Although I have traveled extensively around the U.S. and Canada, this year I felt it was time to do something a little different, a little more adventurous. It was time to see some of the rest of the world, and experience a less familiar culture. I had accumulated quite a few days of vacation while working in the physics department at the University of Tennessee for three years, especially since I had taken almost no vacation during my first year. It was time to use them for something interesting. My parents and brother both went to Europe this year, but I had in mind something more exotic.
In April, at a meeting of the University of Tennessee Canoe and Hiking Club, two visitors gave a slide show which made it clear where I would want to go. They were two students from the University of Georgia, who had set up an adventure travel agency, and they came to show slides from Nepal, where they would organize two treks in the fall. These treks lasted about four weeks each, and cost over $4000. They were fully organized camping trips, with porters and yaks and cooks. The scenery was spectacular, and the exotic cultures of the people living in the mountains there, between India and Tibet, were fascinating. Someday I would have to go to Nepal.
I immediately began to buy books on Nepal, and sent inquiries out on the rec.travel computer newsgroup to try to find people who had been to Nepal. I learned that the best time to go was in October or November, so if I wanted to go, now was the best time, before I found a faculty position and would be teaching then. Summer is the worst time of the year to go to Nepal, since that is the monsoon season. It also became clear that to go with a fully organized trip from the U.S. would cost thousands of dollars more than going independently. Since I prefer independent travel anyway, and since Nepal has a reputation for being a very safe country, I decided to go alone. Some of the people who I contacted by computer confirmed that this was a perfectly reasonable way to go.
I decided I would stay six weeks, since that would give me plenty of time for a trek in the Everest region, as well as time to see some of the rest of Nepal. I didn't schedule the rest of the trip, apart from the Everest trek, in detail, since I didn't know what kind of travel delays I might encounter. I thought I might visit the Annapurna region for a short trek if I still felt like walking when I returned from the Everest region. I also wanted to visit the Royal Chitwan National Park, in a jungle area of Nepal, which is said to be Asia's best wildlife preserve, with tigers, rhinoceroses, elephants, monkeys and crocodiles.
In May, I obtained a passport, and began stocking up on backpacking equipment,
since mine was very old and in poor condition.
My main purchase was a Dana Design Arclite Glacier pack, a sturdy mid-sized pack,
which I bought specifically with the trip to Nepal in mind. I also bought a
tent, which I did not yet know whether I would need in Nepal,
but would be useful for backpacking in the Smokies. Later, I also bought a
Marmot Kestrel down sleeping bag, rated 5
F,
since I felt my old one probably was not adequate.
On the Fourth of July weekend, immediately following the end of our particle theory group's Radiative Corrections symposium at the Park Vista Hotel in Gatlinburg, I went to Cosby for a four day backpacking loop in the Smoky Mountains to begin getting in shape for the Nepal trip. I carried a 40 pound pack, and it went quite well, except for some soreness in my knee, which I injured slightly last fall while rafting on the Ocoee. I bought a very nice, adjustable walking stick to help with the knee, which had less problems after that. I also discovered a leak in the Gore-Tex liner or one of my Merrill boots, which were less than a year old, and had to return them. They were eventually replaced with a slightly different style with possibly better reinforcement in the toe, but I had to wait until the end of August for them, and in the mean time, hiked in my cave boots, which were neither waterproof nor very comfortable.
On my second overnight hike, I encountered a bear while having lunch near Siler's bald on the Appalachian Trail. It walked up behind me while I was eating, and stole my new backpack. It did not carry it far, and I was able to chase it off by yelling at it. There was no food in the pack, since I had it with me for lunch, and I was fortunate to get the pack back undamaged, except for a lot of bear slobber.
In July, some political trouble occurred in Nepal which made me wonder whether I should reconsider my trip. The prime minister abruptly resigned, and elections were called for November, when I would be visiting. Attempts were made to exclude the Communist party from the elections, and this led to general strikes, or ``Nepal Bandhs'' in Kathmandu and the surrounding area, which were very disruptive for several days. Some demonstrations had to be broken up by police, and there were curfews in Kathmandu. If the Communists were unhappy with the conduct or outcome of the November election, it seemed possible that such events could be repeated during my visit. I followed the situation for several weeks in the soc.culture.nepal newsgroup, and it seemed to improve. Also, people who I contacted who had experienced political trouble in Nepal earlier, such as the 1990 democratic revolution, said such things usually have little effect on foreigners, as long as they use some common sense and stay out of the demonstrations. There could possibly be some delays, however.
In August, I decided that these problems were no reason to cancel my trip, and started shopping for a plane ticket. It was already getting late to find a flight into Kathmandu during the peak season. I eventually found a fairly reasonable flight on Delta Airlines, through Cincinnati and Frankfurt to New Delhi, where I would take an Indian Airlines flight to Kathmandu. These flights cost about $1600. The pacific routes were more expensive, and had long layovers in Hong Kong or Bangkok. I could have found a $1300 flight on Gulf Air, but it made several stops in the Persian Gulf before arriving in New Delhi, and took three days, so I decided it was not worth the trouble. Also, I had heard people who had mixed experiences with Gulf Air, although they mostly occurred some time ago, so the problems may have been solved by now. The travel agency, Travel Concepts in Knoxville, books a lot of flights to India because it is owned by an Indian man who knows the area well, and Gulf Air is the cheapest way to get there, so they book many of their flights on that airline, and they say it is fine. The owner of the agency was trekking in India last year. He gave me some advice on finding a hotel when I arrived in Kathmandu. I also bought a round-trip ticket from Kathmandu to Lukla, where I would begin my trek, for $166.
In August, I also began my immunizations. I got a polio booster, and then went to the county health department for a series of shots for typhoid, meningitis, and rabies. The rabies vaccine was somewhat more optional than the others, but I had read that there were a lot of dogs in Nepal, and there is rabies in the area, so I wanted to be safe.
I took practice hikes almost every weekend throughout the summer and fall. By my final hike, one week before leaving for Nepal, I felt I was in pretty good shape. On this hike, I carried a 60 pound pack up one of the biggest climbs in the Smokies, the Baxter Creek Trail, which gains 4100 feet in 6 miles. I hiked 24 miles in all that weekend, and brought my new Olympus Infinity Zoom camera to test with slide film, since I planned to bring a small second camera to Nepal to take slides I could show to the Canoe and Hiking Club when I returned.
I normally don't like to take the trouble to view slides, which are expensive in any case, so I brought my Nikon camera as well with print film. The leaves were very beautiful this weekend, and while photographing them from the Mt. Sterling fire tower, I lost a nut from the shutter release button on my Nikon camera. Fortunately, I was able to find a replacement the next week, before I left for Nepal. When I developed my slides, I found that the Olympus camera has a serious flare problem, but hoped it could be avoided if I shielded the lens from direct light.
Finally, after months of preparation, reading guide books, getting immunizations, shopping for plane tickets, and taking practice hikes, the time came for the trip. Just before leaving, I bought $2000 worth of traveler's checks at the AAA office, and had my final injection, immune globin for hepatitis A at the health department. I also filled all the prescriptions for my medical kit, which included two altitude sickness medications and four antibiotics. These included doxycycline, which I was bringing to prevent malaria when visiting Chitwan National Park in the jungle, and for treatment of pneumonic plague, a more serious form of bubonic plague, which was causing a scare at the time in India, including New Delhi, where I would be spending some time between flights. I mailed a copy of my itinerary to my parents, although it was somewhat tentative at the time. I felt that I was ready to go, but could not be sure, since I had never done anything like this before.
Scott A. Yost, 1994. All rights reserved.