01.05.2012
My 12,646th day alive – the same age at which Ozge passed on. It still feels incredible at times to consider that she could have died, but I also remind myself often that she has just changed shape back into her light form, which she so longed to be again.
Flying to Mumbai for a stop-over on the way to Kathmandu was emotionally difficult, as the Indian coastline became visible on the in-flight map system. I remembered Ozge’s beaming face at Trivandrum airport waiting for me, a little further down the coast. And then to have to stay (on creatively positioned chairs) for 8 hours overnight in Mumbai airport, where her embalmed corpse was kept before the final journey back to Turkey… there was a heaviness in my heart. A man singing sinuous Hindu prayers at 2am in the darkened slumber area of the transit lounge captured my mood perfectly.
Amongst all that, I also feel the change in me over these four months. The sadness comes, and I allow it to be there because I know I have survived it over and over… and then it’s just a matter of returning to the Here & Now, where my own extraordinary adventure continues to unfold.
02.05.2012
My first impression of the Nepalis was extremely good, as they organised themselves into a single file at the airport boarding gate for Kathmandu! The fact that I am a head taller than most of them also gave me a warm feeling inside, although that probably says more about my semi-shortness complex than anything culturally significant about the Nepalese!
A Nepali passenger then offered to swap seats with me so I could better see the Himalayan spectacle above the clouds – with peaks literally poking through the cloud cover below the plane. Excitement and awe pumping through me, and an understanding of the primeval human instinct of See Peak, Must Climb!
On arrival, my sherpa called Dorchi was patiently waiting. He is my neighbour’s dad’s friend’s old sherpa from numerous expeditions, and happened to be free when a correspondingly long telephone chain put us in touch. It’s a small world! After giving me the biggest smile, he put flowers round my neck, and then whisked me through the dusty, loud, colourful, holy cow- and kamikaze pilot-filled streets of Kathmandu to a hotel where I could recover from the sleepless night in Mumbai.
In the afternoon, we did some trek planning, and while I thought I knew what I had come here to do -a replica of Ozge’s trek to Annapurna Sanctuary- I am grateful for my inclination to follow unfolding inspiration… We have instead planned a proper adventure, with a 2nd porter to help, to climb up to Tilicho Lake at 4920m – the highest lake in the world, and object of a beautiful David Whyte poem. I will thus be seeing the same mountains as Ozge, but from the North side instead of the South. New footsteps for us both, and it feels good.
This trek will let me reach (altitude sickness permitting) an even higher place to put your prayer flags as well: at 5416m at Thorung La pass above Tilicho Lake. That should be just the view to engender manifestation of your wishes and recognition of your gratitudes! Dorchi loved the idea of bringing flags and already helped me acquire them at the Monkey Temple (named thus as there are live monkeys climbing all around it – see photos!) and we now have 40m worth of flags to fly high in the Himalayas.
Tomorrow, the two sherpas, two tents, cooking gear, a large stash of freeze-dried food from London and one rather excited Marcus will be boarding a bus to Bhulbhule, where a jeep ride will take us to the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit trek at Syange the following day.
And then it’ll be one foot in front of the other, and some steady deep breathing, for my pilgrimage to the skies.
