Soul Searching

As some of you may know, the peaceful land of Tibet has not always been so. It has quite a history of violence and tyranny (think karma on a national scale). Just fyi I’m pretty sure that China’s current claim to Tibet is actually fueled by an ancient edict in which Tibet declared itself part [...]

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Here you go. Poon hill is the “must see” spot for people doing the Annapurna circuit. It’s pretty obvious why.

You’ve gotta get up at around 3:30am, then trek like a Banshee (well, I guess actually more like a Sherpa) to the top of this “hill.”

Now I’ve seen hills and I’ve seen “hills,” but I ain’t [...]

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…that you should write a book? You should put a contract out on them! It never seems like it’s never going to end! It’s like a black hole. The more you give, the more it wants, the more dense it grows, the greater its pull. Lots of excuses for not getting around to THIS for [...]

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Nepal seems to be the overall poorest country I’ve visited so far, and although the street urchins are absolutely filthy, the kind of filth that’s hard to imagine, they look pretty healthy.

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I think I’m missing a day somewhere? Somewhere with a *beni in it…

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Ps – don’t shoot me, but at this point things look a lot like the Alps, without the comfort and food. Maybe with a porter things will look better…

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* – It’s really cold, be prepared. It staying above freezing but since there’s no heat so you never get warm. There are no heaters where you sleep. Even if you find hot water, no matter what you think sitting in your warm room in the west, you’re not getting naked in a room that’s [...]

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Trekking* – first really bad idea to go from Phuket, Thailand where it’s 90° F to Nepal, where it’s 60° F in the daytime and around 32° F at night, really bad. I arrive in Jomsum and make my way to Kagbeni – after harrowing 16 seat airplane ride. The plane was almost grounded due [...]

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Ok, so despite my best efforts to dissuade all but the most serious of professional mountain climbers, you still want to visit Nepal. What do you need to make the trip as comfortable, safe, and fun as possible?
a guide – $7 a day, make sure that they agree to feed and bed themselves
a porter – [...]

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I don’t know what the word in Nepali is for “shortcut” but it probably is something similar in meaning to “let’s send this guy over a couple of mountains and see if he lives.” Anyway, after the first disastrous day, in which a 2 ½ hour trek took me 6 ½ hours, because I decided [...]

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