TWO VERY DIFFERENT DAYS
tongba here we come
hi world
from a bright sunny today
which is definitely the morning after yesterday
where i’m pleasantly weary-limbed
sat on my balconied perch
above Sedi and Lake Pokhara
and i’m looking at yesterday’s excursion
the high ridge beyond the lake
where the giant Shiva is disappearing into the white clouds
and i’m thinking
Blimey, that was a day
for me and Maurizio
the blue-eyed Brescia cyclist
who was also locked down in Gokarna for years
we finally did a walk, a hike
where Maurizio is superfit and capable
and would in fact be a good man to get marooned on a desert island with
for he’d build some huts sharpish
know what every plant is
and whether it can be eaten
would soon dig a well
and then get a vegetable garden going in no time
yet, fortunately i guess
it didn’t come to that
and none of those admirable skills came into play
while the day began with us sauntering for too long along Damside
the riverside stretch of Pokhara
and very nice parks too
but maybe not at the beginning of a long day into the upland greenery
for it was a good to get to the slope, the forest, the trail
and head up into it
through the sumptuous yet monoculturous forest
with just-one-kind-of-tree
to one ridge-top
then around another
to the Peace Pagoda
for a slow chai
while the whole time i’m kind of chary about how i’ll do with the upping
because
two months ago in Ladakh
the ascents made me feel rather unwell
like blackout unwell
like can’t-go-on, lucky-to-find-an-alternative, unwell
yet i’m pretty sure all that was a product of altitude
and of unwisely flying straight from sea-level Chennai
to 3000+ metre Ladakh
so it was pretty reassuring to sit for chai at the Pagoda and
not feel lousy
before me and my Italian pal struggled on
with me once again staking my claim to be...
The Sweatiest Person On Earth
and panting up the steep steps
as we get to the giant Shiva at Pumdikot
almost the highest point of the day
which is good with me
while Maury, superfit
he likes ascents and doesn’t like descents
because of his knees
while for me?
descents are a cruise
are the gravy, the best bit, the unproblem
so we circuit the enormous, 33 metre Shiva
amongst the gazillion tourists
chiefly Indian
none of whom have walked up
so Maury rings the ritual bell
before we strike out along the ridge
losing the crowds immediately
for tourists only do obvious things
while we follow the stepped path along the height of the ridge
looking North down at the Lake
and across to here, Sedi
where i now sit writing this
and then look South down the steep slope or even cliff
to another green valley
where writing that line makes me think i’m not telling this right
for that’s the first time i’ve used the world green
when the word green should be in every line
twice
for its green, very green, very very green
jungle green, tall grass green, rice paddy green, forest green
green
where, after my first day here
i was already complaining aloud there aren’t enough words in the English language for green
which there aren’t
while that valley to the South does look very nice
and explorable
and green
with occasional lone houses that just might be rooms i could book
while me and Maury discuss plans A and B and C
and decide the best option is plan A
the long descent down to the Yellow Bridge
we can see on the Western end of the lake
away from Pokhara
where plan C was a bus back to Damside
a feeble option only tolerable in the event of serious rain
which again, is a word i have should have used by now
for its the Rainy Season
most nights are deluges
everything is sodden
and we, today, thoroughly exposed to the elements
are being lucky
though there are ominous grey clouds about
one of which slowly envelops us
as we walk into it
yet it only lightly spots us
so down we go
first on the winding road
become a muddy track
then on a gorgeous, if precarious, steep trail of stone steps
down amongst the very green greenery
and terraced paddies
hundreds of them
where we’re descending too fast really
for the scale of the surrounding enveloping immediate beauty
till we come out onto the mud track
carved by Caterpillars
and requiring a different kind of negotiation to the
wet steps on the steep path
as we updown the curves of the road to the chai shop
the one where a week ago
after half the mileage of the walk we’ve just done
i was much more exhausted than i am today
so i say hi again to the guy
and we drink chai before i notice blood on my trouser leg
from a leech
a long-gone leech
now probably burping fatly somewhere back along the trail
while us, we slowly make our way across the waterlogged lowland path
between the swollen river
and the extra-green rice paddies
to the Yellow Bridge
to an even more waterlogged burst-bank riverside path
back to the road where we might get a bus
yet i know from my accidentally epic walk the, errrr, day before
that more buses start in the next village
so round one more hill we go
trudgily
to sit on the dilapidated bus
when Maury never gets buses
but we are happy to sit
leg-weary
sweat-sodden
unkempt
filthy
bleeding trickles
for the five k ride back to Sedi and a late snacky lunch of momos
before we hug our goodbyes
and i spend the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing
chiefly because of weariness after our errr, 20-25 k venture
much of it steep
but also because, fortuitously
only now do the heavens decide to open
to chuck buckets down
to deluge so much
it must have been more of a deluge
than any Monsoon night of my four weeks so far here
for rain had even seeped into my room by morning
a morning bright
with some blue sky
and no grey in the puffy white clouds
a morning i intended to do very very little with
beyond looking up at yesterday’s venture
and writing this missive
...
...
…
and
...
...
hi world
from a rainy Sunday
here above the village of Sedi
and the lake at Pokhara
where the usual pattern of dry brighter mornings
is simply not happening
it rained all yesterday
it rained all night
it rained most of the morning
and, though light grey has appeared in the looming dark
it looks like raining all afternoon into
inevitably
another rainy evening and night
and so...
it lightens it brightens
it darkens it starkens
its a deluge a downpour
a drenching a drizzle
its dismal its damp and then its a
deluge all over again
but then
hey
it is the Rainy Season
so what did i expect?
the Monsoon is very literally doing exactly what it says on the tin
raining
rainily
which provides a whole other set of beauties
lesser, to be sure, than the glories of the dry season
yet there is a beauty in the low puffy white grey clouds
across the lake
drifting out of the more muted greens
of what can only be described as jungle
with the full panoply of colour and shape that is the jungle
for the jungle
this jungle
the Andaman Island Jungle
the Brazilian or Ecuadorian Amazon Jungle
the very different Columbian Amazon Jungle
they have more range of shape than any other nature i’ve found
for the shape and size of leaves
of fronds
of trees
of ferns
of bushes of grasses
of vines of creepers of lianas
of bananas of palms of...
is more varying than anywhere else
while lots of nature is much more mono
is unvarying
is stark and bleak
stretches unchanging
like the mountains and valleys of Ladakh
where i was before here
yet here, slightly urbanised
with roads and tracks
and houses and guest-houses and yoga retreats
with ebullient greeneries
and torrenting ditches
the jungly forest is a very rich immediate environment to be in
to surround oneself with
the huge leaves and long fronds
the curlicuing ferns and thick bushes
the long grass and high tangles of vines and branches
and so
with my not-so-trusty umbrella
a victim of my inadvertently collapsing the mud wall of a rice-paddy
on a high stretching slope of dozens [hundreds?] of terraced paddies
on a failed climb of the green slopes across the lake
yes, with my wonky umbrella
i may just have to go out and embrace the weather
where the rain is never as bad as it looks from your dry balcony
except when it is
worse
much worse
full-blown soaking deluge worse
and then when
quite reasonably for an English person
you think, well it can’t get any harder and wetter than this
it does
beltingly
bucketingly
batteringly
and so
here i go
into the wet arms of fate
it darkens it starkens
it lightens it brightens
...
...
...
...
in other news
...
have met a David
Politics student at SOAS in London
and we are off for that ultra exotic form of Nepalese / Tibetan alcohol
tongba
...
which comes in a cylindrical wooden pot
filled with what looks like soil
clean soil
...
i tried the local moonshine
Raksi
which was
a]
just Ok
and
b]
gave my insides a thorough clean out
something people pay proper money for
but which cost me 85 pence twice
...
...
...
in other news
no reason to go anywhere
