by Bruce Kirkby
When the shadow of a tern passed my feet—a familiar friend from my days of raft guiding in the Yukon—I found myself wondering what inner force drove this astonishing creature to fly from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and then back again, year after year. Some instinct of course, but it’s an impulse difficult to distill into words. And it reminded me of the query Christine and I so often face: Why take your boys on a trip like this?
Instinct, I suppose.
I watched Bodi as he skipped ahead, head cocked to one side, gusts of wind lashing his hair. He stared out over the shattered peaks leading toward Tibet. How wondrous to know such wildness and freedom as a child.
Many ask if I hope Bodi and Taj will grow up to be adventurers, to follow in our footsteps, but such an outcome seems irrelevant to me. I only want them to be free: free to live the lives they were meant to live—whether carpenters or concert pianists, homebodies or nomads, city slickers or country bumpkins.
And the only way I know to teach freedom is to live it myself.
As I gazed at Bodi’s freckles and clear eyes, a wave of love swept across me, the immensity of which I suspect only a parent knows. Then, on its heels, came a shadow. I’d felt it before: that inescapable reality that something bad, even tragic, could happen to my precious boys someday—no matter what I did.
To love is to risk loss. One cannot exist without the other.
* * *
It began to snow on the sixth day.
At the base of the notorious Sengge La (Lion Pass), the boys fenced with walking sticks while Christine snoozed in our tent. Under the Pony Men’s plastic tarp, I found Phuntsok hunched over a kerosene stove, cooking peas. His grey whiskers had grown long, and he looked tired. TongTong handed me a bowl of tsampa, splashing tea on top. Too poor to afford butter, the Pony Men’s brew carried only salt. I stirred the scalding mixture with a finger and we ate in silence.
“Horses very weak,” TongTong finally said.
Fodder was sparse in these hills, and he worried less would be found ahead.
Phuntsok wanted more tea, but the water jug was empty. I sprang up to fill it, but TongTong seized my wrist. It was not my work, he insisted. After much bickering, he yielded.
Thin ice covered the black waters of a nearby spring. Plunging the jug in, I filled it to the brim, then slid it under the Pony Men’s tarp. Hearing nothing, I peered inside. Both men were sound asleep on the rocky ground, mouths open.
* * *
Overnight, fantastical ice formations sprouted from the rubble. They looked like tulips, with delicate petals of ice, and I’d never seen anything remotely similar. My guess was warm vapor escaping from the glacial till had frozen, forming these superb structures.
It was a sign that winter was coming, Tundup said. We passed hundreds of such ice flowers as we climbed. When sunlight finally hit the slopes, the wondrous creations didn’t melt, but rather in a final act of magic, they sublimated, vanishing before our eyes.
It was bitingly cold on the summit of the Sengge La. This marked the geographic border of Zanskar: rain falling on the slopes ahead would flow toward the Indus River, and not the enchanted vale behind us. I gazed south one final time. Tucked somewhere amid those craggy peaks was Karsha Gompa. I hadn’t found a guru during our months there. Nor had I learned any Buddhist theory. And my meditative efforts remained inconsistent at best. Nonetheless, the ancient way of life we’d glimpsed felt vitally important.
Could anything I’d learned during those precious months be carried forward, to lives lived in thicker air?
* * *
Snow sloughed off our tent fly all night. Morning revealed a landscape painted white. Christine pulled Zanskari coats onto the boys, then they dashed from the tent to greedily eat snowballs. I found TongTong and Tundup huddled around a small fire, leaden fingers over orange embers, listening as Phuntsok read Tibetan scripture aloud. We packed quickly.
“Taj, you’ll be tired if you run around all day,” Christine warned as we prepared to set off.
“Yes, but then I’ll regroup and be like two of me,” he laughed. Then his short legs carried him off in pursuit of Bodi, leaving us wondering where such ideas came from.
A pair of choughs followed us most of the morning, and marmots whistled from sandy dens at our passing. The blood-red stones underfoot—damp with melting snow and embedded with veins of quartz—were so reminiscent of steak that I sank into an extended food daydream. When a wolf turd appeared on the trail, I explained to Bodi how carnivore excrement could be recognized by its white, chalky shade.
“Then why isn’t our poop white?” he asked. I had no answer.
Clouds swirled and the snow thickened.
“Look, look!” Bodi shouted. “Orange elephants!”
And indeed odd creatures were staggering through the storm. Finally I surmised they were donkeys, buried beneath immense loads of nyalo, headed toward the village of Photaksar.
That night, temperatures plummeted and vicious winds scoured the peaks. Christine warned, “No more laundry on this trek, boys. It’s officially time to turn your underwear inside out and backward.”
* * *
The spring outside our tents was frozen solid the next morning, and our boys delighted in playing hockey with walking sticks on the glistening surface, whacking at pucks of ice.
Thank goodness I had listened to Christine and had not forbidden them from bringing the heavy sticks on our journey, for they provided endless diversion and joy. The pair used the sticks to play golf and hockey, and as javelins and spears. They’d stuffed boots on the ends and pretended to lift barbells. They’d tied strings to them and gone fishing. More than once, I’d run back down the trail to retrieve a stick left behind at a snack break.
As we packed camp, Tundup again beseeched the Pony Men to surrender one of their steeds for Bodi to ride.
Reluctantly Phuntsok dragged over a thin, grey mare. A grapefruit-sized lump protruded from the horse’s belly, and Phuntsok explained she’d been gored by a yak as a filly. He had pushed her guts back inside, then sewn her crudely up. When she survived the trauma, she earned the name Toe-Luke, meaning “yak attack.”
Bodi leapt aboard and Tundup yanked on the halter. As they clattered away, I raced to stay close behind. But I needn’t have worried. Bodi remained an amazingly natural rider. When the horse faltered on steep slopes, as it routinely did, he never flinched and instead leaned casually forward. Christine reminded him to grip the mare’s belly with his knees, but he brushed her off. “Yes, Mom, I’m fine.” Then he continued babbling to himself.
A vast collection of prayer flags and khata scarves adorned the summit of the Sisar La (4,760 meters). Beyond lay a moonscape as bleak as I had ever seen: a barren land of ochre spires, dappled with sand, iron, rock and clay. This marked a critical decision point. I expected Tundup to urge us northward, toward the new road that was being constructed, but he was distracted with his earbuds. So the Pony Men pushed straight on.
Snow fell in squalls, and clouds tumbled across an azure sky, tattered—like us—by their journey across the high peaks.
“How far do we have to go, Dada?” Taj asked from my back.
“Three more days,” I admitted.
“Oh good. That’s not far,” he clapped.
Hours later, TongTong dropped to his knees on a parched stream bed. Putting an ear to the ground, he listened for the tinkle of water somewhere beneath the rubble. Clearing tent spots, we set up camp. The ravenous horses nibbled at the dirt. Darkness brought with it a violent cold.
* * *
We were climbing again at dawn, for moving was the only way to stay warm. The horses broke trail through fresh snow, weaving upward between fins of orange rock. Wind tore at our clothes. On the summit of the Nigutse La (5,130 meters), the air held half as much oxygen as it did at sea level. We paused for a hurried photograph. This marked the highest point on our route. From here, everything was downhill.
I descended the slopes cautiously, kicking ste
ps in an icy crust, aware of both Taj on my back and the drop at my feet. When Bodi’s feet grew agonizingly cold, Christine tore off his boots and rubbed bare feet in waxen hands. We passed the mummified remains of a horse, legs broken from a fall, lips pulled back in an eternal scream.
Three more hours of walking brought us to the mouth of the Shilla Gorge.
* * *
I awoke in darkness. In a sleeping bag beside me, Taj snuggled close.
“Dada,” he whispered. “There’s a problem with my water bottle.”
The water had frozen into a solid puck, which amused Taj greatly, and he began shaking the bottle like a rattle. Bodi was soon awake, shaking his own frozen bottle. By the time we’d packed camp, everyone was shivering. With chattering teeth, we all completed fifty jumping jacks. Then we entered the gorge.
Catastrophic flooding had recently scoured the abyss, leaving behind a mess of unstable boulders, so we moved cautiously, leaping from one rock to the next, crossing the frigid creek again and again. Before long, everyone had soakers. A rainbow of pebbles spread underfoot.
“I could collect an entire suitcase,” Christine sighed.
But we had imposed a strict limit of five stones per person on the flight home; otherwise overweight charges might bankrupt us.
We saw no sign of previous visitors: no footprints, no rubbish, no fire scars or tent rings. But wolves had been here before, wandering the silty shorelines. And a family of weasels.
As the walls of rock pressed closer, the sky faded to a memory above. Parts of the gorge never received direct sunlight, Tundup explained, and here frozen waterfalls hung like chandeliers from overhanging faces. Bodi delighted in knocking down the delicate structures with his walking stick. Taj stuck his own stick in the back of his pants and ran in circles shouting, “Look! I’m a scorpion!”
After eight hours, I began to sense the end was near. Tundup raced ahead. Even lazy Toe-Luke started trotting. Rounding a bend, we met an incongruous sight—a straight line. A concrete wall.
We’d reached hot springs popular with Muslim families from Kargil. Several veiled women were cleaning laundry by hand in the outflow, and they scattered upon our approach, crouching behind boulders, sneaking curious glances at our boys as they passed. The sulphurous waters nourished a swath of dandelions, and the blooming flowers shocked me with their simple beauty.
Beyond lay a parking lot full of cars. And a tarmac road.
A ninety-minute trudge led toward Wanla village, where we would camp on the edge of town. But the mountains had released us. The spell was broken. Already, Tundup was on his phone.
21 GOING, GOING…
I awoke before dawn, feeling haunted. Our tent was pitch-black, and I slipped out, careful not to disturb Christine or the boys. The Pony Men had already left, leading their horses away toward Zanskar in darkness. Cold gusts snatched the remaining leaves from tall poplars.
How do we hold on to the things we love most, knowing seasons are always changing?
With silver shading the eastern sky, I wandered the empty streets, past rows of concrete buildings, their storefronts hidden behind steel garage doors. Red Coke flags streamed from fences, and a plastic bag bounced down the center of the road like a tumbleweed.
The silhouette of a monastery beckoned from a ridge above town, and I climbed to it. Passing through a stooped doorway, so narrow my shoulders could barely fit sideways, I found myself before a golden statue of Avalokiteshvara, at least nine meters tall.
At its feet sat an elderly monk, chanting alone beside a candle. I lowered myself beside him.
Of all the deities in Tibetan Buddhism’s dizzying pantheon, it was Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, who spoke most powerfully to me: the one who had forsaken nirvana in the hope of aiding others on their own quests for enlightenment. For some time I thought only of my breath, swaying with the monk’s chant, admiring the golden figure before me—its own peaceful eyes gazing toward the infinite. Eventually I rose to leave. But first I rummaged through my pockets and placed a handful of rupees at Avalokiteshvara’s feet, adding to drifts of bills.
Then I bowed, ever so slightly.
I bowed to the monk, chanting alone by a flickering yak-butter candle. I bowed to all the men and women chanting in all the musty temples still dotting the Himalaya, perched on the precipice of extinction. I bowed to the scholars, lamas and mystics who created this vibrant expression of humanity. I bowed to the idea of compassion itself, something the world could use much more of. I bowed to the statue towering above me, the incarnation of compassion itself, the first in an ancient lineage leading all the way to today’s Dalai Lama. I bowed to my son, who seemed a bodhisattva himself, sent to strip away my ego and clear my illusions. And I bowed to the Avalokiteshvara in all of us.
Then I slipped out, toward a brightening day.
* * *
Three soapy-smelling men had arrived in camp while I was away, wearing blue jeans and puffy jackets. Their shiny minivans would carry us, and all the trekking gear, back to Leh, some one hundred kilometers distant. All three hailed from Zanskar. And all three were neighbors of Sonam Dawa. The ageless system of the paspun endured, even here.
As we awaited breakfast in the cook tent, I squeezed onto a crate beside one of them. With bookish glasses and carefully coiffed hair, twenty-five-year-old Norbu was an excellent English speaker who would not have appeared out of place on the streets of New York. A programmer with India’s Department of Defense, he had taken a day off work to help his friends, Tundup, Sundup and Tsewang.
That trio was now almost unrecognizable, having scrubbed themselves in an irrigation ditch, run gel through their hair, put on collared shirts and splashed themselves with aftershave. (I surmised there was a fair chance of encountering young women in the hours ahead.) By contrast, still wearing Lama Wangyal’s Zanskari robe, I remained scruffy and unshaven, my hair tangled like a Nick Nolte mug shot.
“Isn’t it silly?” Norbu laughed as we gulped down chapatti and eggs smothered in chili sauce. “We are all dressed up like Americans. And you are dressed up like a Zanskari.”
When I asked his thoughts on the changes sweeping through his homeland, Norbu paused.
“We have a new tradition in Zanskar,” he finally began. “When a child reaches fourteen or fifteen years old, they leave their village, usually without telling their parents. They travel to Leh, where they work for some months, in a shop or doing construction. They can make quick money, and it is an easy life. Maybe they rest for some weeks between jobs, if they like. Of course, they eventually return to Zanskar to visit their family, but when they do, they have changed. They dress differently. They talk differently. They think differently. And these changes seem very attractive to other village kids. So they too soon leave their farm and travel to the city. Every year the cycle grows. I know, because that was what happened to me.”
I asked about the highway project.
“When that road reaches Zanskar, it will bring money. And medicine. And better education. And those things are important. But it will also bring bad things. Maybe some very bad things. But I don’t think people in Zanskar see this, because they are all hungry for easy money.”
“What bad things?” I asked.
“Today, there are no rich people in Zanskar. But there are no poor people either. This is a concept we don’t understand. Everyone is the same, more or less. The families owning the best land live side by side with families holding the worst. They socialize together. They help each other. They harvest together. They go to weddings together. And funerals. But in Leh, life is different. The rich form clubs. They drive fancy cars. They eat together. They go to each other’s weddings. But they don’t live close together.
“And the poor? They have nothing. You’ll see them sleeping on the streets. Begging. No one is helping them. Such a thing could never, ever happen in Zanskar. At least not now. But it is coming.”
We talked about Zanskar’s traditional lifestyle, and No
rbu mourned the vanishing knowledge.
“A good example is Tundup’s father,” he said, pointing to the young man who had crossed the mountains with us, now wearing dark sunglasses and listening intently. “I visited him in Zanskar just last month. I’ve known him since I was a baby, because he is my neighbor. Some in the city might say he is just a farmer. But think about how much he knows. He can shoe a horse and birth a yak, so you might say he is an animal doctor. He knows when to plant his barley, based on the arrival of a bird or the length of the sun’s shadows. So he is a biologist and astronomer too. He designed his own house and built it by hand. He is an architect and carpenter. He forges iron, repairs ploughs and constructs irrigation ditches, so he’s an engineer too. But that’s not everything. He knows his family history going back for generations. And he knows all the legends of his village, so he is a historian. He can read and write in Tibetan, so he is a scholar too. And he can sing. Not just one song, but hundreds. At a party last month, he sang from the start of the evening to the very end. He is an entertainer. He is an amazing man. But the important point is, in Zanskar, he is not unusual.”
There was a long pause. Everyone in the tent was listening.
“And us? The next generation?” He pointed at the circle of shiny-shoed men huddled around the kerosene stove, wearing pleated pants and doused in cologne. “We can speak English and use a computer. So what? It makes me so sad to see all that lost in one generation. But what can we do? Nothing. So we just sit and watch.”
* * *
We stopped at the famous Lamayuru monastery, a tangle of white and ochre temples perched atop a high knoll beside the Leh–Srinagar Highway. The paved parking lot was chock full of tour buses. Inside, altars and treasures were hidden behind Plexiglas. Large signs in English, French and German explained the site’s history. In the former home of four hundred monks, we saw just one, and he scurried away quickly.