Mountains Don’t Hide the Truth: What a Trek in Nepal Taught Me About Privilege and the Rule of Law

In the shadow of the Annapurnas, I heard a story that stripped away my illusions about justice—and my own place in it.

On the ninth day of trekking through the Annapurna range, my legs ached, my lungs burned—and I believed I had earned my view of the snow peaks. I didn’t expect my real awakening to come in the dim light of a teahouse, over a bottle of local spirits, in the company of our guide.

He had always been measured, professional, unflappable. That night, the formality slipped. In English he had taught himself, he told me a story that pierced through the romance of my journey and revealed a harsher landscape: a country where law bends to money, and integrity can cost a life’s ambition.

He had grown up the son of farmers, studied relentlessly, passed three rounds of police examinations—a path that should have led to service and respect. Instead, he was told to pay $20,000 USD—a sum his family could never hope to raise—to “secure” the position. The debt would be repaid not through honest work, but through bribes extracted from the very villagers he had hoped to protect.

When he refused, his dream died. So did his standing in his family’s eyes. They saw him as a fool who’d squandered the chance to climb the social ladder. Seeking escape from their disappointment, he turned to the mountains—first as a porter bent beneath loads of foreign gear, then as a guide who learned languages from the trekkers he led. Over years, he transformed his body and his mind into instruments of resilience.

But in his gaze, I saw the quiet fury of a man betrayed by both family and system. In another country, his talents would have earned authority. Here, they bought him only survival. The irony—that he now guided visitors from functioning democracies through trails in his own homeland—sat heavy in my chest.

I had always understood “rule of law” in theory. In Nepal, I glimpsed how fragile that promise can be. The principle that laws apply equally to all was not simply weak—it could be bent, delayed, or priced beyond reach. And when justice is no longer reliably accessible, corruption stops being a moral failing and becomes a means of survival.

The guide’s choice was not advancement, but dignity. He chose honest work over corrupt power. There is wealth in that kind of choice, though it doesn’t show up in bank accounts.

As I prepare for the next chapter of my life in New York—a city with its own mountains to climb—I carry this lesson: the rule of law is not inevitable. It is fragile, hard-won, and always under threat. In its absence, even the best among us are forced into impossible bargains between conscience and survival.

That, more than any photograph or souvenir, is what I brought home from Nepal.