Entry 03: Precipice and the Pursuit of Progress
The questions on my mind.
Writing is like wearing a mismatched pair of socks. Dangling off one foot, are the notes and headspace that I once occupied. I struggle to pull them back on, when I’ve been reshaped by everything that has happened in the months since. The other sock, you can imagine slowly being knitted: a sheath of words and sentences that bridge past and present, colored with a new state of mind.
The other day, I took a bus that wound for hours down the mountainside, crossing dotted villages, terraced plains, free-roaming chickens, and families that waved as we passed. The blare of honking horns and stench of petrol marked my return to Kathmandu and the end to ~5 weeks of trekking in the Himalayas. When I first set out on this year of travel, I specifically allocated three months to Nepal, with which I planned to be utterly untethered and trekking continuously; wandering from villages and tea houses while contemplating life, identity, and my role in the world. Things did not quite go as planned. And while I think my time in the mountains did what I needed it to do, I came face to face with the realities of a country that relies heavily on tourism for their economy.
To prepare for Nepal, this summer I spent two weeks in the Balkans, trekking alone and getting comfortable with hitchhiking and traveling without knowing where I would eat or sleep. I brought along a tarp as a backup, which combined with some rope and trekking poles — allowed me to camp anywhere. After a while I began to resent the limitations posed by the few reservations that I did make — enjoying much more the flexibility that comes with uncertainty.
Development was booming in the Balkans. The sounds of construction echoed through the valleys and roadside eateries, guesthouses, and asphalt were popping up in every little village. On the trail, I met children that would question me about where I was staying, leading me through the woods to where their parents were building new accommodations. But while these developments marked the aspirations of locals, sometimes it came at a cost.
While researching the trek, even local guides recommended that people skip the Kosovo section of the circuit due to less-impressive scenery as well as significant portions of “road-walking.” My trek however began in Kosovo, where I took an old train — complete with windows cracked with what looked like bullet holes — to Peja. After starting the trek later that day, I sat and spoke with the proprietor of one of the original guest houses on the circuit, located in the village of Rekë e Allagës. They shared stories of the people that came through their guesthouse and of the seasonal migrations that they undertook with their animals. I wrote down the pronunciation of useful phrases — falimenderit, pershenditye, shombokul. They spoke Albanian in that region, hinting at the complexities of ethnicity, identity, and conflict that lingered after the fall of Yugoslavia. And while I never explicitly asked them what they thought of the road and how it had affected their lives — this question stuck with me. As I walked through Kosovo, large billboards on the new roads all advertised large resorts and hotels with various excursions and rentals. And after more than a week of trekking, I arrived in Valbonë, Albania, where along the road I saw an angular hotel — the color of perceived modernity — that jutted out from a field of cows and bunkers.
Locals spoke proudly of that new hotel. Yet many of us trekkers were drawn to smaller, more intimate homestays. There seemed to be such a mismatch between what locals took pride in — perhaps what they saw as progress — and what foreign travelers like me were seeking. It is here that I would like to introduce a complicated dynamic — something that will certainly come up again in my future writings. Formerly disconnected regions of the world [whether geographically, financially, or politically] are experiencing an influx of information and cultural exchange made accessible by cheap electronics, increased connectivity, and prevalence of social media. As I am writing this months after my time in the Balkans — this statement also reflects my time spent in Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan, and Nepal. On one hand, these tools can be used to amplify and uplift individual cultures and ways of life — showcasing the beauty of their traditions and increasing opportunities for self determination, social mobility, and more. One example of this is with a family-run silk textile production facility in Margilan — the silk production center of Uzbekistan that dates back to the Silk Road.
On the other hand, increased access to social media and the internet also exposes people in these regions to the full socio-cultural machinations of globalization, well-honed by consumerism and soft power geopolitics. Which — alongside the dream of self determination — can so easily sow the seeds of discontent by manufacturing desire and the perceptions of inadequacy, resulting in the tragedies of lifestyle inflation, cultural erosion, overconsumption, and the opening of these regions as potential markets to be tapped and targeted. Exploited.
For regions without previous exposure and education to digital platforms and the algorithms designed to target and exploit human nature — I believe the latter statement is more likely to occur. Even the generations in the West that have grown up immersed in social media and digital cultures — and this is coming from someone who grew up in the Silicon Valley — are not immune to the allure and power of social media and advertising. The tradeoff for our digital access and entertainment is marked by declining mental health, political polarization, and sale of personal information — making us more susceptible to targeted advertisements and corporate interests. Now imagine this being deployed in countries that have never been exposed to these forces before. Perhaps you don’t need to imagine — we’ve seen what happened when our parent’s generation entered onto Facebook — and the wave of polarization and disinformation that has perpetuated ever since. A contemporary analogue would be the reach of food corporations — PepsiCo, Nestlé, and others — that target remote communities with foodstuff that has been engineered to be addicting. [Here are two articles (NYT, CorporationWatch) about the health impacts of Nestlé in Brazil]. For more information — Michael Moss’s Hooked and Catherine Shanahan’s Dark Calories and Deep Nutrition can introduce the perils and ubiquity of processed foods.
I am wary of what self-determination and free will mean in a world where our subconscious desires can be so heavily shaped by the media we consume. A world where social media is owned by those who benefit when people buy into the global culture of more. My entry into the sun-speckled hillsides of Albania was marked by a flock of sheep, herded by a young man in a hooded rain jacket. He carried an umbrella as a walking stick, and his attention was fixed on his phone. I later stopped for tea at a small hut, where I sat and spoke with a woman that turned out to be that shepard’s mother. She told me that the hillsides were where her son could get cell service to watch TikTok and play games on his phone. Besides us, the shepard’s younger bother tipped a Coca Cola bottle near-vertically into his open mouth, before looking through it as if it were a telescope to make sure he had secured the last drop. Is this what arises from the intermixing of traditional cultures and the modern world? I’m reminded of Turkey, where stalls in the grand bazaar of Istanbul sold small mountains of Haribo gummy bears alongside traditional spices.
At the same time, I should be wary of my thoughts — which may very well be the voyeuristic fetishization of the traveler — here to ogle the seemingly peculiar in a foreign place. And this begs the question of what, in the end, is right? As someone who comes from a monetarily wealthy nation and reaps the benefits of development and predatory foreign policy, does my (following phrases interchangeable) cherry-picked rejection of consumerist values/presumed understanding/first-hand account of the limitations of this system grant me permission to want to deny those opportunities to people in another country — for the sake of preserving what appear to be charming and rustic lifestyles? Because as someone who may not fully appreciate the difficulty that comes with those lifestyles, I see in them a beautiful connection between people and land, and a richness and beauty that we no longer have.
Perhaps these changes will not be as drastic as I imagine. Perhaps people will be able to preserve their sense of culture and tradition — the very tools that have enabled them to persist in their lands for generations. These observations have made me cherish even more the moments that I’ve felt were “authentic.” And I will elaborate on that meaning in the future. For some additional context, my thoughts are greatly shaped by — Christopher Ryan’s Civilized to Death, John Bodley’s Victims of Progress, and Ivan Illich’s To Hell with Good Intentions.
I’ve digressed quite a bit. Let’s get back to the road. While trekking in the Balkans, I was adopted by a group from Hungary. Over dinner one night I brought up my observations on Kosovo and questions on development — my uncertainty with what was actually “good” in the world. One of them had been traveling around the world for over two years, and he mentioned that during his time in Nepal he saw similar issues appear along their more developed trekking regions. He mentioned that residents along the earlier villages of the Annapurna circuit also suffered a similar predicament. They approved the road as it would make easier the transport of Coca Cola crates, building materials, and other supplies to support their burgeoning guesthouses, as jeeps could transport goods from the city more efficiently than porters and packhorses. But the aftermath — those very tourists that they sought to attract ended up speeding past their villages by jeep instead. And while there are still some trekkers that seek out the experiences that comes with completing the circuit in its entirety, the commercialization of the trek has also turned it into an experience that draws people who view it more as a checklist item to be allocated into a set period of time, rather than something to be savored.
And so this brings me to mid-October: the beginning of my time in Nepal. I was curious what progress meant for people here. What technologies they incorporated into their lives. And for a country so often ravaged by monsoon flooding and earthquakes — what it meant to rebuild. I held these questions in my mind. Not so much looking for an answer, but letting it settle and simmer while I waited to see what sort of conclusions might appear with time in the mountains.
The writing I have during this time is fragmented. I’m not going to attempt to string them together. I won’t bother you with a day by day rundown of what I did and where I ate and what I saw. What I realized while trekking was that while your feet are pounding gravel and your mind is questioning why you even agreed to do this in the first place — your subconscious is released. My thoughts at the time were often incoherent, jotted down quickly in notes while they flitted through my head. So when I wasn’t second guessing my decision, complaining to myself about the stone steps, or passing judgement [perhaps envy] at the groups who had hired porters and themselves wore nothing but a day pack — these were my thoughts.
Part 1: A New Beginning.
200 rupees for a haircut. It took longer than I expected. Hair fell quickly under the quiet buzz of the clipper, the realization only taking hold once the hair that covered my forehead began to fall over my eyes. Watching the grey stubble on my scalp that marked my hairline, I thought that the process was over. But the barber took out a razor, sprayed some oil on my head, and began shaving down to the scalp. Grey turned into white, revealing skin that had never before seen the light of day. He worked slowly, brushing clumps of stubble off onto the back of his hand, stretching my skin beneath his fingers. After the last pass, he ran what looked like a crystal beneath the faucet and rubbed it over my bare head, pressing my head between his hands. And here we are. My head does not feel much lighter. It feels no cooler. Myself, I am no different. I never realized how warm my hand is. The warmth of my own touch.
Part 2. Annapurna.
The hum of the jungle surrounds me as I make my way past terraced rice fields and rivers. The path winds up the low mountains, taking me through villages — multicolored with metal roofing and thatch; brick, concrete and stone. I catch glimpses of the river and valley below. It is in these mountains that I discover the gift of unknowing. The water I carry. The places I stay. There are no plans, but I have done my best to prepare — just enough.
Namaste greetings in multiple forms: excited, reciprocal, and nonexistent. I see kids on a giant swing, the guarded walls of a hydroelectric plant built by China, and am scolded by an old Nepalese woman with two yaks on the way I said namaste. My hands were not properly clasped together I realized, as she pulled her hands apart, waving them in the air, and shaking her head. Before firmly pressing them together.
Something about a mountain road. Winding around hillsides. Roots and rocks. Trickles of water flowing past, pooling in tire tracks. Eroded banks above a waterfall or a river of rocks. The precarity of it all. But most importantly, how the air smells. How birds swoop, dance, and prance, and hop. And how leaves tumble from the sky to embrace the earth for one final time.
I discover the wonder and joy of baby goats. Plucking vegetation off the side of the trail with one of the villagers. Watching them nibble at the tablecloth during breakfast. At some point in life I will raise goats, releasing them onto the world like little lawnmowers. Baby goats are better than dogs.
“What a world. It’s all we have.” A last exchange with a man named Iwan. Romanian, but lives in Canada. Our conversation over dinner extended into hours as we spoke of the rise and fall of communism and the USSR (which he said he never could have imagined), the role of jeans and cultural soft power, broader musings on global society and geopolitics, and what to make with a life.
Something about the peace of the morning. Just the sound of birds and the river, the village awakens. The movement of smoke from metal chimneys drifting into the valley, caught by the first rays of morning sun. Flags flutter gently in the light breeze. Above the mountain stands watch.
I share a tea with two detectives from Berlin. One had just lugged a giant bag of toys up for a local school. The last time they were here (2014), they had to turn back just before Throng La Pass due to a snowstorm that they later found had claimed dozens of lives. And they lamented a little — they were glad to see someone like me, traveling alone and open to the world. There were more the last time. Later that night, the proprietor tries to teach me some Nepali phrases:
Molai (aja) daal bat tzaiyo (I am eating daal bat)
Molai man poleu (I like)
Mo boli Ice Lake janchu (I am to ice lake going)
Dreaming of dal bhat. It is not the first course. Prim and proper, mint sprig places on a gentle bosom of rice. The potato curry and small piles of greenery. Nor is it the cup of steaming green lentil soup that begs to be savored. No, it is the second helping. The third. The shower of rice that falls from the serving plate of the chef, a deluge that covers the plate. Drenched in ladle-fills of dal and mixed with spoon or finger to utmost perfection. I dream of the falling of rice, the steam, the flavor. Later on the trek, a waitress asks for a selfie after I clean off my third refill of dal bhat.
It was at Tilcho Lake. The highest lake in the world. That I caught myself slipping. I spent a rest day at the base camp, basking in the sun and utterly stuck in my head. Earlier that morning I watched local tourists celebrate and pose with flags of Nepal. They seemed so proud. And I felt so empty. I was nearing the crux of the Annapurna Circuit, surely something worth celebrating, but what does success mean for someone who simply does? For whom there is no alternative — for whom failure is not even an afterthought. I had no doubt in my mind that I would complete this trek. So when success is the norm — I wonder, what even is success? Is it a state of being? Something internalized? And the inverse — what then, is failure? I feel like I have never known success nor failure. Failure depends on your expectations, as does success. So where does my bar lie? My brother came up with some new ways that I could further push myself — perhaps I could befriend someone I found annoying or learn how to make people feel a certain way — to try and push and find new dimensions of myself by casting aside my values and judgements. While these prompts were intriguing, I felt a sense of resistance from within. “Is this…me?” In that moment I came face to face with the person that I had become. Perhaps this will change in the future, but for the moment I’m happy with my being.
The night before Throng La Pass. Dreaming at high elevation. Where every breath feels like you’re drowning. Swimming in this ocean as you breathe. Wallowing.
Sunrise. The slow pacing of my feet: notes between the sound of static in my ears and the river coursing below. A loneliness, watching color return to the earth, to the prayer flags blowing silently in a morning breeze. The dim flow of headlamps below gradually extinguish. And the sliver of the moon is engulfed in faded pink, orange, and blue hues. I can hardly feel my toes. The sky turns to white, reducing the snow-capped peaks to the dull grey hues of a leftover watercolor rinse cup. I’ve never seen a white sky before. As I’ve made my way down. The orange glow of the sun kisses the white ridges of the annapurna’s. A beacon, and swarms of blackbirds take off into the valley.
Ate a frozen toblerone at the pass. Chocolate is not as good at high elevation.
Time passed by differently after the pass. Most of the trekkers caught a jeep back to Pokhara. But I wanted to continue the circuit. I was wandering alone now, in a region that had far fewer people. Bearing the brutality of the afternoon wind and dry riverbed. I forged ahead to a small village, and was met with locked doors below the signs for accommodation. Eventually I found a place to stay, and was later joined by a group from Israel. We played cards (BS). The concept of bluffing was foreign to our host. They had just finished their stint in the IDF and were trekking around the mountains free form. The girl had spent months hitchhiking and trekking through India, telling me about the hand signals they used and the kindness she found.
I stayed for a night at a Tibetan refugee camp. There I learned another truth in life: never haggle with grandmas. You lose even if you think you’ve won.
The rest of the trek faded into obscurity. I had no particular thoughts. My questions still remained. But I noticed that I felt on-edge — something felt off about the trek. Most people were here with their guides and porters. Few I felt were here to let a country change them. I missed the sense of new experience and discovery that I felt while traveling through Central Asia. And I felt drawn back into the pack, making my way from one place to the next — a pressure to conform. And it began to wear on me that my interactions with locals all centered on this expectation of a potential transaction. Perhaps this would be different elsewhere. After all, this is perhaps the most touristic trek in Nepal. What was I expecting?
[to be continued]