The Indian highway signs were not much more encouraging. In lieu of shoulders or guardrails, dangerous curves on the mountain featured boulders with white-painted slogans that read ‘O God help us!’ or ‘Be safe: use your horn’. I kept staring out at the river valley 300 metres below and imagining our driver cheerily honking the horn as we all plummeted to certain death.
The most alarming part of the Himalayan bus ride, however, was the road itself, which seemed to be buried under massive mudslides at eighty-kilometre intervals. Indeed, every couple of hours, our bus driver would screech to a halt and I’d peer out the window to see what had formerly been the road lying in a crumpled crust twenty metres down the mountain. Invariably, several dozen Indian highway workers would be making a frenzied effort to carve a makeshift dirt track into the flank of the mud wall in front of us. My fellow passengers would disembark and smoke cigarettes at the edge of the cliff, watching disinterestedly until the labourers gave a shout and our bus driver would rumble across the improvised mud road. Along with the other passengers, I’d then follow on foot at a safe distance, climbing back into the bus once the normal highway resumed. My main solace amidst all this was the promise of Kaza and the serene Buddhist environs that hopefully awaited me there.
After two days of nonstop travel, I’d made it deep into the Tibetan border region before the transmission dropped out of the bottom of my bus near a town called Pooh. Folks in Pooh informed me that there were no more onward buses that day, but I might be able to find transportation out of Kob, ten kilometres further up the road. Feeling optimistic in the early-afternoon sunshine, I set off for Kob on foot.
In retrospect, the early hours of my hike to Kob were the happiest of my entire Himalayan sojourn. Outside of Pooh, the altitude snaked up to above 3500 metres, and the hand-planted cherry trees along the roadside had just begun to sprout pink blossoms. Before long, though, I was trudging into a massive canyon of grey rock and the highway was reduced to a narrow slot dynamited out of the side of the cliff. The Spiti River was barely visible below, but I knew it was the same river that roared down from Kaza – a place where I envisioned cool air, welcoming locals and the soft tinkling of monastery bells.
Unfortunately, the transit town of Kob never materialised, even after four hours of hiking. I trudged an additional hour in the dark before I spied an abandoned blockhouse at the side of the road. Figuring it was as good a place as any to bivouac, I pulled on several layers of warm clothing, curled up on the dirt floor, and – exhausted – fell asleep. When I woke up, my watch told me it was just past seven o’clock. Encouraged to have had a full night’s sleep, I walked outside to catch the sunrise.
I must have stared at the darkened eastern horizon for half an hour before I re-checked my watch and noticed the small ‘PM’ over the time-code.
Nervous about the gathering mountain cold, I began a search for firewood – but all I could find was the old wooden blockhouse door, which had long since fallen off its hinges. When repeated attempts to smash the door with rocks resulted in nary a dent, I tried tossing it into the air and breaking it over the large roadside boulders.
I had been tossing the door onto the boulders without success for about fifteen minutes before I realised I was being watched by half a dozen bewildered-looking Indian soldiers. Not knowing what else to do, I put my hands above my head. One of the soldiers grabbed my backpack and the others marched me half a mile up the road to their transport truck, where I met a no-nonsense lieutenant who (apart from the beard, turban and Punjabi accent) looked somewhat like the movie star Vin Diesel.
‘My soldiers tell me you were taking photographs’, he said. ‘Is this true?’
‘No’, I told him. ‘I was trying to smash up a door.’
Lieutenant Diesel shot me a suspicious look. ‘This is a dangerous border, and it’s not for tourists. Why did you bring a door?’
After a witheringly absurd ten-minute interrogation about my motives for trying to destroy a door in total darkness along the Indian–Chinese border, Lieutenant Diesel consented to drive me back to his army base near Pooh. There, I was allowed to sleep on a bench in a small administrative office. ‘If anybody asks,’ the lieutenant told me gravely, ‘tell them you were taking photographs.’
The following day, I hitched a ride on a troop transport to the village of Yangthang, where I was finally able to catch a bus that took me over a final stretch of highway switchbacks and road washouts to my mountain-top destination. As I stumbled out of the bus at the Kaza depot, I marvelled at the stark simplicity of the town, which consisted of whitewashed houses and small storefronts spread along a scree-strewn basin. Two monasteries were perched on the surrounding hillsides, and I noticed with delight that the stones along the walkway had been carved with Buddhist prayers. The place looked like a picture postcard of Tibetan authenticity.
When I walked into the centre of town, however, I was disappointed to find that – save for wandering packs of stray dogs – Kaza was largely deserted. All the guesthouses were shuttered for the winter, and the few ethnic Tibetan residents I passed on the street couldn’t understand my English queries. The only person who took an interest in me was a chubby, balding man at the government-housing complex, who introduced himself as Mr Singh.
‘Come and drink with us!’ he hollered happily. ‘Today we celebrate the Holi festival. It is very important to Hindus.’ I politely declined Mr Singh’s offer, explaining that I had come to Kaza to experience Buddhist culture.
Since the local monasteries were as empty and gated as the hotels, however, I was quickly running out of options. Stopping to check my guidebook, I noticed that Ki Gompa, a historically isolated thousand-year-old monastery, was just fourteen kilometres from Kaza via a mountain trail. With the realisation that all my travails up to that point might really just be hints of fate leading me to the halls of Ki Gompa, I shouldered my pack and headed to the footpath on the edge of town.
As I walked, I felt a slight twinge of pity for all the travellers who made their way to Dharamsala seeking the Dalai Lama, only to wind up in guesthouses and Internet cafés full of travellers from Berkeley and Birmingham and Tel Aviv. By contrast, I reckoned my final push to Ki Gompa would transcend such tourist banality and lead me into the true heart of Tibetan spirituality.
Fewer than 200 metres up the mountain – and with these happy delusions still floating in my head – a giant mastiff charged out from behind a rock, bared his teeth and tore off my right trouser leg at the knee. Spooked, I ran all the way back down into Kaza, blood oozing into my socks. Since I didn’t know of any other options, I jogged over to the government-housing complex.
‘You have come back to celebrate Holi!’ Mr Singh exclaimed upon seeing me.
‘Actually, a dog bit me and I need some first aid.’ I pointed at my bleeding wound.
With the formal air of a person who is doing his best to feign sobriety, Mr Singh shook my hand in sympathy and led me to a small cinderblock hospital just up the road. One tetanus shot and one roll of gauze later, I was back in the housing complex, being introduced to Mr Singh’s colleagues – Mr Gupta, who was as bald and chubby as Mr Singh, and Mr Kumar, a thin middle-aged man with hunched shoulders and owlish eyeglasses. Mr Singh merrily explained that they were all road engineers from the Delhi area, and that they hated living in Kaza. ‘This is an ugly place’, he said, ‘and it is filled with country people who have no culture or sophistication.’
Mr Gupta proposed they give me a Holi blessing, so I followed them into Mr Kumar’s room, which, with its stovepipe oven, peeling wallpaper and magazine photos of Bollywood starlets, looked like a cross between a college dorm and a miner’s cabin. Three bottles of Director’s Special whisky sat empty on the top of a dresser. Mr Gupta produced a jar of chalky red pigment and smeared a tikka mark on my forehead, while Mr Singh opened a fresh bottle of Director’s Special and poured me a glass.
‘So why do Hindus celebrate Holi?’ I asked.
‘It comes from a st
ory in our ancient book, the Mahabharata’, Mr Singh slurred. ‘Exactly one million years ago there was a goddess who tortured her brother to death. So now we celebrate.’
‘It is a very enjoyable holiday’, Mr Gupta added.
‘What do you do when you celebrate Holi?’
‘Sometimes we throw buckets of coloured water at our friends or at strangers. But today, since you are our guest, we will watch movies of the colour blue.’ Mr Singh shot me a conspiratorial look. ‘Of course, you know which movies I mean.’
‘I don’t think so’, I said. ‘Are they movies about the Mahabharata?’
‘No, these movies are much more interesting.’ Mr Singh gestured to Mr Kumar, who popped a videotape into the VCR. Throbbing synthesizer music crackled out of the TV speaker, and a fuzzy image shuddered onto the screen. The movie had such poor picture quality that I could barely tell what was going on – though it appeared to be the writhing of two or more naked bodies. Presently, the synthesizer music was offset by slurping, slapping and moaning noises. ‘Oh yeah’, a voice from the TV said. ‘Ride me harder!’
I shot Mr Singh a quizzical look, and he giggled boyishly. ‘Mr Kumar wants to know why that man has such a long penis’, he said.
‘Long and fat’, Mr Gupta said.
I looked back at the TV, but still couldn’t make out a clear image. Apparently, these men had rewound and fast-forwarded the movie so many times that it had deteriorated into jumbled images of static and fuzz. Only the soundtrack remained.
Assuming it was a fairly standard porno movie, I considered my answer. ‘I guess it’s part of the job qualification’, I said. ‘Men in blue movies need to have big penises, just like men who build roads need to have engineering degrees.’
Mr Singh translated this for Mr Kumar; the men nodded seriously.
‘What about this’, Mr Singh said, gesturing at the screen. ‘Is this normal for married men in America?’
I squinted at the TV, but couldn’t make out what was going on. ‘Is what normal?’
‘To have two women licking one man’s penis’, Mr Gupta said.
‘Only one of them is his wife’, Mr Singh clarified, ‘and the other woman brought them a pizza on her motorcycle.’
‘Oh my God!’ the TV crackled. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘these kinds of movies are just fantasies. You can’t assume they represent anything about normal American life. I mean, what if everyone thought life in India was exactly like a Bollywood musical?’
‘But Bollywood movies are very accurate!’ Mr Singh exclaimed. ‘They show many good things about India.’
‘But they don’t represent normal Indian life’, I said. ‘I mean, do you and Mr Gupta and Mr Kumar break into song and dance every day at work?’
‘I like to sing and dance’, Mr Gupta offered.
‘That’s right’, the TV interjected. ‘Give it to me, you big stud!’
Before the conversation could deteriorate any further, there was a knock on the door and a teenage boy walked in to serve us bowls of dhal. ‘This is Vikram’, Mr Gupta said. ‘He is a student of English.’
‘He will look at this movie, and then he will want to run off for hand practice’, Mr Singh giggled, making a wanking motion.
Vikram gave me a sympathetic look as he handed me the dhal. ‘These guys are hammered’, he whispered. ‘Just let me know if they start to bother you.’
Ten minutes later, I caught up with Vikram in the housing-compound kitchen. ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘I travelled for three days on some of the worst roads I’ve seen in my life just to get to Kaza. I have nothing against Holi or Hindus, but I was hoping to meet some Tibetans here. Do you know of any way I can stay at one of the Buddhist monasteries?’
‘You’ve come here at the end of winter’, he said, ‘and only a handful of trucks and buses have made it through since November. The monasteries are running low on food, and the guesthouses won’t want to turn on their generators for just one person. You should stay the night in Mr Kumar’s room. It’s pretty comfortable.’
‘But isn’t there any way to meet some Buddhists while I’m in Kaza?’
Vikram shrugged. ‘Maybe, but people stay indoors during this time. And they don’t know much English. You’d probably get bored if you don’t speak any Tibetan. You should come back in June or July. That’s the best time for tourists.’
For some reason, the word ‘tourists’ triggered an instant and vivid fantasy. I imagined myself off in the streets of Dharamsala – eating muesli, flirting with Norwegian backpacker girls, sending emails to friends back in the States and swapping Dalai Lama-sighting stories with star-struck Canadians. Suddenly, this scenario didn’t seem so bad at all.
Resigned to my fate, however, I returned to Mr Kumar’s room. There, as we fast-forwarded through several more scenes from the movie (which appeared to be about a team of unusually libidinous pizza delivery women), I served as an informal ambassador of American marginalia.
‘Yes,’ I told them, ‘I’m pretty sure Viagra works. No, I haven’t tried it. Yes, I’m aware that Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky had sexual relations. No, I don’t think they still keep in touch. Actually, I don’t think they were ever in love to begin with. Yes, there are many famous black Americans named Michael. Yes, I know all about Michael Jackson’s career. No, I don’t think that would make Michael Jordan want to get plastic surgery.’
Eventually Mr Singh and Mr Gupta staggered off to bed, and I fell asleep on Mr Kumar’s floor, next to the woodstove. A little after midnight, I awakened to see the stoop-shouldered Indian sitting on the edge of his bed, intently watching the snowy image of a naked man and woman engaged in a sexual act that was technically outlawed in numerous states and countries.
Seeing that I was awake, Mr Kumar grinned over at me and, with a knowing wobble of his head, said, ‘Back-door entry!’
This was the only English I ever heard him speak.
Sometime before sunrise, Vikram came into the room and shook me awake. ‘I know of a fuel truck that is leaving in ten minutes. It can take you as far as Pooh, and you can catch a normal bus from there.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Or, if you want to stay in Kaza longer, the regular bus leaves next week.’
Two minutes later, I was fully packed and sprinting for the fuel truck.
The ensuing three days were not too eventful. Though the muddy Himalayan highway was just as precarious as it had been on my inbound journey, I didn’t let it get to me; I merely looked forward to getting back to the well-worn grooves of the tourist trail. As a new series of buses rattled me back down towards Shimla, I stared out at the steep mountain canyons with Zen-like patience.
I had indeed, it seemed, achieved something approaching enlightenment.
A SPECIAL KIND OF FOOL
BILL FINK
Bill Fink is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. He is a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle and a variety of regional and international publications. More of his true tales of stupidity can be seen at www.geocities.com/billfink2004. He is currently working on a book about his year of basketball-themed misadventures in the Philippines entitled Dunked in Manila.
According to a Japanese saying, there are two kinds of fools: those who have never climbed Mt Fuji, and those who have climbed it more than once.
I didn’t want to be either kind of fool, so I decided to climb the mountain once, and to do it right.
As a college exchange student in Japan, I had been studying the language for six months. So I was able to translate – a little – when I saw a Japanese TV segment showing jolly people climbing gentle, well-marked paths up the mountain: ‘Something-something-something Mt Fuji something-something walking something-something this spring.’
March seemed early in the year to climb a 4000-metre snowcapped mountain, but the televised hikers were wearing T-shirts and shorts, so I assumed it was unseasonably warm. My guidebook said that reaching Fuji’s summit at sunrise was the perfect way to
conclude the hike, so I decided to start climbing at night, battery-operated torch in hand. Ben, a fellow exchange student, volunteered to join my quest.
I figured we could hitchhike the 480 kilometres from where we lived in Kobe to the base of the mountain by midnight. We’d climb to the top by sunrise, be down by early afternoon, and catch up with our sleep on the car rides home. Ben recommended we start early, and bring sleeping bags, just in case.
Our friends called us foolish – but what did they know, they were foreigners. Our home-stay families didn’t have anything to say, because we each told them, American student-style, that we’d be spending the weekend at the other family’s house.
Ben scrounged supplies: a bright yellow raincoat for me, a nylon karate jacket and a safari hat for himself. He also borrowed a couple of ragged sleeping bags from his host family, and brought along a box of large plastic bin liners.
‘We’ll use these to tie around our feet as gaiters, just in case we have to ford a river or walk through some snow on the summit’, he explained.
The next morning we took local trains to the edge of Kobe, where we strolled to the nearest highway entrance ramp. Ben had been growing his hair during the exchange programme, with the logic that if everyone’s going to stare at you for being a foreigner, you might as well give them their money’s worth. With a monstrous afro and a maniacal goatee, he looked like a member of Grand Funk Railroad on a bad hair day. I stood next to him in my bright-yellow raincoat and blue Chicago Cubs hat. We waved at cars like two lost members of a travelling circus.
By the Seat of My Pants Page 6