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Anand assured my friend Judy and me we'd easily find his office. It's next door to the German bakery, he said. Cafe Amigos. I'd spent most of my life resisting pastries with zealous discipline, so uneasiness with Anand's landmark--and, therefore, Anand--washed over me. But Judy, who didn't share my obsession with being thin, decided Anand's proximity to cake was a sign that he would be the perfect guide for our four-day trek in the Indian Himalaya.
Since I read Lost Horizon when I was eleven, I'd longed to visit the high Himalaya. I knew if I stumbled upon Shangri-la I'd never return to ordinary life. More recently I'd read Autobiography of a Yogi and imagined if I ever made it to the Himalaya, I'd meet a holy man in a cave and instantly be changed forever. All of my character defects would melt away and I'd return to everyday life a better person, a happier person.
But having actually landed in Southeast Asia my overriding goal became escaping the sweltering equatorial heat. To hell with holy men. I would have sold my soul for a cool breeze. For Judy, who was more tolerant of the temperature--more tolerant, in general--trekking topped her priority list.
Judy and I chose Anand as our guide for one simple reason: he answered his phone. We'd called several other Manali-based trekking companies with no luck. While everyone in India has a cell phone, few people answer those phones. Even fewer have voicemail. Judy told Anand we'd be staying at Johnson's Lodge in Manali. "Well," he said, disapprovingly. "If you want to spend a lot of money..."
We don't, Judy said. As luck would have it, Anand himself had a guesthouse. He would rent us a room with a private bath for three hundred rupees, less than seven dollars a night. I was dubious. Johnson's Lodge came highly recommended by two middle-aged Israeli women I met in yoga class in Rishikesh. They were both stylish and sensible.Their Rishikesh restaurant recommendations proved divine. But Judy figured foregoing television and room service would be good prep for trekking, especially for me, a virgin camper. Besides, Judy reasoned, if Anand's guesthouse has private baths, how bad could it be? I gave in. I believe in choosing my battles. Plus Judy is so damned nice; I was growing weary of being the difficult one.
With our trek and lodging in place the only thing we needed to do was transport ourselves from a listless town in the arid Punjab to Himachal Pradesh's lush adventure sports haven--Manali. Judy spotted a sign that boasted a "deluxe" bus daily, sevenhours, about two dollars. Based on conversations with other travelers, I suspected the word deluxe was being bandied about frivolously. I resurrected my bitchy side and we hired a private car--eighty dollars, plus tip.
Manali lies in the Kullu Valley, which was once known as the "End of the Habitable World." Surrounded by the perpetually snow-capped, towering Himalaya, it's the highest point in India that's reachable year-round. Traveling by road in India is neverpleasant--scary chaos prevails with cars weaving in and out of traffic, as if making the letter "X," barely managing to avoid collisions, beeping incessantly. The drive to Manali, however, was not completely awful. The Kullu-Manali "Highway" winds along the Beas River, a gloriously raging white-water cacophony that puts the Ganges to shame. From my almost comfy SUV vantage point, I witnessed locals whose rides were a bit more exotic: a youngcouple crossing the Beas in a flying fox (a cage that shuttles people, chickens, goats, etc. across the river like laundry on a clothes line) and a man dressed in business attire, clutching a briefcase, as he rode to work on an elephant.
The town itself draws throngs of tourists but Judy and I were just slightly off-season. Late enough in the spring to make trekking possible, yet early enough to have dodged most other travelers. Locals, including Anand, seemed genuinely happy to see us.
We were happy to see an area of India that is breathtakingly beautiful. Wood and slate cottages with slanted roofs, and ancient stone houses surrounded by pine and deodar trees, dot the town's emerald slopes. Stark rock-faced mountains with waterfalls crashing down them in some places, trickling down in others, accent the greenery. And all around, the Himalaya ascend in the strikingly near distance, proud, powerful,foreboding.
Judy and I had scheduled two nights in Manali before the trek but we didn't make it two hours in Anand's Guesthouse. The beds had no linens; the bathroom no towels. One bare light bulb on the ceiling only partially illuminated the room, which we assumed was a good thing. The room seemed appropriate for someone who'd been convicted of a serious crime, not baby-boomer travelers. We might have overlooked these flaws (seven bucks a night, after all), but lumbering across the wall directly over my bed, soaking up the dim light, was a spider the size of a kitten. I actually like spiders, but not enough to canoodle with one. Judy and I grabbed our bags and quickly snagged a room at the nearby Dragon Guesthouse. A dramatic upgrade for less than ten dollars a night. ******
"This will be coming with me," I said to Anand as I handed him my backpack and a pile of winter clothes I had just bought in Manali. "But I will not be carrying them." I shook my head slowly, wagging my index finger right to left just to make sure I was being clear. Anand took the pack, the fleecy, wooly vest, the scratchy purple sweater and the puffy, down jacket I borrowed from his co-worker and nodded, a resigned smile tightening his lips. "I'm setting the tone right now," I said to Judy.
It rained the entire first day of the trek. I hate rain and silently blamed Anand for its existence. I demanded an umbrella. Anand rolled his eyes. "No one has ever asked for an umbrella during a trek before," he said.
"So, do you have one or not?" I snapped.
Anand took off his jacket and handed it to me to put on over my soaked clothes. To say I was miserable would be like saying Mt. Everest is tall. Judy, on the other hand, was demonstrating to perfection her Girl Scout way of life. Not only did she wear appropriate rain gear, she also had actual trekking sticks (they looked like ordinary ski poles to me) to help her through the higher elevations where there would be snow and ice.
I sat down on a rock, irrationally hoping that some donkey or yak or scooter or helicopter or God himself would miraculously materialize and I could hitch a ride. Judy doubled back to check on me.
"Are you drinking enough water?" she asked. "It seems like you usually drink more water."
"I'm trying to kill myself," I said. "Through dehydration. Then, this day will finally be over."
"That won't work," Judy said. "You'll pass out and Anand and I will have to carry you. You'll be a bigger pain in the ass than you already are."
By the time we reached the Iceland Hotel in Solang, our first stop on the trek, I had completely given up. I told Anand I wanted a jeep to take me back to Manali, I absolutely could not spend another day in the cold rain.
"Have some faith," he said, and reminded me that we stopped at a temple along the way to pray to Lord Surya for sun. He looked out the window at the milky sky and declared, "Clouds that touch the heavens higher than the moon signal a sunny day tomorrow." I let out a snort and muttered under my breath that he'll be sorry if I suffer from hypothermia because of his refusal to return me to some semblance of civilization. He told me to eat a big dinner; food would make me feel better. "Try not to be negative," he said.
Don't be negative! What a great idea! Thanks, Anand. If only I could do that--not be negative--I probably wouldn't have had to shell out a hundred grand on therapy over the past sixteen years. Negativity dogs me, like this constant rain in the Indian Himalaya on the brink of monsoon season.
Yet, as Anand promised, the next day the sun wiped every last cloud out of the sky. The temperature rose a good thirty-five degrees. The gentle slopes of Solang that offer skiing during the winter months, were crawling with summery activity. Huge plastic balls with people inside them rolled down the hills--"zorbing." Anand worked the crowd like a small-town mayor running for reelection. He knew everyone--the mountaineer institute climbers, the horseback-riding guides, the indigents begging for handouts, the paragliding instructors.
"I want to try paragliding," I told Anand.
"Really?" he said. "You?"
Judy asked some prudent questions. How were the pilots trained? How long had they been paragliding? How well was the equipment maintained? What were the safety standards?
"It's safe," Anand shrugged."There was a bad accident last year. Someone died. So everyone is more careful now."
Paragliding in a remote part of India with an unknown quality of pilots and equipment was not a good idea, Judy decided. But I chose "not to be negative," forked over four hundred rupees, signed the release and off I went with my tandem paragliding guy who spoke no English. We trudged up to the top of the eight thousand foot drop where another pilot explained that I needed to run really fast when I was told to "Go!" and keep running until we were in the air. To land, I was supposed to pike my legs and be plopped down on my butt.
The tandem team that took off before me crashed after floating only a few feet. Great, I thought, I'm feeling really positive now. Five pilots on the slope screamed at the client, making sure she knew it was her fault for not running hard enough. When my instructor and I had an easy take-off, I felt the urge to gloat but instead relaxed into the floating sensation as the pilot made leisurely loops trying to stretch out the ten-minute flight. Up-close, I scanned the mountains for caves. As we reached the landing area, I could see Anand standing in the middle of the field with my camera, snapping photos, looking like a proud dad.
"You had a lot of fun," he said. "You are much braver than I thought."
He asked, in a voice that implied Northern India had cornered the market on natural beauty, how it felt to soar high above the most spectacular scenery in the world. I was tempted to tell the truth--compared to my twice-weekly flying trapeze classes it was kind of boring. But I didn't want to seem unappreciative, so I said, instead, "I felt like a butterfly."
After the paragliding, Anand walked alongside me for hours. He told me about his childhood in Manali, how he'd wanted to be a police officer but couldn't afford the twenty-five thousand dollar bribe to enter the training program, how he'd threatened to kill the magistrate who demanded the bribe, thereby ensuring he'd have to take a different career path. He said that his father, sister and brother live in his house, along with his wife and two children. His mother died of cancer a year earlier. I didn't tell him my father died of cancer too, around that same time, because despite my bountiful foibles and inherent self-centeredness, I understood what Anand wanted most from me--silence.
Just before we got to camp, Anand watched me skipping across log bridges thrown haphazardly over rivers. He was holding Judy's arm, guiding her with baby steps. With an unflattering degree of shock, he noted that I was agile and strong, a natural on the mountain.
"Yep," I agreed. "I'm fine as long as it's not raining."
"It rains a lot in the mountains," Anand said. "It rains a lot in life. You can't let rain make you negative." He picked up a small stone and rolled it in his palm, delighted by its beauty, then handed it to me.
"He's training you," Judy said. First he'd have me carry a stone, then perhaps my lunch. By next year's trek, I'd be carrying my own backpack.
Later, at dinner, Anand pushed second servings like an Italian mother at Sunday supper. He insisted I eat an enormous helping of the banana cream pudding concoction despite my insistence that I was full.
"You're too skinny," Anand said, pointing to my hips. "Skinny people are always difficult. You would be happier if you ate dessert."