Why We Travel, part one

Morning Tea
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

This is a thread of thought I've been contemplating. It is to be continued.

We travel to meet new people, see new places and experience new things. We travel to share stories the likes of which you don't get in books. Ultimately, we travel to understand our world, and hopefully ourselves, a little better. The story of our Sikkim trek holds a little bit of all of this. This is the vignette of how we ended up on the top of a mountain, next to a small monastery, in a village of sixteen families by dint of a headache, a visiting Lama, and a broken boot.

We wanted to do a modest low-altitude trek to see some historic Buddhist monasteries in Sikkim, formerly part of a Nepali empire and home to a strain of Tibetan Buddhism. All descriptions we could find made the loop sound modestly strenuous, but eminently doable. Scampering down the first long shortcut through beautifully dense semi-tropical vegetation, Amberly got a migraine. Her medication turned out to be less than effective when followed by more blood-pumping hiking instead of a 10 minute lie-down. When we reached the road again, it was hot and completely devoid of shade. We decided to hitch the first ride that came by. How could we know who it would be?

We arrived at Khatchapuri Lake in the entourage of the Lama of Ladakh, and quickly gravitated to the handful of backpacking Westerners watching the festivities. Before we knew it, we were lugging our pared-down gear up a mountain overlooking the lake, sipping tea and waiting for our host’s sister to vacate her room so we might stay in it. Run by the Dalai Lama’s former personal chef, our mountain oasis had 360° views of the Himalaya foothills, prepared meals and a laid-back group of fellow travelers with whom to relax and share stories. Then and there, we decided to forego the rest of our trek and stay a while.

It was a good thing, too, because when I shed my hiking boots in our room, I discovered the sole of the left boot was anxious to separate from its leather upper. I had taken this trusty pair along on its last outing, conscious of the fact that, through age and a bit of neglect on my end, they would not be lasting much longer. Now, they were a heel-seam away from being utterly useless. By the time I went down and back next morning for a meditation at the Lake, the attached part of the seam was down to an inch. So long, boot and so long, trek!

Over a fire that night, built and fed by an eager group of children, we settled into the unending flow of conversation that transpires among travelers. We talked politics, local customs, personal backgrounds and wacky experiences. We even found eerie connections amongst ourselves. Perhaps these are folks we might not have encountered had we stayed home. We likely wouldn’t have spoken if we did. This is why we travel.

For a slightly different and expanded telling of these events, take a look at this post.

Postscript: A few of the folks we met on the mountain shared a jeep back to town with us a couple of days later. We shared a drawn-out meal (if not entirely by design) and a cake for my birthday. Amberly and Jenny found a great exploding and singing candle for me. What a treat!