Of Yak and Yeti
As koalas and kangaroos are emblematic of Australia, tigers of India, pandas China, so yaks and yetis have a similar totemic function here in Nepal. For me, however, the beauty and mystique of the high Himalayas is ever symbolised by…
The Road to Salvation: Strange Proverbs and Threshold Guardians
It was a short drive down to Kagbeni, a small village cum town that, given its strategic location between Jomsom and Muktinath, has likely served as a staging post for pilgrimage traffic across the centuries, given the town itself is…
The Road to Salvation: The Goal
Morning duly dawned. Amongst a series of nightmares that night, I had also dreamt that I would forget the flowers I had bought for the temple down in Kagbeni. Customarily you find stalls selling garlands and flowers for temple offerings…
The Road to Salvation: Muktinath
I set off the following morning at ten, in a beat up car that passed for a taxi. After the gruelling ten hours drive up from Pokhara, it was only around an hour and a half to Muktinath on roads…
The Road to Salvation: Paris in Jomsom
The journey upwards took some ten hours in total, with a brief stop for lunch, and we rattled into Jomsom at six in the evening, just as the light was starting to fade. No city this, more an extended village…
The Road to Salvation: Ascent
The Sanskrit word ”Mukti” (also Moksha) broadly translates as ‘salvation’. In Eastern religions and theological traditions with their implicit belief in reincarnation, salvation is understood rather differently to the way it is in Christianity, with its emphasis on hellfire and…
The Raw Edge of Life
I almost always travel alone, excepting for earlier years when my daughter was younger and sometimes accompanied me. It’s better that way. There is absolutely nothing between you and the real experience of the world you are moving through. If…
Infinity Dining
The monsoon has been unrelenting this year, pretty much since I arrived in Nepal, certainly in Lakeside Pokhara. Happily, however, there have been occasional respites and it’s important to be ready to take full advantage of these as you never…
Monsoons, meat and mountains
The journey from Tadapani down to Ghandruk took around half the time as it had going up, unsurprising given the precarious speed of the steep descent. Ghandruk itself is around 500 metres lower in altitude than Tadapani and, until the…
The Road to Annapurna
We left early on a Wednesday morning nearly three weeks ago now. We had to make it up to Ghandruk from Pokhara with enough time to trek onwards up to Tadapani before evening or bad weather set in. The land…
