I’ve been thinking a lot lately about travel, as with any task we undertake, and that besides the place that we choose to visit or the project we begin it is the people that we meet along the way that makes the experience complete. I equate travel with any new undertaking where we begin on fertile soil and create a space for growth. Let’s talk travel. We first have a dream about a faraway place that we may have only read about or heard the name mentioned by a friend. We begin our journey raw, open and as empty as a vessel waiting to be filled with scenery, exotic images. Once back at home we remember more details as we assimilate our adventure and as we do so we remember words or even a sentence which completes the experience. Those rare and unique interactions are with people we would have never met had we not followed our path.
“Down the road, down the road, down the road……..” I hear the Holy Modal Rounders classic travelling song, “Junko Pardner” accompanied by a cacophony of Cuckoo birds backed up by the rolling river beside me, Langtang Khola. I am nearing the end of my first day trekking in Nepal’s Himalaya which started out at Syabrubesi. I cross the river over a rope suspension bridge and notice that the river’s voice now is only a faint echo as I descend to the lodge where I will spend the night.
“Namaste, my name is Lhakpa.” I am surprised that the woman greeting me is Tamang, traditionally dressed in a chuba, the long collarless thick dress which is ankle length. She is my age. Her perfect English I would later learn was picked up from speaking with travellers passing through her lodge. Lhakpa, whose life belonged to these mountains, knew about the world through the stories that she heard from strangers.
“Khanna? Are you hungry?” Assisted by a small child, Lhakpa was making momos. Lhakpa pointed to a pumpkin filling to the left and a potato cheese filling in another bowl that she alternately placed in the round dumpling wrappers to be steamed. The young girl was grinding chili paste from red finger like peppers, pungent onions and elephant garlic with a stone on a flat earthen surface. I put my backpack in the corner, sat down near the wood fire and sipped the sweet chai which was placed beside me. An hour later I was eating the most delicious food that I had ever tasted. The chili accented the delicate pumpkin flavor perfectly and the potato momo was fabulous just plain.
Lhakpa showed me to my bed in a back room. I asked what she would do now as she seemed like the evening was just beginning. “Tonight is purnima.” She pointed out a window to the sky which was adorned by a whole, golden moon. “As you sleep, I sit on the mountain and do puja to ask that the entire universe be blessed and that whoever stays at my lodge may have a safe journey.” Lhakpa belonged to the mountains but her heart belonged to the world.
On the inside of the Riverside Lodge’s wooden door is painted a white Om, under it a red monkey and a golden crescent moon smiling upward toward both. Karma, the lodge caretaker, is young and good looking with small silver hoops adorning both ears. He speaks not one word of English but speaks with his hands by pointing at tea, “chai”, and only repeating names when asked about locations which he is familiar with. Kyangin, “Kyangjin”, Ganjala, “Ganjala”, “Himal hoina!” “Himal hoina?, I asked” My aspiration was to trek over the Ganjala pass and I knew that himal meant mountain and hoina meant no.
Enter Pemba, a young Sherpa guide along with his client, a middle aged Japanese man. They both speak English. I am able to get information using Pemba as a translator that Ganjala had a blizzard a few days ago and that avalanches were likely at this time. Even locals were stranded on this side of the pass and were not travelling until the weather changed. I wondered how a man like Karma lived alone amongst such atrocities comparing young adults in America to him at his age, in their early twenties, dating and attending college and parties. I requested that Pemba ask him what life was like here at the Riverside Lodge. “Life here is like anywhere…..sometimes good, sometimes not,” Karma replied adding, “I am grateful for life.”
The next morning after chai and roti I set off toward Kyangjin Gonpa, plan B to what I had set off to explore, feeling thankful for the opportunity to walk these trails.
I cross Gosainkanda Lake at 3:00AM while the lake is still deeply frozen continuing over the Laurebina Pass toward Helambu. Burst of red rhododendron flowers pierce the shadows of the early rising sun. After two days of trekking switchbacks and staying in caves that were known by locals as common overnights, I arrive in Tarkeghyang. I stay at Bamu’s and Kanchen’s lodge during their apple harvest time. Bamu is rolling chapatti and placing apple pieces inside, crimping and frying. “This is like your apple tart?” Kanchen knew western culture and English from his frequent visits to Kathmandu for vegetable and fruit selling.
Bamu and Kanchen were a young couple whose daily life was filled with hard work and Buddhist ritual. They accepted life although it was clear that Kanchen knew the difference between his life and mine. I offer Bamu Nivea for her hands which were cracked from wind, sun and digging in the earth. She looks downward as if not worthy of such an expensive gift so I rub the cream into her hands and show her how to work it in herself. Kanchen gazes out the window, “Westerners have cream for their hands and take pills for their pains. Sherpas, we work, pray and go on living.”
Clangity, clang,clangity, clang. These horse bells are a welcome familiarity in this village. Bamu went to a drawer and pulled out three neatly folded katas. “Chatral Rinpoche” has arrived. I follow Bamu and Kanchen to the wooden house down the road where Chatral Rinpoche will be meeting villagers, carefully holding my gift, a kata for blessing, between my hands.
Years later I write this story to you. My adventure was a trek from the Langtang Valley to Helambu. My journey was compassion, acceptance and gratitude.
