For as long as I can remember, and for reasons I have never got to the bottom of, I have always wanted to visit Nepal. At age 12, my ambition was to become New Zealand's High Commissioner in Nepal. This career choice was later abandoned when I learned the position did not exist, although the desire to visit remained strong and grew with each passing year. Finally in 2000, aged 34, I visited the country and trekked the 'Annapurna Circuit' and Annapurna Sanctuary, the circle of himals in central Nepal. Now, aged 35, I am here again and will come back again when things settle down a little. That last reference is, of course, to the Maoist (recently declared 'terrorist') movement which has slowly seeped up the valleys of mid-hill Nepal and is presently at a decisive stage of confrontation with His Majesty's Government, the Nepal Police and — a new entrant — the Royal Nepal Army.
After six years working as a spin doctor for a not particularly well-liked or understood New Zealand Government Department, I was ready for a good holiday. The plan was to arrive mid-September and leave at the end of the year. So I quit my job, sold my office clothes and bought a good sleeping bag and down jacket, bid farewell to my friends and family in New Zealand and headed off to Kathmandu. The destination was the region around the western base of Kangchenjunga, the sprawling Himalayan massif that defines the northeastern edge of Nepal, with Sikkim on the other side and Tibet/China to the north.
Flying in from Bangkok, from 31,000 feet, Kangchenjunga was clearly v isible in the first group of peaks in the march westward of the Himalaya. Backtracking somewhat to Biratnagar, out of the left window of the turboprop, there it was again, larger and up close. The more direct route to the region, via the flattop airstrip of Suketar, had been ruled out because there were no seats available on the Twin Otter. This was why my group was headed for Birantnagar, and on the flight I was mentally preparing myself for the 40-hour bus ride to Taplejung, which we all knew was not going to be pleasant.
Our bus was jam-packed with porters, bags, food and an assortment of trekking paraphernalia, and the seat could be defined as ergonomically deficient. The road felt like an endless sheet of corrugated iron. The bizarre noises coming from mechanically-challenged parts of our bus, the sheer drops down seemingly endless terraced hillsides, and the fingernail width gaps we witnessed between ourselves and other buses we passed all added to the adventure. Around the occasional bend in the precipitous road, we were afforded some spectacular views of Kangchenjunga, most impressively its Jannu face which looks west towards the Nepali midhills.