Quanzhou, China

Crask, Scotland

Macao, South China

Macao, Coloane. Tyfoon force 8, they closed the bridges, inhabitants were advised to stay home. It lasted for three days.

Macao, Av. Almeida Ribeiro.

Tashkurgan, Xinjiang, China.

They suddenly stopped in front of me. Tashkurgan, Xinjiang, China.

Hunza - Kunjrab

Around Baltit, Hunza, Pakistan. Because I was feeling cold and gloomy. This one scares me somehow, life can be very fragile in some places.
Kunjrab pass, Pakistan-China border. Loads of wild marmots and Chinese soldiers racing on hairy camels, unfortunately not included.

Jumbesi - Nepal

Thubten Choling — Jumbesi, Nepal.

Bettyhill Scotland

New direction for this blog, or maybe just one more. Sutherland, North Scotland

Rawalpindi - Pakistan

Kalpa - Roghi - Kinnaur

Kalpa - On the way to Roghi

Kalpa - On the way to Roghi

This kind of blue is so fragile that it could break with a breeze. I've met these shapes of blue twice in North of India. The first time was in the outskirts of Kalpa, the second at Key Gompa in Spiti. You might catch them early in the morning, or just by luck. This blue is so light that you won't stop thinking about it for a while because you've never seen it before. It's like facing the sun it can blind you. That's blue for boys and pink for girls, I guess. Floating like a mobile above the baby's cradle or just an nice impression in the air.

Kinnaur Kailash - India

The Kinnaur Kailash in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh with an altitude of 6349m. Seen from Reckong Peo during a lucky spell since it was hiding behind clouds most of the time. I wanted to have a good view on the giant so I started roaming the town. The search ended up in the tribunal yard, I guess that's the best I could afford. A local farmer was staring at me as I sat against the court's walls. He could be from the other bank of the Suttlej and I should have rented a room possibly with an arm chair and stare at the Kailash for a good while.

Unit#118

Check the not so new photography wesite: Unit#118

Nako - Kinnaur - India

Nako - Labche La (3662m)

Nako - Reo Purgyal

Malling - Nako

Nako (3565m) - Horizon

Nako (3565m) - Horizon

Nako (3565m) - Mani stones

Nako (3565m) - Shelter

Nako (3565m) - Neighbouring village

Malling - Nako - Bus halt

Malling - Nako - Bus halt

Kalpa - Kinnaur - India

Kalpa (2800m) - School

Kalpa - Jorkanden (6473m)

Kalpa (2800m) - Horizon

Kalpa (2800m) - Horizon

Kalpa (2800m) - Prayer flags

Kalpa (2800m) - Orchards

Kalpa (2800m)

INDIA

Dalhousie

I heard a morning Qawali song on my way out of Dalhousie. A soft one with no percussion it was just a sad voice and harmonium. It was coming from the town hung on the steep slope. One could here it over the scarps of the mountain range.



The journey from Pathankot to Dalhousie leaves the Indian hot and arid plain through a sudden change of landscape to a rather steep climbing until we reach 2000m. I could see the immensity of that southern plain and also its dryness, according more to the general idea of Indian terrain. That contrasting rupture with the appearance of fertile foothills turning into high mountains marked the beginning, the birth of the Himalayan range. On the way up the landscape was turning into dark green alpine forests, a relief from the heat of the dust of the Punjabi desert, as if somebody was finally taking that hot burden off from my shoulders.

We halted for a while at Dunera, a tiny spot on the way. Not much were seen over there just a nice impression of orange juices and chili seeds among the street vendors.

There were local Christian nuns on the bus, a rarity in those places. I remembered crucifixion and the blood in the palms, Christians were burning and lute solos were heard. When the boys asked his whereabouts, they replied he was foolishly, playing with betel nuts.

The old colonial British houses looked like to be filled with ghosts and spider webs, maybe rats and corroded chains. Some abandoned in a dirty advanced state of putrefaction.

Some bloke grabbed me by my harm at the station and brought me to a rather nice slump where I would come to stay for a few days. Good deals can be made in wintertime during the touristic off-season, I was given a veranda with views to the scarped alpine slopes, and more interesting with chairs.



It´s really happening at exactly the same time in a faraway place, I always thought it was a tale you read on books or see in movies, but it´s really happening, living several infinities of realities at the same time.

During the first hours in Dalhousie, I fell into what I call the traveler´s dilemma, the stupid question "what am I doing here?" was constantly bursting into my mind.

Early the next morning I had the answer, from Ghandi Chowk right from the middle of the square, I could see the horizon line, the snow capped summits of the Pir Panjal forming a natural barrier hiding Kashmir and Jammu.

Those mythological gardens stood forbidden to me (and others) because of the political cul-de-sac created after the bloody partition. Indian TV used to show killings in their news everyday, four, five separatists down today, their dead corpses lined up at the boots of soldiers in turbans. I remarked only one percent of this information about the war in Kashmir was getting to the West. Nonetheless, everyday...

From Gandhi Chowk the Pir Panjal and the Himalayan system appears in an almost 180 degrees panoramic view which made those tired thoughts of mine, vanished completely. The Himalayan peaks of snow in the morning light were just presenting all their majesty and true beauty before my sight. What hidden gardens and stories of death were to be seen and heard in those secret valleys?

In Dalhousie, there are colored religious Tibetan low-relief carved paintings on the rocks along the way to Subbash Chowk, Padmasambahva and other Buddhas and heroes amidst the hordes of wild monkeys in the trees.

The Tibetans have a market at Gandhi Chwok that looks like a cave or a tunnel. Their exile in a foreign land have probably made them hide from the sun.



In the nomad´s tent I saw a huge crowd of Tibetan monks, the Kashmiri Muslim coolies with ropes on their shoulders and Hindu women dressed up in saris, wrapped in a Indian shawl, I saw them vanishing in a mirage.

There was a graffiti on the Pathankot´s station's walls that said "Read Vedas". A poster of the Revolutionary Students was hanging underneath one of the rightist party. On the poster you could read "The world is ours".

And then with a speech of the size of the universal soul and a voice like thunder, the beggar guiding with both hands on his shoulders the sick boy with Christmas garlands at his forehead, and dressed up like a holy man, burst before me like some kind of vision from another world. The boys were turning into holy men and the saddhu was just an arrogant beggar.

NEPAL

Maps

I post here a few maps that were missing at the time, I took a few photocopies that I got on the way, nothing very precise. The lack of information can delay, mislead or equivocate the journey. Guides are always out of date or simply don't exist.

Nepal

Jiri - Jumbesi - Região do Everest

Katmandú - Sul Nepal

Katmandú

NEPAL

Budanath

I went to Nepal with almost no information, the decision was improvised after a few days spent in Bodgaya.



Katmandhu was the begining and the end of my journey in Nepal. To run from the unbearable heat of the Indian spring, I decided to cross the border with Nepal and make a drastic change of altitude. It was 40 degrees in Lucknow at nine o'clock in the morning, a merely 100 metres by foot meant to get completely soaked in my own sweat.
That was in April, May. And about eating, that was impossible. My organism was just refusing to swallow any kind of local spiced food, it simply burnt horribly down my esophagus in such a way that I couldn't feed myself properly.



Only cereals, yogurts and such light food were accepted. I must have lost a fair number of kilos after Varanasi. From there I went to Bihar. The extreme heat of one of the poorest regions of India has ended with any residue of good will that was left. I had to go up. To change of altitude. So, Nepal that was.

Swayambunath

The entrance into Nepal is done through the Terai, a region still in the plains at the foothills of the high mountains, with a climate, a vegetation and fauna very specific. A area ideal to see elephants and other big mammals. The region is also sensitive to outbreaks of malaria that are usually heavily fatal.



After the Terai, still very alike the Indian plains, the road starts to climb gradually. A huge difference can be felt between the climates of low and medium altitude. A relieve for the empoverished Western metabolism.



Katmandhu is rather agreeable, despite the abundant hippie folkclore, which, by what I understood, almost disappeared to give place to the regular incarnations of controlled turism. My photocopies mentioned a place called Freak Street which, it seems, was a famous destination in the seventies, if I saw it I didn't notice it.



Katmandhu is a good place to recover energies, rest a bit, and get ready for some more. From there I wanted to get into Tibet through the only border that connects the two "countries", but after a vain research, I've found out, that the border was closed to individual travellers. To find a group of four people, and pay the prices and impositions of the Chinese tourism, would be very difficult and oppressing to me.



So I've stayed a few weeks in Katmandhu, drifting through cafés, bookshops and places before going to Jiri and to the high Hymalayas. Then I came back a few weeks later, the North being a cul-de-sac.



I've tried to take advantage of my spare time to see the local places of interest, but I missed some important spots like the ghats, the shores of the river. I had a few outdated fotocopies as a guide, and nothing else, that's why. Nevertheless I didn't miss a jewel like Budanath, one of the biggest and most impressive stupas of the Tibetan Buddhism universe. Swayabunath, the monkey temple, I also did not.



Aware of the fact that embassies and consulates are located in the capital, I decided to get a visa for Pakistan, my new alternative to Tibet, and another one, a transit visa to cross India to Amritsar, the border with Pakistan. The bloody visa cost me a fortune, contrarily to my Belgian friend, who got his for a much cheaper price, and that probably due to agreements between governments.



As far as I understood, Portugal wouldn't be, at the time, on their lists, nor should have diplomatic relations with Pakistan, a misery. Yves stared at me with a mocking expression, for getting a much cheaper visa than mine. One of his few victories.



We split after a memorable walk through the ways that lead to Everest. I've followed to India, this time by the Western side of Nepal, and then to the border with Pakistan. I don't believe in paranormal phenomema, but extraordinarily, I came to meet him again a few weeks later in Beijing, a few good thousand of miles to the North, and in the middle of a crowd that can only exist in Beijing, a city of more tham 11 million of inhabitants. To my big surprise, there he was standing, enjoying one of those countless popular bawls, usually organised in the street by the neighbourhoods during the hot days of summer.



The big terrace was right next to where we were, full of people, of glasses of beer and of multitudes of Chinese little dishes that are usual in those restaurants in open air. A street thing.



I use to say to myself, the skies are different, the gods are diferrent. A formula that I won't forget, also valid to cross any unknown terrain.

Katmandhu

Katmandhu - Durbar Square