CATEGORIES
CATEGORIESActive Junky chatted with a country-hopping adventurer who recently returned from a five-month homestay in Nepal. He describes the country as “a world-class banquet for all six of the senses.” When we asked about the sixth, he laughed, “You’ve got to go and see for yourself.”
To convince us the plane ticket’s worth every rupee, he recounted memorable moments from the other five.
When my Nepali brother’s shoulder started to ache, he claimed it was “ghost-sick.” So, we traded the village shaman some raksi (local grain spirit) for a sort of exorcism.
The shaman’s chants were deep and repetitive. He swept his hands over my brother’s shoulder, towards the door to rid the house of ghost juju. I watched him ignite a bundle of herbs that billowed a sweet smoke into the room that soothed even me, the foreign bystander.
I don’t know why the ghost left. If I were the ghost, I would have reveled in that thick odor for all eternity.
"It’s cold and rainy,” said Phuddar, my Sherpa trekking guide, putting down his pack. “So right now, we’re trekking like this.” He snapped on a sad-but-determined face, lowered his head and marched stoically in place. “But if we drink raksi, we’ll be warm and like this.” When he marched again, he put on a goofy, gap-toothed grin, swayed his shoulders and arms like a jellyfish. “Which hiker would you rather be?”
We hiked like jellyfish after that.
When I made it up to a 15,000-foot glacial lake in the heart of the Himalayas, I humored my crunchy side.
I’d had three stubborn four-year-old warts on my hand that neither salicylic acid nor Freeze-away or sheer willpower had rid. I self-consciously whispered something like, “Oh very rad and massive glacial lake, please oh please get rid of these here hideous warts.” I dunked my hands into the icy water. The wind made an unforgettably alien “whip-crack.” I got all tingly.
Three weeks later? No more warts.
I woke up early one morning to watch the sun’s first light hit 26,000-foot Annapurna II. Instead, I found my eyes transfixed on an old woman braiding her hair. She sat on the edge of a terrace below me, never realizing that I was her audience. The carefulness with which her hands worked was hypnotic. Her sun-weathered skin became silhouetted against hair glowing whiter than the snowy peaks behind.
I’ll forget the Himalayas before I forget her, and I never even saw her face.
The first time I tried eating with my hands, so much food dropped on my lap that I had to change pants. But soon I, too, became a spoon-loather. Sure, spoons make sense for soups, but for the daal-bhaat (rice and lentils) eaten almost every meal for five months straight, eating by hand became a necessity and a joy. Nepalis swear that food tastes different when you eat with your hands – I agree.
