Three of our porters

Anil, Kul and we doctors left Kathmandu for our medical trek in the early morning heading northwest out of the smog laden Kathmandu valley. Our long and windy full-day drive today would be into the remote and seldom trekked mountain region of north central Nepal. Along the way we passed many charming, but extremely poor villages. Kakani, Trishuli (the village that we will walk out to at the end of our hike), Kalikasthan, Ramche, Dhunche, Shyabru Besi, and Rasuwagadi were several of the many villages that gave my uncoordinated American tongue trouble. Several of these villages had checkpoints where we had to show our passports -- some for personal safety reasons (trekkers often get lost) and others for national safety reasons (to make sure that we were not Maoist).

After nine hours of hard, bumpy driving, having gained 4,000 feet in elevation, we pulled our dusty vehicle into a lovely camp at Parvati Kund, our disembarkment point for our hike tomorrow. This campsite made up of several weathered wood buildings looks out onto the Ganesh Himils (Mountains) to the north. With peaks reaching up into the clouds at 21,000 feet elevation, the Ganesh Himils are part of the Himalayan range that borders Everest to the west, the much-trekked Annapurna range to the east and Tibet to the south. All of these mountains are snow covered and magnificent. At this 9,000-foot high campsite, we were met by the 41 porters, 6 cooking staff, and 5 HHC staff members who would be our guides and friends for the next 15 days. The porters ranged in age from 15 to 50 years old, and each would receive about two to three US dollars for every back-straining workday they were about to do. The cooks, many having graduated from being porters, carried less weigh and were compensated at a higher rate, approximately four to five US dollars a day. Their cooking skills, which I would soon learn to be magnificent, were cultivated through apprentice and observation. After our formal greeting we were served a five-course meal on a table made up with place settings and a tablecloth. Something told me that we were not going to be "roughing it" on this trip. We retired early this evening to the sound of barking dogs, and the glow and smell of the wood burning fires emanating from the local village huts.