I’ve found it hard keeping up to date with the blog as once I fall behind, there’s so much to say that I lose interest. But tomorrow morning I will post a few mighty updates after my morning double espresso. In the meantime I’ll tell you a story about the trek which was one of the highlights for me.
It was day 7 and we had reached an elevation of 3,000m at a place called Manang. Manang is a small Tibetan influenced village with incredible mud houses hundreds of years old. Day 7 was our acclimatisation day and we were meant to spend the day resting, getting used to the altitude, and hopefully increasing the amount of red blood cells to cope with the reduction in oxygen as we climbed.
We did a short but very steep 500m ascent up a mountain on one side of the village of Manang. Up there was a spectacular view of the village, a violent river, and a panoramic view of endless mountains dotted with buffalo, goats, and an incredible glacier. On the other side of the village, directly opposite us, was a much higher mountain which I guess was about 1,500m high. About 1,000m above the village set into this mountain was one lonely white house, a small white speck.
Leading up to this house were incredibly steep switch backs (a path that zig zags upwards) which looked very dangerous. I asked our guide what the white house was and he told me that a monk lived up there. I was astonished as this was 4,000m above sea level and 1,000m above the village - incredible isolation. The monk had lived in this house for 35 years in meditation and was now 90 years old. He never left the house, ever, and his family carried food and water up to him daily.
It was things like this which made the trek so unique. Beyond the scenery, we met people and saw things so distinct and foreign that you would not experience them anywhere else in the world. Here we were, a 7 day walk into the mountains of Nepal, 3,000m high, looking up at a place where a man has sat in meditation for 35 years. A renouncer who has left the world to focus the mind in an attempt to stop generating any negative karma which would continue to bind him to the cycle of death and rebirth.
A lot of people would say this is a wasted life and a lot of Buddhists would agree - meaningful engagement in the world is a central tenet of Buddhism and is tied up with the notion of compassion and the Bodhisattva (of which the Delai Lama is believed to be a reincarnation)- putting off one’s own liberation from suffering to help others.
We sat up on this mountain for a few hours and just talked, with no one to hear us but the soft flowing pure air, the birds, and the sound of the water from the glacier. Shane and I threw rocks and I naturally dominated at hitting our set targets. The simplicity and profundity of that moment has etched itself into my fondest memories of life, and to me that cemented what I hope to be a life long friendship with Shane and Nicola.
