HIMALAYAS, NEPAL-“Why not, coconut peanut?” asks World Expeditions guide Birkha Magar, cackling and tapping my arm like I should get the joke.
A trekker is photographing terraced crops and we’ve just visited the world’s deepest gorge, the 5,571-metre Kali Gandaki.
Magar doesn’t understand the attraction to agriculture after the gorge but, he jests, if you want to eat coconut and peanut as a meal, go ahead, live and let live. If only everyone shared his attitude.
Magar manages the porters who ascend steep, stony slopes while carrying 30 kilograms of our bags and equipment strapped to their heads. Flat in Canada means horizontal, like a King St. sidewalk. Nepalese “flat” is scaling every King St. building.
World Expeditions provides the crew with new shoes, clothes and sleeping bags. On the trek, they’re given three meals a day, limited to carrying 30 kilograms, and paid union rates regulated by the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal and labour union of Nepal. When I ask porters Dipak Thaba, Amrit Rai and Rajkumar Shrastha why they do it, the answers are unanimous — money and mountains.
It’s the eighth trek in Nepal for one of my companions, 70-year-old Englishman Richard Peterson, who says it’s the best treatment of porters he’s seen.
Other companies’ porters often trek in flip-flops, hauling their own bodyweight. The government has set guidelines and codes of practice exist, but organizations such as the International Porter Protection Group are fighting for regulations to be monitored and enforced, a difficult task in a poor country reportedly plagued by corruption.
The power rests with tourists who can vote by choosing reputable companies.
The youngest porter, Bibbin Shrestha, is 19. He’s a good dancer, delicately contorting arms to the beat of Magar’s drums on our last day.
Porters need infectious energy, and plenty of rice, to keep going. Magar says their job is easy. It’s the kitchen staff who really work, producing plentiful food from dawn to dusk.
I’m trekking up to 10 hours a day and I might be getting heavier. Magar has to teach me “pugyo, dhanyabad” — no more, thanks.
If I ask for “ali ali” — a little — he dishes a single strand of rice.
Our smiling crew complements the solitary trekking experience of methodically plodding for hours.
“If I do something else, it’s not so good. No mountains,” Magar says.
He was young when he left school. I can’t imagine him confined to classrooms.
At home, he watches WWE wrestling, entertained by the antics of 1980s star “Macho Man” Randy Savage.
I watch a woman in a red jacket scythe fields of flourishing millet, with a basket strapped to her head. Annapurna South mountain looms in the background.
“Be careful. Lots of nettles. Very dangerous,” Magar warns me.
I crouch to photograph her.
“Day-veed!” he cries.
Twisting quickly, I panic.
He just wants a picture of me taking a picture.
It’s payback for photographing him often. When he notices, his shoulders throw back and thumbs go up like Fonzie, shouting “hey hey,” his version of “ayy.”
He’s got the poses, catchphrases and charisma of a WWE performer. Watching him when he’s not hosting guests, a life trekking seems like it could be as lonely as Mickey Rourke’s character in The Wrestler.
Magar asks to make sure I email him. The address is undeliverable. I hope he’s got another group to entertain.
David Bateman was hosted by World Expeditions, which did not approve or review this story.
David Bateman was hosted by World Expeditions, which did not approve or review this story.
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