blisters, bells and Braka; our himalayan trek

Manang is a mountain top region along the Tibet border nestled atop the Himalayas. It is accessible only by foot, at least for now, until the proposed road crawls up the landscape. This planned road development formed the basis of my second radio documentary research.

The Manangi village of Braka is also the birthplace of Jack’s parents, his grandparents, and since no one has really moved in or out of the village since it was settled 600 years ago, it was the birthplace of his entire traceable ancestry. In the Nepali autumn, Erin and her husband, Jack and I decided to trek to Braka, a bit of a pilgrimage for Jack and an opportunity for Erin and I to see and understand Jack’s roots.

Jack pronounced himself our guide assuring us he knew the way, but Erin and I decided we could use the employ of a porter. Jack’s guide status certainly served him well financially, he was handed free food and drinks along the way while Erin and I paid full tourist price. When buying cigarettes at one stall he was asked if they were for him ‘or for her’ pointing at Erin, as there was a 30 rupee price difference. Jack laughed and she “she is my wife”. They got the cheaper price. He was also congratulated with handshakes and pats on the back by restaurateurs and fellow guides along the way on having ‘won’ a tourist. However, it must be said that on matters of navigation up the mountains along the winding village paths, Jack frequently called on the experience of his first mate, our porter.

The mornings inevitably began with me waking up at first light at about 6.00 (quite remarkable- this has never happened before or since for that matter) and using a number of techniques to wake my fellow companions usually by jumping on their bed, pulling their blankets off or singing a suitable good morning song or a mixture of the above. One morning, they woke to a pair of legs dressed in thermals or “monkey pants” swinging on my bed-cum-stage to my own rendition of Fame. It promised to be a very special day.

After throwing on my clothes as quickly and as far underneath the blanket as possible exposing as little of my body as I could to the bitterness of the morning, I would order a coffee for Erin and a tea for me, and remind the guesthouse owners that our “guide” would probably really appreciate a coffee as well. Given my early rising I watched the full morning process along the trekking route to Manang unfold every morning. Couples, usually from European Alp or Fjord regions would begin rustling wake up noises at about 6. By 6.15 they were in the dining area dressed in their high-tech by gorgeously styled gear, propping their packs up near the doorway and laying their trekking sticks (which look suspiciously like skiing stokes to me) over the top. Soon the hall is filled with French, German, Italian and Scandinavian accents talking about the day ahead and the days past over steaming bowls of porridge, preordered the evening before to save time. By 6.30 all the up and at ‘em trekkers have left and the hall quietens as the bleary eyed sleeper iners idle in to fill the void left by the enthusiasts. They leave by 7.30. Our porter walks in, points over the to the rooms and with a massive grin rolls his eyes. The family who owns the guest house go about their day, with the morning rush over there is a calm in the house. At about 8 Erin greets me with ‘Hey Honey’ and sits down to drink her now cold coffee. I don’t think there was a day that we started walking before 9. We walked at an easy pace with either Jack or I in the lead, followed by Erin and then our porter. Sometimes I would walk beside Erin or Jack or Jack and Erin would walk together, and apart from my sporadic humming and singing, we rarely felt the need to fill the silence. It was almost as if, as the sheer rock faces shot up around to our left and right, the blue crystal river bustled below and the path tumbled over the undulating hills and peaks in front of us, our very presence was loud enough. I still remember waking up on the second morning and seeing a white Himalayan peak over the green valley tops and the rush of excitement it sent through my cold, shivering bones. It served as my motivation to put one foot in front of the other up the notorious Barandunda hill with sweat gathering on my brow and my lungs scraping for air; as I walked, I walked towards those white peaks. On the fourth day I turned around to look at where I’d come. If the white peaks in front of me were the carrots in front of my nose, the dignity and stillness of the massive backdrop of jaggered white covered cliffs forming a panorama behind me sent thrills through every exhausted muscle in my body. Perfect white mountains to my left, right, behind me and infront of me.

The tracks we followed were the well worn paths trodden by the flip-flop clad or, more often, barefoot locals walking between the villages. As it stands now, anything that cannot be grown in the region must be carried up by porters, and the waste carried down. Traditionally this would have been very little but with the influx of tourists, bottled water, coke, packaged foods and even gas bottles were among the wares carried on the heads of these men. The other method of goods transportation was on the back of a donkey. Bells tied around their necks with varying chimes filled the air with a soft melodic orchestra of sounds supported by the rushing of the river, punctuated with the calls from the birds.

 We would arrive exhausted at our sleeping birth by about 3.00, our walk broken up by tea breaks, an extended lunch break, and frequent smoke breaks. We ate dinner at about 6.00, played cards and retired for the night at 8.00, ready to wake up and repeat the process the next day.

The fourth day was the only day on the trek that I cried. I fancied a break at the hill top village but out porter bade us press on. His body language had changed, he looked stiff and uncomfortable. Obediently I walked on ahead. Though I’d been warned several nights before, was still taken aback by the smarminess and cruel confidence with which I was met when three men sitting behind a makeshift desk on the dirt path introduced themselves as Maoist tax collectors. I felt sick and took a step back. I couldn’t look at them. Erin went ahead and showed them her marriage certificate and together with Jack convinced the Maoists that they should be exempt from the tax. She came over, put her arm around me and said, ‘Honey, they want 1000 rupee’. Prior to this I was adamant I would not pay, I would not support a regime that lied, that killed that tortured, that was ruining the lives of so many people in this country. With the hottest, angriest tears I have ever felt spilling from my eyes I covered my face from the men. Then, trying not think about what my hands were doing I opened my bag and pulled out the money. I gave it to Erin, ‘I can’t give it to them’. I hated them and I wanted to tell them so. I wanted to scream at them, I wanted to ask them how many people they were going to kill with my money. But their confidence was so dark and sure that it could only have been backed up by a gun, which I knew would be resting by their feet. I felt sick. Every trekker who had passed through that day had paid the equivalent of $15USD. Was our collective desire to see the Mountains really more important than the price the Nepali people would pay? The men saw me crying and asked ‘why is she crying? If you don’t have enough money because you are a volunteer just tell us’. I answered, ‘I have enough money. Can I go now?’ Later Erin and Jack tried to consol me saying my own money really was insignificant and working for change through Sancharika was really much more meaningful, and that the Nepalese Army is just as bad (which is true) and since we had paid a government tax before we came, it was really the same thing. Needless to say this last point didn’t make me feel much better.

On the sixth day we arrived at Braka. Though it was the homeland of Jack’s ancestry, his closest remaining relatives in the village were his brother-in-law’s brother, Karma Chering, and his wife, and his cousin’s aunty and uncle.

Jack had ask which houses were his parents childhood homes. Like many other houses in the village, his mother’s empty house was falling down, the roof fallen through and the interior was fast being reclaimed by nature. His father’s had not fared much better.

Braka clings to a hill with its houses rising tightly above eachother, ascending up the slope. It’s crowned at the top by a red and white Buddhist Gompa or Monastary, proudly one of the oldest in the Manang region. I loved Braka but as I scrambled around and took photos in the morning sun, it conjured up images in my head of a lonely, frail, old woman with greying hair, stubbornly refusing to leave her home in the scrub, but instead resolved to live out the remainder of her life in the place she has always lived. There are sparks of life in Braka’s eyes but her body is dying.

But in nearby Manang tourism is booming with entrepreneurs offering CD burning services and batteries for photo hungry trekkers taking a mid-trek break. Many young Manangis are returning as visitors, like Jack, to see where their parents were born and grew up. They often talk about perhaps retiring in Manang or Braka, ‘if they build the road and life is not so hard here’. Should the road proposal materialise, the one thing which is certain is that Braka, Manang and the other villages which make up this Himalayan region will be changed forever.

On the fourteenth day we saw the Himalayas from a different view- from mid-air. Waiting at the landing strip at 7.30am I was unsure of exactly what I was hoping for. We’d had snow overnight and unlike most mornings which woke to pure blue skies, this morning clouds had gathered above the mountain tops. The deal was that if the sky wasn’t clear the plane could not fly but this morning was a line call. If the plane didn’t come we would have to walk back down. If it did come, I felt sure that my life could very well end that day.

The plane came through the mountain pass, though I was not reassured at the sight of the antique flying machine which pulled up in front of us. We loaded our bags ands the sacks of Himalayan potatoes we had been asked to deliver to relatives in Kathmandu and climbed on board. Hands down the most treacherous part of our trip, the flight was magic. We glided through narrow passes with sheer snow covered rock faces filling the view of the window out both sides, which opened out to the undulations of a frozen ocean of white peaks and swirling mist. The sun stroked its meek rays out over the horizon as it rose over the ocean. The plane did not elevate through the whole flight and at times seemed to almost skim over the tops of mountains. As the snow dissipated and dissolved into tree and plot covered hills we finally descended onto the airstrip in the township of Pokhara.

This is a massive post but there are still so many things I have neglected to mention when recalling this experience. While I once vowed never to trek again after spending a miserable three days waterlogged and scared for my life in monsoon Vietnam, the trek to Manang was everything you could hope for in a perfect memory; it has awe, it has laughs, it has challenges, it has the pinching factor, and best of all, it was shared and will never fade from my memory.