Enjoy this moment

Part 1: At the feet of the Himalayas

The Shivaratri Festival in Kathmandu…

The Shivaratri festival is peaking in the city. It’s one of the major gatherings of the year, a tribute to Shiva, the Hindu god. Every street is flooded with young revellers, who rush wildly about in a frenzy of unbridled expression. Shiva is one of the main gods of the Hindu pantheon, and has a central position within the Hindu tradition.

This early spring festival celebrates Shiva’s conquering the dark and ushering in the light. Kathmandu can get chilly in winter, and the return of warmer temperatures is no small matter. There are many stories of Shiva, both as a warrior and as a yogi. He was also a householder. His consort Parvati is a goddess of love, fertility, peace and harmony.

There is a strange story: when Shiva and Parvati were young, it was the men who would get periods, and would bleed from their armpits. Then one day Shiva was summoned, and had to go off to a war. He couldn’t because he was having his period. So his good wife Parvathi told Shiva that, being a woman, she could hide the blood between her legs. Also she didn’t need to go anywhere. She begged Shiva to give her his “curse” and Shiva obliged. She said that periods were a blessing for women and that they should never complain. It became a lover’s badge of honour, in that romantic tale.

Shiva is the whole man. He is the man whom women desire. Fertility abounds and a spirit of abandonment is all around.

Abhash leads me to a popular meeting point, a café with a lot of narrow stairways, before we emerge onto a caged rooftop terrace. It seems to be a bohemian hotspot. We have a clear view to the main square, where thousands are rushing about excitedly in a massive celebration. The youth of Nepal is having a great day, and they know it. There we meet some of Abhash’s friends, who promptly offer us some hash and herbal tea. I stay with the tea.

But shortly afterwards, even in this floating atmosphere of giggles and delightful ease, my attention shifts to the building: is it sturdy? Each floor is packed, and our rooftop is very populated. Remnants of the 2015 earthquake are visible around the city, and I have no desire to end my life under rubble. I express my unease to Abhash, and soon we descend back to terra firma.

Returning to my hotel that evening I decide to head west, and next day fly to Pokhara, a warmer place. It will be less hectic, with fewer people, and a lower elevation. I inform Abhash of my departure, stressing my need to spend some time alone.

Solo travel has its delights and its pitfalls. I never want to be too much alone, feeling isolated in my surroundings; nor do I want to have company just because I am feeling desperate.

Back at my hotel that evening, using Google’s images, I discover who it was that I had met on the mountain: a French lama and long-time Buddhist scholar: Matthieu Ricard, who participated in a 12-year study at the University of Wisconsin, and was pronounced the happiest man on the planet. The focus was on brain waves, and Ricard’s brain was found to produce a lot of Alpha waves, signifying deeper states of ongoing relaxation. Many of us in our daily lives are producing higher-speed waves, more movement in the brain, and not all of it is constructive.

Actually, just the year before, I had read one of his books about a vagabond Tibetan teacher, Patrul Rinpoche. I loved that book for all of its craziness and wisdom. It is well documented and profound. And we crossed paths on the side of a mountain outside Kathmandu! Cool. [see notes, ed.]

Meeting Maggie

Next morning I go to Kathmandu Domestic. The airport is eerily quiet. There are almost no tourists and few travellers. Talk of the virus is ramping up in the news. This is early March 2020, and I am in denial. Denying that I may need to get home fast, that this is no time to be on a holiday, no time to pretend the world is normal.

In the distance I spot a woman, a tourist like myself. She looks like one of my favourite Irish singers, Mary Black. I circle closer, but she is not Mary Black. She might have been one of her sisters. As I am deciding how to connect with her, she walks away from me. Five minutes later she is back in the same spot.

I go over and introduce myself. Yes – we are both heading to Pokhara, though I am on a later flight. I love the 25-minute flight, with the Himalayas to the right out the window. It is a stunning view.

I am soon installed at my Airbnb. It’s a mistake booking, and I know it the moment I come in the door. Photos can be misleading, and I have been too stingy, wanting a bargain. I’ve shortchanged myself. Good price, lousy room. The paint on one of the bedroom walls is peeling off, and the bed is rather lumpy. The bathroom needs an urgent update. I am too tired to think, so I go for a walk around Pokhara instead. There is sunshine to enjoy.

I like the town, and the main drag is a delight. By 7 pm it is usually buzzing. This is early afternoon, and within 10 minutes my new acquaintance is 25 metres away, heading in my direction. How delightful! We stop for a longer chat, a proper introduction, and agree to meet some hours later for dinner at a nearby restaurant.

I check out some of my favourite spots in town, note a few changes, and return to my quarters for a nap.

Dinner with Maggie turns out fine. We are two strangers navigating openness, rapprochement, as we find the right tone, acknowledging attraction, for it is there. We check boundaries and willingness for intimacy. It can be quite a package, but a nice dance when the mood is right.

The night is young, and we have time to unpack our purpose. I have a tendency to over reveal, which is not so smart at times. It can demand unwarranted reciprocation. Actually, tonight I am quite modulated, more mature than I know myself to be.

Men don’t like women to find out they are just boys. Not in the beginning. We all want to be like Clint or Bob or Robert, not necessarily like someone from a Boy Band.

Maggie is a higher-up in the Canadian police system. I start to feel very grown up, very fast. I do confess to occasionally taking some softer drugs. I don’t have a criminal record, though. It’s like being in bed with a doctor.

But she has her story too.

Boy, do we move fast! Travellers do go on about themselves, and the higher up you get in the mountains, the more the reveal…

We are at the feet of the Himalayas, with the beautiful 7000-meter high Fish Tail peak, also called Machapuchare, of the Annapurna Range, visible from our restaurant. I feel that we are at the feet of some monumental exploration too, but Maggie brings me back to earth by announcing that she needs to return to her hotel and prepare for her 3 am departure for the Chitwan National Park, about 150 kilometres away. That would surely be 4 hours on a Nepalese highway.

This is Tuesday and she would return on Sunday. She promises a follow-up then, same place, same time.

OK. I can deal with that!

Walking, walking, walking…

The sun is shining early in the morning. It is time to get up. I will check out a few places and find the best coffee. That is something important.

The news is becoming one-pointed. The same story moves around and around. Covid! Covid! Covid! Wuhan, China. These are new words and new names. This is worrying. I hate bad news. And there are few tourists in town. My return flight to Kathmandu is in six days. Relax and get a grip, I tell myself. And enjoy. Yes, enjoy this moment.

Walking therapy is the best. So I walk a lot. I walk so much that soon I feel I am running. Running where and from what? If I am not alone, someone might slow me down. I am alone, and find it difficult to relax.

Now I have a fever. I stay in bed. I hate the bed and hate the room. The aesthetics are draining. There are bars on the outside of the window, which looks onto another building. They give me a feeling of being in prison, temporarily incarcerated. The bed is too hard. I get up and wander restlessly through the outer courtyard, searching for something beautiful to look at. I smile at the owners. Back in the room I read a book, like I always do. It is interesting, a Tibetan book. I am absorbed. But my phone is telling me of a pandemic. I hear myself thinking, my mind buzzing, finding no rest, neither within nor without.

And then, leaving the Airbnb, I find a real hip vegan cafe. It could be in London or New York. How does that happen? Something so universal, a gold standard, is alive in this remote corner of civilisation. The two guys working here are friendly and fill me in on happenings in town.

I walk into the country, to the International Mountain Museum, a solid and very clammy walk. The museum is kind of interesting, but just. The few international travellers who walk around gazing at the exhibits seem numbed by the growing international alarm.

I come back to my Airbnb, feeling unwell. Why is this happening to me now? It is all bad timing. Nothing seems normal. OK! I find a decent hotel in the area and move. My Airbnb hosts are alarmed, but I promise them a good review. They give me a free lift to the new hotel. The husband had wanted to charge money, but when I mentioned the good review I might post on their website, they quickly withdrew the suggestion of remuneration. They may well be out of business by now. Tourism in Nepal, already suffering from the aftermath of major earthquakes in the country in 2015, would be further damaged by the pandemic and national lockdowns.

The new hotel is such a relief. It has a great bed, and a great bathroom; there is space, and it is quite spotless. I quickly begin to regain my good spirits and a threatening cold backs away, restoring me to my normal happier disposition. I am ready to isolate, with my newly-found vegan outlet as my default outside lair. It is a bit of an adventure and I am amused again.

And then I meet the owner. She is Chinese Australian and has previously lived in Sweden. Within five minutes we establish a common acquaintance in Kathmandu. Then we are on a roll. We have so much in common. Maggie seems square by comparison.

The sun shines brighter and brighter in the heavens. We never do more than hug or touch softly and gently. But it is a warm connection. It is just what the doctor might have ordered. We can rest together. We can be who we are, without some contract, not even for the hours ahead. I enjoy this kind of meeting.

We walk around, side by side, she does her business. With one other restaurant in town she is a busy lady. What a popular place, both places really, both houses buzzing. She confides her managerial problems, her struggles with the locals, with the bureaucracy, and then even moves on to some of her mistakes in love.

A part of me thinks of Maggie coming back from Chitwan in a few days. I am imagining I have a more interesting life than I have in reality. But right now it is absorbing, and I like the geographical setting too. How my ego is able to puff up, magnify human affection, as if I am some kind of Lord Byron in the mountains. For sure, these human exchanges offer a rich feeling, especially in the face of a mounting global bewilderment and alarm. Love is always the best distraction, the best antidote, a super vaccine.

The World Peace Pagoda, also called the Shanti Stupa, 1100 meters high, on the opposite shore of Fewa Lake, is a place of international pilgrimage. I walk around the city, pass by the Devi Falls, Mahadev Cave, and other minor landmarks. The day is hot and sweaty. I end my perambulation by ascending the Anadu Hill from the back side of the mountain.

It is a steep 30-minute or so ascent, actually steeper than I had imagined. Its gradient may only have been around 5%, but I am winded and struggling along the way. It feels so hot and dizzying. The cool breeze at the top, and the Himalayan view, makes up for any difficulty during the climb. I visit the Stupa, enjoy the view, as well as the sense of the devotion of the many visitors who have flooded this mountaintop, this place of quiet. The extraordinary and breathtaking surroundings throw me into my own inner reflection, with a quickening of the pulse, a quieting of the mind, as I gape over the landscape, humbled by the grandeur of all that I can see.

I descend the mountain from the other side, a steep, curving, narrow forest path. I know I can take a boat across the lake at the bottom. Halfway down there is a tea house. The place is almost empty, just a lone man looking out to the other side. We chat, and when I mention my Irish origin he confesses that he has recently been deserted by his Irish husband.

I picture this man in some home in Ireland, fitting in to some small community, some remote arty place, full of song and music and longing, embracing many worlds and many eras, and many peoples. The west is best. Or… what do I know? The new Ireland is moving fast. Nowhere is remote any longer, and still a sense of remoteness pervades all over, and newer and older worlds collide. An island of pilgrims, some clinging stubbornly to only what they know, as others hurl headlong into some bottomless future, no map, brazen, diving into a holy well of regeneration. And good luck to them too. He is Spanish.

How will they treat him, talk of him behind his back, allow him and his partner their right to love? Life seems so complex at this moment. We both enjoy the view, and then I continue on down the path.

…And hitchhiking

The next day I head for an Eco-community about 10 kilometres east of Pokhara. I visited there in 2014, and am curious to see the place again. It could be a legitimate distraction, to go back and see what is new. Exercise is important. I propose the expedition to myself and then walk east. I have a good sense of direction, and will surely find the way. I walk and walk and the road becomes more and more dusty. Buses pass; lorries pass, and lots of scooters too.

The day is hot and I have no water. Like some mirage, a small tinny car is on the horizon, rattling towards me. It is a Fiat 126, unmistakable but strange in this mountainous valley. There is a female driver and I wave the car down. The lady is Swiss, and has lived around here for 30 years. She speaks fluent Nepalese, and manages a number of farms in the area. She seems to have a good life, so far from her Swiss valleys and mountains, and has no regrets. This is her place, and she tells me she knew it from the first day, all those years ago.

My good companion drops me off at the entrance to my Eco-community. My head is burning from the heat, and my thoughts are whirling around. The Eco-community is under lockdown, early Covid precautions, but I walk about in the property for some time before I see anybody. There’s not even a dog. A young guy comes from a building and talks with me very friendly.

My explaining that I have visited before paves a way to more background. Then we can look over the valley, the quiet Seti Gandaki River flowing peacefully below, and enjoy the silence of this hilly resort. New buildings are in place, new accommodation, and new training programs.

There is so much private enterprise in Nepal, and so much challenge for survival. And there are many opposing interests. Agriculture employs more than 60% of the population and foreign aid comprises 50% of the development budget. Sustainable economic growth is a top priority, and infrastructure and health systems are major tasks. And there are earthquakes and avalanches too.

It is warming to hear a young Nepali speak of a vision of growth and sustainability. Gratitude for small achievements, and pride in collective enterprise is noticeable. How much we take for granted in our flourishing Western societies, and how demanding we can be. I stay talking for maybe an hour, and then head down the road again, in the heat, feeling refreshed by my meeting with so much good intention.

People who have purpose, can ignite purpose in even a weary traveller. My purpose now is to get back to town. I wait under a tree and board a crowded bus. How does this new disease move around? I try not to breathe too much.

The next couple of days I fill time. Breakfast at 8, walk the lakeside, smoothie at 11, continue walking, and light lunch at 1. No cakes today. No ice cream either. But afternoon tea is fine. I don’t talk with anyone, or at least not with too many. People look concerned, just like me. I am uncomfortable, but a part of me enjoys the edge of not being connected, staying contained in my private world.

Who am I anyway, who have I ever been? I can wonder at the ordinariness of others’ lives, and remember times from my own life when it was filled with simple everyday tasks. In retrospect, those times seem to me like ease and belonging. Do I belong now? I am not so sure. To what do I belong? Actually, I like to be free. Free not to belong.

Saturday lunchtime I meet Maggie on the street. She has had enough of her game reserve and has returned one day early. We have a coffee and bring our dinner date forward to this evening. Things are looking up. By now we both know more about the Corona virus, and what things are starting to look like. She already knows that she will need to quarantine for two weeks on her return to Canada. How exciting. Two weeks paid leave. Whatever is the world coming to? We have no idea.

At our private evening event we both drink a bit extra; our small island becomes more and more just for the two of us. We are very different but we can find togetherness, for this moment, this bubble of strangeness.

I return to my own hotel at midnight. Sometimes it’s best to sleep in your own bed. When you are younger, there is so much to prove, at least to others, if not to yourself. At some age, if you are lucky, you might even stop proving things to yourself.

The good weather continues on Sunday, and I am having lunch with my smoothie queen. She had such a sense of humour, a prerequisite for good company. As we saunter along the waterfront, my Canadian police girl is walking in our direction. Seeing her face, I know we are OK. Introductions follow, and I confirm the next Ireland/Canada summit for the coming evening. A chaste lunch follows and the day flows gently forward.

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• At the feet of the Himalayas – In spring 2020, Sudas travels to Kathmandu and visits the surrounding area (Part 1)