Hiking the Himalayas

Nepal trip offer spectacular vistas, spiritual insights

Story and photos by Dan Thompson

Special to the Herald Union

It had been a difficult night in Pokhara, Nepal. My fiancee, Nora, and I were awake until dawn in our hotel room, violently ill with diarrhea and vomiting that seemed to never end. As we drank a putrid mixture of hydration salts and downed one Imodium pill after another in what seemed a losing battle, MTV India beamed images into our hotel room of young Indian women colorfully dressed and singing happily to possible suitors.

Next door, our two friends, Niraj and Paras, prepared for our early flight into the Mustang District near the border with China. The night before, their stomachs were satisfied with dahl baht, a Nepali meal of lentil soup and rice with some assorted curried vegetables. Nora and I sat politely while nursing our sick stomachs and I watched a mouse scurry across the floor.

Now, I was nibbling on a Snickers bar for some badly needed energy and made final adjustments to my rucksack and filled my water rucksack with bottled water. Our flight would be leaving shortly from Pokhara, but from the looks of Nora, I wasn’t so sure we were going to make it. This wasn’t how we planned day one of our trek to begin, but then again, it’s foolish to plan on anything in a developing country.

As the light of dawn began to stretch out across the Pokhara airfield, tourists and pilgrims sat patiently in the dark — the power having unexpectedly gone off.

Outside on the tarmac sat two small turboprop aircraft with pilots and aircrews opening their hatches and inspecting their fuselages. I made an emergency trip to the restroom while Nora sat still and focused on keeping her stomach under control.

Things took a turn for the better as we walked across the tarmac and breathed in the cool morning air before stepping aboard our small Gorkha Airlines Dornier 228. We were excited about the flight to the remote Jomsom airstrip deep in the Himalayas and the fantastic views that awaited us from the passenger windows.

Soon after the aircraft leapt into the morning air some of the most famous peaks in the world, such as the Annupurna I and Dhaulagiri, towered over us as we followed the Kali Gandaki River valley north. Everyone on the flight was glued to his or her passenger window in awe. Far beneath us, one could see waterfalls and villages scattered in the dense semi-tropical forests. The dense greens soon gave way to a windswept, almost desert, Tibetan landscape as we descended into the remote village of Jomsom to land.

Jomsom is part of the Mustang District of Nepal, a barren region situated in a rain shadow. The village hosts an army mountain warfare school and several rustic lodges for passing trekkers, but not much more. Its stone and cinderblock structures with rickety timber staircases stand like outposts on an alien planet void of sound and life.

We would stay the night at an empty trekking lodge before heading out in the morning toward the village of Muktinath, a pilgrimage destination and gateway to the world’s highest trekking pass, Thorung-La.

Breakfast at dawn consisted of Tibetan bread (deep-fried dough) and wild honey enjoyed around a low standing table covered with a heavy blanket. The blanket trapped the heat radiating from a pot full of hot coals resting at the guests’ feet and tended by a Mongolian-faced DiDi, a friendly reference to a stranger that means “sister.” Outside, the cobblestone streets clacked with the sound of donkey trains passing by in the early morning darkness. Minutes later, we would join them on the day-long trek uphill to Muktinath.

Niraj and Paras led the way as we followed the dusty and barely discernable path north along the Kali Gandaki River. For them, being in the arid region was a new experience as well. This part of Nepal was just as wild and exotic for the people of Kathmandu valley as it was for westerners. Massive layers of rock in twisted and swirling bands surrounded us and testified to the enormous force of Earth’s plate tectonics in a region where the Indian subcontinent has been colliding with mainland Asia for more than 10 million years. It is still possible to find fossils of ancient sea life along the trail at more than 8,400 feet above sea level.

Donkey power

As we made our gradual ascent toward Muktinath, donkeys decorated with colorful ribbons and harnesses passed us carrying everything from soft drinks to kerosene tanks. The large bells around their necks resonated a ubiquitous cowbell-like sound as traders moved up and down the canyon.

As we headed east toward Muktinath and passed 9,000 feet, I noticed the effect the altitude had on my heart rate and thirst. My heart beat distinctly faster and my mouth became drier. We trekked parallel to a deep canyon reminiscent of the landscape in some “Star Wars” films and edged closer and closer to the snow line where sand and dry brush met ice. Feasting on the lifeless twigs of the brush were shaggy mountain goats tended by Tibetan herders. As the wind began to howl through the valley, an object appearing as large as a small aircraft swooped over us. It was a Himalayan Griffon Vulture.

“The local people are fed to these birds when they die,” explained Niraj. “They believe that the birds carry their spirit to heaven.” When a villager dies, his or her body is dismembered and placed atop a mountain and devoured by the large birds. At lower altitudes, a riverside funeral pyre is more common.

After stopping at a trailside tea house and examining a Dutch-made solar oven, our trekking party was growing tired. The ever-increasing altitude was adding to our fatigue and we would be risking acute mountain sickness if we continued rapidly ascending without acclimatizing properly.

After a few more hours, we trudged past some small children washing their clothes and entered the rustic village of Jharkot. The village alleys were empty as I stepped over a mummified cat laying in a gutter and a few poor villagers greeted us wearily. Rising among the bleak and cold town were the remains of an ancient mud fortress and a simple stupa (Buddhist temple) complete with prayer wheels and a fresh yak head. We decided to end day two at a lodge filled with the odor of burning wood from the kitchen.

After rising early in the chilly morning, we began our final ascent to one of the most holy sites in all of Nepal, the Muktinath temple. For Hindus and Buddhists, visiting the Himalayan temple is similar to visiting Vatican City for Christians or Mecca for Muslims — it is a big deal that not just anyone accomplishes. Having made several pilgrimages to the Vatican before, I felt a kind of solidarity with the wandering Sadhus and pilgrims trekking in plastic sandals. A Sadhu is a scantily clad holy person, sometimes wearing dreadlocks, who has left his worldly life in search of Mukti, or spiritual liberation.

While secular western backpackers looked upon the temple and the pilgrims as a colorful curiosity, I felt privileged to be entering the temple grounds with Paras and Niraj after a tough ascent.

Muktinath is a place of spiritual renewal for both Hindus and Buddhists. The holy site is maintained by Tibetan Buddhist nuns who live at a monastery next to the idol temple. The idol, which represents Mukti, cannot be photographed inside of its dark temple room, but I felt fortunate enough to see the mysterious idol as Paras and Niraj genuflected in front of it and meditated piously as a nun looked on.

One of the most interesting aspects of the temple was the 108 fountains of ice-cold mountain water that believers bathed under to wash away their sins. By passing under all 108 freezing fountains, they believe one is spiritually born again. Niraj and Paras both walked barefoot across frozen sheets of ice and calmly under the water in an ancient act of faith. I would settle for splashing the water of each fountain on my face. Suddenly, an extraordinary nature walk had turned into a strangely satisfying ecumenical experience at 13,000 feet.

As we descended Muktinath and ate breakfast at the Hotel Bob Marley with a frostbitten Dutch tourist, Niraj and Paras were noticeably happy to have made it to Muktinath and eager to experience more. Nora and I were glad to be part of it, despite the high altitude headaches and giddiness brought on by lack of oxygen. As I looked at the snow-covered Himalayas and rugged Tibetan landscape, I realized we were not mere tourists, we were travelers among friends. It was only day three of our eight-day trek, and although I didn’t know it at the time, even more adventure and harrowing trails were awaiting us.

But that’s another story. (Dan Thompson is an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, author of the war memoir “American, Interrupted” and editor of U.S. Army Garrison Hessen’s Connection magazine. This story was adapted from his upcoming book, “Following Whispers,” which will be available this fall. You may contact him at www.American-Interrupted. com.)