Chomolungma Sings the Blues: Travels Round Everest (Travel Literature) [Hardcover]

This is the most wonderful book I have read on Chomolungma (Everest). You will discover why he didn't call it by the other Nepalese name, Sagamartha. Douglas is a mountaineer, though he admits he does not really understand the compulsion to climb Everest, and he says towards the end of the book that he never could climb it because he does not want to enough. This book is sensitive, respectful and self-effacing. Its purpose is serious - to really discover something about the cultural impact of the trekking and mountaineering industries on the people and environment of the Everest area.

Along the way, Douglas makes some insightful observations about the role of governments, the impact of non-government organisations and the activities of some of the successful business - people - Nepalese, sometimes Sherpa, all involved in the Everest industry. In all three instances he shows us the sometimes misguided, sometimes successful and sometimes outright fraudulent efforts.

At all times Douglas remains thoroughly respectful of the Nepalese (and in the first chapter Tibetan) people, despite also being able to show us the cultural and political warts. Whilst having a few harsh judgements about some trekkers and some mountaineers, he also manages to treat them fairly and - no mean feat at times. Perhaps, however, he is hardest of all on climbers: "...there are so many other climbers whose photographs of locals punctuated their articles and lectures to break up all those shots showing what heroes they'd been with a little local culture. Anthropologists and environmentalists must have a strong suspicion that most climbers and trekkers see local people as a human backdrop to their adventures. I almost admired the climber who told me that if he could go to the mountain in a bubble to avoid disease and arguments with porters, he would. At least he was being honest."

Douglas writes movingly of the unrecognised and mostly unheard about porters who have been the casualties of the industry - ill-clad and ill-equipped, some have been turned out by expeditions and left to fend for themselves when things have got sticky. There are generally no helicopter rescues for the porters. Douglas calls this "moral squalor". The myriad cut-price trekking companies pay cut-throat rates and fail to equip these workers well. On the other hand, Douglas shows how portering is integral to the local economy, and quotes statistics debunking the view that permanent physical damage is the result of portering.

After you have read Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air', and Boukreev's 'The Climb' and the other expedition journals and diaries, and coffee table books about Everest, turn to this one to find out about the people and the impact on their lives. This book also reads as a travelogue, as it recounts, in the main, Douglas's own trekking experience in the spring of 1996. He encounters along the way many of the groups that became caught up in the storms and tragedies of May 10 1996, including Scott Fisher's group and David Breashear's IMAX film team. Some of the descriptive passages are wonderful word pictures. I had a real sense of what it is like at the top of Kala Patta and Gokyo Ri, for example.

Some passages that particularly spoke to me (you will surely discover others):

"Professional climbers earn their living describing their own achievements, while those with a more long-term or scientific purpose can claim some benefit to mankind other than the realisation of ambition. It was clear, however, that they were prone to the same jealousies and quarrels."

"The truth has to be faced that guides have treated the mountain as a resource, just as the Nepalese authorities have. It's a way to cash in on the regular flow of books and films about Everest, a package deal to the roof of the world for anyone with enough money and an excess of self-confidence. As for the motivation of people who are prepared to spend a small fortune for a chance to be pulled up Everest, I can only guess. If it is to impress, then the huge resources and assistance required to get them to the top should temper their sense of achievement. If it is for a love of adventure, then they probably ger more than they bargain for. But then why climb Everest at all? That's the hardest thing to explain. That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question."