Hunger in the Himalayas
Food is a luxury item when money is short and
the hike long

fter eighteen months on the road, I had reached that burned-out, numb stage of traveling when nothing affects you, no matter how grand or intriguing. I realized this when I reached the Taj Mahal and my only reaction was, "Pretty. So where can I get lunch?" Before heading home, I decided to go trekking in Nepal, both to satisfy an old dream and to recapture the exhilaration I had felt earlier on the trip. I needed something to quash my growing indifference and only big landscapes have the power to really move me. Truthfully, I also wanted to arrive home trim and fit.

I am known, among my friends, for having a huge appetite. I can easily consume a foot-long sub, a quart of ice cream, and a batch of raw cookie dough without even loosening the belt buckle holding up my size six jeans. It is easy enough to hike or bike away these calories at home, but this trip had offered more food temptations than workout opportunities. Still, after a year and a half spent mostly outdoors, I couldn’t possibly step off the plane with a stomach pouch earned from eating Australian Tim Tams (a chocolate-covered, wafer-like cookie, so mouthwatering I couldn’t eat fewer than six in one sitting), or wobbly thighs gained from sampling Asian treats and then sitting—immobile—on slow-moving buses for days on end, during which time the only real calorie-burning activity was walking ten feet to the toilets. Incidentally, those Asian treats included fried dough balls sold by the dozen at markets in Thailand; sweet Malaysian martabak, a dough square filled with chocolate (or bananas) and covered with heaps of mind-numbing, syrupy condensed sugar; and mysorepak, an Indian treat made from clarified butter, palm sugar, and flour. Of course, I closed my mouth a few times during the trip, to go scuba diving in the Andaman Sea, four-wheel-driving in Australia’s dusty Outback, and hiking up sulfur-reeking volcanoes in Indonesia. And I wasn’t that soft or round, but as I said, I just wanted to be trim and fit. What I didn’t plan on was trimming down to what I weighed at fifteen, half a lifetime ago.

To reach Nepal, I took a twenty-nine-hour bus journey from Varanasi, India (a trip that required six pieces of mysorepak, a loaf of bread, and a bag of cream crackers, and just two bathroom strolls). The bus dropped me in downtown Pokhara at the foot of Nepal’s Annapurna mountain range. Here, I tracked down Rabindra, a friend of a friend, who lived near the Old Bazaar, in a small house with a big welcome mat. He was a kind man who turned his living room into cozy guest quarters for me.

Rabindra and I spent several days together, sharing stories and perspectives, and then he helped me plan a trek through the mountains. For hours, we hovered over maps, discussed options, and plotted routes. The proposed trek led from his doorstep in Pokhara to the Annapurna Base Camp (a 10,000-foot vertical gain), then up the Jomsom Trail to the Tibetan plateau, 115 miles away. It was ambitious, but doable. I’ve actually always been very athletic, but only discovered long-distance hiking on this global adventure. The farthest I’d walked in one shot—a hut-to-hut trek in Tasmania—was 56 miles, but I was certain I could manage in Nepal, even with residual Tim Tams added on to my belly.

I spent two days getting permits, rain pants, and plenty of film, plus a visa extension and new soles for my hiking boots. The day before I left, Rabindra took me shopping to stock up on trail food and snacks: packets of noodle soups, giant chocolate bars, teabags, and peanuts. During the final preparations, he calculated how much money I would need, figuring that thirty dollars (1,500 rupees) would be fine for thirteen days. That may not sound like much, but local meals typically cost less than one dollar and budget lodging averaged fifty cents per night. I brought forty dollars just to be safe and left my spare cash and traveler’s checks with Rabindra for safekeeping.

At six o’clock on a Tuesday morning, I pointed my resoled boots toward the mountains and covered the estimated six-hour trek in half as long, propelled by a great sense of excitement. I come from a place where mountains top out at 6,200 feet and snow lasts just a few months a year. In Nepal, I was walking among 26,000-foot peaks that had been frozen solid for millions of years. And because Pokhara is situated right next to the Annapurna range, it only took a short walk to be in the midst of these giants.

From my pillow at five o’clock the next morning, I could see the fishtail peak of Macchapuchre, glowing golden yellow under the sun’s first rays—an exhilarating sight. The mountain looked deceptively close, like the full moon on a cloudless night, and I was on the mud-packed trail heading toward it less than an hour later. I am definitely not a morning person, but these views were enough to pull me out of bed by sunrise eleven days in a row. I wound my way out of Ghandruk just as the villagers were waking up and beginning their daily chores: scooping yak dung off stone pathways (for fertilizer), collecting buckets of water from a river, and sweeping the steps and dirt gardens around their gray stone homes. On a terraced hillside, an older man and his two oxen plowed a field for planting rice.

I made my way through forests of rhododendron trees and marigolds, and up a twisty, narrow path overlooking Modi Valley. Up ahead, I caught glimpses of the Annapurna glaciers—dramatic, soaring ice masses that appeared to slice through the heavens. That feeling of wonder, lying dormant within me for so long, was finally being rekindled and it was a thrilling sensation. Although I was tired and still had 7,000 feet of climbing to reach Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) and another eleven days of hiking to go, everything seemed possible and within reach.

Then, suddenly and without warning, my plans collapsed like a fallen cake.

That evening—just the second night of this solo trek—I realized I had a major dilemma. I was 

staying at the Moon Light Lodge, run by a woman rumored to have the best pizza on the trail to ABC. After hiking thirteen miles along torturously steep terrain, not only did I want one, I thought I deserved one. Everything had seemed very expensive those first two days, though, and I was beginning to wonder whether I could afford it. I tucked myself into a corner of the dining room with a menu and my crinkled rupees and began counting.

Let’s see, pizzas cost $4 (plain) to $4.50 (with the works), I thought, and according to my calculations, I have $34 to spend over the next eleven days. That leaves me with just…subtract 3 and add a zero … $3.09 per day. Even if I skimped, that was barely enough to survive, considering only two basic meals plus accommodations were averaging $3.40 daily. Worse, though, pizza was out.

So I filled my stomach with black tea, noodle soup, and one-eighth of my chocolate bar, and spent the night watching other trekkers eat themselves silly. For six hours, it was the same scenario: someone ordered a pizza and after devouring it, the person announced it was one of the best pizzas he or she had eaten "in months," "ever," "in Asia," "since I've been traveling the last two years." It was torture. But my back was stiff, my legs ached, and I was too tired to go out walking to escape, even when the pizza smells rose, like heat, into my guest room.

I lay in bed that night pondering what to do, weighing options, and dreaming up alternatives, then decided that after traveling so far, for so long—through nine countries over the course of seventeen months—there was simply no chance I was turning around. I suppose I could have appealed to guesthouse owners for handouts, but locals have their own worries and struggles, and I didn’t want to add to them. Or I could have asked another trekker for money or food, but pride prevented me from seriously considering this option.

We hiked for four hours
up (and, it seemed, rarely down) a path that cut through dense bamboo and rhododendron forest,
where gray monkeys chattered at us.

I didn’t hold Rabindra responsible. His intentions were good. He just hadn’t been hiking in years and things change, even when they’re in your own backyard. It was my mistake for not doing more research, so I would just have to accept the consequences. Really, this isn’t that dramatic, I thought to myself. After all, pilgrims, monks and Muslims fast. I’m sure I can handle it for a short time. Besides, I’ve heard it can be healthy—clears the mind and purges toxins from the body.

So I continued on my trek and over the next eleven days, I hiked and slipped and scrambled and climbed my way up to 14,000 feet, then down and up another 9,000 feet, over rugged, undulating terrain—the most strenuous hiking I’ve ever done. The trails led me down into gorges, up steep muddy slopes, over wobbly suspension bridges, and across whitewater streams on shaky fallen logs. They also took me along narrow ledges and across snowfields, which I had to cross quickly due to potential avalanches, and at the end of one grueling day, up a rock staircase that had 1,782 steps, according to a trekker who’d counted. It should go without saying that hunger came often, and ferociously. I tried to satisfy my empty stomach with fried potatoes and fried rice, the only dishes I could afford, or my noodle soups and trail food. I had my weak moments and my strong moments. Some mornings I was charged up by my surroundings—the sunrise over glaciated peaks, the electric blue skies, the crisp air and, one day, the sight of a thundering avalanche that whisked wildflowers, boulders, and ice into the valley below. The scenery got my adrenaline pumping and not even an empty stomach could slow me down.

Other times, I was cursing so much I could barely breathe. Day four—and already several meals behind—I hiked with Ian, a Welshman I met on the trail to ABC. After so much time spent walking alone, it was wonderful to have company, not to mention a great diversion from thoughts of food. Soft-spoken, quick-witted, and compassionate, Ian was one of the nicest people I’d met in months and by far the best-looking guy I’d seen in a year and a half. And he was a real gentleman.

But by afternoon, I decided I hated him. Ian was practically skipping along the trail, while my legs felt like two tubes of wet sand, made worse by a pack that seemed to have doubled in weight throughout the day. Ian walked fast and I pushed to keep up, my competitive spirit displacing the emptiness in my stomach and fueling each step I took. For a moment, I was tempted to tell him what was slowing me down, maybe even let him cover dinner, if he offered. But I just couldn’t. It was too embarrassing and besides, I had made my choice to continue despite the situation, and I felt I needed to stick to those terms.

As if lunch hadn’t been torturous enough, everything I saw around me either was food or reminded me of food. Luscious strawberry bushes—with unripe, green fruit—grew alongside the trails, and every guesthouse we passed advertised Snickers, Mars bars and Mexican food. As I climbed high above the Modi Valley, a thick fog induced visions of cotton candy and the river below looked the color of milk chocolate. On the opposite side of the river, green plants growing out of crevices in a sheer cliff resembled crisp heads of lettuce.

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