About time I changed pens – the last one was becoming a sight too liberal with the ink. Awoke this morning with fearful indigestion. One of the problems with the enforced lifestyle, straight to bed after a heavy meal, is that it gives one no opportunity to digest it all, so that one wakes up feeling as tho’ a medicine ball had been lying on one’s stomach all night. And my fears were conformed a little later, as we were walking, when I began to suffer from the dreadful rotten egg burps, a possible sign, according to our book, of giardia, “an easily-treated parasitic disease.” It has affected both of us, off + on, since Bali, + 6 months of diahrrea + wind, intermittent or not, is no joke. Treatment for it is one of the constant topics of conversation around Kathmandu. The problem is, it is much more hip to use scientific terms, + the more specific the better – Asian tummy is never, ever, referred to – so giardia has become the catch-all phrase for almost any stomach complaint. (Unless it’s more serious, when dysentery, or better, enteric or amoebic dysentery takes on the role.) Not that all of these aren’t legitimate diseases, but the non-specific way in which the disease names are bandied about affects the way the cures are referred to as well. Robert gave us the name of one freely available commercial drug, + I am determined to try that as soon as we return to Kathmandu, whether or not I feel ill at the time. The temptation is always to avoid such things, if one feels well, only to be struck down once more when the relieving drug is no longer within reach.
Despite my “condition”, we made good progress today, mainly because of a wickedly early start+ up by 5, away by 5.30. The first stretch, to Syabru, was pleasant, tho’ we both had the unreasonable feeling that we should have been making far better time than we were. It came as a depressing shock to be told by a couple of travellers passing the other way that we were an hour from the village, when we had already detoured to a small cluster of houses to enquire if that were the place. We encountered a remarkable number of travellers heading in the opposite direction, 7 in all, in 4 groups. The last couple were just leaving Syabru as we arrived – what late starters, we thought. It was now 8.30. Which meant we had taken exactly 3 hours, precisely the time given in our guide book. Not at all bad going, we decided in retrospect, especially considering the couple of diversions we had suffered: the side-trip to the spurious Syabru, various pauses to relieve ourselves. Psychologically, knocking off 3 hours before breakfast was a great boost. And there had been no more road-works.
We had porridge + tea at Syabru – I was hoping to ease my seriously troubled stomach – then moved on. There were 6 more hours yet to do. From the village the path led steeply down to the river thro’ the terraced gardens. A bonus for us, allowing us to do some harvesting of our own, for there were small clumps of marijuana growing along the path-edge. We collected a small bundle for later drying + sampling. If it were any good, it would still be here on the way back. Looking back at Syabru, it looked like a row of Victorian terraced cottages from the north of England: stone-built, marching down the crest of the ridge, flag-poles waving above, looking from this distance like television aerials.
The 2 days previous to this we had been heading north following the3 valley of the Trisuli river, but now, once we’d crossed the tributary that ran below Syabru, we rounded the bluff, + then turned right, or east, to follow the Langtang valley. The Langtang flows fast + furious, fed by the glaciers further up, + heading upstream meant a stiff climb, first on the south bank, then crossing to the north. I encountered a couple of large leeches, fortunately only on my boot. They disturb me hugely. We aren’t used to vicious insects in England, vicious animals of any kind (barring man) for that matter, + I for one am happy to retain that unfamiliarity.
At long last, we arrived at Lama Hotel, a community consisting entirely of 2 dilapidated guest-houses (+ taking its name from one of them.) We stopped for hot lemon at the second, having received bad reports on the trail about the Lama Hotel itself. The man in charge was pleasant but pushy, bringing out goodies to tempt us with – his wife’s weaving, packets of biscuits, a tin of sardines. (In my condition, a tin of sardines was the last thing I wanted.) He was, understandably, a little put-out when we announced our intention of moving on – he had been most surprised that we had come from as far away as Barku, + had obviously expected us to stay. We were, in truth, tired, but we had heard good things about the Riverside Lodge, just an hour further on, so had already made that our goal.
That final hour was not so bad, uphill, but not violently so. Even so, we gave a cheer of triumph as we came over a crest + saw it, a solitary stone cottage nestling on the river. It would be difficult to imagine a more idyllic setting – the cottage itself, grass in front, the rushing river, the dark forest on the cliff opposite, yaks, cows + creatures half-way between wandering about. I wasn’t, tho’, in a state to do more than note the scene, order some food, + head for bed. All of a sudden I ached, I felt cold, + had the beginnings of an actual cold, I thought. Val woke me an hour or 2 later, but I could eat nothing of the food I had ordered, tho’ I managed a couple of mouthfuls of Val’s, a delicious vegetable momo, nothing like the ones we had tried before, more like a meat-pie from home, tho’ without meat. After that I tried desperately to drug myself to sleep with 3 disprin in a glass of hot lemon, + it may have helped a little, but it was, nonetheless, a bad night.
Won’t dwell too long on the conditin of my stomach, but it was almost a relief to be able to give it a scientific name, providing the impression that we were somehow in control. But the walking, despite this, seems to have been good, and certainly ended up in a wonderful spot.
