Saturday, December 15, 2007

Littlest Pet Shop Dress Up Games

Mustang, instructions

The Mustang, also known as the "kingdom of Lo 'is one of the most isolated and least known of the Himalayas. Located a hundred kilometers north of the mountain massif of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, the territory that covers the tiny feudal kingdom appears, if you look at a map, as a sort of peninsula that penetrates into the occupied Tibet Chinese. Since
has no avenues with modern methods, but only paths that go up and down the high steps that connect the valley with another, this region can be visited only on foot.
To achieve Manthang, the capital the kingdom, situated at an altitude of about 3800 meters, are required at least 12 days of travel. The starting point for the Mustang Heritage is a village situated about seventy miles northwest of Pokhara, Nepal.
I discovered this region in the summer of 2007, along with Claudio, my life partner. The logistics of shipping and the issue of access permissions have been well taken care of by Navy Eller, Merano a living in Nepal for twenty years. Navy, which operates the Navy Nepal, trekking agency and a great discovery in the Himalayan region, as well as our mentor has become a precious friend.
is he who ha scelto le persone che ci hanno affiancato nella spedizione. Tutte persone meravigliose e che ringrazio ancora in queste pagine : Goma, il nostro sirdar, Ram, il suo assistente, Dilisher, cuoco eccellente e infaticabile, e poi Chitra, Ram2, Dinesh, Kumar, Arjun, e da ultimo il piccolo Kishan. 
Voglio ringraziare anche Federica Baraglini, Davide Sciandra e Luigi Fieni, straordinari restauratori di monasteri himalayani, nonché persone preziose e sensibili, per il calore con cui ci hanno accolto a Lo Manthang, per i loro racconti e per aver squarciato in parte il nostro velo di ignoranza su questa regione, sul suo popolo e sulle sue tradizioni.

Quelle che seguono sono alcune note I've taken during this wonderful journey.


are divided into 'chapters' and numbered from 1 to 14. Should be read in this order which is also one that runs from Kathmandu to Beni, Jomsom, Lo Manthang return.

Other photographs have not found space in these pages you will find at this address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15132083 @ N04/sets/72157602438372823 /

e-mail address of the agency's Navy is as follows: http://www.navyonepal.com


To see other travel journals written by travelers in the window below is sufficient to indicate the name of the country or region you plan to visit.








I would like also to point out some sites that talk about travel and travel and tell stories, many stories.

www.marcocavallini.it

Tourists by case

Travel Notebook - Stories from the World


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14 / Goodbye ...







It's over.
Farewell Mustang.
I think and write it on the evening when we come to Jomosom.



last day I remember especially the wind. A strong wind that blows against us and prevents us at times to move forward. We cover your head with the handkerchief, slip on your sunglasses and yet we can hardly see where we are feet. breathe with your hands cupped in front of the mouth.
The wind rises to ten in the morning. More or less the height of Tangbe.
The nun who accompany us along the way, you wrap your head with their red tunics. Persons who have put on your sunglasses glacier. It looks like a caravan of beggars raffozzanati as best.
Staying in the valley is impossible because there is no shelter. The sand that rises from the valley of the Kali Gandaki affects the skin of the face with violence. Thousands of needles that sting. Yet there
il sole. La giornata è limpidissima. E il Dhaulagiri si mostra sempre più grande ed imponente ad ogni tornante. 
Poco prima di Kagbeni, dove sostiamo per mangiare, evitiamo di striscio una piccola valanga che fa rotolare sul sentiero fin giù al fiume centinaia di rocce e sassi. Kishan mi strattona per il braccio e mi obbliga a tornare indietro per almeno un centinaio di metri. In fila indiana, noi e i monaci, osserviamo il fianco della montagna ed attendiamo che i sassi che rotolano giù si facciano sempre più rari.
Poi si passa. Uno alla volta. E di corsa. Si guarda in alto e via a testa bassa fino a che non siamo dall’altra parte. Not even two hundred yards and the path on which we are walking and landslides. Which obliges us to a diversion. Doobie jump three feet of anything. Not much, but underneath, there's always him, the Kali Gandaki, with its roaring water. Kishan, when I jump on the other hand, offers me his hand. And that's it.

For Ekhlai Bhatti, a group of Rajasthani pilgrims. They left in forty foot, from India to reach Muktinath. They were three of us. Are sixty days are walking. And finally, tomorrow, will reach Muktinath. And then? I ask. Then you go home, tell us. And they add, we are tired, but the pilgrimage once in their life it must be done.

Again the Panga Khola. Once again the ford. But the water is less violent than the first time with us to wade through when there were nuns. The pass easily, without worries of mind and even a couple of hours later we are Jomosom, at the inn.

Before reaching the photographer porter, the Sirdar, the guide. There is air at the end of travel and adventure end and the boys are visibly happy to be home.
owner of the inn to ask us a cake. The most you get are crepes with sugar and lemon. For the first time since the beginning of the trip, the boys accettano di mangiare seduti a tavola con noi. Si ride, ci si scambia impressioni. Si ricorda. 
Kishan che viene a farsi spalmare la crema sul piede. I cani che si gettano sulla nostra tenda. La volta che ci siamo persi. Il passo più alto. Dilish che a Tsarang ci ha cucinato una torta di mele, senza il forno. La litigata con il proprietario del Mystic Resort a Lho Manthang. 
Goma che puntualmente perdeva a carte. 
Kishan fa di tutto per attirare la mia attenzione. Poi mi strattona per la manica e mi prende in disparte pre scrivermi il suo « indirizzo ». Scrive a matita sul Moleskine : My name is Kishan Nepali. I live in Rakhu, peple six, Myagdi. Nepal. Ma the porter when they read what you wrote laugh. Kishan Nepali, they say, means just that Kishan Kishan is in Nepal and Nepal there are millions. Kishan is a pariah. It has no name. It has no home. It has no documents. And I say, smiling, the porter, and I want to cry.

not know yet, in the evening, the next day if we can take the airplane, which leads to Pokhara. It depends on the wind, weather, clouds. If the plane does not come out again together. The boys, however, go down on foot. Three more days to Heritage and then home. Ram2 and Chitra go in Khumbu, at the foot of Everest, in their village. Ram, Goma and Dilish in Kathmandu. Others in Gorkha.
After dinner we sit on the wall of the inn to see who goes, the flashes of batteries in the dark, a woman crying in pain. It is dirty, poor and visibly broke his ankle. He wants at all costs to give her something, but I more than a box of aspirin can not give. You climb on foot from Beni to reach a relative to Chele. But now he can not walk and has no place to stay. I try to convince her to come with me to the dispensary, but the woman scorned and does not want. Continues to cry in silence until the arrival of a man who on his shoulders.

The next morning at six o'clock the sky to watch for vedere se arriva l’aeroplanino. Con noi una manciata di passeggeri e qualche abitante del villaggio. Kishan è voluto venire con me fin sulla pista di atterraggio. Tiene in mano con soddisfazione la racchetta che gli ho lasciato. Gli altri, quando siamo usciti, si stavano alzando e stavano preparando le gerle per scendere a vallae. La notte era stata lunga. E innaffiata copiosamente dal rakshi.
I saluti calorosi. 
Abbracci forti, fortissimi, ad uno ad uno, al lume di candela.

Ti voglio bene, Kishan, gli dico in italiano. Lui non è abituato ai baci. Si schernisce e mi fa ciao con la mano. 
L’aeroplanino che arriva Pokhara is a small turboprop from a dozen places in all, one after another. Lands and we go up in a hurry. The pilot does not want to waste time and risk cloudiness that would impede the take off. Fly to view the valley and that the plane must pass through the valley is narrower and deeper in the world.
A few seconds after takeoff, I see them.
are, still, all lined up along the coast path in the mountains. Fix our plane touches them a little higher. Suddenly, all together, raise their arms and waving at us. I
hello through the window, but I know that I can see. I still do hello, among I can not hold back tears, until they disappear from sight.
I turn to Claudio. I shook his hand. Even he can not hold back the tears.
from top left: Dinesh, Ram, Ram2, Kumar, Goma, Chitra
below: Arjun, Dilish, Kishan

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13/Giornata heroic ...




'Day heroic. " So I wrote in my moleskine. And I keep pointing out
that we went up a step and decreased to Shyangmochen. Of Shyangmochen not remember anything. Will remain a name because the day is marked instead of the canyon and climb.

You know that down at the bottom of a canyon, where the river flows, also includes a lift, but when you slip the path down, deeper and deeper, we are elated.
The scenery is magnificent, and as far as we are getting used to the immensity of this land, it is impossible not to feel emotion.
deseeded path in single file between two huge walls of red rock. The porter run. I'm running. The descent, the landscape reminds me of the descent of the Grand Canyon, taken in espadrilles centuries ago. I run and lose myself in memories.
The measure of euphoria that has taken damage, the porter. They always so quiet and measured, they laugh, they call each other out loud to hear the echo bouncing from a perfect wall to wall. The descent continues. Long and sweet. Ancient caves and shelters under rocks pastors. Dry stone fences. Bushes. Noise crystal clear water flowing.
down, deeper and down to the River. The porter, hanging out there waiting on the shore. Kishan moves some rocks to allow me to cross a stream in order to get his feet wet as possible. We sprayed. We joke.
Then, suddenly, I see it.
I see the climb that is lost in height. I tell myself that it is not possible, which is not an ascent of the human kind. I tell myself that we were crazy to make that diversion, that we'll never get to Chusang by night. The trail is carved into the rock above us there is a high wall a thousand meters. I've never seen anything so high and so close at the same time.
There is no solution. You must climb.
time to gather all the courage I have left and the porter are already distant speck. I decide to catch my heart.
remember the beating heart. What a beating. The incessant impulse to look up. How far is it? What sounds like the summit is nothing but a huge step up from which another, equally long, equally steep. I'm restless. So the trick is to continue, slowly, sometimes counting the steps. Every hundred yards I raise my head. To see what is remaining. Then look down. Claudio calculation that is about half an hour from me. A punticino, much lower. With him and Goma Ram, who, being the basis, they must suffer a little, too. Above, in front of everyone, the small Dilish with his legs thin and short. He runs well because he has to prepare the kitchen for lunch?
I can not do what I had promised. I stop. I have the impression that he has squeezed all the strength I had left. After all, far below all, leads a caravan. Mules, horses and a dozen monks who recognize the long red tunics. They go fast, I hardly felt fatigue.
In step I sit next to the pile of stones from which the prayer flags waving. Slowly came the monks. Before the horses, then the mules, then they. They laugh, salute, are talkative and visibly happy. The smaller kids a decade or so, goofing around throwing stones at them. Their cries echo in the depths of the canyon.
Quello che mi sembra il capo e che mastica un poco di inglese mi racconta che si stanno dirigendo in India, al monastero di Dheradun, a un paio d’ore da Dehli. È la che studiano. Teologia, filosofia, retorica. Hanno fretta, mi dice, perché tra una settimana devono essere al monastero. Ci sarà un grande meeting. Un grande rimpoché terrà alcune lezioni importanti. Poi vogliono la foto collettiva.

Dal passo si scende. O meglio si riscende. Vertiginosamente fino a Samar dove Dilish, come previsto ha allestito la cucina e preparato il pranzo. 
Poco prima di arrivare a Charang due ragazzine ci fermano e ci offrono two apples. I am about to give them a few rupees, but they shake their heads and smile. A charango, where we arrived exhausted at dusk, we find the same faces we saw the first leg.
The inn, where it plans to stay warm, is occupied by a nun. There remains, therefore, that pitch a tent in the courtyard.

eat dinner together with the monks. A single table, all talking and laughing like a school trip. A boy is sitting on the sidelines muttering prayers that draws from a book that handles very gently. Do not ever raise your eyes. Do not eat. It is totally absorbed in his chanting softly.

The night strikes a pack of dogs on our tent. We hear them growling, barking, banging against the light fabric. Ram Kishan and Chitra jump out of their tent and the dogs howl, throwing at them everything that they find at hand. Stones, sticks, shoes. The dogs away. Climb over the wall of the courtyard for half an hour we hear them barking furiously in the vicinity.
I go back to sleep.
last night before the border.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Cellular Respiration Ap Bio Lab Answers

12/Sulla way back ...






Manthang left the early morning, not without difficulty. The owner of the inn asking an exorbitant price for our stay. $ 20, which is to say € 2000. Goma, and carriers adopt the traditional Asian attitude. Wait for things to resolve themselves. Claudio ranks. I acted.
I do not want to cede to the demands of the boy. That, in addition to everything, I do not like. Upon arrival we had agreed a price which was half of what he now alleges. But the boy refuses to discuss. Suggests that it is only an emissary, and that the inn belongs to his brother. Which is somewhere in the city. The boy remains vague. The carriers if they are crouched in the yard beside their baskets. Gaze upon the infinite. Goma shrugs. Kishan chuckles.
I understand that the attempt is to get us to exhaustion and then drop everything. Guide, inn, porters, and I go in search of his brother. What is his intention to cook at home like a tortilla. Into the house like a fury, handed him $ 10, I go out, I reach for the carriers and say to them, let's go!
We'll talk all day. Goma thumb up in victory. Ram gives me a pat on the back. Dilish chuckles and Chitra, laconic, he says good.
The red flag with hammer and sickle is no longer there, close to Garritt. Someone has pulled down at night.
Leaving Manthang Lho usual Cappannelli of children, women, old men, curious.
People greets us. A child does with his hand hello. Another repeated hello, hello, hello. The rise does not even look old. Continue to rattle their rosaries.
We head to the west. To return to Jomosom without having to go over the same road are two paths. One east, the other to the west. Discard the east because people in Lo Manthang told us that is interrupted by two tributaries of the Kali Gandaki in full. And it is impossible to traverse without horses, or at least too dangerous. So we opt for the path west, much steeper, but workable.

The Manthang hour later, the first herd of yaks. And a vision. I had it behind us and known by the fact that I stopped to photograph yaks. In the background a big snow mountain, which will remain unknown because none of the carriers can tell me his name. Himal, repeat. But Himal in Nepal, it simply means mountain. Below, as in the scenes of a theater of the huge sand dunes. Lower down still, the great prairies. Green for crossed by dozens of streams and rivers. The lawn is dotted by edelweiss and strange purple flowers. The silence around us. Away the silhouette of a knight who descends from the galloping pace.

crossing points without much effort the Chogha La, at 4400 mt. The descent, steep, diagonal cuts a deep gorge and takes us after a few hours walk to the village of Lo Gekhar. More than a village, Gekhar This is a group of five or six houses that surround a square. On one side of the square stands the ghompa Ghar, one of the oldest in the whole of Tibet, dating back probably to the seventh century. We visit the ghompa Dilish while the kitchen prepares a refuge for pilgrims. We eat lunch on the steps of ghompa surrounded by villagers who are interested primarily in my bat walk. Each testing, lengthens, shortens, struts, under the gaze of Kishan worried that for some reason unknown to me there is a special bond. I read a girl's hand, listing the long life and many children. Immediately, word spread and all the women of the village to get jostled around me read your hand in turn. The hands of the women are tough and calloused palm.
The reading of the hand takes on the size of a circus event so we are forced to leave the village to escape the solicitations of prophecies. I exhausted my imagination and makes me a translator monaco si scusa ma ci deve lasciare perché è giunta l’ora della preghiera. Un cane legato alla catena abbaia furiosamente.
È primo pomeriggio. Il cielo per la prima vlta da quando sono partita è totalmente sgombro da nuvole. Partiamo soli, io e Claudio, lungo un costone fino al secondo valico della giornata. Il sentiero è ben segnato e non c’è possibilità di perdersi. Ciononostante, dopo un paio di tornanti vedo spuntare a fondo valle un puntino. Come farà Kishan a raggiungerci col peso che ha sulle spalle ?
Ci raggiunge Kishan e quando la valle si apre e vedo le rosse montagne di Dhakmar avrei voglia di abbracciarlo.
Dhakmar, un puntolino immerso nel verde, un ruscello che lo attraversa e attorno i canyon di Thelma e Louise. Un’aquila vola in circolo sopra le nostre teste e il sole, il rosso delle montagne, il verde della valle, il sentiero che vedo perdersi nel nulla mi fanno piangere. 
E piango davvero. Perché lascio dietro di me questa terra, perché tra qualche giorno dirò addio alle persone che hanno diviso tutto con noi da quasi due settimane, perché so che non le rivedrò più, perché non saprò mai cosa diventerà Kishan, chi sarà da grande, come sarà la sua vita. Piango e capisco in quel momento, per la prima volta nella mia vita, quanto la bellezza sia dolorosa. Quanto i rari attimi perfetti di una vita lascino, ancora prima to end the terrible and bitter sense of loss, of absence.
No returns. No returns.
Everything flows.

A Dhakmar not you stop.
I wanted, but Goma continue pushing for another hour until Gham. I'm not going back to Gham, we've been, and Dhakmar is a pure wonder, but Goma Dhakmar argues that there is no possibility to install the kitchen, which the locals are not welcoming, that the way go the next day is long. I suspect that behind this decision there is the rather rakhsi producing the nephew of the king. And the chance to sleep in his nice warm inn.
therefore continue to Gham.
the evening in our room on the roof to be treated the foot is present in two. And Kishan Kumar. Kumar, just twenty years, is a quiet boy, sometimes sharply. The way that grabs the basket and if the charge on the shoulders, precise gestures that makes installing the kitchen, the voice. Big, man. At the same time is a shy boy. Every time I must extend something, a cup, salt, a plate, hints at a slight bow and joined his hands cupped. Sale Room along with Kishan who is the master. A gesture makes me realize that suffers a lot al piede sinistro. Diagnostico un inizio di tendinite, brutta storia, e decido per un intervento radicale. Gli spalmo il piede col Voltaren e gli faccio ingurgitare un antinfiammatorio. Appuntamento l’indomani mattina per un secondo rattamento. Kumar si allontana dalla stanza zoppicando.

L’indomani partiamo prestissimo. Alle 7 Ghami è già lontana. Kumar zoppica ancora vistosamente. Prego Goma di ripartire il carico di Kumar tra noi e gli altri portatori, ma il ragazzo non vuole. Scuote la testa e insiste per portare la gerla che peserà almeno 30 chili. Goma alza le spalle. Per gli sherpa, mi dice, cedere il proprio carico è un’umiliazione.
Lentamente ci inerpichiamo su per una montagna brulla. Il senso di isolamento è assoluto e accentuato dal fatto che senza che ce ne rendiamo conto il sentiero sparisce. Da sentiero a traccia e poi più nulla. Solo roccia e qualche basso cespuglio battuto dal vento.
Continuiamo a salire, ad arrancare piuttosto, facendo dei lunghi zig zag. La valle è profondissima e il fianco della montagna estremamente ripido. Ho paura di scivolare e procedo con grande lentezza, evitando di fermarmi. Sono inquieta e sento che mi stanno riprendendo le vertigini. Allora mi concentro sui miei piedi, sui miei passi e salgo evitando di guardare più in basso di loro. 
Anche Goma è inquieto. Fissa le cime. Si stops. He looks around. Seems to sniff the air. Several times, consult with the Ram.
Kishan has nausea. I am often asked to drink and touch her belly.
Kumar limps.

I suddenly realize that we lost.

Yet it continues to rise. I tell myself that reached the top we will have a broader view of the valley, but it is not. Now on top opens another valley that we outline in an unstable balance keeping us on the ridge.
Once in a second step we all sit down for a rest. No one speaks. A certain uneasiness lingers or I who are anxious?
Below us an endless sea of \u200b\u200bmountains. In the background the snow-capped Nilgiri. And no sign of life.
Ram, however, it seems pretty quiet. He admits that we lost the trail but insists that this is still the right direction. What to do? Follow the law of the mountain - when you lose go back - or continue to nothing?
and fatigue that keeps us going. Descend back to the valley in search of the path is simply unimaginable. And so it goes on. A climb hills, contouring valleys, cross passes of sbiego walking along the barren mountain. Finally, on a ridge, far east, a heap of stones. Which marks the beginning of a hint of a path. Ram Goma and are visibly relieved and the children share boldly. Still mountains wrap, at least a dozen, and, after yet another brow, bottom, ocher lost a green dot, it appears the village of Gehling.

The porter disappear. They run a search for accommodation. The show, despite the abandoned carcass of a cow at the beginning of the country, is triumphant.

Gehling is a gem. Fifteen houses of whitewashed stone and a huge lawn in the center of the village. A stream che lo divide in due e in alto, annidato in cima ad una altura, un grande ghompa rosso sul quale sventolano centinaia di bandierine da preghiera.

Il resto del pomeriggio lo trascorriamo sul prato in mezzo a cavallini in libertà, attorniati da nugoli di bambini, mani nere e moccio che scende dal naso. 
La banda di ragazzini è capitanata da una bambina più grande, dieci anni forse, dallo sguardo vivo e intelligente. Si avvicinano, i bambini, a noi. E più passa il tempo, più osano. Ci toccano, ci prendono la mano, ci studiano. La ragazzina veglia a che i più piccoli non ci arrechino disturbo e ci trattino con educazione. Una donna attraversa the lawn and shouting something to the children. Vanishing running, laughing, to return shortly after. The youngest child will not even two years. It takes up barely. The girl puts me in his arms and walks away.
At the fountain a knot of girls look at us and laughs. Wash their things slam down hard on the rocks. It's sunny. It is almost warm.
I wear strolling up and down the lawn. Climb up a hill. Reduction in groups of two or three. Holding hands. Svacco extraordinary atmosphere of the afternoon.

ghompa the three monks and a girl, with a pair of tails to Pippi Longstocking, which housekeeping. Al center's main hall, on the floor, a sand mandala. I heard about it. I had read about this ancient art of Tibetan ritual. A circle of sand to two feet in diameter, within which, again with the sand, are depicted deities or esoteric designs. Is processed by the monks patiently and when finished is blown away. To symbolize the insecurity, instability of all that exists.

The three pilgrims on their entry to the ghompa, two men and a woman, wear offerings. Bow down to the ground, his forehead touching the floor, and then extracted from their pockets the mite per i monaci. Quattro bottigliette di olio e due ciotole di riso. L’uomo, il più vecchio, estrae anche una pergamena che mostra con deferenza ad uno dei lama. Gli si inchina davanti e gli presenta la pergamena a mani giunte.
I monaci non ringraziano, non manifestano nessuna empatia nei confronti dei viandanti. Le bottigliette d’olio, le riversano in un’anfora e le ciotole di riso in un grande piatto che contiene altro riso. La pergamena viene osservata, commentata e messa da parte. L’offerta accolta come un atto dovuto. 
I monaci poi si siedono su un muretto all’esterno del monastero, accanto allo zhor fatto di corna di animali che adorna il muro esterno del tempio. Chiacchierano quietly, indifferent to everything except themselves.
anger.
I know I do not understand. I know it's hard to judge so far away from my culture. But I feel anger. Anger at the glacial indifference. Anger at a medieval world so that the poor, miserable, she pleaded with the clerk to accept his offer. Anger at the incessant and autistic repeat prayers, chanting readings, sometimes obscure the monks themselves. Anger at the big empty halls of the faithful echo of the sound of trumpets, drums and bells. We feel the people of the village Gehling, so low and so far, those sounds? It will benefit? These monks above le righe, questi lama serafici e assenti, penso, non si occupano dei malati, dei poveri, dei bambini...Rinchiusi nei loro tetri monasteri praticano esercizi che li renderanno più forti, più spirituali, più simili a lui, il Buddha rinato, il Buddha a venire...E la gente dei villaggi, di questi sperduti villaggi himalayani, che si toglie il pane di bocca per loro...
Eppure, so che non capisco. Come spiegare, infatti lo sguardo di gioia della pellegrina – una donna di una certa età, sdentata e coperta di grasso e polvere - quando il lama ne accetta l’offerta ? Il suo stringersi felice al marito, il suo piegarsi a terra nella posizione più umile ? Come spiegare ? 

In the meadow at the foot of the monastery there is agitation. Bustle. The children run screaming. They're called. Chase. There's two women with huge logs on the back. Where they have found the trees? Where do they come? They throw the logs near a house that lacks the roof. Runs on the lawn people. Rush porter. Imbizzariscono ponies that graze freely near the stream. They give a crazy race up and down the pratone.
The cause of the commotion is a monkey. A boy holds a tame monkey tied to a rope and dragged behind like a dog. A monkey at 4000 mt.
The boy across the lawn with regal gait and safe while children do their best to touch the animal. The boy does not bay. Continue straight to a house then rises rapidly to the roof, he and the monkey that grinds his teeth, pay the smaller, vanishing at the sight of all.

Kishan
the evening drags me to the edge of the village. Then he nods to sit on the wall near the Chorten. It's almost dark and the shepherds fall pastures. Hundreds and hundreds of goats in the file disorderly reach civilians.

An old near the chorten a prayer wheel turning constantly blankly. His face is a network of wrinkles, but when I approach known to have a good look and frank. Three children that I have not noticed the afternoon I also approach them and stare at me with big brown eyes.

Nameless dirty. Beautiful eyes.
We remain there until nightfall. Kishan looking at me and I draw.

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11/Lho Manthang




Lho Manthang, the capital, presents us with a Garritt lonely at the top of a hill on the roof waving a red flag with the sickle and the hammer.
The Garritt is empty and dusty. The flagstick, little one, is inclined, and without the pedestal.
A flag is a flag without pedestal of way.
From above, from 4000 m. The pitch, we had already glimpsed The Manthang. Collection within its walls, square in the middle of the yellow-green fields of barley. From a distance, four large patches of color. The red of the three great monasteries of the city. And the white king's palace.
is she. The Manthang. Unreal in the midst of hundreds of sand dunes that surround it.
At the top, the remains of ancient castles and fortresses. Some stubbornly resistant poplar vento che soffia implacabile. Un ruscello che scorre lungo le mura.
Una visione magica. Una dimenticata favola d’oriente.








Poco prima dell’ingresso in città, il solito chorten con i colori sakia. Attorno al chorten un gruppo di ragazzi agli ordini di un ragazzo più grande. Lo stanno restaurando. Ridanno vita ai colori stinti dalla sabbia e dal vento. Pescano il colore dalla natura. Rocce polverizzate all’interno di minuscole bacinelle scavate nella pietra. Pigmenti Natural Ochre. Red. Green. Black

Under the walls of the city, women washing clothes in the stream, men sat chatting doorway of their houses, children running around, little kids who learn to stand up stuck to the fleece of goats, old that gin cotton rosary with my left hand. A girl washes her long hair to the river blacks. It is held in balance on two rocks that emerge from the water to rinse off the foam and leaned forward. The hair flowing with the current. Long black hair that look like algae and sinuous.
Dilish, Ram Goma and discuss with a young fiercely. Are negotiating the possibility of install our camp inside an inn vis ible
must have been closed for years. On the front door hangs askew a sign on which it says pompously, "Mystic Resort. The courtyard where Goma had planned to install them is occupied by the French. And the little meadow near the creek, under a group of tall poplar trees that sway with the wind, is reserved for the arrival of some important personalities.
The boy finally succumbs. Freedom of the bolt that holds a door closed sheet and allows us to enter. The usual large square courtyard with a statue of clay from a fountain in a corner. The interior the building is dilapidated and covered with a thick layer of dust. The boy takes us up a steep stairway that leads up to the gallery on the second floor and introduces us to a room. Will be to our bedroom he says. The place is immense. Two wooden beds against the wall of mud on which lie two horsehair mattresses that time and dirt have dyed brown. Two large windows, one overlooking the street that surrounds the walls, the other overlooking the courtyard. Neither of the two windows will close and both have broken windows patched with tape wrapping. The ceiling is covered by a large blue fabric in the center shows signs of water infiltration. Where the water penetrates from the roof of the fabric is a kind of brown belly. The floor is uneven and bumpy. Below a couple of jute bags that are function of carpet lie huge holes. Along the walls of large white plastic sheets on which are set in the mountains of potatoes.

We are dedicated to rehabilitation of the premises while the tireless Dilish is merrily installing her kitchen on the ground floor.
capping, the window openings with rags. We cover the mattress with sheets we lie on camping and sleeping bags. Move the potatoes in a corner. Extract from the bag our clothes and hang them with nails sticking out of the wall. We obtain some candles and a plate to collect the wax. Let us create for ourselves a real room as comfortable as possible, because we will stop Manthang Lho.
We'll be at least two days.

take advantage of the fountain to do laundry. The water is cold and it is easy to wash shirts, pants and socks with soap. My fingers are numb. Kishan, who never moved away too long from me, watching me, smiling slyly. Then I take the laundry out of the hands and begins to soap, squeeze, bang, then rinse. Within minutes our things waving in the sun and wind.

a couple of days Kishan has made a habit to seek treatment malleolus sick for me. From running and walking as a suspicion that the pain has stopped, but the rub arnica on the foot and massage it for a few minutes has become a ritual. Kishan washed with care ends and then wait for nightfall, when the porter they start playing cards. Then comes to see me and makes me sign that I put the cream. The coating of the cream lives with satisfaction. He sits down, takes off his shoes neatly on the ground that supports and introduces me to the foot. I pretend to look at it, just grazed his ankle, I ask him if it hurts and makes Kishan nodded his head. Then I take the make-up kits of medicines and carry out the transaction. Arnica take long to absorb and Kishan is fixed pierced feet. After a few minutes to give him a massage packages on foot, and I understand that it is okay.
A Lho Manthang, Kishan, for the first time, I also presents the other foot. I massage, coated and think. When I stop Kishan gets up, puts on his shoes and gave me a grin.
The second flag flying in Lo Manthang is the Italian flag. Waves, together with a Nepalese flag on the roof of a house to a plan that is outside of the walls. I see and I remember what you told me to Benno Chele. A Lo Manthang there are three Italians who restore a monastery, he told me. Boys formidable, he added.

The city, not much bigger than a village, is a maze of roads, streets, squares, arcades, monasteries. Around the door that allows access to the interior walls of small crowds of people if they are sitting talking and running their mills prayer. Mules, and goats entering and leaving the door to their liking. Near a monastery, along an alley, a large group of women if they are squatting on the ground to talk and spin wool. Groups of children come and go.
From the terrace overlooking the square facing the palace of the king a dog barking. Barking furiously running forward and forth along the balustrade of carved wood. A man dragging me over to the halter a horse nervous and harnessed with silver bells. The impression is that here, the arrow of time has stopped. We were so cities in the Middle Ages?

stroll at random. A girl beckons us to come to his house. The usual courtyard, tiny, and a tree trunk, which were excavated some rudimentary steps, leading to the roof. From the roof watching other roofs topped with stacks of wood. And then the prayer flags flapping in the wind moves. The domes and red ocher chorten of ghompa. Highest of all, the white palace.
Un ragazzino, il naso che cola e la pelle annerita dal sole e dallo sporco mi trascina da un tetto all’altro. Capisco che Lho Manthang la si può percorrere anche dall’alto. Tetti, stanze, cortili. Il ragazzino mi sospinge dentro pertugi, camminamenti, stanze 
dove donne filano la lana, stanze dove giacciono malati, stanze dove dormono bambini su letti di paglia. Fumo, tanto fumo, nelle stanze annerite. Calderoni sul fuoco. Abiti appesi ad asciugare vicino alle braci. Vecchi che fumano pipe. Il ragazzino mi porta da uno zio che mi mostra dei grandi tanka stinti dal tempo. Non voglio i tanka, gli dico. Instancabile lui rovista in una cassa ed estrae crani umani intarsiati d’argento, horns of bone, large red and blue stones tied to ropes of hair, carved teapots, prayer wheel, sacred tablets, would sell the soul of man, and then bought him a tiny silver flask, sealed with a cap wax. What's inside I do not know, but he binds her to me and touches my neck three times in the head with his wrinkled hands. A good luck charm? The only thing that I will carry with me from The Manthang.

Federica
the bishop at the top of the scaffolding ghompa Lhakang.
Gomphia Lakhang The monastery is the second visit. At first, ghompa Choprang of us by-case basis, invited by a group of nun adolescenti che mi fanno da guida. Mi chiamano i monachelli dall’alto di un muro. Non mi chiamano, si sbracciano e corrono ad aprire il portone del monastero. Vogliono farmi conoscere Tashi, un loro compagno che studia l’italiano.
Tashi sorge dal nulla e mi snocciola frasi tipo. Ciao. Come stai ? Bella giornata ! Da dove vieni ? Dove vai ? Mi chiamo Tashi. Ho diciotto anni. Poi mi accompagna in camera sua, nella zona dormitorio del monastero. Un lettino, alcuni libri da preghiera su uno scaffale e « A zonzo per l’Italia », grammatica italiana per stranieri. Sulla parete di legno di fianco al letto, il poster di una donna in bikini. Tashi ride quando gli indico la donna in bikini, ma non smette di produrre frasi. Like a river in full reads as follows: The train arrives in an hour. In what track, please? Where is the ticket?
I can to stem the relentless Tashi through a hollow sound that comes from another wing of the dormitory. A continuous sound of trumpets. I open a door and find five or six nun blowing trumpets in a strange engraved under the guidance of a teacher of music. Do not raise their eyes. Do not look at me. They continue to blow pricked.
From the next room stands a sound even more dark and deep. Two apprentices musicians strive to make some sounds from two long horns laid on the ground. The horns are long at least three meters and the sound that comes out is very disturbing. Dull, dark, naked. It is its sameness, more than anything else, to make it disturbing.

Federica is a calendar girl. I understand now. From what greets me. From the heat of the contact. He says that our arrival had been already been reported by a couple of days. A group of herdsmen reached Lho Manthang the country had reported the arrival of two Ingi, two foreigners. They, her, Louis and David, are hungry for foreigners, he said. Why stay in Lho Manthang it feels a bit isolated, she adds. And he laughs.
Federica laughs often. And the stories about her, the three Italian who are there to restore the monasteries, the girls, the people of the land, tells her the evening. At home. The house on the roof waving the Italian flag. And where they live in three: Louis, the initiator of the project, Federica, and David, her boyfriend.

Federica tells us that four years ago when I was coming to Manthang the first time, was left alone a month. Luigi was due to start on an expedition to caves in a mountain that hid under a shepherd of strange and precious frescoes. David was not yet part of the group and she was therefore found in the city alone. A handle about forty people. The girls and boys sizes Manthang to intervene in the restoration. How many things did not understand ...
He did not understand, for example, that existed on the rigid scaffolding of caste distinctions that govern society Loba. And even the orders of a Ingi could break them. The Tarang, for example, people in the river, a low caste, the scaffolding had no right to be higher than those who belonged to the caste of the city. Neither had they explained to Frederick. And she did not understand why the boys refused to intervene where she said. They did not, with his head and pointed to the upper floors.
He did not even understand the strange ceremony that some lamas were in the early morning, just where she had ritoccare i disegni di alcune divinità tantriche. Usavano degli specchi, dei grandi specchi sui quali riflettevano la parete. Catturavano lo spirito della divinità per evitare che venisse disturbato dai lavori. Lo avrebbero riportato al suo posto, avrebbero riportato l’anima nei dipinti, solo a fine lavori. Ma lei anche quello non l’aveva capito.

Ci racconta poi della Coppa del mondo di calcio. Erano riusciti a convincere il responsabile delle centrale eolica situata a nord della città di fornire il villaggio di elettricità per un paio d’ore. E di notte, in piena notte, poiché la finale loro la potevano vedere alla televisione del monastero, in bianco e nero, su una rete indiana, alle due di notte. Tutto il villaggio, la mattina dopo, era al monastero ad attenderli. Per festeggiare. Loro non se l’aspettavano. Erano entrati, e il monastero era illuminato da centinia di candele da preghiera, dei lucignoli immersi nel burro rancido, e tutta la gente era là riunita e li abbracciava contenta, e il sindaco aveva macellato una capra in segno di festa. Proprio di fronte all’altare. Di fronte alla statua di d’argilla del Buddha alta quindici metri. Quel giorno, per festeggiare la vittoria dell’Italia nessuno in città era andato a lavorare.

Come ci erano arrivati là ?
 Luigi era arrivato per primo. Luigi Fieni, 34, Cisterna di Latina as Federica. An aeronautical engineer who had changed the road after graduation. It had started to learn the techniques of painting with an airbrush, and later, the restoration of the Institute of Restoration in Rome. And that was over there in Mustang, in 1999 along with his teacher, a Guatemalan specialist in murals. The two monasteries on which they had decided to intervene, they had found in a complete state of neglect. The rainwater that trickles down to the roof, the deterioration produced by the time the black smoke of prayer candles were ruined, covered, concealed the beauty of the paintings, the harmony of forms.
Louis was able to be financed the restoration project by the American Himalayan Foundation. A foundation that, among other things, allowed the Americans to take under control the borders with China. Or better with Tibet. Very hot area.

Yet it was not easy. Each year, Federico said at least a couple of months they lost them in Kathmandu to get permits. Everything depended on the tangent asked the Nepalese government to allow them to work in that remote area. And, since the Maoists, then, had entered the government, it was not clear who had to forage.

The Maoists, always tells Federica, often down in the city. Yes were presented at The Manthang just a couple of weeks ago. The flag that we saw on our arrival had left them. And nobody in town had dared to remove it. They had not done anything particularly fierce. In the end they were almost all boys. Fifty. All young. They had set up their little show on the square, at the foot of the king's palace. It was just a show done right, says Federico. Dancing, singing revolutionary, and a small piece of theater. To illuminate the stage were appropriate for their generator. But the next day they had returned. The boy who had returned to the monastery had also tried to make her morals, says Federico. But she had not left intimidated. I asked him, directly, "But you seem to just take away the barley and rice to families in the city. People who have only this? Do not call it stealing, you? '. He had attempted a weak defense, then said he could not answer her, but her boss would give the right answer. Federica had not given up, and as he clumsily tried to reinstall the generator, I told him that she thought of what his boss did not care and who wanted to hear what he thought. The boy, embarrassed, had set his shoes without saying anything.
David, the boy Federica, restorer he laughs.
He says Federica if he takes the fly on the nose will not stop anyone. He was only the second year that I spent the summer in Manthang with the team. Federica had met during a renovation in London. They were not home, two of them. They lived together where they carried out their work. In Mustang, shared the house with Luigi. A room on the ground floor to sleep. A rudimentary shower in the yard. A hall on the second floor. Sofas, coffee tables and a shelf on which Federico kept his treasures: teas purchased in Kathmandu, Italian coffee, a few packets of biscuits.
On the wall of the living room where we spend the evening and the night talking and Drinking herbal tea, a large city map and a poster, like I did as a child to count the days until Christmas. On the days that were missing their manifesto to back down in the valley. In Kathmandu. To civilization.

Lho Manthang were not that bad. With residents, they tell us, had a terrific relationship. Intense. Profound. The girls, for example, Federica telling everything. "Even the kids," Louis adds, smiling. "The even tell when and with whom they make love ... "

careful tonight when you go back to the inn, the comings and goings of children with the battery in your hand and ladders under Federica arm ... grins. It's called hula bula. And it is the most popular sport in the city. The way in which men courted women in these parts. The scales used to climb on the roof of the houses of girls available. The boys come from the roof and if the girl accepts making love with her. If not, move on to the next house. Always through the roof. The next day, tell all to Federica, adds David. Who were, and although it was nice. And then ask, "But Frederick, for our girls stink? Why not smell like you? ". And you, down to laugh.

Federica admits. Sometimes it is difficult to work around some girls. Sometimes the smell emanating is unbearable. Here, women and men never wash. At least the body, because the hair, however, women wash them every day ii. She once led the girls to the river of the monastery. Made them undress and distributed soap and bubble bath. Then he told them how we wash. That day all the girls had washed river. All spraying water and foam. They had lots of fun. As girls. But then they had not ever done. Here at The Manthang, still believe that the dirt protects against disease.

the evening, returning to our inn, a lot of trouble. Light beams that intersect. Boys with batteries and ladders. Chuckles.
The inn where you sleep is infested with mice, he told us Federica. Be careful.
The night closed in my sleeping bag, I hear the mice riding on the beams above us and sliding down the walls of the room, to settle on the bags of potatoes.

The following day the Manthang is still immersed in the sun. We decided to go on foot to the Namgyal Monastery, which stands atop a hill to the west. To get there, go down a valley to the river and from there we begin the ascent towards the fields of barley. We meet children who go to school, knights, monks. Tucci, who was in the past for Manthang anni ’30 racconta che in passato quella era stata una delle vie commerciali più importanti di tutto l’altipiano tibetano. Una via percorsa da pellegrini e apostoli, banditi ed invasori. In cima alle colline a nord della città le rovine di antichi castelli o fortezze.
Il monastero è semideserto. Un molosso tibetano alla catena quando ci vede arrivare abbaia furiosamente. Un paio di monaci che stanno passando al setaccio delle granaglie levano appena il capo verso di noi. Un salto alla scuoletta, e ai dormitori e poi via il ritorno in città. 

Passiamo il pomeriggio a girovagare per le stradine di Lho Manthang e a chiacchierare. A guy takes me to the school of Tibetan medicine, where a lama, who is also the village doctor, I am visiting a dark cave where they are crammed large ceramic pots containing herbs, powder horns and hoofs of animals, stones, pebbles. He would like to explain. Magnify her potions. I do not understand anything but the head of five yes. They were so the surgeons of medieval toilets?

the evening, the Italians are invited to dinner at the palace. The king receives some members of the American Himalyan Foundation, on a visit. They are the persons who were expected in town. Camping under the willows by the creek, and arrived at Lho Manthang the night before. A long caravan of mules and horses.
At eight o'clock on the square outside the royal palace, witnessing a show of song and dance organized by the local school in honor of the guests. The whole city is the appointment there. People are sitting demurely on the parterre, or clings to windows, roofs and balconies to watch the show. Such events should not there be many in these parts.

Shortly before the event, touching in its naivete, the monks come dressed in red. The crowd opened to let them pass and they all sit together in the front rows. Later in the show already started, a huge uproar. The people stood up. Some people are off and create a void in the middle of the square. More benches and bring a mat and invite the man to sit ceremoniously. I learn from Federica, who has since fallen on the square too, that the man, dressed in western part, which cuts through the crowd, is the nephew of the king, the heir to the throne, arrived at the Lo Manthang mornings with the Americans.

The last evening I spend again Manthang the home of the Italians. Federica has prepared for us a chocolate cake. Kishan carry with me. He is always beside me. Do you follow me. Ride. He smiles. I speak with gestures. He sits with us on the couch that surrounds the living room of Italians. It is visibly embarrassed, but drinking the tea and eats the chocolate cake.

We stay up late at night to chat. Stories. Many stories, funny or tragic. Of "cholesterol day," that the three celebrated every year in prosciutto and mortadella, before leaving Italy for these quarters. The solemn flag-raising ceremony on the day when they do arrive in Lho Manthang, surrounded by the people of the country. The girl who was raped by the village idiot. Down to the River. And that was compensated with a goat from the family of the boy. The king and queen that they stay locked in their building waiting for Godot. Chinese merchants reduction to twice a year in trade in cities and that day is a feast for all. Great celebration. How it was nice, beautiful and difficult to train young people for the restoration of the country. And how are proud to use brushes and make colors.
Many stories. And the usual promises to meet again. Here or there.
Kishan pulls me by the sleeve and signals that it is late. Tomorrow, we leave at dawn.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

How Do I Know If My Monitor Is High Definition?

10 / 9 Tsarang





Gham leave early.
Trail exit dal villaggio si infila giù per una stretta valle fino a un torrente che è attraversato da due ponti sospesi. Da lì risale bruscamente per aprirsi su un altipiano attraversato da un lunghissimo mani di preghiera. A Ghami mi hanno detto che avrei incontrato il mani più lungo di tutto il Nepal e probabilmente di tutto il Tibet. Mi dico che, se è così, sto probabilmente affiancando il mani più lungo del mondo. 
I mani sono lunghi muri composti da pietre sulle quali pellegrini e viaggiatori hanno inciso preghiere, mantra o disegni a carattere religioso. 
Eppure non è il mani che mi cattura, ma piuttosto le pareti di roccia rossa che circondano l’altopiano. 
landscape is absolutely extraordinary. The rocks, tall, red and inflamed from the first sun of the morning, have been excavated by the wind. Dozens and dozens of sharp ridges like the blade of a knife into evidence furrows deep and narrow. A gigantic natural accordion.

early hands on the left, a dispensary dropped from the air. A sign at the entrance says in English that the building is a gift of the Japanese and that it is the clinic from all over the Mustang. Gently push the iron gate and find myself in a large square courtyard with flower beds and wildflowers. The building is on one floor and all the rooms, equipped with only one door opening onto the courtyard. Despite the well-kept flower beds and you can breathe in this place looked desolate abandonment. A few minutes later a woman comes from a small room air disaster. He coughs violently. I think it is a patient and instead I see the bunch of keys that hung at the belt that is the guardian of the dispensary. Peek inside the room where the woman came out and I see a man. A Tibetan or Nepalese. The man is nestled on a bed under a mountain of blankets. The physician, the woman makes me sign. I need something? I shake my head and coughing woman disappears inside a room on the opposite side of the courtyard. The clinic returns the place to be abandoned and surrounded by the silence in which I had entered at the beginning. A low-rise and square in the middle of nowhere. Away from the country. Away from it all.
Why I wonder, just build it there? The proximity to the hands of a prayer would be a good omen perhaps? Either choice is dictated by the need to isolate the sick from other people? Or this dispensary is none other than Fort Bastiani Lieutenant Drogo?

Climb and here again the strange caves high up along the rock walls. I remember now that I had read a book by Tucci. Tucci to the local tradition that traced the caves in remote wars, the Sino-Nepalese had no sense. How could dig such big holes in walls so as inaccessible, he said, wars break out suddenly?

The arrival Tsarang to remain an unforgettable memory in my life.
Tsarang it is seen from above, from the passage of Choya.
is a vision so unreal, so perfect that none of us wants to go down. Or to speak. We sit on the rocks beneath the prayer flags flapping in the wind and in silence, looking down. A sound of bells announces the arrival of a flock of goats. There are hundreds. The pastor does not mention fermarsi. Le raggruppa fischiando e scende in direzione del paese.
Mi rendo conto solo ora che ero così assorbita da quel momento che ho scordato di fare delle fotografie. L’unica foto che ho è presa in prossimità del paese, molto più in basso.
E allora cerco di ricordare.
Una grande macchia verde al centro di montagne sabbia e ocra. La sagoma del Palazzo Reale. Bianco e altissimo rispetto alle case. Un grande monastero rosso sulla sinistra. Le sagome inconfondibili dei chorten con i consueti colori sakia : l’ocra, il nero, il rosso, il bianco. Il giallo ravizzone, a chiazze, in mezzo ai campi di orzo.
Mi rendo conto che sto ammirando un angolo incontaminato del mondo. Un autentico frammento del vecchio Tibet. La luce del pomeriggio stira i colori allungando le ombre.

Tsarang è la seconda « città » del Mustang. Una sosta per tutte le carovane lungo la strada verso il confine cinese. 
Il paese pullula di gente. Bambini, vecchie, donne che schiacciano il mirto dentro enormi pestelli di pietra, uomini che trascinano muli, cavalli, cavallini, capre. 
Ci sistemiamo sul tetto della casa della sorella del re. Dilish ha già installato la cucina al piano terra, mentre i porter si danno ad una frenetica attività lavatoria attorno alla fontana del paese. Si lavano e lavano le their belongings. Shirts, pants, socks, themselves. Kishan Gently wash the shoes that I gave to Jomosom. Chitra, in pantalocini shorts and shirtless soap and rubs it with a hair brush. Laugh, splash around the water, whisk the wet clothes on the stone. Kumar hanging clothes on a line with his head is a ball of foam.

Dharkailing the center of the monastery, one of the oldest of all the Mustang, there is a football field with a single door made of wood logs. The ball went out of the walls and a group of nun is coming down the steep rock face to get it lower. Those above the reckless driving scalatore indicandogli il luogo dove è finito il pallone. Avranno si è no una decina d’anni.
Un monaco ci accoglie con grande gentilezza e ci invita al refettorio a bere una tazza di té tibetano. Il té, da queste parti, lo bevono mescolato al burro salato. Nella bevanda, color caffelatte, navigano chiazze di grasso. Mi sforzo di bere per educazione e soprattutto perché spero che il monaco accetti di farmi visitare il ghompa principale e il resto del monastero.
Lo fa senza nessuna difficoltà. È un lama simpatico e ridanciano.
La scuola del monastero è divisa in classi. In cambio della visita al monastero, the llama asks me to make the younger students a quick lesson in English. Suddenly a lesson on colors. The children are attentive, surely accustomed to an iron discipline. They repeat everything they say in chorus. "This is red" I say, indicating their tonachelle. "This is red ', repeat them screaming. "What color is this? "" What color is this? ', Repeated in unison. There is no doubt that the learning system is the preferred mnemonic. After the English lesson with a bar of knife are thrown to write breathless on the only book available to them. They are small, puzzled but smiling.
For the families of the Mustang is a great honor that their children are admitted to study in the monastery. It is the second which is usually intended for monastic career. Five, six years, the family relies on the monks. Often, years pass before the parent can review their children.
In another class a few teenagers read aloud in choir and prayer books. The Monaco is a schoolmaster who has just a couple of years older than the students. He comes from a village not far from Beni, and tells me the name. Kishan, who has accompanied me as usual, will be illuminated. Swap a few words in Nepali with the schoolmaster who then translates. He comes from the same village from which it is the mother of Kishan. It knows it. Kishan, embarrassed, fix the toes without lifting his head.

ghompa Within twenty monks is going to prayer, puja, before sunset. They are all sitting on pillows listening to the chanting Kempo reading a sacred text. From time to follow him in chorus rhythmically swaying the body back and forth. The same movement that I have seen in the madrassa. O Jerusalem in front of the Wailing Wall. That behind this hypnotic movement there is a mnemonic trick that eludes us in the West? At times some
Monaco rattled a bell that is placed close to the book he is reading. The Drupon, the teacher of meditation, a huge drum beats hanging from the ceiling with a curved wooden clapper. My presence does not seem to bother too much and then I sit in a corner to observe. The ceremony lasts for another hour. The voice of Kemp, candle smoke, the thud of the drum, and endlessly repeating phrases with a frequency constant make me slip into a strange state of hypnosis.
When the prayer ends are the same monks that shook me from the torpor in which they are immersed. Surrounding me, laughing. Why, I wonder, are always so happy? They want to look into the viewer of my camera. They want to see all the pictures. Ventabren Even those who have remained in memory. Babette, Andrea, the festival of music. I'm curious. Each photograph raises comments and laughter.

The Royal Palace, the top four floors and white is closed. Kishan shake to try and find a door or window that gives. He climbs up a wall. Reaches a terrace. From looking at me and shakes his head. One child took my hand and leads me to the little school in the country, which, unlike the school of the monastery, is a cavern dark and sad. How will the children to read or decipher their notebooks without a window to enter the light side? The young teacher is very proud of me to listen to an English nursery rhyme that children recite as many small parrots. A group of mothers Cappannelli ago in the courtyard in front of the class to talk. Una di loro che porta il figlio più piccolo sulla schiena, mi prende per mano e mi costringe a fare con lei il giro del paese. Non mi vuole mostrare nulla. Vuole solo mostrarsi assieme a me. È fiera di stare in compagnia di una ingi, una straniera. 

Di ritorno alla casa della sorella del re, ritrovo Juliette, la francese che era rimasta a Jomosom in attesa dei suoi amici bloccati dal maltempo a Pokhara. Con lei il suo fidanzato/guida nepalese e altri sei francesi. Più una quindicina di portatori e una decina di muli. Si dirigono anche loro a Lho Manthang ma da là prenderanno un percorso diverso dal nostro che li porterà direttamente al santuario di Muktinath. Per un paio di giorni almeno, purtroppo, non saremo più soli. 

I nostri porter sono visibilmente infastiditi dalla presenza dell’altra spedizione. Il fidanzato di Juliette è un bel ragazzo che parla correntemente francese. Sto chiacchierando con lui davanti a una tazza di té quando vedo Kishan che tenta di attirare la mia attenzione. Chiedo scusa, lo seguo, e lui mi porta da Goma, al piano terra. Non è un uomo buono quello, mi dice la guida. A Kathmandu lo conoscono tutti. Poi, con grande solennità, mi svela che ha un’altra famiglia, dei figli, e che trascura la moglie. D’estate, ogni estate, se ne va con la straniera, la francese, che è anche la sua migliore procacciatrice di clienti. Lo devo sapere, mi dice Goma. La cosa ai loro occhi deve essere talmente grave che per solidarietà decido di escludere il ragazzo dalla cerchia dei miei amici. La sera, quando mi invita nella loro cucina a bere una tisana, adduco una scusa. Devo scrivere, gli dico. Goma e gli altri porter mi stanno osservando. Poi quando lui se ne va, chinano il capo e sorridono sollevati.