Departures - Delhi, India

My bags were packed, but I wasn't ready to go. The sweat dripped down my spine, lingering, before soaking into the mattress. I hated it. I loved it. In 3 hours time I would be leaving this complex maze of a country - India, and I didn't want to go. 

Sleep evaded me as I realized I was resigned to my fate. Soon, India would fade into the backlog of my mind, and be just that, a memory.

With a heavy foot, I walked out the door, down the stairs, and into the misty streets of the capital city. I walked by the dozens and dozens of bodies sleeping on the pavement, and heard the not so distant scowl of a pack of dogs, even more territorial at this early hour. I looked for a stick to prepare myself for one last battle. The dogs with their ribs protruding, lunged at me from the shadows. Each step closer meant another pack of dogs, another challenge. I felt like I was walking to my death. 

Or perhaps, I was just being melodramatic. 

I got to a clearing looking for transport. The taxi wallahs sleep in their vehicles, I just needed to wake one up. A man quite eager to make 300 rupees, showed me to his cab. Again, I stepped through the trash, around the cows, and kept my stick in hand, ready for attack. A man came from behind, grabbing my bag, begging, no demanding rupees from me. His breath smelled of fermented dog shit. I still had my stick. My driver came 'round, shoving him away. Delhi, had almost got the best of me. Almost. My driver flew past red lights, at 80mph, eventually landing me at the airport. I had made it, just barely.

My clothing stuck to my sweaty body. The dust, grit and grime from 7 months of travel through Asia remained under my finger nails. I slung my backpack on, and walked away from this beautiful, infuriating, amazing, incredible continent. 

Definitely not for the last time.

Ego at 16400 Feet - Stok Kangri, Ladakh, India

I had a 25Kg monkey on my back and I wanted it off. 

Our objective loomed above us, dominating the skyline, beckoning Richard and I nearer. At 6130 meters (20, 112 feet) Stok Kangri was the highest peak in the area. According to the Indian Mountaineering Federation our target was merely a high altitude ‘walk in the park.’ Our journey began in the town of Stok at an elevation of 3600 meters. Feeling confident, fit and limber we shunned the use of donkeys and packhorses and starting walking up. 

And up. And up. And up.

Unbeknownst to me, the effects of altitude had started to set. As well, with my 25kg backpack progress was slow, incredibly slow. A supposed 4-hour journey turned into a 7-hour affair. We reached Mankarno at 4400 meters, exhausted. An acclimatization camp was set up and a tasteless meal of soggy rice and dhal sent me into a deep, yet restless slumber.

I awoke in my ‘German made’ Indian tent and set myself a goal. I was determined to eat at least a kilogram of food. Surely carrying 24kg, instead of 25kg would give my body the relief it so desperately wanted. I scoured the landscape looking for a donkey, a pony, a packhorse or porter. Anything, I said to myself, that would make the journey to base camp less arduous. Alas, it would be me, myself and I that would carry my bag to base camp at 5000 meters (16, 400 feet).

I felt pathetic.

Walking one hundred meters took about an hour, but I had finally made it to base camp. I hadn’t lost site of our goal of summiting Stok Kangri. We set up our tent and decided on a well-deserved rest day. 

Tomorrow we said, we would get to the top. Tomorrow.

A constant, persistent headache developed. My bowels and stomach felt like erupting – and did. My appetite suffered. And lastly, my emotions became more erratic than a menopausal woman’s. General knowledge of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) dictates that if one develops symptoms of AMS than the only way to relieve it is to descend, descend, descend. But I wasn’t prepared to do that. I popped another Diamox, chugged three litres of water and called it a night. Tomorrow was summit day, and come hell or high water I was getting to the top.

Or so I thought.

I woke up the next morning feeling equally as poorly as the night before. My headache greeted me. My bowels turned inside out. And I was angry. I threw rocks with all my might into a stream, and that made me angry because by the time I was finished I was out of breath. I ran to the shit box and that made me angry, because yet again, I was breathless. I ascended to 5100 meters ‘just to check’ and thought I was about to puke. I came down from the pass even angrier. Richard started planning his summit attempt and that made me filled with rage. My emotions were bewildering me. I didn’t know how to deal with my anger, so I cried, feeling pathetic, alone in my tent. And that too, made me angry.

I didn’t think I had an ego. At least if I do, it’s normally in check, but not at 16, 400 feet. Altitude is a funny, funny game. I was fit. I was healthy. I had the will, the talent and the means, although, my headache persisted. The only obstacle I had was that invisible enemy – altitude. Something that even experts don’t quite understand. With my safety in mind I opted out of the summit attempt, and simultaneously squashed any remaining ego I might have had. Richard made the summit of Stok Kangri. I was still angry. I had judged my self-worth on a mountain and was quelled by uncontrollable circumstances. I was acting bizarre and erratic, not my normal self. I felt defeated and pathetic. It was the altitude. Poor Richard.

I packed up my tent, my 25kg bag, and my ego and put them on a packhorse, leaving Stok Kangri behind. Another time, another time.

- Tossed Sallard-

Glue - Kathmandu, Nepal

I used to sniff glue.

I was 8 years old and intrigued by my Alymer's "super duper fun" purple glue stick. It smelled of grapes. It didn't stop there though. Inquisitively I took my tiny, sticky hands, wrapped them around the tube and begin to twist.

Twist and sniff, twist and sniff, twist and sniff.

But it wasn't enough. I thought if it smells of grapes, looks like the colour of grapes then surely, and without a doubt it must taste like grapes. It didn't. And neither did the next stick. Or the next.

17 years later, at the age of 25, I walked through the streets of Kathmandu.

Kathmandu is filled with smog, cycle rickshaws, pashmina shawl shops, chai wallahs, temples, tourists in barefeet finding their hippy karmic ways, sadhus and babas, a crazy legless man, dozens of urchins offering charas, lsd, cocaine, mushrooms, ganga and the lot, and street kids - over 1200 of them.

We (Richard and I) walked through the dark deserted streets of Thamel, the downtown and main tourist area of Kathmandu. We stepped around sleeping bodies and trash heaps, dodged the one cycle rickshaw vying for our rupees and came crashing into a body. His hands groped our pockets as he head-butted our torsos. He spat out nonsense and as we checked our pockets gave him a swift shove into the shadows. To our left another person appeared out of nowhere, accept it wasn't nowhere, it was a trash heap, piles high, with a little boy covered in it, sleeping - his home for the night. In the commotion we had woken him, and he had come to defend his mate or take us on. We ran around the corner under a street lamp, our pockets still full of rupees.

They, these kids, no more than 10 years old, homeless, parentless, shoeless, and in rags were higher than kites, their hands sticky with glue, and definitely not with the non-toxic, 'super duper purple fun stick' of my youth.

The next day I see excited, happy, boisturous kids. I smiled wandering what they had pilfered. Glue. Their hands, shirts and faces smeared with toxic brain cell killing glue. Happy as hell, and high as kites.

1200 street kids in Kathmandu. 95% sniff glue. I didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do. What can I do?