Back to the highlands

After spending much needed time with Jenny re-acquainting ourselves after the 3.5 month hiatus, we head to the airport to pick up the Pa. Having had a marathon 2.5 day trip to arrive, he's already full of travel stories and seems to be loving every moment of it.

Within the first day we had him wandering the night market of Kathmandu, dancing traditional dances with "more men than he'd ever danced with, " and meditating at the center Jenny and I found the day prior. Not to mention wandering the medieval streets of Bhaktapur with Raj, the same eager, knowlegeable high school student with whom I toured the city just a few weeks ago.

Tomorrow we're off to Besishahar, where we launch into the ever-popular Annapurna Circuit to surround ourselves with 8,000 meter peaks, local culture, and who can forget thousands of tourists flocking to teahouses. All told, we'll be roaming the western portion of the top of the world for about three weeks, and internet should be scarce or non-existent.

So just to keep you in suspense yet again, enjoy the silence for a bit. I will be back...never fear.

Sorry Mrs. Gaggiani, I don't HAVE a thesis yet.

I like to think that this trip is not a trip so much as a research project. Or, being that I'm in the East, maybe I should call it a quest or a pilgrimage. Either way its an endeavor not for adventure or excitement or any other seemingly superficial accomplishment - though those inevitably emerge and, moreover, are welcomed - but rather a journey for knowledge. Specifically, a field project to understand time, space, and being. Call me a Geographer. With a little luck, at the end of this (as much as such a search can have an end), I'll be as accomplished and as confused as a philosopher, PhD.

The decision to find the next set of data came unconsciously, somewhere buried in the illusory notion that I would ride the bus all the way to Dhunche just to see what was there; but not to go trekking necessarily as I wanted to be back in Kathmandu for Dasain. That is, for the animal sacrifices. However, as I rushed around Thamel purchasing a down jacket, gloves, etc. just "in case" I decided to go trekking, any onlooker could easily deduce that the decision had already been made.

Too late in the day to get the direct bus, I grab some momo alongside a drunken Nepali and hop the bus to Trishuli, about halfway there. Now, when I say halfway there, I mean the rift in meanings of time and space in the West and East poked its gopher head into my life again. 30 kilometers away from Kathmandu as the pigeon flaps, the bus crawls along a wildly dangerous one-lane mountain road for 76 kilometers and 4 hours. Nevertheless, I arrive with ample time to realize that there exists almost nothing in Trishuli save a barber shop and a hotel where I ask for a clean towel and receive the response, "clean? You're not in America anymore. You're in Nepal." (Nevertheless, he did produce a clean towel, eventually.)

The barber shop proved a quality bit of data as well, as the straight razor shave that I thought was finished had only begun. After the second shave, just to be sure, my face is sprayed with water. Then three or four different creams and elixirs applied. Finally, sprayed again. Dried. Arms pulled and twisted about. Face massaged. Scalp massaged. Hands massaged. Neck cracked. Fingers cracked. And why not? All seems pertinent to shaving.

As I'd been informed that the Daal Baat at the hotel would be ready "soon" (two hours later), I went next door and ate a bottomless rice dish there. Then came back and ate again, not wanting to offend. When not forcing spoonful after spoonful of rice upon my dish, the teenager entrusted with my nutrition expresses something near outrage that I travel alone. I subsequently counted 9 people in the room and pointed them out as my travel companions for the day in a typical naive young traveler hippy sort of way. Thus, he asserted, "yeah, but we're so different!" to which I counter that we're exactly the same. Which, of course, is only true on some level and very not true on most levels - as depicted by his second dose of outrage, this time at the claim that I'm not religious. "No. I don't believe it." Storm out of room. Come back in. "French and British people are all Christians so you must be too. I don't believe you." Nepali arms flail. I have absolutely no idea what to say, being that no matter what I say he'll be completely incapable of comprehension, as my grasp of the Nepali language lands me at about the level of a one-year old, whose first words were a week ago.

In the morning Asia time struck again when the bus was to come through town around nine, according to one man, around ten, according to another, and maybe eleven according to a third. It arrived at about noon, whereupon I squeezed myself a space on the roof.

While the four-wheel-drive road skirted cliffs of thousands of feet and we all tried not to look (that is, other than when the driver made half the bus get off so he could make it up the hill, or when he drove right over a small landslide, tilting those on the roof over the drop and subsequently causing hearts to plummet), I prodded relentlessly at a 23-year-old Tibetan for anwers to inquiries of a foreign land. He pointed to the police outposts destroyed by Maoists, to the army outposts that had slid down the hill along with the mountain, and explained that at the checkpoints the soldiers can tell who are Maoists by "How they look. You can just tell." A stark reminder that even in this relatively free land (at least compared to Myanmar), government will predictably cling to power in any way that it can. And which is worse: to succumb to random annoying checkpoints where one may arbitrarily be imprisoned (we stopped at at least 8 of them over about 120 km); or to be subjected to, well, Maoists and all that Maoists do. At the end of the day, most people just don't care anymore, which seems just like the politics of the fantastically free wonderful land where everything is splendid - America.

Also on that bus ride, any remnant of illusion that I might not go trekking through the Langtang Himal was dashed when the Tibetan provided an unintentional challenge. "How Long? For me to get to Langtang, maybe one day. For you, two." Rationality aside, I took this on as a personal attack - as though I'd something to prove on behalf of lazy white tourists everywhere.

Having planned at least three or four days to get to Langtang as per the guide book, I instead reached all the way to Kyanjin Gompa (monsatery) by noon on the second day. It was here, at about 13,000 feet and staring up to 23,600 feet while marvelling at the grandeur of the world and the surprises it holds, that time jumped to the forefront of thought. It was here that the trip took a different dimension - where I was more wholly wrapped in the present than at any other point thus far in the research, and yet wholly in search of more. Where I felt as though Southeast Asia had never happened; as though I'd been asleep for 23 years and just woke up. And yet where all the efforts of mankind and nature throughout history had toiled and strived to plant me here.

Time.

In this endless cycle of life and death (perhaps not for the individual as per Buddhism, but certainly for the world as a whole), we cling to some semblance of now, despite its constant disappearance. Some cling to now only to live in the past and future, some aspire to live only for the present now, though doing so may be impossible. Yet in some sense we are all bonded to the rules imposed by time - whether its finality or its infinite persistence.

In this present now, we try to organize time - to graph it, break it into equal parts, study it. Physics was blown into universality by Einstein, who proposed time and space to be the same. Yet even he, the unifying revolutionary, the genius of geniuses, discounted the validity of pure logic. To find the meaning of things by pushing cats down ramps and turning them into normal forces and frictional forces is not to understand. The afroed German refugee attributed his discoveries to intuition. To simply being aware to the world in which we exist. He found the fallacy of time as something separate by sitting and thinking about it, while his colleagues rushed around trying to measure it. So while a theoretical train moving at the speed of light and carrying a clock which measures western man's conception of hours and minutes may provide imaginary insight into energy, space, time; a better way might be just to look around you. And one need look no further than here.

When one walks into the Himalaya, time takes its exit. It is no longer pertinent as these mountains - if indeed one can call them mountains for to insinuate any relation to the other, lesser strings of rock lining the planet is to insult them to their very core - force you to silence, to reverence, to forget all but the moment.

Sure, on occasion you will put your head down, try to break away. You will concern yourself with the destination and push to meet the challenge you yourself invented - you will rush to make better "time." But every so often a flimpse of a glacial massif jutting incomprehensibly high above your head will awaken you from your slumber and remind you that whatever it is you may be thinking is completely irrelevant. You, these peaks whisper, don't matter.

So it is not entirely surprising that Lakpa thought perhaps the Western calendar might currently point to mid-September when in fact it is mid-October. It is not surprising that the clocks at many guesthouses have long-since stopped running as the influence of whoever told the owners they should be there has worn off. It is not surprising that when asked the time, they shrug and point at the sun. Or that this is the land where Eastern thought flourished; that this is where people originally saw this world, this life as unreal, illusory, only the bricks upon a much larger foundation. OR that in this land Buddhism is no longer about how many thousands of Buddhas or stupas are built (though some do still exist) but rather about circles, truth, time, humility. Realization not of a higher God, but of a higher truth. For these "mountains" must know something that we do not.

This is not of course to say that time has been erased from being - but that it has been let to roam wild where westerners have tried to tame it. When I set off on an immense quest to the end of the valley, or at least to where glaciers engulf the end of the valley, I too ignored time. Or perhaps more accurately I ignored its true nature and instead embraced my notion of it as pertinent. As with space.

I pushed further and further until finally I was forced to the realization of my own insignificance so many times that I accepted it. I acknowledged the futility of fighting for more steps just to arrive at another wall of peaks towering over my minute being. I turned back, already worn and ready to be in bed, with "hours" to go before I would arrive in Kyanjin. The Sun set well before my homecoming. On my way back, I pass several porters, westerners, and guides who have set up camp for a rest day before heading to the very spot from where I had just come.

As the golden glow disappeared, I found myself rushing not so much to get home, but to relieve my host of the worry I knew he'd feel. Even then, however, I was constantly grasped by the unworldly peaks as they first light afire, then glow pink, and at last are engulfed by stars in the moonlight.

I find Kyanjin too late, of course, and the search party has already been sent on horeseback - and returned. But as I reflect, I realize that the western time is not the issue for them. They don't know, or care, that I've been gone eleven or twelve hours. No notion of "he shouldn't be gone this long" but only of "the sun has gone down."

The sun. The moon. The mountains. The people. That's life here - realization of the world and the real significance of one's role in it. Simply to live. What are you doing today? Maybe some cooking and cleaning, not too much, followed by peaceful silence.

The order has, of course, been disturbed simply by our being here. By my being here. As one walks the path he is endlessly begged to buy a cup of tea, some noodles. Cheap price. Stay at my hotel. Ok? Promise? Solar power exists only to unnecessarily capture nature's energy to heat water for that ever-so-important hot shower westerners crave, and for the light so we can pretend the sun is still up. Menus are uniform across guesthouses because of "some government thing." To oblige with our view of their needs, they've build far too many clone lodges and given partly in to a simetimes dismal existence striving to enter a capitalist world that they don't understand. "We" have convinced them that they need more. More money. More "opportunity." Even more medicine. Just more. Their lives are no good. They need better.

There is, no doubt, some merit in the cultural exchange that occurs here, but it falters at its base. To come here and eat Muesli and Snickers bars; to seek the hot liquid cleansing, to fight to keep western time is not to exchange, but to dominate.

To demand that time, and along with it space, follow our rules; to ignore what these mountains beckon - just live. And to forget what people here used to know: the universe is wiser than we.

But then, the Universe allows the change.

And the Universe allowed me to destroy first impressions and find my place in the high altitude world from another realm. When all was accomplished, and my time had run out, I awoke completely content in the world, and with another cloudless day of snowy peaks to boot. I enjoyed my last two cheese breads from Lakpa, packed my things, and head off. Absurd though it may be, it felt like a sort of turning point. I'd only been in Kyanjin Gompa a few short days, yet the whole place truly began to feel like home. Lakpa was right: we are family now, if only temporarily.

Throughout the hike to Lama Hotel, I stepped deliberately to let my mind wander rather than forcing it to focus on my feet. I stopped to observe the prayer stones along they way, which do indeed read primarily as Matthiessen predicts: OM MANI PADME HUM. However, as he also pointed out way back in 1974, the newest stone is ancient. While this is the very location where "one"-ness thrived; while this is the spot where reality was illusion; the fact is that the one man I saw spinning his prayer wheel, counting dharma beads, and beckoning the peaks did not prove as I had wished that I'd crossed the threshold into a land of widespread enlightenment or wisdom. There is no one carving new prayer stones, for they are too busy building the next unnecessary and unprofitable lodge. I'll risk redundancy to say that they are too busy worrying about the same burdens as most of modern humanity - like how to pay their children's tuition so that they might learn not how to read the Tibetan on those stones, but the roman script on this page.

Some aspect of OM MANI PADME HUM is still alive, however, and as I apass through Langtang township I hear a strong "Hello Michael" from a house near the trail. The man whose face I clearly recognize from the sunrise flag-raising atop the mountain; as well as that of the man who gave me yak milk at the festival celebrating the Rinpoche's departure from Kyanjin Gompa, quickly says, "Ok. Let's go to my house." Though I can't remember his name and have only a dim idea of his relation to Lakpa, I follow. As we walk, every single person we pass stares and questions in wonder of why this man sans guesthouse has caught himself a traveler.

In the modest home, which belongs to his father-in-law with whom they live for lack of other means, I sit on a wooden bed near the three-pronged "stove" propping up a pot over the fire. Soon, as ususal, we are engulfed in smoke.

However, this blaze is not for me and instead he mixes a pitcher of Chang to get the morning started right. We have very little to say to each other, but both seem to realize that just being there together is the important point. Though some small talk is made, we don't over-exert ourselves to fill the silence the world provides.

After a bowl of sherpa stew, I'm off again. Admittedly, I dodged the "Peaceful Guesthouse" where Mingmah said she'd be to see me off. I was read to be "one" all alone.

On the trail, I thought. I thought about what my answer to the question of what my favorite place has been. I believe it's this: everywhere. But it doesn't matter. The better question is what have I learned. I came up with my answers, but the journey's not over yet.

All too quickly I came upon the monstrosity of Lama Hotel, which is not a hotel but a township composed entirely of small hotels. I felt rude ignoring my host (and later the other guests) until he asked me a question only to stare off at passers by twice while I attempted to answer. Relieved, I read the rest of "The Snow Leopard" -of Matthiessen's trip through the Himalaya. Better, I lived it straight through, for such was the power of his writing at that moment in life. His language has in every way influenced my thoughts since.

I jotted down far too many passages of wisdom from his pilgrimage, which will all most lokely lose their power out of context and emerge as meaningless owrds. one of the passages even addresses this point, yet I, just as he, still strive to turn experience to permanence through script.

I awoke late, dreading the rest of the hike out. It felt, and still feels, like I was marching to the end of this journey. In Kathmandu I was thrust back into the throngs of humanity and my stint with nature came to an end - if only temporarily. (part of me fears that Annapurna will be more touristed and less pure. Though the mountains won't care.) More importantly, though, my time alone has seen curtains close and, with a little luck, have no foreseeable encore. Jenny arrived yesterday. Dad arrives on the 22nd.

In simply stating that I'm nervous to see how I'll adjust to traveling with companions I fear my apprehension may be misunderstood. I do not dread the loss of easy solitude. Rather, I revel in the opportunity to see these places, this world, through two more sets of eyes I love so much while wondering at the challenges community will provide. This next journey will be equal or superior (though it's hard to imagine) to the one before. I can't wait to get it underway.

Deep in thought again, or sometimes just deep in the moment, I more strolled than meandered down to Syabru Bensi; stopping more often than not to support the terribly run businesses pleading for tea money. I wasted away the afternoon in the inferior guesthouse across from the one I think may be run by the valley's own corrupt political bigwig. Soon enough, I hopped again on the roof of the bus. From here, I worried mostly about the yak cheese in the end of my bag that I was not sitting on. Throughout the expedition (and eleven hours atop a bus atop cliffs deserves such a title), it alternated between being a seat for some random guy's butt, and baking in my black bag in the blistering sun. Needless to say, it's no longer the same cheese it was three days ago. Time, space, and being strike again.

Never fear, though, because melty mediocre butt cheese, Kathmandu traffic, the hangover remnant yesterday of the excellent night out with Steve (who didn't realize it was his birthday until my first day in Kyanjin when I told him), and even the rain that's been dumping all day cannot change the fact that Jenny arrived yesterday and everything in the world is now as it should be.

Hindis and Buddhists and Mountains galore

I spent a few days in Kathmandu, walking through the amazingly crowded narrow streets through which motorcycles (in Nepal they are no longer motorbikes, these are the real thing. Similar to the Bonus I bought in Vietnam.) still manage to get through just by honking in your ear. Eye contact can be made, an unofficial understanding may emerge as to who will move when, and they will still honk in your ear.

I also got the opportunity to go up to the Swayanabath temple overlooking the town for my first introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. From the first moment it looks and feels different than the varieties of Southeast Asia. The stupas are much less abundant here (perhaps due to the abundance of Hindis) and much more magnificent. Thirteen tiers for the thirteen stages to reach Nirvana. And the most impressive addition: the eyes of Buddha right at the base, peering out over a nose resembling the sanskrit number 1 - the unity of all life.

After that serene experience I apparently decided to revel in the ungodly by renting a bicycle and braving the ridiculousness of Asian streets and highways while breathing 8 million pounds of dust and pollution and almost dying at least once when a bike that I'm passing veers right (they drive on the left) and pushes me INTO the side of a passing truck. A few bounces later, no harm done.

Finally I arrive in Bhaktapur, which is just a few km from Kathmandu and a whole different world. There are no vehicles in the streets, which are cobbled with red bricks. There are very few glass windows but instead intricately carved shutters. The buildings look like - and some are - from the medieval period. And the temple that's literally 3 feet out the front door of my guesthouse attracts parades of drum-beating and bell-ringing (By bells I don't mean dinky christmas carroller bells. I mean summon the troops bells. Thunder of the Gods bells.)pujas(religious offering) at 4 in the morning, as this is the 4th day of Dasain; which is something like the Hindi Chanuka or Christmas, lasting 14 days and culminating in the full moon. In a few days, goats will be sacrificed en masse. And some water buffalo. For the moment, they're just herded around town unaware of their fate.

While there, I went to "dinner" at a local place with the hotel guy. Except the "restaurant" we went to was a friend's and doesn't really serve food. So he fried up whatever old dried meat he had hanging on nails from the wall, and disappeared for a while into town to return with a bag of Chowmein. He did, however, have an abundance of Raksy and Chaang - rice whisky and rice beer. We drank ourselves silly and he launched us into a conversation on happiness and what we want to do with our lives. Then drunkenly insisted that I stay for the entire festival and he'll pay for everything - even the hotel room which is 200 rs per night, and he earns 2000 rs per month. That is to say, he INSISTS. I manage to make him wait for the morning, when we will discuss it anew.

In the morning he doesn't directly bring it up, but does ask me as he had early on the night before how much cell phones cost in the US. This reversion to the trivial - the repetetive trivial no less - is enough for me to call Bhaktapur quits and head for Kathmandu again. But insanity doesn't take leave from my head for very long, and I make a side trip through more traffic to the Bhoudanath Stupa on the Eastern edge of town. Another marvel of the Tibetan version of faith, my illusions are broken only a little by a monk begging for money for his medicine. And perhaps a bit by the gambling ring going on for the festival, subsequently broken up by the police.

Then braved the torrent back to Thamel where I hit the rooftop for the first break in the ring of clouds surrounding the valley. Peeking over the ridge was the top of the Ganesh Himalaya, beckoning me to come forth.

So today I'm heading northward to Dhunche near Langtang to see what lies in wait.

You mean, there's no humidity or death heat here?

Unlike any other

In Northern Burma one is plunged into a life where he wishes everything would slow down just so he might hold some semblance of a chance to remember it all. This is more genuine Asia. This makes you feel alive.

On September 8, I boarded the 44 seat prop-plane with 15 others who were all probably with me in wondering how Air Mandalay could possibly afford to fly the thing on such dismal business. Nevertheless, the wonderful flight introduced me to the real Myanmar with the yellow boxed text in the complementary reading listing among the nation's "People's Desires" to crush those with negative views; while simultaneously being pampered and smiled at to no end by the flight attendants. Such is the duality...

We hit ground on target, at a phenomenally modern airport with a grand total of 16 travelers in it after we arrived. We flow through the paperwork with supposed agents of oppression with remarkable ease, and with only smiles on both ends. Huh. Not too bad so far.

The taxi comes equipped with a langyi wearing man that tears to shreds all the westernization of Thailand and "skirts" life with a little more traditional authenticity. Two-legged textiles are second-rate clothing here.

Then...Mandalay. Oh, Mandalay. An organized mass chaos similar to Saigon, but with motorcycles replaced by bicycles and rickshaws. The roads are unwaveringly potholed where not submerged in dirt or water. The city, outside of the very center, is composed almost entirely of mediocre, at best, bamboo housing - save those blessed residences of government officials and Chinese businessmen, usually complete with SUVs in the drive. Water comes from the blackened moat around the palace, the Ayeyarwaddy, or wells just like days of ole. I'll have bottled water. thanks.

Day one. Hour one. Meet Chit Sun Oo, one of those common Asians trying with a strength beyond this world to tug you into their orbits and practice their English. I offered to buy him a beer if he taught me Burmese. He didn't really. Only a few numbers, etc. But he did take the opportunity to throw his very best line at an American - "George Bush is a runny nose." Caught by laughter I was simultaneously shocked at this as I would be by various others' more in-depth knowledge of the outside world throughout my stay. As it ends, this infinitely infamous military junta with an "iron grip" on the nation's people has openly allowed access to the BBC for years - not to mention the more recent addition of Satelite television and everything therein that cause critics to warn of the downfall of civilized society. In terms of information control - only domestic truths are pseudo-hidden. And, largely, in the external media Myanmar, and human rights therein, is conveniently ignored. Thus, need for censorship is negated. (that is, censorship on all outside information save the Internet. The information superhighway does exist to an extent, but in the major towns one will find perhaps one or two cafes that often perplexingly exist practically next door to government offices. Typically, any attempt to view a website that may offer customized access to information will be thwarted by the national firewall. However, in some locations sites such as Anonycat.com - designed to bypass corporate firewalls - serve to futher the cause of human rights. In others anonycat is also blocked, but the smartest systems somehow tap directly into servers in the United States, probably through Thailand, and provide instant access to practically every fact and factoid on the planet. I was just enjoying my time in the abyss too much to update you all.)

Not only this, but as I grew more and more into the culture, it seems that the Burmese are even more driven to acquire knowledge in any form than in the rest of Southeast Asia that I know. Maybe even more than in the West. It's almost as though through oppression, both of economics and of the mind, they find despair; so they take refuge in gaining knowledge just for the sake of knowledge. An unexpected twist.

Chit Sun Oo and I ride around the entire next day on the typical cruiser bikes. We hit some impressive yet bland teak-wood monasteries, a shop with thousands of buddhas and tribal relics from around the country stretching into several rooms - each of which is lit up as I walk into it, whereupon the salesman runs back to the other to flip the preceding switches back to off. To cliché it as it has never been clichéd before - I felt like good ol' Indiana heading for the Temple of Doom. We also dropped by the area of town where hundreds of marble buddhas are carved by hand constantly; which was only the very begginning of a long inner dialogue on why the hell the world needs a buddha for every three square feet of earth. Just STOP already. Look at the gagillion that you already have! But no....never too many buddhas...

This fact is signified in Mahamuni pagoda, where a large Buddha wearing a sweater of gold leaf that has grown to be several inches thick over the past century. All the leaves are made by hand by pounding gold fragments for months on end. Why? Well, because this is a REAL Buddha, not just an IMAGE of a Buddha as are carved daily.

Oh. Of course.

Also during my time in Mandalay I came to be the aquaintance of a tourist-hunter by the name of "Cherry." A woman of 49 years who looked to be 80 no less, she claimed aquaintance to everyone in Mandalay (which I later verified many-a-time) and that for some reason her visibly ill-healed broken shoulder kept her from practicing her profession. Being that her profession was teaching English, I found that claim more than slightly confusing.

However, after seeing the holed walls and flooded floor (an understatement) of her mosquito-infested 5 by 10 shack, and her two suitcases of belongings under her Jesus altar, I didn't much care about the validity of the claim anymore. I can safely say that sleeping in this "home" would provide for the most dismal existence imaginable. Sleeping on the street might well be better. So after she washed my feet of her floor/mud with water from the Jesus-era clay pot filled with H2O that "the boy brings" (the boy is an elderly hunchbacked man in a shack next door) and hearing that her pots had been stolen a year before so she couldn't cook, I made the rash decision to buy her pots. Hell, even if she suckers every tourist into the cookery purchase only to return it the next day, I simply couldn't live with myself had I not spent the $3 on the possibility of making her life a little better.

My entire time in Mandalay was not defined by the stupa-covered hills stretching towards the plain on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy, nor the stream of monks and stragglers on the 1.2 kilometers of a rickety wooden bridge at Amarapura. Mandalay was defined by people like Cherry, and like the rickshaw driver who explained the bribes behind the illegal floating bamboo trade and the ferry to the illegal gambling ring alongside the police station; and like the woman amidst the throngs of launderers in the Ayeyarwaddy screaming across the crowd in disgust as she had been accused of stealing - an insult of magnificent proportions for a Buddhist; and like the taxi drivers who bought me beers; and like the stranger who paid for my chapati on the street. In this nation where for the first time I can respond to pleas that "Myanmar is a very poor country" with a genuinely honest "yes. Yes it is," the people are among the friendliest on the planet.


The Book Man

As I moved on to Hsipaw I met Mr. Book alongside yet another Israeli. On the first attempt at conversation, Mr. B sent us away as he whispered "the police are watching me" and pointed to the street. As the well known dissident Monk down the road had been arrested recently, we left in a pretty rapid clip. On a subsequent attempt, he was sure the surveillance had been suspended pending the completion of a European league soccer game at the Cinema. He poured out the information.

The government is trying to rewrite the constitution as a typical attempt to increase positive international regard. The opposition boycotts. The Shan Army may have already broken the cease-fire agreement nearby. Trekking in the area is a terrible idea.

I leave the conversation with a few things running thourhg my head. First, how third world this whole attempt at oppression really is. Or, if you prefer, how half-hearted. How imperfect. Again, how human. Mr Book is written about in the guidebook, yet in all the years is still "free." Moreover, despite the fellow dissident's arrest; and despite his being monitored, he is still very willing to talk to us openly after we walk through his front door just because he thinks the spy is at the soccer game. It seems that I would be more covert were I Mr. Book, and more hard-handed were I the policeman. That is, if I were an agent of oppression.

I still leave feeling like I've done something wrong just by being there, though. Like a small tinge of fear has found its way into my mind and convinced me that free speech is taboo. And yet, this place, I believe, has much in common with Iraq pre-2003. Factions of society with nothing in common but a colonial boundary. Factions that might erupt in chaos of separatism rather than cooperation were the hard hand to disappear. But the arguments and philosophy to be discussed therein could bore you more than an afternoon of televised golf, so I'll spare you...for now.


Kyauk Me

Kyauk Me (pronounced Chau Me because some crazy Brit who created the Roman version is an idiot) provided an opportunity to be absolute smothered for a day as an English Teacher, a bus ticket agent, a cargo driver, and an English student fought for the right to show me around. In this town of zero tourists, I ate in the luxurious home (must have something to do with government) of a Shan woman, saw a few manual labor factories, had tea at the student's house, saw tea production on a tour led by the tea producer, was treated to local Mohinga (soup) by a friend of the ticket agent, went to two mountaintop monasteries, taught two English classes, and learned to play snooker while wooden oxcarts rolled by on the dusty roads outside. All in the name of English practice. And just good old hospitality to put southern hospitality to shame.

Southward back through Mandalay where I go for a pathetic run around the palace in celebration of Jenny's birthday because, well, Jenny likes running. And damnit, if I can't talk to her because of $6 per minute phone calls, I'll at least go for a run. Running, by the way, is still silly and stupid - probably because I'm terrible at pacing myself.


Disenchanted Glory

Then Bagan (which we get to only after the bus's drive shaft somehow breaks and we sit roadside for 4 hours or so) where a few thousand temples cover a very limited plain on the bank of - you guessed it - the Ayeyarwaddy. The view is indeed magnificent if you can get even 15 feet above the plain. Luckily, all but two temples had their second stories closed for some stupid reason like "they were built 1000 years ago and are fragile." So for the most part one just rides around looking at nearly identical stupas for a few hours until sunset, which was remarkably dull.

In fact, the best decision I made in Bagan was to throw the hotel's advice to the wind and bike on my crappy cruiser several miles out of town to a mountaintop pagoda overlooking the plane. When I reach the bottom of the hill a few men and women are drinking tea and invite me for a cup. They exchange some money between themselves at one point, and we share a moment on how worthless Kyat are, and they chuckle as they ply for dollars in exchange. Then I ditch the bike for the climb and after a coke and pizza-flavored terrible snack chips arrive at the pagoda in time for sunset, which isn't too spectacular save the hills jutting from the plains as if the Burmese version of the Flatirons, then rolling southward like the back of a serpent. So THAT's where these Asians get all their ideas.

Westwasrd is the plain with distant pagodas speckling the area between palm trees and rice paddies of both brown and green. In the distance is the grand Ayeyarwaddy weaving around the base of the mountains guarding the far side of the valley, and finally curving around their southern flank to box them in.

"They" include three rows of peaks, each larger, fainter and bluer than the first. Each more magnificent.

Behind me, where the clouds meet the horizon; is a deep glowing blue that whispers of how beautiful the world really is. To touch it all off, just at the right moment, the sky glows orange above the serpentine ridge. The kind of view that escapes attempts at photography. The view that when boxed in loses its majesty.

All of it witnessed from atop a small wall on the mountaintop, under the glow of a towering golden pagoda encirlced with Buddhas. As the sun disappears and darkness obscures the landscape, the pagoda - and some others in the distance - are lit by incandescence in this land where electricity rarely works and generators are inexorably expensive.

This is Burma.


Orwell swoops in again...

And so is Pyay, where I meet another tourist-hunter who buys my tea first thing in the morning. We zip over to his house - a standard 2-story teakwood/bamboo combo with several lakes forming on the ground floor. This issue is not abetted by a woman throwing dishwater onto one of them. Then we head to a monastery where I somehow end up playing checkers against monks.

A crazy man who apparently lives at the monastery though not a monk has tatooed arms and weird white curly long whiskers growing from his cheeks. He wants to arm wrestle. I lose. Monks laugh. Together we all go upstairs to watch the local lottery which apparently comes across the screen with stock info - you know, DOW, NASDAQ, etc. scrolling under CNN-esque coverage. I have no idea what number they looked for other than it was 51 and my 60 got me nothing. After a sporadic somewhat terrifying massage by the Boxer with white whiskers, I eat at the tourist-hunter's house while everyone else just watches. For me three kinds of curry. For two other men who come later, just rice and peppers. The special treatment still afforded to white people today would make one wonder if any time had passed since Orwell's Burmese Days.

We also visited a giant buddha wearing spectacles. A bizarre image to whom monetarily-challenged believers give their own eyeglasses in hopes that it will aid their eyesight. Oh the things we do in the name of religion...

Speaking of which, Buddhism has become something entirely different in my mind now that I've finished the book given to me by the Monk in Dalat, Vietnam. Pure Land Buddhism, it seems, disregards the need to achieve enlightenment and nirvana in this lifetime. It replaces the self with a pleading to Buddha - through constant chanting of his name - to deliver the practitioner to the Pure Land. To Heaven. There, he will live in Eternal bliss and have ample time to become enlightened in the company of those before him. In this way, it seems, Buddha - born a simple human prince - gains title of not only leader or guide, but of God. Accept Jesus in your life or accept Buddha, to corresponding believers they both seem to have the same effect.


Salvation in a big dull city

Which brings us to Yangon, where I was stunned to see a big church with "Salvation Army" slapped on the front. I went in for a conversation with the regional director for Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar. Interesting to no end to hear of the projects they undertake and the ways they find to skirt the government - i.e. build a community center, never a church. Even more intriguing, however, was his analysis of the entity's efforts to bring Jesus to the lives of Burmese. I think they come to Christ when they see that we offer eternal salvation. This life is only a small part of the whole picture and you can live forever in the mercy of God. This is what we offer that they don't have..."well, I don't know if they have it. But we certainly do and I think that's what brings them to us."

Are there words to describe? Words to display the jaw-dropping amazement that this native Burman who has dedicated his life to turning people toward Christianity doesn't even understand or, apparently, wish to understand the belief he turns them against? That he doesn't know of the belief to break the cycle of life and death? The belief and benefits of enlightenment? The belief in Pure Land? Maybe, maybe not. But the rift is less than unpredictable, I suppose.

The rest of Yangon was remarkably dull. Not too many amazing people were met. Smiles and bows are rarely returned in the street. Big block buildings dominate the cityscape. Overall, it's terrible. Alas, I was stuck there for a week for a few reasons. The first: logistics. That is to say, flights. The second: infectious disease. Are you serious? Yes. I got yet another infection and this time was ready and willing to buy a ticket to Bangkok to avoid being cared for in a land where a bachelors degree is achieved in 6 months of study - spread out over 4 years, of course. And in this land where at least one person I met could not locate a medical dictionary anywhere. Requiring any sort of treatment while alone in Burma brings to light a small aspect of what life really means here. It is not by chance that one constantly meets disfigured bodies, or eyes with cataracts, or hacking coughs, or.... Oppression is not always half-assed.

Instead, though, I recieved some advice on treatment from home and hung out in Yangon poised ready to fly at any moment. Eventually, I mustered the courage to venture afield to Kyaitiyo, where one of the holiest sights in Myanma resides.


How can we ruin nature today?

After bickering with the truck driver over how much the foreigners (6) would have to pay to get the cargo of 48 people moving, we finally head off to the starting point of the pilgrimage. A few minutes pass before I give in to my all-too-rapid pace of hiking and leave everybody else to hobble to the top. 45 minutes later I've paid the $6 "foreigner discount" and am engulfed in fog, staring at the stupa. Of course, I could write magnificently about it: Just at the summit of the jungle peak emerges a single spire of granite. The grays and blacks of the Earth streak skyward until just at the crest they dissolve into a golden lotus of the heavens. Sitting atop the throne as an emblem of the perfect world beyond, a boulder lay as though carefully place by a goliath turned holy. Teetering on edge, as though a simple tap will bring chaos to all below, the idol calls out to all who will listen: "save yourselves as he showed you how."

But, alas, it would all be bullshit. It's just a big boulder. A big foggy boulder atop a mountain virtually ruined by viewing platforms and tourist-bait. (Sorry, Pilgrim-bait.) To say I was disappointed, however, is a fallacy to the highest. Better to say that it was exactly as I had expected it to be, but had hoped it wouldn't be. Perhaps expectation determines more than just anticipation. If you want to see cool rocks, go to Canyonlands.


Burkha Intermission

Back in Yangon I waste one more day in the dull before sitting in the airport with a few other travelers during the four hour delay of our flight to Dhaka. For an idea of how Biman Bangladesh operates, feast on this: In the Biman office sits a man ready to sell you a ticket. This man then shows up at the airport, where he runs the desk to take your airport tax. Some time later, he occupies another position to give you a boarding pass and check your bag. Then he appears in the waiting area to guide you upstairs where he will aid in the serving of the complementary meal due to the delay. Later, he will take your ticket as you board the plane. And finally, he will aid passengers aboard the jet in stowing their luggage in the overhead bin.

In Dhaka one is herded in chaos among Indians flaunting their status as Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist to a desk where your flight ticket for the next day is exchanged for a plastic token. Then to a desk where your passport is exchanged for a decaying laminated "transit token." Your life is now in the hands of sketchy Bangladeshi officials.

After two or so hours you will arrive at your terrible hotel. The next morning to awake at 5:30 in an attempt to see perhaps a market or some other aspect of life here only to find that you are situated 20 km from town. Nevertheless, a walk will lead you through a land of Islam where at least one entire cow is being butchered in the middle of the street.

It will be demanded that you be ready for the shuttle to the airport, which is about 2 minutes away, three hours before your flight. At which point you will wait one hour for the shuttle. You will approach the desk at the airport where the clerk will say "passport? You have passport?" And then call someone in confusion. Finally, though, your passport will arrive and you will proceed to the gate.

Here you will meet a man from Hawaii who apparently lives in Boulder on Grove street now, though he omitted that point when you first asked his origin. His neck-lenth wavy white hair and semi-albino face indicates that he may be either 1) very interesting 2) just plain crazy.

A little bit of both, the entire exchange is epitomized by the fact that the tug boat on which he used to work in Alaska picked him up in Hawaii in 1967 as he had "sold LSD to the wrong guy or something" and carried him for three months to Vietnam. Here, he rode through the war on the Mekong into Cambodia while "everybody shot at [them]. Even the Americans." All this, just for fun.

After disappointingly seeing no Himalayan peaks on the flight, I stand at the immigration desk (that is, AT the immigration desk, with my passport in the officer's hands) as this man explains loudly that Nepal in 1964 brought him to enlightenment through LSD. This is a pilgrimage to his roots. Somehow, we still got through.


The destination anew

Then it happened. I emerged into a land where ungodly humiditiy has given way to heavenly dry heat reminiscent of Colorado this time of year. Where 9,000 foot mountains surround a city of sporadic neighborhoods. It just feels right.

As I walk down the street of the Kathmandu Khao San, I marvel at the bookshops selling material other than sporadic newsweeks from 1996 or 1962 and the manual to the 1986 Toyota Corrolla. Internet cafes actually exist en masse. ATMs abound. This is definitely not Burma.

At to top it all off, my heart jumped at the view of a down sleeping bag. Ice Axes. Boots. Coats. I know I'm in heaven when it appears - a topo map. The mere fact that topo exists to be graphed is something wholeheartedly wonderful. Something to revive the dead. And in the upper right corner the number - 8848.

Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, Everest. Welcome to Nepal.