Days 4 through 7: A Walk to Heaven, A Descent to Reality

After four days of trekking, I’m back at my beloved house boat. I’ve showered as best I could, there was no soap or hot water and I had to beg for a towel. I’m quite sun burnt and fairly tired. Highest on my mind right now is the loss of my head lamp, which I never got to use even once. Usually when you lose something, you want to know that you got a little use out of it first. No such luck. Another expensive item I chose to invest in for naught. Another bad precedent. Another bad omen. Another way India wants to say to me “quit now before it gets worse”. I’m not quitting though. I wouldn’t say my spirits are all the way up, but they’re not quite as morose as where I left it at the end of day 3. The trek was, altogether, I’d say a good experience. There were moments where I was thinking wow this is amazing this is just what traveling should be, and others where I felt wretched and used and lonely. I want to give a huge shout out to Amazon for devising the kindle. Such a lovely device. The kindle has been my sole source of solace through all the many dead periods of space, the between things times, being dumped in a corner and told to just… wait. I’ve been reading Shantaram, which is a horrible travel companion for India because it’s about a guy that very much succeeds in having his authentic adventure and earning the love and respect of all. I mean he goes through some really brutal shit too, but I’d rather survive prison torture and heroine withdrawal than be solicited for another tip. The driver took me to a few locations to pick up food for the trek, including, much to my delight, a live chicken. Definitely not your typical trail mix and jerky type of affair. The drive up to the valley where the trek was to take off from is very beautiful. The Kashmiri houses are like Swiss chalets built from brick and corrugated tin. They’re expansive and hold multiple generations of families. I understand why people call Kashmir the Switzerland of Asia. It almost is… except for the mounds of trash everywhere and the thick smoggy haze reminding you that you are still in the chokehold of the third world. As we rise into the mountain, I wait for the smoggy haze cloud of India to disappear, it never does. No matter how high and far into the mountain you go, Indias garbage air follows you, reminding you there’s no escape. And the driving… the driving. Well, you can guess how the driving is, but even then, you can’t really imagine how the driving is. Every 10 seconds there’s a flirtation with death, 3 inches away from plunging down a steep cliff or heading straight into a truck or a group of school children. For the driver it’s just another day. His face gives nothing away, but he expresses himself eloquently through his preferred medium, the horn. He announces his arrival at a bend, he alerts the car ahead they are too slow, he tells old men and young children to get out of the way, he informs sheep and cows that they are inconvenient, and he does it all with the light tough of his hand, never slowing down to make sure the message was properly received. I have always sort of enjoyed reckless driving when traveling, it can be exhilarating. I love the machismo in the way latinos drive and I have faith in their confidence. Here, though, it feels like we get a little too close to testing fate. And yet, here I am, unscathed. 

Finally, we arrive in the village that serves as a base camp. It’s a town that seems to exist for the purpose of trek tourism, but has still held on to its character. It has to be said the Kashmiris are warm and friendly folks, and some of them speak English pretty well too. I hadn’t been told this explicitly, but I was to do a home stay here on the first night. My first instinct was that I was being scammed out of another day of trekking, but I went along for the ride as always. I dropped my things off at Qadirs house, one of the house boat guys. His kids were very cute. I sat on his living room/kitchen rug space and was provided with tea. I was then roused to go on a cheeky little day hike into the valley. I met the guide, an old man with few words but smiling eyes, someone you can like easily. A small girl ran alongside us. I thought she was probably coming along for a handout but it became evident later on that she was his daughter. She spoke a tiny bit more English than her father, and by that I mean she knew the word “come” and the word “yes” and the word “slow”. Which is all you really need I suppose. The man bought some coconut slices from a vendor on the trail and gave me some. It was delicious, but I was also thinking great now I need to tip him. It was a fine little jaunt, not much elevation gain but we followed the stream and I got to drink some Kashmiri water and dip my toes in. At some point the man decided he really liked me and he gave me a firm handshake, then took me to his house. I’m greeted by truly some of the most adorable children I’ve ever seen. This guy had 5 daughters, and they were all lovely and full of warm, bright smiles. Their smiles planted a spear in my icy heart and for a few transcendent minutes I managed to forget about all the scamming and the tipping I’d been coerced into. I allowed myself to believe I was just a human having a genuine human experience. The lovely family was clearly poor and didn’t have much, but they offered everything to me. Tea, cookies, corn, apples. It was wonderful because they were wonderful. All smiles, no ill intentions. The oldest daughter was 16 and spoke decent English, the girl who’d come on the hike was 12 and the rest were younger. The 12 year old was a singer, and she sang a traditional Kashmiri song for me while one of the younger girls danced along. It was beautiful, it almost felt too good to be true. The girls invited me to play little girl games with them in the tiny field behind the house. It was all joy and laughter. And then I had to go. And it’s stupid, but I was really sad to go, and they were too. And the old man dropped me off, and he never asked for a tip. And I wish I’d given him a tip. He is the one man in all of India that deserved to be tipped. And I didn’t tip him. I went back to Qadir’s house and ate. Kashmiri food is pretty limited. Rice. Potatoes in a spicy stew. Lamb or chicken if you’re lucky. And a lot of flat bread, essentially a tortilla. It’s simple but hearty. I slept that night in another stiff bed, and was refreshed by the cool mountain air. Finally, some agreeable weather. 

I was supposed to be ready to depart for the trek at 9am. I rose from my slumber at 7am and took my chai and tortilla bread prepared by Quadir’s wife in the living room sitting on the rug. After I’d gone through two of the flavorless tortillas, she decided I needed more food and she made me an egg, served with all the slices of white bread you could want. And I mean white bread, like American super market white bread. I’d expected to find a lot of things in India, but I hadn’t counted on Ohio style pb and j white trash white bread being one of them. As any self respecting American knows, unless you’re making a PB and J, eating white bread raw is just not the move, you have to toast it. Well, that memo didn’t make its way to Kashmir I’m sad to say. Still, I fashioned a little sandwich with the egg and raw white bread and ate. The eggs were far too salty, and the tea was far too sweet. It has to be said that Kashmiri men are much better cooks than the women. But the women’s smiles can really light up a mans heart, and so I forgive them their shortcoming. Once I’d been fed and had all the milky sugar tea I could drink… I waited. The children came and watched really horrifically bad Indian cartoons on the television and I took out my Kindle. Quadirs wife told me to sit outside, “sun is guhrrd”, so I sat outside and continued to read in the company of a wisened old man with dark skin and orange dyed hair. Hours passed with no word. Quadir had told me he was going off to see about my horse at 9am. We were getting to noon before he arrived. The funny thing with Indians is they’ll make you wait hours, and then when it’s time to go you better be ready to jump to your feet immediately. Quadir handed me my “permission” that was to be shown to any questioning Indian army personnel. I ventured up to the main road and found my guide. He was a real bumpkin of a man, with a big stupid grin on his face. I sort of liked him, sort of didn’t like him. He tied my food for the trek to a pack horse. I asked Qadir jokingly where my chicken was and he sent the guide back down to grab the chicken, saying “why didn’t you tell me?”.  Dude I’m pretty sure I paid $570 so I wouldn’t have to tell you shit. And then my very first guided trek began. 

I will never do another guided trek. As an American, and someone who has had the joy of going on a hike in America where it is free and you need no special permissions or guides, a guided trek is just a spit in the face of everything I value and the entire point of hiking and experiencing nature. These treks are not only expensive, but they impede your freedom and turn hiking into a pathetic infantilizing tourist experience. I like to hike fast. For me, this is a form of exercise, and it’s fun to do it fast. My guide didn’t like that though, he kept yelling after me to slow down. His limited English would only allow him to say “slow” over and over again. It was infuriating. I am paying to be babysat? To have a worse than normal experience and not go at my own chosen speed? How on Earth is this possible? My guide tells me how fast I should go, he tells me when it’s time to rest, time to drink water, time to eat. He eventually forced me to stay behind himself and the horse so I wouldn’t get any big ideas, which was like a death of the spirit for me. When I hike, I want to see nothing but the trail in front of me. Now I was staring up a horses ass. We stopped at a stream and I noticed the chicken was really awkwardly tied to the horse and gasping for air, so we untied it and gave it water. The guide was unable to find a suitable way to tie the chicken back on and it fell to me to carry the chicken the rest of the way, which was funny in a novel way but again, $570, and don’t forget. The entire hike, we are having to jump out of the way for flocks of sheep and other caravans of pack horses with their trekkers and nomads. This was not a trail it was a highway. In America, it’s ethical to always use the main trail so as to reduce impact and avoid social trails or herd trails. This entire  mountain face was a network of herd trails, there were limitless options. And it made sense, because it was a literal herd trail. Because all the way to the top, the most consistent and defining feature of the trail was an abundance of shit left from horses and sheep. This isn’t unique to Asia, in Europe when hiking the Pyrenees I saw cows and shit nearly up to the peaks of the mountains. It made me appreciate Americas untouched wilderness. I’m so happy the indigenous Americans never domesticated any animals, how different our national parks would be if they’d have come to exist at all. Besides animal shit, the other thing littering the trail was litter. There were all sorts of plastic bags, plastic bottles, wrappers of candies and snacks, and anything else that a sea turtle could mistake for food. At no point on this trail could you really get that ah I’m in nature feeling. Because you aren’t in nature. Yes, you’re on a mountain. Yes, the view is splendid. But no, you are not in the wild. This is tame pasture land with rubbish patches throughout. On my sprint up I passed a British couple, an Australian father son duo, some Germans, and many many Indians from all over India. We made our camp in a large clearing where many shepherd huts made of wood and stone with grassy roofs had been built. There was already a tent waiting for me on top the hut my guide inhabited. His father joined us and communicated mainly in smiles, nods, and aggressively gesturing at things, typically for me to eat more. Inside, he cooked up our chicken and we had a hearty meal of it. Thank you chicken. As the dishes were laid out in front of me, the guide and his father stared at me. I asked if they were going to eat with me and they said later. They stared as though I was their favorite television program and they couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I had my first bite and my guide looked at me quizzically. “Guhrrd?” He asked. Yes, I said, very good. It wasn’t enough. After every bite the inquisition continued. Was it still good? Had anything changed? Did I want more? It didn’t matter because he gave me more. And so it went until I had a stomach bulging with chicken and rice and potatoes. I went out to perform a bowel movement amongst the trash and sheep. The stars and milky way were there to greet me. I smiled, but also regretted that I couldn’t find my headlamp and had to use my cellphone light. At night it got much colder than expected and I actually had difficulty sleeping. 

I woke up bright and early for the big trekking day. I filled my belly with more raw white bread and a salty egg and maybe 5 cups of sugar with tea and milk added. It was time to see these damned lakes I’d heard so much about. I was only slotted for two but I pushed my guide to show me three and I know very well I could’ve at least seen 5. They distribute these lakes like the last two Harry Potter movies, it’s just a cash grab to make you spend more days trekking. But also, and I say it with modesty, I am a fantastic hiker compared to the average trekker going on holiday and everyone was impressed at how fast I was. I also happily suffered from no altitude sickness at over 3500 meters, giving me confidence to tackle the roads of Ladakh. I did suffer from a pretty bad sunburn on my forearms and my damned jew nose, which stubbornly jutted out into the sun like some kind of sun loving whore despite the best efforts of my safari hat. The safari hat did a fabulous job protecting my neck and forehead and parts of my face though, but I guess sometimes you just need to defer to good old sun screen. A lesson I already learned many times but it never hurts to sneak another in for good measure. Perhaps one day the hat industry will acknowledge the jewish problem and add a little length to its caps. The hiking was good, and the closer we got to the peak of the mountain where a glacier fed the three lakes, the fewer signs of sheep and shepherds and the shit they shat. But they were still there, and I’d occasionally pass a group of the nomadic Kashmiris hauling their horses and sheep to greener pastures. And I could still spot the odd plastic refuse, even in the most beautiful settings by the clearest purest lakes. Conversation was limited with my guide. Every now and then he’d force me to sit and rest and incessantly ploy me with his favorite questions: it’s guhrdd? Nice? Beautiful? Happy? More tea? Tea? Rest? More rest? You like Kashmir? Fast. Slow. Tired? Eat? Eat. And so it went throughout the day. Whenever I confirmed things were good or nice or anything really he gave me that big country boy simpleton grin of his and chuckled a little saying guhrrrd. He loved confirming my happiness. It was like I was constantly filling out one of those online surveys you get after buying something online asking how your experience was. Sometimes, when he’d run out of one word questions, he’d look at me and smile and say “Am’rika! super power! Guhrrd!”. I enthusiastically agreed every time. For most of the trek it was just the two of us, and there were some moments where I allowed myself to believe I was really out in the mountains on a hike. But then we’d pass another trekking group and I felt like I was at a museum in New York during peak hours. The worst was when we were sitting at lake 3, enjoying the stillness and the grandeur of the mountain, an Israeli ran to the lake and told us “I’m going full naked, ok?”. I said okay and he really did go full naked, to my guides islamic contempt, and threw himself into the lake yelling “Baruch hashem” and other Hebrew blessings. He covered his entire body in lake mud as he got out and his friend soon joined him to take pictures. I envied his freedom. He told me he’d run ahead of his guide and that they were in a large group, a privilege I didn’t have as a solo trekker. For a second, I wished I was Israeli, and that I had a large group of friends who wanted to backpack through Asia with me. And then I remembered I didn’t want to be Israeli and I was traveling alone for a reason. That’s when I noticed my forearms were bright red and I told my guide it was time to haul back to the campsite. It was a really easy trek back home, and we made it back in record time. The Indian soldier who checked my permission was incredulous about the speed at which we had toured the three lakes. I don’t mean to brag I just think this is an entry level trek for unfit people and as a serious hiker I really didn’t belong there. I got back to the hut and rested my burnt limbs and dove into the kindle. It was only 2PM or so, plenty of time to kill. I had instant noodles and maybe 13 cups of milky diabetic tea, the man just couldn’t take no for an answer. More tea? More tea? Why does he think I’m capable of drinking so much tea? At any rate I drank the tea. I had nothing else to do, after all. Time progressed and he made a gargantuan feast for dinner: more chicken, more vegetables, and rice. He and his father forced it down my throat like I was a foie gras duck and I politely obliged. I made another wonderful bowel movement in the evening dusk and nestled into my tent for a good nights sleep. 

I awoke to the reliable sounds of the shepherds whistling and screaming arbitrarily and went down into the hut for my half stale raw white bread and salty egg with hot creamy caffeinated sucrose. The guide had a different tune to his whistle today. He kept mentioning, yes, you guessed it, a tip. It was a new addition to his typical rotation of phrases. Eat. Eat more. Guhrrd. Kashmir nice? You happy? Maybe tip. I think he said this about 10 times. You happy? Maybe tip. It dawned on me that he was asking for his tip right now up front. I said “you want the tip now?”. He said “yes yes, happy, maybe tip”. I took out 500 rupees, thinking this an enormous sum. He looked at it like a rich kid who didn’t get an Xbox on Christmas. He held it as if it was a used condom that didn’t belong to him, with the sad hollow eyes. Gone was the boyish simpleton grin he’d been displaying for me up until then.  In its place was disappointment, maybe even anguish. “Very less” he said. I looked at him confused and he repeated himself more forcefully. “This very less”. I tried to be playful and said “you and want less?”. He nodded fervently, his eyes cavernous puddles of sorrow. I didn’t have the heart to continue the joke so with a clear sigh of frustration I fished out my wallet again. I didn’t have much. I gave him little 50 rupee notes, maybe four of them, each one somehow making him sadder. He was so sad. He finally forced himself, with all his strength, to give me the most pathetic little smile and nod his head. I didn’t feel bad. I felt angry. $570. Where the fuck did it go? Why should I have to tip anyone after a principal investment of that size? Am I getting ripped off? Is he underpaid? I tried asking how much he was making but he didn’t understand my question. The vibe was now bad. We were no longer on speaking terms for the rest of the day. All the friendship and camaraderie was gone, a cold transactional relationship taking its place. Like a cheap hooker, he stopped even pretending to enjoy himself and just carried on with his tasks robotically. It was as though we were newly weds who had decided to break it off halfway through the honeymoon. As Biggie Smalls once said, “the thrill is gone, the shit is depressing”. And depressed I was, storming down the trail back to the village, disillusioned and disheartened by the nasty affair. The guide and his father kept yelling at me to slow down as if I was a disobedient child. I wanted to flip them off and send them to hell. Instead I turned back and waited for them to come into view every 100 yards or so like a sheep dog. Eventually I had debased myself enough and went at full speed down the switchbacking mountain trail. I ran into some Israelis from the naked mans group and got to chatting with them. Of course we started talking about Palestine. The guy was from the West Bank and had worked at the checkpoints and said he was politically on the right which in Israel means you’re a nazi. He told me reform Judaism was stupid and I told him he was stupid and all the best Jews are reform. He said you shouldn’t half ass being religious and I told him you absolutely should half ass being religious, especially if the full ass makes you wear an ugly hat and grow out your sideburns and reread the same shitty book every day. He gave me the I have Palestinian friends so nothing happening is wrong and it’s all Hamas and the PA to blame and we need to uproot the hate bullshit that Israelis are always peddling. I just kind of nodded and let him have it because I wasn’t in the mood to argue and like most Israelis he didn’t have much of a sense of humor or open mind anyway. It’s a shame we didn’t get along because they were traveling with a couple gorgeous women. This trip isn’t about sex though, it’s about spiritual fulfillment. Not that they are mutually exclusive, but for the time being I’m keeping them separate. The Israelis were going at such a slow clip that my guide and the horses soon overtook us. Next thing you know my guide was yelling up at me from down the trail to go faster. What an absolute schmuck. Can you imagine? The nerve of that man. And he could see I was having a conversation too. If you value your freedom and independence and love the outdoors in any way shape or form, do not go trekking in the Himalayas. It is a perversion of what adventure is meant to be. 

We arrived at the village and I went to Quadir’s house to check if my headlamp was there. No such luck. My poor head lamp. Rechargeable. Great reviews on REI. Never once used. Gone forever. You are a cruel son of a bitch, India. I rode back to Srinagar with a British couple, George and Ava. George was a fantastic conversationalist and we got along splendidly. I felt better about my rip offs because the same thing had happened to them. The real tragedy in getting ripped off is the thought that maybe you were somehow the only victim and everyone else was crafty enough to haggle or find a better deal. But at least as far as this young British couple was concerned, we were equals. We were in Dachau being worked to the bone together. I wasn’t in solitary confinement. Ava was a little quieter and appeared resentful of me. She was a lawyer and explained to me the difference between a solicitor and a barrister. Every time I made a sweeping generalization or bold statement she tried to undermine it by saying she’d seen or read something on the BBC that said otherwise. How very British of her. It’s okay though. I believe she was sexually attracted to me and my presence made her spiteful that she was in a relationship with George and she was taking it all out on me. I know this because the day we came up the mountain George had asked me if I had a pill for altitude sickness and Ava looked embarrassed, realizing she’d chosen a weak mate. But I love George. George just finished his masters in London and he’s moving for a job in Leeds, so that relationship is probably on its last legs anyway. Ava asked me about Conshohocken because her law firm has a branch there and I strongly advised her not to go check it out. 

We made it back to the house boats. The cab driver predictably asked for a tip and George and I pooled together to provide one. The owner greeted me warmly and told me to hop in the shower and give him my laundry. His good humor instantly washed away the bad taste that the trek had left in my mouth. The bad taste returned swiftly when just as I was showered and relaxed and had sat down outside to open my laptop and get some writing done, Quadir brings along a man carrying two suitcases. Apparently he has some cool “stones” to show me. I tell them off the bat I’m not buying anything. The man confidently smiles and says he won’t push me to buy anything, just to have a look. I really don’t want to have a look. I have never wanted to buy stones or jewelry or anything shiny in my life or even look at the things and I won’t be starting now while I’m still grappling with the fresh trauma of being scammed and losing my headlamp. Clearly it’s going to be offensive if I don’t go along and see the mans stones so I reluctantly acquiesce, just as I have time and time again since landing in Delhi. We sit down on the rug in the front room of my house boat and he carefully opens his cases, spreads out a mat, and gingerly lays his speckling wares out before me. I look at them with absolute undisguised disinterest, but still try my best to be polite. He starts showing them to me, asking me to hold them which I refuse. He tells me they’d be great for my girlfriend or sister or mother. I tell him I have none of the above. He doesn’t give up. He tells me how cheap they are. He tells me I need a souvenir, I need to remember Kashmir. I tell him I don’t, in fact I’d rather not. He stares at me. I stare back. He says maybe tomorrow. I say probably not. He looks defeated and sad, just like the guide after I tipped him an inappropriate amount. He makes a last attempt. Just 500 rupees for one of these little stones. Come on, just 500. I shake my head. The knife twists in his chest. He carefully wraps back up all his wares. He puts them back in the suitcase as I sit there quietly watching him. It feels like an eternity passes as I watch him slowly pack his things up, one at a time, neatly rolling up the mats, putting everything back in its place. He gets up and leaves. It’s so damned sad here sometimes.