Belly of the Whale

Ch. 2. - "To the Dark Tower Came"

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains - with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me - solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
- Browning

* * *
My days in Kathmandu were coming to a close, two months gone in a blur. I had been volunteering as an English teacher in a monastery at Boudanath Stupa, Friday was my last day. Tenzin, the administrator, offered me heart-felt blessings for the time I had spent with them and for my trip still to come. He and my young Tibetan monks draped silk scarves over my neck thanking me – the Tibetan ritual for blessing. I was so overwhelmed by the ceremony of the Tibetan goodbyes - far less clumsy and awkward than our own western goodbyes. This culture in its vast differences offers so many wonderful alternatives to the world and lives of the west.

I walked into the Double Dorjee for dinner garbed like some sort of star. I didn’t want to take the bulk of scarves off – I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. I didn’t want to spoil their wishes for my safe travel. I felt I might need them. I had only three weeks before my flight back to the U.S. – not much time to get anything done. Also, because of the monsoon, it was difficult to trek or climb anywhere. In fact, I hadn’t climbed once since I arrived in Nepal. Olaf, a German friend, had told me about a place in northwestern India called Ladakh. It is known as “Little Tibet.”

Ladakh is quietly situated in the Jammu – Kashmir region, nestled between Pakistan and Tibetan China. Southern mountains around Manali block the monsoon rains from moving any farther to the northwest. Ladakh is Himalayan high desert, the western extension of the Tibetan Plateau. It is completely dry except for the ancient Indus River and its tributaries which flow through its heart. A trek called the Zanskar Traverse stitches its way from Manali toward Leh, the capital. This trek is famous; I had read about it years before. I thought I might try and do a short section of it. I left for Ladakh on Saturday. I estimated a seven day journey before I would see Leh. I packed only a super-light bag: a few books, socks, toothbrush, rainjacket – no silk prayer scarves; I left them with the rest of my things that I stored in Kathmandu.

Friday. I bused south out of Kathmandu. The dry, dusty urban sprawl, the horns and screeches of traffic all faded behind trees and rising mountains. Sixteen hours of beautiful rice patties, moist air, streams, up and around the treacherous high roads of Nepal. Landslides were a constant danger as well as head on collisions with the multitude of trucks networking goods across Nepal and India. I had never seen India, a land of such legend and color. All summer I had studied Ayurvedic medicine and yoga, had learned Hindu gods and the cosmology of Buddhism and the Vedas. But the land itself was still a mystery.

I love the road. Two months of rigorous study with a new and dear friend, a brilliant schizophrenic, had rekindled that urge for adventure and travel. India for the first time – at once I was riveted and anxious, but also calm and detached. The wind whistled through the open door of the bus. My mind wandered freely, unhindered. As we reached the lowlands, the color and cleanliness of the drive were striking and invigorating. We stopped in random villages delivering satchels of mail.

In late afternoon, hours after I thought I had crossed into India, I finally came to the bordertown of Somnali. Everything had been so clean and lush. In Kathmandu I had become used to filth and garbage strewn across all open ground, cows eating rotting matter out of the sewers. Here, everything was flat for miles around, reminiscent of the Llanos of Venezuela or Florida, lakes and water everywhere, everything green and vibrant. No large towns, little traffic.

Sunday I caught the afternoon train to Delhi. It was an eighteen hour ride, an overnight trip. I had been well warned of the dangers of Indian trains. Night trains were a favorite for pickpockets, targeting sleeping tourists with loose or open bags. I even heard of a lady who kept her wallet strapped to her leg. She woke up with her pant leg cut up the seam and her wallet gone. There are stories about water bottles spiked with sleeping narcotics. So I brought plenty of water and put tiny padlocks on my pack.

The people in my car were playful and friendly. We joked and had long political discussions about the growth of India as a power into the world economy. But I spent most of my time by the door. I could open the car door and sit, swing, or hang outside the train, watching all the world wiz by and change color. We would cross over great rivers and seeing the river between my toes, hundreds of feet below, was a rush. On the floor behind me lay a woman wrapped like a leper, white and bandaged. She had been badly burned when her cook-stove exploded. She and her husband were going to Delhi for treatment they couldn’t afford. I gave them a meager donation.

At many stops along the way, vendors would sell chai tea and the Indian varieties of fast food: fry bread and chutney; spicy, grease-fried chicken; fried rice. This is all that is available to eat while traveling by train.

At night, I huddled my bags together as I slept. Once, sleeping in a park in Pamplona, I had been robbed of a snickers bar and five bucks as I slept. I was outraged, and I was determined never to have it happen again. When I arrived on Monday morning, I still had all my possessions. I hadn't been drugged, not that I could remember. I left the train with a plethora of email addresses and walked into the swarm of taxis and tuk-tuks (motor rickshaws). This was Delhi. The market district is adjacent to the railway station. I walked south as Olaf had told me and found a hotel in a spot that I hoped would be hard to lose. It was 10:15 am. I went directly to bed and slept until early afternoon.

I woke up in Delhi in the afternoon and walked around. India reputedly has the most amazing traffic in the world, and Delhi was supposedly a fine example of it. But I didn’t think so. It’s just that it barely moves, only slow, like a glacier. I thought Kathmandu was more amazing because of the cowboy style of driving; no lanes, no lights, no rules. Everything was fast, dangerous, and damn exciting. Here it was just a crawl, boring.

I learned the bus to Manali is in the evening - only night buses go to Manali. Since I didn’t want to spend the whole next day in Delhi, I needed to hurry and catch the one today. I only had two hours to find an ATM, collect my pack, and get back to the bus. I got a tuk-tuk and ran to the bank. We were heading out toward Old Delhi and the traffic was moving well. It only took about five to ten minutes. But heading back into town, back to my hotel, it took a solid hour or more. But I made it. I will not go into my difficulties with the bus people. Straight answers never come in this part of the world. That evening, a couple of hours later than expected, from a different spot than expected, on a different bus than expected, I did finally depart for Manali.

It was on this leg of the trip that my karma would come around, that mistakes made would be paid for. I ate something, I don’t know what or where, but my stomach started to fester; it turned to glass shards and granite. It would have been, and was still, an amazing drive. The conductor was a madman, taking the bus into every corner like Davie Allison. He passed buses on blind corners, speeding up as he went, just avoid oncoming traffic as it appeared. I didn’t know any sane man would drive a bus like that. I had been in Nepal for long enough to understand bus drivers, but this was truly spectacular– I loved him. What a ride! But stomach pains on a night bus trip are no good, especially a drive as animated as this one was. I didn’t sleep, but by morning I was feeling better. I felt so fortunate to have not vomited or otherwise lost control of my functions. The Buddhist prayers must have been with me.

Tuesday. I was in Manali, touted as the “hippie hangout” of India. The understory of the forest was basically a monoculture of marijuana. The town was small, relaxed and cool, even quaint. Everything seemed muted. A breeze always blew. The trees were dense and tall, entwined like a tropical jungle.

A guy fetched me right off the bus and took me to his hotel. I usually ignore such people; I was tired. His place turned out to be stunning, by far the best place I’d stayed in Asia. It looked down over Manali from the western hills. My room was spacious and clean, a corner room with a balcony. Air blustered through my windows. I had room service - I ordered a pot of chai. The waiter gave me a bit of hashish as a sample.

It was 10 a.m. I felt rejuvenated from the torture of the night before. I wanted to sit and read as the light streamed in with the gusts of air. I thought I could sit, read, and write for the next two weeks without ever going to Ladakh.

To sit and relax was a good idea. I felt alive again, but my stomach still wasn’t right. Because of the vast altitude gain, it is recommended to spend two days in Manali for acclimatization. Oh, but I only had about two weeks to play, and I had a plan… I wanted to climb a mountain. There was no monsoon, no rain. It was fine climbing season. In Ladakh there are nothing but high climbable mountains, all in the six thousand meter range. I’d never climbed a mountain near that high. (I’ve never been to the Himalaya!) Of course, I didn’t bring any gear. I had only planned to go trekking. I do some incredibly foolish things sometimes. I don’t plan. Tuesday would be my last day in Manali.

That night I had the most intense visions. I had been practicing yoga and meditation all summer, trying to improve my mental control and my physical flexibility and strength. That night I smoked some of the local hashish. I had never smoked before meditating. I flew over cities and galaxies. I drifted from one vision to the next, each crisp and unforced. I was relaxed and calm. Meditation had never been so successful or easy. I took this as a very good omen.

Wednesday. The bus for Leh would leave at seven the next morning. I awoke at five. I don’t like sitting around when I have somewhere to be. So the bus left by nine and it was a two day drive into Ladakh.

The bus ride went straight up. How we weren’t already above six thousand meters I couldn’t fathom, but we were only starting. Slowly the lush valley fell away to juniper, dry rock, sand, and dust. The landscape went from green to tan-brown limestone, loess and gravels, still and stone quiet.

Great trucks growled as they passed. Road workers sat under boulders playing cards. There were shepherds up here, but what did the sheep eat? Farmers grew potatoes up here. Was this Ladakh?

It was majestic. The peaks were mighty, dripping glaciers in torrents down into grey rivers. This wasn’t Ladakh. But I was already thinking this might be the greatest bus journey of my life. Epic visual drama.

I had some great guys with me for the journey. We were all joyful for the trip and friendly to meet each other. I sat next to a thirty year old raft guide, Sorbeer, who was married at fifteen. Behind me was Shankar with a group of friends from Calcutta. Shankar was thirty-five, unmarried and still living at home with his father. He said he didn’t want to marry yet, but would be married within the year; his father and brother were arranging it. He said he had finally given in to the family pressure. This was India.

The first day was short but geographically stunning. So dry above the lush mountains of Manali, high, desolate, empty - like the nature of Buddhism itself stripped down and bare. We stayed in a high village for the night before the first “great’ pass the next day.

Before the sun set, I thought I would jaunt up the mountain behind me to get a view of the sunset, and the valley, and the patties, gompas, and villages beyond. I needed the exercise, and I wanted to breathe the fresh thin air. I was surprised by the difficulty of the trail, much more difficult than I had expected taking into account the conditions. This startled me a little – scared me too. But the view was worth all the cost. The wind was blowing through the potato plants as the sun blackened the north facing slopes. The breeze picked up and the sun dropped in the gap between two crests and melted into the shadowed glacier falling from the saddle.

I found Sorbeer my seatmate in the little restaurant beneath our room. (We split a room. $.75 each.) I ordered a plate of what he was having – spicy chicken strips and wings. I deferred on a bottle of the local vodka, but he poured me half a glass anyway, the bastard. So I drank the vodka. I don’t like most liquor, but for that it wasn’t bad. It tasted something like schnapps. We told dramatic stories about climbing or boating. I enjoyed his animation. He could get worked up like a child, so happy about the water and paddling. He was completely in love with his sport, like my love for climbing. We found the same love in different worlds.

I took my mattress to the roof and fell asleep watching the big dipper spin around across the horizon. We had to be up at three o’clock in the morning, Thursday, for the last leg, the long leg. I slept lightly, people and things were always stirring about me. Around two, someone started vomiting off the roof next to mine. I saw no shooting stars, only what I could guess was a great bat. I could see him clearly, flying over and over again, with a remarkable wingspan for a bat. There was no moon, no light at all. I’m not sure what lit him well enough for me to see his silhouette.

I don’t think our wakeup call ever came. I was awake somewhat – lost in the phantasmagoria of semi-consciousness; I was conscious enough to look at my watch several times. Sitting up, I realized I felt terrible. It must have been the vodka. I hate vodka. I hadn’t drank in a long time. I must be real sensitive. With the altitude and taking only one day to rest in Manali, this could be dreadful. But there was “nothing to be done.”

I sat in the bus for thirty minutes, delirious, before we finally pulled away at four. I had the first seat on the bus but the door railing was too close to do anything comfortable with my legs. The road was rough, slow and long. It was never straight or constantly paved, always winding up or down, always dusty and single laned. The sun always seemed to be glaring through my window as we wined along ridges and over passes. Pot holes and slow jarring turns decreased any chance of sleep, even if I hadn’t been feeling sick. I hummed and put myself in a sort of trance. It worked intermittently. But the sun burnt down on my head. The dust came in and crusted my nose, lips, and throat. My legs became mysteriously sore, and my knees ached immutably. And, of course, my head throbbed like a heart pulsing.

Midday crept slowly passed and it dawned on me that this wasn’t a vodka induced problem. It must be altitude sickness. This was logical. In fact, I had never been so high in my life. We were over sixteen thousand feet – we were driving over Mt. Rainer. And I felt like a veritable hell-storm was raging through my body. I must be altitude sick; I didn’t take that extra day in Manali. Now there was “nothing to be done.” (As Samuel Beckett would say.) I wasn't climbing; I couldn't turn around. So I hummed my gibberish mantras, closed my eyes, covered my head and tried to think of nothing, Beckett’s nothingness. I sang every song I knew, all three, over and over again.

We were continually stopping at checkpoints, and since I was the only non-Indian on the bus, I had to get out alone to show my passport. I have a penchant for local buses. I was getting so weak, my nerves were no longer communicating. My body felt like dead clay, but still it could suffer. My joints and bones ached. I stopped sweating. Getting up and walking took concentration and energy. If we stopped for a break, even with my now agonizing knees and quads, I would stay on the bus in my comatose meditation, humming. It was amazing.

Sixteen hours. We had a flat tire - though it would have been amazing if we hadn’t. We entered Ladakh at last, but I couldn’t notice. In moments of clarity I would gaze up in awe at the rough-edged, chipped-raw mountains. I’d never seen any like them. I would have liked to have thought about climbing them. But I really hadn’t the imagination. We followed the Indus river valley north through dusk and cool moist air. At eight we came into Leh. There were trees and green things. Leh is at an elevation of about 12000 ft. This scared me. This was the bottom. Altitude sickness can turn into a more dangerous, indeed deadly, condition called cerebral (or pulmonary) edema. In this condition, the first and essential step is to go to a low, oxygen-rich elevation. But there was no such elevation here. Could this really happen from a bus ride? Doesn’t there need to be some physical exertion involved? I'm a climber; it’s embarrassing to suffer altitude problems on a mere bus ride.

I staggered off the bus, hoisted my pack. I saw a hotel across the road, walked to it, and weakly asked how much rooms cost. I chuckled at my question - why ask? I would pay a thousand rupees for a hay pile in donkey stable. I wrote my name and some visa numbers, struggled up the stairs and into my meager “shared” accommodations. It was shared because also in the room was a community of roaches, always crawling over my pack. I could hear them scratching in the dark. Luckily, I was too drained to care more than superficially. I just left the light off. I couldn’t be bothered with them.

I laid there in a state of meditative delirium for some eighteen hours. I didn’t sweat; I didn’t eat; I didn’t sleep. I sipped water. I could feel my own fever. Time stopped. Occasionally, to take a reckoning, I would struggle to sit up, but only for half a moment. The world would spin wobbly; I had no equilibrium. If I looked down I might vomit or pass out. I wished I hadn’t left those silk scarves in Kathmandu.

As Friday afternoon passed I started to accept that I wasn’t getting better, in fact, I was getting worse. Altitude sickness usually abates or lessens within a couple of days. Or this is what I thought at least. I certainly had never heard of anything like this.

I was weakening. My will was fading. I was becoming restless and nervous. I could no longer focus. The possibly that I might die passed through my mind. I smiled. Had it come to that? Was I so ill that I could envision death? The thought of dying in a hotel room in Ladakh seemed so rich an irony: the adventurer dying in a bed instead of on a mountain or the sea. I imagined waking up from a coma in a hospital room in Delhi to family and friends. I said, “hey, welcome to India!”

Only then, with the thought of death, did reason finally overcome my sense of rigor and self-mortification. If I can conceive death as even a remote possibility, then it is certainly time to go to the hospital.” I could hear every one of my family cheer with this revelation, thinking, “it’s about bloody time.” I’m a little slow sometimes. I should have brought the scarves. Sorry. So I summoned what strength I had and hobbled, two feet per step, down to the reception desk.

I murmured to them that it was time to go the doctor, and if they could please explain how to get to the emergency room. They said they would go get the manager. It figured! They can’t even give directions to the hospital. They couldn’t think themselves to the toilet. My mode reflected my wellbeing. Going to the hospital is like being defeated.

The hotel owner, a Kashmiri man named Ashok, said he would help me get a cab. I was grateful. My analytic thinking was absent. He found me a cab and told me that everything was in order, only to pay the cabbie 40 rupees. I thanked him. Then he said that in about thirty minutes he would come down to the emergency room himself and make sure everything was fine. Wow. I was shocked, as shocked as a delusional man can be, which isn’t saying much. More, I was relieved. I needed help. I needed a break. In fact, I didn’t even know what hotel I was staying at or where it was. I had no card or anything to help me back there. Brilliant! But this is what traveling is all about. How else can you find yourself in an unfamiliar city, delirious, without any clue of where you are or where your possessions are – and no way of asking? That’s living.

The wind of the cab ride rejuvenated me slightly. I was out of bed for the first time in two days. But when I saw the hospital, something changed. I erupted with tears. I sobbed with exhaustion. I had to laugh at myself. How strange! I hadn’t cried like this when my mother died. It was so unexpected. I didn’t know where it was coming from at first. Only then did I realize how much pain I had been tolerating, how much I had really suffered, that the sight of help and relief could trigger such a rare emotional outpouring.

In the hospital a woman greeted me calmly. I tried to speak; I mumbled, “please. . . help,” and then I broke out sobbing again, interspersed with self-accusatory laughter.

She didn’t understand English and gestured to me to sit on the bench and wait. This I thought was mildly amusing, being so distraught as I was, and then I started bawling again. A nurse came and asked for my name and three rupees, six cents. An Israeli came in with a girl with two broken toes, cursed at everyone, and then carried her out again. He said he was a medic and was disgusted. After fifteen minutes a nice, calm, young doctor called me as he unlocked a seemingly unused room. The Israeli girl told me the name of the medication for altitude sickness, so I asked the doctor for some.

The doctor did some of the standard things, checked my pulse and blood pressure, my tongue and eyes. He asked me about my stomach. I told him I had had a stomach problem before, the pain had gone, but I still had a bit of diarrhea. I don’t really know how much of this he really understood. I was only paying a minimum of attention anyhow.

I didn’t have altitude sickness at all. My blood-oxygen level was normal. I contracted a severe viral infection which caused the stomach problems I had in Manali. I began to dehydrate. The infection then spread to my head, causing a high fever. I think he said this. I really can’t remember for sure. He said my pulse was atrocious and that I was dehydrated as hell. I was shocked. I didn’t know whether I believed him but so long as I got some sort of pain medication I would be relieved.

Of course I couldn’t read the prescription, he didn’t tell me dosages or anything. The nurse gave me a few pain killers which were all I really wanted anyway. All this for six cents.

So where was my Kashmiri hotel manager? I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to go home, and I didn’t have the energy to try. I laid down on a bench outside exhausted. After a bit, a nurse came out with a packet of hydrating salts and told me to put it in my water bottle. I looked up and there was Ashok, my Kashmiri friend. It looked like he had walked right out of the sun. I wanted to hug him - no, but I sort of felt that way. We went to his van, and I explained how I didn’t even know the name of the hotel. He took me to a pharmacy where everything got sorted out.

I took only a morsel of food that night, but the painkillers eased me into the best sleep I’d had, despite the roaches. I woke up Saturday morning feeling so much better. I chugged water all day. I started to sweat again. I could sit up. I went down to the restaurant and ate, but only a little. I would have eaten more but the food was terrible. I took a cold shower.

The delirium faded.

I needed to heal and recover so I could still salvage a trip into the mountains. Sunday I took my first walk into town. This is a moving place, a place of collision, movement, and erosion. But it has a quiet that is unusual, deeper than sound. I had a surreal day. I looked at Kashmiri silk rugs with a Muslim. We talked politics and religion over chai for an hour and a half. I heard one lone monk doing solitary pujas in an empty unfurnished temple. Today was one of those days when these things happen. Perhaps the prayers were with me all along. I am changed in ways that I don’t understand but feel. I found a coin with the date of 1616, East India Company written on it, one-half ana. Possibly most exciting is that I moved rooms. The new room has a milder community of roaches, just a couple. Life is good.

QUESTIONS FOR THE READER:
- I think the beginning and end are the weakest parts of this story. How could I do better or do more?



- Did you get any sense of my themes? First was supposed to be optimism in the face of despair; and second, was the presence or absence of the Buddhist blessings I received in Boudanath. What else could be a good theme in this work?



- What would you like to see more of in this piece? Would you like it to be more or less personal, ie – sentences like, ”I’m an idiot sometimes?”