Conor Woodman - Around the World in 80 Trades

First published 2009 by Macmillan

This electronic edition published 2009 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
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ISBN 978-0-330-50651-9 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-50650-2 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-50652-6 in Mobipocket format

Copyright Tigress Productions Ltd 2009

The right of Conor Woodman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Map artwork by Hemesh Alles.

Tigress productions: An IMG Entertainment Company

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If the Gatlang valley were in the English countryside, it would have been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty, a successful Victorian industrialist would have erected a stone monument at its summit and thousands of holidaymakers would marvel at it on family walking holidays every year. As a foothill in the Himalayan region of northern Nepal it merely falls into the just another valley category and is seemingly populated by no one. Save, that is, for a wrinkly old man Id almost literally just stumbled across. Naygar, as he introduced himself to me, was employed by the local monk as a caretaker for the monastery, outside which we quietly sat together. Naygars onerous duties seemed to involve drying lumps of yak meat hed found, snorting a type of herbal amphetamine that hed made from the local vegetation, and keeping a close eye on neighbouring Tibet. I passed on the raw meat, but I was curious about the herbal snuff and so just to be sociable Id taken a nosefull. I found myself feeling slightly heady, listening to the sound of cowbells and watching a caravan of traders leading their yaks over the hills in the distance.

Where are the yaks headed? I asked my translator and guide, Ram. After a discussion with Naygar that lasted the best part of five minutes he turned to me and simply answered, Tibet. I had thought that the border with Tibet was firmly shut. Permission to cross it was a minefield of paperwork and counter-paperwork with no guarantee that in the end anyone would actually let you through. When I raised this with Ram another lengthy discussion ensued. They do not know there is a border there, Ram explained, this time at more length. They have been trading over this pass for centuries.

I was immediately intrigued. These ancient traders used yaks to transport carpets, furs and spices over the pass and traded with Tibetans who brought precious salt from the north. Once a deal had been struck, they returned to sell their stock at the market back on the Nepalese side of the border for a profit. How did they price their goods? Did they negotiate or were prices set? What were the risks and profit margins that made this market work? These are the questions an economist asks himself when he encounters human behaviour with which he is not familiar. And the best way of finding the answers to these questions is to see for yourself.

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Im sorry to tell you all that with immediate effect you are to be made redundant. You will be entitled to 200 for each year of service with the company as a statutory entitlement, although this will be capped at a maximum of 800. You are also entitled to apply for Jobseekers Allowance and unemployment benefit with immediate effect. I looked up from my notes at twenty confused, angry, defeated faces in the room, staring back in disbelief. But as the words dropped out of my mouth I knew that I was only doing what had to be done. The company to which most of the assembled craftsmen had given the best part of their working lives was no longer profitable, and it was simply my job to sell it for as much as I could.

It was the summer of 2004. I was thirty, single and living in a swanky pad in central London with a job in the City that paid me the kind of salary most young men dream of, although I was working so many hours a week that, some months, finding time to spend any of it was a real problem. I was a corporate finance analyst in a large American firm, working on a deal to restructure a glass manufacturing company in the north of England. The company had defaulted on its recent loan payments. Id done the sums in the office and the harsh economic reality was that the company had no real future. My boss had decided that I needed some field experience and so Id been dispatched with a small team to make 400 people redundant; a necessary step towards realizing the companys full potential.

The harsh economic reality wasnt in dispute, that these people were only entitled to 800 compensation for a lifetime of loyalty wasnt up for negotiation, but what suddenly hit me was the certainty that I was in the wrong place. I was not the person who was supposed to deliver news like this. This was not why I studied economics. I had to get out of this job and I had to do it today, but today wouldnt be finished until another 380 people had been given the bad news.

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That chance moment when I was trying to escape from it all in Nepal saw me become hooked on the idea that trying to understand ancient markets was the answer to my crisis back home. How do people operate in an ancient commodity market compared with the harsh world of corporate finance? Would it be just as ruthless? What have we forgotten or never learned? And, daringly, could I use the knowledge that I had developed as an economist and analyst to compete and make a profit myself, or would I simply be too white, too green or too yellow, even?

Economics teaches us about relationships and interactions. Trade has always provided us with the motivation to interact with people from other cultures. Three thousand years ago, early traders were inspired to travel in order to find new markets for their goods, and in doing so they exposed themselves to new and exciting cultures. It has often been said that the pursuit of money is the root of all evil. Well, I couldnt disagree more, because without that profit motive there would be no trade. Without trade we would know nothing of the world beyond our own front door.