If you have facebook you've probably already seen all the photos that follow...photos from my most recent trip to spiti yet to be posted....and on that note... this years trip to spiti, what can I say...it was great...no electricity, snow in june, road closed due to landslides, no electricity, everybody got the flu and had to take antibiotics, on the up side there is finally an ATM in Kaza but did I mention there was no electricity... a month of dharma in Pin valley with Dzongsar Khentse R. hiking about 40 mins. in the morning and evening from the village of Gulling to Kongri rain or snow...lots of snow...better than living in Mud where I started out...at the end of the road...last village in Pin Valley...my backpack got stranded there the 3rd day into the retreat for 5 days which meant I was lucky to meet a lama who made sure I had a warm place to sleep at his moms house, tho by the 3rd day I did have to go buy a set of clothes and a toothbrush till my backpack could make the return trip to join me. It was a great feeling to be without the things I brought with me a real sense of being a yogi with nothing. I even started to wonder what it was I had in that full backpack back there in Mud. I do recommend that if you ever make it to Pin valley you must visit Mud and if you're lucky you'll find a baby yak on the bus as well as a goat...be assured they have to pay the same fare as everybody else. So every morning I would get up and be gone from the house around 5a.m. so I could follow Pema to the gonpa. On the 2nd or 3rd day a goat followed me to the gonpa. Smart goat, all those food offerings being tossed outside for the critters. On the way home Pema and I would look for mushrooms that like to sprout up out of the snow. By the middle of June the spring flowers were blooming and in that landscape it's quite amazing to see since for the most part, areas that aren't cultivated appear to be brown, dirt and rocks and landslides. Till you're in it and discover loads of flowers blooming. The early spring (june) is the only time that the rivers run blue...most of the time the snowmelt runs brown with dirt.
After leaving Pin Valley I went on pilgrimage to some of the spiti gonpas that I hadn't visited last year. One of which included a trek 2 days up to a place near the tibetan border. Up above the last gonpa about a 2 hour hike towards the border as I looked east I could see the green triangle of the 1st village in tibet which had the look of any kinnaur village which means it was probably full of apricot trees, almonds, apples etc. Distance in the Himalayas is distorted and I figured as close as it looked it was probably still about 2 days of hiking away but I waved hello anyway and hung some prayer flags...had tea with the lamas that I treked in with and thanked buddha for Mi Chenmo's (big mans) patience. On the way back the trail which was hard enough to trek when the downside was on my right was even harder when it was on my left...perhaps thats how the astigmatism in my eyes works...areas that tibetans just walk across like goats were areas of serious pause for me to gather my courage and try to understand where it was I was supposed to put my feet even tho I knew I had crossed the same path hours before. It was not so much a fear of heights as it was a fear of depths. Mi Chenmo would assure me that I could do it by pushing me along and holding his walking stick out as tho it was going to stop me from falling off the face of the mountain. Then back to the gonpa and a night spent in a room full of pilgrims and the next day back to the road...but first crossing a river via basket spinner...not as exciting and scary as it sounds...tho I have heard of some that sounded quite adventurous this one was a main thoroughfare as the bridge had collapsed and it was the quickest way to get supplies across then onto donkeys and up to the village. Unbelievably these remote places had electricity and once we were back to "civilization" (the roadside villages) there was no electricity. So if you didn't get it by now the theme of spiti this year was No Electricity...afterall it is the Himalayas...what were you expecting?
to be cont'd.