Sarah O’Regan braves the elements and the Himalayan heights and finds tranquillity in the company of women who are breaking the traditional mould
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| Danu and Kumari, women hiking the Himalayas |
Later, my guide Danu tells me she has never experienced winds like this in fifteen years of trekking. Small comfort this is to me; my left eyeball has been whipped repeatedly by some rebellious stray hairs that escaped from my hat, and the toggle on my coat lashed my cheek so violently it drew blood.
We are climbing Pikey Peak (pronounced 'Piké'). At 4,067m, it’s a small mountain in the Nepalese Himalayas. Leaving base camp before sunrise, it was -8°C and my water bottle and wet-wipes had frozen overnight in my bedroom. In the bathroom, I break the thick ice in the bucket before using the water to flush away my offering.
At the summit of Pikey Peak, the temperature falls to -11°C and we can hardly stand upright in the wind. Kumari starts to dance in the blinding sunlight and Danu and I join her. Our gales of laughter are snatched from our mouths by the wuthering air and carried up and away to the high mountains towards the Tibetan plateau, where the Yeti is rumoured to roam, along with the sources of the Yellow, Yangtze, Indus, and Mekong rivers.
By 10am, we have descended to Jasmane Bhangjhang (3,320m), and my companions greet the old Sherpa woman at the teahouse with familial affection, calling her Ama (Mother). Warmed by the morning sun, we slump against the stone wall, suddenly exhausted. Ama brings us hot tea with sweet yak milk and a warm smile.
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| Sarah, Kumari and Danu on the summit of Pikey Peak |
Sister Act
It’s the off-season, and I’m hiking with 3 Sisters Adventure Trekking, a women-owned company which trains and employs female guides and assistants in the Himalayas across Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet and India. The company is now 30 years old, and Danu explains: “At that time [in 1994] it was very difficult for women to work. Families wanted their daughters to get married and stay home.” Living and working opportunities outside traditional gender roles were rare for women. The caste system in Nepal was abolished in 1951 and caste-based discrimination criminalised in 2011, but the legacy of systemic ethnic identity prejudice still exists. Women remain disempowered along patriarchal lines. 3 Sisters provides training and work for women including those socially disadvantaged and previously considered ‘low caste’. As stated by the three sisters and company founders, Lucky, Dicky and Nicky Chhetri: “Whether or not these women go on to become a guide after the training program, we feel it is a seed planted for them and for future generations. We demonstrate that women are mentally, physically and emotionally as strong as men.”
Kumari is certainly as strong as the male porters we meet. At a teahouse in Junbesi (2,800m), we meet another trekking party, and she easily lifts their 25kg bags onto her back supported by a tumpline strap around the forehead, before dashing off down the road, showing off delightedly. As my assistant guide, she carries in a conventional backpack her own belongings plus the heavier half of mine. Everyone is especially fond of Kumari, and gives her extra food.
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| Kumari easily lifts 25kg of bags using a tumpline strap |
Our route follows a seven-day loop in Solukhumbu district to the east of Kathmandu near Mounts Everest and Lhotse. This region is home to many Sherpa; descendants of the Tibetan Khampa who came here in the 15th century following ideological disputes with neighbours. They brought their distinct cuisine, and I delighted in many of its dishes, notably momos, popular dumplings stuffed with buffalo, chicken, or vegetables, and Tibetan bread. This deep-fried, egg-enriched dough resembles a flat, hot doughnut. Served in pairs for breakfast, I ate it slathered with Druk’s ‘Fruit Jam – Pectin Mixed’, so viscid it could have supported a pneumatic drill. What sounds like a recipe for a heart attack kept my legs moving for hours each day.
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| Tibetan bread with Druk jam ('Druk' means 'Thunder Dragon' in Tibetan and is the national symbol of Bhutan, appearing on the flag) |
No Wash and Go
Following WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) tenets is impossible in winter at the altitude of Jasmane Bhangjhang. I haven’t bathed since a bucket shower in Jhapre three days before, but there is no opportunity for ablution here. The rivers and streams are frozen and Ama has no option but to hike downhill some distance to find water in its more malleable liquid form, before schlepping back up with a heavy can on her back. It would be unreasonable to ask her to prepare a hot bucket for me.
After a large bowl of Sherpa falgi – a rich, hot vegetable soup of dried, peeled corn – I settle for another wet-wipe wash and fall into bed for the afternoon. My leg muscles keen smartly from Pikey Peak. The wind soughs around the upper floors, and I doze, dreaming of the colourful prayer flags flying high above me on the mountain, carrying their owners’ wishes into the heights. When I wake, I find Ama has locked the teahouse door from the outside to stop it banging, and I climb indelicately out of a low window only to find the yard filled with somnolent yaks and naks (males and females). The yakherd and I converse cheerfully, the lack of common language making no difference to our chatter; I say I like his yaks and he tells me about his sore right knee.
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| The sleepy author meets a somnolent yak |
Life is harder at higher altitudes and not just because of the temperature. Above 10,000 feet, or 3,048m, the air is thinner so water boils ten degrees lower than at sea level, meaning food takes longer to cook, or – with fuel, water, or time shortages – it is eaten undercooked. Ama has lacked running water since October, and the ice won’t thaw till May. Staple crops up here are barley, wheat, corn, and potato; in winter, green vegetables are scarce and supplies arrive via yak or back. Fruit is almost non-existent, although once I was given an apple, presented to me with such gravitas that I felt moved to share it with the children of the teahouse family as a rare bedtime treat.
Teahouse trekking is a relatively new adventure. Twenty-five years ago, only a few adventurous explorers walked these trails, carrying camping gear and all the required food. In the last couple of decades, many trekking hotels, known as teahouses, have sprouted up, most built from Himalayan pinewood. Pine is plentiful, excellent for construction and too resinous to burn for heat. The teahouses are roofed with a pretty mountain bluebird shade of corrugated iron. It’s a welcome, homely sight after a long day on the trail.
Friends not food
Before leaving for the mountains, I am met at my Kathmandu hotel by Danu and Kumari, and given a safety and orientation briefing. After a 10-hour jeep drive from the capital during which we climbed into the foothills through a thick bank of cloud, we reach our first teahouse in Dhap (2,900m), where it immediately starts snowing.
In the morning, our party of three is joined by Kalé Baloo (Black Bear), a gentle, thick-furred mountain dog who lives on the trails and often joins tourists for days as they trek deeper into the Himalayas. He walks with us to Jhapre (2,800m), where I catch my first sight of Everest’s deadly peak, roseate and grey in the eastering sun. Here Kalé Baloo elects to stay with the friendly teahouse children, knowing too well the long, hard trail ahead and the dearth of dinners. Before we part I catch him eating a piece of pinewood, and give him a big hug and a packet of bone-dry biscuits from the teahouse tuckshop.
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| Sarah and Kalé Baloo |
Meat is scarce and expensive at these heights, and, with nightly bottomless dal bhat – hearty lentils and rice with vegetables and pickles – I don’t miss it, although my mountain dog surely does. Later in the week, at a pretty teahouse with a sunlit verandah, we are given masala tea and vast plates of vegetable egg noodles and pickles – achar – by a young Sherpa. One of her chickens flaps a-squawking onto the half-door of the house and threatens to jump inside, but the woman intercepts it, lovingly enfolding it in her arms and placing two kisses on the pretty feathered neck before placing it tenderly outside. This chicken, clearly, is not for the pot.
We pass through forests of rhododendron, oak, elder, and Himalayan pine, the sun-fragrant needles soft under our feet. The rhododendrons, protected by the government due to their wild beauty, are in bud and will flower in the months of Chaitra and Baisakh (March-April-May). The northern slopes of Pikey Peak haven’t caught the sun this season and our way is under snow. “Soft and warm”, Danu describes it; not icy. Despite this, we all fall regularly but without harm. On my first slip, Kumari instinctively lunges to stop me falling, and we both end up in a snowy heap, laughing.
Modernity crashes through
As we leave the forest, I hear the jarring cacophony of construction, unnaturally harsh after the silence of the Himalayas. “Bulldoze”, my companions explain. New roads are being built into the mountains over the old foot- and yak-trails: good for the local community, bringing electricity, transport and supplies, and better medical and education access, but bad for the environment and for the trekking companies, which rely on the tranquillity and remoteness of the mountains to draw clients. Much of our walk on the first and final days followed the dirt-and-stone road, and each time jeeps and lorries thunder past to a nearby hydropower construction site, we become caked in a thick cloud of dust. “Organic Nepali face powder,” we joke as the dirt settles within our ears and nostrils. “No need to pay for a facial.”
Up in the mountains, we follow hand-built trails of black mica sparkling like argent in the hard sunlight. The best terrain for our bodies, I learn, is “Nepali flat”: undulating up and down, ideal for building up our leg muscles. Winter-brown grazing pastures are dotted by dark, fragrant juniper bushes. We pass long mani stone walls; Tibetan Buddhist memorials carved with the old Sanskrit mantra, om mani padme hum, always keeping the structures to our right. The old, carved stones are adorned with verdant moss and Himalayan incense standing to attention like an army of miniature golden lupins.
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| A long mani stone wall, carved with inscriptions |
As we walk into Junbesi accompanied by two heavily pregnant cows who stop to allow Kumari to massage their fluffy hides with her walking pole, a delight of white-throated laughingthrushes play overhead in the pine trees, their copper-and-white feathers flashing in the evening sun. Once we see an osprey dancing in the empyreal blue, balancing on an air current before swooping joyfully to the next one. We pass wooden cottages with small goats and chickens. A woman sits on her doorstep with a kitchen scimitar peeling moola, a long white radish used for achar, and I greet her foolishly in Nepali: “Hello, pickles!” She laughs uproariously.
In Junbesi, I am astonished by water in abundance flowing from an open tap in the courtyard. My sisters and I squat together scrubbing our clothes, competing for the filthiest greywater and laughing at how soiled our laundry is after many unwashed days on the trails. In the morning, our articles are frozen solid on the line until the sun swings round the hillside and melts them.
After sunset, the charcoal brazier in the communal room is lit and tended by the young daughter of the house, and we are joined by the teahouse matriarch. With hot faces and cold backs, we dry our handwashed clothes and speak of womanly things: past treks, future adventures, our favourite mountains. Danu's is Machhapuchhare, the sacred, unclimbed peak known as Fishtail; Dudhkunda, of which we have enjoyed splendid views all week; and Everest herself, called Sagarmatha and Chomolungma in Nepali and Tibetan. I like the capricious and beautiful Annapurna South, powerful Dhaulagiri, and by the end of the week, I too have fallen in love with Dudhkunda, our steadfast companion.
Our laundry takes a long time to dry by hand, and when the man of the house arrives home from work, my companions’ drying underwear instantly vanishes from view as if by witchcraft. Our snorts of laughter as knickers and bras are magicked away repeatedly throughout the evening somewhat undermines our dignity in the presence of manhood.
Utopian refuge
At the end of the week, we are invited to stay at Thubten Chholing, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery snuggled within the south-facing folds of Dudhkunda. This peaceful community was established by fleeing Buddhists in 1959 after the Chinese invasion. Several hundred nuns – known as anis (aunties) – and monks live and work in the monastery, some as young as five. Most are Tibetan refugees.
After a steep 90-minute climb from Junbesi, we round the final corner and I can see the monastery above us. The path is marked by large water-powered prayer wheels, bells chiming with each rotation. The inhabitants are enrobed in burgundy red. In Tibetan Buddhism, this is a sacred, auspicious colour, instead of the brighter gamboge robes worn by monks in south-east Asia.
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| A young ani outside the puja hall |
We have arrived the day before Sonam Losar, the Tamang New Year, and the monks and anis are busy deep-cleaning to sanctify the monastery for the ensuing festivities. The courtyard is filled with prayer mats and rolled carpets, evicted from the puja hall to be shaken free of dust. We watch for a moment as an ani stacks three clean prayer mats on her back and takes them back inside, before Kumari and I jump up to help. We don’t want to be in the way, but neither can we sit and watch.
The anis beam with pleasure and thank us in Tibetan: “tuchi che!”. We ferry the large mats to the freshly-swept hall, careful to enter barefoot, and place them in long, neat rows ready for tomorrow’s puja, the festival prayer ceremony. I shake several large carpets over the side of the monastery wall, casting yellow clouds of dust over the slumbrous dogs below, and carry the heavy rolls inside, grateful for an opportunity for an upper-body workout to match the recent leg-work. When the courtyard is clear, we are given a lunch of white rice with brown dal and potato and carrot curry. It is plentiful and comforting but not spicy. In hope, we inquire about chillies but are told they are banned here, although later I spy a jar of ferocious-looking cherry-sized chillies in the monastery tuck shop.
Next, we tackle the windows – there are hundreds – and I join two jolly anis in the guest quarters. We gently clean each pane of glass with old newspaper and window cleaner, while chatting in a blend of unshared tongues. My companions are very exacting, taking pride in their work and home. “You missed a bit there”, accompanied by a stern finger-tap on the glass, is, I quickly learn, crystal clear in any language.
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| Window cleaning with the anis |
Back in the vast stone kitchens, the anis are busy preparing the puja feast, and we help them pound tsampa, roasted barley flour, to be made into paag, a soft, clay-like dough mixed with sugar, butter, and salty Sherpa tea, to be eaten with tomorrow’s potato curry.
Alongside the industrious anis, I soon find myself sharing a harmonious complementary rhythm that feels meditative. The cheerful tumult is far from the monastic serenity I had envisaged, but here within this peaceful community, I find myself revelling in the escape from the chaos and grit of my London life.
In a region that places community above the individual and the value of tackling any task, however mundane, with one’s full heart and soul, my time with the admirable and ground-breaking sisters beautifully illustrated the unexpected joy of working together for the common good.
As published 7 August 2024 on JourneyWoman, the world’s largest and most trusted resource for female solo travel
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More on Nepal (2019):
The dusty dogs of Kathmandu - on my arrival into Nepal
The endless quest for a birthday beverage - I try to order a drink in Lahan, with mixed success
The tiger who took a taxi - on my first day in Kathmandu
Political unrest and an exciting trip to the airport - my journey to a regional airport amidst civil unrest
The road to Bandipur - is not as straightforward as it seems
Boiled alive in Bandipur - I visit a silkworm farm and discover the violent origins of the Silk Road
My elephant friends - I meet some unpleasant humans and some very important elephants
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