Lots of people ask me how the Everest trip was. I don’t have a short answer. One word superlatives could just as easily describe an Eric Clapton concert or a cheeseburger.

One thing I have figured out. Nepal is a very strange place.

I went to Australia awhile back and it struck me that after 24 hours in the air, halfway around the world and in the other hemisphere, I was in a country more like the USA than any country on earth. (You might argue about Canada, but a big part of that country speaks French.) I felt a little cheated.

On the other hand, Nepal is every bit as weird as you would expect having traveled that far. Spectacularly so. Now I don’t bring back many things from trips other than photographs.  For the most part you can buy whatever is sold around the world here, and it’s cheaper. And I’ve been really boring in recent posts about wanting to have less stuff. But how can you pass up a yak bell? I bought it in Namche Bazaar. It has an incredibly soft sound that goes so well with the gentle but brutally strong animals that carry the loads on the Himalayan trails. Yaks are the semi-trucks of high altitude. While they appear gentle, they also have large, sharp horns and wide bodies and when you hear the yak bells you quickly find a spot to get small in on the inside of the trail so you don’t accidentally get gored or pushed off the mountain.

I love my yak bell. And I like the metaphor.