"Attack of the Tiny Monsters"

Unexpected horrors of a diminutive size await two trekkers in the middle of the night on the Annapurna Sanctuary Trek....

Karen holding a roll of toilet paper and electrolytes as she navigates her latest travel challenge.

            My rumbling, angry gut wakes me during deep sleep. Vomiting is imminent. After a few bleary seconds, I recall that I’m in my Spartan guesthouse room, in the middle of this moonless night. I’m here for my bid to complete the Annapurna Sanctuary Trek out of Pokhara, Nepal.  Guesthouses have no electrical power or running water.  I carry a flashlight with me for the darkness.

            “Hurry!” shriek my intestines. This gut conversation is too familiar. I’ve had countless Giardia mishaps during my years of world travel. Developing countries with dodgy sanitary conditions and equally dodgy water quality present a high risk for these pesky intestinal parasites. The evil little critters have found me again. Grabbing my flashlight, I frantically scramble to find my trekking boots and socks.

            Hearing a new sound, my sleepy brain registers rain pattering on the roof. Finding my rain jacket, I hurriedly stuff my arms into the sleeves. I’ll be getting wet, but being soaked on this hurried trip to the outdoor toilet is the least of my problems.

            My mind scrabbles to organize what I’m doing. Think, Karen. The toilet is downstairs and outside. You’re on the second floor. Those stair steps were dodgy earlier. Now they will be dark as well as wet.

Ok, then. Rapidly sorting through the essentials, I skip the socks.  Reaching for my heavy trekking boots, I shove my toasty feet into the cold leather. Stuffing the long shoestrings into the boots, I notice that the rain smells fresh and sweet but these boots smell like years of my crusted, dried sweat. 

            My trekking partner and I are on day 2 of this 12 day trek. I’m whipped from yesterday’s long taxi ride and a 6 hour hike at altitude while carrying a 60-pound backpack. These legs do the best they can, as I limp to open the door and light my way to the wooden staircase. 

Watch it. Go slowly and don’t fall.

            Luckily, the rain drizzle is a mild temperature. At least I have a handrail for the steps unlike the notched log I have had at other hostels on Nepal treks. Notched log stairways are an accident waiting to happen for a tired trekker.

            As I navigate downward, I see a light near the toilet in the darkness.  My goal is making it to the one and only toilet for this guesthouse.   

            Why is there a light? Who is that with a flashlight?

Beth–my cohort in this adventure–and I had trained hard for this high altitude trek.  Close friends because of our respective fitness businesses, Beth wanted a savvy woman with trekking experience in Nepal to try for the Annapurna Sanctuary. Since I had completed the Annapurna Circuit, Gokyo Ri and Everest Base Camp Treks, she asked me. I like Beth. I figured she would be an easy travel partner, which she has been so far for the flights from the U.S. to Kathmandu, Nepal, then onward to Pokhara.

            Beth is half my age and has dark hair like mine.  I’m around 53 years old and she is around 32.  We are often guessed to be mother and daughter.  Such comments make us laugh but we don’t mind the connection.  We have that kind of a relationship.

            As I step off the bottom of the staircase, I see Beth with her flashlight slouched against the toilet door which is my personal and immediate objective.  We have a bit of cover from the rain with an overhanging roof.

             “Hey,” I ask. “What’s going on?” 

            “I’m dying,” she mutters.  

At any other time I would be worried about her.  I’m not.  I want to use the only frickin’ toilet. 

            She steps back, silently giving me permission to race into the squat toilet.  It is my Holy Grail.  I made it.  In time.

            The squat toilet we use is a large porcelain bowl installed into the wood floor with foot grips on either side of the open hole. There is nothing to hold onto for balance, ergo, the “squat” name and body position. We expected squat toilets on this trip. From previous trips to Nepal, we are both accustomed to squat toilets.  We both know how to use the nearby bucket of water for flushing and the water faucet for refilling the bucket. In even more remote areas that do not see foreign trekkers, a rough hole of proper diameter is cut into the wooden floor with no suggestion of where to place the feet. With nothing nearby for balance, you figure out where to stand, although previous visitors with bad aim do complicate foot placement in nasty ways. Strong leg muscles are helpful. 

Slipping and falling onto the foul floor is bad form.

Compounding the strong legs and balance needed in the toilet are the realities that since toilet paper is not available in any guest houses on the trek a) toilet paper is worth gold so we bring our own. b) when we bring our own there is no clean place to hang it nor a shelf upon which to place it. c) we must manage holding the roll of tissue, pulling up our clothing and balancing at a plie while we hold back the nausea. d) quite often in the drama of the moment, one drops the roll to see it disappear  into the distance, unrolling on the concrete floor. 

Splattering is also involved but I can’t worry about that now.

  As for the fragrance in this squat toilet, we are fortunate that the nearby bar of soap is flowery fragranced. Remembering horrific rural toilets from other treks, my heart and nose are happy for the clean condition of this hostel’s Holy Grail.

            Stepping out of the toilet, I feel heaps better. Your good feelings will be brief, I tell myself as memories of past gut episodes flood my mind.

            Beth is anxiously waiting for her turn.  

"What do you think this is?" I ask as she steps out. "And to both of us?"

            “I don’t know but this is terrible.”

            “How many trips for you so far?”

            “No idea. You?”

“My first. How the heck could we both be sick?”

            "No idea.” She emphasizes the “no.”

            “I’m just going to hang out down here.”

            “Sounds good.”

We are way too gutted to carry on any intelligent conversation. Nausea and diarrhea do that. I’m always amazed that I can forget the disemboweling stomach distress when, on a new adventure, I feel immortal and I skip blissfully around.  Then, POW!  All the memories rush back with the next inevitable retching and heaving after eating the wrong thing.  Days later, we would figure out that we both had eaten rice pudding made with tainted water buffalo milk.

Under our bit of roof, we stay mostly dry and silently wait for the next wave of this mystery plague. This night’s quiet darkness is soothing. We whisper because the staff, our guide and a recent arrival of Chinese trekkers are all asleep upstairs.  We both thought this was as bad as it was going to be: no sleep, gut distress, vomiting, and diarrhea.

            Back in the planning stage of this trip, the dates we chose for travel had indicated leech season.  Because of the territory and elevation, I hadn’t seen leeches in my earlier Himalayan treks.  Beth and I saw the leech information in our research but thought, “How bad could the leeches be?” We shrugged it off as unimportant.

            We would come to regret that.

            Earlier today, I found my first leech, wet and bloated. Feeling something tickle my skin, I wiped across the back of my neck. I pulled my hand away and on my bloody fingers was a smashed little corpse. I was grossed out to find something feeding on me without my permission. I take that kind of thing personally. 

            Growing up in the heat and humidity of the American Midwest has given me plenty of icky experiences with ticks, chiggers, mosquitos, biting deer flies, huge horse flies and ground hornets. Midwesterners love arguing about which bite is worse.  All those bites are bad. I’ve also seen 14 inch long leeches in Colorado ponds so I had thought while planning this trip, Hey, at least I’ll be able to see a leech coming from a mile away.

            We wearily lean against the guesthouse wall, in awkward silence, waiting out our personal gut symphonies and who would next step into the toilet.  I’ve no idea what time of night it is. 

            Time drags when you’re not having fun.

            At some point in the endless waiting, Beth asks, “What is that?”

            “Where?”

Karen finds leech #1 after their first day of trekking. She's still in good spirits thinking that this is the last of the leeches and their troubles...

            “There.” I watch as she tries to steady her light on something on the concrete surface.  Darting my beam of light around to join hers, I see a small, small something that looks different from the dirt. When I peer closely, it is moving. First, it is about half an inch long, and then it is a dot. Then half an inch, then the dot.

            I’ve no idea what this is. It is difficult to see and follow. We deduce we are seeing our first live, moving leech, out on its own holiday. And it wants to picnic on us.

            We watch for a while, amazed at how fast it is closing in on our feet. While  vomiting and diarrhea are our realities, our bodies are emitting heat.  Leeches are drawn to heat, which indicates a tasty meal of warm, delicious blood.

            Nepal’s leeches are notoriously difficult to see and as difficult to feel. Leeches’ saliva has anticoagulant properties to increase blood flow and maximize the sucking on their prey.

            Leech families probably tell outrageous stories about their day and their victims. “Yeah, honey. It wore a bathing suit and I invited everybody I knew. We had an epic time until the twins, little Bertha and Clyde, got sat on and were squished.” 

As I watch this tiny thing inch toward my hot body for its midnight snack, I think, Just step on it. Not a big deal. I regularly step on bugs back home which usually works.  I aim a boot stomp with deadly power and force. Then I check the bottom of my massive rubber boot sole and see no dead leech. Where is the body? No way! The leech is still alive on my boot sole. It must have fit into one of the grooved grids of my boot. 

Did it do that on purpose or was it an accident? Am I dealing with a sentient being?! 

            Putting my booted foot back down, I see the same leech has climbed upward and is on the side of my trekking boot, humping its arching movement steadily upward to my bare ankle faster than I can believe. 

            Without thinking, I perform an aerial ballet and finger flick that sucker off, cursing, before landing on both feet. I award myself an Olympic 10 for sticking my landing. Beth is speechless (perhaps envious of my skyward launch) because we have been told that the leeches are OUT IN THE GRASS of the surrounding meadows, NOT on the dirt area near the guest house. I’ll bet the staff had a good laugh.

            “Guess what we told the Americans? And they bought it!” 

            Of course, during our separate Leech Dances with the Monsters of Blood, our waves of nausea and diarrhea persist. Beth and I amuse ourselves by counting the icky things because more and more are appearing.  The leech telegraph is in full operational mode.

Through imagination and resourcefulness, we are able to kill the tiny titans but we have to be canny about the kill.  During this dizzying melee, on one visit to the toilet,

I spy leech #15 climbing up out of the toilet towards me. How the heck did it get in there? I toss a second bucket of water down the hole sending it to Davy Jones’s Leech Locker. 

            When not admiring my evasive maneuvers, Beth is spotlighting her own incoming Lilliputian Army. As we independently scan and guard our territory, our two flashlights light up the darkness like carnival spotlights to all the leech kids in town to come have a “swell” time. I imagine the diminutive monsters recognize the flailing of the lights and are streaming in, hoping for a thorough blood sucking.

            The night blurs with intermittent, whispered shrieks of “I can’t believe how fast they are!” and “Get that one!” and an occasional “Die, you sucker!”

            Time blurs. 

            Beth and I are weary, weary.  Our legs are sagging from stomping.

            We are dehydrated. 

            We eventually run out of all body fluids. 

            We can no longer honor the Holy Grail squat toilet with our offerings. 

            We are empty vessels, gut ravaged in our all-nighter while the surviving leeches are enjoying their Super Bowl win.

            Trudging upstairs to our sleeping quarters, we fall into bed, battle weary and war torn.  We have lost the battle with the tiny blood suckers.  We realize all too keenly that our Annapurna Trek attempt is over.  We haven’t the time to recover from the food poisoning and dehydration, finish the trek and return in time for our flight home.  

            We lost the battle to the tiny creatures with jaws from Hell.  

As I fall asleep, I imagine the Lilliputian leech families celebrating with their engorged guts (while ours are so empty).  Are they cheering with tiny pompoms and victory chants? Are they also mourning their soldiers who fell on the battlefield with tiny crosses? 

            It is a clear win for the leeches, 1:0.

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Copyright 2021 Karen Custer Thurston

*This story won the Bronze Award in the

2024 Travelers Tales' Solas Awards "Funny Travel" category

Photo Credits:

Photo #1: Rachel Sarah Thurston

Photo #2: Beth S.