Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle (21 page)

This pass had been an important trading route for trans-Himalayan traders for centuries, connecting it with Tibet and the rest of China. We took in the incredible snow-capped view and took some photos before bouncing and bounding down the other side on a rewarding 30 kilometre descent.

The road zigzagged into an expansive green plateau. In the distance, nomads herded their goats, the odd truck disturbing them as they crossed the road. Terraced crops of barley and mustard, Tibetan
manis
(a long wall of rocks painted with ancient scriptures and prayers), and large white bell-like
stupas
flashed by us.

I turned to see Bec some way behind me, checking something near the chain. I stopped by another roadside tent, filled with weary travellers. Their Jeep had collided with a truck and they were now adamant about flying back to Manali.

Bec glided in.

‘Something’s wrong. The pedals keep moving.’

She pushed the pedals and the rear cogs spun. However, the back wheel ignored it.

‘Oh, dear,’ I said, bewildered. Something quite complex had gone wrong inside the free-hub and I had no simple answers.

‘Guess we won’t be cycling together again,’ said Bec, smiling weakly.

We managed to get a lift on a goods-carrying truck, our usual traffic foe. A jockey roped our bikes on top of the truck’s cargo.

‘What’s in the truck?’ Bec asked the driver as we lurched slowly up a hill.

‘Semen,’ he replied.

‘Semen?’

‘Yes, semen.’

‘Whose is it? King Kong’s?’ laughed Bec.

‘Are they medical supplies?’ I asked, trying to decipher what he was really trying to say.

‘No, um, horse … horse …’

‘Horse!’ Bec squealed. ‘Jesus! Imagine the size of its balls!’

‘No! … living … inside.’

‘Oh! House!’ The penny dropped. ‘Cement! It’s cement!’

‘Yes, semen,’ the driver said, shaking his head at our raucous laughter, while the truck strained under its heavy load, creaking and rattling through the dark mountains towards Leh.

‘Man was not like how we know him now,’ said Antony, over a plate of quiche. ‘He was 30 feet high and made of jelly.’

‘Jelly?’ I replied, trying to remain straight-faced.

‘Yes, he was around the time of the dinosaurs. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’

I could only imagine giant jelly men sploshing and slipping over themselves, trying to take on Tyrannosaurus Rex, chunks of their jelly heads bitten off. I wanted to say, ‘You mean to say the world was run by confectionery?’ but I stopped myself; there was some sense about Antony (unlike crazy Harold Weinerman) even if what he had just said sounded completely insane.

Apart from dropping acid while skydiving, Antony had led a rather sensible, sane life throughout his 59 years. He had been a paratrooper with the British army based in Nepal and Burma, a marketing manager for General Motors in New York, and a media man for Fox.

But now he was ‘living vertically’, as he put it, having given up the hard drive of horizontal living – the acquirers, the movers and shakers, the spiritually bankrupt, the morally dark and destructive. Instead of moving stock reports, he was now moving subtle energies with his enigmatic girlfriend, Ljuba, a 52-year-old former nuclear physicist from Russia, now a clairvoyant and miraculous healer of the rich. She was in Russia waiting for money to ‘arrive’.

We had met Antony at the Avista rooftop café in Leh while Bec and I wrote on separate tables, trying to scrawl some space away from each other.

‘If you don’t work out the connection between your father getting his cancer and the tendonitis in your arms, then you’ll have this condition for the rest of your life. Believe me. It’s the way that the universe is telling you that writing this book is not for you,’ and with that he left, the wind lapping at his trousers as he walked down the market square, leaving me with questions.

Bec and I went for a walk up to the derelict Leh Palace that sat over a granite ridge above the town. Built in the 16th century by Buddhist kings, the palace bears a resemblance to its medieval Tibetan cousin, the Potala Palace in Lhasa, and the Royal Ladakhi family lived here in this nine-storey building until the 1940s. And you could see why – the place was falling apart. Rotting beams and cracked mud flaked in the wind and into its gloomy depths.

Leh was a harsh place, and as prayer flags flapped above us, we could see vast tracts of desert meet the snow-capped mountains. Clouds of dust billowed through the town, causing townspeople and tourists to quickly hide in shops or doorways or behind trees.

Tourism had doubled the size of the town since the 1970s, and Kashmiri traders, unable to get a hold of that illustrious tourist dollar in their own territory, splayed their wares in makeshift shops and tents by the road, selling Kashmiri jumpers, carpets, curios and hashish. Tibetan women walked around the markets selling trinkets and jewellery, and some passed Buddhist
stupas
in a clockwise direction, mimicking what was believed to be the passage of planets in order to ward off evil spirits. Travellers congregated in groups, flitting from restaurant to restaurant, bookshop to bookshop, German bakery to German bakery. Some took treks up into the mountains. They were laughing, smiling, happy.

Bec and I sat. Not saying a word.

A week later, we clambered into Dharamsala then to McLeodganj, Bec’s broken bike bouncing around on the roof of the bus like a corpse.

It was here that the Dalai Lama took up residence in 1960 after fleeing Chinese persecution in Tibet. These days he gave discourses on Buddhism to spiritual tourists who not only stood in line for hours to hear his lectures but flitted in and out of bookshops.

I went into one.

It was well-stocked with prayer wheels,
mandalas
, postcards and numerous books on Buddhism, of course, and self-help. One book I came across was called
Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them
by Louise Hay. It was a guide to using affirmations to cure ailments. I did have to wonder if Ms Hay was having a laugh. For example, a urinary infection was, apparently, caused by feeling ‘pissed off’, the solution for haemorrhoids was ‘to let go’, and gaining confidence in your testicles was to affirm that it was ‘safe to be a man’.

Dervla Murphy had stayed in this town for six months, convalescing from a terrible bout of dysentery and away from the summer heat of Delhi. It was up here, after writing
Full Tilt
, that she managed to pen another book,
Tibetan Footholds
. During her stay, Dervla cared for Tibetan children at a school, while their parents were off building the long, winding roads to Mussoorie that Bec and I had sailed over, bumping and cursing their now-crumbling state.

Thirty-seven years later, McLeodganj bustled with traffic, snared at junctions to Dharamsala. Beggars seemed more prolific here than anywhere else in India and were stationed at every corner, hotel entrance, market and newspaper stand. One old woman in particular wailed incessantly in a deep, cackling voice as we passed her –‘Pleeeasse, Sir. Moneeey, to eeeat!’ – every morning, despite us giving her money only moments before.

We could not ignore it, the lepers with no fingers or legs, Western guilt getting caught in our throats. How could we possibly end the plight of not just one individual but also thousands?

We walked up to the town of Dharamkot, then up a short, steep, slippery road, to the Vipassana Meditation Retreat. The course was starting, and this was our last day together.

We stood outside the retreat among the tall pine trees, the monsoonal rains having briefly stopped, giving us a respite for our farewell.

Bec cried as I hugged her for the last time, her tears wetting my shirt and my cheeks.

‘Does this mean we’re splitting up?’ she asked. ‘I mean, not just from travelling but … from us?’

I didn’t know what to say. The past week had been good, having taken the bus down to New Delhi to enjoy romantic evenings together, and fine dining (like Pizza Hut where you had to book, line up and be seated by the
maitre d
’
). I felt horrible leaving her like this.

‘No.’

We kissed for the last time. Then she left, the
whoosh
,
whoosh
of her trousers following her descent back to the cloudy wet hills of McLeodganj, leaving me with guilty thoughts.

‘Staaaarrrt agaiiin … staaaaarrrrt agaiiin! Start at the top of the head, going from head to feet, from feet to head, part by part, piece by piece, observing every sensation upon the body …
anicca, anicca
… everything changes. Understand the importance of impermanence.’

The
basso profondo
voice of Vipassana guru SN Goenka boomed through the speakers from an audiotape. I tried to get comfortable, propped up amid a mountain of pillows, struggling once again with the lotus position, my left leg having gone completely numb. I looked at the clock on the wall of the Dharma Hall. Ten past four – in the morning. It was the fifth day of the Vipassana course, and from four in the morning until nine at night, I had been sitting here trying to meditate, going piece by piece then going to pieces while the same wretched thoughts kept poking my third eye:

This is insane. I’m soooooo bored! When’s breakfast? How many hours left until I can leave? Who’s that swine who keeps grunting behind me? ‘SPC Baked Beans and Spaghetti, for hungry little—’ SHUT IT! Damned TV commercial. Mmm. That girl in the back row has really nice breasts
…
When’s breakfast?

I wasn’t supposed to, but I opened my eyes and looked around the hall. Forty other foreigners sat around me, eyes shut and as still as Buddha statues. All I could hear were the in and out of breaths from other meditators like we were all in one big womb.

It should’ve been a peaceful experience, all this quietness was driving me crazy. It was so frustrating, so tedious, so …
sexually
arousing! I really had to stop myself from jumping up and screaming, ‘Come on everyone! LET’S FUCK!’

I had done Vipassana courses before, some eight years ago, and somehow I had conveniently forgotten the hell that I had gone through. But now it all came back. It was a disaster. Half of the group left. One meditator had snapped and tried to ninja the teacher during a group meditation before running out to the car park screaming, ‘I’M THE GINGERBREAD MAN, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!’

What the hell was I doing here? I had been desperate for some kind of peace, but now I wondered whether a big joint would have sufficed.

For ten days I was here to learn once again the fundamental teachings of Vipassana, which are based on the teachings of Siddhartha Guatama, who advocated meditation as a basis of attaining enlightenment. As legend had it, Guatama sat himself under a pipal tree at dusk determined not to move until he had attained Supreme Enlightenment. By dawn, having fought his inner demons (and probably a numb knee to say the least), he arose as the
Self-Awakened
One, Buddha.

For the first three days we had learnt
anapana
, which meant observing the breath around the nostrils. By the third day my nostrils were like wind tunnels and I could hear them (and everyone else’s) blowing through my ears. Next,
vipassana
, a method whereby we sensed every part of our bodies by the square inch – a pulse here, an itch there, any kind of sensation, up and down the body.

We were supposed to undertake all of this with the austerity of a monk and thus were segregated according to sex (‘I like it standing up’, ‘This line on the left, please’), not allowed to talk, do any form of illicit drugs, harm any living thing, steal, tell lies or indulge in any sexual misconduct. (I had a problem with the last one. I mean, could you at least, ahem, have sexual misconduct with yourself? After all, ten days is a
looooong
time!)

Though a compulsive talker, I took to the no-talking rule like a duck to water. It opened up a world of possibilities: you could slam doors in people’s faces, push in line, trip them over, steal their meditation cushions, set their kaftans on fire …
and
they couldn’t say one little thing about it
! They were powerless! (Though, I did begin to have a growing sense of dread as I seemed to be attracting a large number of glares.)

But, back to the Dharma Hall. I adjusted my cushions once again. After an hour, an old man got up on stage, sat cross-legged and turned off the tape.

‘You must be here on time or I will have to ask you to leave,’ he said, addressing us all. ‘And absolutely no talking. You must not break the Noble Silence. We are here to meditate.’

He was our teacher and he meant what he said. He had already thrown out a Frenchman who had turned up late. I was not surprised to learn that he had been a colonel in the Indian army for 40 years, during most of which he had been stationed in Ladakh fighting the Chinese. He of course went by the name ‘Colonel’.

Despite Colonel’s stern warnings, and much to my annoyance, Indian participants were overlooked as they regularly whispered to each other, handkerchiefs drawn to the side, sending messages like errant spies. On one occasion when I went to see the Colonel after a meditation (we could talk as long as if it was directed at the teacher), I passed two of the talkers as they left. The Colonel sighed once they were finally out the room, ‘Oh, I just cannot get these Indians to shut up!’

Sometimes I felt as if I were living in a paradox. While the monsoonal rains bucketed down, signs sprang up around the bathrooms:

DUE TO A WATER SHORTAGE THERE WILL BE NO SHOWERS TODAY

I could see my fellow meditators looking up at the dark sky, rain splashing in their eyes, looking at the signs then mouthing, ‘I don’t fucking believe this!’

But I did eventually settle down. Despite the fire in my knees, my sitting bones numbing to mush, and my back creaking like a splintered door, I remained, to quote Goenka, ‘equanimous’. The key was to not react to the pain with revulsion, so as to not create more
samskaras
(mental reactions), but to examine it objectively while keeping in mind that everything is impermanent.

This helped me become acutely aware of what was going on with my bad shoulder. It vibrated violently, sometimes in spasms, and I thought about what Antony had said, and wondered whether this heat, this throbbing that was now pumping out of my shoulder, was the anger I felt over my father’s death. I was angry that he died when he did (he was only 64), and perhaps I was still carrying this anger around with me, taking it out on India, taking it out on Bec (though it must be said my relationships had all been disasters, one so bad that the girlfriend in question had tried to run me over with her car! Which was odd because I was in the kitchen at the time!).

It had been a hard four months together: the heat, the crowds, the traffic, the sheer human maelstrom that overwhelmed Bec and me. I had found India the most difficult of all the places I had travelled. It hadn’t helped being in a relationship that was failing. Or, rather, had failed.

This was all apparent to me when Bec left that day in tears; I was worried and concerned about her, now alone on a bus to Delhi, and though I felt sadness, I also felt relief.

I had fallen out of love with Bec and I wasn’t sure when it had happened. Perhaps it had evaporated on the hot Deccan plains, in the rocking madness of a crowded bus, or in the leer of mobs of men, or perhaps it was swept away by the Ganges while we fought near it. Wherever it had gone, I couldn’t see it returning, and I struggled for days as I walked through the wet pine trees on my meditation breaks, trying to console myself with the practical reasons for parting with her, things we had talked about and agreed on.

We were incompatible
…
she was too young
…
she needed to travel on her own
…
we had nothing in common.

We had planned to meet up yet again, this time in Taiwan, and then perhaps travel again together. I knew now I couldn’t carry on this lie. I had to tell her, as much as I dreaded it. But tell her when?

I unwittingly would choose the worst day possible.

Anicca, anicca
. Everything changes.