May 16, 1990 Langtang Glacier – Nepal – Journal Entry

November 10, 2024 – 11:10 am

Published on: May 28, 2023

We have reached Langtang Village.

3500 meters.

This is the highest I’ve been in this life.

The porters and cook are busy smoking cigarettes and drinking hot tea heavily dosed with yak butter for strength and sustinence. Breakfast on the trail had been mostly oat porridge, eggs, chapati, pancakes with jam, or peanut butter for breakfast, while dinners have consisted of Hindu Dal Bhat, curry, pasta, spaghetti, soups, fried rice, and momos with the Sherpa favorite fried dried yak meat and yak cheese.

Todd broke open a bottle of Johnny Walker Red.

“This is high, but last month I climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro. 19,000 feet. I stayed an hour and came back down. Worst thing about being at that height was shitting below zero.”

The nights along this trek have been cool, but the temperature has never been below freezing and during the day we are blasted by the sun. I never sweat, as the sun evaporates off any moisture from my body. I am constantly thirsty. My lips cracked by the sun. A team of film makers descend from the glacier. They have been filming Yuichiro Miura, the first person to ski down Mount Everest. Back in 1970. Their Sherpas are happy are happy to be off the ice fields. Too much sun to be safe. Dorge says they said nothing to the film crew and prayed not to die a movie. We give some of them a little taste of whiskey. All is better, especially when we give none to the film crew, but Yuichiro Miura got a full cup and I gave him my lip balm. His lips were bleeding. And this is only 3500 meters. I look up to the peaks. All over 6000. Dice and I look at each other and give up going any further. It’s smart to know when to quit.

By Peter | Posted in Asia, journal, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

May 14, 1990 – Langtang Glacier – Nepal – Journal Entry

November 10, 2024 – 11:02 am

Previously published May 23, 2023

2500 meters – Ghora Tabula

This morning Dieter woke up with vomit on his shirt. He doesn’t talk about being gay or having AIDS, but he has said anything about spending time in Bangkok. I respect his staying in the closet and told him that we are all sinners. Dieter had been traveling the last three years on $250/month to see as much of the world as he could before his immune system crashed. Dice worries that the German could die on this trek.

“It’s his choice. Life. Death all the same,” says Dorge.

I tell neither of them of his deadly sickness.

The higher we climb the worst the sun.

Thankfully I have lip balm from Dice and sunblock. Lance’s lips are painfully black and face scorched by the sun. I lend him mine. We stopped for lunch without any shade trees.The ports have rigged a shelter from tarps. The cook has once more provided a huge lunch. I had hoped to lose weight on this trek, but I think I’ve gained a few kilos. Dorge orders us to eat more to have energy. Our bodies are not used to this effort. The porters have been gorging on tsampas, daal bhaat, and Thukpa stew. Eating is the only fuel for our bodies. Our whiskey is finished and I’ve been sober for a few days.

The hippie teahouse trekkers regard us as heretics on the Asia on $5 a day guide book. All in our sherpas and guides and food cost us each $20 a day. Lance and I share our excess food with the children, who trail us from village to village. We only give Dieter food, because his body has been wracked by dysentery. He still refuses to turn back. Yesterday Miriam left him and attached herself to another group of backpackers.

Israelis.

These young men and women exit from their occupation service in Palestine with short hair. Their heads have sprouted Samson locks overnight. None of the teahouses will serve them food or allow them to stay in the rooms The Sherpas can’t stand these long-haired ex-soldiers, saying that they steal and cheat villagers every step of the way like they had invading another country.

Earlier in the year I had read in the International Herald Tribune how Pakistani tribesmen had kidnapped a group of Israeli backpackers. One of them shem broke free, grabbed an AK47 and killed all the militants and a few of his friends.

At the age of 18 they are drafted into the Israeli Army of Occupation Their army time kills their soul and this afternoon as I drank tea one of them came over to demand some.

Fuck off.”

I had heard how the Israelis on this trek all spoke of the Palestinians other than animals. I told this one that was the way the Nazis had spoken of the Jews during the Holocaust. The largest Israeli wanted to fight me. I held a rock in my hand. Lance defused the situation by saying we were all here to be one with the Himalayas.

After the dispute Dorge suggested that we avoid any contact and we let them tramp out of sight.

“Israelis always trouble.” Lance, a New York Jew, agreed and doesn’t have time for the either.

Miriam abandoned them and rejoined Dieter, who has employed one of extra Sherpas to carry his bag. The two of them would be perfectly cast as a gay monk followed by an insane nun in a medieval movie. It has been said that Tolkien’s books had been inspired by the Himalayas.

Miriam attended to Dieter.

It’s time for him to turn around.

He threw up blood.

Miriam is a saint for taking care of him. He is very brave to persist in this trekk. Almost as if will die when we reach Langtang Glacier.

Miriam kissed me after lunch behind a prayer wall.

“Thank you for taking care of Dieter.”

When we returned to group, the German glanced at my crotch. My zipper was still down. The retired school teacher smiled at me like he wished it had been with him. My left wrist has been broken in a motorcycle crash on the Burma-Thai border. I was lucky to be alive as was Dieter. I had hammered off the cast in a Patpong go-go bar. I lifted my crooked arm. It hadn’t healed yet I and said, “This makes everything harder.”

“So I see. I’m taking your advice. I’m going back down. Miriam is coming with me.”

“I’m glad to see you. Maybe we’ll meet someplace else. Maybe Kathmandu.”

“Vierleicht.”

Lance and I gave them food and we shook hands. Miriam kissed my cheek. Her sweat smelled sweet in the rare air. The three of them walked out of sight followed by a young beggar. That was the last I saw of them.

By Peter | Posted in 90s, Asia, journal, world | Comments (0)

May 30 1992 – Bangkok – Journal

November 10, 2024 – 10:49 am

Two mornings ago I making a call at the overseas phone booth in the Malaysia Hotel. A young bearded man entered the lobby. We had last seen each other in Kathmandu 1990 after a trek to Lantang Glacier. Upon departure westward to Europe I had told Dice, if he was in Bangkok, then you should stay at the Malaysia Hotel and there was a good chance if the Hawaiian did I might be there in May. Dice was a no show in 1991, but here he was now and upon seeing me he called out, “Pascha.”

My Oriental pseudonym.

Dice was just in from Nepal and a long night at the go-go bars. He needed brakfast in the hotel’s restaurant, which offered a restorative American breakfast.

“Then sleep. I’m sending these girls home. They have probably had enough of me. I’ll see you later.”

We rendezvoused that afternoon at Kenny’s Bar on Soi Si Bamphen. We drank on Singhas that day and on the next which was my 40th birthday.

After a few beers at Kenny’s we told some girls we would be back after dinner and wandered over to the Chandrphen Restaurant, a top-notched Chinese chicken restaurant across from the Lumpini Muay Thai boxing stadium, where we finished off a bottle of small bottle of Mekong whiskey. The waiters invited us to a comedy club. I was drunk enough to allow myself to be dragged on stage by a troop of improvisers. They mocked me, but I grabbed the mike. I have no idea what I said, but I thought it was funny the Thai audience laughed at the farang fool.

Finally I was thrown off the stage gently. Todd said, “You’re natural ham.”

We were late for the rendezvous at Kenny’s and rode a tuktuk over to Patpong. Despite being my birthday birthday I wasn’t in the mood for whoring. Maybe Bangkok’s wild fun doesn’t glitter as wickedly coming from Indonesia, instead of New York. Maybe it’s all part my monastic onanism. I had passed through Bangkok three times this trip without bar-fining a single GoGo girl. The old age truck has hit me so hard.

40 and overweight. I don’t know how many more years I’ve got to go. Decades I hope.

No pension plan. No retirement cabin. All I have two written books, a script, 30 or so journals, an East Village apartment, and a crapped out Yamaha 650 on the sidewalk outside on the sidewalk, unless someone had stolen it in my absence.

Of course I also had my fading good looks and by the time I reach California I’m going to be in tip top shape ready for the conquest of the modern world of the West.

As I packed to check out of the Malaysia Hotel, I listened to Velvet Underground on a cassette player. I won’t be coming back here until next year working and the Diamond District from September to January. Any possibility of my earning any cash from writing was probably decades away. My typing sucks and my spelling is worse.

Two days ago I had gone down the victory Square, where hundreds of thousands of young people had been protesting against the military rule for weeks without any violence. The hometown troops would not use violence on their neighbors friends and family. The generals brought in troops from the country. They called the demonstrators communists and gave the order to shoot to kill and the soldiers from Isaan did just that, killing hundreds of their countrymen to prevent democracy. But nightlife in Bangkok stayed the same bastard under the harsh rule of High Society over Low Society.

Today Bangkok remains under martial law.

I’m catching a bus to the South island of Koh Phi Phi. 14 hours overnight.

I wonder when I’ll into into Dice again.

By Peter | Posted in Bangkok, journal, Thailand, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

May 13, 1990 – Langtang Trek, Nepal – Journal Entry

November 10, 2024 – 10:42 am

Previously published May 21, 2023

I wish my camera was functional.

The scenery and people are amazing. I speak with two German trekkers. Dieter is in his 40s. Thin and fit. His hiking partner is Miriam. She has decided to not wear boots and go barefoot like some of our Sherpas. She attacks me for hiring them as slaves.Lance says, “We pay them so they can put food on their families’ tables.”

“I’ve seen where they live. They don’t have tables.”

Lance shook his heads.

Our first stop was a little tea shop with a Coca-Cola flag flying on a pole. Lance and I bought Cokes for everyone. They happily thanked us, then lit up cigarettes, inhaling deeply. Lance and I were still huffing from the lack of oxygen. The Sherpas have The trail climbed along a savage torrent of glacier melt.

This morning Lance and I were passing through a forest of tall plants. The porters were way ahead of us. I stared closer at some flowers. They looked familiar, because they were marijuana. Lance asked if we should take some and I shook my head. The families of this valley lived on less than a $1 a day. When we emerged from the reefer forest, a young boy ran down the slope, shouting, “Hash, hash, hash.”

I was glad to have brought small bills and bought an ounce for $20.

His eyes were crusted due to an infection.

I pulled out my medicine kit. He seemed wary until seeing the Red Cross. I washed away the crud with antiseptic eyedrops. He smiled with gratitude and I filled a small vial for his future use.

“I’m impressed,” said Lance.

My grandfather was a surgeon for the Royal Canadian Medical expedition in World War I.” I doubted any of his knowledge had been passed with genetics, but I was a severe hypochondriac. My paranoia had killed me many time. Never with success.

At the next stop I showed the other two trekkers. Ty Spaulding and I smoke some at lunch. Lance refused, saying he needed his lungs for the next stage. smoker and neither was Ty’s partner.

The hashish was fresh off the bud and strong, but probably not the best idea, since Dorge warned us that we were crossing a landslide after this.

I’m sure he’s right.

He always is.

By Peter | Posted in 90s, Asia, journal | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

May 11, 1990 – Brabal – the Himalayas – Nepal – Journal Entry

November 10, 2024 – 8:24 am

Previously published May 17, 2023

After lunch on the trail I left the stop and continued up the path. The forest is thick and the ascent isn’t too taxing. I’ve been at it for an hour and haven’t seen a single soul. Waiting for the porters, Lance, and Dorge to catch up to me.

Maybe I’ve taken the wrong trail, except I see the bootprints of trekkers. The Sherpas are either in flip flops or barefooted. I had bought our crew sneakers, but they attached them to the loads, wanting to save them for sale back home. I don’t understand a word, but they are carrying heavy packs smoking cigarettes and joking all the time. A cheerful crew.

It’s forty-four kilometers to the Glacier. Thirty miles. We could probably make it in a day on flat grown, but Dorge said the trek will get much steeper tomorrow and no one is in a rush. I like this pace fine.

I wish my camera wasn’t broken.

Altitude – 2100 meters.

By Peter | Posted in 90s, Asia, journal | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)