Talking the Walk | Freestyling

Nepal is blessed. I recently returned from the Everest region where I went with a WWF team to film a documentary on glacier melt in the Himalaya, a very serious impact of climate change.

Payal Shakya, Miss Nepal 2004, and her friend Bindiya Shakya, Miss Hot in college, came with us too. Despite initial misgivings, they were really lovely and sweet. What's more, they can walk! At one point, somewhere above 4,800 m where the air is thin and the going tough, I was ready to quit the trek but the girls inspired me to go on just by being determined to reach the destination themselves. The girls also taught me the correct way to apply sunscreen—it must be massaged into the skin for a good fifteen minutes. I usually just slapped some on and laced up my boots. Every morning the girls also powdered themselves, lined their eyes and slicked on the gloss. They had to; they were going to be in a film! I decided that it was a necessity, not vanity.

The only bodily upkeep I was stringent about was the wipe down; forget having regular showers, the only way to keep from smelling like ripe yak cheese after a few days on the trail is sponge baths. Luxury on a trek comes down to a fresh stick of chewing gum, a clean pair of socks and a clear day.

Let me tell you this: Nepal is more beautiful than anything in all those postcards and books about our country that visitors from foreign countries describe. The greatest irony is that the rarest nationality to visit Solu Khumbu is Nepalis.

The mountains are awesome. We saw Everest from a distance but Amadablam, Nuptse and Lhotse were close enough to touch. One memory stands out—a clear night in Dingboche when mountains drenched in moonlight loomed 360 degrees around us.

So much for the advertised off-the-beaten-track experience in the untouched Himalaya: you get Mars, Bounty and yes, even Coke, all with a moderate 150% markup on the original price. Which is fair considering everything is carried up by yaks or humans. Meat is a rarity, mostly because the Sherpas, being good Buddhists, will not kill any animal. They will eat it, of course, so buffaloes are slaughtered in the lowlands and every so often we saw porters carrying huge hunks of raw meat in bamboo baskets balanced on their backs. The porters made do with rubber chappals and shorts while we were kitted out with waterproof gear, titanium walking sticks and thermal undies. I saw this one boy almost running down a narrow trail. He had bleached hair, a t-shirt with the American flag, jeans, sports shoes and on his back, among other things, he carried a big steel kitchen sink.

At the end of two weeks, we were ready to head home to KTM. Boarding passes in hand, we headed to the runway only to see a plane—our flight out—crash land on the narrow strip. No one died though panic stricken passengers punched out the windows to escape the smoke-filled cabin. We thought it would take another two days to get out but luckily, at the very end of the day, a helicopter piloted by a Russian crew agreed to take us to Kathmandu, all on account of Payal. Rice paddies below, the heavy sound of the choppers above, sunset straight ahead—it could've been out of a Vietnam war movie.

The first evening in Kathmandu meant the luxury of an attached bathroom, electricity and access to phones. It also meant smog, traffic jams, the cacophony of horns, and city lights. But that's A-okay because home is where the heart is.

Actually, I was just happy to finally have a long, hot shower.

[Watch this space for updates on the documentary.]