We Paid to Suffer at 4 A.M.

ABC Episode 3: Headlamps, hundreds of stairs, and the view that made us forget we were dying inside.

Faline Lin

Dec 03, 2025

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We woke up at 4:00 a.m. because the mountains don’t care about our sanity. Goal was to hike up to Poon Hill before sunrise.

Headlamps flicked on, boots tied, everyone silently wondering why we had paid to suffer like this. I pulled on layers while wishing I could reschedule sunrise.

Outside, darkness swallowed everything except the ribbon of trekkers ahead. Headlamps bounced like a glowing caterpillar inching its way up the hill. The first ten minutes were flatter than expected. A lie, in hindsight, because then the staircase appeared. Endless stone steps, each one requiring a painful debate with gravity.

My lungs were still asleep, and my legs were seriously offended.

We stopped every ten minutes or so to catch our breath. Joya groaned dramatically about the stairs the entire way up, which helped us laugh between gasps. I wasn’t sure if it was altitude, exhaustion, or both, but I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Hiking uphill at 3000 meters before sunrise feels illegal.

Then, suddenly, we reached the top.

We found a ledge and sat, huddled together trying to stay warm. Cold air wrapped around us as the sky softened from charcoal to pale blue. Annapurna South and Dhaulagiri revealed themselves slowly. It felt surreal watching the peaks glowing white above a sleeping world.

When the sun finally cracked the horizon, the mountains caught fire. Orange light slid across the snow like someone had dragged a brush of paint across them. I’d never seen anything like it. Beauty that didn’t demand effort, just presence. The stairs were already becoming a joke.

After forty-five minutes and a million photos (some amazing, some blurry proof that we made it), we descended. Only then did I register how far we’d climbed, but the promise of breakfast motivated us to fly down with barely any breaks.

Back at the tea house, music played softly around a warm fire. The morning felt gentle and serene, a complete shift from the brutal wake-up. Breakfast was everything my body wanted - warm porridge, two eggs, and Tibetan bread that tasted like Taiwanese fried dough (雙胞胎), crispy, chewy and nostalgic. We ate and laughed, swapping stories about relationships and coping mechanisms, as if we’d known each other much longer than three days.

Then we packed up and left, again.

Today was one of the two hardest days, Ratna had warned. We started uphill, very uphill. But the views were even better than Poon Hill, at least to me. Here, the snow mountains felt closer, like they were walking alongside us.

Then came a long descent into a valley where water streamed over mossy rocks. The river was so clear you could see every stone. We passed the largest collection of prayer rocks I’d ever seen - hundreds stacked into towers. I added one for good luck. (Unclear if it worked, but no regrets.)

Lunch was at another tea house. Ratna suggested we all order chicken dal bhat to avoid waiting an hour for nine different dishes. Delicious as always, but I was beginning to suspect the green bean soup portion was turning my intestines into a musical instrument.

We sat outside in the sun and debated whether dry skin means you haven’t washed your legs thoroughly enough. No science and completely pointless, but that’s what trail conversations are for.

In the afternoon, the trail tricked us with a flat section. Then another uphill. Then a longer downhill. Little villages appeared and disappeared. The day stretched on and on.

But my mind wasn’t drifting anymore, it was focused. One step after another. This felt different from yesterday. Something had clicked.

We reached the tea house at around 4:00 p.m., triumphant and exhausted. A hot shower (though shared and sketchy) still felt like luxury. The dining hall wasn’t as cozy as the night before. It was less charming, and had a colder mood, but the heater worked, and that was enough.

Dinner was dal bhat again. At this point I was less “eat the hell out of dal bhat” and more “take it day by day.”

The room energy felt a little low after dinner. So we did what any group of overcooked trekkers would do - we created our own entertainment. Rey and I fell into the role of MC’s. Eunice (our Hong Kong teammate) went first. She chose her favorite Taiwanese band, 五月天, and sang with the confidence of a superstar. Then someone clapped a beat. Ratna and Raj were swaying along, trying their best to participate without risking being invited as the next act.

Sometimes the simplest form of entertainment goes the longest way, especially in remote mountains like these, where there’s no Wi-Fi, no distraction, and no way home except walking back the way you came.

We had a blast.

When Eunice finished, applause filled the room - louder than expected, fueled by endorphins and altitude.

At some point, Joya started assigning nicknames. Victor went from “Handsome Baby” to “Sour Baby,” and she confidently named herself “Complain Baby” after her dramatic uphill soundtrack earlier in the day.

To round off the evening, we played cards and eventually the classic teenage game Truth or Dare. There was teasing, terrible dares, and honesty that would only come out when everyone is too tired to perform.

Somewhere between the singing, the joking, and the ridiculous stakes of truth or dare, we started actually knowing each other, not just as hikers sharing a trail, but as humans with quirks, habits, and soft, odd corners. As adults, we don’t often get this - prolonged time together with no escape route, working toward a shared goal. It’s rare, and weird, and very beautiful.

Back in our room, I collapsed onto the flimsy bed with sore legs and a full heart. We climbed for hours today. We saw mountains turn gold. We turned strangers into teammates.

Today felt like the first day I was truly here.

Tomorrow, more stairs.