This Path Called Life

occurring august 12th or so 2006

I had planned on sticking to the trail ringing Lugu lake, but there isn't one, just the damn road. so there i am heading straight east away from Ku Tai Shan, "Lion Mountain" and i decide to climb up the bluff there to see if i can head along the ridge running south along the lake's east side. I do about 50 meters of free climbing, going carefully of course, three points contact at all times, and the rocks are PERFECT, just awesome, weather-pocketed and solid. I get up there and see the lake from up high, a spill of cobalt paint on a palate of unctious mountians, and i opt for east, away. So put me three days later and i'm waaaaaaaay out there who knows where trying to turn right back to the lake (i think), winding up and down these river valleys and messing about uphill, down, around, backtrack, overexert, little food, dark with no place to sleep.

the first night i'm looking for accomodation with little result besides a drunk guy offering his gas shed bed in spite of his vociferously negative wife, and finally get taken another 4 km down a road, then across some rice paddies, through some streams, this guy leading me, indicating a hot shower and a bed. we get there at dark and he leads me down some steps into a courtyard with a nice oblong pool with...the worst hotsprings in the world off to the left!!! The place i'd been the day before with a nice group of kids. So i slept in a hotel frequented by lovers, oh baby oh baby and flies, after having been warned to stay inside for my own safety.

next day, walking walking, my only food some coconut cookies, still heading east, like a moron, down this road to its end where i turn and hit a cattle trail, giong southeast now. that was a relatively mellow day actually. having learned from day before, i sought a room earlier in the day AND in a bigger town. Found a local hotel, full, so i got to sleep with the 85 yearold owner in the kitchen. good food, the guy was really funny, nice furry hat. later his grandson, who spoke a bit of english, popped by and we went out to his aunt's place for some chicken feet and sunflower seeds.

next day, early, ba-ba bread in hand, i head out, having been told that if i go arond this mountain, then up, i'll see the lake, "it's very close, i used to climb it every day when i was little". Hmmm, no see lake. I climb another bluff, slipping on the first hold and bloodying my hand a bit (wet shoes) then fording a murderous river (my FEET! those rocks rocked me) losing half my water into my backpack (loose cap) and breaking a strap, losing a sock (i got it back) and running out of food, that was a tough day...except all that happened within an hour. i take a sharp right, now sure that i need to head back this way (good thing too) and scale a rather steep (scrambling hand and foot) peak and walking for a good three hours on top. hit a nice mountain meadow with red flowers, then a strenuous hour climb straight up the highest peak i could see, following trails of course. I tested my mettle as they say and went straight up without stopping. i passed, but out of food and low on water, i overexerted myself and suffered greatly the rest of the day, another 6 hours or so, being forced to stop and collect myself every 5 minutes as i scoured and devoured the tiny wild strawberries of the area.

Got a bit of rain as I straggled through the forest, having refilled my water bottles in the high cool streams (no ill effects so far). Really suffering, lying down occasionally as my stomach did the old you-worked-too-hard-time-to-puke thing. finally see a shack way down below as night descends among the yaks and grass. I skip down the mountain(keep my legs between myself and the ground) after having just come up the other side (i hate that), exhausted, and hit up some cattleherders for a place to stay. they live up there in the warm season in shacks created from split trees with gaping spaces and no chimney. the inside was black from smoke, there were two mats, one on each side of the fire, and about 12 people inside. i was fed open-fire baked potatoes, humoured and given the whole mat, feeling very relaxed and safe. in the morning i gave him his choice of a dollar bill US or 100 mongolian tog rog. he took the tog rog becuz 100 is more than 1, despite my explanation of the exchange rate. (1200 tog rog to 1 us dollar)

day four and i'm wasted. i'll take it easy today i tell myself. yeah. down and down and winding down this mountain valley, will it EVER end? No. A lengthy foray with three guard dogs (thank god chinese dogs are small!) the nice new rip in your pants providing ventilation, and the burst of adrenaline elicited a solid climb up to see where I'd gone wrong in my directions from my host the night before...oh yeah, you go down, stay on the right side and hit a valley....OR, go left, like i did, and hit a canyon you have to skirt, winding along peaks and dipping down to the river, no food all day and questionable water. I wind up with this bluff behind me, a steep steep slide down to the river in front, as a hot and hungry man on a mountain goat "trail". i climb up to the peak, using bamboo, grass, swearwords and what remaining strength i have, and see that i have to go all the way back down to the river. which i do, running sliding, sufing down the hillside using the small stands of bamboo and rocks to slow myself.

Four o'clock at this point i'm wasted, my knees are sore and my stomach is eating itself. i decide to evince pity from the nearest farmhouse by pretending acute malnutrition...which really ends up alienating them more than anything, but i get three baked potatoes and a refill of hot tea (in my plastic water bottle...ahhh! cancer!) I rest for about half an hour to an audience of a dozen dirty (and really cute) kids. Then head down to the river proper for a lovely hike toward town, which i'm assured, is two hours away. Right. Dark convenes to put the pressure on, and I hit a junction. Fortunately I see a group of people camping out under a large overhang by the tributary. I ask directions and get convinced to stay the night. We stay up and eat, ohhh, food, and sing to the stars, shadows and fireflies, then hey, where's my bed? uhhh, here, take some empty sacks for a mattress and this dusty horseblanket for cover. FUCK! I probably could have made town had i not stopped for so long, but now i am proper fucked. So, enterprising chap that i am, I heat a dozen rocks in the fire and pile them around me for warmth, rotating them every couple hours as they cooled. I did not sleep well. eventually i moved next to the fire, then in it, then became fire after the guy tried to screw me out of some money in the morning. I only had a 100 yuan note, and he claimed not to have enough change, coaxing a cool 35 yuan out of me...almost. we had negotiated a 5 yuan fee for food and sleep (snort!) and i wasn't about to give in.

like the cowherder, he wasn't interested in the 1 dollar US note, but liked the 100 tog rog, 100 obviously being worth more than 1. i felt bad, having ripped him off, until he pulled out another wad of money that would have been enough to give me my 95 in change. ASSHOLE (albeit the only one i encountered my whole trip!) Terse goodbyes and sanjians and i'm off toward the valley at 4:30 am, which, i'm told, is at most 2 hours downstream. A pleasant early morning hike stretches to six hours with no breaks, and I hit the paved road to Lugu Fu and comfort. Except it's a five hour walk up this hill in mid day heat after four days of hiking. I had almost made it before i flagged a dump truck. Another two hours of hell weren't worth saying i'd hiked the whole way. i didn't recognize any of the scenery...leading me to believe i hadn't made it nearly as far around as i'd thought.

turns out i'd gone about one quarter around (clockwise) and hit the road coming from the southeast. But i'd covered some ground, about 120 km. I sat by the lake and wrote, ate with a construction crew with a loaned bowl and chopsticks (generous people abound around there), then hiked back to Lige, the point of origin, and strolled into the guesthouse a further developed individual. Zhaxi, owner of the guesthouse and famous 10 year straight Tibet-trekker, was duly impressed with my trek, and i had a lovely evening chatting up some new group of 20 somethings from Guangdong. then I slept, a lot.

That was the climax of my trip and as such I was plumb wore out afterward, but thoroughly exercised in unfettered freedom and boundless appreciation.

We pay the money, we butcher the driver's name: "Toga? You like Animal House?" we buck and vibrate for several days across the wide Mongolian steppe toward the promise of a real night in a real yurt, or ger.
The old, abused mountains dropped like piles of wet brick sit heavily on the speckled brown, green carpet, propping up the swirled blue and white sky.
A long, hot drive, backtracking for misplaced smokes; driver (Togra?) scouring the dusty, dry, litter-strewn shoulder for the addiction hidden under his sweaty ass. Someone took a sponge and with one streaky, waxy pass wiped half the color from the landscape, leaving the distant hills and mountains that much more unreachable.
Sand dunes and grass lope off across the wide expanse, entwined like chromatic yin-yang. The boundlessness invites you to ride as far and fast as you like to sample infinity.

The hot heat pulled through grey Russian metal scorches as we are drop-kicked across the lively terrain to where sprouts a wavering cluster of dwellings.
Backed by wind-smoothed lonely hills, the gers and orbiting flocks of goats and sheep stagger under the heat. Sun makes a bowed beast of any food-chainer and we hustle out of her gaze like the soundly punished. The guest ger is slightly cooler than outside, the ground where I apply myself a bit more so, and we wait out the afternoon heat. Why am I here, doing this?
Stepping outside two hours later unleashes rays of sandpaper that ravages the flesh and grows a stifling matted nest on the dark-headed. Camels, combination geeky adolescents and bemused caricatures of your favorite celebrity, flip flop through the swelter. Their round, loose muscles jump and fall under patchy, bristly skin as they glide past the square doorway. Necks shaped like bludgeon-adapted cardboard tubes gurgle out bent, conflicted cries as the creatures fold legs carefully to the ground. I go confuse myself with midday dreaming.

Evening arrives with a nice cloud-cover, and we venture out in the charged air on horseback. My Arthurian steed 'Lance'; my Aussie compatriate's less romantically monickered 'Fuck Knuckle'; and Jess' perfect man of a steed remaining mysteriously nameless mount up and start the horses' learned one mile loop. Wooden saddles abraiding thighs, buttocks and overall enjoyment, we saunter, chide, wander toward our set of dunes planted enticingly amidst leafy scrub and stiff-bladed grasses. Jess coaxes a gallop out of our trifecta of stunted winners and we jolt and grimace our way across the wide plain under the slow-motion violence of a storm readying itself to berate the area. Our churlish guide gestures with increasing frequency and vocalization to the imminent curtain of ferocious weather, convincing us to head back just as the wind picks up enough to get Charlie Brown's kite up and waving.

We duck out of the wind into the host ger, room of action: kitchen, living room, bedroom, uhhh, gameroom... this evening it's the barroom. Practical family ger: a central stove with fermented milk drink simmering; hangings on the dim curving walls, brightly painted roof spars taking the eyes for a wagonride. Low beds with heavy blankets, and people, a family convened like any night to spend some quality time together.

Quality time to observe the traditional Mongolian toast. Never pass anything between the two roof supports like a shot of vodka finger-dipped, three times flicked and forehead dotted. Consumed, repeated, feminist beside me bristling when handed a smaller portion, to be finished by the boyfriend.

Six shots later it's quality time to pee. Roll to a semblence of upright, muscles almost working smoothly, and out into the tawny breeze. Standing as man decided, I miterate near the outhouse, pants open like a soloist's collar. Five thousand tons of dark cloud weights the upper half of my tremulous vision. Slowly and richly I absorb the moment. A preponderance of appreciation and excitement surges through me, almost matching the charged panorama of sulky colors washed over orchestral plains and sentinal hills. A quickening wind adds the necessary physical touch, urging a full grasp of the event due to unfold.

I watch with anticipation as a few raindrops bite earth, but the foreboding, fantastic picture stays poised, with only the wind as an indicator of time's passage. Then I'm standing swaying before a masterful watercolor, perfectly captured just before the action happens, and I'm left waiting. I guess that's the essence of Mongolia. There are no spectators, you have to be in there like the prairie dogs, living.

I return to my human enclosure, to the concern of my companions and an "actually that was really good" rendition of the Star Spangled Banner swapped for a deep-toned "Waltzing Matilda". We shut out the real: the undelivered storm and prairie dogs.

Every year prairie dogs are responsible for several deaths due to the unhappy planting of a galloping hoof in a hole. But to see them saluting the bright orange morning like the grateful children of some wondrous mother, I am inspired to do the same. So as I stand outside in the fresh dawn light, life continuing unabated all around me, I stop and say 'thanks mom.' and I'm pretty sure the universe embodied here on Earth as life answered with a resounding yes.