Marie and I recently returned from a 10 day trek into the north of Bhutan. For those of you who don’t know, Bhutan spans a large climate region – from near-equatorial tropics in the south to Himalayan mountains in the north – so you can imagine how excited we were to be headed into the real Himalaya at last.
We started from Paro, just an hours drive from home and still at roughly 2400m. I find it strange to think that I’m living above the altitude of Australia’s highest mountain and that it rarely snows at this level. The weather was just changing as we were leaving, though, with a crisp cool morning and a small fear that the high passes would be closed. The whole trip had been organised in a few days and our preference for doing it alone saw a reduction of horses and a compression of days that could cause trouble if the weather wasn’t just right. Blue skies and warm sun boded well for us as we began the gradual climb to Jangothang.
The group consisted of 5 chilips (westerners), our guide / cook, two horsemen and their 7 horses. One of those horses was for me, should my knee fail, or anyone else with emergency need. The other 6 carried our gear. We set a hard pace, knowing that we needed to cross the first pass on the third day (instead of the fifth per standard schedule) if we wanted to make it at all, and the horsemen had trouble catching us. It wasn’t until we’d gone through the fields of the wide Paro valley and through the first army checkpoint that we got our first sight of the loaded horses and met our horsemen.
They gave their names as Tsen Tshering and Tsencho Wangdi, but on seeing our faces, quickly modified that to Tshering and Wangdi, solving a mystery I’d been pondering almost since we arrived in Bhutan. It seemed that there were only 5 names used by everyone in the country, male and female alike – Karma, Dorji, Sonam, Tshering and Wangdi – and I wondered how they could tell each other apart in conversation. I’d assumed that every description must be like ours – ‘Karma who works at DIT’ or ‘Sonam who came to rock climbing that time’ – but now I knew that we chilips were just being given that part of their name that we could be bothered remembering.
The last leg of the day was beside a river in a narrower valley, under the shade of a rainforest. Every river in Bhutan that we’ve seen has a beautiful turquoise colour that never comes out quite right in photos.
On day 2, we knew we were already behind schedule, so we impressed the horsemen by pushing the pace to an exhausting level through the undulating rainforest track until we came out at Jangothang in the late afternoon. This was the 4080m base camp of Jhomolhari, Bhutan’s most sacred mountain. At 7314m, it’s also the second highest mountain but it’s no longer legal to climb it, so we were as close as anyone had been in the last 10-20 years. From our campsite, its snowy peak was framed by the two sides of our valley, providing that perfect photo opportunity.
A group of Danish tourists were there before us, taking the mandatory rest day before attempting the 4870m pass, but we figured we were already acclimatised by living at 2300m and recent walks to 4000m, so we joined them the next day. They were also using yaks to carry their luggage, much preferred over horses at the higher altitudes, and I got my first look at the huge, hairy creatures. Rather than being long-haired all over, as I had expected, the bulk of their hair was in the tail and hanging down from their bellies, giving the impression of a tassled rug. They caught us just before the pass, after a morning of choosing our own path from among the numerous yak tracks on the scree of a smaller mountain. Yaks are notoriously edgy and unreliable, so we had to stop to let them pass. Even up there, they had to be pushed every step, their tongues dragging on the ground, not because of the weight of their loads, but because 4500m is too low for a yak to be comfortable outside the heart of winter.
From the height of the pass, we had panoramic views of Jhomolhari, Jichu Drakye and other peaks we don’t know the names of. It was the first time we’d really felt ourselves to be in the heart of the Himalaya, rather than just looking at distant peaks. The cold helped too, but even at that height, the sun beat through our layers of clothing to fight off the worst of it. From previous experiences at high altitudes (before this day, 4000m was high), I knew that the effects of altitude sickness could strike on the descent, so I quickly left the pass behind following the yaks into the next valley. The horses caught us at lunchtime, halfway down to our campsite, so I took a ride rather than risk my knee further so early in the trip.
By now we were on good terms with Tsencho, the junior horseman, who spoke fluent English. He’d been invited along by his cousin who owned 25 horses, but couldn’t handle both pack horses and a riding horse, and didn’t speak English. Tsencho was just 17 and recently dropped out of school because of the embarrassment of being 5 years older than all his classmates. It wasn’t quite clear why he’d been so far behind because his English was almost perfect and he said his maths skills were about the same. In any case, he’d quit to help his mother run their small farm. He was the third child and his mother was still in her early thirties, having had her first child at 14. His father was no longer around and I didn’t press for details, but I gathered that the work of the land had taken its toll.
Tsencho himself was ‘looking forward’ to the life of a horseman. He explained his plan to use savings from trips with his cousin to buy a couple of mares, then rent a donkey to father some mules which are both stronger and longer-lived. From there he’d build his stable up to something like his 24 year old cousin’s. However, he believed in fate and if a better opportunity came along, he’d jump at it.
The Lingzhi campsite on that third evening was in a long, valley with a wide river providing a comfortable place to wash for those brave enough. We were only one of about 4 groups camping there that night and the word going through the camps was that one of the Danishmen was suffering from severe altitude sickness. On our return, we learnt that they aborted the next day, taking a lower pass directly back to Thimphu. As much as I feel for the sick man, I can’t help feeling more sorry for the rest of the party who missed out on the coming experience to come through no fault of their own.
The next day, sun still shining, we began the walk under the Lingzhi Dzong, a monastic castle perched on a hill in the middle of the valley. Karma, our guide, who woke us each morning before six with his Bhuddist chanting as he made breakfast, resisted the temptation to visit and took us on past a number of small villages nestled below towering cliffs which themselves were in the shadow of the grander Himalayan peaks. One of these, Goyul, was surrounded by stone-walled pastures and Marie commented that it was the first sign of such care that she’d seen. The rich farmers of the Thimphu area let the cattle wander free and use the same fields for their crops year after year. Here, where shops were a few days hard walk away, they’d sewn their grass with clover to reduce the need for crop rotation and built walls to keep weeds and animals out. And of course, some fields were used for the cattle and yaks themselves.
I woke on day 5 with a sore throat to find the sun losing its battle with clouds. Our walk up to Jhari La, a 4750m pass lacked the excitement of previous days. It was rocky, steep and in the path of a howling wind. I should have been wearing my thermals. On the way down, my head began to swim and I was glad for the riding horse. After some argument about the campsite, we decided to stay at the lower, warmer place and cover the extra distance to the big pass the next morning. I crawled into our tent as soon and let the sounds of Marie teaching Tsencho taekwondo and the accompanying laughter carry into my dreams.
I was still feverish the next morning, but was determined to make it to 5000m on my own and found that walking helped. Despite comments in the Lonely Planet about the pass looking and being a long way off, we found it jumped out at us early in the day. The last short scree climb was almost anti-climactic. A long line of prayer flags stretched up towards the peaks on either side of the pass, soon disappearing into the snow. This was the first pass that we’d seen with snow at the top and white extended in every direction. Wherever we looked, we could see Himalayan standard mountains. It wasn’t enough for Marie or Dorina, though, and they pushed on up to nearby peaks while Sabine (a Swiss short term volunteer) and I headed back down out of the cold, snow falling as we descended. One more day and we might have been too late to cross.
The horsemen caught us up for lunch and I took advantage of the riding horse for the remaining downhill, then helped them unpack at the campsite. Soon after, Lucas arrived and casually told me that Marie was behind, walking slowly because she’d hurt her ankle. This was the second time since we’d been in Bhutan and from what she says, the hundredth time in her life. I went to find her crying with each step, more in humiliation than pain, but enough of both to make me want to join her. She’d been so excited by being up in the mountains in such glorious scenery, fresh air and miles away from work and pressures of the city, that she’d practically ran down the rocky slopes. All had been going well until a rock spun under her foot and she’d gone crashing to the ground. Now it hurt so much that she feared it might be broken.
It was all I could do to beat down Marie’s pride and make her ride the horse on day 7, but even she soon realised she couldn’t keep up with the group on her own. The horse meant for me, was now being used for the dreaded emergency and the extra cost was well worth bringing it along. We stopped in Laya to visit the Basic Health Unit so the local doctor could look at Marie’s ankle. A cold press and a tighter bandage made a big difference and her mood and sense improved markedly. Laya is normally an overnight stop on the trek, where the locals put on a dance for the tourists, but our schedule demanded we move on. There was time for lunch though, and by chance a Belgian friend was filming up there and staying with the doctor. They invited us to have lunch in their hut, a three room place that housed 11 government employees. It even had the luxury of a TV and DVD player powered by a solar panel. On a good day, they could watch episodes of Friends until a couple of hours after dark.
School was out for lunch at the time and the kids were all playing soccer on a lumpy field outside our building. I watched tensely every time the ball went near the far edge and the players made a mad dash to get the ball before it disappeared over the cliff. It was a 90 minute walk to the valley below, but it was likely that the river would have washed a ball away before anyone got there.
It gets so cold in Laya during the winter that the entire town packs up and moves to the tropics to camp for 4 months each year, leaving behind the elderly and the doctor. The doctor told us that most of the elderly can’t even cook for themselves, let alone walk down to the camp, so he has to trudge through the snow every few days to make sure they’re taking care of themselves. Water is made by melting the snow around the huts, but that is only possible if you can get the door open in the first place and many huts had main doors on the second floor. It was a fascinating place and I’d love to have spent more time, but we had only three days left to get home and there was some frightening downhill left. As it was, I stayed to take some last photos and was surprised by a couple of local girls rushing out of their house to dance for me. All dressed in their thick local clothes made of yak hair and their conical cane hats, they just wanted their photo taken and were prepared to perform for the privilege. It made the rest of the day’s walk easier. Snow fell as we went to bed.
It rained all the next day as we headed further into the valley, stopping in a nice warm trekking hut for lunch. Marie was still on the horse, but taking advantage of every relatively flat section to exercise the cold from her bones. The blanket saddle was saturated and forcing water even past her rain pants. By the time we reached the 4000m pass, our campsite was a muddy slush and the rain was getting harder. Our tent, already wet from the previous night, was raining inside so we had to share with Dorina and her son in their larger tent. Karma, Tsen and Tsencho slept on the ground, as usual, inside the kitchen tent, but this time with an extra tarp over the top.
Tsen and Tsencho woke us early in the night to borrow torches so they could go searching for the horses. Always loose, they had decided to make their own way out of this disaster (their fears were of leeches and bears) and were a couple of kilometres on their way already. We were later woken to a crash that I thought sounded like a horse falling over the edge of the hill outside our tent. Voices outside didn’t seem too concerned, so I went back to sleep. The next morning, Karma related the hilarious story of Sabine rushing into the kitchen tent in her pyjamas and socks (now covered in mud) screaming about a bear in her tent. She’d thought that the sound was a bear stumbling into her tent, or perhaps with a more ravenous intent. After a quick inspection, Karma determined that the sound had been a mini avalanche of snow sliding off Dorina’s tent.
When we woke in the morning, it was snowing hard and it was now sure that we’d only made the pass by a day or two. It might be 4 or 5 months before the pass could be crossed again. This day, the ninth, was the one I was fearing most. It was over 2000m down to the next campsite and the long awaited hot springs. Marie was too cold to wait for the horse, so she started out on her own while, gloveless (everything was wet and cold), I helped strike camp. I caught her up and we made our way down into sunshine and tropical warmth a few hours later. Dorina and Lucas came past, relating stories of how Dorina had fallen 3 or 4 metres down the steep mountainside when trying to avoid a slippery patch of snow. By lunch, we’d made Gasa and the horsemen were still behind us. Marie decided to push on and we both made it to the hot springs by early afternoon. The horses had overtaken us and were unloading when we arrived. Neither my knee nor Marie’s ankle allowed us to do much more than watch.
Everything was still wet and we were looking forward to staying the night in one of the centre’s huts, but there was no room. While we pitched our tents, a group of Indian labourers sat on the hill beside us and watched. We felt like a circus act. I went and sat beside them in the same bored, slack-jawed pose, thinking that it would either break the ice and inspire them to talk to us or embarrass them into leaving. No such luck. Sabine and Dorina tried to do the same by taking photos, but they just laughed. This went on through our baths in the small tubs fed by comfortably hot earthy water, and into the next morning as we packed. Shouting at them didn’t help. What part of the Indian culture allows for such rude staring?
The next day was a gentle exit, followed by a long sardine truck drive back to Thimphu and home. Our dreams of a hot shower and warm beds was shattered or arrival when we found that our shower still hadn’t been repaired, and the hot water (switched off to save electricity) took 2 hours to warm up. But then, we had the warm glow of a successful expedition to carry us through the night.
I’ve been to 5000m!!!!