems to do the job. It cured me too, but just to prove we’re all different decided to throw in a few tricks all of its own, robbing me not just of the runs, but of something more useful as well.

What Flagyl deprived me of was my Sixth Sense.

Now a lot of tosh is talked about the Sixth Sense, all in all. Some claim to have ESP, clairvoyance, or just a woman’s intuition. Me, I don’t see dead people. That must be the Seventh Sense.

What I do have, just like everyone else, is proprioception, the sense of awareness of where your body is and what it is doing. We all use it instinctively, every minute of every day, it’s just that you don’t really notice much until somebody takes it away.

Today I inhabited someone else’s rubber body. Without feedback every single action became a step into the unknown. I was shaky, had no sense of balance, and couldn’t pick anything up. As for walking, when you put your left foot forward and it doesn’t come back to you whether it’s done it or not, it takes quite a bit of willpower to then put your right foot forward as well. As it happened I could just about manage, but it felt distinctly weird.

Really alarm bells should have been going off left, right and centre telling me something was deeply wrong, but I was mildly confused, and so sick of being stuck in bed I’d do anything to avoid missing any more dire movie endings. I decided to put it all down to weakness and dehydration, and now that my bum was better, gritted my teeth and set off in search of food, water and a trekking pass.

All was going well, and I was starting to feel really quite chuffed at getting so far from a toilet, when a further unexpected symptom arose. I’d suddenly developed a mild phobia of butterflies, which only became apparent when one fluttered right in my face, sending both legs in opposite directions and causing me to fall flat on my back. I was vaguely aware of the sound of someone nearby starting to wail like a baby, and realised, with a little consternation, that it was me.

I didn’t need a seventh sense to know that if this sort of behaviour continued, a little yellow van would soon be coming to take me away.

Fortunately what arrived instead was a little yellow taxi, which whisked me straight off to the hospital. They too diagnosed dehydration, and stuck me on a saline drip for the whole afternoon, to which they added, for good measure, another couple of more doses of Flagyl.

By next morning I was a total wreck, unable to walk more than thirty yards without collapsing, inconvenient when the nearest food or drink is fifty yards away. Finally I found my legs completely without the strength to lift me off the floor. I was stuck there on the pavement unsure of what to do, with Debbie close to tears and me but a butterfly’s attack away.

Finally somewhere way back, a little bell started ringing. This wasn’t dehydration. I’d had seven or eight litres since yesterday, my guts were fine, and yet it was still getting worse. Deb managed somehow to bundle me back to the hotel, and I sent her off to the internet to look up Flagyl and Tinidazole for potential side effects.

Flagyl came up trumps... ‘...rarely confusion, dizziness, ataxia,...’ Just about summed it up. Curiously, though, no mention of butterflies or blubbing like a baby.

I came off the pills and made a rapid recovery, fully back to my senses within 48 hours. Just as well as prior to being mad with worry, Debbie had been driven crazy with boredom, both of us now desperate to get off and into the hills, especially with the haze having finally lifted.

One more day was spent stuffing my face with steaks and tuna to regain strength, and after 2 weeks of waiting, we were finally off into the mountains.

We took a taxi next day to Naya Pul, and strode off up the path towards Ghandruk, the first stop on the four day Ghorepani loop.

The sun was shining, the breeze in our hair, and some of the worlds highest peaks towered before us up the valley. Finally all was good with the world, and despite Debbie’s concerns, I felt just fine.

Surely nothing could stop us now.

Barely an hour into our trek, at our very first rest, it was Debbie’s turn to be waylaid, suddenly overcome at the side of the path, puking her guts up.

We wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

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Photos

All Fun And Games...
...minutes later the guy in the background would be taking an early bath...

A Weary Crew
Trying to wedge the ladder back onto the roof...

Comments

[Pramod Lama]

Miss my Holi
I like your story and miss Nepal and holi. :-)