Annapurna ballade

After finishing The Wind Up Bird Chronicles, I decided to go on a trek with Fred, a French woman in her late 30's.
The outpours of daily rain of the moonsoon season made the idea of a trek a very wet and slippery one. Not to mention the warnings of the many leeches coming out as the ground gets wetter.

Reguardless, Fred and i packed a little bag with a change of clothes and went to buy a long raincoat for the trip.

The plan was to go all the way to the Annapurna base camp ABC. Half way through, after 4 days of walking in the rain through the mountains, one day of sitting in a room watching the rain dripps, we decided that we neither had enough money to go to ABC, nor the 5 more days that we would still have needed to come back down.

So, we turned back at Chomrong, direction Jhinu hot spring. Sitting by a roaring river of brown and muddy water, Fred and i steamed away in the first cleaning we had in a few days besides the constant wetness of the air and everything around. Everything is wet, nothing dries. Wet from walking under the raincoat, the hot sweat mixing with the rain temperature sticks to the body like a second skin.
So much water pouring through the valleys, cascades, rivers and stream filling up the environment with the raw humming of water power. Some frogs made me wander if I wasn't again on the territory
of the frog's people, whom I had met for the first time in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. But no, it wasn't frog people, it was mountain people, living in the Houses in the Sky.

Sitting in squares wooden lodges restaurants, lying in a simple bed, everything is water. Even if it stopped raining, the sound of a water source near by was a reminder of the omnicient water presence. In 6 days, we did not get one look at the mountain giants surroundering us. We could only see fogg and clouds rolling by the valleys. Fogg and clouds rolling through us.
In a sense this view of a non view is a rarer view than the trekking season view, when the sky is crystal blue, the snow peaks shining like diamonds in the horizons with 42 000 trekkers passing by and resting in the lodges found every hour or couple of hours away from the other. The "Annapurna highway" they call it.

As for the leeches. I did not find them to be a problem. On the way, we met a couple of swiss who complained about the invasion of the leeches. "They crawl down your face and go in your hair and even your mouth" said the blond girl in a tired and wet tone. Yet, I only found a dozen or so leeches a day, on the shoes, easily taken of with the little bag of salt hanging at the end of a stick. Sometimes I think poeple make up big stories to make their time more interesting maybe, or maybe they really thought they had leeches all over them, or maybe I happened to be extremely lucky and leeches were asleep when i walked by. But really i think that people like to make up
stories, which is why it is always beneficiary to check up for oneself unless we have extremely reliable sources for our information.

The Annapurna ballade was a great one, and I am glad I did it. Often, I had to repeat to myself that I was indeed walking a part of the Himalayas mountains, reputated land of magik and mystism.

To me, I was simply walking mountains through forests, during a rainy season. The forest remains a forest no matter if we are walking through the woods of Oregon, USA or the woods of the Cevennes in South of France. The interesting part being the changes and similarities of vegetation, animal and human life.
A forest in mountains it remains.

Back in Pokhara, I was happy to shower, and put on some dry clothes. Go to my Beautiful Restaurant, and have my favorite plate on the menu: simple breakfast, with 2 eggs any style, fried patatoes and toast with butter, jam and my beloved pot of chai. My favorite breakfast since i sat in greasy dinners in the States. The only differnce being the ever flowing pot of cheap and weak coffee typical of such dinners.

In the week end, I helped finish painting a school in the slum part of the town. Nepal being on the top list of the world's poorest countries, about 40% of the population lives in precarious situation. Just recovering from the last couple years of Maoist troubles and killings, the slaughtering of the King family and the loss of their last and well loved King, the Nepalese feel slighlty unstable in their daily lives. The elections promessed after the moonsoon will bring a new "democratic government" even if it is maoist, "for the people" as the communist ideologies like to portray themselves.

After a few days of relaxing, finishing a book on the Medecine Buddha, letting my socks dry and going to a 60 year old french baba bd party, I had to make up a decision as to my next move.

New turns in my life having occured, I decided to stay a bit longer in this part of the world and explore a bit deeper it's habits, faces and stories. It turned out that all of my doubts were founded, it turns out that my skeptism has basis. It turns out that love alone is not enough. That a relationship as any work of Art is 10% inspiration, and 90% transpiration. It turns out that many people are good at the short distance run, but not so good at the long distance races. Maybe it has to do with too many snacks being eaten between the meals...
"Words are easy" as my mam says, "actions are a lot harder".
The chess player of my beautiful restaurant have gone their ways, tables are empty, the game is a new one.

For now, a new adventure opens in front of me, one i had never really pandered. Yet here it is.

So stay tuned for more of my fuzzy adventures.

Next stop, back to North India... so see you there