I landed in Kathmandu on March 3rd after a long flight from Seattle. The flight was as pleasant as a flight that long can be (12 hours for the first leg, 7 for the second). My seatmates for the long stretch were a rotund couple who seemed like soul mates—they complained about everything in perfect unison, their monotone mumblings in enviable harmony, a kind of synchronized suffering one spends their whole life looking for; the food, the space, other people, all were problems for them, yet when all was done and their duet was over, the rotund lady leaned onto the rotund man and they drifted off to sleep together, smiling.
My layover was in Istanbul where I slept on my sleeping pad and camping pillow which I’d made sure to not pack away with the rest of my hiking gear. I used the complimentary blanket from Turkish Airlines for a touch of warmth. It was no great rest, I laid there awake most of the time listening—listening to the planes outside roll and rumble, to the deep hum of the industrial heating and cooling, the distant echoes of Turkish. All of it came together to form a lo-fi melody of Istanbul’s airport late at night, the largest single-roofed building in the world, and it was a beautiful sound to fall asleep to, except I couldn’t sleep. It was strange to think that this is what my life has become, traveling around the globe to climb mountains. As I lay there on the floor, cold and uncomfortable, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that a much younger Josh would be so, so envious of where I am, of what I’m doing.
When I got off the plane in Nepal it was warm and muggy. The smog was so heavy that the Tribhuvan terminal was obscured from the runway. We were all funneled towards a set of five computers to fill out a short visa application. I followed a group of five Buddhist monks in robes who must have not had a computer anywhere near their monastery. I watched as five young monks about my age bickered over how to navigate the Nepalese online visa application. “Under those robes are regular people,” I thought. Some thirty minutes later it was my turn, and some two hours later I left the airport.
Between my hiker’s backpack and porridge-colored skin, I was an easy target for the taxi drivers, meaning I was hounded from every side. Sleep deprivation left me easily overwhelmed and the throng of people yelling at me was a quick overload on the senses, so I dived into the nearest café for refuge where I bought the first thing I saw on the menu—a honey-lavender latte. It was heaven in a cup and when, after about 40 minutes, I felt I had regrouped my senses I ventured outside and told one of the less enthusiastic drivers he could drive me to my hotel.
Before we left he said, “you left right.” I am right-handed but I didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “Sorry,” I asked. “You left right,” he said as he wagged his finger at the road. “Oh, you want me to navigate?” He looked at me clueless. Then I showed him Google maps and he said, “yes, yes.” Kathmandu’s roads are a blaring river of honking cars and motorcycles. Traffic laws are nonexistent, even the driving lanes are treated as mere suggestions; potholes are filled only with a goopy clay that sticks to your shoe and rubble if there’s any at hand; people simply cross the streets with faith akin to Moses that the river of cars will part as they walk. Navigating these roads with a driver whose English only slightly surpassed left, right, and straight was an incredible challenge. It was a game changer when I learned he knew the word “next.” It was a very long and stressful thirty minutes, especially since I was only running on the honey latte with no sleep, and a phone at one-percent battery which, with some backseat contorting, I was able to plug into my laptop in the trunk. By the time we reached the hotel, I had sweated through every layer of clothing I had, leaving a butterfly-shaped mark on the pleather seat.
I rested up and met Christian a few hours later. We hadn’t seen each other since travelling around Europe together where we developed a brotherly relationship, which is to say we came to know each other’s quirks, despised them, then finally accepted them over the course of four months. Now, here we were together again in another foreign country after two months apart. After hugs and some quick catching up, we dove into Thamel, the touristy market area of Kathmandu, to get our last supplies for the trip. Over the next ten days we’ll hike from Lukla to Everest Basecamp and back. We really have no idea what we’re getting into. Save for a few Reddit searches, I’ve done little to prepare for the trip. A few rock-loaded backpack hikes at the park nearby my home, a couple trips to REI, that’s it. Internet research has led me to believe this will likely be the best trip of my life or it will be the last trip of my life, maybe both.
Christian and I were easy targets for the street salesmen in Thamel. Christian and I have a soft spot for salesmen since, well, that’s the work we did to pay for this trip, but it quickly became suffocating. There were times as a salesman that I found myself getting heavy-handed, not as much as the salesmen here, but I remember when I got heavy-handed it came from a place of desperation and worry and took a large mental effort to pull myself out of that, it was never malicious. When I walk through places like this I wonder if I felt the desperation many of them feel, would I act similarly? I don’t think so, but I don’t know. Regardless, were it not for my time in sales I don’t think I could manage the repeat, incessant polite rejections I have to give to make it to a grocery store here. What is truly challenging for me in these places is how quickly it becomes impossible to tell what kindness is genuine and what is ulterior motive, and pretty soon I find myself becoming cynical, assuming it’s all the latter. Maintaining compassion for people who see you as a walking wallet is hard, but there are reasons they view me that way, I understand.
Kathmandu is a large sprawl of ramshackle buildings, nothing above three stories at most. In the mornings shopkeepers wet down the street in front of their stores to keep the dust from coming in, but in so doing create a slime that becomes a light-brown crust on your shoes and the cuffs of your pants. Most shops peddle the same goods and negotiation is used everywhere save in restaurants and pharmacies. Outdoor retailers are abundant in Thamel, all of which sell knockoff goods save for a handful of licensed name-brand retailers. We were tempted to buy because the Arteryx logo was so clearly, poorly hand-stitched into the vest it seemed more like satire than a knockoff. Our guide for the trip came to show us the best shop, though we found it indistinguishable. Likely a relative, we guessed.
After picking up the last bits and bobbles of gear we needed we sat down for a traditional Thakali meal of Dhal Bhat—rice with lentil soup, curried vegetables, and a very spicy sauce our guide simply called “pickle,” which name did nothing to prepare me for the full body heat that would come after I ate it. Sam, our guide, told us that the Nepalese eat this with their hands, a joke I figured, but as I glanced around the room I noticed he was right. People picked up the vegetables, placed it in the rice, poured the soup over the rice and mixed it up like they were playing with play-doh. They’d then scoop up the mixture with their fingers making a chute with their pointer, middle, and ring finger, then with a flicking motion from the thumb insert it into their mouth. Sam told us that in the more remote villages of Nepal there are young men who have never used utensils before and that it was his preferred way to eat. We both tried it. It was enjoyable but my fingers were soggy by the meals end and would smell of “pickle” the rest of the night.
Sam’s boss joined us around the end of the meal and informed us of a great deal (Nepal is abounding with “great deals”) that had just come up for us to take a helicopter to Lukla rather than the early morning flight the next day. Just $200 each. We said no, we were happy with the flight. The boss was panicked, the other two hikers who would be with us had already agreed to the helicopter. “Well, we, uh,” he stumbled for words, “I will call and see if they can go lower,” then came back the greater deal of $150 each, which we decided, somewhat reluctantly, would be fine. We were told that flights up to Lukla are likely to be canceled tomorrow morning due to weather, but the helicopter is a sure bet, and it was a great deal. Supposedly.
After we were ready and packed, we had time to kill. We decided to get pre-hike massages. We scoped out a place on Google maps that looked good but never made it. Long before we got there some street salesmen asked where we were going, and once we told them they booed. “No, that place, no good. I know the best place for massages.” We were then taken to a massage parlor that was “the best.” This time we were told he was a relative, at least. We were quickly given the family discount and escorted up to a room where we were instructed to put on black, burlap diapers that not even a Hollister model could pull off. Two girls, ages indecipherable, came in and gave Christian and I massages, giggling like school girls the whole way through. Christian said his massage was good, which made me think Christian had never had a massage before. My girl, I hesitate to call her a massage therapist, massaged me with about as much strength as a large house cat has.
We walked home, perhaps a little looser than we were before. With the time we had left, we sat on the porch outside our hotel room and talked about what it is to live a good life, the envy of my younger self still on my mind. As we talked grey-breasted ravens hopped from limb to limb and all around us were bird calls completely unknown to us. We are once again plummeting into the unknown of a new place, thousands of miles from friends and family and any form of stability. Here we are, traveling again, yet it doesn’t feel like we’re on hiatus from life or responsibility, but the opposite. It feels like life has resumed.
It hasn’t always been this way. For most of my life I’ve had things all around me calling for my attention: friends, work, school, family. If those areas of my life ever went quiet I always had my future looming over me, reminding me I needed to prepare for a family, old age, an unsure world. I was raised with the pioneer mentality of destination-first and as I have put my head down and focused on dollars, test scores, and all the other numbers one uses to measure success, time began passing so fast and so smoothly that I’d often forget it even existed, but travel wakes me up to the reality of time. When traveling time ekes by and you feel every second, good or bad. When abroad you’re forced to be awake and alert the whole time, even when crossing the street, buying groceries, or taking a cab. Feelings last longer this way, or so it feels, loneliness and suffering, but joy as well. In that elongated sense of time emotions have the chance to seep down to the core and somehow I find myself more content even with the bitter ones. To feel good is nice, but to feel whole and full helps me feel more alive. The problem is the trips end.
As I sit here, recently recovered from four months of backpacking Europe I wonder if this lifestyle is sustainable. My attraction to travel has always been flirtatious, my trips like hot and wild trysts between me and the life I dreamed of, but I’ve never expected that to actually be my life. It’s always been a fantasy but younger me was much more pragmatic. I deeply admired community builders and wanted to become one, this was my more sustainable life goal, my true-love-lifestyle per se. I have no desire to have a baseball field named after me, but there’s a side of me that wants to nurture the people around me, the side of me that loves to help things grow and to watch. Constant travel makes this hard, the lifestyles feel juxtaposed, and I have often felt stuck in the middle of this lifestyle love-triangle I didn’t think I could get into. This time I’m investing comes at a cost, I just don’t know what the cost is.
We talked for hours as we often do. There isn’t another person I’d rather do this trip with. We’re vastly different, he’s devoutly religious, I left faith behind; I am an avid reader, he searches for truth in less fickle things than words. If we are similar in anything, I think it is in our desire to lead good, meaningful lives, to leave a worthy legacy, to help others, to savor the time we have. Christian and I worked our way to the conclusion that a community builder is someone who simply makes the everyday lives of the people around them better, that travel then isn’t juxtaposed to building community, though it may complicate it. It’s no life key, but it’s a new thought for me, one that provides me with a great deal of comfort. Maybe there’s a way to have both.
Anyways, I have to get to bed, we have to get up at five to catch the helicopter. From there, the trek begins.
I will write more soon. Much love,
Josh.
Postscript: Not a lot of great pictures from Kathmandu, wasn’t at my best here as a photographer, but please enjoy this picture of Christian delighted by his Honey-Lemon-Ginger tea.
