OnTheRoad
Sunset over a Tibetan monastery with prayer flags near Kathmandu, Nepal, taken towards the end of 1989.
This image is a photograph of a slide projected onto the wall and then cropped and straightened in order to correct the perspective.
Travels through the Solo/Khumbu Region
Last night I went back through some slides from my 1989/90 travels through Pakistan, China, Nepal & India. I have numerous slides, and they are in an ill arranged mess at the moment. As I loaded up the carousel to put into the projector, I had little idea as to what I would be looking at, even whether I would recognize the images.
My fears of not recognizing images were unfounded. The photos were mostly from the Solo/Khumbu (Everest) region of Nepal and my first forays into India.
This all happened towards the end of 1989, over thirty-three years ago. It was a time of great change for me. I had left home confused, lost, maybe angry, with many questions going through my head. I’m not even sure that I knew what those questions were? I just wanted some space, to get away from all that appeared to hold expectations over me and would not hear questions (or at least I did not feel comfortable going to them with questions). So, I threw a pack on my back and hit the road. This was my second trip and I felt that some pieces were beginning to fall into place, though I had fear around what I would do with those pieces once I was home. For now, I was in a safe place.
I spent a month in the Solo/Khumbu region. Two weeks trekking in, about a week in the area, and then a week or less trekking out. The walk out is mainly downhill, and my blood was pumping with oxygen due to all the red blood cells that it had produced in the rarefied atmosphere at the roof of the world. I found it hard to leave. I felt at home there, especially once I got up in the Sherpa region, dotted as it is with signs of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Something was seeding my growing interest in this faith.
So last night brought back happy memories for me. Memories of a sense of meaning being found, of self-discovery. Such I believe is always available to us, but there are times, such as those days for me at the end of 1989, when there is space to take time to explore, inquire, and look around. The incorporation of my discoveries into regular life were still to come, but at that moment I could take in, appreciate and start to reflect on what was beginning to emerge.
Below is a photograph of me with the Himalayan range, including Mt Everest, in the background. Mt. Everest is on the left of the picture, the triangular peak lying slightly to the left. The photograph is an image taken from a slide projected onto a wall, and then tweaked a little.
I’m not sure what is going on in this photo, taken in Tibet in 1995. I believe that it was taken near to Drepung Loseling Monastery and that the monastery just visible in the middle right might be Nechung Monastery, home of the Nechung Oracle. Both monasteries have been reestablished in exile in India, Nechung in Dharamsala in north India, and Drepung in the south in Kanaktaka State.
Given that it is center stage, I think that I was trying to capture the run down tractor/cart in the middle of the photo.
Memories of The Road
Summer has arrived here in Maui, at least a preview of what summer is to bring. The last few days have been devoid of wind, hot and muggy - and has included a well timed air conditioning breakdown (hopefully that is not a preview of summer as well!). By late afternoon the air is still and feels as though it is sitting waiting for something to happen.
Thankfully mornings are still cool. That will change as we go into summer, but for now I will take the fresh air.
While sitting doing my meditation practice this morning and then later out watering plants I was transported back to memories of time spent on the road in the way that sounds, senses and smells can do. One’s senses pick something up in the air and in an instant one is transported to a time and place of memory.
Today those memories took me back to India, traveling there by myself in the late ’80s and subsequent visits through the ’90s. I saw myself midway through a long train journey, the passengers now very much moved in and settled for the long haul. The heat of the day rendering the overhead fans almost useless unless you were sitting directly underneath them.
Sitting by the open door of the train, my feet resting on the footplate as the train clickerty clacks through the dry country side, a red sun hanging low in the sky.
Sitting in a small hotel room, the noise, dust and confusion of the town outside making its way into the background hum of my rest from the days travels. Smells of life in a foreign land touching me, making me feel at home.
Memories of the road. Fond memories. Happy memories. At ease with myself and the world, and bringing peace to my heart in this moment as well.
The Kindness of Strangers
Sitting on the beach this afternoon an incident popped into my mind from over three decades ago. Why I thought of this I don’t know, but here is what happened.
I was in Australia. I spent a year traveling around the country, mainly hitchhiking. I was somewhere south of Sidney, heading south. It was a baking hot day and I had just had my hair cut. Why is that relevant you might ask? Well, my hair had been long and covering my neck. Now there was no cover over my neck and I was not clever enough to realize that standing in the sun for hours, it took a long time to get a ride from wherever I was (the middle of nowhere it appeared), with skin exposed to the sun that had been protected for months was asking for trouble. Sure enough a few days later a scab formed over the back of my neck and I feel that I can be thankful that nothing else has developed from that over exposure.
Anyway, so I was standing by the road somewhere south of Sidney. There was just the main road, a turn off (down which my last ride had turned), and a lot of Australian bush. It was hot and no one was stopping to pick me up. After a very long wait a car pulled over and I thought that I had my ride. A man gets out, walks round to the back of his car, opens up the rear hatch, fumbles around and pulls something out. He walks over to me with a cold can of something. I can’t remember what it was, apart from it being very welcome!
He told me to put a hat on and watch the sun and then went on his way.
I have no idea who he was or where he was going, but I appreciated his kindness in just being willing to stop to give me a drink…and a bit of common sense!