Belly of the Whale

CH 3. - Reflecting Moonshadows

From the roof of my hotel I could see Stok monastery across the Indus. Behind the Indus Valley the Zanskar Mountains rippled the southern horizon as far as I could see. Faintly I could trace the road I had come in on winding with the river below. I remembered my illness and the mad journey upon that road that had brought me here. I felt changed and was unsure whether it was due to the severity of the illness or some innate power buried in these hills. Behind me the North road winded up through the crevices and gouges as it made its way into the Nubra region and beyond into Tibet. Anything seemed possible from this spot atop the Siachen Hotel. Everything was in my sight.

The Siachen wasn’t a palace, but I stayed because of loyalty to Ashok, the manager, who had helped me through my illness. I had recovered my strength and was eating well. I read a lot and dallied around town. I meandered out and scurried up and along the bouldery ridges west of Leh. Even these high dangerous places were decorated and empowered by prayerflags, blowing “Om Mani Padme Hum” (and other mantras) to the wellbeing of all sentient beings. Amazing how all the land is a shrine to the Buddhists! Ladakh is one great temple and each mountain a prayerwheel, each river hums sutras as it flows. It really feels that way here.

The lushness of the valleys contrasted against the dry mountains flashing dark shadows – they reminded my why I climb. Even their shadows were frightening and there is something in the fear of them that is uplifting and vital, humbling and empowering. But my climbing ability had grown dusty and suspect with disuse.

Behind the Indus River and Stok Monastery, Stok Kangri rose above the surrounding ridges and neighboring peaks, dripping ice and snow from its dished north face. It was elegant but not conspicuous, tall in a land of six-thousand meter ridges and summits. I had never climbed in the vacant airs over six-thousand feet, though I had dreamed it and feared it. The base camp for Stok Kangri lay only two days out of Stok village, a steep hike. From base camp it was one push, 5-16 hours to the top and back to camp. The route was not too technical, well within my abilities. But it would be exhausting and being on a mountain alone is always dangerous, even if you were in top shape.

When I left Kathmandu, and when I left Montana two months before, I knew that I must climb. It was my time. I would be in the Himalaya, the dream of all mountaineers. But was I really a mountaineer? Had I earned such a title? I had been climbing for many years. I learned quickly, I had the passion, I felt a sense of calling. But I hadn’t pushed myself since before I moved to Montana. I didn’t have any partners anymore. I was too busy to be a serious mountaineer. My education was more important. I climbed just enough to maintain what skill I had, nourishing that inextinguishable craving and need for high places and fear.

In Leh, a localized Aussi had given me the name of a hotel in Stok where I could acquire some ponies to carry my supplies up into the mountains with me. The next day I missed the morning bus which seemed to have left an hour early for Stok – my mistake. The next bus wasn’t until two which felt like a waste of the day, so I paid a cabbie a whopping 500 rupees ($10) to drive me across the valley to Stok Village at the base of the Zanskar Mountains.

The sky was cobalt blue and the desert rocks shone and twinkled. The sunlight had its own weight, its own gravity upon my shoulders, like thoughts on the mind; it was so bare and powerful I wouldn’t look toward it – only at its shadows. I wore a thin white and black Moroccan shawl under my hat and wrapped it over my ears and around my neck. Sunglasses dulled the glow of road. Looking east and west as the valley runs, it seemed I could see to the ends of the earth – where I had come, and where I would go. The land fell away without a sense of fading or obscurity. The valley drooped below the most jagged-sharp ridges I had ever imagined. They were beige and steep, with turrets and pillars, but splintering with fractal-like sub-ridges. The ridges were fluted, creating great chimneys and giving the rock intense texture to the eye. As we crossed the great expansion bridge over the Indus, thousands of prayer flags waved between the spreaders and wires, so thick they obscured the bridge itself, becoming a blur of colors, a rainbow over water, as we passed to the south side of the valley.

There are only two hotels in Stok and neither was the one I was looking for. No one knew the man that reputedly had mules I could take up with me to Stok Kangri if I chose to climb. The cabbie asked everyone around. We drove to the trailhead and then turned back toward Leh.

10:15 a.m. Back in Leh without a worthy plan, feeling a bit miffed, I felt a meal was the best course of action. The Tash Deley was close to my hotel and was always a quiet spot. Some chai would quell my doubts. On the way I stopped at a bakery to grab some coconut cookies and a pastry for breakfast, wondering. I would eat these as I drank a lassi in the restaurant. Curd is a national staple here. They taste like milkshakes.

The Tash Deley is upstairs in a building on the main street. The cement staircase has no rail on the way up to the one-room restaurant. The streetside wall is all windows, facing south, casting light over the room. The old varnish of the wood floor shines white with the glare. The waitress’ name is Tserring, a Ladakhi, maybe twenty-three or four. She’s cute and thin and dresses in a western sort of style like many young Ladakhis do. Her jeans were always a bit baggie and accentuated her hips. Thicksoled shoes made her appear a bit taller. Her tee-shirts always seemed random, as if gifts from foreign tourists, but they fit her well, always showing her flat stomach as she smiled.
“Tserring, Jullay...”
“Jo-nah, jullay! How are you?” in soft unconfident English.
“Lovely. May I have a banana lassi and a chai? Oh, and can I have buff momos as soon as they are ready. No hurry though. I know it is early for buff momos. Early lunch.”
“Of course, Jo-nah”
“Dhanyabād.” (thankyou.)

It was only ten-thirty in the morning, my cookies would pass the time. I was hungry, and I figured I would eat breakfast and lunch in quick succession. The momos wouldn’t be ready for a while. The cook likely still had to run to the market to buy the buffalo.

Letting my chai cool, sipping my lassi, my mind wandered back to my lack of progress. What was I doing? This mountain was important. Or was it? I didn’t want to head to the U.S. without doing some Himalayan climbing. I would be ashamed at missing such a rare opportunity. I had been dying to climb here for years and now my time was dwindling to a glimmer. But I couldn’t find a plan. Did I want to find a plan? Something didn’t feel right.

My mind turned away and, looking at the t.v. buzzing in the corner, I thought how I never have gotten used to the intermingling of these two foreign worlds: the American consumerism and the Tibetan Buddhist. In Leh, there is a great monastery built like the Acropolis on a high limestone escarpment overlooking the valleys. There are prayer wheels the size of Volkswagens; there are monks in saffron robes, prayer beads in their hands and portraits of the Dalai Lama in every house, business, and restaurant. But the young people wear bluejeans and chains, walkmen and Beavis and Butt-head tee-shirts. Kids sing rock ‘n roll songs, meanwhile the Ladakhi folk music is forgotten. Tourists flood the streets buying bus tours, treks, stickers, and Kashmiri rugs. The bookstore sells Harry Potter right next to Thich Nat Han. The mountains hold less awe for them then they once did.

I opened up and started back into the book I have been reading (the fifth Harry Potter; I had already read Thich Nat Han), shutting my mind off – I didn’t want to think about anything. I hated to see the erosion of such an amazing culture. I hated to be so confused about my life. I snacked on my cookie and sipped my lassi. The sun draped my shadow across the dull wood floor and warmed my shoulders. When my momos arrived I realized more than an hour had passed. I picked up the small buffalo filled pastry-looking morsel and dipped it into some hot sauce. I thought:

- Shouldn’t I be deriving a plan to climb this mountain, this formidable beast of a thing, alone? Why am I being so cavalier about the whole thing, like it isn’t important?
- What if I don’t want to climb it? This is my vacation; I can do whatever the hell I want to do, and right now I want to read.
- I don’t want to read? What the hell are you talking about? Deep down I want to climb that damn mountain. So why am I pussyfooting like I have never climbed a mountain before?
- Well, for starters, I never have climbed a mountain like this before. This ain’t the Canadian Rockies. And second, the energy is not so good. I’m nervous; it feels funny. Think about the rock that pulled off on me the other day, that’s never happened before. Not auspicious I tell you.
- These are not bad omens; You know better. Remember, in Venezuela when I didn’t go on that climbing trip. Remember the energy then; remember how that felt? That was bad omen energy, and that climb was a disaster from what I heard later. This is different; it feels different. This is timing and laziness – that’s all. I have been sick, as sick as I’ve ever been in my life maybe – that was five days ago. And now I think I can go up to twenty-thousand feet. I don’t even have a good map!
- Timing, yes. I have only six days to do a four to five day climb. Is that realistic? And I am sitting in a restaurant reading. Maybe I’m scared because it isn’t bloody possible now? Maybe I am too weak to climb?
- Of course there is fear; there is always fear. Climbing mountains is about fear. That is why I love climbing; its not a reason not to climb. What lies beyond the fear? Timing is another thing. I might have time. I have the strength. Get off your ass.
- Time is not the problem.

I opened my book again as I started on my momos. “Hajur, may I have a chai, Tserring, please.”
“For you, Jo-nah, of course.”
“Danyabād.” The time and pages started blowing by unnoticed as the shadows slowly crawled west to east around the room. The pages had no effect on me. I didn’t tire; I was rapt, occasionally bursting out in laughter - to my embarrassment – though the restaurant was mostly empty. Some monks would come and go, drinking butter tea, smiling peacefully, untroubled.

Each time I put the book down, I thought about thinking again: “I’m not afraid; my fear is justified” – the thoughts wouldn’t last. I was totally given to the story, to the distraction. I picked it back up, unresolved, and flipped page after page, chapter after chapter. It was two-thirty; it was four.

“Will you pack me in your suitcase and take me back to America with you?”
“You’re pretty small; you just might fit. But what would I tell to immigration? I don’t think customs would approve.”
“But I want to see America…”
“Is it difficult for an Indian to get a visa? Even so, America is very expensive to visit, very expensive plane ticket too. It would make you love Ladakh even more. Travel always makes you appreciate home.”

The room changed hue, darkening. As the sun started to set, it fell below the roof of the building across the street, casting its shadows the windows. I could hear an increased clamoring of Ladakhi laborers and truck drivers, now lounging on the steps of shops and on the curb of the street. People were out buying fresh fruits and vegetables from the women on the sidewalk. Two cows were tussling over who had the rights to the garbage pile beneath the Tash Deley. I realized I had been sitting here for nearly ten hours. I read some two-hundred and fifty pages, I don’t know, but I was relaxed and mellow, peaceful – even if I was hiding a bit.

Now it was getting hard to see. Tserring still hadn’t turned the lights on yet and shadows were taking over the floor and tables. I thought perhaps it was time for my bill. My eyes were still not sore, but I was at a good stopping place – a lull in the action, a redoubling for the next climax. I was starting to squirm around a bit much. My mind wasn’t complete mush, but that sort of empty feeling where thought can not simply force its own will upon you. “La cuenta – I mean, ah – Kati ho?” (How much?) It is ridiculous how often I fall into speaking Spanish here. My bill came to one-hundred and ten rupees, about two dollars. I tipped Tserring well, about half as much as my total. I sat in here all day after all.

I used the toilet, only a porcelain hole in the ground and a spigot, and then thought I would stroll through town, stretch the legs out, see people; I needed to do something. Something was swelling, tingling in my pores. I smiled at the feeling; it felt good.

I went down and past the cows now grazing together and started walking north through the center of town. I knew all the shops and things well enough by now. I love the colors of the produce as it was lined along the streets. The women and their striped Tibetan aprons could be found in faded National Geographic magazines – they haven’t changed; they have resisted time with weathered faces and wool cloaks. Still they smile. Still they laugh as they balance out their fruits against lead weights. They sell for next to nothing. I passed by the luring venders – not quite as sharp as usual - “I’m not shopping; I’m not buying, no thank you, Jullay! Then, passing another old bakery and a new cybercafé, I took a north road I had only ever been up briefly.

The poplars lining the road looked black silhouetted against the sky. The western horizon was that aqua-marine color when there are no clouds in the sky to catch the falling light. The air is always so nice at this time day! Everything felt fresh, the creek flowed down the right side of the street, gurgling and rumbling. It felt good to be walking, breathing moist, cool air – just to be moving again after a day spent in an imagined world.

I was gently going north up valley. I was now in the residential area. The barren desert rocks jutted out in the distance. I thought, “instead of turning back, I could just keep on going.” The way home was as simple as walking downhill. I had never been up to the head of the Leh valley. I didn’t know what to expect. I looked east over my shoulder and saw the moon rising over the southern mountains. It lit up everything, shining through the silica rock. Light danced off the pavement, the water twinkled, and the mountains cast great ghostly shadows at their feet. The moon would be full in a few days. “Where would I be? What would I have to show for this time, this experience, these chances? So much is at stake.”

The houses ceased into fields and rocky desert. The trucks and jeeps coming down from the northern passes slowly petered out. Lights crept behind me. The world welled up with sound; the gurgling creek swelled in my veins, vibrating intensely.

The road rose up, up above the creek, and the hum and intensity quelled with the elevation. The darkness rose. A sign came toward me in the twilight. It said that this road was the highest road in the world. I smiled with recognition: this was the North Road that crosses the supposed “highest motorible pass in the world.” Ha! And I was walking it - alone and at night. Where was I going? Anything seemed possible.

The sun had now long rid the sky of any last traces, but the moon was coming up like a fresh lamp over my right shoulder. The air was crisp, not cold, hardly cool. I almost ran into two black cows, ominous in the night. They were a bit frightened as well and spooked, almost slipping into the gorge below.

As the road steepened into switchbacks, the sound of the creek had been replaced by a soft gusting breeze. I noticed a dirt track heading off east into a nice open valley. It was wide and smooth. Getting lost would not be a concern. The North Star and Big Dipper were hovering in front of me, and the moon was making its predictable trip in the south. I headed off into the sand and gravel alone with the breeze before me.

My legs craved the movement. The day’s leisure pealed away. Up, up, gradually. All I could hear were my sandals as they crunched through the gravel and sand, and the wind trickling down from the east. Large boulders on the hillsides glowed, slightly illuminated in the lunar rays. The track winded around knolls and dipped into shadowy ravines. If I stopped the silence was eerie. My mind was hushed, still quiet from the reading meditation. Whatever was rising was still pacing itself, still remained beneath the surface.

Then the wind buzzed in my ear a bit, re-instilling a sense of equilibrium. Was that Mars rising pale over the eastern ridge? Was that Venus crossing the zenith overhead? I didn’t know. I wanted to know their names. I wanted them to be familiar. An hour passed without thought, then another and more.

On a knoll above me, I spied a flat bulging outcropping of rock. It was the time and spot for a cigarette, a break, a stare at the stars and a little quiet contemplation. My rolling papers were the worst papers in the world I’m sure. I have gone to using a small rolled piece of card as a makeshift filter - a European trick. The cigarette came together, but there was little art in it, I’m afraid. I tended the flame against the wind.

When I smoke it is a personal ritual, a sanctified act. I puff, not inhaling fully, making smoke billow all around my face in thick creamy plumes. I watch the embers burn and breath and fade. I like holding in the smoke as “good medicine,” like something sacred. If the wind is elsewhere I like blowing rings, cupping my lips and dropping my jaw, but the wind always comes when I smoke.

It is a time when my mind dialectically reverses on itself, like a mirror turned toward an introspective light, self-illumiated. I am able to see layers of trivialities, weaknesses, fears and peel them away. I dig down undistracted until I reach the bottom, the shadowy and hidden depths where my truths lie. Once found, once remembered, I take them and bring them up, back to the surface, and the light.

The stars to the north twinkled as if in a dance with themselves, as if they were not stationary at all, but were circling or twirling. I took off my sandals and sat on them. I pulled my jug of water out, took a pull, and another. I took out my now old black and white Moroccan shawl and put it beneath my ankles so I could sit cross-legged in comfort. The rock was noticeably warm from the day’s sun. I rolled the cigarette around between my fingers.

With the smoke exhaled any questions, troubles, doubts. These mountains have a poignancy that I learned years ago. Had I forgotten, or doubted it? Strange how memories fade beneath the dullness of daily routines. Strange how fear can warp the mind and distract it.

The last bit of tobacco I extinguished between my fingers tips with a twist. With a breath, I gave it to the wind. It was for my humility. This was my ceremony, my thanks and offering to the world for what life I have. I was in the Himalaya, in Ladakh, the old Tibetan Buddhist world, a world of cold simplicity, mantras, and invasion. There were no jeeps going by, no Kashmiris selling things I didn’t need; the mountains were crystal clear; the stars danced; the moonshadows had a form and shape, like the arched back of a woman, or the shape of a dolphin in the surf. Is life not worth the risks we take to live it?

I thought how soon I would be back home, back in the Montana Rockies with Widge and Wendy, talking to Paddy, Nicci, and Linda. I would see Willy and hear some good ol’ stories. I would be busy again. Again I would throw myself into life there. But today I was sitting high on a rock in the night, the moon gloating over me. It was hard to turn back even though I could now see the way.

I walked farther on, defiantly, until my path closed in around me with steep walls and a deep ravine. Reluctantly I turned back and down. The shadows had grown longer, stretching toward me from the southern mountains like teeth, the moon arcing over them. The slight downhill grade was taking me home, back to Montana too quickly. All I wanted was more time or for time to stop. I felt I could live in this moment awhile.

I saw a light not too far off in the distance. It appeared to be working its way up the track. The time was near midnight and I stood alone in the star-shine. The Indian highlands seemed an apt place to practice a little stealth. What good would come from being seen? - A ride home I didn’t want? I scrambled up on a small prow, and there was a shelf of rock with a fine shadow beneath it. I was glad for a reason to stop again. I didn’t see what happened to the light, but the rock was far too suitable for stargazing. I crawled back into the light and laid there dead for another fifteen minutes before moving on again. I had nowhere else to be.

I took it slow, seeing how quiet my feet would work. I crept around corners. I even got my heart rate jumping just a bit. I smiled; what fun! I felt like a little child. I remembered when I used to slip out of the house late at night and dodge car lights with Michael Pippin, running shadow to shadow, tree to tree. But soon I could see the black tar of the North Road winding along beneath me. My legs rolled me softly down the now silent and vacant streets.

The silence faded to the hum of the creek and te clatter of leaves. The road was hard to make out under the blanket of darkness falling from the tall poplars along the creek. All lights were out. A pack of dogs was sleeping by the square and didn’t notice me as I eased passed. A baker was at work preparing the morning’s cakes, and I managed some more cookies and a slice of pie from the man. The cows sat together outside the Tash Deley in the gutters. To the south the moon hung like a pendulum over Stok Kangri, still cold, cradling ice and whipped snows.