crept outside for my nightly pee. So soft everything was, in the blue-gray moonlight, the moon no longer completely full; how permeable the landscape looked, as if I could just walk through the hills and the trees, walk through them, not over them, as if they would yield.
In the morning we packed. We felt refreshed. We were beginning anew. We said goodbye to Chyamtang and it almost seemed like an act of rebellion or liberation. We were moving on. One of our porters, a fourteen-year-old boy named Jhaba Lama, came from this village. It was so fortuitous that when Sunam was hiring porters in Tumlingtar that Jhaba was there and was only returning home, not looking for work at all, and here was a job that would bring him to his home. The part of Nepal we were traveling in was not the part usually taken on a trek. Trekking paths usually make their way to a base camp at one of the high summits or around one of the nature-preserve areas attached to one of the high summits. So how fortunate for Jhaba that the path that would lead us to flowers went through his village. He was only fourteen, the same age as my son, Harold, and perhaps because I missed Harold so, I immediately singled him out for kind attention. When I told Sunam how touched I was by his presence, this little boy, the same age as my son, carrying sixty-pound loads strapped up on his back, he said of course I would be touched because Jhaba was a Sherpa. He did look like the people who come from Tibet. One day, when Jhaba had carried my bags, out of the blue I gave him a one-thousand-rupee note and I told him not to tell his fellow porters. When we arrived in Chyamtang, he went immediately to visit his family. That afternoon, his mother came to visit the camp and she brought us eggs and vegetables from her garden. She was a very beautiful woman with the same warm brown eyes as his, small and elegant. Sunam, who that time could understand her dialect, said that she thanked us for being kind to her son. Now, as we were leaving Chyamtang, we passed by Jhabaâs house and he wanted us to meet his father, who was a lama. It was clear they were an important family for their house was larger than the others and they seemed more prosperous in general. His father wore a long orange silk robe and had the general air of someone who spent most of the day reading and thinking about things judged to be important. He and Jhabaâs mother, whom we had already met, greeted us with just the right amount of warmth and distance. They made us wish we had met them earlier and so had seen them more, and yet they also made us feel that this was enough. I told them how wonderful their son was and, according to Sunam, they agreed and also said that their son did not like studying. We said our goodbyes and started on our way, down, down, down, on our way to crossing the Arun River for the last time. In Chyamtang we had been at 7,260 feet altitude. When we left the village that morning at half past seven it was seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit. We crossed the Arun for the last time at an altitude of 5,620 feet. It was the highest point for a crossing we made of this river.
TWO DAYS TO THUDAM
T hose three days off had renewed us. It is true Dan and Bleddyn had gathered a lot of seeds, but they wouldnât have gone out of their way to make this collection, what they had collected is the sort of thing you collect on your way to real garden treasure. Bleddyn and Sue, gardeners and nursery people from as ideal a situation as can be in the temperate region of the prosperous world, Wales, were more enthusiastic about collecting in this area than Dan and me. But even among Dan and me there was some variance in satisfaction. Dan, as a nurseryman, has customers in various gardening zones. The collection of seeds he made the day before, when he and I went out together, would be good for some of his customers. He often collects in Chile and Guatemala, and when I see these things listed in his
In the morning we packed. We felt refreshed. We were beginning anew. We said goodbye to Chyamtang and it almost seemed like an act of rebellion or liberation. We were moving on. One of our porters, a fourteen-year-old boy named Jhaba Lama, came from this village. It was so fortuitous that when Sunam was hiring porters in Tumlingtar that Jhaba was there and was only returning home, not looking for work at all, and here was a job that would bring him to his home. The part of Nepal we were traveling in was not the part usually taken on a trek. Trekking paths usually make their way to a base camp at one of the high summits or around one of the nature-preserve areas attached to one of the high summits. So how fortunate for Jhaba that the path that would lead us to flowers went through his village. He was only fourteen, the same age as my son, Harold, and perhaps because I missed Harold so, I immediately singled him out for kind attention. When I told Sunam how touched I was by his presence, this little boy, the same age as my son, carrying sixty-pound loads strapped up on his back, he said of course I would be touched because Jhaba was a Sherpa. He did look like the people who come from Tibet. One day, when Jhaba had carried my bags, out of the blue I gave him a one-thousand-rupee note and I told him not to tell his fellow porters. When we arrived in Chyamtang, he went immediately to visit his family. That afternoon, his mother came to visit the camp and she brought us eggs and vegetables from her garden. She was a very beautiful woman with the same warm brown eyes as his, small and elegant. Sunam, who that time could understand her dialect, said that she thanked us for being kind to her son. Now, as we were leaving Chyamtang, we passed by Jhabaâs house and he wanted us to meet his father, who was a lama. It was clear they were an important family for their house was larger than the others and they seemed more prosperous in general. His father wore a long orange silk robe and had the general air of someone who spent most of the day reading and thinking about things judged to be important. He and Jhabaâs mother, whom we had already met, greeted us with just the right amount of warmth and distance. They made us wish we had met them earlier and so had seen them more, and yet they also made us feel that this was enough. I told them how wonderful their son was and, according to Sunam, they agreed and also said that their son did not like studying. We said our goodbyes and started on our way, down, down, down, on our way to crossing the Arun River for the last time. In Chyamtang we had been at 7,260 feet altitude. When we left the village that morning at half past seven it was seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit. We crossed the Arun for the last time at an altitude of 5,620 feet. It was the highest point for a crossing we made of this river.
TWO DAYS TO THUDAM
T hose three days off had renewed us. It is true Dan and Bleddyn had gathered a lot of seeds, but they wouldnât have gone out of their way to make this collection, what they had collected is the sort of thing you collect on your way to real garden treasure. Bleddyn and Sue, gardeners and nursery people from as ideal a situation as can be in the temperate region of the prosperous world, Wales, were more enthusiastic about collecting in this area than Dan and me. But even among Dan and me there was some variance in satisfaction. Dan, as a nurseryman, has customers in various gardening zones. The collection of seeds he made the day before, when he and I went out together, would be good for some of his customers. He often collects in Chile and Guatemala, and when I see these things listed in his
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