The Soundtrack

I hike to be completely surrounded by Nature. To feel the ground beneath my feet, the breeze in my hair. To smell the soil and trees. To see animals, plants, landscapes. And to hear all the sounds created by these things - crunching leaves, swaying trees, chirping birds. In Korea, many people would carry small radios with them as they hiked. I couldn't stand this as it interrupted my own connection with Nature. In Canada, I often see people hiking with their headphones in. While this doesn't affect me directly, I still don't understand it.

All that said, sometimes hiking gets a bit monotonous and Nature's soundtrack seems stuck on repeat. To remedy this on the Annapurna Circuit, Dee and I sent our own avalanche inducing beautiful singing voices echoing through the Himalaya with some of our favourite tunes and others we picked up/made up along the way.

Here is a sampling of our Annapurna Adventure soundtrack:

1. "Un Canadien Errant" - A song about wandering Canadians. While our exile is self-imposed and we are quite removed from the pain of the Rebellions of 1837, the song is about our history as Canadians and describes a sentiment we can certainly understand. (Video complete with cheesy clips from One Week starring Pacey from Dawson's Creek.)

2. Frank Sinatra "My Way" - After a particularly frustrating day when I broke my hiking poles, Dee belted out this number to cheer me up. It became our anthem for when things were getting rough.

3. "Frosty the Snowman" - It was Christmas. We were festive. I spent a good portion of Christmas day trying to remember all the lyrics to this song.

4. Bing Crosby, et al. "White Christmas" - While we were sandwiched between Annapurna I and Dhaulagiri on Christmas eve, there was no snow on the ground. On Christmas day, we were actually picking oranges before ending up at a hot spring.

5. John Denver "Annie's Song" - Such an appropriate song for being in Nature.

6. Anything by this band - We were lucky to catch the cover band at Busy Bee in Pokhara twice. With an extensive repertoire and the ability to seamlessly transition from John Mayer to Black Sabbath, we rang in the New Year with these guys.

7. Modest Mouse "Missed the Boat" - The quintessential lost-on-my-travels song. This one came up a lot...

8. R Kelly "I Believe I Can Fly" - Another song for encouragement. It also always reminded me of my family as my cousin Jenny was a Space Jam fan in a BIG way.

9. The Eagles "Hotel California" - During a celebratory night with locals after crossing the pass, the teahouse, which only had two CDs, had this song on repeat.

10. "Resham Firiri" - I first heard this song in Kathmandu and was then taught it by some guides on the trail. I always understood the lyrics as "You are a donkey, I am a monkey" and the guides never corrected me. A quick Google search of "donkey/monkey song nepal" later confirmed that I am not the only person who has misheard the words of this old traditional song as such.

We also wrote a number of Dee and Colleen originals as we trekked - most of mine involved what I was planning to have for dinner that night. I'll post these when we sign the record deal and record our "Sounds of Nepal" album.