Episode 12
Back to the World
Our goal. To Shotgun a beercan in Nepal at the highest possible altitude reachable by walking, with no camping and to film and upload it to Goosing the Globe whilst blazing hard the whole way there. This place in Nepal is the Thorung-La Pass the peak point of the famous and wildly popular Annapurna Sanctuary Trek. The Master Shotgunners that undertook this adventure as part of a two month stay in the suburbs of Kathmandu were Captain (my best friend and brother), Sheeva (my girlfriend and love) and your author Jacky-Buddo (Jack Old Man in Nepali). This guide is transcribed from my hand written notes taken every half an hour or so and is only meant to assert strategies for exceptional methods of thinking and action to experience the trail and greater Nepal in a powerful and unique way. Why live in your Lonely Planet, when you can Goose the Globe.
I stole some amazing sandals from the guest house we stayed in because I was extremely upset that our shoes weren’t dry in the morning. They had assured us that leaving them out on the roof overnight would dry them. This was horrifically untrue however I was comfortable enough. We jumped on the extremely crowded bus at 08:00 made a couple of bus changes, be quick with these, it’s a dog eat dog world for seats. We even had to climb over a huge landslide on the road where nothing could get through and get on busses on the other side.
We got to Beni by about 14:00 and after extensive negotiations managed a cab that would take us to our front door in Kathmandu for 9000NPR. 3000NPR each was a small price to pay to take us back to our amazing lives in Kathmandu. We switched cab drivers in Pokhara and were on our way back with an expected time of arrival of 21:00.
We blazed hard in this taxi on our way out of Pokhara elated. We’d gotten away with it! We’d crossed the pass. These feelings soon took a back seat as night fell. I’ve driven in a lot of awful and terrifying situations the way I usually think about it is that I’m willing to die to get to where I’m going but this became a very real feeling in this cab speeding along in the darkness on these tiny roads. I started to imagine that our driver was part of some secret society that times how quickly they can make the journey from Pokhara to Kathmandu. I started to hope that I’d be killed instantly in a crash, or hopefully be thrown from the wreckage such that I could bleed out quietly as I sailed over the cliffs by the side of the river which would break my fall. It was truly terrifying. So much so that Captain, sitting in front, even put his seatbelt on! I did switch to oxygen for a bit at that point.
Eventually though I came to some sort of understanding with my fear, Sheeva was terrified also but came to this place too, and we managed to relax a bit. There was no way however that I would take my eyes off the road. We were at the Karlunki bus park in 4 hours 20mins (I know awesome right) and arranged for our brother to take us all the way to our door in the suburbs of Kathmandu, another half hour on the journey.
When we got to the Balkot it was asleep. Everyone in the Kathmandu suburbs is in bed by 20:30 just about every day, if they’re not in bed they’re at least not outside. You must live in the day. We let ourselves into our amazing fortress feeling elated. Now we’d truly succeeded in our quest to Goose and cross one of the worlds highest passes. Highest Goose going. And better still when we got back, we still had mad stash (we couldn’t even finish it in the week we remained in the Kathmandu) and the power was on.
Goose On.
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