Montenegro Market

I’ve come for a bottle of fresh-pressed olive oil. The market is a garden-level garage, grey and muted concrete. There are few windows, if any. They have a fleeting hold on my memory. The market is defined by what it is not: not a Sunday-market in the sun; not a mélange of spices and human bodies; not the clamor of haggling, the reprisals yelled at a deal gone bad; it is not a Baltic beat, or a melody off of the Adriatic. But it is not entirely cold either. There is something there beyond the necessity for fresh fruits and vegetables that keeps drawing me back. Something like two fingers feeling across skin for a healthy vein. There is a pulse. 

The man with tobacco skin greets me, this time recognizing who I am. His unkempt cotton eyebrows raise and he smiles with what teeth remain. “Dobro jutro,” he says and extends his hand. I take it and respond still with weakness—in the greeting and in the handshake. He speaks to me in Serbian and I nod as if I understand. He knows that I don’t speak the language but what else is there to do? He must let me know of all the delicacies he has available today.

Here we have homemade wine. Two liters the white. One liter the red. Probajte. Probajte. He pours me a few shots of the white and it is very good—bone dry and flinty like limestone. Here we have dried figs. The summer season for fresh ones is now over but you can have them dried. Try one. Probajte. Remember the sweltering days and the girls in bikinis and the turquoise sea, its coolness when you dive and it envelops you. Remember when all this was new and full of potential. Here we have olives. They taste of no other olives but mine. You see the garlic cloves in there with them? You see? You can only get olives like these in Montenegro. There are no others like these. Probajte.

Now my bag has two liters of wine in a salvaged plastic bottle, a hundred grams of olives, and a string of dried figs. “The olive oil,” I say, pointing to another unmarked plastic bottle. He pushes a capful of it on me and I sample it for the performance only. I know it is good. The best I’ve ever had. My backpack is bulging and I have not even gone to the woman at the fruit stand who knows I will visit her next.

She also greets me and immediately tells me about all there is to offer. The fruits are arranged in short boxes and cascade down in tiers. There are not so many options today, but last time I went to the stand right beside this one and the lady frowned at me, upset that I did not buy from her. This week I must buy there.

The pomegranates are heavy. I weigh them in my hand and pass them to the woman who gives me a motherly smile, only vaguely patronizing. I can still just guess if I have picked good ones. She seems to know that all of this is a farce, that I am playacting. She plays along, because I am a good customer perhaps, or because she pities me. Now the basiliko, now the parsley sprigs gleaming with moisture, and the sanguine tomatoes. She puts them all on her digital scale and adds the totals by hand. I put grapes on the scale and she adds them to the total. She hands the grocery bag to me and shows me the price as she says it aloud. I split the atmosphere with English words – “Thirteen. Yes. Thank you.” And then I try and make up for it, take it back and return to the past – “Trinaest. Da. Hvala.” She looks impressed, maybe because she just wants my business next week. She takes a handful of small zwetschge plums and drops them into my bag. “Hvala,” she says.

At home I arrange the fruits delicately on my table. I serve myself a glass of wine and I listen to the lapping water of the bay that finds its way into my window. It is part of the pulse. It beats with the sound of banter from Corleone Café, with the conversations of the last beachgoers of the season. And I faintly feel it in my temples as I sip at the wine, and as I watch the sun set across the bay. 

Montenegro Morning

The humidity is palpable and the heat of the day has yet to abate even though it is 1am. I am wide awake. Jet lag. I barely got used to the time in Colorado before I took off again and now here I am, thousands of miles away in any direction from all those other homes; insomnolent.

By 5am the daylight starts creeping into the gleaming cleanliness of my new apartment. I open my eyes yet again and wish away the day so that I might just get some sleep. As the room turns light blue then pink with the sunrise, I give in and stand up. At the window I see the masts of the sailboats on the harbor, lightly rocking to-and-fro. It's an image so far from those Himalayan villages I just left. 

I take a towel and walk out through my front door, pass the lone sentinel palm tree on the driveway, and in thirty seconds I can dip my toes into the water. A minute more down the coast and I have a stony beach to myself. The vacation crowds are still asleep, their singed bodies snoring away in buildings that line the coast. There are only a few people out this early: the street sweeper, a zaftig elderly woman walking her havanese, a Speedoed Russian cooling off on his hotel balcony.

The few clouds above that have brought in the day are orange and pink. I look into the water and pebbles are filtered in transparent turquoise, a cuttlefish meanders against the dock. The water is cool. I immerse into it as an introduction. The Adriatic covers me from toe to head. I swim out to where my feet can no longer find the bottom and then I begin to swim laps parallel to the beach. My strokes are awkward and my breathing labored – I have only swum in the sea once or twice in my life before. I can taste the saltwater and after only one lap I tire and have to switch to a backstroke. The water over my ears muffles out the world and I can hear only the murmur of my strokes, my labored breaths and my heart beating. I cut through the water with each stroke and am weightless, like a dream.

The clouds now are white and the sky as blue as one could hope for. The sun has finally climbed over the mountains, crept over the terracotta rooftops of the village houses, and now pours down onto the water. I swim back to the shore and dry off. I can smell the sea on my towel and on me. My introduction to the Adriatic is complete.

This jet lag has been persistent. Each morning when I find myself awake at dawn, I no longer try to force sleep. I put on my swim trunks, throw a towel over my bare shoulder, and step outside to the Montenegro morning, welcoming it, knowing that it has welcomed me. 

From Himalayan Roads: Epilogue

When I was fifteen I read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. In the Nepal I envisioned, the air around Everest basecamp was frigid and the landscape alien. The behemoth soared in the background and was battered by inhospitable clouds. There was a clanging of mountaineering equipment, yells in snowstorms, the laborious and exhausted huffs of climbers as they moved ever onward toward the summit.

It all existed in my imagination only. The Khumbu region was a fantasy world, a fey illusion.

At thirty-three, just months ago, I somehow found myself standing in Everest basecamp accompanied by Lama Tshering Sherpa in full monk garb. The air was as thin as Krakauer had said. It was crisp and dry but the sun warmed us as we took pictures of the Khumbu icefall and of the peaks that surrounded us. There it was, the top of the world. There we were, just below.

At that moment I traced my life back eighteen years and could follow a meandering path of adventure, sacrifice, risk, and resolute intention that had led me to that particular time and place. I saw it all – my time as a peripatetic rock climber in the US; the good friends I made in Peru and our forays into the Andes; that terrible and beautiful sunset in Patagonia; falling in love in Japan; the walks through cherry blossoms and the nights drinking beers in the fisherman’s motel on the coast. I easily recalled sitting in a monastery in Bhutan, the sound of dungchen horns and guttural mantras echoing in the ancient hall. I realized then that time moves quickly and small influences shape the character of a life. It all traced back to a kid who was eager to fill his life with adventure, to live like the heroes in novels, to see the world and learn something from it.

The clock is spinning.

Where would I have been had I said no to those calls toward adventure? What kind of a life would I have looked back on? It was no great feat to have saddled up a 220cc Indian motorcycle and started down the roads of Bhutan, Nepal, and India. And yet, it was an experience that again filled my life with worth and made me proud to have done something that pushed my limits and taught me about the world.

It is important that we have adventures. The form of a life is made more beautiful by such experiences and now adventure has become so much a part of who I am that I do not know what to do without it. Sure, I will “settle down” a bit now as I go off to Montenegro to teach. But I will not shy away from those sudden impulses that pull me to far-flung places. I will heed the calls and begin planning. I will make those dreams a priority because, for me, to adventure is to live. And if I do not pursue these dreams and adventures, I will not be living a good life.

Dreams are a fuel that gives life momentum. Just as a car needs gas to move forward, dreams give direction and purpose to a life. When one dream has been accomplished – like living in Bhutan – the next dream is a refill, saying, “Okay, do this now. There will be adventure, learning, and fulfillment ahead.” As I move from one dream to the next, I realize that I am constructing this thing called a Life, and that my pursuit of these dreams (whether I succeed or fail) gives life meaning and worth.

But I have also been reminded that we do not all get to live out our dreams. The prevalence of poverty and destitution is a reality I have seen all too often in the slums of India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The abject condition of their lives is a reality that cannot be ignored. I am privileged to seek out adventure; it’s a stroke of cosmic luck. Others have simply been born into lives without such fortune.

I have seen so much despair and desperation on this latest journey. This is their Life. The fact that, as a global community, we have let our fellow human beings wallow in these conditions is a sign that we are still in a moral Dark Age. As much as I have seen beauty and kindness and joy, there are stark injustices that prevail.

In Uttarakhand, India, I rode through a burning landfill where families picked through the garbage to find sustenance. Their homes bordered the refuse heap and there were dozens of families there; the children waded into spoiled and rotting puddles and the garbage swirled around their fragile legs as they searched the water for anything of worth.

In Nepal, on the high roads, women wrapped from head to toe in thick wool blankets sat atop piles of stones and hammered at them, splitting them into smaller pieces so that they could be used to expand the roads. Meanwhile tourists walked through with two-hundred-dollar backpacks and snapped pictures on thousand-dollar cameras and complained about the few clouds that blocked out the sun.

On these Himalayan roads, I have gotten to know one more tile in the rich, global mosaic. I have seen the majesty of the top of the world and have rejoiced that such places exist. But I have also seen how we have soiled the earth, choked the air, and polluted the rivers. At the concrete Hindu temples, we offer incense and flowers, and at the blessed Ganges we offer a landfill’s worth of waste. The Buddhist holy places are festooned with prayer flags that patter against the wind while the floor beneath is littered with plastic bags, smelling of rot and synthetic decay. What is this disconnect? Do we not see the irony?

We can do better. We must do better.

In these judgments, I think it only fair that I turn the mirror on myself and ask what it is I am contributing to make life better. Though teaching is a noble profession, these last six months that I have been out of the classroom have been largely selfish and it is time I return to a career that allows me to guide, even in the smallest capacity, the next generation to be more compassionate and empathetic human beings.

This trip has taught me many things that I can in turn teach my students. I therefore think that, as selfish as it was, there is a place for these solitary adventures. One must know how to confront fear and insecurity in ways like riding a motorcycle through the Himalayas so that he can be better prepared to take on tasks like convincing a student who hates to read that it’ll be worth it to pick up the class novel. Perhaps with the lessons I have learned I can help inspire someone to follow her own dreams when everyone else in her life expects her to fail. We all have dreams we want to pursue, we have adventures just on the horizon, but we need to learn take those first steps. In that way, I believe we can live fulfilling lives.

Does this end poverty and pollution? Maybe. It certainly contributes to the fight. We first need courage and faith to believe that we can do the impossible. This is something that can be taught. Then we can take on the big injustices of the world. The all-too-easy excuse claiming “That’s just the way it is” is only for the pusillanimous. We need to believe that things can change for the better and that a small action toward improvement is an action of consequence.

I’m ready to get back into the classroom and devote myself to a career that gives people strength, critical-thinking skills, and the fortitude to rail against entrenched ideologies and “impossible” goals. We must get better. We must be better people for our fellow human beings, for our brothers and sisters now, and for our sons and daughters that will take our place.

Seek out your adventures. Don’t hesitate. Don’t make excuses. Fill your life with adventure as much as you can and reap the learning that comes. But remember to stop and teach. Find goodness in the world and help others to see it. Where it is hard to find goodness, cultivate it. Then the world will continue to be a place that our posterity will be eager to explore, a place that will inspire future adventures and that will give meaning to people’s lives. 

From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Nineteen - Last Days in Ladakh

Solivagant did his job well. As the mode by which I traversed these Himalayan roads, he was priceless. I remember back in Bhutan when he had five flat tires in as many months. I remember when he wouldn’t start and how the handbrake went out suddenly and couldn’t get repaired until I got to India. Somehow, fortuitously, once I left Bhutan, Solivagant never got a flat, always started (eventually), and ran like a dream.

I ran around Leh for days looking for a buyer for Solivagant. I was in the land of the Royal Enfield though, a loud, masculine bike that is the poster image of the Indian Himalayan odyssey. Solivagant’s 220cc adolescent growl and his humble frame did not entice prospective buyers. Delhiites and Punjabis and middle and upper class professionals from all over India came to Kashmir to look the part of an Enfield rider as they journeyed over the passes to Manali, or Srinigar. They were willing to pay for that image too. Enfields cost more than twice as much as I was asking for Solivagant, but still I couldn’t find takers. Solivagant just wasn’t cool enough.

One prospective buyer described him as beat up and old. He only saw the cracked plastic, loose screws, and a handbrake that rattled and threatened to pop off. The buyer used the (legitimate) fact that the bike came with no legal documents against me. His offer was a quarter of Solivagant’s worth. But it was better than any other offer I received.

I half expected it.

Poor Solivagant. He had no idea he’d be treated that way.

I realized then that Solivagant and I had been similar in many ways throughout this journey. We were underdogs. This feeling was highlighted right at the end of the ride, when I began the stretch from Manali to Leh. A pair of Indian riders on a 500cc Enfield tried to sway me against finishing.

“Your bike won’t make it over the passes. Its engine is too small,” they said.

I was undeterred. Of course Solivagant could make it. He had made it all the way from Bhutan and would make it to the end.

I started out the journey an inexperienced rider and somehow I had made it too. Together, Solivagant and I survived the chaos of Indian traffic, the mountainous roads of Kashmir, the awful routes to Nepali villages. We got a little beat up, we were a little tired, but we were a testament to the luck that comes with an adventurous spirit. With trust that adventuring is good, and a willingness to endure a bit of challenge, we were able to see and do incredible things. We were rewarded with an experience of a lifetime.

Now it was time to say goodbye. As much as I thought I could leave Solivagant without emotional attachment, there were signs that I was wrong. When the buyer made a final offer of $150 dollars, knowing I had no other options and had a flight booked for the next day, I berated him more harshly than he deserved.

“You’re dishonest,” I said. “I don’t like doing business with dishonest people.”

He gave me a look as if to say, “I’m the only one who will do business with you.”

I handed him the key, took one last look at Solivagant and walked away, refusing to shake the guy’s hand. I told myself that my reaction was because I was fed up with the underhanded bartering that I had found all over the subcontinent. But really I was just sad that the journey was over and that I would not ride Solivagant ever again.

He had been a good companion. Though Solivagant means “wandering alone,” that was never the case. We started and ended the journey together. It was only then, right at the end, when I returned to my guesthouse and began packing my bags for my series of flights back to Colorado, that I actually felt alone. I was without my trusted companion and the road ahead was one that could not be ridden by motorcycle. 

From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Eighteen - The Village Girl in the Azure Hijab

I became bored in Leh after only three days. On the fourth, I decided to pack up Solivagant for the penultimate time and head 300 kilometers west to the Suru Valley. Some friends were there climbing again and I wanted to join them. It was there that this story came from.

The gusts from the impending storm lifted the loose ends of the village girl’s azure hijab and rattled them in staccato with the distant sound of the muezzin’s call to prayer. She stood her ground, grabbed the fluttering ends of the headscarf and wrapped them around her neck until they only beat with a faint pulse. Her face was that of the interim Himalayas, where Tibetan script and Arabic coexist, where stupas sit among mosques, and Om mani padme hum is spoken as reverently as A salaam alaikum.

The wind did not appear to bother the girl, nor her friend who stood beside her in the tattered incarnadine headscarf and watched us as we cowered under a boulder a short distance away. Once the rain started, both girls remained far away in the open, ignoring our invitation that they join us in the shelter of the overhang. The rain came in at a sharp angle and still the two remained outside, crouching down among the sage, watching us.

It was one of those Kashmiri summer storms, strong but ephemeral, mostly bombast and empty threat. The wind caterwauled and there were some stentorian bursts of thunder and the rain lashed down for a few minutes. But it ended quickly. It was merely enough for the sage to be made more fragrant with the moisture, and for the purple streaks on the mountains to deepen their color. Not enough to send the girls running for home, nor to ruin our afternoon climbing. With a few moments of sun, the boulder was dry again, and we could resume our efforts to climb to the top.

The girls watched us, three foreign men (two Indian, and me the American) and one foreign woman (Indian), with rapturous curiosity. We were strange for many reasons, but most of all for spending all day trying to climb to the top of such a little rock.

When Tania began to climb, the village girls came nearer. Tania wore her hair in a messy ponytail. It poured down her back in silky black skeins and lightly swayed as she pulled herself onto the rock. She was strong, with a woman’s figure. The chalk on her hands stood out against her milk-chocolate skin. When she reached the crux of the route, a primal growl emerged from her that made the village girls giggle, covering their mouths with their sleeve ends and looking at each other with widened eyes. Tania fell to the crashpad and cursed and again the girls glanced at each other.

When Tania returned to the rock, the girl in the azure hijab was entranced. She keenly watched Tania’s movements up the boulder.

I motioned for the girl to come to the rock and climb the easy face just around the corner from where we were. She declined, shaking her head and then moving closer to her friend. They linked arms and continued to watch Tania. This time the girl in the azure hijab gazed back and forth between two interesting things: Tania, and the route I had invited her to climb.

Again I motioned for the girl to try.  “Go on,” I said even though she did not speak English. “Give it a try.”

Her friend released her grasp on the girl’s arm and took a step backward. The girl in the azure hijab stood alone and resolute, her eyes fixed on the route in front of her.

I went to the boulder and showed her where the holds were.  “Here. And here. Then here.” I climbed to the top of the slab. “Just that easy.”

She took a step forward and placed her hand on the first hold.

“There you go. Come on up.”

And then I could see that she had made her decision. She put her wilting sandal firmly on the first foothold and grabbed for another handhold and then she was on the rock. She pulled herself up to position for the next move, and then grabbed at the hold with steal resolve, her face giving way from that cool serenity of before to signs of effort, struggle, and an ecstatic fear. Again she placed her foot onto a higher foothold and again she lunged for a handhold.

“There you go. Almost there.”

Her friend stood on the ground nonplussed. With a final firm foothold, the girl in the azure hijab reached the top and sat beside me, a look of shock across her face. The shock did not mask the overwhelming sense of joy that she felt there at the top. She gave me a high-five.

“Nice job! Very nice.”

Her friend below was clapping and saying something in their language and the girl in the azure hijab beamed with pride.

We climbed back down the boulder together. The final move to return to the ground involved a jump. I hopped down while the girl stayed, hesitating. She stretched her arms out to me and I grabbed her as she leapt, placing her gently back to the base of the climb. Her friend ran to her and grasped her arm and the girl in azure scarf kept beaming as they walked off together and sat down not far from the climb.

The village boys came later, all shouting and pushing and bravado. They also wanted to climb the route. When their attempts failed, the girl in the azure hijab approached them and pointed out the holds and explained how to use them. The boys listened attentively. They had to. She was, after all, the only child from the village who had ever reached the top.

From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Seventeen - Manali to Chattru - Chattru to Leh

Manali to Chattru

There was never any clear information on our side of the pass.

“I heard you won’t be able to get to Leh until July.”

“Huh. I heard that the passes will open next week.”

“Oh no. The passes are open now, but tourists aren’t allowed to cross.”

“Well, foreigners can’t cross without inner line permits anyway. And they’ll be checking your bike registration at Rhotang pass. Probably at the Kashmir border too.”

The confusion was enough to tempt me to end my trip there, stay in Himachal Pradesh and keep climbing for the month. It was too much of a headache to try and sort out when and if I could make it to Leh, the planned end of this whole little adventure. I was comfortable in Himachal. It was easy. Why go through the bother of traveling into another unknown?

Because Leh is the goal.

The adventurer’s mind is stubborn. There was a picture of my route on my computer that I referred to along the way and there was no denying that I had not hit the final destination. There was also no denying that it was close now. I couldn’t quit. Going against good sense and hearsay was, after all, the theme of the trip.

Once again I went through the routine of lashing my pack to the back of Solivagant, strapping my side-satchel just below, and starting off into a new challenge. Hopefully, the final challenge.

Rhotang pass, just outside of Manali, was the first obstacle. The pass itself was nothing too formidable. I had ridden over passes just as high in Bhutan. But in the height of tourist season, there would be a line of traffic backed up for miles. It was also unsure if I could pass through the checkpoint. My dubious documentation for the bike still had never been checked and, if the rumors were true, this was where it might finally be found out that I was traveling by somewhat illegal means.

I encountered the back of the traffic jam maybe three miles from the checkpoint. In such cases, I praise the lax Indian traffic rules. Though the taxis and busses and private cars have to wait in an orderly line, motorcycles do not. With very little traffic coming from the opposite direction, I could use the open lane to pass everyone: Delhiites honking incessantly (and ineffectively) in their expensive cars, European tourists standing helplessly outside of busses, locals eating a packed-lunch near their hired taxis. Every time I have come across traffic like this and am able to pass, I feel a tinge of guilt ... but mostly an overwhelming relief. A wait that should have taken hours, was over in about five minutes.

At the checkpoint, I pulled out a permit that I applied for online and prayed that they wouldn’t ask for my license or registration. I approached with an air of affability, hoping that any conflict that might arise could be subverted with good humor and a smile.

“Country?” the officer asked.

“USA,” I said.

“Ah. Trump.”

“Yeah. Bad president.”

He laughed, barely looked at my permit, and gave it to his assistant to stamp.

“Have a good trip.”

And with the same ease that I passed the traffic, I had gotten through the checkpoint.

At the top of Rhotang pass my confidence in the success of the journey was boosted even more. I met a group of bikers on Royal Enfields that were carrying heavy packs and extra fuel.

“Are you guys headed to Leh?” I asked.

“Yes!” they cheered.

“So the passes are all open?”

“Yes!”

They took a few selfies with me in the background and then revved their engines and charged on. I would have accompanied them, but I was not headed straight to Leh. There was one more climbing area that I wanted to check out that would take me a little out of the way.

Obstacle two: the road to Chattru.

Situated at the end of the rugged and craggy Spiti Valley, Chattru is an alpine climbing area that is reached by taking seventeen kilometers of bad dirt road to a collection of roadside dhabas in the middle of a veritable paradise.

Any kind of paradise takes effort to get to. Now I was again on a quintessential Himalayan road. Aside from the abundance of loose stones and erratic breaks and bumps, there were frequent creek crossings that submerged me up to the boots. Half-a-dozen times I picked a line through the raging waters, wished for the best, and gunned through, bouncing atop rounded river rocks and hoping that I wouldn’t be sent down the steep side.

Traffic was also terrible. There were no other vehicles around, no taxis or private cars like on Rhotang. But there were enough goats and sheep covering large swaths of road that I had to come to a stop and move through the bleating hoards at a snail’s pace. The shepherds accompanying the flocks, weathered and timeless men in flat, round hats, noticed me briefly. As I would inch by, they’d look up and we’d make eye-contact that felt like it connected us across centuries as much as cultures; they on a daily routine that has existed as long as people had in Spiti Valley, me, aberrantly revving an engine on a clunky motorcycle. Each of us wondered, perhaps, what a lifetime would be like in the other person’s shoes.

Once the “traffic” cleared and the road abated its relentless gauntlet of obstacles, there was that moment that I have found so rarely on the trip: a moment of peace. On these mountain roads, I’m often so worried that I will get a flat or damage the bike or get lost, that I have few instances where I am relaxed and can appreciate where I am. In Chattru, the road flattened out and now, so long into this journey, I knew that Solivagant was fine and wouldn’t have problems. There was one road, so I would not get lost. All there was to do was to move effortlessly along the soft dirt and watch as Solivagant propelled me into an alpine valley so beautiful that I couldn’t help but laugh aloud.

Alright, Solivagant. Now we’re doing it. This is what it’s supposed to be like.

Waterfalls dove out of the cliffs surrounding us, the sky was cerulean, the grassy meadows emerald. It was a scene pulled straight from my dreams about what it would be like to take a motorcycle along Himalayan roads.

Chattru to Leh

I spent four days in Chattru. I climbed more boulders with friends, ate cheap and delicious meals at one of the few dhabas there, and slept out under the stars and the bright, waxing moon. Though it was paradisiacal, again I had to move on. Such was the state of things for the last six months: move on, move on, move on. When the climbing is good and I’ve made good friends, I move on. When beautiful young women from the villages wave and smile, still I move on. When I find a piece of heaven on Earth, again I move on.

I was tired of moving, but what lie ahead was that goal that I had promised myself. Leh may not have friends as kind as those I left in Bhutan; the landscape may not stun like the views from the Khumbu region’s Kala Patthar; the rock climbing will definitely not be as good as Sethan; and there will be no hope of meeting a woman from the village and settling down in some idyllic Himalayan villa with her. But I knew I had to head there nonetheless—because I had intended to from the outset. It was a promise I had to keep.

Though all the above results were true, it was still worth it to move on. The ride from Chattru to Leh was truly spectacular.

There are scenes from that ride that still resonate to my core: The winding fresh asphalt—so smooth—that took me through the green alpine country around Keylong. There, massive rocky peaks were capped with glaciers and waterfalls came careening down, the noise echoing a wet static throughout the valley. Then came the rise into the arid lands, the limits of the western side of the Tibetan plateau, into Kashmir and the former kingdom of Ladakh. The terrain was moonlike. Hoodoos rose out of scree fields and the evening light painted them as watchful sentinels of the remote and quiet river below.

On my third day on the route, I started in the morning sun on a high and grassy plateau amid rounded and snowcapped peaks. From the cleavage between two foothills, a pair of wild asses came charging out at full speed, kicking up dust in their wake that the sun glistened off of. They ran with such power that I thought I felt the earth tremble below me. That same day I passed a group of Tibetan nomads out with their sheep. Their beaten old tent was behind them, as weathered as they were. There was no mistaking that they were a part of that inhospitable land as much as the sheep that trotted through seeking any scrap of saxifrage they could feed on. The frigid Himalayan winds pushed against the sheepherders’ tattered garments and they leaned into the wind, their ruddy cheeks chapped and ashen. People still live like this, I reminded myself as I stopped to watch and feel (as best as I could) their lives. Thank God that people still live like this.

At night I camped out at 15,000 feet. The wind howled and for the first time I used my emergency tarp to build a wall against it. I wrapped the tarp around the bike and set the loose ends onto the ground with heavy stones. The plastic fluttered loudly and unremittingly but it was enough to create a pocket of refuge on that open plain. I was rewarded with vistas of the great river below and the forgotten peaks in the distance and the vast lands stretching east. They were lands that were mostly empty and open. Pockets of various groups of Buddhists lived through the entirety of the range, from Bhutan to where I found myself then, and I had gotten to know many of them on this trip, from Drukpa to Gurung to Sherpa to Ladakhi.

That night the stars came out in an infinity that was staggering. I sat back in my sleeping bag, in the open air, and watched their silent and resplendent symphony until I fell asleep.

As I approached Leh on the final day of my drive, I thought about the Buddhist pilgrims that had come along the same paths for centuries. They were easy to imagine as the landscape had not changed much since their time. There are stupas everywhere, mostly old and crumbling, and the villages are still made up of buildings in the old style: mudbrick and stucco walls, with rooftop crenellations of dried branches clustered together. The homes hide in green oasis valleys that have grown rebelliously out of the arid and rocky lands. And there are still monasteries perched high atop jutting hills, beckoning devotees to come prostrate and spin mani wheels and incant Om mani padme hum over the Indus river valley.

Ladakh succumbed to the powers of India a century ago, but it is still very much its own country. What it must have been like when it was ruled by Buddhist kings—not an ostentatious monarchy, I imagine. It must have been a bare and hardened kingdom. The palaces, also placed high on hillsides, are made of the same mudbricks as the poorest village home and I imagine that even the royal robes couldn’t escape the omnipresent dust and the bleaching from that ferocious sun.

The arrival to Leh brought deliverance. To have completed the six-month odyssey on Himalayan roads (with a brief sojourn onto flat lands) brought no ecstasy or feelings of euphoria. I only felt safe to finally rest, to kick my shoes off and stretch out my legs. There was no need to go anywhere else now, no need to move on.

But, as it turns out, moving on was not simply a result of an itinerary set out before me. It was a prerogative innate within me. Before long I’d be up again and on the move.

From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Sixteen - New Territory, Old Territory

Hello Himachal!

I know it so well. It’s been a part of my life for longer than I can remember. My mother told me stories of when I was a child and the neighbors called the house to warn her that I was in danger. She ignored them as best as she could; both her and my father knew that however I got myself high into the one hundred year-old elm branches in the front yard, I could get myself down. They also knew that it was good for me. They knew that I must climb, because it was who I was.

Trees transitioned to boulders and boulders to crags and crags to giant monoliths that would take days to reach the top of. Climbing was everything to me. It gave me a sense of identity in my teenage years and then gave me great friends who I would continue to explore the wilderness with for life. Climbing healed me from the sadness of my parents’ divorce and from the disconnect I felt returning to the States from abroad, to a home I didn’t know anymore. I’d go out into the crisp mountains, chalk up my hands, slip into my tight climbing shoes and once I was on the rock I knew that it was solid and that it would always be there. Climbing saved me during those times.

It gave me the physical strength and mental fortitude that I needed to brave those long, unprotected sections of rock where dangerous falls were unavoidable if I made a mistake. It kept me healthy and adroit. I shied out of nights at bars so that I could feel fresh and ready for the challenges of new routes in the mornings. I skipped stressful classes in college to dance up boulders and in doing so I reenergized my mind and could stick through that institutional monotony when it bored me greatly.

Climbing added meaning to my life in the form of metaphor. You go into it eager and inspired but it is trying, impossible at times and you must be patient in order to work out the cruxes. If you do not have the strength yet, it does not matter. You can work on your weaknesses and over time you will accomplish what you once thought impossible. You can venture into the unknown and be safe if you know how to step well, how to stop and rest and collect your wits. And you know that at times you have to put all of yourself into a goal and when you do, one of two results will come: You will reach the goal and then you will know that unique euphoria of finding yourself better than you ever imagined you could be. You have to adjust yourself to this new mind, and then ask yourself that addictive question of “What else can I achieve?”

Or you will fail. Then you will know that failure brings a terrible pain and surges of doubt and self-loathing; it makes you question your worth and threatens to make you pusillanimous; it beats you to a pulp. But failure does not kill you. And it is there that the metaphor has much to teach, because you get back up, tie your rope into your harness, and put yourself at risk yet again, not to conquer the climb, but to confront yourself, those persistent fears and insecurities. If you give up, the doubts will linger and you have to live with them and that too changes who you are.

 

My "slightly" younger days as a climber.

For eighteen years I climbed. And then after one cloudy day at a Thimphu crag with an icon of Guru Rinpoche elaborately painted on the east face, I stopped. At the time I did not realize that it would be more than a year before I would climb again. I thought that I would find climbable rock in eastern Bhutan. But I didn’t. And I lost some part of me that was more important than I realized.

I took up ball sports because my body and mind did not take well to the lassitude that came without physical activity. In basketball, I towered over my colleagues for rebounds but still missed shots more often than not. We played soccer too and my friends put me in as goalie, hoping the sheer size of me had a better chance of blocking the ball than if a Bhutanese was in the same position. We learned that their theory wasn’t correct. I wasn’t good at soccer either. Volleyball was another failure. But the exertion held me over, kept me sane.

Luckily, the beauty of Bhutan, its people and heritage and traditions, was a good distraction and though I missed climbing I knew that what I experienced in Bhutan was worth the sacrifice. Then came this ride. The places I traveled again did not have climbing. There were rocks around, but I was focused on trekking in the high mountains and riding through cities and being in these countries that I was unfamiliar with.

Fate brought me to the Manali area of Himachal Pradesh and forced me to stay awhile. The roads through the mountain passes to Ladakh would be closed for a month and all I could do is stay in Manali and wait. Luckily—finally—there was a wealth of climbing to explore and the time to do it.

Sethan, Himachal Pradesh

I trembled. Not out of fear, but because my muscles were unaccustomed to the effort. I knew what to do, how to climb, but the force was new again and I was weak. It was time to wake up and relearn, to grow back into a body that I had built up for years and then abandoned.

It was frustrating, yes, but fulfilling. Become strong again. Become yourself again. I had to admit defeat on routes that I would have had no problem with two years ago. It was humbling. The process showed me that climbing still has much to teach me. In this case, I had a visceral sense that a body is an impermanent thing. I will not be able to continue to improve forever. I must acquaint myself with weakness and do it with grace. But as is always the case with climbing, I do not have to relent. I do not have to simply accept weakness. There are still tricks to learn, “old man tricks,” and I can now use technique over brute force. And I can still dedicate myself to challenges beyond me. The challenges may be easier than they were before, but there is still much to learn from them.

In the month of May, I accompanied a coterie of excited climbers through the alpine terrain around Sethan and we found new boulders that bore world-class climbing. It was like an all-too-easy treasure hunt, where amazing new routes were waiting to be climbed. Each beautiful form inspired us to brush off the holds and to go to work solving the puzzle of how to move our bodies from the bottom of the boulder to the top.

It’s a silly game, bouldering. In success, we only find ourselves ten, fifteen, maybe twenty feet from where we began. But the accomplishment has little to do with standing on top of the boulder. What we really accomplish is what I have been learning to do for my entire life: we learn that all kinds of challenges have solutions, and that as agents of our minds and bodies we can manifest solutions to a wealth of problems. Yes, climbing a small rock is a simple problem, and that is why there is so much pleasure in it. In an adult world where problems become serious and overwhelming, bouldering gives us a chance to have a child’s mind: to realize that challenge and play are synonymous. And in solving these small problems, we are better prepared for the larger ones.

My life is easy these days. I have no great problems that I need to solve. And so I relish the time to simply play. By returning to climbing, it was like getting reacquainted with an old friend. When I made it to the top of our new boulders and looked out at the verdant Himalayan forests and peaks beyond, I felt like myself again.

What I really do with a crashpad.

From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Fifteen - The Emperor's Lost Love

It was as if the Yamuna River turned as black and thick as tar and swallowed the emperor whole. The weight of his wife’s death pulled him deep into a void of terrible suffering that was bottomless and inescapable. The common people felt great pity for him, for they knew that Shah Jahan had lived the most comfortable life as emperor, with all the privileges in the world. And so to have his most beloved Mumtaz Mahal taken from him surely caused pain unlike any suffering that they knew in their lives. For them, poverty and disease and death were so common that it was never a surprise.

Shah Jahan, who was always protected from such realities, was not prepared to deal with the death of his true love. The emperor could not cope with the loss. To attempt to mend his broken heart, he commissioned the best architects and engineers of the day to build a mausoleum of a size and scale that befitted his love for Mumtaz. As she was the most beautiful woman in the world, he demanded that the building be erected in the most beautiful material, Rajasthani white marble. It was to have inlays of jade and crystal brought all the way from China, turquoise from Tibet, and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. Mumtaz was pious and humble, and so a mosque was built on the western end of the complex. Four minarets were erected to soar into the sky, places where the muezzin’s call could echo through the area in somber humility to the God that had taken Mumtaz away. The gardens surrounding the mausoleum were to be made in the image of Paradise, so that all would know that no greater woman had ever been born and that in death she was surely the brightest star in Heaven.

The construction took more than a decade. Shah Jahan oversaw every detail with fiery intensity; it had to be perfect. She was perfect. Anything less would be a disgrace to her and to his love for her. From afar he measured the symmetry, demanding unprecedented exactness. He scolded and beat laborers who did not comply with his wishes of complete dedication. The building was his lunatic obsession. He observed every day’s work with implacable attention and a silent desire that once the Taj Mahal was completed, the emptiness in his heart would somehow lift and he could escape the overwhelming helplessness he felt as he was getting pulled deeper and deeper into the black void.

Twelve years later he stood inside the finished mausoleum. He looked up at the inside of the main dome and tears rolled down from his cheeks and fell onto the marble tomb that held the remains of Mumtaz. The building was truly emblematic of Heaven. The resplendent white marble gleamed in the sunshine. The intricate carvings and stonework, the inlays of precious stones and ethereal thuluth script at the Great Gate – which read: O Soul, thou art at rest. Return to the Lord at peace with Him, and He at peace with you. – made the Taj Mahal an otherworldly paradox; it was both solid and ethereal. In the morning mist, those who saw the Taj Mahal for the first time wondered if it even existed, or was it some trick of the clouds? Angels could reside in the building’s rooms and feel as comfortable as if they were still in Paradise.

With all the splendor of the Taj Mahal – its incomparable gardens and beautiful crystal ponds, its perfect symmetry – still, it was not enough. As Shah Jahan wept under the central dome, he knew that his powers were limited and that he too was as human as those he ruled.  All the emperor wanted was for Mumtaz to be alive again, to hold her hand and gaze into her eyes – an act that was once so simple, but that now all the riches in the world could not restore to him.