A Different Kind of Freedom - Kreisel Ray - Страница 19

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While everyone else traveled in trucks and Land Cruisers rushing from town to town, trying to avoid the desolate expanses of the high altitude stony desert, I lived my life in the places between the destinations. I would wake up in my tent by myself in the desert and ride for most of the day by myself through the middle of nowhere. Only maybe once every week or so would I see a road sign or some kind of building. I would fall asleep in the dusty dirt by the side of the road during the afternoon for a nap, or walk five feet [1.8 meters] off the road to go to the bathroom. There was no one else around and nothing to even go behind. On another trip in Tibet, I spent a couple days traveling on a bus with an Australian woman and her wonderful nine-year-old daughter. When the bus stopped one time, Delia asked, “Mom where is the toilet?” “The whole world is your toilet,” her mom replied, embarrassing Delia a little.

The first time I traveled to Mt. Kailash during the fall, after the real pilgrim season had ended. I knew that I wanted to get to Kailash but I did not possess the most accurate maps. A few days away from Kailash I flagged down a truck that was headed southeast toward the mountain. I tossed my pack into the back of the truck and squeezed in with the 20 or 30 Tibetans. After about three hours into the ride I realized that this truck was not headed to Mt. Kailash. Instead they moved toward Parang, at the Nepal border on a shortcut track that did not appear on my map. When I realized this, I yelled for the driver to stop, and jumped down from the truck. I could see Kailash out on the horizon, I could see exactly where I wanted to go. I spent the next three days walking cross-country toward the mountain. During this wonderful walk, I would often see herds of hundreds of wild Tibetan asses, khang, and antelope. As I would crest a rise and look down into the next little valley they would all raise their heads to look at me. The small streams and rivers that flowed through this region teemed with countless fish.

I imagined that this is what the Western part of the USA must have been like many years before. Two hundred years ago herds of buffalo filled up the horizon on the lands of the Western US, trout packed the streams, and deer and elk wandered through the forest and plains. I would think that spending a night in a tipi with a Native American family would have been quite similar to spending a night with a Tibetan nomad family in their yak wool tent. Now, just as the American landscape changed, so is the Tibetan landscape changing. I just hope that the changes will not be as devastating as those that destroyed the Native Americans and their culture.

I had received warnings from a few different people that the police in Horchu were a pain to deal with. Even people who had official permits had been stopped there for hours on end while the police searched through all their bags. Horchu lies on the north shore of Lake Manasarovar. Pilgrims who walked the kora around the lake often started their journey from this village.

The exact distance to Mt. Kailash and Lake Manasarovar always eluded me because every book and map that I looked at displayed different numbers. I knew that I was close to the town of Horchu but it could have been an hour’s ride or two days’ ride. While stopped at a small stream filtering water to drink, a jeep pulled alongside me and a Tibetan policeman got out. Uncertain of what to make of the situation, I let him do the talking. He had been surprised to find me there by myself, and impressed with how far I had made it. He said, “Horchu is just over that next ridge and around the turn.” Since the late afternoon sun marched toward the horizon that sounded good to me. I needed to camp before Horchu so that I could pass through town early the next morning.

I climbed the next ridge and saw what appeared to be radio antennas, a sure sign that I was close to a town. All of my maps had Horchu in different places, so I could not be sure where the town was actually located. I rode on, only to find a few nomad tents on the banks of a small river. The road along the river made for easy riding, and I could pedal along at a fast speed. When I stopped for more water, I could see plenty of fish about 15 inches long. I have heard a few different reasons why Tibetans do not eat fish. One is that because they believe in reincarnation, they try to take as few lives as possible; the other has to do with the fact that corpses are often placed into the rivers. Either way I was too hungry and not compassionate enough to pass up the chance of eating one of the hundreds of fish that filled the river before me. On my previous trip to Mt. Kailash, I experienced a couple times when I had only a small amount of food left, but I could sit and watch hundreds of fish swim in the streams right before me. The abundance of fish tempted me to just jump in and try to catch some but I knew that it would result in a fruitless effort. Learning my lesson the hard way I made sure that I carried a couple fish hooks and a short length of fishing line with me on this trip. I got out my fishing line and hook and tried a few different kinds of bait, pieces of pork, and bread but nothing worked. I left hungry but without the bad karma of killing a fish.

I rode on farther and farther. I knew that I had to be growing closer. Three hours before I had felt wiped out and ready to stop for the day, but I knew that Kailash could not lie too far away. Finally I came around the last turn, climbed up a little 20-foot [7 meter] rise and before me spread hundreds of small stone cairns, with one large cairn covered with hundreds of prayer flags waving in the breeze. Off in the distance rose the distinct peak of Mt. Kailash. This signaled the first place on the south road where you could see the mountain. Every pilgrim who has come this way before me must have stopped at this point to reflect on his or her journey, and final destination, Mt. Kailash. I did three prostrations toward the lone snow-capped peak and placed a three more stones onto one of the small cairns. I felt thankful to still be alive.

After another 200 hundred yards, I could see down the hill to the town of Horchu. I had come far enough. I set up my tent behind a group of low bushes that acted as a barricade against the chilly winds coming up from Lake Manasarovar. The massive glacier-covered peak of Mt. Gurla Mandhata towered above the southern shore of the lake. This peak roughly marks where the borders of Nepal, India and Tibet all intersect. I set my watch alarm for a little before sunrise. I ate another meal of half-cooked gelatinous noodles mixed with pork fat and watched a sunset that lit the sky on fire looking out over Lake Manasarovar.

I never liked to get up before the sun. After being awoken by the electronic chirp of my watch, I packed up everything in freezing temperatures and headed down the hill. The town looked small, only a couple dozen buildings in a flat valley. I stay to the east side of the town to avoid what looked to be the official checkpoint. Horchu means “horse water” in Tibetan. The river, for which the town was named, ran on the far side of the buildings. Since I strayed from the road, in order to bypass the checkpoint, I was forced to cross the river by foot. I decided not to bother with taking my shoes off, I just started pushing my bike across the river trying to walk on top of the rocks. Midstream my foot slipped into the icy water. I took a moment to regain my balance and plot my course across the remaining part of the river. I looked down at my back wheel and saw a large gray fish stuck in between the sliver spokes of my wheel. I reached down and grabbed the slippery fish to toss over on the grassy shore, but it squirmed out of my hand and back into the stream. Once again I was saved from the bad karma of killing a fish.

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