The Mantra of Avalokitesvara

How does a denizen of the Nepali Himalayas become affluent in a non-touristed region? Join the Indian army. Send the money home to your devoted wife, who purchases a TV and satellite dish, solar panels, Tibetan carpets, thangkas, and various adornments for the shrine. A large poster of an English manor and flower garden...true paradise. A sink and an improved hearth. Copper pots. A comfy bed. And a high quality sound system.

Thus it was that I found myself in a surprisingly clean and well-managed tea house in the non-touristed Ganesh Himal. In the early evening, hail pounded down on corrugated metal roofing, a good time to slurp Tibetan tea and rakshi.

At 6:00 AM, I was blasted out of a cozy sleep via the above Mantra of Avalokitesvara, piped directly into the sleeping quarters. The reaction was irritation. I paid good rupees for my sleep. Those feelings dissipated quickly. The sky was clear, the Himalayan foothills green, prayer flags flapping in the breeze, and the villagers were an hour into their routines. This rendering of the Mantra is mind-blowing, as far as I'm concerned.

Some folks, mostly Westerners, describe this take on the Mantra as "new-agey" or "inauthentic" or "over-produced". You wouldn't have heard this melody wafting out of Himalayan gompas 15 years ago, much less a century. The instrumentation is not entirely Tibetan. That doesn't stop lay Buddhists, and even some Hindus, from dropping the cassette into cassette players (no iPods as yet) as they trod through the mountains, rewinding every 23 minutes and 55 seconds. The tune, if it can be called that, emanates alongside juniper and pine incense from shops in Boudhanath, Thamel, and elsewhere in the Kathmandu valley. I feel a tinge of pity for anyone who fails to be transported.

A Tibetan Buddhist Scolding

The above video was taken in May of 2007. The kid had just killed a bird with his slingshot, and was now getting an earful from the monk. I believe the monk's name was Rinchen, so we'll call him that.

My porter and I met Rinchen in an obscure, dusty Himalayan town by the name of "Turke Bajar". The ambience of the place was more Hindu than Buddhist, and Rinchen certainly received no special deference from the townspeople. He seemed a bit out of place in his robes. In a nook that could generously be called an apartment, we joined him in his puja, which was otherwise attended only by a handful of children.

Rinchen was enthused about showing us a fledgling monastery being built a couple day's walk from Turke. Having no serious itinerary to abide by, we agreed to the diversion.

Somewhere along the way, the above encounter took place. Rinchen, at perhaps 19 years old, took his monkhood quite earnestly, as you can see. In fact, to my eyes, he played the role to the hilt. He spoke with great excitement about the hardships he would endure in his upcoming three year retreat in the mountains (no human contact, no exiting the meditation hut except at night, etc.), and made sure I photographed him in various meditative postures.

An hour or so after the above exchange, Rinchen produced the slingshot and made sure I witnessed him tossing it into the forest. I'm not mocking his zeal, not at all. Young Americans might model their personalities after sports heroes or celebrities, and it seems that Rinchen wasn't so different. His heroes were the various Buddhist Lamas whose photographs adorned his shrine.

My porter, Janu, did the translating.

The Ganesh Himal

Above is a clip from a 2007 trek in the Ganesh Himal region of Nepal. It's a fairly obscure trek...we didn't see any foreign faces for almost 2 weeks. The locals told us there were a couple of Japanese dudes a few days ahead of us on the trail.

The Ganesh Himal is sandwiched between two more popular destinations, Langtang and Manaslu. You lose a bit in terms of challenging trekking (we never got over 14,000 feet) and spectacular views, but you do get the chance to experience Tamang culture that has had very little exposure to foreigners. Some of these areas are accessible by bus...we found ourselves crossing over dirt roads on a couple of occasions, which does diminish the sensation of being utterly isolated. On the other hand, adventurous travelers could cover a lot of ground via mountain bike in this region of the Himalayas, something that would be near-impossible on the more popular treks (Annapurna, Everest, Helambu, etc.).

Opening the trekking guides, you see some very well delineated travel plans for particular regions. That's nice, but the truth is that the mountain villages are hugely interlinked via trails, and there's usually no reason you can't espy a particular location in the distant mountains, go there, and then plot a new route back to Kathmandu. It's all subject to time limitations, your trekking permit, and safety considerations, of course.

Shots from the Ganesh Himal

If you'd like to see a slideshow of more pics from the Ganesh Himal, a rather offbeat trekking destination in Nepal, click here

In the future, I'll upload some video clips of the trek, which do a good job of explaining this little adventure without additional prose.

This particular shot might be the best of the lot, though. Those two girls are carrying chiseled rocks, used for roofing. There's a sense of desolation, though you'd probably catch the distant reverberation of a mallet if you were there.