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Editor's Blog: Digital cold turkey, Himalayan style
How I escaped the silence of the yaks…

By Steve Ranger

Published: Thursday 10 January 2008

I've often talked about going digital cold-turkey, dumping the gadgets, the laptop and the broadband, and finding out how long I could cope before being reduced to a shivering wreck, pleading for a little bit of high-tech fun.

Of course, I've never actually gone through with it, as I've always managed to find an excuse for putting it off - that podcast I really needed to listen to, or the email I really needed to read as soon as it arrived.

So it had always remained an idle dream - until a few weeks back, when, in Nepal for a spot of hiking in the Himalayas over the Christmas period, one after another my gadgets became useless or failed on me.

First to go was the mobile - that didn't work anywhere in the country, let alone in the mountains. The MP3 player didn't even make it into the rucksack in the first place as I figured it would get smashed to pieces on the mountain trails (although I was amazed to see how many trekkers stomped along to the tune of their iPods, all but oblivious to the rugged peaks above them). And while a few hardy hikers were apparently willing to lug laptops 5,000m above sea level, I wasn't one of them.

Sure, I still had my digital camera (until the battery ran down) and I suppose I could have fired up my mobile phone and played some games on that. The porters huddled around the yak-dung powered stove certainly did that with theirs. And while it was strange to be disconnected for so long, I suffered few pangs of withdrawal.

But a sudden moment of information vertigo occurred when I realised I hadn't read a newspaper or heard a radio report (let alone seen an RSS feed or scanned a blog) for a couple of weeks.

This sent me scurrying to the nearest internet café, of which there are quite a few in the villages, but (horror-of-horrors) their connection was down. And making a call on a crackling satellite phone from high in the Himalayas with the lodge owner, her children, their dog and my guide all watching was a memorable experience.

So it was hardly a scientific attempt to go digital cold-turkey. And perhaps it was of no surprise that I didn't really miss the gadgets themselves, but the information and connectivity they provide to friends and to the wider world.

Still - I'd wish I could say I didn't switch back on every gadget when I landed in London. But to be honest, I did. I was even (almost) pleased to see the mountain of spam waiting for me when I got back to the office. And while that was hardly the biggest thrill that the whole Himalayan experience gave me, it was a rare feeling indeed.