KHARKHAR SEEMS happy as we set off the next morning down what looks like a cliff-face sluiceway. "Oh, it's slippery, sir. Yup, definitely slippery. I think we need to walk over here, sir," he rattles on jovially.

"Sir? What happened to 'little brother?'" I ask.

Kharkhar swears the change was unintentional.

My lips about to bleed from sunburn, I buy a tin of balm with three miles and some 1,500 feet upvalley remaining. The shopkeeper smiles and asks whether, instead of doing the legitimate work of portering, I'm carrying a basket of oranges to all the girls in the mountains. "You're a pretty girl," Kharkhar teases as I spread the goop on like lipstick.

"Ohhh, Gopal brother," I say, "give me one of your bags."

With the additional 20 pounds, some 45 total, I can't lift my basket from a sitting position. Ten minutes later, I have an ice cream headache that will last all day, and five minutes after that, slipping and sliding every third step, I'm not sure I can go on.

"Ohhh, Gopal brother, stop for a quick rest?"

"Just there," he utters from behind, "over that little hill."

I have yet to see him refuse a rest.

We slowly ascend 40—40!—more minutes without stopping, the naamlo piano wire threatening to slice my cranium in two. My calves are punched, popped, and when we finally rest, icy sweat slathers my back. Gopal and Kharkhar haven't even doffed their fleeces.

I get up first. All right, boys, I think, I'm going! But of course they're right on my heels. I try to hold some of the weight with my arms, and do for a while, but, cocked at such an acute angle, my elbows feel like they're going to explode. I'm tempted to lean forward and tuck my head, in hopes that the basket will rest on my back, but this only crimps my esophagus and leads to asthmatic wheezing. With each step I grow not sullen, not whiny, but downright angry. We catch two of the Chinese. When they don't notice I'm carrying their stuff, I want to yell, "Hey, I'm carrying your goddamn electric toothbrushes!"

A couple of minutes from lunch, we pass a group of porters coming the other direction, and, far from the jokey cries of village children and lazy men, they are silent. Stunned silent, I like to think.

"He's ours," Gopal says, and while he's still joking—they've got the rich white guy carrying their loads!—I can also tell they're proud. And this makes me proud.

Not that I fancy myself anything other than a crazy tourist who has made some good friends. I could probably train to carry heavy loads like them, could learn how to suffer well by suffering often, but by then, there's no way I'd still be cracking penis jokes. I'd be bitter. Shivering through the night, waiting for a late meal, huffing up the trail, pandering to spoiled clients—the indignity would drive me nuts. Just to be a good dude while acting as a human mule requires some sort of nobility of spirit that I'm not sure I possess.