We started the day with hard-boiled eggs for breakfast – another recurring theme – and then negotiated a ride with one of the local jeeps; our own Scorpio set off back to civilisation as soon as we had paid him. We needed to travel the few kilometres down the road to the start of the trail… and wow, what a trip that was. I was riding shotgun this time, so got a front row seat to one of the most hair-raising trips I have ever encountered, rocking violently from side to side, and most of the time perilously close to a precipice, over which we could see the river, hundreds if feet below. But exciting? That’s for sure.
After about an hour we arrived at what was definitively (at least for the time being, until they are able to build a road bridge over that river) the end of the road – the small town of Mukarigad. From now on, it would have to be people or donkeys (or more properly mules) to carry stuff.
We met up with Bharat, who was to be our guide (and so, so much more besides) for the duration of the trip. We had lunch (same stuff) and then picked up our bags and set off. I was carrying Val’s and my larger rucksack while she took the smaller (with the agreement that we would switch at some point); Aparna carried her own bag, though the heavy bag loaded with foodstuffs immediately passed on to Bharat; and likewise, in very short order, he was carrying Usha’s bag as well, another rather too heavy rucksack. There was some brief mention of hiring a porter as well, but we airily dismissed that.
The first thing we did was to cross the long suspension bridge that separated the town from the trail, and then up the hill on the other side. What was cleat was that Usha was finding it very difficult, with plenty of pauses to regather her breath, with Val offering encouragement.
It was a long, long steady climb, which I was starting to find wearying, and steadily slowing. But probably our greatest error was in taking too many rest breaks, including one, just before we started the long climb up the “Great Wall of Nepal”, in which first Aparna decided to take a small nap, and then all of us did the same. What this meant was that we had already fallen behind schedule. Val and I had already swapped bags, but for all of us it was a very hard switch-backed climb up increasingly steep and arduous legs, with the light starting to fade. Bharat had already identified me as a weak link – “Please give me your bag sir” he implored, and eventually I was forced to accede. It looked like we were never going to reach the top, and it was almost dark. The plea changed: “Please give me your hand sir”, and though I resisted this for quite a while, pride insisting I did not, or at least should not, require such mollycoddling, but eventually I gave in, offered my hand, and was guided rather than pulled – it was remarkably comforting.
It was Val, however, who was the first recipient of “Oh my God!” from Bharat when she slipped. There was no great harm done, but his reaction was almost of a personal affront to his skills as a guide, as he rushed to help her.
The nest two “Oh my God”s were of a rather more serious nature. It was pitch dark, and by the light of a phone torch, he was guiding me by the hand. But it was a very narrow path indeed, and I could not see my way at all. My left foot slipped off the path, and down I tumbled… fortunately not down off the hill entirely, but into a corn field, some three foot or so. I screamed as I felt my knee twist; it was the one I had broken years before, and always weak. But I was dragged back up, and we resumed our sorry procession. (As to the others, I believe Usha fell as well, but I was in a desperate state, beyond any thought of the others; Val was behind me, I knew, and Aparna just ahead – she gave me a reassuring cuddle in the pitch dark.)
It was n ot far now – this was Bharat’s village, he told me, but I could see a flickering light bulb still some couple of hundred yards further on. And then I slipped again. Bharat’s “Oh my God!” was accompanied by a rather more profane “Jesus! Fuck! Not again!” from me; I was in the corn field once more. Val was not to know I was relatively safe, and was hanging onto me; for all she knew, saving me from a plunge to my death – no-one could see anything. But my knee still seemed to be working, I was hauled back up, with the help of another pair of hands, summoned from Bharat’s home.
And then it was done. This is my home, said Bharat, and I was allowed, at last, to sit on the stone bench outside a stone cottage, to gather my wits, my breath, and at last my composure. We were there.
Somewhat remarkably, I recovered fast. Val and I were shown into a small, rather spartan bedroom on the ground floor, and she massaged my knee, my calves, my thighs. And, after about twenty minutes, we wee summoned upstairs, me being helped up by Bharat to the living-room on the first floor. It was warm, blissful; there was a fire burning in the grate, carpets on the floor, a chair (plastic, moulded, just like the ones we have at home, was produced for me, so that I would not have to attempt to sit on the floor like everyone else. And soon enough, I recovered, as if the whole thing had been just a dream. I sang a song or two, Val played the penny whistle, the children were charmed and charming. And then I was helped down to our bedroom, and at last I knew the whole thing was over… for today, at any rate.
There were a series of disturbing dreams – another recurring theme of the trip. But I could rest.
