Monday, April 7
WE WERE not at all surprised to meet our first yak halfway up Ghorapani: Nepal is, after all, the home of the yak.
They were rather plump yaks, and clearly edible. It was most encouraging.
Our Emerging Market inspection tour of Nepal has got off to a very promising start.
The question of whether Nepalese yaks were exposed to the subprime mortgage crisis occupied the thoughts of Yogi, our senior chartist:
"What if the credit crunch denies the yak herds' access to development loans on the international micro-financial markets?" he asked, as we trekked towards Poon Hill. "What if they were unable to expand their yak grazing grounds?"
We trekked in silence, pondering the fate of these great, shaggy, horned beasts.
We spent the first night in a village called Tikhedhunga. Our guide, Sherpa Flensing, unfortunately collapsed from acute alcoholic poisoning, so we got a new one, Sherpa Dave. He called himself Dave because he had once met "a great Aussie bloke called Dave".
Tuesday, April 8
Sherpa Dave proved to be an extremely efficient young man, with an "impressive skill set", said Doomsday, our bear market analyst.
Not only is Sherpa Dave a black belt in karate, a traditional Nepalese dance expert, a champion mountaineer and a superb dal baht chef … he's also a yak whisperer.
We observed him at his craft. He sort of leans in close to the beast and mumbles something in the animal's ear. It sounded like "Om mani padme hum", the Buddhist mantra.
None of this had anything to do with our quest to find an Emerging Market.
We rose and shone and resumed our trek to the summit, which we reached this afternoon. Several menacing Maoist symbols were scrawled on the walls of the sky-blue resort town of Ghorapani.
It seemed no one had bothered to alert them to Mao's awful decline into a salivating old brute prior to death; nor were they aware of the complete collapse of Soviet communism.
Yogi made it his duty to disabuse our Nepalese Maoist mates of their delusions. "Friends!" he cried, standing in the village square. "I come in peace! Mao is dead! Come out from your hovels and enjoy the triumph of capitalism!" etc.
Nobody paid him any attention - Yogi tends to overdo his town crier impersonation - and Sherpa Dave led us to the Sunny View Resort.
Wednesday, April 9
I woke with vague memories. It seemed we had got it into our heads last night to dance in the traditional style. This involved making a triangle with your hands over your head and bowing to your neighbour, while administering a Cossack-style kick (preferably not at your neighbour).
Quite why we engaged in this pursuit when several day traders had hoped to spend the evening examining the trekker turnover in order to gauge the likely cash flow of Nepalese tourism escaped me.
Needless to say, we were a deeply disturbing sight on the dance floor and woke with very sore shins.
Today we resolved to find some solid investments in the Annapurna foothills. One thing I will say about the Nepalese Emerging Market: it certainly is Emerging.
"Yeah Bone … emerging from the bloody Mesozoic!" said Doomsday, unkindly.
FastCash, our head of research, trekked on ahead, like a forward scout, scanning the horizon for signs of entrepreneurial activity.
He did a "Cooeee!" across the ranges. Several "Cooeees" came back, in French, Nepalese and Japanese. I hadn't realised the ubiquity of the Australian mating call. Or perhaps the echoes were multilingual? Suddenly a giant yak about three metres tall hove into view. Continued…
