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Gyaru
Highpath and Braka
Somewhere between Gyaru and
Ngawal
April 4, 2001
Early AM. I am sitting on today's
highpoint. Before me streches a glacial valley's majesty. Surely
many vistas are gorgeous but where their peaks leave off ours are
just beginning. Clouds move like smoke expanding outward over the
peaks - silent white explosions bringing shade. The sun is so strong
here I feel it burning me up. Looking down I can see the small green
lake we passed on the way after Upper Pisang before the ungodly
steep climb to Gyaru.
Heather was a trooper on the way up
(with that huge backpack on her back) but her spirit seems to have
closed again and her enthusiasm subsided a bit. Just at the moment
of the greatest panorama and most mideival Tibetan villages ... This
is a holy walk here - a pilgrimage. Holy walks are not easy and like
fasting can turn one's mind to higher questions. I have been at this
for a while.
This morning before sunrise I visited a memorial
chorten (small Bhuddist monument symbolizing the wisdom of the
Bhuddha) for six climbers and one guide (a German team) who died on
Pisang Peak in 1984. The peak looks fairly gentile today.
Saw
several Himalayan white (cream colored actually) vultures around
here - fat bellies floating on the air. Lucky bastards.
Braka
now. In swanky candlelit two-tiered room brilliantly organized with
benches around a potbelly stove. The chairs are logs covered in yak
hide and hair. Just finished both Shane and Heather's lasagna
leftowvers, potatoe soup with garlic bread, tomatoe/onion/garlic
salad and a FAT slice of chocolate cake. The food here is the most
expensive I'va had in Nepal besides that one night at Rumdoodle's in
Kathmandu.
Wonderful day today, two fine villages and the
spectacular view. Braka itself turned out to be a spectacular
cluster of flat old stone houses houses topped by a 500 year old
Gompa (monastary) on erodid high desert teeth. My main struggle
today was forgetting about poor Shane and Heather stuff. I guess
they both were feeling the altitude - of course I took it the wrong
way and thought thar they just did not appreciate the fine villages.
They went on ahead and I just dawdled (we split upon reaching the
first village Gyaru perched atop a HORRIFIC climb of 2000 feet.
I played around on the Tibetan rooftops (all houses
connected to one another somehow) - a real life shoots and ladders
with interesting metal and wood implements, yak skins etc. in every
corner. Had a great Dal Bhat in Gyaru and hit the trail - the top
view of which gave birth to my last journal entry.
After
this I sat I view of Ngawal and played my flute. Got great smiles
from a very brown Manangi woman with a lot of silver jewlery on
wshing pots on the way in. All the animals were braying, lowing,
mooing and seeming to greet me with their fire and vitality. A cute
freshly scrubbed toddler led me to a woman inside his house where I
bought water for 30 cents/ Her brother is married to a French
Embassy worker in Beijing, they met in Taiwan.
Such a nice
village to explore, got drawn to an archery party on the edge of
town where the men sat drinking and eating momos (dumplings), chang
(cold sourish millet beer) and the women crowded screaming and
laughing outside. Should a man dare to poke his head outside he was
immediately swarmed by the women who snatched at him everywhere and
releived him of some pocket money before they let him go. They were
even grabbing weenies. Like the Tibetan-descended women I saw in
China's Yunnan, the Manangis are much bolder than other Nepali
women.
This hotel is $$ all around.
Darren the
Irish/Rnglish guy is the only one left here in the dining room with
me and he is committed to finally solving a game of solitaire. He
has been several times to the States and loved Boston's Southy
neighborhood.
Braka
April 5, 2001
After
reading about Tolstoy's Karennin who"had suffered setbacks in his
public service career" I thought again about the meaning of
"success". I judged externally it seems like this: the most
successful people in any feild are those that promote themselves
ceaslessly, fight always for a bigger piece of the pie, and directly
or indirectly eliminate competitors. Ruthless.
It seems the
effect of this type of action outweighs any other factor including
true excellence. True excellence can only exist when someone
genuinely loves and is interested in what they are doing. But true
excellence can easily exist without any external success (material
wealth, prestige, etc.).
Take Rita O'Hara for example. Her
painting, drawing, eye and hand are an example of true excellence
from within. But she has had no great measure of "material success."
I wholly attirbute this to her lack of aggressive self-promotion and
elimination of competitors for limited material resources.
I
would like to beleive in some sort of universal force of fairness
that "rewards those that are good with material benefits" but one
only has to delve into any aspect of the story of present or past
human existance to understand that there is nothing fair about
life.
What we can control is how we define success for
ourselves and then adapt our outlook and efforts to persue that
success. This can mean being satisfied with a lower level of
material living or not. In all cases you will be living with peace
and harmony, will treat your colleagues, freinds, spouse and
children better, will be more open to new ideas, and will be
positioned to grow emotionally, spiritually and
physically.
My struggle with this is acute however. As a boy
brought up on Chicago's North Shore, in an area acutely aware of
status and material wealth. Image and bragging rights are
everything. You are the king of the hill if your child is a
Churchill Scholar - no matter if that chaild is emotionally stunted,
spiritually depraved and an agony to be around. No matter if that
child is not really happy.
Of course material "success" and
personal development etc. are not mutually exclusive but I never
heard anyone brag to their freinds about how spiritually or
emotionally advanced their near-adult child is. Especially not in
the absence of recent, compelling material acheivements.
I
understand all this intellectually but still find myself making the
same vale judgements when I meet new people. Judging new
accuaintences on what sort of job/life they had at home. For the
vast body of people who I meet of whom I do not observe (especially
since the contact is often breif) obvious spiritual or emotional
acheivements my interest in learning more about them is often based
upon my perceptions about what level of excellence their home life
activities represent.
Say, for example, I meet two people
who are the same but one studied at Harvard - I assume there is more
to the Harvard person. How can I separate myself from these
ingrained feeligs to such a degree that all kinds of lifestyles and
occupations are equally viable? How can I strip jobs of the
heirarchichal value judgements in such a way as to give me room to
consider them all when I contemplate my own happiness, career, and
determine what lifestyle I want to lead after this journey is over?
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Braka
April 5, 2001
Morning.
Shane and I went to see the Gompa (monastary) this morning, found
noone there, climbed on the roof, saw the old Bhuddha inside,
wathced the villagers at work and discussed our three-person group
dynamics.
He and Heather are committed to going as far as
Jomsom and then flying from there to Pokhara. Any further time spent
in Nepal would be no more than four days in Kathmandu doing email
and preparing for transition to their next destination country. The
retreating by way of Manang's airport is out.
I guess I
fantasised that they would wait until the 1st of May leave for thier
next country. I will adapt! Perhaps I will be out of Nepal by the
14th and into India. Lets see.
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