The Nation of Dengue

Helembu/LangTang, Nepal
By Bear Falugo

As for my first real trek in Helembu/LangTang, it was absolutely amazing. The fun started as soon as I left my guesthouse. The bus I needed to take was WAY to crowded and the driver wouldn’t let me sit on the roof. I had to hang outside of the bus with just one foot in the doorway, the other hanging, one hand on the hand rail, the other inside the window, with five other people doing the same thing, all while I had my backpack on. Everyone almost died when “the best bus driver in the world” came within inches of a telephone pole, we all let go at the last moment and got a little muddy.

I need to mention this so everyone can understand my sheer stupidity, before I left Kathmandu, I was talking to a guy who owns a trekking store. I don’t remember how it came up, but he was a pain, and I was wearing flip-flops at the time. He made a sarcastic remark, something like “you’re gonna try to trek in those things, you must be a REAL trekker”. All though I had no intention of trekking with flip-flops, I thought to myself DAMN (actually it was another four letter word), because I realized then what I had to do. That started a five minute argument (very entertaining by the way), in which he told me “you can’t combine Helembu and Langtang treks with flip-flops, you’ll have to climb to Gosain Kund (4,300 meters), it is not possible.” I guess the stupid American in me came out (not uncommon), so I told him I’d be back in about two weeks with pictures of me at Gosain Kund wearing flip-flops. It’s the little things like this that keep me going.

The bus dumped me at Sundarijal (the starting village of the Helembu trek), and just in case I had forgotten, the biblical down pour reminded me that while it’s coming to an end, the monsoon season is still here. It was 3:00 pm, not the best time to start day one of my trek, but there were no Guesthouses in Sundarijal, so reluctantly I began trekking at 3:30 p.m. and didn’t arrive at a Tea house until 7:30 at night. My flip-flops broke at about 6:00 pm and no, I didn’t bring my cross trainers (half shoe, half boot) with me. Day one was a success.! The next morning at about 5:30 am, I awoke to what was at the time, the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen. As far as I could see, it looked like an ocean of clouds below me, with snow capped mountains, like islands high above to the north and smaller peaks warming themselves at random spots to the south and in between. The morning got better when I found replacement straps (for my flip-flops) for 10 rupees each (75 Rupees to the dollar) at a small shack…er, store. The mornings kept getting more and more beautiful the closer I got to Langtang (about 45 kilometers north in a straight line), but soon after the clouds would come and try to steal all the attention. I personally liked the clouds a whole lot more when they complemented the mountains, but I guess they’re a bit insecure?

Gosain Kund in English means Holy Lake. It’s the site of a great spiritual gathering, very sacred and important to Hindu’s and Buddhist’s alike. It falls at the end of August and pilgrims make their way from all over Nepal, I happened to be there at that time. Apparently, 4 pilgrims thought of me as just another pilgrim (why else would some white fruit-loop be way out there…in flip flops?), and asked if I would make the pilgrimage with them. That was great, the way trekking should be. Every hour, just when all the juices are flowing and I’m ready to really walk, they would stop for Roxy, home made whiskey. 2-3 drinks later we would start walking again, they take it really seriously, the drinking that is. We made it up Laurembina Pass (4,500 meters, 1 meter = roughly 3.2 feet), and besides the holes that had begun in my flip-flops, I also realized some more Roxy would be nice. At this time of year, villagers build temporary shelters for the pilgrims all over the place. They pretty much consist of wood with plastic on top and hay on the ground, and a simple fire place in the front to warm up the Roxy and cook food. That’s where I slept, well, tried to sleep. I froze every night, I had no sleeping bag and the blanket they gave me was way to short, so either my head or my feet were numb in minutes.

Gosain Kund marked roughly the middle of the two treks and links them together. Most people take a bus to one or the other. Through out the trek I had some real Dengue tests, but I passed them all. Much of the walking I did was through known Maoist villages and, along with the rest of the world, (unfortunately), they really don’t like Americans. Unlike everyone else though, they have machine guns and are in the middle of a civil war in which America is supplying arms to the Royal Nepalese Army. Most Americans say they’re Canadian, I don’t, I usually say I’m American, but occasionally I say I’m from Dengue just to mess with people (guess I have to much time on my hands). I told a bunch of people in the Maoist region I was from Dengue and most of them asked two or three times until they understood DEN-GUE. My first test came when a villager brought me into his home and pulled out a map. I showed him where it was “supposed” to be, inside of South Africa, between Swaziland and Lesotho. Of course it wasn’t there, but he looked at me apologetically and said it was an old map.

The next, tougher test came as I entered Lang Tang National Park. The soldiers/RNA have a small base there, and I had to register and pay a fee of 1,000rs. When they saw me write Dengue as my home country one soldier gave me serious attitude and said “what Dengue?” I looked at him as if offended and said “what Nepal?” I don’t know why, but he wasn’t very happy about that, so he motioned for me to stay were I was and then called his Superior. He came and gave me the same attitude and I asked him if they teach geography in Nepal? I don’t know why, but he didn’t like that either. They called a third man (he might have been in charge) and I must admit, my heart started beating pretty fast. He also came with a map and I showed him where it was “supposed to be”. He wasn’t buying it, so I had to explain to him (he spoke English) that in 1869 we broke away from South Africa. We’ve been an independent nation ever since, but not until September 20 of this year with the UN officially recognize it as such. About time! I told him to check the the United Nations web site, knowing there was definitely no Internet up there. And so, I passed my first few REAL Dengue test.

The trail in the National Park was terrible, and most people had to go backwards for a full day and take another rout. No way I was doing that, so I continued on until I saw the problem myself. There was no more trail! Two nights before, a huge landslide came and the path I was supposed to take had been washed away, a good 50 meters strait down. Well, the rock climbing I learned in Thailand helped out a lot. I managed to scale my way far enough to grab a tree and then walk, but mostly crawl on a very steep slope on till the real path continued. The rest of the trek was uneventful, but beautiful none the less! After the trek ended in Sephrubesi and I tried to get back to Kathmandu.

7 German girls and I woke up early our first morning at Sephrubesi to catch the Kathmanud bound bus at 7:00a m. Due to landslides on the road, it was a half-hour walk to the bus. When we got there we noticed the bus had a flat tire. It took a full hour to fix, the back tires are doubled so they just swapped them. Not long after that the bus stopped because the road was half gone. The landslides had wrecked that part of the road as well. We all got out and started repairing the road, stone bye stone and then patted it down with dirt. Only in Nepal! It worked though and looking forward to good food and a hot shower we were all excited, until an hour later, when the next tire blew. That meant the next tire couldn’t be replaced. That was never an issue though, because when we got to the next village (Dunche) we heard about the madness in KTM.

We heard that no vehicles were allowed to enter Kathmandu valley, so we spent the night there and hoped for the best. They said the same thing the next day, so we decided to walk to the next village, much to the protest of our hotel owner. We were hoping that there, 8 whitey’s could hire a jeep or something. It was a good idea, for two of the four hours there were no roads anyway because of landslides, and one actually started as we were walking, rocks just missed me and two other girls. We caught a bus later that afternoon, even though everyone we talked to said they wouldn’t leave that day. The bus took us to Thripili, were we slept the night and then to Kathamandu the next morning at 5 am. When we arrived, Kathmandu was chaos, with black smoke rising everywhere and looting and burning going on. It was because of the 12 Nepali workers that were captured and executed in Iraq. Muslim owned businesses and Mosques were targeted as well as some government and media offices. It was a tuff time for the Nepalese. They were quite embarrassed by their actions and they did go over board, but those great people have been going through a lot, and I think is was just an excuse to let the world know how frustrated they really are.