Sucking Gas in the Himalaya

Not a day went by in Kathmandu where we weren't asked about trekking. Where have you been trekking? Where are you going to go trekking? Why haven't you already been trekking? Why aren't you going trekking? And so on. Lorraine and I would mumble something about the effect of camping for a month in Pakistan and India. We would use the word "dysentery" a lot, as well as its more colourful synonyms. People would change the subject.

But after a couple of weeks of wandering around the Kathmandu Valley, Lorraine sketching temples and me eating chocolate, we began to feel restless. We began to feel the need to at least see Mount Everest. With that in mind we negotiated with a tax driver to drive us (see, still no trekking!) west of Kathmandu and out of the valley to the old hill station of Nagarkot. Nagarkot was famous for it's sweeping views of the entire eastern Himalaya, including Everest.

The word "taxi" probably brings the wrong image to mind. What we had was a small rusted out sedan of indeterminable make and model driven by a very smiley and enthusiastic young Nepali. Springs protruded from the seats and none of the gauges appeared to be functional. You get the picture. Up and out of the valley we chugged, around hairpin switchbacks, dodging livestock and even more decrepit vehicles, until very suddenly the taxi chugged no more. The engine just stopped. Fortunately this happened on a rare flattish bit of road. The driver looked perplexed, but flashed us a big smile and reached  down to rattle the gas pedal.
Nothing happened.
He then got out, popped the hood and rummaged for a while before proclaiming, "No problem! Just the fuel pump! It is broken!!".
No problem?
Hmm. This expression is so commonly heard throughout the region even in the most absurdly problematic situations that I'm sure a few planes have gone down with the pilot's last words being a cheery, "No problem!". We were skeptical.

Our driver then got a rubber hose and a jerry can from the trunk. This was accompanied by another happy, "No problem!!".  He proceeded to siphon gasoline from the tank to the jerry can. The full jerry can was placed on the passenger seat. He then threaded the rubber hose from the jerry can through a gap in the dashboard to the engine. He zipped around to the front of the car again and got another siphon going, presumably to the carburetor.
"Ok, you see? No problem!!"
No, we didn't see. None of what we had just seen had done anything to allay our skepticism. We began to contemplate the long uphill hike to Nagarkot. But then, to our astonishment, the engine coughed to life and the chugging began again. Before too long we were in Nagarkot.

The next morning in the freezing pre-dawn we got up and walked to a ridge where we could see the sun rise over the Himlayas, lighting one peak at a time until Mount Everest could be made out, its peak glowing with the new day.

Saturday Night in Newcastle

I long ago took note of the fact that people do not want to hear about or read about your triumphs and your wonderful experiences. It's boring. They don't like that. Instead they get far more pleasure out of stories of ineptitude and depravity. So, instead of recounting our successful trek across England along ancient Hadrian's Wall over breathtakingly beautiful green hills I will tell you about the last night of the trip when I nearly got the shit kicked out of me in Newcastle.

Saturday night in Newcastle begins at 11:00 am. John and I were on the second floor of "The Charles Grey" pub overlooking, appropriately enough, Grey's Monument (yes, that's the Earl Charles Grey of tea fame) for an early pint and lunch when we overheard a heated discussion between the barman and a young gentleman who was, as the English delicately put it, "in his cups". He was being refused service because of his state and he did not like this. The young man stormed off. A few minutes later a customer came in and told the barman that the fellow who had just left was pissing in the stairwell. Remember this is 11:00 in the morning. This was an omen.

After an afternoon of taking in the sights John and I ended up at the "Crown Posada" in the heart of the city, off a small cobbled lane. We had asked Maxine, the owner of our B&B, for pub recommendations. She listed off a few places that we already knew to be of the glass and chrome and sparkly lager variety so when we described in more detail what we were looking for she smiled and nodded and said, "Oh, you're looking for an 'Old Man Pub' then!". I guess we were. The Crown Posada is a classic old man pub, perhaps one of the very best I've ever seen - all dark wood, leather banquettes, pressed tin ceiling, gleaming brass and, best of all, an old record player spinning blues, jazz, deep cuts from The Who and The Stones. Packed, loud and friendly. And the only place in the centre of the city where someone over the age of 25 feels at home on a Saturday night.

Why do I make that last statement? I make it because starting at around 7:00 pm the streets increasingly filled with people between the ages of 16 and 25 until it was only them and there were thousands of them. They fly in from all over Britain for this. Seriously. Despite the single digit October temperatures every last girl/woman out there wore an ultra-miniskirt, low cut blouse and very high heels. Every. Last. One. No exceptions. And every last boy/man wore designer jeans and a two sizes too small t-shirt with no jacket. Every. Last. One. It was bizarre. It was like being on a movie set. The only exceptions were John and I and the police. The cops stood inconspicuously down side streets with their distinctive yellow safety vests and checkered hat bands. They stood very quietly, watching, listening. As the evening went on the crowd grew louder and wilder and unsteadier. You could begin to hear glass being broken by about 10:00 pm and the general shouting gradually ramping up into shrieks from the girls/women and bellows from the boys/men.

John and I ducked in and out of the Crown Posada while this was going on. It was like stepping back and forth through a magical portal between two entirely different worlds. The last time we stepped out, sometime shortly before midnight, I found myself suddenly facing one of these bellowers.
"Oi! Yee 'Merican?"
I glanced around quickly to make sure he was bellowing at me.
"No, Canadian."
He was moving into chest bump position with his two sizes too small grey t-shirt. I could see that his eyes were bloodshot and his arms were pink from the cold.
"Gan canny r ah will dunsh yer heed!"
Or something like that. He may as well have been speaking Latvian. The combination of accent and liquor had rendered him incomprehensible. Regardless he looked very irate and was clearly winding up to put the boots to me.
"Ok, it's cool man," I chuckled and smiled. This only enraged him further.
His wobbly girlfriend then began tugging on his shirt sleeve and managed to pull him off in another direction. He obligingly stumbled along, but not before looking back and shaking his fist at me, "Fook off!!!"

John and I made an impromptu decision to head to the end of the street and grab a cab. We were about the climb in when a girl/woman came stumbling up shrieking "I need this cab! I need this cab! Please!!" The cab driver looked at us and mouthed "no" very clearly, his eyes wide, his head shaking slowly. We elbowed the shrieker aside and got in. We locked the door. The cab accelerated and the shrieks and bellows faded away.
"Another Saturday night in Newcastle," the cabbie said.