Wandering, but not lost.: October 2010

A little friend at the thousand year-old Thare Gompa in Khangsar, Manang Distrtict. I received a blessing from the Tibetan lama here for a safe passage over the mighty Thorung La Pass.

(please click the audio file above to listen whilst you enjoy this blog, o reader)

Tibetan refugee Tenzin Sangpo struck the last chord on his homemade tanyin, a six-stringed guitar-like instrument and it slowly faded into the thick fog settling around us. I pressed "stop" on my tape recorder, thanked him for sharing his music, and quickly gathered up my things. I slung my pack onto my back for the last time and strode into the dense fog. My friends and trekking partners of the last three weeks had been walking ahead of me when I heard the faint strains of music leaking onto the road from an unseen courtyard. Knowing full well they would ditch me, I stopped anyhow. Thirty minutes later, I was far behind the group. We had been making our final descent through scattered villages and massive, terraced rice paddies. The goal, a rural taxi stand at the Phedi trailhead, lay hundreds of meters below by line of sight. But a cloudbank now blocked my view, and dusk was dropping quickly.

Rice terraces.

A wide fork in the road appeared in the fog. It began to rain lightly at first as I made a quick decision and jogged down the right fork, my pack bouncing. An old man pointed me down the muddy, rutted road towards Phedi. It began to pour. Jeeps heading up the mountain for the night, loaded with families returning from the Dasain holiday, coughed past me and splashed mud belligerently in my general direction. After ten minutes running the margins of the road, I saw a wide, flagstone steps leading down into the rice fields. At first glance it appeared be one of the beautiful staircases maintained by the Annapurna Conservation Area Project that criss-cross the mountains and hills in this region. I didn’t think twice as I turned into them. I knew I had to go down; the steps looked like a reasonable way to achieve this. Running down the slick steps, I soon passed from neon green rice paddies into dark, lush forest. 5 minutes passed; the steps got a bit mossy and meandering, then narrower and narrower. 10 minutes passed; the trail became a cow track with vegetation, heavy with rain, leaning into my path. They soaked me as I stormed through, heedless of my mistake. After 15 minutes, I realized I was hopelessly lost and skidded to a halt. There was not a soul around. Just rice and barley and croaking crows to witness my bewilderment.

My friends were gone, I was lost, it was getting darker and a bit chill. I started to laugh. We had been so close to finishing the trek without any incidents whatsoever. (Unless heartburn from deep-fried Snickers banana pie counts as an incident.) Then it all fell apart at the very end in just a matter of minutes. So I laughed.

My laughter initially frightened the young Nepalese women who emerged from the mist and dripping foliage. She was downslope from where I stood giggling in the light rain. My savior was dressed in a mist-dispelling electric pink sari. Strips of green bamboo and flowers were woven into her dark hair and a tikka of rice grains and scarlet sandalwood paste covered a circle on her forehead the size of a tea cup’s saucer. She was returning from her grandparents’ village. She had gone there for the last day of the Dasain festival to receive the tikka blessing from the eldest members of her extended family. I found this out later.

“Where are you going, sir?”

“Phedi?” I uttered without much hope. “And not sir, Michael, thanks.”

“Oh my goodness!” She laughed, the fear slipping from her face. “You are so very much lost!”

“I know.” We both laughed.

“Follow me, Michael Jackson!” If I had a rupee for every time I was mistaken for the late King of Pop by Nepalis, I could afford to buy the Elephant Man’s skeleton back from MJ’s estate.

“Back up the hill? No way to keep going down?”

“No, mati, UP! Very much up, all the way back to road.” She tittered as I sighed and turned around.

As we walked back up a series of twisty side trails, she told me about her family and the Dasain festival. She asked about me and my family and America and my age.

“Almost 30.”

“Oh my goodness!” Covering her mouth to smother a shocked laugh.

“Thanks. You’ll be 30 someday too, you know.”

Out of the crops and back in the land of mud homes and buffalos being milked, she said goodbye to me and pointed me mati to the road.

“Dhan ya baad. Thank you… but what is your name?”

“Rosina.”

“Oh, ramro Rosina. And your full name?”

“Rosina, just Rosina.” Her eyes flickering nervously past me to the glowering man who walked towards us.

“Namaste, Rosina.”

“Namaste, Michael." She hesitated."I’ll never forget you...” She blurted out, then ran into the house.

I fell a little bit in love right then. I didn’t think pretty young women actually said things like that; at least not to me. I brushed past her father presumably with a curt namaste exchanged. I wouldn’t forget her either.

Back on the road, a groups of teen boys played on a huge bamboo swing erected especially for the end of Dasain. They wanted to walk with me in the right direction, but I was running again and soon left them behind. Their fire crackers split the quiet, woolen air at my heels. At the next fork in the road (damn these choices!), I shook a man awake who had passed out on the damp hillside. Barely able to lift his head and none too pleased to be roused from his stupor, he drunkenly waved me on towards Phedi. He was asleep again before my footsteps faded away. One more fork. One more affirmation of my path, this time by a pair of young lovers leaning dangerously close to each on the side of a pond.

But still darkness and rain were falling together. Although I was on the right path, I had a long way to go. A mild edginess, younger brother of panic, was coiling around heart. Surely my friends had gone to Pokhara already, leaving me to take a costly taxi ride alone. Plus, I was dead tired. Since leaving the of Jhinu hot springs, this morning, my friends and I had hiked up and down for more than nine hours, going up 1000 feet then down 3000. My feet were not particularly happy with me.

As I set one mud-caked boot onto the main road, a motorcycle engine revved in the mist. Instinctively, my arm thumb shot up, led by a hitchhiker’s thumb. The driver fishtailed to a stop in the mud next to me. The proverbial cavalry had arrived. Fumes of rakshi, a home-distilled rice whiskey, rolled over me as he said, “It’s too muddy…for me to take a rider. And I’ve been drinking…just a little bit…with my brothers. Ok, get on.” So, on I got with my big backpack and hiking stick and dignity. We fishtailed at low speed down the road dodging jeeps and animals, forging murky puddles, and singing. Raj taught me Nepal’s unofficial national anthem, Reshan Firiri, which as far as I can tell is about a flying insect. And I, feeling quite happy to be off my feet yet still moving forward for the first time in almost three weeks, really belted out the old tune.
(click below to listen to this classic tune with some modified lyrics especially for tourists.)

Trad. bamboo swing constructed for Dasain.

The road down to Phedi was much longer than even I expected. I clung to the back of the motorcycle as we bounced down through rice terraces and little towns for over half an hour. I realized I never would have made it down before dark on my own. More of the towering bamboo swings rose out of the fields around us, swarming with people at play. One old lady motioned for me to join the fun as we rolled past. A little boy made faces out me from a window. Raj and I talked about his difficulties finding work and his hope to join his father in New York City someday. Finally we dropped below the clouds and into the valley bottom. The last bit of sun for the day slanted beneath the fog bank before it was extinguished by the mountaintops, a premature sunset.

Our familiar mud track emptied us onto the paved highway leading back to Pokhara and hot showers and warm beds and food other than the ubiquitous national dish of rice and lentil soup called dahl bhat. Pavement, what a strange thing. Too move along at such speeds without feeling the texture and flavor of the ground beneath your feet. Wondrous strange after so many days getting to know every rock and step of the Annapurna Circuit so intimately. Anyhow, on to Phedi.

Without any real hope of seeing my buddies there, we pulled into the roadside trailhead. Dave and Brandon saluted me with the celebratory Everest beer they were sharing as the other David loaded a taxi with reeking, sodden gear. No one seemed surprised at my sudden reappearance on the back of a motorcycle, just as they had not been surprised by my disappearance up on the mountain earlier. Turned out that everyone had gotten separated in the fog and taken whatever way seemed best. Dave and Brandon found each other, the most direct path, and the proffered bamboo swing ride. David followed conflicting sets of directions down an alternate, but ultimately sound, trail arriving just minutes ahead of me by foot. And I… well, I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.

Epilogue

A big steak dinner in Pokhara later that night became fertile ground for my little tale to assume the epic proportions it now boasts. Even though there is a little creative license here and there, this I tell you is true: somebody actually said “I will never forget you” to me. I can die happy now, knowing that I won’t be forgotten.

If you are interested in learning more about the people and landscape of the Annapurna Himal region or my trek, check out my annotated photo album on Facebook (click here) ~~or stay tuned to this blog for a compilation of the sound and music recordings I made on the trail. They should be up soon.~~