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Sherpas: Warm, Friendly Living · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the Sherpa. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Didn't I
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Speaker 1: just say Sherpa? No, he said welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: Why would you say welcome to the Sherpa because the
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Speaker 1: Sherpa is a nation of people and also a last
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Speaker 1: name and also an occupation. Yeah, that's pretty good. Well,
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Speaker 1: that's the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
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Speaker 1: as Charles W. Chuck Bryant to ignore Gay Bryant. Yeah, yeah, Chuck,
0:42
Speaker 1: we're talking about sherp today. Yeah. Is it Sharpa or sharps?
0:47
Speaker 1: Have no idea because I see both in this article.
0:49
Speaker 1: I do as well. All right, let's find out, shall we?
0:53
Speaker 1: Everyone will just hold on a second. Are you actually
0:56
Speaker 1: looking this up? Chuck? Most people do this before there
1:00
Speaker 1: hit podcast? Have you have you ever seen Well, I'm
1:04
Speaker 1: sure this won't make it in. You never know, they'll
1:06
Speaker 1: never make it in. Have you ever seen um? Indiana
1:10
Speaker 1: Jones and the Temple of Doom? The first one that
1:13
Speaker 1: was not the first one? Yes, it was that Raiders
1:15
Speaker 1: the Lost Ark was first. That's what I meant. I'm
1:17
Speaker 1: sorry Temple was too. What was they thinking, I don't know.
1:20
Speaker 1: You've seen Raters of the Lost Ark. Yeah, okay, scores
1:23
Speaker 1: of times. So you know when he find he goes
1:26
Speaker 1: to meet Marian for the first time after like ten
1:29
Speaker 1: years after Jiltinger. Yes, the drinking scene. Yes, the guy,
1:35
Speaker 1: the huge guy that Marian is drinking with or I
1:39
Speaker 1: guess in a drinking contest with. It's like they kept
1:42
Speaker 1: hearing me say chuck over and over again. Right, Um,
1:45
Speaker 1: that my friend was was it? I'm pretty sure he
1:50
Speaker 1: looked Mongolian to me. No, they were definitely in like Nepal. Okay, yeah,
1:56
Speaker 1: it's it, even said Nepaul. Remember he flies in the
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Speaker 1: plane a boop, and it's like takes him to Nepal. Yeah,
2:02
Speaker 1: all right, so let's call him a Scherpa. So scher
2:05
Speaker 1: Buzz is plural of Serpa. That's what I thought. I thought,
2:09
Speaker 1: so too. Um. The Srpa people are actually pretty fascinating.
2:14
Speaker 1: They're pretty isolated, um, and they haven't been where they are,
2:18
Speaker 1: which is the base of Mount Everest in the um
2:23
Speaker 1: Solu Kumboo area region of Nepal for more than actually
2:28
Speaker 1: about five years, and when they arrived in the Solo
2:33
Speaker 1: Cumboo region, they found it uninhabited. And the reason why
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Speaker 1: is because the Serpas are pretty much the only people
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Speaker 1: on the planet besides maybe Ethiopian Highlanders or Peruvians in
2:43
Speaker 1: the Andes who could conceivably live in this area because
2:47
Speaker 1: again it's at the foot of Mount Everest. Yes, and
2:51
Speaker 1: we recorded a podcast on Tibetans and altitude sickness, so
2:55
Speaker 1: if you want to know all about that, refer to
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Speaker 1: that podcast. But Josh, you're right. They might grated from
3:01
Speaker 1: Tibet from the province of Calm to the northeast corner
3:05
Speaker 1: of Nepal around the sixteenth century because of warfare. Yeah,
3:09
Speaker 1: and I as I understand, they're very peaceful people, oh
3:13
Speaker 1: very so they would have been fleeing warfare, I would say, so,
3:17
Speaker 1: not running toward it right headlong. So um, they migrated there.
3:24
Speaker 1: There was a lot more like forest and wood and
3:27
Speaker 1: fuel for fuel at the time, which was good. And
3:30
Speaker 1: they could grow wheat and buckwheat at the time, and
3:32
Speaker 1: that's about all they could grow, but that was enough.
3:35
Speaker 1: Right later on, potatoes really changed the way they do
3:38
Speaker 1: farming because they grow a lot of potatoes. Now, yeah,
3:41
Speaker 1: the I think the potato was introduced in the mid
3:44
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and that kind of changed everything eighty I'm sorry, um,
3:49
Speaker 1: but if you think about it, this these people, well,
3:52
Speaker 1: when they first arrived in the area, they moved to
3:55
Speaker 1: um uh the Cumboo Valley, which is higher up actually
4:01
Speaker 1: then um the Solu area, and it's about um, between
4:05
Speaker 1: eleven thousand and thirteen feet and they're like, this is
4:07
Speaker 1: a little too high. Everybody is a little sick. So
4:10
Speaker 1: they're gonna move a little further down to the Solu
4:13
Speaker 1: region between it's still extremely high. Um, it's still extremely rocky,
4:19
Speaker 1: and they whip this part of the Himalayas into shape.
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Speaker 1: They created um terraced farm fields Guatemala. Baby, remember that. Yeah,
4:27
Speaker 1: down a slope you can create you can farm on
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Speaker 1: the side of a mountain. People do. But um, think
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Speaker 1: about this, I mean, like, how did they figure that out?
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Speaker 1: I'm very curious. Well, I mean it's you know, it's
4:39
Speaker 1: not rocket science. You need flat land. And if you
4:42
Speaker 1: have a steep side of a mountain and you cut
4:45
Speaker 1: into that, you can create a series of steps essentially,
4:49
Speaker 1: which is flat land. Cherishing their laughing. I would have
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Speaker 1: been in trouble cherius, like I've been the Guadamala three times.
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Speaker 1: I know all about step irrigation and then how to
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Speaker 1: do all this. I would have been like, man, I
4:59
Speaker 1: wish it were around here. I guess I'll just sit
5:01
Speaker 1: here until I die, right, Um. So, oh, I'd be
5:07
Speaker 1: terrible at it. One of the reasons why I'd be
5:09
Speaker 1: terrible at it is because I will get in my
5:12
Speaker 1: car to drive five feet from say, store to store.
5:18
Speaker 1: Do you do that over there at the Edgewood, Like
5:21
Speaker 1: you've got a target and you'll drive to Kroger. I
5:23
Speaker 1: haven't been there in a while, but I have. I have. Yeah, yeah, totally.
5:29
Speaker 1: I mean like I'll walk. I walk more now than
5:32
Speaker 1: I ever had before in my entire Like the weather
5:34
Speaker 1: or what's going on. Definitely depends on whether it depends
5:36
Speaker 1: on my schedule. Very often I get that if I'm
5:39
Speaker 1: in a hurry, I might do that, right. I would
5:40
Speaker 1: make a terrible strip of though, because they don't have
5:43
Speaker 1: wheeled anything there. A terrible stripper. I would make both terrible. Okay, yeah,
5:50
Speaker 1: well I know what Aaron Cooper is going to make
5:52
Speaker 1: this time exactly. Um, yes, as I just said, I
5:56
Speaker 1: think I think it bears reiterating, Um, Mr joke guy.
6:00
Speaker 1: There are no wheeled anything's there. There's no cars, there's
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Speaker 1: no wheelbarrows. Yeah, they don't even use wheelbarrows, which now
6:09
Speaker 1: we've reached another reason I would be a terrible shirt.
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Speaker 1: But they have to carry everything. I can barely carry
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Speaker 1: a thing a dog food out of the grocery store
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Speaker 1: to my car. And that's like with a car involved,
6:22
Speaker 1: which has wheels, which they don't have in the Solukumboo region.
6:27
Speaker 1: That's right. They carry everything, Josh, and they use uh
6:30
Speaker 1: we actually saw this in Guatemala. To the plumb line
6:35
Speaker 1: Trump wine, Trump line, it's home line is a little different.
6:39
Speaker 1: What they'll do is they'll, let's say, get a big
6:42
Speaker 1: load of firewood and they'll they'll they'll wrap it up
6:46
Speaker 1: in in a spanking on the bottom, spanking on the bottom.
6:49
Speaker 1: They'll wrap it up and so they can wear it
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Speaker 1: on their back and a big bundle and then attached
6:53
Speaker 1: to the top of of you know, let's say they
6:56
Speaker 1: lay it in like a hammock and fold that over
6:58
Speaker 1: a hammock like thing and then and that is attached
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Speaker 1: to a band that you know, it's like a headband
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Speaker 1: and so it goes around their head and it takes
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Speaker 1: a lot of the weight off their back. And we
7:08
Speaker 1: saw these and Guatemala dudes walking up the road and
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Speaker 1: I thought, man, look at that. That's like ancient engineering
7:15
Speaker 1: still in practice. And you're like, man, I want to
7:17
Speaker 1: I gotta do more of that. And you got back
7:19
Speaker 1: here and you're like, give me a cheeseburger and my
7:23
Speaker 1: Jan Sport backpack. Anybody who's ever seen the front cover
7:27
Speaker 1: of um led Zeppelin four is familiar with this concept
7:31
Speaker 1: as well. Was he wearing one of those? He should
7:35
Speaker 1: have been if he wasn't, because that's a big old
7:37
Speaker 1: bundle of sticks that guys carrying. There was a bustle
7:39
Speaker 1: in his head drawn So um Srpas can whip a
7:45
Speaker 1: mountain into farmland. They can live on buck wheat and
7:51
Speaker 1: then several hundred years without the potato, and then the
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Speaker 1: potato and yak yak milk and yack meat, yeack. They everywhere,
8:01
Speaker 1: but they carry things everywhere. Um with the acts they
8:06
Speaker 1: and they they are basically a mountain, their mountain folk.
8:11
Speaker 1: They had. They speak a Tibetan dialect that's virtually their own.
8:15
Speaker 1: They don't have a written language, no written language. Until
8:18
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, there's no formalized education. Um, they just lived.
8:24
Speaker 1: They carved a very meager existence out for themselves. And
8:28
Speaker 1: thanks to a dude named Sir Edmund Hillary, they now
8:32
Speaker 1: have the foundation that he set up. And we'll get
8:35
Speaker 1: to Edmund Hillary in a second, but everyone, come on,
8:38
Speaker 1: you know who he is. He's the first mandous and
8:40
Speaker 1: everest with tin signor sharpa to summit to summit, what
8:44
Speaker 1: I say, I send? Yeah, I mean, what's this? You
8:46
Speaker 1: gotta get to the top, right or else? What? He
8:49
Speaker 1: just blew sixty five grand That's about how much it
8:51
Speaker 1: cost the day. So through his foundation in later years,
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Speaker 1: he he became to love the uh peaceful Buddhist of
9:00
Speaker 1: of the shirt of people there, and so he's like,
9:02
Speaker 1: you know, and except the foundation, we're gonna do things
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Speaker 1: like bring some schools, bring some hospitals, give these kids
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Speaker 1: access to healthcare, things like that. So he did that
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Speaker 1: and that helped a lot, although nowadays, you know, the
9:15
Speaker 1: schools aren't in great shape. Evidently it's kind of hard
9:19
Speaker 1: to get there. So um, they're they're doing the can right.
9:23
Speaker 1: You can take the folk out of the mountain but
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Speaker 1: you can't take the mountain out of the folk, you
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Speaker 1: know what I mean? That's right. Uh, they are very friendly,
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Speaker 1: very peaceful, UM, very compact, very strong, great attitudes apparently,
9:36
Speaker 1: And that's not just Chuck saying that, Um, Chuck, you're
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Speaker 1: basing that on the guy who basically took these very isolated, happy,
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Speaker 1: UM self sustaining, self sufficient UM people, mountain people, um
9:49
Speaker 1: and introduced them to the world, or no, introduced them
9:53
Speaker 1: to the people who would introduce them to the world, right, right,
9:56
Speaker 1: What is the Englishman who's credited with saying, Hey, if
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Speaker 1: you want to get up Everest, do you need yourself
10:01
Speaker 1: as serpa? That was Alexander Kellis, not tensign Or, not
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Speaker 1: Sir Edmond Hillary. Right, Well, ten Signor was as far
10:10
Speaker 1: too modest. I'm under the impression to have been like,
10:13
Speaker 1: you want to get up Everest, you get yourself a
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Speaker 1: serpa sherpa store. They're not big self promoters. The English
10:19
Speaker 1: have been the biggest promoters of um sherpas and um.
10:24
Speaker 1: Alexander kellis what's his name? He tried to make it
10:29
Speaker 1: up Everest and failed. But um, there was a there
10:32
Speaker 1: was a point in time where well, if you look
10:35
Speaker 1: at a mountain. It's not like a cone. You know
10:37
Speaker 1: those um styrofoam cones that you can get at like
10:41
Speaker 1: the craft store that have like actual volume. It's a
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Speaker 1: it's a cone. The mountain is not like that. It
10:47
Speaker 1: has all sorts of craggy peaks and different faces. And
10:51
Speaker 1: if you go up one side and make it up easy,
10:54
Speaker 1: just that doesn't mean that you can go up any
10:56
Speaker 1: other side and make it up easy. Right. So the
10:59
Speaker 1: place where the the Sherpa live is actually a pretty
11:04
Speaker 1: good way to get up Everest, but it was closed off.
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Speaker 1: Nepal as a country was closed off to the rest
11:11
Speaker 1: of the world until I think nineteen forty nine. Yeah,
11:14
Speaker 1: Everest was confirmed as a high speak in eighteen sixty five,
11:17
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like all of a sudden the floodgates
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Speaker 1: were open and every brit in the world said, I
11:22
Speaker 1: must conquer that mountain. That they said that, but they
11:25
Speaker 1: were like, but how to get to it? And they
11:29
Speaker 1: happened right, But in between they're like, well, let's just
11:32
Speaker 1: colonize that place and then figure out how to get
11:34
Speaker 1: up exactly true, And uh, when India began uh colonizing,
11:40
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, when England began colonizing India. Darjeeling across the
11:44
Speaker 1: eastern border of Nepal was a big popular tourist spot
11:47
Speaker 1: for British military political officials. That's where the big wigs,
11:52
Speaker 1: that's where they met uh, the Sherpa. And that's sort
11:55
Speaker 1: of where the mountaineering profession for the Sherpa kicked off,
11:59
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden they were Englishman saying I
12:01
Speaker 1: can now get in here to ascend and summit this mountain,
12:04
Speaker 1: but I need some help because I'm not carrying all
12:06
Speaker 1: that junk. Yeah, and it's not like Sherpas are the
12:08
Speaker 1: only ethnic group around Mount Everest. But as people soon found,
12:13
Speaker 1: like you said, they were sturdy, they are a compact,
12:15
Speaker 1: they can carry tons of weight and they have a
12:18
Speaker 1: cheerful attitude. So Alexander Kellis introduced the the climbing community,
12:24
Speaker 1: the Western climbing community, to the Sherpa, and in short order,
12:29
Speaker 1: Um Sherpas became extremely famous after, like you said, Sir
12:33
Speaker 1: Edmund Hillary uh summitted um Mount Everest. Yeah, and he
12:38
Speaker 1: was one of four people on that expedition. I never
12:42
Speaker 1: knew that. I just thought it was Sir Edmund Hillary
12:45
Speaker 1: got in his car in England and drove to Nepal
12:48
Speaker 1: and said, hey, ten Zig, take me to the top.
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Speaker 1: But it was a big group of people and they
12:55
Speaker 1: were the only two that made it right there. They
12:57
Speaker 1: were the last ones and they just kept on go.
13:00
Speaker 1: But yes, it was tens Ignore Gay Sherpa. That's his
13:02
Speaker 1: last name. Yeah, because as you said at the beginning
13:05
Speaker 1: of this, it's it's a it's a group of people,
13:09
Speaker 1: it's a profession, and it's a last name. That's right. Um,
13:12
Speaker 1: So at that from that moment on, everybody knew what
13:17
Speaker 1: Sherpas were, right, Yeah, they were no longer confused with
13:20
Speaker 1: al pacas. By in popular culture, people were like, oh,
13:25
Speaker 1: they're a group of people, literally, the people from the east,
13:28
Speaker 1: that's right. And they, like you said, don't they're not
13:31
Speaker 1: grand standards. They don't get a lot of attention. And
13:35
Speaker 1: I made a joke, Um, I believe it was either
13:38
Speaker 1: dead bodies on everest or the Tibetan altitude sickness about
13:42
Speaker 1: Sherpas being unsung at the time, about how you always
13:45
Speaker 1: hear about, you know, the Indian or the brit standing
13:49
Speaker 1: on top of the mountain and you don't see the
13:51
Speaker 1: sherpa behind him carrying all their junk and that's really
13:54
Speaker 1: true because when uh, you know what I mean, uh,
13:57
Speaker 1: when Hillary ascended and summited, he got a knighthood and
14:02
Speaker 1: Norgay got an honorary medal, and you think, well, of course,
14:05
Speaker 1: I mean, they're going to give the British guy the
14:08
Speaker 1: knighthood and they're going to give the foreigner a medal.
14:12
Speaker 1: Untrue because sirmon Hillary is from New Zealand. He wasn't British,
14:16
Speaker 1: so technically he wasn't a a citizen of Great Britain
14:22
Speaker 1: and neither was tens ignore gay, and they still didn't
14:25
Speaker 1: get the same thing. Yeah, it was. It was called
14:27
Speaker 1: the British Everest Expedition was the four People. So that's
14:30
Speaker 1: why I think a lot of people probably thought Hillary
14:32
Speaker 1: was a brit but he was not. But again, um,
14:37
Speaker 1: our Western culture is a little different from Sherpa culture.
14:41
Speaker 1: They like you said, they're not grand standards, they're not
14:45
Speaker 1: publicity hounds. They are um they do. The ones who
14:49
Speaker 1: are involved in climbing and trekking do make a pretty
14:52
Speaker 1: substantial amount of money, especially in comparison to what the
14:57
Speaker 1: average person makes in Nepal. They think about two rand
15:00
Speaker 1: for a trip, right, and that the gross domestic product
15:04
Speaker 1: per capita of Nepal in two dozen sevens like three dollars.
15:08
Speaker 1: That really puts into perspective. They're rich by other standards,
15:11
Speaker 1: I guess, extremely rich, very wealthy, um. But they they
15:16
Speaker 1: the I guess in addition to making money, they they
15:20
Speaker 1: help other people ascend Everest to attain their personal glory,
15:26
Speaker 1: right too, for the other people to attain their personal story, um,
15:29
Speaker 1: which is kind of there's a lot of dichotomy between
15:35
Speaker 1: how the Serpa view Mount Everest and how they interact
15:40
Speaker 1: with it. That the Western influence kind of puts them
15:43
Speaker 1: in this weird position because they are they follow a
15:47
Speaker 1: form of Tibetan buddhism um which says that you should
15:50
Speaker 1: perform selfless acts and help others, right, Yeah, And and
15:54
Speaker 1: being at the top of Everest to them means you're
15:57
Speaker 1: closer to enlightenment. Right. If the people are going to
15:59
Speaker 1: climb up anyway, you might as well go with him
16:02
Speaker 1: for two grand sure, but you might as well go
16:05
Speaker 1: with them to make sure that they don't kill themselves. Right,
16:07
Speaker 1: very selfless people, it is. But at the same time
16:10
Speaker 1: they're helping the West kind of exploit Everest. That some
16:13
Speaker 1: people worry that the Everest experience is being cheapened since
16:18
Speaker 1: since Hillary um summited Everest, I think like more than
16:21
Speaker 1: twenty other people have. Right kind of loses its um
16:27
Speaker 1: closeness to the Buddhas when you know all these other
16:31
Speaker 1: footprints are everywhere and there's a couple hundred dead bodies
16:34
Speaker 1: on the on the mountain. Yeah, I think uh Nor
16:37
Speaker 1: Gay kind of summed up there how they feel about
16:40
Speaker 1: Everest when he called it. When they asked him how
16:41
Speaker 1: he felt about being up there, and he he likened
16:44
Speaker 1: it to a mother hint and said what else? He
16:47
Speaker 1: said that this was um quote warm and friendly living.
16:51
Speaker 1: How about that? Yeah? And then Hillary shoved him back down.
16:54
Speaker 1: He's like, quiet to get out of my picture. Right, No, Gay,
16:59
Speaker 1: here's your medal. Uh So, like you said, the um
17:02
Speaker 1: the region now, Josh, because of the massive amounts of
17:06
Speaker 1: tourism and not massive like Grand Canyon massive obviously, but
17:10
Speaker 1: still for Mount Everests it's a lot of people going
17:12
Speaker 1: there trying to climbate. Um. We did talk about pollution
17:15
Speaker 1: there now, and so the very thing that brings the
17:19
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhist Scherpa's enlightenment is also kind of denigrated the area. Somewhat. Yeah, well,
17:26
Speaker 1: it's about twenty people pass through that area per year,
17:31
Speaker 1: and now you can go play pool. You have internet access,
17:35
Speaker 1: you have the trappings of modern living, and you also
17:39
Speaker 1: have the drawbacks of modern living. Deforestation, yeah, pollution, yeah, exploitation,
17:44
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Al Right, that's right, And this
17:47
Speaker 1: is what we should point out in uh Sagara Maatha
17:50
Speaker 1: National Park where about thirtys live and sagar Matha is
17:54
Speaker 1: the word for Everest, right, the the SRPA themselves call
18:00
Speaker 1: um Everest Chomo Lungma, Chimo Lungma, chumba womba. It's close, no,
18:06
Speaker 1: but that's not it, Okay, Chomo lugma, which means roughly goddess,
18:10
Speaker 1: mother of the world or mother hen Uh. You want
18:14
Speaker 1: to talk about a couple of famous repos. Yeah, we
18:18
Speaker 1: can talk about Edmund Hillary all day long, but you
18:20
Speaker 1: never hear about Appa Serpa. Yes, and all he's done
18:24
Speaker 1: is ascend in summit ever seventeen times more than anybody
18:27
Speaker 1: else in the world. Not bad. What about Babu uh
18:32
Speaker 1: cheery Chaherri Sharpa. Yeah, camped on the summit of Mount
18:37
Speaker 1: Everest for twenty one hours without oxygen. Usually what happens
18:41
Speaker 1: when you climb Everest as you get your picture made
18:43
Speaker 1: and you say, wow, this is really unbelievable. This is amazing.
18:46
Speaker 1: All right, let's go back down right and you have
18:48
Speaker 1: five million canisters of oxygen and disposing. I'm really high.
18:53
Speaker 1: Who else there's a lock Lockpa Galu Sherpa who holds
18:59
Speaker 1: the world record for the fastest mount Everest um sent
19:02
Speaker 1: ten hours fifty six minutes in seconds. That's a lot
19:06
Speaker 1: that man. Wow, you have Ming keep a sharpa who oh,
19:11
Speaker 1: what's the big deal with Ming? Ming just climbed Everest
19:14
Speaker 1: at the age of fifteen years old, not on his
19:18
Speaker 1: xbox in real life. And then there's Pessang Lambu Schrpa,
19:23
Speaker 1: who was Chuck the first woman which apparently, um, when
19:28
Speaker 1: women started climbing Everest or serving as sherpas to climbing expeditions,
19:34
Speaker 1: um in the seventies, there was uh, this is probably
19:37
Speaker 1: the biggest problem internally for the Sherpa's that um, you know,
19:44
Speaker 1: Western tourism was was having on their culture. You know,
19:49
Speaker 1: a woman's place traditionally is at the farm in Sherpa
19:54
Speaker 1: culture on the side of the mountain. And I guess
19:55
Speaker 1: there was some static for a while, and then finally,
19:58
Speaker 1: you know, more and more women started doing it and
20:00
Speaker 1: we're doing it successfully. And um, that was that. Yeah.
20:04
Speaker 1: And and evidently, um, when the husband, if the husband
20:08
Speaker 1: is that the sharpa worker, um, goes on one of
20:11
Speaker 1: these trips, then the female becomes ahead of the household
20:13
Speaker 1: at home if she's not a sharper herself, and we'll
20:16
Speaker 1: take care of things just like the husband would. It's nice, Yeah,
20:20
Speaker 1: Yet what else is here? I love these people. I
20:24
Speaker 1: think we would be you have a fun place in
20:26
Speaker 1: her that they remind me the people of Guatemala, you know,
20:29
Speaker 1: kind of short and friendly and warm, friendly, living stocky. Yeah,
20:34
Speaker 1: it makes me kind of wonder there's so many similarities
20:36
Speaker 1: Chuck that huh huh uh, Yeah, because think about it.
20:42
Speaker 1: Everybody calls the people the spa, right, there are people
20:45
Speaker 1: from the east, but that's in reference to where you
20:49
Speaker 1: are in Solu Kumba Kumbo, right. What were they called
20:54
Speaker 1: before they moved west? The people Mayan? Maybe? Uh. Finally, Josh,
21:01
Speaker 1: for my part of this podcast, if you think that
21:04
Speaker 1: is off the rail, do you think the sharp I
21:06
Speaker 1: have it bad with not getting any recognition. There's also
21:10
Speaker 1: something called a porter. Yeah, and a lot of sharps
21:12
Speaker 1: grow up serving as porters. As porters, that's basically the
21:17
Speaker 1: job below the sherpa, who does even more of the
21:20
Speaker 1: heavy lifting and gets even less money and less oxygen
21:25
Speaker 1: less clothing and other outerwear. Yeah. And there's an actual
21:29
Speaker 1: international porters group, right, yeah, protection group that are advocates
21:33
Speaker 1: for their safety and fair wages, because obviously, if you've
21:36
Speaker 1: got a very poor person doing a lot of hard work,
21:38
Speaker 1: they're probably being taken advantage of in some way. So, Chuck,
21:41
Speaker 1: we would be remiss to do a podcast on the
21:43
Speaker 1: serpa and Everest and Hillary Um and not mention the Yetti.
21:49
Speaker 1: I don't know much about the YETI I didn't look
21:50
Speaker 1: at that. So the Himalayas are the home of the Yetti,
21:53
Speaker 1: the abominable snowman. It's another way to put it, which
21:55
Speaker 1: is basically like the cold, extreme cold, high altitude version
22:00
Speaker 1: of Bigfoot. Is that right? Yeah? Okay, I just always
22:02
Speaker 1: thought that's what we thought of, but I didn't look
22:05
Speaker 1: into it. No, it is pretty much. Um, it's a biped,
22:09
Speaker 1: very furry, heavy, large biped that's mysterious and and lives
22:14
Speaker 1: out and out by itself. It's big Foot, but in
22:18
Speaker 1: the Himalayas. It's like in the Empire, like come off,
22:22
Speaker 1: and it's more like the Abominable Snowman in the Rudolph
22:25
Speaker 1: Christmas Specials. It looked kind of like the thing in Empire,
22:29
Speaker 1: kind of who looks like wow. Um. Anyway, Hillary himself
22:36
Speaker 1: is actually a believer in the yetti. He went back
22:40
Speaker 1: after summiting Everest. He went back again in nineteen sixty
22:44
Speaker 1: to look for the Yettie because he'd seen YETI footprints
22:47
Speaker 1: what he took to be YETI footprints. Interesting. He found nothing,
22:52
Speaker 1: though he didn't and a lot of people think that
22:54
Speaker 1: these were just some other animals footprints that melted in
22:58
Speaker 1: the snow and expanded as the snow melted. Who knows YETI. Again,
23:02
Speaker 1: you have taught me something, my friend. Thank you for that,
23:06
Speaker 1: because I couldn't figure out how to wrap this one out.
23:08
Speaker 1: I feel like we should apologize for the light nature
23:10
Speaker 1: of this, But we just recorded right before this on
23:12
Speaker 1: the nuclear disaster in Japan, so I think we were
23:16
Speaker 1: rife for a little. Plus. Also, we should point out,
23:20
Speaker 1: in true Sherpa style, chuck this way. Well, think about this.
23:25
Speaker 1: They there there there are all sorts of trappings of
23:28
Speaker 1: Western influence and degradation of culture. Um, there is a
23:32
Speaker 1: dwindling of population. I think at its peak this area
23:36
Speaker 1: was home to thod people. Now it's down to thirty,
23:40
Speaker 1: like you said, in them in the park right. Uh
23:45
Speaker 1: the the there was a National geographic survey of Sherpas
23:51
Speaker 1: saying are you concerned about Western influences on your culture?
23:55
Speaker 1: And they were like not overly? Can you heard me?
23:58
Speaker 1: The teeth over remote you're sitting on it. If you
24:01
Speaker 1: have any mountain dew or so, that's a spas. If
24:06
Speaker 1: you want to read more, Um, there's actually some more
24:09
Speaker 1: in there, especially um, more on the Buddhist religion. I
24:13
Speaker 1: believe we didn't cover that fully. Um. Yeah, there's more
24:17
Speaker 1: goodness in there for sure. Yes, you can type in
24:20
Speaker 1: serpa's or sharpa if you want to be safe in
24:24
Speaker 1: the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com,
24:27
Speaker 1: written by Christen Kner of stuff Mom never told you.
24:30
Speaker 1: That's right, that's true. Excellent podcast. Yes it is a
24:32
Speaker 1: great and we did a great job at south By
24:35
Speaker 1: Southwest did um? And since I said handy search bar
24:39
Speaker 1: and south By Southwest, that means it's time for listener mail.
24:45
Speaker 1: That's right, Josh, this is a little more Disney dirt,
24:48
Speaker 1: and that most of the Disney dirt we got wasn't
24:50
Speaker 1: very good. We got a bunch of Yeah, there's really
24:53
Speaker 1: nothing going on there. There's underground tunnels, but that's no
24:56
Speaker 1: big deal. And it's really not like you guys think.
24:59
Speaker 1: We find only got a pretty good one. This is
25:01
Speaker 1: from m and m Um seems like she would have
25:04
Speaker 1: been one of the employees that I might have been
25:07
Speaker 1: hanging around with that know about the dirt. Some people
25:10
Speaker 1: apparently don't even know about this stuff. I hope we
25:13
Speaker 1: don't get in trouble for this hang out. Hey, guys,
25:17
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to the Tickling podcast, excited that
25:19
Speaker 1: you asked for Disney dirt. As a cast member at
25:22
Speaker 1: the Happiest place on Earth for almost four years, I
25:25
Speaker 1: gleaned some interesting tidbits of information for starters. In a
25:29
Speaker 1: work room behind Pirates of the Caribbean, there exists an
25:32
Speaker 1: infamous Milar table, which has a long standing reputation for
25:36
Speaker 1: being a favorite place for cast members to be amorous
25:40
Speaker 1: with one another after hours. I can't imagine how clean
25:44
Speaker 1: such table might be, but many cast members have been
25:47
Speaker 1: known to participate in the tradition simply for the sake
25:49
Speaker 1: of being part of the legends. For like the Mile
25:52
Speaker 1: High Club. I guess on my attraction, the Jungle Cruise,
25:58
Speaker 1: it said that one can't be a real skipper until
26:01
Speaker 1: they have urinated into the river. No, she says, I
26:07
Speaker 1: suspect it as much about you know, you can, you
26:10
Speaker 1: can create the uh what what is it the most
26:14
Speaker 1: what happens happiest place on Earth? But if you staff
26:18
Speaker 1: it with board and nihilistic twenty year old, it's going
26:22
Speaker 1: to end up like this. Yeah, someone's going to be
26:23
Speaker 1: in the river. Most of the time. This is done
26:25
Speaker 1: before after park operating hours, when a skipper can take
26:29
Speaker 1: out a boat alone and relieve him or herself, often
26:32
Speaker 1: into the hippo pool. So you can imagine it's harder
26:35
Speaker 1: for girls to participate in this rite of passage out
26:37
Speaker 1: of sheer logistics. But I do know some women who
26:40
Speaker 1: have managed to become real skips. I think it'd be
26:42
Speaker 1: more physics than logistics, she says. The mechanics foggles my mind.
26:46
Speaker 1: Now for the gnarly stuff under Space Mountain, there are
26:49
Speaker 1: stored sixty tho body bags. Supposedly they're there in case
26:53
Speaker 1: of a natural disaster or some other emergency where people
26:56
Speaker 1: may be trapped inside the park for an extended period
26:59
Speaker 1: of time. I don't believe that. I don't believe it either.
27:02
Speaker 1: The food freezers in the storeroom down the hall are
27:04
Speaker 1: also over six ft tall for storage, if you know
27:06
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's quite morbid and a popular site
27:09
Speaker 1: for telling ghost stories. I've got plenty more if you
27:12
Speaker 1: want some off the record ghost stories. This was on
27:14
Speaker 1: the record geez or personal anecdotes for my time as
27:18
Speaker 1: a jungle cruise skipper. I'd be happy to share. Keep
27:20
Speaker 1: up the great work from m Well. I would love
27:23
Speaker 1: to hear the off the record ones. What is her name? Yeah,
27:27
Speaker 1: I'd like to take her to lunch? Yeah, well, please
27:29
Speaker 1: at least send us an email. Okay, I don't think
27:31
Speaker 1: we'd be allowed to go out to lunch with that
27:33
Speaker 1: girl our significant others Um, Chuck, Josh, have you got
27:39
Speaker 1: anything else? I'm done? All right? Um? What should we
27:41
Speaker 1: call for here? How about if you've ascended Everest it's okay. Um.
27:50
Speaker 1: If you are interested in your state succeeding from it's
27:56
Speaker 1: current geographical boundaries, we want to hear why that's right? Uh?
28:00
Speaker 1: Send it in an email to Stuff Podcast at how
28:04
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
28:11
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot Com.
28:14
Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
28:17
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28:22
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28:25
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