Nike Frees exceed 17,000' expectations

Many doubted that this was the right shoe for the job, but after a 5360m summit and a 5360m pass, naysayers have been quieted. 

Only a couple repairs with thread and Aquaseal were necessary over three weeks of mountain trekking, and they held strong. 

Apparently, a pound on the foot is worth four on the back. I would love to report that this relative weightlessness made me fly up the hills, but it was more of a gasping-for-oxygen trudge.

Off to Lukla

This is all we're taking for a 12 day trek near Mount Everest.

Forrest is worried about cold.

I am worried about altitude.

I'm sure my mom is just worried.

The travel agent booked us a flight into Lukla on a "new airline." He told us this like a good thing. The Lukla airstrip is very short & very high. I don't want the company with the perfect safety record that has only made two lucky flights.

Bill's surgery went well, so we will be lucky too.

The Flip Flop Ambulance

We took a long 3-day trek to Khaptad National Park. Day 1 was 9.5 hours of mostly uphill, mountainous hiking. Day 2 was 8 hours of mostly uphill hike to a high grassy meadow with Himilayan views. Day 3, we intended to hike all the way down.

We made it to our lunch stop (our overnight from Day 1) in 5 hours. But shortly after lunch, our friend Bill took a nasty fall downhill into a creek bed. His head was bloody and he couldn't walk because of hip pain. 

His wife Judy is an MD, his daughter Saanti is a wilderness first responder, and Forrest and I are EMTs... So he had a decent team at his disposal. We sent the Nepali that was with us back to the lunch village for help. Judy dressed his head wound and the 5 of us lift-carried him out of the creek. Forrest directed the building of a makeshift stretcher on the trail, but before we were ready, the Nepali, Arjun, had returned with 4 boys in flip flops and a cobweb covered stretcher probably left at the village by an NGO.

We secured Bill to the stretcher and the flip flip team lifted him onto their shoulders and took off at a pace we could hardly maintain. We figured we were 3-4 hours from the nearest road.

We raced up and down the mountain trails, along rice terraces, and thru creeks. At a particular steep river crossing, all the boys lost their flip flops as they scrambled up a muddy hill, Bill teetering on their shoulders. The flip flops were collected, rinsed, and they stepped back into them on the move.

We gave the boys our little bit of water and food on their few breaks. Bill hardly complained, though obviously in pain. We raced to keep up. It got dark. They went on.

We reached a friend by phone, who arranged a jeep waiting at the road. The flip flip ambulance made it there in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Bill was at the hospital in Balyapata, where we had started our hike 3 days earlier, 5 hours from injury-- a truly amazing feat for a fully stocked, state-of-the-art EMT squad, unbelievable for boys in flip flops.

Bill's X-Ray showed a severly fractured pelvis that needs immediate surgery.

They sent him and his family to Kathmandu by helicopter. Always the critical pilot, I was nervous for his flight, but the pilot that showed up was the one from "Into Thin Air"-- who rescued all those climbers off Mount Everest. He's the best mountain pilot in Nepal, and this country is the Capitol of mountain flying.

If he's half as good as the village boys in flip flops, Bill's in good hands.

Forrest is shopping for travel insurance.

The Maylah

We were staying with a family in Ridicot for a big annual festival. We never really understood exactly what was being celebrated. The only snippet of explanation we got was that a king demanded food taxes long ago.

The celebration consisted of all the villages in the area bringing a male water buffalo to sacrifice. The bulls are painted and festooned and surrounded by teenage and twenty-something boys prodding them down the trail. Each bull team brings a "cutter" with them who wields a sharp scythe.

From miles and miles, the bulls are driven to an appointed area in the mountains of terraced fields, some of them collapse along the way and the boys beat them with sticks to goad them on. 

The execution site is full of people in their best saris and clothes. Food tents and other carnival fare set up. The treats for sale are oranges, peanuts & fried sugar.

At a seemingly random time, the boys all burst into a frenzied chase of the bulls, and the cutters then hack off the bulls heads.

It's a very colorful gory chaos. Kind of a Hindi "Lord of the Flies." The vegetarian we ha with us had harsher words.

My dad would hate Nepal

Well, he would. He likes golf courses & drinks with umbrellas.

Here, they don't use silverware or toilet paper. Running water and ice are not even dreams. It is hard to make a good cocktail without those amenities.

We are staying with friends of friends in rural western Nepal. It took a 2 hour flight, 10 hour jeep ride, and lots of walking to get here.

The people are really friendly & really tough. They hike up and down steep hills in sandals & cook over fires. From sunrise to set, constant labor is required just to get food on plates and do it again.

We met a guy named Him. The word for cow is "guy", the word for milk is "dude." We had a lot of fun making sentences like, "Ask Him to get dude from the guy." And then laughing hysterically. 

Meanwhile, Him mustered all his English to ask, "your marriage-- love or arranged?" Him's was arranged. Most marriages here are.

We eat a lot. Everyone's way of welcoming is to feed & feed & feed. We have learned the words for "half", "enough", and "I'm full." There are many rules for who can share food, and critical errors can be made passing from plate to the wrong plate. Mothers can touch the same food as their daughters, but daughters can not touch their father's food. Husband and wife can share, but not friends. There is no "family style" serving, and you eat the whole pile that's put in front of you.

We also drink a lot of chai, which is tea with "dude." Often at tea shops like this:

The water here is not potable, but we got a "Steripen" as a wedding present. It may sound like a birth control device, but it's a cool UV light you can stick in water to sterilize it. We just need adequate battiries. The local kids think it's a laser light show.
You have to take your shoes off to go into people's homes. You have to take your shoes off to go into my mom's home as well, so my dad would be used to that, but here the floor's of people's homes are made of dirt.When you take your shoes off to walk on a dirt floor, the insides of your shoes get dirty.

We have seen a completely untouristed side of Nepal. Forrest got girardia, which my dad would also not find cool, but luckily we are traveling with a doctor & she squared him away. 

We may not travel like my dad, but an umbrella drink is starting to sound pretty great.

In Asia-- more than halfway round the globe

We stopped over in Doha, Qatar at their ridiculously posh and loud airport, where our phones informed us we had reached THE FUTURE-- it was still "yesterday" at home. We spent some time making lucrative sports bets.

We arrived in Kathmandu and are 13hours and 45 minutes ahead of Anchorage. I used to think Arizona had weird timezones (by skipping DST), but Nepal has those golf communities beat with their own 45minute slice of the world clock.

It is as polluted as advertised in Kathmandu. The streets, which don't have lanes--only vague sides, are chok full of honking vehicles and coughing people.

They have frequent power shortages in Nepal. I suspect it has to do with this monkey choosing to arrange the electrical lines in this way.