Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day Read Online Free Page B
Author: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
tremors of 1253, 1259, 1407, 1680, 1810, 1833, 1860, and 1934 knocked down temples and killed tens of thousands. The next quake will be worse. Kathmandu has swelled to a million residents, and most of them live in brick warrens tottering atop shallow foundations. Assessing the risk, the United Nations has waged a campaign to promote earthquake preparedness, but nobody seems flustered. Fatalism is part of Kathmandu’s character.
If driving rules exist in the city, they’re Darwinian. A green light means full speed ahead; a yellow light means full speed ahead; a red light means full speed ahead and honk. Traffic spills into a medieval grid too narrow for the modern world, and no meaningful lines are painted on the road. Seat belts are a novelty, and drivers and pedestrians go wherever they dare, braving a crush of buses, bicycles, cows, chickens, children, dogs, food carts, lepers, motorbikes, peddlers, pilgrims, protesters, rats, rickshaws, sewage, strollers, taxis, trucks, and trash.
A moonscape of brick factories rings the city, and soot thickens the air and congeals in the slits between the tenements. The smog, cupped inside an amphitheater of mountains, rarely disperses from Kathmandu, even at night. The particulate matter in the air almost always exceeds World Health Organization standards , and pedestrians wear surgical masks so they can breathe through the grit that settles in the lungs.
Paradoxically, this polluted city started with a shade tree. According to legend, the Hindu god Gorakhnath, like many modern commuters, didn’t respect the right of way. Racing to a festival, he plowed into a chariot processional, and, to avoid embarrassment, tried to impersonate a human. Fortunately, a responsible bystander made a citizen’s arrest. To post bail, Gorakhnath planted a seed in the mud. It sprouted into a sal tree that grew tall enough to scrape the firmament. A monk felled the tree and used the wood to build Kasthamandap, a three-tiered pavilion. Still standing, it’s one of the world’s oldest wooden structures. Kasthamandap is Kathmandu’s namesake.
In the 1950s, Kathmandu became a launching pad for mountaineering expeditions. Hippies followed in the 1960s, and Freak Street, acrid with incense, remains an asylum for the New Age movement. Tourism makes up a large percentage of Nepal’s economy, and Kathmandu depends on it. Tour guides, prostitutes, drug dealers, and self-appointed messiahs hustle near the city’s Durbar Square seven days a week.
When Chhiring arrived in Kathmandu for the first time, he had never switched on a lightbulb. The teenager settled in Little Tibet, a community of Buddhist refugees who had fled the Chinese invasion in the 1950s. Chhiring’s neighbors helped him adapt to city life, and the nearby Boudhanath stupa gave him a sense of permanence. Considered one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Nepal, Boudhanath is a reliquary buried beneath an enormous mound of soil. The stupa ’s shape symbolizes Mount Meru, the center of the Buddhist cosmos, with its summit in the heavens and its bedrock in hell. As soon as he arrived in Little Tibet, Chhiring joined the crowd of worshippers, pacing clockwise around the stupa in prayer. He repeated the ritual each morning until his uncle found him a portering job that paid $3 a day.
For that job, Chhiring spent a month hauling seventy pounds of kerosene, stoves, and climbing gear to Island Peak, near the base of Everest. The Japanese clients were surprised that a teenager could lug so much up steep trails without complaining, and they praised his upbeat attitude. To Chhiring, these trekkers seemed normal enough—and by the end of the month he had earned $90. Never had he seen so much money.
He spent half his wages on food, shoes, and clothes, which he took to his family in Beding. He returned to Kathmandu a few weeks later to find another job. It wasn’t long before Chhiring was spending six months of the year outside Rolwaling, accepting one
If driving rules exist in the city, they’re Darwinian. A green light means full speed ahead; a yellow light means full speed ahead; a red light means full speed ahead and honk. Traffic spills into a medieval grid too narrow for the modern world, and no meaningful lines are painted on the road. Seat belts are a novelty, and drivers and pedestrians go wherever they dare, braving a crush of buses, bicycles, cows, chickens, children, dogs, food carts, lepers, motorbikes, peddlers, pilgrims, protesters, rats, rickshaws, sewage, strollers, taxis, trucks, and trash.
A moonscape of brick factories rings the city, and soot thickens the air and congeals in the slits between the tenements. The smog, cupped inside an amphitheater of mountains, rarely disperses from Kathmandu, even at night. The particulate matter in the air almost always exceeds World Health Organization standards , and pedestrians wear surgical masks so they can breathe through the grit that settles in the lungs.
Paradoxically, this polluted city started with a shade tree. According to legend, the Hindu god Gorakhnath, like many modern commuters, didn’t respect the right of way. Racing to a festival, he plowed into a chariot processional, and, to avoid embarrassment, tried to impersonate a human. Fortunately, a responsible bystander made a citizen’s arrest. To post bail, Gorakhnath planted a seed in the mud. It sprouted into a sal tree that grew tall enough to scrape the firmament. A monk felled the tree and used the wood to build Kasthamandap, a three-tiered pavilion. Still standing, it’s one of the world’s oldest wooden structures. Kasthamandap is Kathmandu’s namesake.
In the 1950s, Kathmandu became a launching pad for mountaineering expeditions. Hippies followed in the 1960s, and Freak Street, acrid with incense, remains an asylum for the New Age movement. Tourism makes up a large percentage of Nepal’s economy, and Kathmandu depends on it. Tour guides, prostitutes, drug dealers, and self-appointed messiahs hustle near the city’s Durbar Square seven days a week.
When Chhiring arrived in Kathmandu for the first time, he had never switched on a lightbulb. The teenager settled in Little Tibet, a community of Buddhist refugees who had fled the Chinese invasion in the 1950s. Chhiring’s neighbors helped him adapt to city life, and the nearby Boudhanath stupa gave him a sense of permanence. Considered one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Nepal, Boudhanath is a reliquary buried beneath an enormous mound of soil. The stupa ’s shape symbolizes Mount Meru, the center of the Buddhist cosmos, with its summit in the heavens and its bedrock in hell. As soon as he arrived in Little Tibet, Chhiring joined the crowd of worshippers, pacing clockwise around the stupa in prayer. He repeated the ritual each morning until his uncle found him a portering job that paid $3 a day.
For that job, Chhiring spent a month hauling seventy pounds of kerosene, stoves, and climbing gear to Island Peak, near the base of Everest. The Japanese clients were surprised that a teenager could lug so much up steep trails without complaining, and they praised his upbeat attitude. To Chhiring, these trekkers seemed normal enough—and by the end of the month he had earned $90. Never had he seen so much money.
He spent half his wages on food, shoes, and clothes, which he took to his family in Beding. He returned to Kathmandu a few weeks later to find another job. It wasn’t long before Chhiring was spending six months of the year outside Rolwaling, accepting one
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