I have racked up quite a few air miles in my many years of globetrotting, especially in the developing world. I hate flying the local airlines, especially the many ones with terrible safety records, but for a regular traveller to poor countries there is no other alternative, even when the local airline is conducting animal sacrifices to the gods to help repair its planes, or repeatedly shooing huge, wild animals off their busy runways, if not crashing into the poor…
I have travelled a lot in Third World nations and I have had my share of annoying stomach bugs and other minor intestinal ailments, but one time in October, 2008, on the fabled Snowman Trek in Bhutan – a beautiful Himalayan country east of Nepal and south of China – I experienced the worst night of my life. I woke up just before midnight and felt a horrific rumbling in my guts unlike anything I had ever experienced. It just…
It was a beautiful mid-October day in the Dolpo region of western Nepal in 2014. Under bright blue skies our group of 13 trekkers left the lovely village of Saldang, and crossed the 4,565 metre (14,977 foot) Khoma La mountain pass, before slowly descending to the village of Khomagaon, just in time to witness a wonderful series of horse races, part of a grand and colourful wedding celebration. I was enjoying myself immensely and mingling with the huge crowds of…
I rolled out of bed a little before 4 a.m., feeling kind of woozy after a short night with very little sleep in a Nepali tea house in Thorung Phedi, better known as High Camp, at 4,746 metres (15,572 feet). It was Halloween, Oct. 31, 2008, but I was not thinking about tricks or treats, or wearing a goofy costume. I slapped some cold water on my face, was careful not to wake my temporary roommate, got dressed, hefted my…
There are some adventurous moments that intrepid travellers occasionally experience which are seared into their memory forever. Moments so exotic, so far removed from their day-to-day life back home, that even decades later those memories seem to jump off the page as if they were written in italics. Chasing such experiences is like an addictive drug for hard-core backpackers, which I certainly was in my younger and not-so-young-anymore days. The episode I am thinking about occurred in January, 1982, while…
When I travel in the developing world I pretty much jump at every tantalizing and slightly crazy opportunity that pops up. Cross the Sahara Desert on the back of local trucks in 1972? Hell yes! Ride the broken-down barge up the mighty Congo River in 1982? Absolutely! Climb up to and over the spectacular 5,540 meter (18,176 foot) Kongma La mountain pass in 2014 instead of taking the easier and less interesting route on the way to Everest Base Camp?…
It was the day of the juga. My nearly two-week trek in the Langtang, Gosainkunda and Helambu regions of central Nepal with my delightful and unflappable 21-year-old guide-porter, Pempa Tamang, was mostly fabulous fun, though very hard work because we walked up and down the hills like happy maniacs. With the good must come the bad, unfortunately, and the morning of September 24, 2014, the next to last day of our journey, quickly turned into a Third World horror film…