shower.’
Waiting in the late afternoon sunshine with only a small towel round my waist, a frantic sweep of small grey birds brushes past – a rush of feathers come from nowhere and are gone in an instant.
Seen from the Milke Danda, a cloud-sea fills the valleys of northeast Nepal as far as the Singalila Ridge, beyond which lies Sikkim (Chapter 1)
Far beyond the Tamur’s valley, the Kangchenjunga massif forms a backdrop to life in the foothills (Chapter 1)
A typical wayside bhatti, or teahouse, hundreds of which serve travellers right across Nepal (Chapter 1)
At last! After 30 years of mountain activity I’ve finally made it to the Himalaya – the world’s third highest mountain towers behind me (Chapter 1)
The stately cone of Ratong is part of a long crest of peaks extending from Kangchenjunga that carries the Nepal–Sikkim border (Chapter 1)
The Southwest Face of Kangchenjunga, by which it was first climbed in 1955 (Chapter 1)
Setting up camp on the yak pasture of Tseram (Chapter 1)
(Opposite) After crossing the Thorong La, Alan Payne overlooks the timeless village of Jharkot (Chapter 2)
With Annapurna South as a backdrop, weary trekkers capture the magic of the Sanctuary (Chapter 2)
After a dump of snow, the way from Manang to Letdar on the Annapurna Circuit is transformed (Chapter 2)
Though still recognisable from Annapurna Base Camp, Machhapuchhare (far right) has lost its solitary status as guardian of the Sanctuary (Chapter 2)
Our first camp on the Manaslu trek (Chapter 3) looks north across a pastoral land to the arctic wall of the Himalaya
In the rain shadow of the Himalaya, the valley of the Jhong Khola below Muktinath is like a highaltitude desert (Chapter 2)
Sharing a book of photographs with a young friend from Samagaon (Chapter 3)
From their home above the Buri Gandaki, village children watch the world go by (Chapter 3)
The juggernauts of Nepal make their way along the lower valley of the Buri Gandaki (Chapter 3)
The lodge-keeper returns with a red plastic bucket of water, a jug and an enamel bowl. ‘Shower!’ he says with pride.
Having been psyched up to enjoy my first overall wash since Kathmandu, I’m not prepared for disappointment, so drop the towel anyway and, standing in the bowl one foot at a time, pour jugs of water over my head. What had seemed tepid in the bucket is now close to freezing, and I shiver uncontrollably. But although it may not be the most luxurious shower of my life, I’ve never had one with a better outlook, with an unrestricted view of massed snow peaks sharp against the Himalayan sky gathering the first colours of evening. It’s also the highest and most exposed bathroom of my life, so I dry myself as best I can and dress quickly before ice forms on my extremities.
The valley below Muktinath is one of which dreams are made. Totally different from anything we’d seen along the Marsyangdi, a seemingly barren land is contorted into a series of folds, gullies and terraces. This northern side of the Himalayan divide could not seem more remote if it were on the far side of the moon, and as we approach the ancient village of Jharkot, I’m enchanted by everything I see – a line of peach trees, a half-frozen stream, a small pond, the snowy west wall of the Kali Gandaki, and Jharkot itself. As I glance through a kani, the Himalayan time-machine cranks me back at least 500 years. I can taste the dust and clay of Asia upon my tongue, smell warm dust and clay in my nostrils, and trail my fingers against the wall of one of the houses, scraping the wind-baked dust and clay of a world marooned from the late 20th century. A small child with dirt-spiked hair and a tan-coloured tunic pads along the alleyway. ‘N’maste,’ he grins. ‘Gimme one pen!’
Below Jharkot our path sidles among a few bare poplars and fruit trees, and through crusts of ice where a stream crosses and recrosses the trail. Snow patches spatter the hillside, while the hanging valley becomes yet more arid in appearance. Dhaulagiri rises as though on an elevator behind a spur of Tukuche Peak, a vast yacht whose sails are stretched to capture winds we cannot feel down here. To our right, across the Jhong Khola’s gorge, caves are pitted among strangely eroded crags sculpted by frost, wind and water over countless millennia.
Kagbeni is an oasis. We see a hint of the village with its patchwork fields and row of willows gathered at the confluence of the Jhong Khola and Kali Gandaki. It’s as far north as foreigners are allowed to travel, although last night we heard rumours that restrictions would soon be lifted and, for payment of a large fee in Kathmandu, a special permit would allow trekkers to enter long-forbidden Mustang. If this is true, we’re too late and without sufficient funds to take advantage. Ah, Mustang… Another dream for another day.
Sidling through its valley, the Kali Gandaki is a series of streams that reunite here and there. At a little under 3000 metres, in a land-locked country in the heart of Asia, 800 kilometres from the nearest sea, we walk on the bed of a one-time ocean. Among the stones and glacial silt we discover ammonites – coiled, fossilised creatures that once inhabited that sea until its bed was raised to become India. And the Himalaya was born. As the Himalaya continues to grow, the Kali Gandaki leaks away from the Tibetan plateau, undeterred from its southbound course by the highest mountains on earth. Nibbling at the growing land mass, the river carves a passage until, a day’s walk downstream from here, it breaches the wall between Annapurna and Dhaulagiri to create the world’s deepest river valley – more than 5500 metres below the summits.
No wonder the wind sweeps up-valley with enough force to carry small stones in its teeth!
The sound of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ is an incongruous intrusion. Decades ago I twice saw the Beatles in concert and still enjoy their records. But not here. Western music in a Nepalese lodge at the foot of the Annapurnas is not one of the reasons I came to the Himalaya. Trekking among these mountains is not simply a multi-day walk in the hills, it’s a way of experiencing other cultures, of testing one’s own values, of learning how other people live, listening to their beliefs, and sharing for a moment in time an existence unknown in our technological society. At best, trekking is a multi-layered experience that leads to an