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.