Chapters:

India

INDIA

‘’Who knows for certain? Who shall here declare it? Whence was it born? Whence came creation? The gods are later than this world’s formation. Who then can know the origins of the world? None knows whence creation arose or whether he has or has not made it, he who surveys it from the lofty skies. Only he knows. Or perhaps, he knows not.’’

The Rig Veda

Mahendranagar

Getting to the Indian border at the western edge of Nepal was frigging exhausting. From Nepalganj I took a bus to Mahendranagar as the sun was rising, wiping sleep out of my eyes and really craving a strong cup of coffee. Last stretch before finally reaching Bharat, India. Before the bus at last arrived, it trundled down a few hundred meters for about thirty minutes before clunking to a resounding halt. All the passengers were then told to switch busses, although to a much smaller one, with barer looking tires and a rather dozy looking driver. My bag was hauled onto the rooftop by a slinky little man with a clean-cut moustache and ginger hair, and along with about fifteen other guys we rode to the border, on the fucking roof!

Well, not quite to the border. It was still another 9kms to the actual Indian border crossing. A rickshaw was pretty much my only option. Alas, the rickshaw driver stopped a few kilometers before the customs post, so I had to catch another rickshaw over a muddy stone road to get officially stamped into India. This, true to bureaucratic efficiency – or the lack thereof – in this part of the world, took a while, quite a while. How many Indians does it take to change a lightbulb? About as many as it takes apparently to inspect a passport, deliberate, argue and finally put some ink on a random page. So at least three, four makes for more heated debate and diversity of opinion. The second driver, who had taken me to the border control, took me a little bit farther and then started haggling for more money that I’d paid him. The cheeky ass wanted double what the previous driver charged for a shorter distance! Screw him I thought. So I walked in the blistering heat to Banbassa, the first major town after you cross over from Nepal. Yet another rickshaw carted me a few more miles to the center of town. If it wasn’t for some locals protesting at how this driver was trying to overcharge me as I offloaded my stuff, I would’ve been ripped off again! Unbelievable! I hadn’t been in India a day and the haggling had begun faster than the monsoon rains.

The next seven hours were desperately uncomfortable. I was sweating buckets in the shade, hazily trying to keep the beads of perspiration from burning my eyes. And Banbassa is a bleak, dusty hellhole. I asked an hotelier if I could please, for the love of God, take a shower and rest for a couple hours before boarding a bus. Yup you guessed it; he wanted to charge a full night’s rate. Son of a legless rickshaw driver. Incensed and on the verge of collapse, I bore out the heat at a shop owner’s backroom in the company of a cantankerous one-eyed cat. It felt like a perverse version of Alice in Wonderland. ‘How far down the rabbit hole do you wanna go sucker?’ I heard the feline mock me.

I was initially hoping to catch a bus to Shimla, but even after getting to the bus station over an hour early for a ticket, it was jam-packed. The next option was to go to Haridwar, a shorter trip and the holiest city in Uttarakand, on the banks of the Ganges. Yeah, what the heck! The ride was wild, passing through town after town and dodging all sorts of traffic, four-wheeled and four-legged. The white lines on the road didn’t seem to mean much at all to the way people drove. India does not sleep! Life was going on at full pace and bustle well past midnight. This makes sense since the days are ridiculously hot. The evenings are extremely humid as well, but at least you don’t feel like you’re going to pass out from heat stroke.

I arrived at Haridwar at 3am. As if I hadn’t been hustled enough already for cash in the space of 18 hours, the bus driver demanded an extra 200 rupees for storing my luggage. And the ticket was 220! I babbled away to him in Spanish and he soon walked off, disgruntled and most likely hurling a few choice words at me as well. Absolutely spent, I checked into the ‘Sleep Nice’ hotel, desperate for some decent shut eye. A rat scampered across the floor and under the bed as I opened the door. Could’ve done with that half blind cat I thought. Then again he was so fat from greasy leftovers that he’d probably forgotten the taste of rat meat.

Upon waking, around midday, I headed out into town to see the holy Ganges River, representing the Milky Way on earth in Hindu cosmology. Bathing in this most sacred of waterways washes away accumulated karma and cleanses the soul. Anyone cremated at its gracious banks is guaranteed a free pass into paradise and freedom from the endless cycle of birth and rebirth. It was particularly hot and I couldn’t wait to get into the water. Beautiful old buildings and temples lined the west banks of the Ganga, decorating the walkway toward Hari Phar Ghat, the main attraction down by the river in Haridwar. People were bathing unhurriedly, washing clothes and splashing playfully, in a place where this most consecrated of rivers descends from the Himalayan foothills into the enormous Gangetic plain of India. Hundreds of people were also lazing, sleeping, and eating under trees along the cobblestone walkways. Sadhus walked by, some puffing cigarettes or hash pipes, some sitting in deep meditation, and some, of course, wrangling for money while walking on hot coals or skewering themselves with needles and nails. Others were doing all three at the same time.

At the main ghat, I got my chance to swim in the Ganges at last! I met some friendly locals there who were eager to take photos of the stunning afternoon light and have a chat. Unfortunately, as I had already learned, friendliness seemed to be somewhat of a double-edged sword in India. After we had swum and enjoyed the atmosphere, the guys I’d met wanted me to pay for the whole group to go drinking. I mean c’mon! Give me break! I pulled out the 50 rupees in my pocket, shoved it in their faces, and watched in amused shock as they turned on their heels, apologizing profusely for the trouble. I wasn’t aware I had ‘ATM’ written on my forehead. It was striking and somewhat odd, coming from the gentle-hearted people I’d encountered in Nepal, yet I understood that this is just the way traveling is. You can score or you can be suckered in. The trick is not to be too concerned with either outcome and just focus on the flow of the experience, a school without rules, timetables or deadlines and written evaluations.

I relaxed for the rest of the pale pink and blue afternoon and waited for the next bus out to Manali, gateway to the Himalaya of Himanchal Pradesh. On the road again, finally escaping the oppressive heat and humidity, and finally…on the winding road up into the Himalayas, ‘the abode of snows’. Because of the monsoon and lack of time, it had been difficult to really experience the mountains in Nepal, so fabled for their stories of audacity, ambition and adversity. The Indian arm of this majestic range is just as foreboding, featuring an incredible 37 peaks over 7000 meters, a few more than neighboring Nepal and a just a couple less than Pakistan. It also boasts the 3rd highest mountain in the world (Kanchenjunga at 8.586m); upon whose summit no alpinist has never actually set foot, owing to a mandate issued by the Sikkim monarchy. Climbers respectfully stop just short of the highest point (or so they say), on a peak which is laden in religious lore as being both the origin of mankind as well as inhabiting vengeful demons and ghosts.

Manali

Curve by curve the land grew steeper and greener. And then, almost like crystal icing on a cake, the rolling hills began being coated with thin layers of snow. Snaking through the Kullu valley pulls you away from the muggy air and manic towns of the Gangetic plain and startlingly up onto the unhurried lap of the Indian Himal. On the surface - at least in high season  Manali is awash with tacky tourism and street-swindling ‘package deal’ peddlers, yet beneath that veneer, and indeed from far up in the lofty mountain tops, the sense of untethered adventure is irresistible.

In Vedic cosmology Manu - the town’s namesake is the progenitor of humankind and author of the influential Manu-smriti (Laws of Manu). His name is derived from the Indo-European ‘man’ as well as curiously from the Sanskrit verb ‘to think’. In 1794 the great British philologist William Jones was the first westerner to translate the text into English, dating it to roughly 1200 B.C and hailing it as the world’s ‘first constitution’. Multiple translations and interpretations have since followed, varying widely in their conclusions as to the extent to which the Manu’s manifesto was mandated into ancient Hindustan politics thousands of years ago.

More recently, scholars have argued that the resurrection and subsequent reification of texts like the Manu-smriti by the British Empire presaged the intensification of the caste system and restrictions particularly on women’s rights. Prior to the Crown’s colonial period of control, the smritis were typically thought to be commentaries on moral and spiritual behavior, rather than intended for the purposes of practical politics. Indeed, being one of the many Dharmashastras (treatises on dharma) manuscripts that flowered out of the prolific Vedic period, the so-called Laws of Manu are likely not laws at all, but instead statements on ideal ways to think, act and be in the world. Verse 5.47 for example declares that ‘work becomes without effort when a man contemplates, when he undertakes and does what he loves to do and when he does so without harming any creature’. Even Nietzsche praised the work for its sophisticated principles and delineation of social order as predicated on natural law, assigning it superiority over the Bible in terms of being a universal guidebook for human endeavor and ultimate perfection.      

Just outside of Manali, perched unassumingly on a steep hillside on the other end of the roaring Beas river is the alluring hamlet of Vashisht. Extremely popular as a backpacking hideout boasting hot springs inside a 4000 year-old temple to Lord Rama and famous for cheap, high-quality hashish, it’s the sort of place where any travel plans you have can easily be put on hold. Rama’s brother Lakshman, split open the earth with one of his arrows and created the hot springs, so that the great sage Vashisht wouldn’t have to travel too far to bathe. Inquiring travelers lumbered up the cobblestone road leading to the village, dotted with little stalls selling colorful cloth, traditional instruments, sweetmeats and chai. Budget accommodations were stacked on top of one another in a rather hodgepodge fashion, but offered superb mountain views and a welcome respite from honking horns and smelly exhaust fumes.

I checked into the Ganesh Guesthouse, owned by none other than a man called Ganesh. He had a cataract in one eye, big looping earrings and an infectious smile. He showed me to a spacious room on the second floor and immediately invited me for a few cups of tea and a customary hash joint. Here charas bombs as big as squash balls were available at every corner. Even better, you were allowed to smoke the stuff everywhere, in the restaurants, hostels and the favorite village hangout; a one-roomed cinema with Japanese style seating which screened mountaineering documentaries and served spicy food on sizzling skillets. The only place where the potent powder was forbidden was the temple and thermal baths.

Made by compressing and processing purified stalk resin glands called trichomes from cannabis plants, hashish has a much higher concentration of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana which stimulates hallucinatory effects and even altered states of consciousness. Originating predominantly in central and south Asia, hash has been smoked and eaten for at least a thousand years, prized both for its meditative and medical worth. One its earliest literary appearances show up in the classic 10001 Arabian Nights. In this anthology, ‘The Tale of the Hashish Eater’ recounts the story of a man who misspends his wealth on women and wine. After drifting around without any money for weeks on end he comes upon a Hammam (bathing house), unropes and ingests a big ball of hash. He is captured by dreams of being rich once more and enjoying high social status. He dreams too that the Lord himself is shampooing his hair for him and he is groomed by accompanying slaves, treating him like a king. A woman more beautiful than a thousand jasmines then appears before him and he‘s absorbed in a love-making fantasy. When he finally snaps out of the reverie he is surprised to find a crowd mocking and sniggering at his embarrassing state, his penis still loud and proud. Unabashed however, the hashish eater is greatly inspired and filled to the brim with renewed self-confidence and hope to live better, fixed on the never-ending now instead of ‘what could’ve been’.  

Hitch-Hiking the Highest Road in the World

‘‘Getting going is always a bitch’’, my stepfather Chris wrote to me in an email a week before. ‘’But once you get going things seems to roll out pretty well.’’

The road beckoned. My mission was to hitch-hike and trek the highest navigable motorway on earth. A watershed of geographical and cultural diversity, straddling Himanchal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir in northern India, the Manali-Leh route is 485 kilometers of daring mountain passes – open only four months a year – cutting through pristine alpine and moonscape topography. Nestled on the upper reaches of the Kullu and Parvati valleys, the journey began in Manali. Here, according to legend, Manu, the Hindu equivalent of Noah, set fire to his boat to recreate human life after floods destroyed the world. It’s also the gateway to Ladakh, affectionately known as ‘Little Tibet’; homeland to one of the last undisturbed Tantric Buddhist cultures on the planet, established over a millennium ago by intrepid medieval pilgrims and kings.

‘’You’re pretty brave to be doing this! Should’ve just taken a bus!’’ A jovial German engineer jested as he hauled us up the Rohtang La, at 3978m, the first major pass enroute to Leh. ‘’What’s life without a little adventure?!’’ I quipped, as the seasoned Mitsubishi rover sloshed through an icy glacial stream. Grateful for a head start I pitched camp alongside a giant boulder and was soon huddled beside a roaring fire, clasping a steaming thermos filled with mint tea and gazing spellbound into the starry night sky. Yearning to veer of the gringo trail, here I was…at the mercy of the moment, the wind at my back and in the presence of magnificent Himalayan peaks, colossal custodians of a timeless realm.

Several unforgettable days followed. I was welcomed by wide-eyed, maroon and gold clad monks to stay in cliff-perched monasteries, gompas, where I attended morning puja ceremonies filled with bellowing recitals of Buddhist sutras by lamas in baritone. The warmth of the Ladakhi people was truly something to behold, earnestly epitomizing lovingkindness and peace. Along the journey I caught rides in military trucks, tractors, fruit pickups and private jeeps, on passage north toward the snowy Silk Road frontier lands at the extreme edge of China and the Indian subcontinent. Having averaged an altitude of 4000 meters above sea level, at the climax of my epic I climbed to the highest elevation on this extraordinary path, Tanglang La pass, at 5.328m, where I met fellow intrepid travelers, ecstatic to be in such a magical place. In a tented dhaba we sipped yak butter tea and reminisced over stories about shoestring adventures in far-flung corners of the globe as the horizon melted from mauve to midnight blue. At last in Leh, at the Shanti Stupa, I sat awestruck at murals and statues of Maitreya, the future Buddha, and Avalokitesvara, the thousand-armed god of compassion, and reflected on the stunning trip under course.

The 490km stretch from Manali in Himanchal Pradesh to Leh in Jammu & Kashmir is one of the most remote, dangerous passageways you can make on wheels…and by foot. Shut off from vehicle access for almost 8 months in a year, public buses chug precariously while motorcyclists in Royal Enfields skip along its narrow lanes (sometimes just one lane) during the brief weather window from May to August. I’d been going for four days. So far I’d secured passage via a rickety army truck, an overloaded fruit van and a piece-of-shit tractor. That was kind of a waste of time; it went way slower than you could walk, but offered a welcome respite from hauling a 30kg backpack. I know…what the hell was I carrying in there? Steaks and wine for a week? It wasn’t easy to find beef in this part of the world and the wine was pretty average by any standards. Of course, a stone-sizzled rump and fruity glass of cab would’ve been superb, but I quite happily accepted the immense feast of stars enveloping me, so close you could pluck them like ripe apples from the deep black and blue heavens.

We can see ourselves in those brilliant burning balls of light. Their redshifted glow a shimmering reminder of where we came from, and perhaps where we’re headed. So alone they seem, just like we feel so much of the time down here on planet Earth. They’re seemingly frozen in space and time, yet simultaneously eluding the dimensions we know of. That iridescent stardust makes up who we are; the very elements that have given rise to all life. Yet at the same time we feel so disconnected from this cosmic energy, literally and metaphorically…like dust in the wind. Have we forgotten the forces that comprise us? Have we become unaware of how we’re intricately interconnected with all the energy in the universe? Has the aphorism ‘as above so below’ slipped our minds? Being in the Himalayas was a golden chance to remember this splendor and re-member with the eternal field of consciousness that unites all of us and everything, the absolute, ultimate ground of being. And not just to ponder it philosophically, but to really experience it profoundly, to connect to depths of my Self, the Self…the fountainhead of existence.      

Back on the trail fresh the next morning the thrill of unplanned wandering surged through me. Oh my god! A truck! The driver pulled over almost as soon as he saw me, agitating a cloud of dust into my face. Thanks man. I climbed the stairs up into the massive beast of a thing, gasping for air.

‘’Namaste!’’

        ‘’Good afternoons my little brother! Where are you be going?’’

‘’Leh! You going that way?’’

        ‘’Yes of course, please come.’’

Mr. Singh reassumed his wide-armed grip on the steering wheel and jerked into gear, cursing the shift-stick a ‘son-of-bitch’ and spitting out a sloppy wad of chewing tobacco before we rattled along. When in India I thought. Adorned with bobbing figurines of the Hindu deities Shiva (the god of destruction), Krishna (the god of love) and Ganesh (the god of fortune) along with colorful plastic flowers and Sanskrit mantras, the truck made a quaint setting for the incredible landscapes that unfolded as we snaked around one hairpin after the next. I lay back and drifted easily into a daydream, happy to have a long-distance ride on the way to Leh.

Suddenly I was jerked awake by a shrill crunching sound as we careened down a steep, curved slope, Mr. Singh clutching the wheel in bewilderment and hurling a fresh slew of insults. The brakes were wearing thin and we were losing control. ‘’Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!’’ Mr. Singh flashed at me in trepidation.

‘’My friend, I am most sorry! Maybe we will be dying!’’

        ‘’Focus on the road man! Jesus! We’re not gonna die!’’

My turbaned companion stamped on the brake pedal as hard as he could while I winched up the hand brake. The thought of jumping out of the pathless vehicle fleetingly crossed my mind. As we veered a tight corner down the road the track abruptly gave way to a section of thickly walled up mud. SPLAT! Our vision was blotted out completely but the truck was moving much slower now and seemed to be coming to a halt. At this point Mr. Singh was clutching a string of prayer beads and begging for propitiation to his dashboard of deities. I opened the passenger seat door and sloshed into the bog beneath, peering out in disbelief. The truck had bowled to a stop at the edge of the curve, its front wheels in mid-air over a drop-off that looked at least 500m down. Attribute it to what you will – karma, God, destiny, fate, fortune or whatever else – I definitely felt lucky to be alive as I stood in shock peering over the sheer expanse of space below. Mr. Singh had climbed out the front seat and was now running around in hysteria crying out at the sky in tears. Consoling him didn’t do much and after smoking a cigarette to calm my nerves I bade him farewell and continued down the road alone.

After a walk of about 15 kilometers I caught a glance of some feint lights in the distance. Yes! A welcome reprieve from a ‘near, near-death experience’. I approached the humble little tented settlement – one of the many that dotted the Manali-Leh highway when the weather was relatively forgiving – and offloaded my backpack on stony ground. The sun was setting quickly and a frigid wind began ripping through the air. I pulled on my jacket and lifted the flap of a nearby tent, reminiscent of a Mongolian yurt. Inside were huddled several weary looking men in heavy parkas and Russian-style ushanka hats. In broken Hindi I asked how much a warm meal and bed would be amidst some rather suspicious stares. A grand total of 200 rupees (roughly 3 dollars) would do the trick. Not too shabby for a shoestring budget.

After a much appreciated plate of dhal bhat and sabji (rice, lentil soup and fried vegetables) I strolled outside into the brilliant star-spangled night. It felt incredible to be in such a remote place, on the edge of the Himalayas, and although alone, the spirits of the stars were the best companions. Wow! The heavenly bodies are so bright in this part of the world! You don’t really need to close your eyes to meditate, the unified field is staring you right in the face. I only remember seeing stars sparkling as intensely up in the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru, and they just take your breath away, leaving you totally open to entering into their vibrations…and reverberations. At times it looked like the stars were decorating the mountains like diamond rings on every finger of a hand. In moments like these the ‘faraway’ melts with the ‘nearby’ and bound reality ‘down here’ becomes completely blended with reality ‘up there’…one and the same, like moonlight reflecting off a quiet cold lake.    

A crescendo of snores resounded throughout the tent around dawn the next morning, rousing me from my sleep and out into the chilly morning air. A couple of steaming cups of chai later I was on my way, setting a brisk pace down the trail north bound. I’d been walking for about four hours when a fruit truck came rumbling over the hill.

‘’Hello my friend! Where are you going?’’

        ‘’As far as you are brother!’’

‘’OK! Jump in!’’

        ‘’Thanks!’’

Well as far as the old battered fruit truck as headed turned out not to be that far, only about 20 kilometers, but I was grateful for the ride, exhilarating with whipping wind as we carved through bends and beautiful scenery. I even scored a few bananas and mangos and shared some laughs with the men who shared passage with me. I’d learnt that grinning and bearing awkward stares only gets you only so far as a gringo in a faraway land. It certainly helps to be friendly but you sometimes also gotta be kinda cocky, willing to poke fun at the locals, throw in some sarcasm and just be yourself more than anything else.

My ride had reached its drop off point for the day and I hopped off and thanked the driver once again. Back on the road solo I was almost immediately approached by some camera-crazy Sikhs (recognizable by their curled turbans and long but neatly kept beards) in freshly pressed suites, pleading for shots at a frozen waterfall with them. Well not exactly a waterfall, just a few meters of slushy water above a muddy curve, apparently enough to warrant a Kodak moment.  

‘’Why do you want a photo with me? I’m just a climber.’’

        ‘’You are white! From America?’’

‘’No. South Africa.’’

        ‘’Ah! South Africa! Very very good in cricket!’’

‘’Yeah we have a pretty good team. Never do well at world cups though; you guys have had a better record. Where are you from?’’

        ‘’We are coming from Punjab! It is being our first time seeing snow! So beautiful it is!’’

‘’Now I understand why you wanna take pics! Okay, but be careful you don’t slip on your asses!’’          

I relented for a couple selfies alongside the Cheshire-grinning tourists before heading down the road, somewhat bedazzled by the breadth of experiences had in such a short space of time. Now close to the village of Zingzingbar, almost half way to Leh on this epic trans-state route through northern India. Just a little later I caught a glimpse of a picturesque monastery perched atop a pretty looking hillside above a fast-flowing river. Open to camping for sure, but a night at a Buddhist monastery would be amazing! I slogged through some steep terrain, meeting an amicable French traveler along the way who seemed to be doing a trip similar to mine.

‘’Hey there brother. How’s it going?’’

        ‘’Very well thank you! How is your journey?’’

‘’I’m thinking about staying at that temple up there, maybe they’ll give me space somewhere. Where are you headed?’’

        ‘’Good luck my friend! The people here are wonderful; surely they will take you in. I will be sleeping in those caves you can see across the valley. Looks a fabulous place to meditate no?’’

‘’Man, that sounds incredible. I would be tempted to join you, but maybe those monks have something to teach me…I guess I’ll find out.’’

        ‘’Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. They will teach you many things, things you will certainly think about for a long time, but then again the thinking must go too, ha-ha!’’  

The day was yawning quickly and I stepped up the pace as the secluded monastery came into sight. After considerable confusion regarding my abrupt arrival I was eventually offered a bed in a small room attached to the main temple area and a hot bowl of thukpa, Tibetan style noodle soup with vegetables. Left alone with few words exchanged, it felt like I had unassumingly entered into a Vipassana-style silent retreat of sorts, almost as if my presence was expected, but then again not. The complex seemed to be at low capacity and not much was going on…the tinkling of bells in the wind, the whishing of a broom, the murmuring of mantras.  I sat and journaled in front of walls adorned with rainbow-colored prayer flags, gazing over toward the sleeping mountains, the horizon shot with brilliant pinks, oranges and greys.

I thought back to the Frenchman and what he had said about thinking and not thinking. Typically we rove between waking, dreaming and deep sleep states of consciousness, perhaps for most people in a kind of 4-2-1 ratio. Waking is dominated by continual thought processes, problem-solving, logic, experiencing of emotions and identification with the ‘I’ being actively involved in interacting with the world outside of ourselves. Dreaming appears as a projection of our deepest-set emotions and subconscious minds, the episodes of which are all at once symbolic, random, confusing and mysterious to us. They reflect our desires and fears, our resentments and our hopes. Deep sleep seems to cut through a waking or dreaming ego, plunging us into complete body relaxation. The kind of sleep that leaves you totally rested the next morning, almost like your head had just hit the pillow a few minutes ago, yet you feel completely refreshed. And then there is the fourth state, which we have touched on a few times so far on our journey through these pages and places. This is the hallowed state of Samadhi that the Vedic literature glorifies so much. This is the greatest of all states, for it combines the best of the other three. This is reached in meditation and spiritual practices that transcend the thinking mind and the rippling of the ego. It’s like you’re there but you’re not. Awake but not awake, breathing, yet ever so slightly as you drift deeper and deeper into the sublime ocean of consciousness where the knower, the known and the process of knowing become merged.