The Other Annapurna

Another unsuccessful entry in a travel writing competition - this time with a 1000 word limit:

THE OTHER ANNAPURNA

The boy pulled up his shirt.  The Nepali sun gleamed off his skin.  The scar, half a metre in length, ran neatly down the centre of his breastbone.  I placed my ear flat against his chest, just to the left of the scar, and in the space between the third and fourth ribs.  Regular steady normal heart sounds with no extraneous noises.  A quick glance at the veins in his neck showed that his heart was working under normal inflow pressures, just like a smooth hydraulic pump.  He was healthy.  I handed over a fistful of Nepali rupees.  This was the first consultation I had ever given that I had paid the patient for, but his mother pleaded the need for money to pay the fees for his checkups.  Somebody, possibly in Kathmandu, had done a workmanlike job on repairing his heart.  Mother and child walked on, twice as fast as we, up the steep steps of the slabs past the holy pipal tree, where the path led to the next village up the mountainside.

In this same village of Tanchowk there is a museum which is adorned with the implements of village life of the past, but there is little difference between yesteryear and today.  Subsistence agriculture means producing millet, corn, rice, milk, fruits, and harvesting honey from the beehive in the hollow log that hangs from the eaves above.  Wood, brick, and whitewash, noodles drying on the roof, bamboo poles and prayer flags are the remembered elements of every Nepali house.

If Everest is your goal, then nothing will dissuade you.  Prepare for rock and ice, barren landscapes, and the silent fastness of the Khumbu.  If you value a more pastoral beauty at every step before you enter the world of ice, the chance to feel the pulse of the community, to walk close to and even into the homes of the local people, then go to Annapurna.  On your way you will meet the man with forty chickens in cages on his back, the man with eighty cans of Everest lager, or the man with fifty dozen eggs.  Even heavier loads are carried by the mule trains.  Herds of goats will follow you down the track.  Glittering mica in the stones, and more mundanely, glittering foil wrappers of discarded snuff or chewing tobacco will catch your eye.  Always above you will be the incomparable and sacred, unclimbed mountain, Machhapuchre,  ‘the Fishtail’.  Like the twisting tail of some plump trout, the double summits separated by a fin of razor sharp arête are ever before you.  Purple at dawn, the twin peaks are incomparably white during the day; golden, and finally blazing orange, red, and soft pink at sunset.  As you reach your final destination, Annapurna base camp, the basin of the aptly named Sanctuary will open before you.  The only way in lies behind you to the South East, and around the 360 degree compass of your vision stand the collective Annapurnas.  The prayer flags fluttering in the chill wind and the stone with the names of those who lie within the icy walls of this prison will add to your involuntary shivers.

Nowadays you do not have to take the bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara.  You may fly with Yeti, Buddha, or Gorkha airlines.  Fly west from Kathmandu, with the Himalaya on your right hand, its peaks higher than your aeroplane.  But soon; soon after Pokhara, the noise of the jet or car engine will be gone.  You will be left only with the silence, to think your own thoughts, and to learn from the simple but profound philosophies where Hinduism meets Buddhism, and a gentler way of life prevails.  Physically hard it may be, but the simplicity that lies in constant muscle movement, the sweat of one’s brow, the seemingly endless time for thought, provides a gentle and hypnotic distraction for the mind.  When you lift your head from the trail, to the rhododendrons, to the clumps of twenty metre high bamboo, and finally to the peaks above, there is another sort of distraction; a distraction that bewitches and cleanses the mind.

I expressed doubts about trekking in the Himalaya.  ‘I’m sure it was beautiful when Chris Bonnington was there, but surely it’s not now?  Don’t they call it the toilet paper trail?  Aren’t the teahouses very primitive?  What about the Marxists?’  But here we are, doubts soothed by an Englishwoman called Rachel, who works for an American company.    The era of disfigurement of Annapurna is over.  Apart from the ubiquitous discarded snuff wrappers, there are only a few meals on paper plates lying on the pathway.  These are gifts left for the departed during the festival of Diwali.  Tents and informal camps are discouraged.  The local people gain more income by letting their rooms.  The trail is not particularly crowded, though it has been discovered by the Japanese.  All Japanese seem to walk in trekking outfits that make them look like Michael Jackson, white faces smothered with cream, and every inch of skin covered, including gloves so that the sun’s rays can’t reach them.  We take five days to walk up to the 4100m of Annapurna Base Camp, in shorts and T shirts in the warm daytime sun, and huddled together in down jackets around paraffin stoves in the communal fug of the tea houses in the evenings to keep out the sub zero cold.  Descending in three days we arrive back at the lodge above Birethanti.  A large English lady is sitting on the verandah, bewailing her sore and swollen feet, and her inability to follow her group upwards into the sanctuary.  I dump my rucksack on the grass and exchange greetings.  She beckons.  In a confidential manner she whispers:  ‘You can’t see it at the moment, but behind that cloud there is a very beautiful mountain.’  ‘Thank you,’ I say.  The most famous remark of Maurice Herzog: ‘There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men’, should of course include fat ladies.

Word Count: 999