trekking

I'm really glad I got out a trekking book. It's got lots of helpful suggestions, like bring over your own dried fruit and the bus from Delhi to the hill station is three days long. My favorite quote, though, is from the description of the trek through Markha Valley: "If camping, bring a supply of food, a stove, and sufficient kerosene for the entire trek."

If camping, what a beautiful phrase. I was hesitant to buy a trekking book because I was afraid I'd find out that trekking in India means something much more hardcore than I'm capable of. But good news: trek does not equal overnight hiking with a tent and some yak butter tea. (I've had yak butter tea. If I have to drink yak butter tea on a hike in the mountains after a night of sleeping on the ground and probably freezing my ass off, I just know I'm going to cry. And after all the smack I talk that would be poor form.) Trek means you get your friends together, find a guide, and take a hike. At night, you stop by a guesthouse, or you camp in a tent. Then you get to see things like this:

And this:

Sure, you have to deal with your backpack and scrapes and sore feet and all the other mountain-climbing stuff. What I mean is: it's still hard. But the trek through Markha Valley has tea stalls and villages that offer soft drinks and accomodations. At the end of the day, you can peel off your socks and get in bed. So good job, Lonely Planet, you've almost escaped the bearer-of-bad-news axing you were going to get for bringing me down with the girl talk.