The street is colorfully crowded with little guesthouses, cafes, market sellers, open chai stands, vegetable wagons, and fruit tables. There are layers of activity, little worlds created by compact clusters of companions. I see strangers on a rooftop, I see familiar friends fixed in the mix, I see other linked in a huddle of their own world. Some are selling and some are buying. There are Tibetan-feet, Hindu-feet, bare-feet, begging-feet, cow-feet, dog-feet, monk-feet, nun-feet, and travelers-feet. The air is cool and calm. Prayer flags dance in the breeze, mantras float and hang in the drafts that sweep by me. There are rolling green hills below, sensuous and soft. In the distance, white peaks that are strong, sharp, and sure. I smile and wrap my scarf around my neck.
An aged man walks and spins the weathered wheels of prayer. His shoes scuff slightly and the wobble of the wheels echoes his step in a similar rhythm. Everything is saturated with color. Sunlight dances off the golden wheels as they spin. And the man shuffles on in silent song. The temple pulsates with muted murmurs. Tibetans, Indians, monks, nuns, and travelers circle the temple, the traditional walk of kora, to spin prayer wheels and send out prayers. To center. To calm. To find.
BODH GAYA, INDIA
The narrow streets of Bodh Gaya, India are a combination of broken pavement, gravel, and dirt. There is a market mosaic of chai stalls and fruit stands. The rickshaw wallas are lined up, one after the other, on the sloping street up to the temple. The rickshaws - old rickety carts with old rickety wheels, a seat for two, and a simplistic beauty I could not quite capture. The Walla men, the drivers, are as unique and intriguing as their carts. Some wallas have horses, some have bikes, and all work hard in the heat. Now and again, they lounge in their lungies, thin cotton wraps, tied just so around their waists. The horses eat, their heads draped with bags of feed in which their faces disappear.
The Walla men lean heavily against their rickshaws, or take cover in the bit of shade a rickshaw might have to offer. I imagine one of the languid men losing his balance, or leaning to hard on the little cart, and the whole rank toppling one after another in a row like dominos. Horse feed flying, legs and hoofs in the air, and the sound of clanking carts and clinking wheels would be a musical of a wobbly wrong.
The heat is threatening; it is like an army of little hot men with little hot weapons. The little armies of heat attack everything in sight. They march up and down the streets waving their hot guns in the air and blanketing all in sweat. In the swelter, minutes lounge like the Walla men. Time lingers in the void. Nothing seems to move. It is as if the fiery little army has tied everything down; everything is fastened to the ground with small strong strings.
I saunter in a strange slow wanderers walk to the back of the temple and sit down in the glistening shade of the famous age-old Bodhi tree. The shade pulls me in and scoops me up. I sit in silence and I sweat. I sweat like I have never sweat before. It drips like ripe mango juice on an extra warm day. It drips with speed and aggression down my face, my neck, my back, my arms, and my legs. It seems to pool on my collarbones, the small of my back, the backs of my knees, on my palms, and under my feet. I feel drenched and content.
Evening creeps into the heat; it approaches slowly, but with confidence and freedom. The cool calmness spreads over the little man and they put down their weapons. They retreat to their corners, the crack and crevices of the roads and walkways.
The street is a corner cadence of comings and goings. I sit at a chai stall and sip my little glass of spiced tea. It is smooth and sweet. I ready myself for the unexpected, a new day of travel, another journey. I imagine a few scattered army patrols peeking out from their places of hiding, in secrecy they plan for the next day’s battle.
VARANASSI, INDIA
The streets of Varanassi are packed - brick, dirt, mud, and dung. The street is complete with rickshaws pulled by bikes, bikers, walkers, Hindus, Muslims, bare-feet, sandal-feet, old-feet, young-feet, cow-feet, and water buffalo-feet. Above saris wave gently in an almost nothing wind, long red silks dancing in the heat. They delay, sway, and move like the crowd below. Some Walla men rest. Bicycled out. They chew their red tobacco and spit in the streets. It splatters red bits of spit, gritty and dark, on the littered street. They stare. I stare.
Along the Ganges River the boats line up like the rickshaws on the street. It is crowded and chaotic. There is dirt. There is grime. There is litter. Men and children splash in the river. Woman dip their toes. Water buffalo soak to escape the heat. Boats move gently in a whisper of a ripple. Bodies burn near by. Cremation and the sacred.
KATHMANDU, NEPAL
I walk the narrow brick pathway to buy mangos in the morning. A man in a ragged white cotton tank weighs my picks on his aged deep red-brown metal scales. It balances out and I drop a few rupee coins in his dark wrinkled hand. The man smiles; the coins chime, dance, settle. I find a stoop. I watch the street liven and quicken. Juice from the fresh fruits drips down over me and muddies the mango-colored dirt under my feet.
KHAM, TIBET
I am silenced by the stillness of it all. I am silenced by the land. I am silenced by the beauty. Everyone I meet is warm and welcoming. The people of this land enchant me. I am immersed in their story. The mountains make me motionless, lost for long moments with curiosities and excitement. The wind wakes all my senses. It is almost overwhelming in a wonderful way.
I see pass after pass of peaks and valleys. Distant white giants, courageous and confident peaks, open the clouds. While shadows and steep drops below suggests the abruptness of it all. Winding roads hold stories. The swaying flags validate a journey.
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