PREMISE
It's the story, not the teller.
Stephen King
This story does not pretend to be useful to those who may decide to go to the Langtang Valley, there is no shortage of useful information on the web. This story does however pretend to be original, not the usual flood of fish-eye videos from GoPros and action cams, not the chattering chatter of those who film themselves with their arms outstretched against the white backdrops of the Himalayan peaks and Tibetan suspension bridges, not the worn-out egotism of those who, while taking a photo of Everest saying how beautiful it is, actually take a photo saying how beautiful their own belly button is.
The story is accompanied by images and videos but they are only ancillary furnishings, the text prevails over everything, in my story the words and their evocative power count. I wanted to tell a story made of stories. I told my experience with the deliberate and arrogant intention of putting aside my ego as an observer, tourist, European hiker to give space to what was around me, to what lived me, and to its dignity. I focused on the evocation more than the description, I deliberately avoided imaginative adjectives and absolute superlatives. As for me, the text is completely absent from that treacherous and disgusting and vulgar word that in dictionaries corresponds to the lexeme 'I'. G.M.