Published Jun 14, 2023
Back in Kathmandu at the end of the Langtang trek.
Before we reached the trailhead, Lance, Todd, his friend, and I bathed in a pool safe from the river rapids. We toweled off in the bright sunlight, glad to be clean for the first time in over a week. My towel bore the image of my dirty face like the Shroud of Turin. I gave it to one of the porters along with most of my filthy socks. They were stiff with sweat. I was sad about returning to the modern world. I wish I could have continued trekking into Tibet in search of Shangrillah. The mythical valley from the novel LOST HORIZON. I don't have enough money to keep in pursuit of paradise. After Kathmandu, a short flight to New Delhi and a long trip to Paris then London and New York. Around the world in more than eighty days.
Standing on the dirt road I heard a truck. The first mechanized noise in ten days. The tires crumbling over the rocks. A plumb of dust in the air. The modern world. The end of the illusion of another time. Lance said said that the land behind us had inspired Tolkien to write THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but the Sherpas aren't Hobbits. Farewell to yaks, Sherpas and the Himalayas. Next year I will be bacK.
To Annapurna and the rain shadow.
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