travel photography - women on the trail, Langtang National Park, Nepal

This is a monochrome version of a scan of a color photo taken and printed in 1995.

I have traveled to different countries on this beautiful earth, but none made as much of an impression on me as Nepal. Maybe it was because it was my first journey outside of Europe, a real culture shock - the material poverty on the one hand and the spiritual richness on the other. It was transformational on my view of life.
This photo is from a trek through the Himalayas. I started out with a group but got sick after our first night and felt so weak after the first leg of the trip in the morning that I had to let the group go ahead of me. After a lunch of salty soup I felt a bit better and decided to continue and try to catch up with my group. Most other people in my group had hired a carrier, but I was carrying my backpack on my own. I walked the rest of the afternoon without seeing my group, and in the early evening I found a little lodge where I decided to stay. I woke up early in the morning, ate some breakfast and went on my way (I had a map of the trail which in essence consisted of just one curvy line, with a few lodges or little villages marked on it). After an hour or so and a short climb I came to a house where my group was sitting outside to eat breakfast. I didn't want to stop however, since I was in a rhythm but still far from feeling well, so I figured I'd better go on and let the group catch up with me later. But they never did. I walked alone the next few days surrounded by the majestic mountains of the Himalayas. I don't know where I got the strength because I was sick the whole time, with a heavy upset stomach. Despite that, and knowing it was unwise, I drank the mountain water. I wanted to take it all in, literally and figuratively. Towards the highest point of my trek I passed the three women from the photo. All supplies need to be carried up the mountain trail. I felt guilty because in many cases this included soda bottles for the tourist hikers like me. I didn't drink any soda though, whenever I stayed at a lodge I drank the local teas. At the highest elevation of the trail where we were supposed to stay for a day, the group finally caught up with me, but stayed in a different house. Being the solitary person that I am, that was fine with me. And the next day I got up early to start the hike back on my own again. When we all returned to Kathmandu I finally collapsed and spend most of the time in bed in a monastery. I recovered just enough to take the plane home a few days later, but needed a few weeks at home to regain my strength.

The series that this is photo is part of was shot with a Canon AE-1 on 35mm color film. The negatives were developed in 1995 and printed; those original photos have faded a little bit. I scanned the photos last year on a regular office scanner. So overall the quality is not great, and I didn't attempt any touch-up or remove dust and lint because that to me is the charm of this whole series.

The color scan can be viewed in the Langtang National Park series on my website.

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