Fully Loaded

There's a term for the goods sold in the Thamel district of Kathmandu, Nepal: North Fake. This refers to the plethora of knock-off outdoors gear lining the walls of shops in the area; almost all it has a North Face logo adorning the breast. We've discovered that even within this world of forgeries there's many shades of gray. Much of the fakes are junk, but some of the knock-offs are of surprisingly high quality and Thamel has a reputation for being a fantastic place to buy shirts, fleeces, pants, hats, gloves, backpacks--basically, everything except footwear.

Jillian and I have spent the last two days stocking up. Unlike most trekkers, who fly into Kathmandu with most of their gear already in hand, we just couldn't travel around Asia with down jackets and hiking poles. Between purchases and rentals our money has stretched a long way. This morning Jillian bought a yak wool winter hat with ear flaps, totally cute, for three bucks. And I added to to my layering by picking up a North Fake fleece for four dollars.

Tomorrow we head to central Nepal to tackle the Annapurna Circuit, a 180-mile trek around some of the tallest peaks in the world. It should take us anywhere from 15 to 20 days and it's what's called a teahouse trek: rather than camping along the trail, we'll be staying in little guesthouses that have sprung up offering ultra cheap lodging and food. The circuit culminates at Thorung La (pass) at an elevation of 17,700 feet, which we should (weather permitting) be passing through about ten days into the trip. In addition to all the gear we picked up in Kathmandu, we also purchased the recommended amount of altitude sickness pills.

Great fakes, as far as the eye can see

We're really excited about getting out into nature for a few weeks after so much urban hustle and bustle. Already, after a couple of days in Kathmandu, we're feeling significantly more relaxed than we felt in India. Appropriately, our final day in India was spent on an unbelievably dirty bus (we were sitting in a pile of dust in the back) on horrible roads. 180 miles, 11 hours. Kill me.

Northern India was just crazy. I don't want to beat a dead cow on this, but the sensory overload (oh, the smell of cow crap!) was unstoppable. I kept thinking (perhaps dumbly) of Phil Spector's "wall of sound" from the 1960's in which a full orchestra sound was able to be transmitted over AM radio. India is a "wall of stimulation." It all hits you at the same time. For me the whole experience calls to mind the title of David Foster Wallace's story of his time on a cruise ship: "A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again."

Annapurna, here we come!