It's in His Kiss

“If you wanna know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss...” The Shoup Shoup Song, Betty Everett

Think about it. What would cause any two people to press their lips together? Where in the cosmos would they get that inexplicable idea, I mean, how did all this lip pressing start? Because when you do think about it, it's just a rather weird concept. Regardless of how strange the action might seem, kissing is an electrifying sensation that is certainly better than what you thought it was going to be like during those prepubescent years before your hormones kicked in and your pigtails quivered as you screamed that boys were icky. But the magic of a kiss only manifests if kisser and kissee vibes hook up... a kiss is far more than all that pumped up, plumped lipped, movie and romance novel sensationalism. In actuality it's a bio-chemical reaction, a taste of compatible pheromones... and it determines more about you to a potential partner than you may have realized. A kiss historically sealed the deal in both business and love, and oftentimes death, but it can also unequivocally disqualify you as a probable partner from that girl you're trying to woo into the darker recesses of your after hours room.

Although kisses of affection are mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature, it was modern western civilization that popularized it. Kissing wasn't a routine occurrence and in the Middle Ages it was solely an upper class sign of refinement... the lower classes never bothered with lip grazing. In many cultures it's about rubbing noses but more like sniffing each other out. Up here in mountain country, it's a great way to warm up the lips and get the blood circulating faster... grown men will actually tremble and women will often turn pale and then blush when their lovers approach. But then, the same affliction occurs when most mountain resort dwellers see fresh powder on the slopes. Or consume a case of Pibbers. It's all about love and chemistry.

Although there's plenty of cinematic direction in learning how it's done, nothing prepares you for the first kiss after the built up anticipation, after the flirting, the prolonged gazing, blushing and moving in closer for the kill. It is pure sweetness embodied. There is the issue of available subjects to practice the art of kissing on in small western communities and especially the hard to get to and out of mountain towns in the winter. Fortunately, there is internet and if you google the words “kiss practice tips,” you'll find a variety of suggestions and techniques but the best one is the short youtube.com video which suggests that positioning your thumbs together mimics two lips that you can practice on. At first, I thought this was a well done spoof video, however, it is not, which makes it all the more hilarious until I realized that an entire generation of teens will be in therapy for the rest of their lives if they follow this guide. No one I have ever kissed had lips that felt like or resembled thumbs... cold, cracked lips, beards iced from skiing, yes, but never thumbs.

For those who think they've got it down, there's always room for improvement according to the Advanced Kissing Date Camp youtube video that sports schlocky music and a living room class of disenchanted couples sitting on the floor in front of a blazing fireplace with two rather predictably enraptured, dowdy teachers explaining how to kiss. Haven't we evolved enough for canoodling to be instinctive, spontaneous and unrehearsed? And if we need experimentation what was wrong with those innocent teen kissing games played in the basements and rumpus rooms across America? Spin the Bottle? Post Office?

You might not be able to remember what you had for lunch yesterday, but you will undoubtably remember your first kiss. My first heartfelt kiss was not reciprocal, in fact, it wasn't actually a real kiss. I smacked onto a full page magazine photo of Beatle George Harrison (I wasn't practicing and abusing one's thumbs-as-lips definitely wouldn't have occurred to me). He was everything the fantasy mind of a Beatle fanatic 13-year old could want. I was so convinced that George would fall in love with me that I wrote a long story about it detailing our meeting, the concerts, our lives together writing music – filling pages upon pages of a looseleaf binder that somehow, unfortunately, landed on the desk of my junior high school guidance counsellor and for which I was abruptly yanked out of class, marched to her office and chastised for the offense of being a teenage girl with raging delusional dreams. She tossed my six months of work into her trash can and as I fought back the tears, she dragged me down the hall and threw me into the school paper's newsroom, barking at me to do something meaningful. At the time, I didn't see what could be more significant than having George Harrison realize I was his one and only love after he read my exposé. And because of that damn guidance counsellor I'm still paying penance to newspapers.

Ah, but kiss is dope, literally and physically. When you kiss, your brain releases Dopamine which is the same thing that happens if you take cocaine only legal, cheaper, safer, it lasts much longer and hopefully it's far more stimulating. A kiss is rich in promise... true love's kiss woke Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and turned Beauty's Beast back into a handsome prince. Many a songwriter have made lucrative residuals from hit singles about kissing. It is culturally encoded in us.

So would-be lovers, take note, the bottom line is this: you may be gorgeous and even rich, you can weave a spellbinding tale of adventure and promise, serenade with your song, write poetry that would make the angels sigh, entice with the finest dark chocolates and sweetly chat up the night but in the end it really all does comes down to just shut up and kiss me.

All Ruby's Road blogs and photos copyright by Dawne Belloise unless otherwise noted

Higher Love Revisited

“If you like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain
If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you'd like making love at midnight in the dunes on the Cape
Then I'm the love that you've looked for write to me and escape" – Rupert Holmes

Up here at the end of the road in the mountains, relationships and affairs of the heart can get as sticky as a box of half bitten Valentine chocolates. The incestuous nature of small town romances can liken local dating to sinking your teeth into every piece of confection in the box just to find out what's inside the yummy coating. Historically, ski town populations are generally male dominated – despite that it's an over used cliche the fact remains – although the odds are good for the women, the goods are odd. Nevertheless, men find themselves in the love shuffle and as one friend recited the mountain man mantra perched from his hunting site atop a bar stool while nursing his recent breakup, “You don't lose your girl, you just lose your turn.”

In these high speed days of connectivity, there's now an alternative to help mountain folk through the dark, frigid, high altitude nights – online dating, the Ebay of imported love, the modern equivalent of mail order brides and express order boyfriends. On the net, no one knows your real name or whether or not that photo of you is a decade or so outdated until the moment you meet.

Once a dirty little secret, dating sites have steadily gained popularity. Finding love, or at least a slumber buddy, would seem relatively easy and certainly entertaining with over ninety million people to choose from on the glut of dating sites available in the U.S. alone. Apparently, the lonely have gotten past the stigma that it's a sign of desperation to indulge in the internet catalog of courtship. In 2008, over 100,000 marriages were credited to dating sites. Recent statistics show that one in five of single Americans have used an internet dating site and online dating nationwide increased fifteen percent from May 2009 to May 2010. And the projected bottom line is that the overall mobile dating sector will grow to $1.4 billion worldwide by 2013 (according to Jupiter Research).

Encouraged by friends who would never be caught dead signing up for such a service themselves, I logged into the etheric region of amorous hopefuls. After finding the perfect pseudonym, answering all the pop psychology questions engineered by a fashion magazine guru and posting a current photo, my mailbox was immediately swamped – which I attributed to both being the new girl on the block and having low expectations defined by the parameters I had chosen. My criteria were simple and broad – unmarried non-smoking male, not fanatically religious, over forty-eight years old, anywhere in the world.

A few weeks passed with nary a prime candidate of compatibility – just pen pals, guys on motorcycles with trailing mustaches, old men in swimming pools, or the disgruntled with lengthy lists of what they didn't want in a date. Until one day, delivered into my dating prospects with great exclamation, fanfare and a whopping, rare five stars out of the maximum five for compatibility was... my recently ex-boyfriend. The odds were staggering that out of the millions of men across the globe, the online matchmaker hooked me up as the perfect match for a man I had already spent fifteen years with. Cupid was up to his mischievous tricks again. There was my five-star mega-match – the man who for a decade and a half consistently balked at the idea of introducing me as his girlfriend for fear of being defined – filling in the questionnaire blanks that identify boundaries of personality and cruising the broadband hunting grounds.

I removed my profile the next day, after my ex and I laughed heartily about the entire matchmaking faux pas and went our separate ways. He, to a compatible intellectual in upstate NY, and I, back to my close knit family of real thing mountain men whom I adore. Besides, when half the town is doing that early morning walk of shame, it looks more like a parade. And who doesn't love a parade?

Crackbook

Everything you never cared to know about people you don't know

"Dawne is writing Ruby's Road and going for coffee..."

There was once a time we could actually get our email delivered directly into our personal account instead of having to sign into Facebook. Growing exponentially the past several months, the network of members seems to enjoy spending hours reading about someone's acquaintances' acquaintances. I get messages about people I don't know – who are commenting on comments made by someone else's friend – whom I've accepted into my circle merely out of courtesy. It's beyond the realm of six degrees of separation.

Facebook is a persistent pusher with potent addictive product. If I'm on my computer, I'm forced to check my profile every five minutes because a continual stream of dozens of notifications have taken over my email inbox – friends changing their status, profile photos, sending plants for virtual gardens that somehow enhance the ecosystem. Rows and rows of messages from Facebook download into my email server bringing cocktails or kisses, sea creatures for sea gardens, and announcements of friends signing up for groups with a purpose: "I Like Michael Phelps Even More Because He Smokes a Bong" or "I'll Never Join a Group." You can even set Facebook to remind you to take your birth control pill daily.

The latest fad among fanatics is to tag your friends and require them to write Twenty-five Random Facts about themselves... which are then sold to online data harvesters and marketers who are collecting more information than the FBI could ever have hoped for back in the days when wire tapping was a violation of our privacy and rights.

Thanks to Facebook we know what kind of underwear you prefer, when you go for coffee, who you're sleeping with, what you had for dinner and when your relationship is on the rocks – because we willingly upload all our personal data, open our computer files and give access to more personal information than our own mothers even know about us – things we would never want our mothers to know. And don't think your mom isn't already on Facebook checking you out. We allow access to our inner sanctum of friends' and family email addresses to see if they're a Facebook member, and if they aren't they get an automatic invitation. When and how did the collective population of the world suddenly get either stupid or trusting enough to allow such an obvious intrusion in an era of identity theft?

My theory is that everybody wants to be a star and you get your moment of glamour and glory on Facebook (although everyone knows all the rock stars are on myspace). Facebook serves as the town crier, a party notification center, birth announcer, updating your relationship status: married, divorced, single, or "in a relationship but it's difficult." One of my single girlfriends clicked the wrong box and accidentally posted that she was engaged. No less than forty-seven people commented immediately about her status change with quips from horrified men to shocked relatives and amused girlfriends. Those who knew her played along with the pun it evolved into, especially after she changed her status back to single – "His loss." "You can do so much better." "He wasn't worthy." "Bastard!"

Although I've reconnected with several long lost friends, it works in reverse as well... people you don't want to reintroduce into your life may also find you. One friend deleted her Facebook page immediately when her traumatizing childhood babysitter found her profile and asked to become her friend. I received a friend request from my ex-husband's third ex-wife – I accepted. What a great outlet for slanderously gratifying comparisons for all the world to read.

Even if you're rejected by a requested "friend" you can still view anyone's friends anytime, which enhances the ability of Facebook Stalkers. One of my male Facebook buddies prowled through my list of girlfriends, adding them as friends even though he'd never met them. I suddenly realized that 99 percent of his 1,863 friends were comprised of women – girlfriends of girlfriends of girlfriends. I can't imagine what his hourly email looks like with all the status and photo updates. I'll bet he comments on every one of them too.

How did we ever manage without these life coach middleman acting as entertainment coordinators who send our personal messages along in exciting little email bundles – so-and-so left a message on your wall, you have 15 invites, you have 7 lil green patch requests, 1,297 of your closest friends are attending a virtual cocktail party. What good is that without real gin and social discourse?

Through Facebook we are more involved with each other's lives now, but there's less connectivity. I can simply check my Facebook home page and see what you and all your friends are doing without ever having to be in contact. One singular comment is all I have to post to acknowledge your existence, and mine. Friendship simplified, condensed and without all the fuss and time consuming conversation.

Don't get me wrong – I love all forms of communication and do enjoy the headline updates posted daily by friends and acquaintances. And yes, I check my Facebook several times daily. You can even join our newspaper's Facebook group "We Get It Weekly" and I would sincerely love to add you as a friend to my personal page – as soon as I get back from dinner with face to face live friends and a couple of real martinis.

Belly Up

It takes five taxis before one claims to know where the Nikon Center is on Silom Road, half way across the city of Bangkok. I get into one cab only to exit a few feet away as the driver shakes his head, “Oh no madame, can not find.” Unlike the Nepalese cabbies who would tell you anything to get you into the car, the Thai taxi can't make enough fare going far out into the business boonies during rush hour traffic. I hail consecutive taxis until coolly offering the fifth one $300 baht. Miraculously, the hack knows where I need to go.

“Are you sure you know how to get there?” I question the nodding driver. It was imperative to drop off the Nikon for repair so I could have one last day to capture the spirit of the city without the black blobs of yak and goat hair on the camera sensor – the interior depths swiped clean of spilled dal bhat, Coke and jungle grime of Nepal.

The cab speeds off into the thick of the slow moving traffic, getting denser by the minute, the driver sighing proportionately louder as we become more entrenched in the jam and bottlenecks. We seem to be driving a long time before he decides to call someone for directions. He's on the radio, he's on the cell, he's shifting gears and speeding four times faster through lines of cars, weaving in and out like he's playing a video game, all the while sighing more emphatically.

“I thought you said you knew where this was...” I lean forward to verify.
“Much traffic, madame.” Sure traffic... and that universal stereotypical male refusal to ask directions perhaps... which is now cutting into his once large profit. All taxis have the dashboard Buddha enshrined in flowers with the King of Thailand hanging from the mirror – ours is dancing a wild jig as non existent spaces between cars open to his erratic honking and bullying. He screeches to a halt in front of 161 Silom Road, “Nikon, madame.”

The Nikon people are helpful and friendly in the well stocked store.
“Your camera very, very dirty,” the techie scolds and condemns it into quarantine until scrubbed and fitted with a new pop up flash, burnt out by overuse. “It cost you 4,500 baht, ok?” she looks concerned. I do the math: about $145 U.S.
I smile, “No problem, madame,” knowing it would be close to $500 in the states and take about three weeks.

“You come back tomorrow after 4 p.m.,” she instructs me. Delighted, I walk out into the hot Bangkok afternoon and celebrate with green mango slices served in a bag and sprinkled with a chili-sugar fish sauce washed down with a perfect Thai iced tea full of sweet goodness and caffeine. It is heightened by traditional Thai instrumental muzak piped from a speaker – but it sounds weird. I realize it's a rendition of John Denver's “Country Road” that's being plucked by Asian strings, lost in some strange Thai translation.

Every afternoon fierce thunderstorms rattle the city, booming from buildings, lightning flashing uncomfortably close. It's a good time to get off the streets and into a spa. I slip into a salon for a manicure, pedicure and just for fun have them slap bleach on my head, which after four weeks resembles an inverted skunk. The salons love to place patrons in the front window so everyone can see how busy they are, hoping that it will draw more clients. Passersby stop and stare at my ridiculous position as four stylists hover around me – each foot balanced in a separate bowl of lemon water, fingernails being filed and hair tugged straight up at the scalp and painted with white fuzzy lotion. I wave to the gawking strangers in my best parade mode. Primped and primed my hair glows in the night and my toes twinkle in metallic pink.

When the appointed time comes to pick up the camera at 4 p.m., I go through the same dance trying to hail a cab until one accepts the magic offer of 300 baht. It's traffic as usual but the store closes at 5:30 – an entire hour and thirty minutes to get to the half hour destination. We drive for forty-five minutes before I ask, “You DO know where Silom Road is, don't you?” He doesn't answer. “The shop closes at 5:30. If you don't know, you should call for directions,” I suggest. He pulls over and pays a woman to use her cell phone since his is out of minutes, and then speeds off.

“How far?” I ask.
“About twenty-minutes,” he answers nonchalantly.
“But the store will be closed by then!” I panic, needing my camera for the last day excursions – the Palace, wats, longboats on the river, canals, people, places. He speeds up but it's ten minutes after closing time when we arrive. They are just pulling down the store's large metal gates as I bolt up the steps pleading. I writhe under the iron gates like an action adventure figure.

Night changes the face of Khao San Road as the vampires emerge on the scene selling everything from university diplomas to large buckets of “Very Strong Drink Cheap” according to the hand printed signs the bevy of bar touts are waving.
“You want to see ping pong show?” one carnival barker asks me.
“Ping pong?” I ask, wondering why anyone would want to leave the vibrant street scene to go watch a game.
“Er... no,” a friend pulls me away by the arm, “You don't want to know what the showgirls do with those ping pong balls...”
“So, not a tournament...” my naivete blushes.

I have dinner just off the chaos of Khao San – green curry, tamarind soup and fresh coconut juice served in the shell – and enjoying a tasty meal when a rat scuttles across my feet and into a drain close by. I like rats, but not with my main course. I've never had a bad meal in Thailand, I think silently so as not to tempt the bacteria gods.

My last day in Thailand is a list of must see places with a like-new Nikon. The morning is sunny and warming up – but I am feeling sluggish and suspiciously grumbly when I realize it's my stomach doing the grinding. Downing a couple of antacids I head over to the first temple where a ceremony of chanting is taking place, the monks' harmonious voices lifting into the rafters and beyond. Pro videographers are filming as the elder monk shakes water onto the crowd with a wooden whisk broom. Young monks in saffron robes are being fed in the wings. Entwined with sweet incense, the mantra doesn't sooth my abdomen which is turning inside out. I head down to the docks anyway.

It is then that the full, frustrating reality forces a return to the hotel, where I spend the rest of the afternoon and night in the sleepless torment of the dreaded Bangkok Belly until the taxi takes me to the airport at 5 a.m. for the thirty hour journey back to Denver. No long boats or palace, no last massage and certainly no more green curry.

I arrange myself into the more spacious seat of Japan Airlines, fortunately next to the restrooms, draped in blankets. The two-story jet smoothly glides down the runway into a perfect ascent way up above Bangkok skies heading north seven hours to Tokyo, where another jet will take me to Chicago in a fourteen hour cruise over ice and frigid sea before boarding a final plane for Denver. A shuttle bus will then schlep the one and one half hours to Ft. Collins to pick up my car and drive six hours to Crested Butte where I'll sink into my own cushy bed looking out on dark skies that contrast a bizillion stars strewn across the Milky Way. And sleep until my spirit figures out where my body is. There's no place like home...

Jump

While I was out trekking for ten days the bugs invaded my room at Three Sisters. They scuttle across my walls and floors. The large spider I didn't mind sharing the bathroom with is nowhere to be found as the parade of ants carries away large pieces of unidentifiable things. In the morning, I catch them trying to make off with my toothbrush and have to send the brigade to their afterlife.

One particular night I had to fight a waterbug for the rights to the toilet seat. If you've ever seen a palmetto bug in the south, they're just like them − large brown armored bodies with squirmy multiple legs and long antennae... only they crawl up through the water pipes and drains. If you've never seen a palmetto bug... think roach the size of a hamster, but not cute and fuzzy. Knocked into the toilet bowl and flushed down three times he kept swimming back up, each time with more defiance than the last until I had to decapitate him with a toilet brush. I would have left him as a distraction for the ants but there was too much satisfaction in the final flush.

So it was that morning I went to the travel agent, sensing the perfect time for a good pampering in Bangkok. With Nepal Air's notorious reputation for being late, if they get off the ground at all, I thought it best to switch to Thai Air... the golden peacock of flight and service.

“We can't cancel your flight for a refund. You have to use the travel agent you booked it through,” Adam Travel in Pokhara informed me. “But we can change the ticket or book the Thai flight.” Manang Travel was found online during the initial trip preparations because Nepal Air's website doesn't have interactivity for booking flights. They sent a receipt that said I paid $1000 in cash for my ticket but in fact, I had paid $600 by credit card to fly from Bangkok to Kathmandu round trip. I'm sure they charged the airline the $400 difference after charging me a non existent $145 Foreign National Tax they claimed was out of their control.

“No, you paid too, too much and tax should only be $40.” the Pokhara agent confirmed. Manang emailed back to say they would work on my travel changes but I never heard from them after my inquiry about the receipt and extra tax charges. Nepal Air only has one plane, which only flies three times a week and Adam Travel books the next flight out, which means I have to be on a bus tomorrow for Kathmandu. At one point two of the agents each have two phones to their heads talking simultaneously into both just trying to get the bus, plane and hotel secured.

I have one more day in Pokhara before the seven hour bus trip back to Krazytown and the Kathmandu Guest House, supposedly a swankier place at $25 a room. After a farewell dinner at the Moondance and leisurely stroll back to the other end of town, I stop at a convenience store. I am staring at shelves of chocolate in a pleasant trance. Almost brushing shoulders with someone, I look up to see another woman trancing out over the chocolate choices. She is dressed in the rich colors of traditional India, a russet scarf drapes her head and shoulders. As she turns to me, from under the veil is a broad smile, cheekbones rising up with recognition.

“So here we are in the chocolate,” Gabby laughs. We walk back to her guest house, even farther down the lake than mine and I watch her performances of traditional dances of India on her computer. The hand maneuvers alone are a language in of itself as she gracefully splashes and skims through shore water on a beach at sunset, feet and body poised.

No need for teary goodbyes this time since we'll most likely run into each other again in a forest or chocolatier's somewhere down the line. Hours later I'm feeling my way down the dark night on an unlit road to Three Sisters to finish packing for the early bus ride.

The same driver and co pilot that took me to Pokhara navigate the bus through mountain curves, traffic, goats and grandmas back into Kathmandu, still crazy and thick with people, filth and dust. At the Kathmandu Guest House, the accommodations are only slightly better than the $15 room at Hotel Karma. The staff is helpful though and switch me to another room, which is about the same but without the acrid smell of cigarettes. I find my favorite vegetarian bookstore, Pilgrim Books, with its restaurant in the back garden, and order the Tibetan Thukpa soup.

On the street, the touts and shopkeepers are relentless in clawing to get anyone into their store, taxis and rickshaws practically run over tourists in trying to get them to stop and get in, street hawkers push little violins, flutes and trinkets into your face with hopes that you'll buy their crap. If you're talking to someone, reading your map, or writing in your journal they'll stand there breathing on you and then follow. They all try to engage you in conversation for the sole purpose of getting you to buy. I doubt I will ever return to Kathmandu except to pass through its airport en route to a trek. I spend the rest of the night in the gardens behind the gated guest house.

At the Kathmandu Airport, Nepal charges 1700 rupies (about $23) to get out of their country. Through numerous security checks in a small airport I am felt up and patted down by four different women, the last on the tarmac as we're boarding the plane. Men to the left, women to right, we form a line for feelies. My special mantra of music and positive thoughts will hopefully help lift this solo, overworked jet into the air − as the engines grind into a hum not heard on other planes I turn up the ipod. Some three hours later we slam down in Bangkok.

No visa, I stand in line for almost an hour to get one on arrival only to find I don't need a visa for the four day stay. Thailand makes it easy for tourists to stay and spend money, and they do it all with a pleasantly sincere smile and “Sawadee.” No one wants to exchange my Nepalese rupies so I'm stuck with several thousand of them.

The Banglumpoo Guest House is not elegant by any standards however it's only $395 baht (about $11, mostly because the US dollar is so weak), relatively clean, spacious and I can walk or taxi easily to almost anywhere. I find pad thai at a street food cart, order new prescription glasses and get a two hour massage before heading to slumberland to dream of green curry for breakfast.

Below: Bangkok's Khao San Road with tourists who can't say no to buckets of "Really Strong Drink" the street touts push for the bars.

Sisterhood of the Orange Shag

It's a trick of the guides to say the hike to the next village is less than it actually is, so they get further on down the line faster. Dhanu claims it's a five hour hike from ABC to Dovan, because probably had I known it was seven I would have stopped earlier. But she tells us she has sent a runner to reserve our rooms and urges that we get there. I consider it a reason to slow down, breath and enjoy since we'll have rooms waiting. Down from the heavens we trek, through the damp clouds that have now settled into the valley. It was hard to leave the glory of the Annapurna bowls behind. We arrive late in Duvon at 4 p.m. and there are no rooms.

“What happened to the runner and our rooms?” I ask annoyed, my knees slammed, ankles fat and swollen like my old aunt's, and exhausted beyond food or drink from over seven hours of head-down hiking.

“Maybe there weren't any,” Dhanu offers.

"But you said you sent the runner out early,” I eye suspiciously thinking it was a ploy to move faster toward home. Again we're offered the dining room which isn't an option when the cook starts up at 5 a.m. Feeling snarky and smelling ripe I'm still not going to sleep with sherpas or someone's morning porridge.

“What about the other guest houses?” I ask.

“I don't know them,” Dhanu quips as I trot back up stairs to plead with lodge owners for a room. The first lodge gives us a clean, no frills room for a fraction of the cost and will feed Dhanu too. It was dry with three beds and I was gloating in my refusal to accept the pattern of guides and guest houses, now realizing that the trail is just a method to funnel as many tourists through the trekking food tube for as much as possible in the short two month season. It was completely understandable since Nepal's tourism waned for years while the Maoists raged. Now that they're in government, the trail extortion falls into the laps of the lodges.

Day seven. You know what you'll find there. The Dreaded Steps of Chomrong. We leave Dovan at 8 a.m., body still screaming from the grueling seven hours of torment a mere few hours prior. I daydream of hot showers and sweet smelling clothes. Leaping up the stone stairmaster at Chomrong are young singing boys with the normal huge loads on their backs and as usual I have to stop often to breathe and I'm not singing after two hours of climbing to the village at the end of the day's hike. But there is a glorious hot shower waiting at the Lucky Guest House on top and I wash some clothes on an outside stone like the village women.

We order pizza, pasta and Coke, a carb feast to commemorate the day. Outside, the lodge owner is hammering out his bakery pie pans, flattening them into pizza pans since the other eight guests also ordered the same thing and the kitchen didn't have enough pans. Dinner is hours late but who cares... we're showered and toasty. Annurpurna South and Fishtail still loom impressively large as the sun sets draping them in pink clouds.

The Sisterhood of the Orange Shag Coat is parting ways this morning. I watch Gabby gracefully amble up the path, walking stick in hand, to Poon Hill as I head down to Landruk, a different route than the one we came up. There are many comrades on the journey. Some are destined to meet again and I had a feeling Gabby would be one of those, still, it was a teary farewell as she trekked up to the right and we rambled down to the left on the other side of Chomrong steps. Past stone walls and tiered fields of millet and rice. Crosby, Stills and Nash are my morning meditation as I sing along in the sun not yet hot enough to melt the skin off my arms. Through banana and palm trees, down to the river bank, the path is easy for most of the morning.

Dhanu's shoe disintegrates, the sole completely falling off and in conversation discover that the taxi driver who dropped us off at the trail head makes more for our hour round-trip than the $50 (4000 rupies) Dhanu is making for her ten days of laboring up and down mountains with a thirty pound pack. Guides only make twenty-five percent of what Three Sisters Adventures charge. I wonder how that is empowering women, the Sister's credo, when men are still making more for less work... and it infuriates me. True, Three Sisters runs a school, orphanage and guest house, giving the girls an opportunity by training them and the girls make more than they could anywhere else − but why should the trek service's cab driver get so much more? All I could do for Dhanu was tie her soles back on with a leather shoelace and a promise to buy her new boots when we returned to Pokhara.

The next couple of days dissolve into each other. My sleeping bag is funky, toes a fungus farm, my stomach is over the iodine water and food cooked in dirty kitchens with goats and chickens running through next to squat toilets.

“How far is it to Phedi from Damphus?” I ask Dhanu as the clouds gather.

“About one hour,” she says, “But we stay in Damphus tonight.” She was worried about getting paid for the full ten days.

“Don't worry, I'll pay you for the last day,” I had already decided to pay her more than the salary the company would give her for this trek. The moment I said we're heading back early, Dhanu was like the cliche horse to the barn... I couldn't keep up with her as the sky broke loose, rocks and mud became a greased path - I lost her twice when the road split off. In the final hour down to Phedi, the pick up point, the stairs become steep rock cliffs and I fall three times. It is, undoubtedly, the worst of the trail, which is why everyone starts off on the Nayapul side. Down the final flight of stairs I slide to the taxi like a runner to home plate.

Knowing a shower and a hot meal will make me human, I hand all my clothes to the launderer at the guest house and head off for a drink at the Moondance Cafe, victorious and still in awe of the experience of the Annapurna mountains.

Easy as ABC

The Deurali day dawns bluebird and clear, still damp but not too chilly as the sun moves slowly up the valley from far below. At 7 a.m. on the fifth day of the trek we start the final four hours to ABC as shafts of light force through wedges of mountains, Annapurna in front of us, Fishtail to the right. The river is rushing down below through sheer rock walls and the climb is steep at first, mostly mud and rock trail and, gloriously, no stairs as it passes through the gorge in its ascent to Machhupuchhre Base Camp (MBC). We're at about 13,000 feet, the air is thinner and less damp and although I have to stop to catch my breath, I can finally breath more easily ─ no thanks to two weeks of gorging on dal bhat and Coke at low altitude in the heat. Why anyone loses weight on this trek is a mystery since you must eat three times a day so your guide will get their free meal.

At MBC we stop for hot ginger tea before the final climb to ABC only two hours across alpine terrain at a gradual altitude gain. The day is absolutely perfect for the hike. The Annapurnas indescribably fill the broad viewscape until clouds descend from nowhere to obscure both sun and scenery and the air becomes damp and cold with their mist.

Mountain dogs voluntarily escort trekkers to and from villages through their territory and two pass guiding a few tourists. Shrouded in clouds at almost 14,000 Annapurna Base Camp sits in a bowl surrounded by Machhupuchhre and the Annapurnas. Again we are told they are no rooms but we're able to opt for a three bed dorm with another British woman whose last name is acceptably Fairey. We celebrate with rich chocolate carried half way around the earth from Mountain Earth Foods in Crested Butte. Dhanu makes scrunchy faces at it because she prefers the sweet American junk bars.

Up on a ridge are prayer flags, poems and memorials to those lost on the mountains. Annapurna has claimed many in their attempt to conquer her. Although I can't see through the cloud, the glacier below is noisily moving taking rocks with it in its eerie descent. All around avalanches caused by late rains are thunderously crashing every few minutes. Somewhere on the mountain in the fog is a French climbing team and separately a solo American climber. I walk the edge high above the glacier among the prayers, intuitively seeking a niche in which to hang the Red Lady flags I carry from my own beloved threatened mountain − to ask the Big Sister Annapurna for her blessing.

Through the mist an unnaturally bright orange glow is coming towards me.
“You should put your flags with all the others so they'll be read by more people and the more they are read, the more the universe will absorb them,” Gabby's British accented wisdom rings true even though she is dressed in a florescent day-glow orange long-shag coat.
“Jeezus Gab, you look like a psychedelic yak...” and I think, why didn't I bring my usual ceremonial costuming for this trek instead of wearing all the fake North Face garbage everyone else also bought in Kathmandu? We plan to string the flags in the morning after the sunrise ritual. This leaves us free to take off and explore nearby ridges before the evening descends.

Past the flags a bastion of rocks delicately balanced, little castles, stupas, more tributes, more petitions with the solemness of a graveyard. Down sloping sides through fields of larger rocks we come upon a circle of dark barren soil ribboned through with white sand, a dry creek bed in a lunar landscape. Dotting the fine dirt are clusters of tiny puffball mushrooms and in the greyness and altitude we're certain we've left the planet. Over the next ridge, avalanches so loud the ground shakes and the evening light is setting in. We head back to camp for dinner.

Always a jovial party in the common room, the kerosene heater is blowing strong fumes and heat under the long dining table skirted with yak wool blankets to slide your legs under. Yes, there have been fires and bodily combustion but in the night cold, temperatures dropping fiercely now, no one cares. The laughter continues until the moon rises three-quarters full over cleared skies and illuminates the ranges with such magnitude that everyone rushes out of the lodge to stand outside in silence in awe of the lunar lit snow peaked panorama.

When I finally pull myself from the surreal world, I crawl off to sleep fully clothed − down vest, wool hat and gloves tucked happily into my bag with all the electronics and batteries. Dreams are intense for everyone who falls into the trance at Annapurna.

Sunrise humbles the soul and elevates the spirit as the light moves down the goddess-face of the Annapurnas. People and flags silhouetted on the ridge where the sun has not reached yet stand with cameras poised. Across the bowl behind us is Machhupuchhre, the fishtail still bathed in shadow. Points, peaks and avalanches, I am mesmerized by the unfolding daylight, a phenomena I don't witness at home either with my Mediterranean heritage and night schedule.

I move to the other side of camp as a white veil of light is dancing with rays of shadows cast from Fishtail's peaks. Suddenly bright streaks shoot upward from a jagged point with the explosiveness of a sparkler on the Fourth of July as the sun rises to form a perfect diamond bead visible for only five seconds as it rises into the sky. Five seconds of star burst, stripes of prisms welcome the day. When the light show plays itself out, you realize how high you are... mostly because you've held your breathe through the entire performance and at high altitude.

Gabby is her own little spectacular sunrise decked out in the shocking orange acid-yeti shaggy coat. I gather the lavender anointed red prayer flags and we head up the ridge. As the silent prayer request begins, Gabby, with the longer legs, ties one end to the highest point of the pole above the other flags. As I reach to tie my opposite end, a prepared chant for each knot, a bellowing voice calls, “Playing through!”

Golf club and ball in hand, a dreadlocked, surly-bearded man with aboriginal tattoos across his forehead and a mischievous smile suddenly appears and sets his tee right next to me on the ridge.

“How did I get in this Fellini movie?” my disoriented brain is not registering the scene as he screams, “FORE!” and hits the ball high over the nest of flags to a makeshift hole marked by a pole and tin can way down on the camp floor while the ever glowing Gabby-in-orange is laughing and shooting photos.

The flags are up waving high above the backdrop of Annapurna and Fishtail surrounded by magnificence, hope and a temporary golf course. Dhanu is impatiently pacing, hoping we'll come down soon to start the return... back through the forests and stairs to find a room and more food. It's 10 a.m. when Gabby and I pull ourselves away from the mountains we've spent a knee-destroying five days to get to. As we approach Dhanu she pipes in with her favorite insistent comment, “Ok, we go now. Ready?” She repeats this continually until there's no choice but to pick up your bag and head out.

Light in the Forest

Down the two thousand portal steps of the other side of Chomrong, across a rotted wood suspension bridge slung high over a raging river the bamboo forest is rife with trekkers, some as green as the foliage. Monkeys are not rare but to see them when your eyes are always downward focused on the rocky path is a reminder that you came half way around the world to take in the scenery. We see two swinging from large moss covered trees. Flowers and delicate ferns are thick; beautiful parasitic plants drape themselves from trunks.

The path is often just a creek bed, water running through strewn boulders until you get to more stairs, which are far less now since the jungle topography is fairly level. Hundreds of waterfalls roar down from mountain tops ‒ liquid curtains undulating through deep crevices in rock, bouncing off cliffs and finally trickling into the many little gurgling grottoes. If you ever played Myst in the 90s, the sounds of the bamboo forest were what they could have modeled the soothing water sounds of Channelwood after.

The path crosses gnarled tree roots, orange and smooth from untold years of human feet polishing them. Birdsong is melodically hidden in the thickness of bamboo and mossy branches. The rhododendron won't color the forest with its bright blooms until March and April. The sun is glaring but in the microcosm of the bamboo cluster we are damply shaded in another world where donkeys are thankfully not allowed.

Up ahead on the trail is a lone woman. The brim of her straw hat doesn't quite cover bright eyes and cheekbones that that rise with her smile. Hiking trousers cuffed with decorative beads and embroidery, jacket bordered with mirrored bands of ornamentation, long braided hair extensions twisted to one side of her head, walking stick in hand she turns to say, “'Ello, Namaste!”

A Brit, stylin' her way through the forest alone. Dhanu was delirious at the prospect of a roommate. I was happy to meet a kindred elf spirit in the woods. Serendipitous instant synergy, she starts walking along as though she had been trekking with us from the start. Gabby from Cambridge is a dancer, social worker, massage therapist, traveler, musician and gypsy in equal parts.

Emerging from the denseness into the village of Bamboo, all the rooms are full and we're told they there is no vacancy at the next village, Duvon, an hour away. But Gabby miraculously conjures up a dorm room with four beds, one already occupied by a young German girl, and the three of us move in, relieved we don't have to share the storeroom or sleep with the sherpas, as the rain starts to pound the metal roof.

Immediately following dinner, inevitably dal bhat the tastiest and most filling, all the lodges send the guides to their charges to write up the breakfast order, which is hard to think about with a warm belly of dal. Guides and porters are always fed last, meaning about 9 p.m. after schlepping the big loads up steeps through the heat all day.

Throughout the trek, male guides, porters and villagers snarl with disdain when they see a female guide. Some do a double take, some call out rude quips and some just stare frowning. This will change in the next five years as women break into the trade more fully. As it is, I'm amused and Dhanu just ignores them.
“Namaste” I chortle to gawkers, smiling like Jack coming down the beanstalk with the golden goose.

I wake to a wet sleeping bag and water sporadically spraying from the bamboo mat ceiling. The night was soaked in downpour, saturating the roof. The squat toilet is dank and cold with the unsavoriness of a cattle feed lot. Breakfast is waiting. Cold damp fog sets upon us as we trudge off to Deurali, the last village stay before the ascent to Annapurna Base Camp. Donning wool caps, gloves and jackets through more bamboo forest and mud paths until the terrain opens, the peaks are obscured by afternoon cloud cover as Deurali comes into view above the trail.

It's only 2 p.m. and we find a room in one of the four guest lodges, order hot ginger tea and dal bhat and settle in for a half day of rest before the final four and a half hour trek to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). The waterfalls above and river below are engorged with rain, deafening throughout the day and night. The locals say it's unusual to have so much rain this late in the season, monsoons should have ended over two weeks ago.

Cocooned once again in my bag, I sleep in my wool hat, long johns and fleece ‒ camera batteries, ipod and laptop enclosed within to keep the cold from draining them. I learn not to drink liquids late because there's no way I'll be leaving this warm down shelter to crawl off in the dark, cold mist to the horror of the squat hole in the middle of the night. I dream of thinner air and sunshine.

The Way of Things

The fog lifts, the rain stops and in the Gandruk morning I take my laptop to the quiet deserted porch to write in the new light at 6:30 a.m. This is a mistake. Like moths to a flame, sherpas, porters and guides come out from the shadows to peer over my shoulder and ask non stop questions. Even Dhanu, whom I've told that I need time alone to write, is planted next to me leaning over reading what I'm trying to compose. Knowing I have precious little time before she begins glaring and squawking for me to get moving, I get up to write in the privacy of my room.

“Why do you travel alone... where is your husband?” one male guide asks out of the blue.
“I like to travel alone for many reasons,” I laugh and add, “and I have no husband.” I try to slither past him to my door.
“Oh I am sorry!” he says of my single status as though I had just told him of a death.
“But I'm happy,” I try to explain to a man in a male dominated culture that views unmarried women as flawed.
“You will be married within five years to an American man!” his wide grin predicts. I laugh even harder.

I take an Ibuprofen from the massive pharmaceutical armory I bought in Kathmandu, wrap my knees in elastic support and head to Chomrong, a six hour hike that would take two hours if not for all the blasted steps. Dhanu points out the destination in the hazy distance which can be seen from Gandruk just around the mountain across the valley and I feel heartened. It doesn't look so bad until my eye follows the path – down to the valley floor, across a river and then back up, zig-zagging its way across the opposite mountain.

All the altitude gained the day before is lost and must be recovered to get up to Chomrong – and of course this is done through the Endless Series of Stone Stairs in the furnace of tropical heat. I pray for rain without donkeys. The sky becomes overcast about one hour into the trek as the down town train of clopping hooves is getting louder jingling nearby above. I get out of their way.

In many places the trail is washed out by landslides making it difficult to find and navigate. In the solar smelter of up and down, I worship my guide who is carrying my heavy back pack. As it is, my day pack feels like a large German shepherd on my back, growling and snapping at me. I'm almost ready to chuck the eight lbs. of camera gear into the green abyss, especially when I realize the little black bird I seem to have captured in every frame is not following me – it's a speck of dirt sealed inside somewhere that no amount of shaking or air will budge.

The steps ascending to the gates of Chomrong are reminiscent of the dreaded Gates of Mordor, especially at the end of a grueling six hour hike. A trekker passing on the way down counted over two thousand but I'm sure they lost count. The stay at our planned guest house is once again thwarted by no vacancies and we grab whatever is available – attic rooms separated by poorly constructed, unpainted, rough cut two by fours and paper thin paneling.

You sleep with your neighbors at fingertip distance, their breath hot through the walls. A group of rowdy American men from the midwest, a Miami couple and one misplaced woman occupies the rest of the floor. There is one bathroom for the twelve of us but at least it's a sit toilet. Squat toilets are difficult for someone not used to sitting on their haunches for hours in the rice field. The eight men, who celebrated conquering the steps with Nepali liquor, snore out of sync all through the night, shaking the building to its foundation. In the morning, the sky is clear and filled with the omnipresence of Annapurna South and Machhupuchhre, whose crevices, peaks and ice can now be seen in detail.

An early start time becomes imperative to get to Bamboo, the next village, to secure a room because as high season is underway groups with planned itineraries rushing to get from point A to B send runners to book up the accommodations. If you're traveling single with a guide, it's difficult to get a room since the lodges want to make the most bang for the buck. More people occupying as many beds as possible means more dinner, lunch and breakfast bought... a large chunk of their profit equation.

They aren't yet prepared for women guides, who are currently oftentimes forced to share the same quarters in the dining room with the men counterparts. I told Dhanu I would pay for her bed, or we could share a room if the lodge balked at giving us shelter after a strenuous day when all thoughts focused on getting your legs horizontal in a cushy sleeping bag. She would get frustrated trying to explain that the lodge owners wouldn't let Nepali stay with guests, especially since guides don't pay full price for food.

“But I'll buy your food, I don't care. I want a room and a bed,” I offered.
“No, they won't do!” her hands over her eyes, shaking her bowed head in disbelief that I just didn't get it. If it's all about money, then what was the difference?
“They don't like,” she sighed, knowing her path would return to the same lodges again and she needed to stay in their good graces. If we were lucky, I could share a dorm room with three or four people, which is always preferable to trucking off to the next village one to three hours away when you're body is already screaming and room availability is just as questionable. Or having to sleep in the store room and fight creatures of the night for your space on a cot in their rightful territory while they try to unravel food bags.

“Ok, tomorrow you find maybe a friend,” she reasoned.
“A friend? What do mean? I have to find someone to sleep with?” eyebrows raised I thought to myself that's tough enough to do at home.
“Yes, you find a friend to share and then it is easier to find a room for two clients and one guide,” her experience told her. So much for the solo sojourn of solitude trekking. We set off for the Bamboo Forest with Dhanu stopping to smile at everyone going the same direction and ask their destination – the unsolicited matchmaker searching for my roommate.

First Steps

Whoever said “What doesn't kill me will make me stronger” never climbed the endless steps through Himalayan mountain villages, the uneven pathways to the massive Annapurna sentinels. Months on a stairmaster couldn't prepare the trekker for the relentlessly vertical stone steps of torture one must ascend and descend through villages, bamboo forests and mountainside to get to Annapurna Base Camp.

The journey began deceptively easy at Nayapul, instead of the notoriously difficult cliff staircases of Phedi where trekkers would turn back in tears abandoning all hope in anticipation of a more difficult trail ahead. Even though sleep evaded my pre-trek night, not from excitement but from the two pots of lemon tea too late discovered full of caffeine and not sleepy time herbal, as I lay wide awake in bed knowing a 6 a.m. start for me was laughable but necessary to reach the first destination – a five hour hike into Gandruk. Five hours, an easy day... I had hiked further in worse condition after major celebrations back home in Crested Butte.

At noon in a small village I hesitatingly order fried rice with egg and a Coke – surprisingly it is all delicious. Coca-Cola, which I never drink, has seek and destroy qualities that settles the stomach while it kills and dissolves anything it encounters. The added bonus of caffeine doesn't hurt. We head out into thunderous skies and rain that turns to downpour within five minutes. The stairs become even steeper – a treacherous slip and slide with torrents of water cascading down the smooth rocks. I am a lightning rod with my metal hiking pole. We duck for cover under the rickety porch of a home with goats, chickens and toothless old men until the deluge stops.

Back on the path I'm constantly trying to out pace donkeys ladened with bags of rice or supplies. They slide into me, losing their otherwise sure footing on the slippery boulders, almost knocking me off the path, their bells jangling like an alarm. You can hear them ringing as they approach and Dhanu yells, “Donkeys! Hurry!” but my guide doesn't understand that ski season is less than four weeks away and tweaking a knee or ankle is not an option. Neither is a helicopter lift out, or sketchy Nepali medical care.

More stairs, always stairs... step step breathe, step breathe step stop pant – when was your last cardiac evaluation? Dhanu stops often to see if I'm still standing with a look that bespeaks sympathy for the pathetic Rocky Mountain girl whose hair is getting whiter by the hour as the now blazing sun devours both color and energy. The downhill slide on the steps may be even worse than the winded uphill climb. Along all the places I have to stop to catch my breath, native women are passing, smiling casually full of ease with baskets strapped across their foreheads filled with a few 50 lb bags of rice, vegetables and small children piled on top. And they navigate these paths in flip flops. Of course, they also look twenty-five years older than anyone the same age in the modern western world.

Disturbingly, trekker trash is everywhere. Mostly Pan-Asian tourists who simply discard their wrappers and tissues on the ground with no regard for people or their communities. It litters the otherwise pristine environment in an area considered sacred to the Nepali.

The lodge we planned to stay in at Gandruk is booked and up we go to the next one, Gurung Cottages... clean, welcoming and a western toilet instead of a squat. I am happy, even though my legs are not. We eat in the cozy common room with Norwegians and sherpas, all of whom play cards afterwards. The trek is a social foray on all levels, people on the trails stop to converse and compare. In the morning after a 6 a.m. breakfast everyone packs up and heads either up or down to conquer their own personal stairs. Mine lay six hours ahead to the Dreaded Steps of Chomrong.