Below is the unorthodox description of the trip. It is not a
run-down of rapids, or of access and egress points. I like that. I kind of like
the way it is 8848 words long. I kind of like the way I can remember the
feelings. I kind of expect people not to understand it.
I do not want to share the trip. Now I have internalised it –
now I want it lock away, shackle it in a dungeon. I know that you would never
understand - how could you, why would you. It was more than the water, it was
always going to be. It was magic and peace, meditation and action, love and
hate, romance and lust. It is not a trip for peers or voyeurs. It is a selfish
indulgence that means more than I can write and less than the world should ever
care. Whilst I don’t want to share, I owe a debt, to myself, to family, to
friends. I need to repay the emotional cost – that in sharing may help as part
payment. You will learn nothing about the experience from these words. You will
learn nothing about the rivers. The ever flowing possibility for change will
not allow it.
Since winning the funding from Berghaus, for a trip of a life
time, the 8848 descent the solo kayak descents of the Dudh Kosi and Arun in
Nepal. To ride these tears of Everest. Many other people have approached me
with the offer of products. Some I have accepted with care and understanding
others I have quietly rejected.
I have been riddled with self-doubt, an unconscious tugging
at my heart. For me this expedition is not about the promotion of brands. It is
not even at the same level of other expeditions I have done. I have dreamed
about this expedition for over 10 years. With a cause and a reason others are
willing to pay for the trip. It is not a hand out, and I don’t see it as a job.
I will be looking for the 'pure' in all aspects of the trip. I know that many
feel I have stained any notion of a personal pure, with marketing and brands on
the line up to promote the trip and market products off the back of it. It is
not about the silken purse. It has no room for image – more or less than it is
worth.
Sponsorship in all its disguises is a costume I hate to dress
in. The fit is not right and I look foolish. Like a homeless Santa dressed, but
soiled, in the week between Xmas and New Year. In the past I have cut ties with
those that have assisted me, because I don’t believe in the values of the
brand. Now this piece of me has been ripped away and marketed like a lone night
walker that stands on the street corner, showing the promise of a good time.
Things have not changed, not now, although I have to fight
the impressions others have about me and my acceptance of sponsorship. Many see
it like a contract with the devil or acceptance of sweets from strangers. The
dirty rain coated stranger. I see parts of the sponsorship game like this, but
I see the flip side. Here the loving family supports its children to grow. That
is what it is all about. That is the golden-fleece I must allude to. I have
been beating myself up about it for too long. Chances slip away in the breeze
and we must run after what we want – with care. Not too strong to harm
ourselves or others along the way.
I will try to tell you, want you think you want to know. I
will try – I cannot promise. This was a personal quest. One not shared, stored,
lived, relived, now diluted in the passing. The door of the story teller can
jam with magic and wonder, but the breeze is not the truth – far from it – it
offers nothing – only a melted candle effigy of what once was.
In the telling the soul is
crashed open, a gaping, oozing, weeping sore, that is never allowed to heal.
Each moment in this game – a personal drama, one that cannot, not now or ever,
be understood – though we live in the gaze of the Other, a significant masthead
for personal creation. Lacan tells this and I make no apology for using his
synopsis of the self. Here our personal jouissance,
that which is left behind in the emotional vacuum of the missing objet petite a (objet petite a), is
always soiled. Always a rejection - missing.
Cold concrete scattered with old trodden in chewing gum,
littered with days old cigarette butt ends and plastic vending machine coffee
cups. This station floor in England’s black country, is hardly the best place
to bed down for the night. A cold wind blows across the platform. I left my
jacket and shoes in Kathmandu. Flipflops and a t-shirt that is all. I would
have paced the windy platform to keep warm, but my trousers keep making a
descent to my knees, they don’t hold anymore – guess I lost weight. I shuffle on the balls of my feet – the left
heel is cracked and bleeding worse than the right, I can’t stand still.
Looking down the straight parallel pair of train tracks a
whole orange globe slowly lifts and wakes the day. The sun finally appears to
be marking the start of a new day. Commuters rush for London bound trains. It
seems this is where all briefcase stress and pinstriped suits collect.
It has been a long night of
thoughts, of holding warmth in the core. It has been time to think about the
trip, about what it meant, about the feelings and emotions that came and went –
the mental map landscaped, photocopied to be scattered in wind.
Weak black tea with too much sugar, it’s my 20th
cup since I arrived in Lukla. I made the morning’s flight, upstairs to the
cloud city. Delayed flights had troubled me, too much wind, rain or snow. By
rights I should be at the Nepalese consulate in London, a black tie dinner. I’m
not. This adventure cannot wait. Sitting on a ridge looking down at the Dudh
Kosi where its blue talons are cutting deep in the belly of the mountain. My
gear, kayak, paddle and all still sit on the run way in Kathmandu – too big for
this tin toy plane. After baksheee and tea, phone calls and stress I held hope
that it would make cargo today or the next.
It was a long night, frightful sleep, the ghosts of the past crept in.
Crisp morning sun, clear run way, if you think a one line path to an allotment
cut in a cliff is a run way and airport.
Snow peaks surround, like the walls of an auditorium.
Clenched beneath are coffee shops and wifi stations galore– this is not why I
came. The jewel I am searching for, now hidden behind this surreal mask of want
and need. Switching on my video camera, I don’t like it – how it is a watchful
eye – a gaze on the trip, invited yet unwanted – from the outset this has been
about me a selfish indulgence. Private. Words of the last few days are playing
in my mind, critiques of reason, people whose doubts have been trying to take a
piece of me. Like Walter Bonatti, I am very disgruntled with the whole
expedition ethos, I want to make this as pure as possible – just to go alone
with skills and intelligence and simple basic equipment.
A cheap breakfast of aloo and roti whilst I make mental notes
hoping all my gear is still safe in the kayak. Spot emergency receiver, kayak
gear, food, sleeping bag. Tourist flights come and go, skidding to a halt on
the tarmac. Bemused and daunted, rucksacks are collected from the pile near the
police officer, boots laced and a conga line of matching fleece jackets march
up towards base camp. No cargo yet. I look up and down the valley, a light
wind, clear sky. If either changes I know the cargo will be grounded for
another day. I go back to tea drinking at a small lodge in Lukla. The clock
ticks slowly, 1100am comes and goes, I make a lazy walk to the airport, not
holding much hope for any cargo plane.
Turning around the curve of the well-worn path as it bends to
the left of the runway. Far too close to the rusty the razor wire. There
sitting still and motionless on the tarmac, my dunga, my kayak. Packed with
gear and with a weight of 45kg, it is heavy. Porter style, using the back band
on my head – the tail of the kayak points skyward, I walk back to my lodge. Lakpa
is a porter, a friend of a friend. Work has been slim for months and I know he
needs the money if I offer him the job of taking my kayak up the Dudh Kosi. I
don’t want or need his support, but it’s better to give to the community than
to race on in a selfish ideal. He sorts his gear. I race ahead past Ghat and
Phakding, 6 hours up the trail to the lodge and Monjo. Lakpa knows. The
well-worn trail, littered by tourists and trek groups, follows the arc of the
crystal clear river, weaves and turns, with the clear cascades. Each lodge and
rest stop passed an uncertain homage to Tenzing, Mallory, Hillary – a museum of
faces, of the brave and the fallen.
The morning air is fringed, no sun yet this is an early
start. I get issues at the permit check post, NO DUNGA. I don’t listen. Walking
past the carved gate post without a glance back, without a Kodak moment. More
grief than I need in all honesty but another bribe and the problem is gone.
This old bridge crossed and the put in, same as before, same as 2003 see my
boat. No reason to hang about and wait, I don’t want the gaze of the tourists
walking up or out of the Sagamartha national park. This water is low, frozen in
the eddy and cold. It’s a slow paddle, at first in the blue clear water. Only
just day light, the definition of the vista bleary, leaked water drops on an
oil painting. Slalom moves behind rocks call out– class 4 I expect. I don’t
want to grade it. It matters not, on this trip the grade is simple, either yes
– or no. It all chocks out near Monjo – portage done. Still I paddle quick,
Phakding and its not even lunchtime – I was going to call it a night here, but
this seems a shame. Not wishing to waste the day with the tourist trail. It’s
down to Ghat and beyond. The ride is fun, just the boat, paddle and me. A unit
now chained in my own ideal, for the length of the pursuit.
The smooth rapids roll in and out, no hidden unwanted
surprises. Boulder passes to be made, left and right. Too many tight lines the
alpine style. Ghat creeps up all too quickly, the bridge I am set to take out
from. I paddle past. Why? I just don’t know? I keep going. I know that this
section down to Lukla is rough and who knows if it goes. Smooth tongues of
water slide past the rocks. The gods own hand scatters the rocks in a maze. One
eddy passed, one portage as the river goes too steep landing on a jumble of
rocks. Sliding back in the eddy it is a slow paddle into the flow – skipping
from wave to eddy and back again, reading and running. Twist and turn the river
dances. I sneak a small eddy on a custom wave close to the cliff; my line of
sight is lost. Then I remember. Least I think I remember. A larger eddy sits
just behind this shallow bend. Had I glimpsed it on the run down? Only 50% sure
it really existed. A stroke, a tight move and I am out in the flow, I reach the
next eddy and paddle to the far edge. Over my right shoulder the water sumps
out. Natural rock arch and a disarray of rocks. One false stroke, one missed
move and I would have been sucked under the rock – a certain death, no escape
route. The liquid pours and sucks, finding least resistance. The emotion came
quick, the cold sweat, the heart-beat. ‘Fuck it’. It took me less than a minute
to rationalise my predicament as water was forced through letterbox slots and cascades
in Lucifer’s garden, where no man is meant to be. I was one step from ending
not just my expedition, but also my life. In my pocket I could feel my spot
device, press the button – wait for rescue. No good. Looking at the cliffs on
either side, I look down the flow for an escape route. I look right and left,
back up toward Ghat. That is one hell of an attainment to make, to cavort -
opposing the flow and chancing the paddle upstream. Above I can see the lowest
houses at Lukla, but no means to get to them. Attaining it must be until the
fisherman’s footsteps form a trail near the almost dry river, a sanity of this
unnamed tributary. It’s a heavy grunt up back to Ghat. Where the familiar taste of dhal bhat and tea
where boiled rice and vegetables will bookend this day.
My feet are already blistered and sore, cracks in my heels
make walking up the small ladder to the bed, in a Sherpas tea house, difficult.
Blood races from my heart, I can feel it – like the beating sounds of a haunted
civil war drummer alone after the battle. Thud-Thud-Thud. Its dark in the dusty room, as sleep comes.
The moment to end rest comes without notice. I open my eyes quickly, breathing
heavy. All around the world is suck and fizzed into the sump I avoided, all at
once the world and its contents annulled and dry. It’s a flashback, a war
wound. Panting – how to rationalise, so close, so close. Sleep comes uneasy,
the black hole of reason and doubt – enough – enough.
The sun rubs her eyes slowly as she is waking up, her glowing
warmth still hidden behind the jagged snow drizzled mountains. Ruled by black
tea and stale bread I know today is a certain portage, the chasm around Lukla,
perhaps one day – but not today. The trail leaves the tourist route and cuts
down past Lukla to Waku where I join the river again, opposite Basa. First
light, one foot follows the next with no time to waste the river soon folds and
rolls in the chasm. This porter trail skips the tourist stops. It’s no place
for social media updates or filter coffee. Long march to the end of the horizon
and double back on the ridge.
My porter quit. Think I scared him. So now I am walking with
Dawa, a silent young man. Why have a porter ons a solo unsupported trip? I
reason it out – like I have before. Dawa or other are no help when I am in the
flow.
It’s no quick walk, whilst blood and blisters scold each
step. Covering my feet in angst and faults – the passage keeps going. 10 hours
of hiking, of vistas and memories. Thoughts loop and crack, join a jigsaw
storyboard. Sepia toned friends and lovers, skips and jumps – gramophone and
cinefilm stained to the route of satisfaction and dismay. Of what dies inside
when plans fail, or what is born when passion rages.
Footsteps are uneven and worn. Whilst the view is stunning,
of mountains and ridges, it is not enough to remove doubt and pain. I am here
to shake the hand of a demon, a fiend that has been chewing at my heart. For me, now, it is time to embrace its will.
To keep going into its lair at all cost. For our tomorrows are built on the
chances we take in our dark moment. To live without embracing our demons, to
me, seems like not living. We are a whole mix of identity; to be centred we
must explore these gestalts. This is a place where our operational principles
dictate the holistic nature of the brain as self. Through the myriad gaze we
adopt self-organizing tendencies. Situating our entirety, that is perceived,
not as a sequence of individual parts that are linked without signification.
The dark dog days, howling in the icy wind and the sun shining at dawn. The
empty picnic hampers of wanting. These are all us, all our own making. Without
it, nothing – no thing can happen. We are legion, the sons and daughter of our
bastardised thoughts and actions.
It is dusk as we settle in the village of Waku, too late to
walk to water level. A young family, where all toddlers, covered in snot and
dirt, cling to the mothers breast. A small fire in the corner of the dusty room
boils up tea. A cold pan of rice sits still on the wooden shelf. Solar panels
have stored the light and a dim bulb in the centre of the room feebly
illuminates the scene. Porters and
village kids alike, all touch and play with my boat and paddle. It is an alien
object in this world. A world where the beast of burden still works the land
and the food that is grown in the local land is the only food that is eaten.
Modern times are crashing in, cell services, text alerts and pay as you go
coupons. Youngsters giggle at a joke, told and re told in text speak – across cultures.
Slow sun again this morning, it struggles to get over the
ridge. It mirrors the emotional ebb and flow of each hour, each minute. From
the small home, I can see the clear blue, snaking lines in the valley
floor. Decisions over the previous days
and months have brought me back to this place – back to the engaging flow, the
launch back to Everest’s tears.
I struggle to get my boat to water level the bank is higher
than the length of my rope. No matter how I try the boat clipped to the rope
swings, in the cool air. Ten feet and more of empty space – it hangs like a
pendulum. What choice? Letting the rope slip from my grasp the kayak falls,
that slow motion fall, of cartoon scenes, were the bank collapses and the
coyote struggles to regain a hold. Watching I want the kayak to piton, to
settle in the rocks, it takes time, skidding on the smooth bedrock, it skids
and lurches. Coming to rest when it flips and the cockpit catches a boulder.
The sight is perfect, each move settled and precise. This
moment is all it could ever be. It is a gift. The payment for this isolation, a
fleeting yet paradoxically everlasting moment, a simple credit in an account
riddled with debt. Payment made with interest that now cannot be counted. It
has no fixed sum but simply holds the risk of bankruptcy of the heart, mind and
moment. Although the reward is more as much as this dance this ballet will ever
be.
Each stroke is tight now. I don’t want a mishap or close call
like I had on the upper section. That was too close to be fun. The river banks
and curves in its immortal dance. A pristine plaything dismisses my isolation
for short periods. No villages scatter the bank, no people, just me and my
craft. Alone, little things bother me, the leak in my dry top, the water in my
camera. Little things that should not taint the scene sadly do. The horizon
dips and rolls with rocks to dodge. The moves to be made, the ones already
made, irrelevant with the oncoming breath. A simple in and out, that is all that matters.
Nervous energy that has come to pass the gauge is empty –
time to rest for the night. Looking left the beach looks homely warmth will
come from the wood scattered and quiet. That’s important to just be, me alone.
It takes no time to undress from the wet thermals and light a fire. This time
it is easy, a few candles, dry leaves and some dry wood. In my down jacket and
leggings I lay exhausted on the sand. I can feel the earth open up, to welcome
me into her, as sleep comes. I shake awake, sun is still alive and I have yet
to eat.
In my dry bag pouches of ready meals sit, waiting. I’ve only
3 dry dags. One has food, that sits between my legs when I paddle – its tied to
the central pillar of the boat, the others in the stern have the following
split between them, sleeping bag, down jacket, wool hat, lighters x2, note
book, wallet, gaffa tape, first aid kit, shorts, thermal and a spoon. Never did
I think it would be easy to eat well, whilst this limited space has meant I
cannot carry sufficient food and calories for the day, the food I have got is
nutritious. Foil packed and ready to eat I lean the packet on a small branch
close to the fire. The flames lap curls of amber heat, that fade and fight, as
the breeze picks up. Soon the foil is charred black. I know the pasta in tomato
sauce will be hot enough to eat. No sooner is the last mouthful rested in my
gut, slowly digesting, then sleep over takes the will to sit and stare. It is
no surprise the gps read average speed 10km, I just paddled for 8 hours.
Solid, it’s a deep sleep, dreams now don’t wake me – an
embrace of each scene is all I do. Lucid these are all too easy to remember.
The deep sinking feeling as I loose grip and fall deep down in the abyss. A
solo climber his worst nightmare, the scene fades. Opening a new melodrama the
river sucks in a maze of damnation – go on Freud, work with it. Revel in it. I
presume I know the games and routes my mind is going. It is playing with the
certain, the Cartesian formula – I think therefore I am. Thinking is all I have
and it is all I can ever be. The visions I perceive, the places I see. These
are no more than my thoughts and analysis, even in the moments of eyes open
wakefulness. All I can be is the thoughts and mind – the place I think to
think.
I think I know some-thing, but that it no-thing to think. It
is only the abyss of freedom, the escaping from the binds of time, the slip and
dance, away from thought. Even our
simple thought is bonded to action, linguistics and perception. To turn off
from it all, float in the bardo on purpose, willing to go alone. Dreamscapes
have forced the bardo experience. Unconscious mind presuming so much about the
involvement of the bardo, presuming the experience is a transmission I welcome,
with arms open.
From the slumber I wake, its positive, quick, 0530. Shaking
the sand from my hair and a mouth of dry oats and water, then without fault its
water time. 0600 stroke-stroke it is all automation unconscious and driven. The
willingness just to get out of the Dudh Kosi and then to the familiar waters of
the Sun Kosi before I make the journey to the Arun Gorges perhaps that’s the
fuel I need.
Within 2 hours I cruise to the confluence, left turn in to
join the river of gold on its route to the Terai and India. Sun Kosi, memories
of my first trip on the river, conversations, the prayers friends and I sent to
Dr Jones on subsequent trips. To friends gone now is not the time for
melancholy. All the strokes in the world don’t seem enough to race away from
emotions. It’s a simple head down paddle that forces the mind to amble. I must
centre the thoughts, to place it on the breath – at peace. Each stroke brings
the trivia of my daily life to a crashing soap opera. The laundry pile, the
unpaid bill, the work-a-day ethic of family, and friends each breath centres
this, to the here and now. No moment but that which is, not the one gone or the
one to come. It is all meaningless now, this is a time of beautiful isolation,
a simple pleasure in this world we construct around our modern lives. The Sun
Kosi plods along, slack pools and friendly rapids I know by heart. The named
and shamed commercial runs, Jaws, Dead man eddy, Rhino rock. I have run them as
a customer and a guide for over a decade. Helmet off now and glasses on. The
warm wind wafts up from India, the hidden smell of exotic spices and eastern
promise, causes angel wings of spray to dance in the air. I stay in the flow, no eddy, no rest, no time
to let the thoughts in. It is just me and the water. Rainbow arcs of water
curve from my paddle blade, the silence broken by the slice and the cutting of
the blade in the river. Ripples spool and reel from the bow. I watch the
refraction dilute as waves cross my path, like thoughts in the passing. Like
the promise of possibilities. “Mommy, why haven’t I been born yet?”
It’s a long paddle, but I don’t want to find a beach and
camp. Just keep going and paddle through the blistered pain and cramp. My
favourite rest day beach, where the waterfall cascades on a river left, deep in
the jungle is long gone. Just a memory now. One of the places I have passed
along the way. Villagers have started to appear again simply finishing the
chores of the day. A routine evolved of the ages. For the last fifty km or so I
have adjusted by reach and paddle grasp. My hands have moved closer to the
centre of the shaft, perhaps 3-4 hands from the throat of the shaft and blade.
I can feel the difference. I have a low swing action now, like I did when I
first learnt paddle sport skills, it is all upper chest muscle and only a hint
of torso. Bad form indeed, but it feels good. Feel is important it is a
pleasant diversion from the hungry ghost realms of what and need that litters
the days outside the expedition. This is a realm where through richness of want
and need. Through a society that offers instant gratification we are forever
hungry for more. This deprives us more
than we know. We have no satisfaction unless we make the journey to our prize.
It all seems so obvious now. A champion for our jouissance; it is what is left, as a by-product that is the crux.
Where the past is a mirage and the future has not happened.
With only an hour of daylight left camp routine returns with
too much haste. I build my fire too close to my sleeping mattress, and that’s a
mistake – it melts the corner and the air escapes. Too foolish a mistake, sleep
for the rest of the trip confined to be uneasy. For now I don’t care, the angel
of dreams comes quick.
Through the chatter of monkey conversations both natural and
in a self-styled metaphor of the minds tangent of wanderlust, through bird
calls in the jungle and the lapping water in the gentle flow I awake knowing
that all I want is to be sat in Chatra away from this river. It is not that I
don’t like the river. It is not that I have fallen on unfriendly terms. I just
know that I must move on, keep going. In the morning dew the paddling gear is
still damp and cold. Droplet crystals hang on my hair and beard. Breakfast, a
simple handful of oats and dry maggi noodles, washed down with river water.
From my place of sleep to the Arun confluence the river rounds bend after bend.
Slow and restful in its journey now, the river seems at peace. Bamboo rafts
float uneasy with trade. The green bamboo lashed together with vines. Through
the bends and twists on the horizon the Arun valley cuts in from the left
snaking its way to form the Sapta Kosi only when its sibling the Tamur. It
takes only a simple moment of pause, to gaze back up this river, I don’t wish
to sit too still. Not now, stillness will come when I reach this confluence
again.
The unnatural end, at Chatra, where the water is sucked into
the concrete irrigation pipes, is all too obvious. All this before it is leaked
out on the Terai where it seeps merging the forced border of India and Nepal.
Here this one journey is over, although the next one has yet to start. Here the
dust and dirt cannot be washed clean in the ashes of times past. Here one too
many bus rides home to Kathmandu litter my over lapping memories.
The once thriving administration town of Dharan waits, on my
route to the Arun. To relive a journey I made with friends. It was my first
major expedition in 2002. Without the success or failure of that Arun Gorges
trip with peers would I have continued to journey on these rivers?
Eyes peer through the open window. It is not open on purpose,
it just will not shut. These are not the happy eyes of childhood innocence.
These scan the scene, phone, dry bag, pelican case, sleeping bag, thermals. I
watch as they dart left and right. Then they fall still, resting on my half
naked body. The eyes soon disappear in the night. I pack all my gear and pile
it away from the doors and windows. I reposition the stained couch to block
over the door. The power has tripped out and I use my head torch cursing the
cheap Chinese batteries that offer only a faint light. Once on the bed I pull
the blanket up and curl in foetal position. This hotel, the ‘Dharan resort’,
offers no rest. I can feel the bed bugs crawling, the slow drip of the leaking
toilet and the restless bark coming from the small pack of street dogs outside
the window. It offers no justice for a tired man, less still the 03.30am alarm
call, as I walk the dark streets to the bus station. Crumpled ticket in my
pocket I curse the manners of a night in Dharan.
As is usual for a bus station in Nepal, chaos and pandemonium
appears to engulf the solitary bus. The engine is silent, although we all know
it will not be long before the black smoke coughs from the tail pipe as the
engine is raced past idle. For now, in this darkness, a small crowd has
gathered around a fire built from trash. Sitting close to the heat an old woman
squats over a pan of boiling milk. Here 10 rupees in enough for a hot, sweet
milky brew. It is supposed to have tea in it, although I don’t think this one
does. With my kayak and gear now neatly tied on the roof, this breakfast comes
easily, before the mad rush to board. I have played this game before, inside is
always too cramped – this is no different, so I climb out of the window as the
bus moves slowly through the still dark streets. Pulling my weight out over the
roof rack rim is easy. Although getting past and the basket of ducks and other
assortment of luggage tied to the roof proves tricky. To get settled I untied a
rucksack and a few sundry items, tying myself to the bare metal, I try to sleep
– just as the bus speeds up and over the pass towards the Tamur. Within an hour
the sun is out and the roof starts to fill with people, Tibetans, Indians,
Nepali but I am the only scruffy Englishman. The road gets worse and worse,
from tarmac to dirt and dust. Conversations repeat to fade. ‘Only one? Your
alone? Are you married?’
It is not just the quality of the road that gets worse, but
the villages we pass. Dakhuta our first stop proclaims itself to be an ‘open
defecation free zone’ – why it needs to advertise this seems remarkable. I mean
do people in the 21st century still find it acceptable to crap in
the street? Although as we get closer to the once trail locked Tumlingtar,
filth and trash litter the villages. Open piles of waste litter the verges.
Sewerage is an inadequate situation – a mine field for those in sandals. Before the road was cut in, before the
villagers had access to jeeps and buses, waste and litter was minimal. Now the
small village infrastructures cannot cope with this advancment.
Cramped next to me on the roof are 4 government officials,
data collectors. Even they are astounded by the roads existence. They don’t
expect it to be finished – although it is drivable by these buses and jeeps. As
Tumlingtar approaches the dusty dirt track is forced through a forded river
before it switchbacks up to the flat plateau at the airstrip. With wet and
slick tyres the bus races for the incline. One slip, then another, this is one
too many for the roof passengers and on mass we leap to safety as the bus skids
and slides. Spewing wet mud from it fast spinning wheels. On the left a 200+ft
drop to the river, on the right a cliff with a 6ft deep ditch. Each slide, each
skid sends the bus closer to the cliff and ditch. Rear wheels catch as the bus
lurches to a standstill. It takes time to continue to Tumlingtar and beyond to
Khadbhari on the ever worsening road. As the bus halts in Tumlingtar. I cannot
help think back to the trip 10 years ago, were we had walked in from Hille –
perhaps still a safer option. Plumes of dust and diesel smoke cover those of us
sitting at the back, on the roof. We all have sore hands from holding on tight,
as each bump and bend offers a new challenge. Still the bus tried to race on
this dirt road. All dust and confusion, where even 20km/h appears to be light
speed. Khadbari the end of the line is reached, in a cloud of fumes, just as
the market is packing up. I can glimpse from my roof vantage point a fine
selection of fruits, vegetables, electronics and clothes you wouldn’t wear if
you were naked.
It is another run down hotel that offers the only place to
stay, where power failure and insufficient sanitation is the lasting echo. Here
porters, whose work has been cut because of the road, drink whisky from
Kathmandu whilst asking too many questions of strangers.
Uncertain about getting to the river, about what is to come
and what has gone. In the silence, between thoughts about the Dudh Kosi and family at home I wonder about the
advancement of the road. How the Arun III Hydro project whose costs are funded
by India, once shelved, is forcing this road up the valley. Here the trucks are
raping the land and scorching the traditions of the villages. Here any benefit
from the hydroelectric station will undoubtedly not be felt in these small
communities. The jeep bounces along in the dirt breaking my train of thought as
each bounce forces my head to contact with the unpadded roof. This waterlogged
dirt track a tattoo on the nation, once here, it cannot be undone.
Empty water bottles and discarded biscuit wrappers litter the
floor as this makeshift road halts against the first houses in the village of
Num. Here all those years ago Maosits activists were seated to make their
presence felt. Even now getting out of the jeep and shouldering my boat I feel
uneasy, haunted by the foolish memories from the past. It is a long carry to
the bridge, I remember. The Barun Khola crashes its aquatic joy just upstream.
It calls me to explore its reaches. Now is not the time. Now is a time to
return – a pilgrimage of the heart. The peaceful put in from yester-year has
gone now. A small village – fast becoming a town - is moving forward, it will
be yet another roadside truck halt when the project is finished.
The bank is now creased with waste, broken glass and tears.
Late in the day, but I don’t want to spend the night in the village, quick
change and then a launch in the flow. In minutes the rapids get steep, not too
obvious. The Arun is flowing brown and rushing along. Retrospective images
flicker in my vision. I can remember where we portaged, although the water is
so much higher than before. My mind flicks and stalls. It jumps from the images
I have as slides and tries to fill the void of vacant memories. I remember the
jungle we walked on the left bank, the long portage and the camp spots; all in
order.
My body begins to weaken. It has been a long few days and my
concentration is also suffering. Once deep in the flow the gorge walls begin to
slowly close in. Once fully in the gorge I remember camp spots are
uncomfortable at best. The left wall opens and small pockets of jungle open up.
Scuttling to the bank memory returns, I have stood here before, I have looked
at the jaws of this horizon only once before. We portaged then. I am running on
empty now, this jungle with all its noise, will offer me shelter for the night.
The air is heavy with a promise of rain. As I bed down for
the night against a tree stump and small fire, content that I am well into the
journey, I try to visualise what is to come. I remember how I swam from a
sticky hole on day 3, all those years ago. How now should such a fate occur the
issues would be much greater than a lost water bottle? As the final rays of the suns smile dip and
fade into night. Silence is covered by the raw of the horizon. This raw grows
and builds, again and again. An orchestra of crashing cymbals and timpani where
the pulling of my wool hat over my ears cushions the sound sleep becomes me.
It is not the natural light seeping in through the trees,
that wakes me, like all the days before. This time it is the breeze. Not the
breeze of nature whose wind I would welcome. Sadly the breeze of doubt has
kissed me. It is still only half-light as I walk to the rivers’s edge and look
onto the horizon. Where the water slips and rolls in a hydraulic maze. In this
half-light I can still see the line, hug left to the undercut and gamble that
the run out is clean. Too early and too dark to start paddling I lay back in my
sleeping bag, breakfast and thoughts. I lay still, sipping water and conserving
energy. Getting kitted and leaving the safety of the eddy. To feel the smooth
carbon shaft of the paddle again, as it slices and pulls the water, will be all
too soon.
Risk and chance, that what it boils down to now, that is the
route. Experience should mean I can read the subtle peaks and troughs. I’ve
taught them long enough. Not now. It is a pure educated gamble. I know no
portage route is open. Minutes pass slowly as I visualise the problem, cutting
out all improbable options. The line cannot possibly hold a gaping siphon like
that of the Dudh’s nightmare. The run out is too horizontal, although rocks and
bad hydraulics could easily barricade the pathway.
It is a sneak nudging the kayaks bulbous nose into an
undercut allowing the flow to take me. The water halts against the cliff, a
swirl of water cushioning against the bare rock wall. It begins to hold me in a
waltz. Fighting to pass around this bend, my heart does not beat the notes of
fear. It is settled, I can feel it, my breath slow. No point in stress or panic
now. It is a situation I brought myself in and one that I myself can solve. A
choice, that is no choice at all, I have to paddle down river - to chase the waves.
From left and right diagonal crashes of water explore and fade. My heavy kayak
is thrown around, a flip, a roll, all in a few seconds of descent. It does not halt or stop the descent.
In its deep brown flow the river, cutting it antecedent path
from before the uplift of the Himalayan range, the twist and turns offer no
respite. Horizon lines sink and fall in the bowels of damnation. Where life for
all it foibles is shown stripped of everything but the thunder before death.
The choice to portage is easy. From the rivers right bank, as I struggle with
my kayak in the edge of the jungle, I realise I should have stayed low and
navigated the jigsaw pieces of tumbled rocks that litter the bank. Hindsight is
always an unwanted accomplice. At water level it is all too obvious that the
rapid continues as the gorge wall closes tighter together. Sitting alone in the
small bouncing eddy against the smooth rock, only one route in the rapid
presents itself. I break down the move into chunks. On the far side the water curls
off the cliff and refracts into a hydraulic jump, over my shoulder on this bank
the river slips in silence between tossed loose boulders and the cliff, a
seamless sucking undercut. Mid-flow a small smooth route cuts the hydraulic and
clips the corner of the rock undercut – it is the only line. In the pool below,
where the rapid eases, it’s a time for celebration; a passing chance to relieve
emotional baggage. That move was akin to the famous ferry at site Zed on the
Stikine. Emotions that were chained to this past experience doubled the
elation.
Rapids roll and tumble, crashing and stirring the points in
the emotional womb where it can breed an insight; a manifestation of fear. A
stroke and again adding more and more - not a pause or rest, just a decision to
keep in the flow. Etching an existence flowing from left to right caught
between jungle clad gorge walls. The mind, my own private Citadel is cast
strong. It is bold and anchored - solid. The gates guarded for some time. Where
guards of the past, my personal staff and serfs, sit still - watching the
psyche, waiting, for the cracks to open without invitation. Day, all the sun
drenched hours, the guards watch the distant views for wooden horses that never
make it to the Citadel – the hitchhiker inside – no chance to cause mayhem. In
this moment fear sits redundant in a failed casket. This in no Troy; this is
stronger. More aware, no gifts accepted without grace or payment.
The muscles across my chest are tight after the long hours in
the flow. Grey slab walls are been drawn back, like curtains at dawn. They make
way for a pavement of uneven rocks that litter the banks. No place to stop and
rest. Each fresh rapid is a new and complex problem. Where the vertical highway
of water drops and keeps rolling onwards in its migration. Solo, all choices are mine. I have paddled
some rapids I shouldn’t have, where a safer option would have been to walk
around. I have walked where the river looked like it was in the jaws of hell;
only to find it flatten out. I have run hard rapids I had no choice over. This
is one of those times. Often rapids have slack eddy pools to wait and assess
lines, these are absent. Each stroke is one requiring more timing than the
last. Each stroke is made knowing that things are getting harder. It happens in
slow motion. Where time slows down and the mind speeds onwards. Here, in the
mist of all the hydraulic waste land, a clear and perfect line; a courtly
pleasure. One precise move of the paddle blade and the boat skips over the boiling
mass - entering the smooth tongue of water whose presence is a one way road
sign showing the only safe route downstream.
I can feel the change, the bardo, through which I have turned as each
move is made. Where challenges of the mind occur I know that I cannot go back.
Inside, too much has happened, the internal mind games have been accepted and
understood.
In the realms of chance, where moves in the rapids are on
instinct, doubt is never shelved. In isolation I can control my own thoughts,
but the doubts of other people creep in uninvited. Voices of caricature
puppets, of life’s own anthropomorphising characters, that are already known to
me. Where they are pulled on strings by an invisible master, made to dance at
another’s command. These are the cataracts in a blind sight of my mind. Here
the jouissance, of any pleasure is
tainted. It is forever lost in the realm of the objet a; unwanted excess. This
is in the field of the visible as the gaze. Where we can grasp something which,
already in nature, appropriates the gaze to a base function, that of
to-be-looked-at. It shows here not as paranoia, but like hearing your own voice
echo in a smoke filled karaoke bar or the first few sentences when public
speaking. You realise you are more than you think. Its brief, passing, killed
by my own knowledge that thought is the only known truth. Outside in the
external world, away from thought, nothing. The mind is all that ever can be. I
rationalise this, the fears discussed of others whose puppet faces talk and ruminate
about inappropriate instances. Fear here is their transference, not mine. It is
their mind-construct not one of mine. Fear has no place. It must float away on
the ocean of understanding. Where all that is and all that was is a construct
we control. I realise this from the sleeping bag as the waterfall echoes at the
end of the day. For in the morning I know more will come unhindered by false
hope.
Debris of long gone funeral pyres litter the banks where the
flames were once high in the sky, now no longer, just faded ashes. The gorge
has opened up it is obvious from the hamlets that are scattered on the flat
fields. Beasts of burden plough these ancient soils, they have for generations.
It doesn’t stop me from thinking that a surprise is just around the corner.
Wider now the Arun has lost its teeth, its bark far worse than its bite, but I
don’t want its prize to be given so easily. Old worn out wooded boats ferry
villagers, from bank to bank, crossing the tranquil flow without concern.
It was another early start and the paddling is now slow. I
have taken off my sandals and now my bare feet rest easily on the foam foot
block. The curl of my toes can feel the movement of the boat as it transfers
from edge to edge. As the river bends and swings towards its mating with the
Sun Kosi a steady rhythm of strokes project me forwards. A small plane flies
over head, no doubt landing in Tumlingtar, I know the sting of the Arun has
gone as I pass the old bailey bridge. I once walked to it from Tribeni, when on
a lay-over day, at the end of a Sun Kosi trip. For now I struggle to paddle.
Emotions are strong. Tears begin to fall down my face, without control or the
will to let them stop. I halt briefly in the cross currents between the Arun
and Sun Kosi, this is all too much. Shaking, my body shows outwardly the
manifestation of the achievement. Sunglasses cover my eyes, hiding the tears,
although none can see. I let the votex of the converging flows spin me. Content
now in the knowledge that it is done, the barrier of demons, of searched jouissance, of the search for a pure
experience, formed. I paddled faster than I ever imagined, the gps reading
10km/h that’s about 120km some days. Although I find that of no interest.
This camp spot at the confluence was always going to be the
place I spent my last night. Sleep cannot invade my thoughts. The hot sun of
the day is still kept alive in the warmth of the sand. Silver stars, all proud
and strong, litter the ink blackness of night’s precious skyline. In front the
mighty river rolls slowly on its journey to the flat Terai. From the high
mountains to the sea it will be complete; for now it has lost its energy.
Casting nets the fishermen are still busy. I glance at my watch, only 7pm. I am
beaten, still blistered, cracked, and more exhausted than in the past. Drawing
back the breath I see raw beauty in each passed stroke, my reset button pressed
on each breath and a belly that dined on majestic sunsets.
Memories of the actions taken throughout - those that are
implied within the telling- mean that hope of a final resting of the mind – no
more chasing – is a simple pleasure. I feel people will ask too much. The
pleasure that was held within the expedition must fight to stay as truth. It
must fight to embed its truth on me.
The bus moves from its dust bowl resting spot as the crunched
gearbox jerks the old worn vehicle forwards. The drone of the diesel engine
where the idle chatter of strangers is silenced and the chaos of horns
punctuated. It is a rude welcome back to the world. Each kilometre from the
river is a reminder of what once was. I doubt I will ever paddle again. I doubt
that the moments and magic can be placed again in any finite form.
It has gone too far and too fast now. Understandings will
never be as true in the evaluation. Words and the telling will always be a mask
that is too full of make-up to fade and evaporate from the collected
consciousness. The gaze of the Lacanian Other
will always be a haunting that I must live with. Self-aware I am riddled with
psychoanalytic notions. These do me no favours. The demon that I wanted
challenged, the one buried inside, has come again. This time it calls and howls
in the abyss with a fresh vengeance. Filling the void I had built with its own
venom of filth. It still throws doubts and fake hope upon the dreams I can see
forming. It growls with a hunger like never before.
The station master calls for the train doors to close. The
lullaby rocking of the carriage and I drift to sleep. Homeward now – but I feel
am not settled. Changed - I know the fire is not going out. I know that the
conclusion of the expedition sought to abandon all future plans. That was a
falsehood. It takes the passing of the meal cart and the screaming toddlers
opposite to wake me. The cold cup of tea, the one I bought before slumber took
hold, tastes bitter. Just one sip and a slow scanning of the carriage then truth in all its costumes flashs
forward. I was back to the paddle strokes and isolation in the Himalaya and
back to the quest that I brought on myself. Here where the jouissance sought and found cannot be held, this is a finite
experience that fades and needs to be discovered again. The path alone is the
truth. Taking the result as the path – where once was nothing, is formed and
disappears. It is that form is emptiness and this emptiness is the form itself.
For now I have told you what you think you need to know, even
though you may expect otherwise. I have left out a step by step guide – this is
not the forum for it. This was never a trip that would lend itself to a
retelling. It was never going to be written as a linear encounter. It was
personal and parts will remain untold. I have expected lots from the reader.
Although I also would rather you decided not to read it. In the construction of
language, that which is signified, the written word will always miss the point.
