Monday, April 21
Big Mick Gatto and his mates sat cross-legged in Muktinath, the highest point in the Hindu faith, and gazed across the Annapurna Ranges in search of the Opes Prime booty.
Our impulse to flee subsided as we noticed that Big Mick and his mates were clearly sincere - they'd go up Everest, if necessary - in their pursuit of the lost millions of Chris Murphy and so many upright Australians.
Big Mick had gone a bit native, I felt: he sported a Hindu dot on his forehead and seemed to be chanting a Buddhist mantra. Indeed, his little gaggle of thugs even wore saffron robes; one had a fetching No.1 haircut.
It was a sight to restore faith in humanity. To think that these boys, who not so long ago were "closely connected with the Melbourne underbelly", had come all this way on behalf of their Aussie clients. They had circumvented the liquidators, the various tribunals and high-placed legal bores in a break-neck race to find the lost fortunes of so many fine, upstanding Australian losers, of whom Murphy was simply the most spectacular.
It was enough to make one weep for the return of the good old Aussie traditions of Vinegar Hill, the Rum Rebellion and Irish-Italian standover men.
And as the Phantom Daytraders spilled onto that holy plateau, we shared a sense of something like kinship with the Gatto Mob, these modern Robin Hoods.
But we were there to examine Nepal's emerging market opportunities. In that capacity we approached The Presence, and sat for a while by Big Mick's knees, honoured to receive an audience with the great man.
Tuesday, April 22
We were still sitting there on the balcony of the Bob Marley Inn sharing a pipe of orange leaf tobacco when suddenly there appeared on the threshold of the precipice a strangely familiar figure.
He was being pushed along in a wheelchair by an utterly exhausted sherpa. And as sherpa and patient drew closer, Yogi, our senior chartist, shouted: "Hey fellas, look. It's Christopher Skase."
I thought I was suffering from severe altitude sickness. I rubbed my eyes. Indeed it was. After all these years: Skase. Alive.
"Chris," shouted FastCash, our senior researcher, who raced over to arraign the disabled. "Where's our money?" (We had indeed lost a small fortune - about $202.11 - in Skase's ventures in the 1980s when we were 10 years old.).
Skase turned and glared: "I don't know what you're bloody talking about. My name is Toucan. Sam Toucan. I have business here with Mr Gatto. So would you boys mind getting out of my face … ?"
As the invalid rolled forward, Gatto's thugs parted and the charmed circle closed. We were excluded from the heavy events within.
At this point I suggested a toboggan ride on a little stretch of snow by the inn; none partook. So we sat sharing a pipe of rosehip, discussing the emerging market possibilities inherent in Nepalese yak hoods.
Wednesday, April 23
We were joined in our reverie by a few Poles, a Pom, a Swede and an American. I have no recollection of their names, investment styles or sexual orientations.
The rosehip and altitude and Tuborg played havoc with the mental synapses so vital to normal human discourse, and soon we were all babbling away about trekking gear.
The American was immensely proud of his North Face full-length blizzard suit, in which he preened and strutted about like a kind of flamingo about to be slaughtered by predatory cheetahs; the Pom clearly regarded herself as slightly superior in her Patagonia trekkie pants.
Yogi tried to sing the praises of his shaggy old yak hood, a business in which we'd already invested some $2002.12. But nobody paid the slightest attention.
Uninterested in such things, I engaged the Swede - a decidedly opportune young Lappish amalgamation of Ingrid Bergman and that Icelandic singer (Biorn? Bioorg? Bogo?) - who repaid my attentions with an immensely tedious story about the Lapp Keg-tossing Festival, an annual event in which her brother Larsson was last year's champion.
"Larsson is a very big keg tosser," she raved, as I nodded off into my Tuborg.
Thursday, April 24
We rose at the crack and got down to business. We were determined to find an emerging market … somewhere.
Then the news came in of the global inflationary surge, record oil prices, US-Aussie dollar near-parity, the Japanese butter drought and 1929 economic conditions in America. A general gloom fell over the mountains. What next? Soup kitchens in Muktinath?
Anzac Day
"… At the going down of the sun / And in the morning / We shall remember them …"
Yogi finished the Ode and a young sherpa attempted Last Post on his yak horn. It was a fitting tribute at 4100 metres to the fallen. Mick and his thugs broke up their negotiations to join the ceremony, and we prepared to descend.
