Day 3 – The seedy side of Namche

Saturday, 5 April 2014 – Namche Bazaar, Nepal

We’ve climbed to an altitude of 3,400m in just two days. Today we have a rest day, which we spend acclimatising in Namche Bazaar.

On a good day the Sherpa capital is one of the most spectacularly sited villages anywhere in the world. It lies in a bowl in the hillside hundreds of metres above the Bhote Khosi Gorge. Row upon row of multi-storey stone teahouses are piled on top of one another, stretching up the hillside, and bookshops, bakeries, outdoor clothing stores and trekkers’ lodges line the narrow streets. On a clear day the 6,187m snowcap of Kongde Ri towers over everything on the opposite side of the valley. The village is home to the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), the organisation who regulate the environment in the Khumbu region. There is a helipad and a Sherpa cultural museum on top of the hill.

Today is not a day for taking sightseeing photos. A dull grey cloud floats low overhead, obscuring Kongde and banishing any blueness from the sky. The Statue of Liberty could be sitting on the hillside opposite for all we can see of it.

Louis looks a lot better this morning after his toilet adventures yesterday. Last night we watched the T20 world cup cricket semi-final in a bar, and at breakfast I am unable to resist telling him that Dale Steyn was producing as much crap with the ball as he was out of his arse.

After breakfast I walk up the hill into the main part of Namche. Narrow streets are crammed with bookshops, trekking lodges, and stores selling outdoor clothing. I bump into Phil, who tells me the rest of the team are at a bakery down the hill. I follow him there, and find Margaret and Edita sitting at a table, drinking coffee and tapping away on their iPads. Edita tells me some of the others are sitting in another bakery opposite.

‘How do you know?’ I ask.

‘One of them has posted on Facebook.’

Times have changed since I was last here. I go across the road, and sure enough, Kevin is sitting at a table not twenty metres away from Edita. He is also tapping away on his iPad. He doesn’t notice me arrive, so I pull up a chair and sit down opposite without saying a word. When he glances up he looks shocked.

‘That’s freaky,’ he says.

He shows me his iPad, and I see that he’s been reading a page from my blog.

‘What are you doing reading that shit?’ I ask.

We go back across the road and join Margaret and Edita for coffee and chocolate cake. One by one the rest of the team join us as Phil notices them walking past outside. Most pull out smartphones or iPads and try to connect to the Wi-Fi.

I seem to be the only person in the group not bothered about checking emails or Facebook. I know I’m going to sound like an old fogey, but for me, an expedition is an opportunity to get away from the modern world for a few weeks.

Or so I like to think, but I get sucked in too. Later that afternoon I spend an hour and a half in an internet café next door to the bakery. I try to write and send a blog post on a treacle-slow internet connection. If this isn’t unpleasant enough, I’m forced to listen to a Sherpa issuing a stream of profanities in fluent English. He sits behind a counter near the door, while I sit among a bank of computer terminals a few metres away. The phone rings and he picks it up. He grunts a few terse responses as he listens to a voice on the other end of the line.

‘Fuck you, why are you hassling me, man?’ he says repeatedly.

It’s quite some time before I realise he is talking to a western woman. When I do, it happens in a way that makes me feel quite sick.

‘I will beat you, man,’ he says. ‘I have beaten other women, and I will beat you, too.’

And then a short while later he says: ‘I just want your money, man. I want your fucking money.’

A Sherpani woman comes in to rebuke him. She also speaks in fluent English, and I assume she does so for my benefit. I am their only customer and I can hear every word.

‘This is a business phone. Why you not use your cell phone? You have been on phone for an hour and customers may be trying to call us.’

He ignores her and keeps talking. Perhaps he will beat her later too. Namche is in a beautiful setting, but it’s no paradise. I’m glad when I finish what I need to do, pay up and leave.

There are nice people here too. In the evening I meet up with my friend Siling in the Irish pub. He is a Nepalese trekking guide whom I have travelled with many times. I saw him in Kathmandu a few days ago, but it didn’t register with either of us that we would be in Namche at the same time. He was surprised when he bumped into Ian walking around the village earlier in the day. He is guiding three clients to Everest Base Camp, but they are feeling a little under the weather today, so he has a free evening.

He tells us that, despite the number of trekkers we overtook on the trail yesterday, the Khumbu region is quiet this year. He says this is mainly due to the poor reliability of flights to Lukla – the principal means for tourists to access the area. Low cloud causes frequent cancellations, and Siling says there were no flights either today or yesterday.

Some of the domestic airlines have a safety record comparable to Evel Knievel’s. They do not maintain their planes to international standards, resulting in a number of fatal accidents on Twin Otter flights in recent years. Many of the aircraft have been decommissioned, so there is now a much smaller fleet. Insurance is also becoming an issue. Some travel insurance policies now have ‘Lukla exemptions’.

Phil’s decision to send us by helicopter is looking like a wise one. Ian explains that helicopters are able to fly in worse conditions than the Twin Otters. The planes need to be able to see the runway from several miles away to land safely. Helicopters can fly much closer, and hover while they look for a landing pad.

Siling says there is now talk of building a road all the way to the village of Surkhe, a short distance below Lukla. Currently it takes five or six days to trek there from the roadhead at Jiri.

It’s quiet in the Irish pub. Kevin and Mel join us for a drink, but there are just two other small groups present. Afterwards, Siling, Ian and I go to one of only three other bars in Namche. It’s called the Liquid Cocktail Bar, and we find it down an alleyway off the main street. This time we are the only customers, although this is partially explained by the choice of music. Gentle, cheesy, 80s pop is playing when we arrive, but I believe the staff overhear us being critical. Two tracks later they start playing thrash metal. Tuneless electric guitar chords punish our eardrums while a man barks ‘you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die’ over and over again. I hope it’s not an omen for our expedition.

We say our goodbyes to Siling and return to our teahouse, The Nest, at eleven o’clock. It’s been a very late night for a trek in Nepal.