Notches in the zip-tie of life

I've developed a habit of following strangers into alleys, down hidden nooks and up dark stairways; this is where stuff gets done. Of course there are some fakes out there, like the guy who came up to me on the street proposing guide services & showed me his 'business card' which was very worn and not too cleverly concealing a stack of worn cards from various other companies (he must collect them), or the kid who asked me for school funding showing me a very legit photo ID which I could swear said he was born in 2046 (good work, but a slight glitch)... but sometimes you've just gotta go with it. After my last journal post wanting to get out of town & not knowing how to go about it - aware that it was Friday afternoon and I didn't know if I could make any arrangements over the weekend - I was walking up the street enroute to my nabbing-traveller-from-cafe plan when yet another guy stopped me to see if I needed a trekking guide. (Honestly it happens about every 10 feet down the road.) I followed him to his office, expecting a little hole in an alleyway somewhere, and found a real sign outside for a real travel business, a real sign on the door upstairs, real desks and chairs and photos on the wall... So I waited around while they brought in the 'big man' to talk to me about trips. As it turned out the price was decent, and he was also able to arrange a few other things for me including a mountain flight and a 3-day trip to Chitwan Nat Park. Tomorrow I'm off to Langtang for a week-long teahouse trek with a guide and potentially one or two other people.

 

Travel plans are all about reconciling what you want to do (in my case pretty much everything) with what you can actually do within your time/budget (never enough), making the most of this trip, with the hopes of a future trip for the things you missed. I'd been thinking about doing a walk in the Everest base camp area, but it looked like anything less than 2 weeks wouldn't do it justice, and I really didn't want to spend that long in one spot as it would eat up time which I needed to see a few other things. But who can go to Nepal without seeing Everest?! So I splashed out, as they say, for a 1-hour scenic mountain flight. It was a cold but sunny morning. As we rose above the valley haze and I got my first real glimpse of the white-capped Himalaya I almost wanted to cry. It was just one of those things, spectacular and mystical in the same time, what I'd always imagined from pictures & films, but too close to those pictures to be believed. We cruised up the length of the range, turned after we got to the back-side of Everest, and back down again. Shishapangma, Lhotse, Ama Dablam - all the peaks I used to sell gear named after, towering before mine eyes! The little plane reminded me of the ones they use on the route between Adelaide & Kangaroo Island, & suddenly I had this realization: Life is like a zip-tie. One of those ones with the plastic thread and the conical stops. --<-- --< -- --< You go along doing your thing, all the miles and experiences adding up, and suddenly you pass this point where you realize that none of what you've experienced can be taken from you. Click, past the stop, & on to the next thing. First big trip 10 years ago. Click. Life on KI. Click. Really for real looking at the real Himalaya with my own two eyes. Click. It's easy to forget that you're making progress the whole time, then there are these landmark moments that just seem to cement everything somehow. Little notches that help us keep track of our blessings.

 

After the flight I got a lift back into town. The main road was closed off for a festival, so I walked the remainder, stumbling upon the Garden of Dreams on my way. A pleasant little area with plants, reflecting pools and seating alcoves throughout. The sun was shining; I sat for a while & dozed in the warmth (tired from still being on Dublin time, finally fell asleep last night at about 3am and had to get up at 530). Little chimpmunks & birds flitted around, it was quiet and calm, a nice rest from the busy city just oustide and its constant sound of honking horns, the way traffic always sounds in a town like this. Beep beep, swerve, beep beep, swerve. It's amazing that it works since everyone's honking at the same time, but it does.

 

I wandered the streets for a while, stopping to watch a procession of drumming & singing move through the streets under a network of colorful prayer flags. Have been dealing with the now-familiar mixed feelings as I interact with people... Decidedly frustrated that I must look like a cartoon dollar-sign to anyone I walk past, like Tweety when Sylvester sees him as a steak, and starting to believe that all the friendliness is just a sales pitch. Indeed most of it is. "Namaste! [...why do I hear that in my head in a Mexican accent...] How are you? Where are you from? Oh! When did you arrive Nepal? How long will you stay?" Always the same questions in the same order. And then.... "You come look at my shop?" "You buy something?" Or more often, "You going trekking? I am a guide!" As my eyes scan the street and see all the people standing out in front of their shops or walking back and forth, stunningly handsome faces with warm smiles, I start to see them as nothing more than salespeople. Then I go into this little restaurant for some dal and Nepali tea, and the people in there, who have a guaranteed customer who probably looks so tired and hungry that it's obvious they don't need to work for a sale, are incredibly friendly - even after I order one of the cheapest meals on the menu. Lots of smiles, friendly conversation, warm thanks as I leave. Restoring my hope that maybe some of the smiles and hellos are genuine after all.

 

In the evening I returned to a candle-lit hotel. Not for ambience but because the power was out. It's a regular occurence here, sometimes a building, sometimes a whole block will just lose power for a while. I'm not sure if it's deliberately cut off or on some rotation, but it seems quite random. The other night I was eating dinner in this fluorescent-lit place, when the lights went off for about 20 seconds. Then on again for a minute or two, then off again for a minute. Then on for a while, then off for a few minutes. Lifting the spoon to your mouth, losing it mid-flight when the lights cut out. The best part was that the steady trickle of conversation around the room didn't so much as hiccup when the lights went out. Just business as usual, kind of fun to me.

 

I crashed early after finishing my current book, The Kite Runner (great read), and woke around midnight to what sounded like a gigantic cat purring a few blocks away. As I went close to the window I heard traces of a high-pitched melody. Drums. Must have been a continuation of the day's celebration. My curiosity wasn't quite enough to drag me out in the street to discover the source; when it gets late the number of civilians on the street diminishes, and in their place are camo-clad men sporting big guns and what I find more intimidating for some reason, big sticks like broom handles. They're probably there for safety but still it makes me a little uneasy, so I was quite content to be serenaded from the window in the extreme toasty comfort of my Feathered Friends sleeping bag. Another night in a little corner of a small world.