AT 5:30 P.M. on our last day, dusk falling, we reach the trail end to discover that there's another transportation strike on. The Chinese find taxis willing to cross the picket lines and take them back to the big city for at least five times the normal price, but there's no space for the rest of us, and the Chinese don't offer to pay for another. Instead, they give Shiva an extra dollar or so for each porter for lodging, thank him profusely, and hand over $120.87 to the taxi drivers with their shit-eating grins. They have just paid more than Kharkhar's yearly rent to reach hot showers tonight.

But wait, maybe the tips were good.

"So, how were they?" I ask.

"Two hundred fifty rupees," Kharkhar says—the equivalent of $3.78.

I don't get it. Two hundred fifty rupees per person per day?

"Two hundred fifty rupees per person total."

"What?"

"It's good? It's not good?" Kharkhar asks, genuinely curious.

"It's terrible!" I yell in English, my Nepali momentarily gone.

"Sometimes 1,000, sometimes one, sometimes none," he says. "You never know."

"That's terrible!" I scream again, throwing my hands toward the ground.

He looks at me, unflustered, and says something so ingrained he can speak the words in English: "It's our duty."