Mustang and its Eastern Route – Spring 2019 – Part 1 The Khampa Route

Returns insist upon some reflection and this return is no different. Half a month upon that  route of high along the eastern flank of Mustang, followed up by a half month of Solukhumbu and the wide spaces of Mustang seem simple to conjure.

The reassuring view of our mule caravan (and all that it carries)

Mustang’s fate seems to shift all over the orbit but whatever shall be, there is much change in the dust of this formerly independent kingdom. Money comes in to construct (and build atop) the main route which plows through the Kali Gandaki Gorge, though the sources aren’t clear…

A young Magar girl near the village of Jhong lights up our lives with her fearless strength near our camp site.

Dust, silt, and man machines which belch fumes litter the valley down a thousand metres below us. Jim, Christian, and I head up the eastern flank upon a route that was once the domain  of Khampa traders…and hosted Khampa camps and resistance to China’s incursion into Tibet, and though this time was short lived it left marks and memories a plenty in the highlands.

An always reassuring site: a wall of tea paraphernalia in Kagbeni

High and isolated, with pathways that are at times a metre wide, there is wind that comes at intervals that are almost cued, there is the layering of tones and geology, and there are the ammonites that litter valleys hidden encased in river rocks.

So much above and so much below at these altitudes

Moving through such spaces is like a never ending lesson in geology.

Fun and games as we do successive river crossings

The dominant Sakya lineage and its monasteries lie upon sacred power-zones throughout the Mustang area and the memories of Tantric practice are not long gone at all.

A young monk, the keeper of the key

It is a place that still hums with power and memory.

A Chorten marks a pass

Like every year upon this route (thus far) there is too that feeling of being in a world without plastic, without man’s noises but with a kind of autonomy. Such a concept here is accessible and preferred.

One comes here with all one needs (or with what one thinks one needs) with a team, with mules and with whatever else matters.

Though Nir wasn’t our official guide, he became (in mere days) our unofficial leader. Throughout the journey he managed to maintain perfect pleats in his trousers! Here he issues out orders and thoughts.

With Jim and Christian, I have dedicates that have chosen to come to a series of spaces that remind that faith, the elements, and a bit of wind is all the mind and body need.

Crossing the ‘Black River’ the Kali Gandaki

We have food, companionship, loads of my tea and a team of Sherpas, Magars, Lo’Ba’s and a chef named Santosh. It is all that is needed.

A hollow of stone, long used to pulverize ‘Duba’ (juniper) for incense

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Nepal – The Buzz That Leads to the Sky

There are few other gateway spaces that lead to zones of majesty, silence and winds, that are themselves such chaotic charmers, as Kathmandu. It remains fuzzy with dust and pollution, it remains a steaming hub of humanity at every level, and it thankfully retains – for better or worse – a place that is instantly recognizable. The full spectrum of senses are engaged and sometimes forced wide open to acknowledge.

That bit of wonderment – the Boudanath Stupa, in amidst so much else.

For my own repeated journeys, it demands that ‘you’ or one adapts to it. Uncompromising it is itself. Gentle when it needs to be, full of spots that lie somehow out of the hub it is also a space where humans with all of their toils are visible. I have arrived to it all once again. It is as it always has been for me: a place that leads to other places.

Further north lies the Himalayas that wait as they always have. They change but they remain there…just over there. A month of trekking an old trade route in Mustang’s wide dry contours follows and a journey to the shadows of Everest, Chomolungma, in the Solukhumbu region after that if the fates and the wills allow.

Colour, chaos, humility…an entrance that is “The buzz that leads to the Sky”

This introduction has always been in my mind as “The buzz that leads to the sky”. Gear, layers, footwear made with materials I cannot pronounce, and of course the teas that will fuel and sate my journey with two others all clog up my pack.

Memories and the feel of a space and time perhaps need that bit of random woven in with that bit of sensory familiarity.

The two cakes that will join and fuel the journey. A Jing Mai older offering from old trees and a newer more robust little gem from Ba Ma. Puerh fuel

Relics, crows, and wheeled vehicles putter while baby bird chicks somewhere close screech for parents that hunt. Dull and dusty prayer flags roll with a small breeze and the not-so distant Boudhanath will surely – regardless of time and weather – be populated with the curious and devout, the confused and the hopeful. Tea houses seem to, year after year, give way to more modern coffee houses and my heart sinks just a little at this transformation. Bring together seems less important that being able to be close without engaging…this is, for me at least, the modern coffee house. Disappearing are some of the spots where traders and ancients who had come to this market city at a different time, would chat about the days of tea and salt trade; about the adventures of arriving during a different time and perhaps fussing about the state of affairs. I’m all too aware of my own nostalgia built around the old traders and trade routes. It is what it is I suppose.

The little package that will be packed into the bigger pack. Essentials for every journey

Whatever else is alive and raging in the world, my mind for the moment is content with the knowledge that I’m here with some tea and about to embark upon a month in the mountains with little other than needs and senses. And as always, there will be a reconnection with a few old friends…over what I hope will be tea rather than coffee.

The ‘hills’ that await

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Akahiao Nature Institute…and tea times

When, a few years ago, I left northwestern Yunnan to join my wife Julie and live here in Hawaii, there were concerns that I’d somehow be removed from what had been my base close to mountains and tea and of the wonderful effects that the two elements. A concern that a decade of unrivalled access to thin-aired wonder and culture, and that stimulant leaf that gives so much to each day, would be dimmed. Hawaii, and specifically Big Island, has its own narcotic charms with the trade winds, the black lava stains, and a micro-environments that rival any. It also can recall a cultural weave that in many ways mirrors so much of what I’d been immersed in, in the Himalayas.

On our way up the sacred Puu Waa Waa on Big Island.

Some of that dimming took place, being away from heights and the all-seeing leaf. I could no longer simply walk into the mountains and get utterly lost along caravan routes that spanned a thousand kilometres. I couldn’t simply step onto a flight for two hours to reach one of tea’s great origins and tuck into hours’ long sessions of tea sipping. Though, there is some very decent tea here, and there are some mountains, it is a different space with different memories. But, it is as vibrant and alive as any space there is…away as it is from human’s overly controlling touch. And it is here that we build the Akahiao program, with all of our collective, and accumulated thoughts and narratives passed on.

Our camp site from above, amidst Jacaranda, Silver Oak and the circular permaculture gardens.

So, the adaptation began (and continues in earnest). Apart from trips back every year to the Himalayas, longings, and the inevitable journeys back to source teas in southern Yunnan, there has been a gradual immersion deeper into the elements here…without relinquishing anything from years’ past.

The pots that serve – at the ready

One such element has been my wife, Julie’s, slow, methodical formation of the Akahiao Nature Institute. A dedicated initiative built upon the old (but often ignored) ideal that we all need more time outside of walls, under the skies and amidst the breath of the wind to engage with, and understand, why Nature matters. Theories aside, tangible engagement with Nature is the most visceral way to create a relationship with her. From this relationship, a care develops.

Part of the sacred Puu, where our groups trek to and pay homage to.

Akahi/Ekahi signifies ‘One’, and Ao refers variously to ‘world’, ‘cloud’, or ‘realm’. The resultant philosophy is made clearer with the name Akahiao, or “One Realm” which helps direct a vision and effort embarked upon that is shared for a future realm.

The now infamous clay pizza oven can serve up magic…and a bit of random joy

Julie and I, along with some skilled and authentic stewards and carers have put together our first outdoor programming for camps. Food from our permaculture garden nurtured by Antonio, Paiden, and Nicole and prepared by chef Lynn Sheehan infuses so much of the idea of ‘local’ into our programs. Christine Young infused the girls’ minds with the use of natural predators (as opposed to ferocious pesticides) and balance to deal with infestations. Camping outdoors, work in the garden, and treks, allow for a consistent immersion and simple being in the environments we wish to be a part of. Akahiao is about an entwining with the land, and with each other and finding our place.

Harvesting Mamaki leaves from the forest, in preparation for making tea.

My twice daily tea times, serving tea to the participants, allows me to imbue some of that wonderful Asian tradition of the ‘offering’. Tea times are times, like those brilliant tea houses of Yunnan, where anything can be discussed…or nothing can be discussed. It is a time for reflection, for engagement, and solitude. My own role is to create outdoor programming, and perform the modest but vital tea session merging that not so distant life of mine in the mountains to an island.

Tea Time begins

Our last group of incredible young women fully understood the tea sessions and what they meant beyond the simple stimulant kick. They also, vitally,  left us with the impression that there is much room for this kind of immersive and cooperative program where we live ‘with’ and ‘within’ rather than on top of, and dominating.

The offering is never wasted

And so, onwards and gently, gently we go…and writing this as I prep for another immersion entirely. Back to Nepal’s Himalayas for 40 days. This time though, there is a living vessel to bring back that wisdom to, and weave in.

Working through a Design Thinking workshop with Meli James and Raviraj Pare

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Ayni – Reciprocity. The Third Instalment of our Andean Journeys along the Inca Road

The Llama’s ass, tea leaves, and a mountain where the Royal Incas came for guidance from the still-reverent spirit world. Our last instalment (here) of the ‘In from the Outpost’ (on tea’ journeys through the Andean world. Pariaqaqa, a mountain that bowed all mortals in reverence features. A team full of passion for the skies, for the stories and for the leaves is to be thanked. The journey transverses so much more than simple national  borders and demarkations. It is a fluid and efficient set of routes that striated, wandered and then veered back into one another. Conceptually, the whole journey inevitably leads back to that stunning living concept, Ayni, or ‘reciprocity’. A term for the times!

Moving along with the Llamas towards Pariaqaqa

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Tea Horse Road – Witness

“The tea caravans would come from the north and they would come in Spring and even winter. The Khampas who accompanied the caravans could frighten and impress us. They were unpredictable and without fear. Their journeys made them indestructible”.
Words during an interview near the Bhutan-Tibet border with an elder who served our team a variation of butter tea. He was speaking of the Khampa (‘people of the east’ of the Tibetan lands) who inspired this reverence and fear throughout their long journeys. 
 This variation of butter tea being served while chatting in a rumbling wind was ‘enhanced’ with the addition of rancid goat milk, which was used instead of yak milk.. The resultant tea wasn’t pleasant. “Watch out for this one”, fellow journeyer Yeshi told me of the offending tea in warning. It was an impossible beverage to enjoy but the moments with this ancient gem were memorable because they reminded of the importance of people of the leaf, who ushered the stimulant green commodity to all points of the compass along the Tea Horse Road.
Tea Horse Road Witness

Another of the amazingly lucid witnesses to days when the Tea Horse Road enjoyed activity.

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The Tea Horse Road – The Grace

A little moment of respite for our incredible hostess who remains still, one of most formidable characters in my memory palace. While running around researching the Tea Horse Road, a friend who was from the Yi minority invited me to meet his grandmother, who had lucid memories of the old trade route. As much as the time with her was about tea and the route itself – which steamed through her region near Xiaguan, Yunnan, – she herself became a kind of all-encompassing subject of my attention and affection. Somewhere in her nineties, she still ran a household, puttering around offering up drinks and speaking about spirits that wandered at night. Her diet (and energy) fascinated me. Besides the odd bit of tea, she subsisted almost entirely on a diet of raw eggs whipped into a small brew of homemade whisky, with a little sugar added. Twice daily she took this ‘life-juice’ and managed quite fine. It was only when preparing to leave that I was told that she had only twenty-percent vision. She had scurried around for days nimbly skipping about offering up all she had to us, hunched up but fluid. An amazing bit of inspiration and energy bundled into human form.

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Part 2 of our ‘In from the Outpost’

Second Part of our recent ramblings through Peru and the Andean world, with a visit to the village of Chawaytiri here.

After demolishing a half bag of coca, it was my turn to serve tea to the elders of Chawaytiri. Luciano, the headman took a tea cake and promptly portioned out chunks equally to the families.

More sips of tea, more coca offers, still more coca…before an offering of a tea cake to the elders, which was promptly portioned out.

And of course, our epic team continues on with Alex, Jackie, Domingo and the Outpost crew.

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The Tea That Got Away

Every single year on the tea foraging and sourcing missions I go on, there is a tea that – for any number of reasons – I miss out on acquiring. Here, I’m speaking about good teas that ‘hit’ me. The qi is there, the liquor carries some bite, and the mineral depth of the flavours over infusions seems to evolve. These teas more often than not, come into my sphere (and onto my palate) by simply being in the tea zones – a bit of good grace by being able to immerse myself in source regions.

That sanctuary of the dried leaf: The Tea House

This particular cake (of which there were two) was what I’ve subsequently come to refer to as  ‘2018’s tea that didn’t quite make it into my collection. A ten-year-old Sheng (10 is plenty old enough in my palate pleasure box) Lao Banzhang that was a deep,  luscious, tang-filled wonder. Despite an afternoon of shooting multiple offerings, the qi in this cake was cracking, even after all of the quality on offer earlier in the day. It did what I believe (and have been taught to expect) good Puerhs should: be clean with some bite, hit with a nice secondary mineral-waft  in the back of the mouth, and finish soft. And then there was the qi dimension. It didn’t simply come and go. It came, and came again…and then returned with every successive infusion. It was that thrilling heat-seeking clarity that comes when a tea has been through minimal manipulation by us humans – just enough to usher the leaves (good leaves from good soil) on their way to a desiccated state, and a cup.

The cake that got away…and melted the blood.

The gentleman who brought the tea in knew it was something special. He was a buyer/seller from near Hangzhou, and had purchased the leaves and pressed the cake himself years ago, and kept the cakes in a strict dry-storage environment and emphasized one of the great underrated aspects of stored or ‘aged’ Puerhs: that “without knowing storage conditions, you do not know your tea”. And how often do we hear the ambiguous terms of “old”, “ancient”, “at least 30-years” in modern Puerh conversations? A little too often, I’d venture.

Some of the magic within. Loads of end buds with their ‘fuzz’, along with a nice smattering of fully mature leaves.

We sat in a friend’s tea shop in Menghai and he brought this stunner to simply share. My own offer to purchase the untouched remaining cake was an awkward moment that brought a smile. He could smell my fever, “But it isn’t for sale”, he said. This kind of wording often simply means, “It is for sale, but it will take some time to get to a number I like”. In the end, it simply wasn’t for sale. Not to me, nor to two other friends sitting with us. It was simply to share. It reminded me (painfully, as I still lust after it, every time I remember its golden buds) that the spirit of tea houses, was/is/should be, to share. The 2018 ‘tea that got away’ was one, that would only be shared.

A parting shot that hangs in the mind.

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Mustang Spaces 4 – Lo Gekar and Kunga

Abu is chatty. Not prone to overly long sessions of speaking, Abu, when he is talking, usually has something to expel and it is always a treat watching it begin to emerge. Weeks in and heading west out of old Samzong to Lo Manthang, with our caravan of two and four-legged ones spread along a weaving line, Abu is going on how “the valleys need to talk to one another and they need to share”. His energy is ‘up’ and his eyes glow with some sort of inner force of conviction, which has decided it needs out. In the Tibetan Tantric practise, there is a term ‘airs’ which refers to vital energies or energy winds that rest in us and can, with training, be summoned. These ‘airs’ are associated always with the different levels of the mind. Abu’s ‘airs’ have been summoned and it is a delight to see them come. Chats during treks are somehow, in my mind, more lucid. Landscapes and Mother Nature edit down words (and breath) to direct thoughts unmolested by too much eloquence.
Grinding barley in Mustang

Grinding and pulverizing is still done by hand, and still something done in the sun.

Within much of the mountain worlds, the issue of shared knowledge, technology, or thought has been one that has been a long and often predictable plague. Fear, safety, ignorance, territorial behaviour and the fact that ‘neighbouring valleys’ in the mountains didn’t necessarily mean ‘close’ all have contributed. Old disputes too – often centuries old – can keep people apart and kept simple knowledge ‘away’ from those who aren’t intimately connected to one another.
Abu himself has views on the different regions and people of ‘Lo’ (Mustang) and today he speaks of the need for all to collaborate and share ideas about “moving forward”. He speaks as much to himself and the winds perhaps as he does to me or Debra. At least the thoughts are coming. He thinks and is moved about his home, Mustang, as more of a entirety as we have travelled over the weeks. Tibetans I’ve met tended to refer to their homes by specific village names, valley names, or towns, no matter how remote rather than general regions. There is a strong associative and regional strength in their words. A true attachment and understanding of their ‘place’. Abu though is speaking about the greater region, the wider sphere, and there is a warming in me to hear him speak. Much of our journey has been about water and its ebbing, and its increasing unpredictability. Glacier melt is down and much of the eastern side of Mustang has struggled with precipitation. Some communities have  tried to adapt, while others have simply withered up and moved on.
Our days have been spent looking at dried river beds, mountain tops that once gleamed with white and ice, and peering at long gone communities’ faded and abandoned homesteads. Abu has ‘felt’ this journey and its water-centric weight as it is after all, his domain.

Abu holds a dead raptor which lie across a portion of our route north of Lo Manthang. “Maybe the ravens got it”, he guessed. Mustang carries much of the wildlife that stretches across the entire Himalayan length. 

The chill of mornings take longer and longer to dissipate. The sun’s blasts take longer to soften and heat the earth and they take longer to climb into the sky. Winter is here in many places already. It is a kind of dictation from above and below. It further edits down conversations and further pushes the notion of humility into the blood. Though nothing like my own Canadian homeland quite yet, winter above four-thousand metres comes in varying degrees of intensity…particularly as we spend every single day and night ‘out’ in it.
Lo Manthang pulls us east. It pulls us with its massive walls, though the ‘city’ widens every year with hotels that spread far beyond the walls. It was – and remains – a place of passage. In the past it was a northern frontier zone in Mustang. Tibet lies just north and trade through porous borders was still humming up until 2008. A belt road is planned crossing the Upper Mustang border with Tibet and there is much chatter about how this will affect the entire region.
Lo Manthang is also where I will see old trader, Kunga. A kind of gentle idol of mine, a kind of legend and one of the very last of the old traders who once roamed these mountain regions by caravan, trading anything of value. It will be the third consecutive year that I return to see him, and the third consecutive year I gift him a cake of Puerh tea. To come and give something that he used to trade in (and misses) is a gift in itself. He is a proud ‘lo-ba’ or native Mustang inhabitant, but embodies so much of what the greater Himalayas is about.
We set our tents in a small private yard behind a guesthouse in Lo Manthang and wander out and there – doing his thrice-daily circumambulations – is the taut and leathery figure of Kunga. As though placed, scripted, and waiting, there he stands.
Convening of friends in Mustang

Taken within the first seconds of my meeting with my old idol, Kunga. Beautiful moment taken by Debra Tan.

Sitting in a small restaurant room that is just barely warmer than the outdoors, words and greetings are exchanged. The wisdom of the elders, and particularly elders who’ve long revered and let the elements shape them, is a kind of utter strength fused with an acceptance at thriving in such spaces. Strength here isn’t measured in anything overt and it isn’t really even spoken about at all. Kunga speaks with a sparkle in the eye of his days of trade, and the expanses of land, which he remembers. He speaks too of places that he never quite got to see. He reminisces about his mules and horses and what sold and what was worth much. He fiddles and shifts at times with his callused little hands that still hold immeasurable power. Being outside amidst such grand brutal open spaces has perhaps given Kunga just a slight bit of inordinate strength. When I ask about what is necessary in life, he answers instantly, “movement”. Waiting for more to come from him is in vain. He has spoken. It is “movement” that is necessary according to him.
Kunga and his energy feed and enthral me and simply knowing that his spirit is intact and his words still direct and honest gives a deep warmth. He speaks of landscapes like one might speak of a loved but slightly feared aunt or uncle. Reverential but not unrealistic. Direct and understanding.

Within a nomad’s yak tent a bit of peace from the winds near Samduling on Mustang’s western flank outside of Lo Manthang

Having had three separate ‘sessions’ with Kunga and our brief time in Lo Manthang has settled my blood. He is well, his words still sting with beauty, and I can now depart having been fed. We move west towards the nomadic community of Samduling. Samduling in its time was another of the sacred meditation zones but now there are simply black tents which ripple and snap in he wind.
Our little camp near Samduling is above 4000 metres and it will also prove to be the coldest night we encounter. It is the cold that knows no let up. It is a cold that encamps itself in the bones, settles in for as long as one’s own body will allow it. Winds aren’t so much screaming as they are like a unending series of massive waves.
We head south from Samduling along yet another of the old Khampa routes. It is a route that is still used by trekkers and locals alike in an arching and yawning swoop upwards and then a descent. Being on the western flank of the Kali Gandaki we are exposed to the sun early in the morning but the slow burn of the skin doesn’t quite seep into the bones….not quite.

Tea done simple and tea done right, in Lo Manthang

Lo Gekar Monastery (or simply ‘Gar Gompa) sits in a sprig of trees that bend in the wind. One of the most ancient of the Tibetan world’s temples, it sits at 3943 metres and is, according to myth, legend, and every other tale told of the place, constructed at the sight were Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) slew a demon. A teacher of tantric traditions, and widely considered the founder of the Nyingma sect of Buddhism (and the oldest). Mustang is one of the ancestral Tibetan kingdoms and a space embedded with the ancient sects of Buddhism.
Whatever battles were waged here, the monastery sits tucked away battened down in the winds with two dogs  that seem perpetually disinterested in anything but catching the day’s rays of sun. Within the main temple itself, the cold is a still cold and many iterations of Padmasambhava sit with their various intense eyes staring out, imploring it seems. It is a place I’d like to sleep somehow. Pungent oil, smoke, and cold stone inundate the small room. Abu is bowed, I’m bowed, Debra is bowed. It is a place that drops the head but it is the eyes which hold me. It is the eyes of one of the particular statues of Padmasambhava. At the end of this almost month spent wandering, I’d expect gentle eyes and compassion but what I look at and what looks at me, are eyes that implore…eyes that push and challenge some self within.
Debra and I are fixated upon the water issues that afflict the entire swath of the Himalayas and this is another step of our observations and of recordings. So much in the mountains is immediate and ‘simple’ in many ways. Change has always been a part of the story of this spinning orb of a planet; it has always been an element in the realm of humans…it is perhaps learning (or relearning), and sharing with one another the ways of adaptation that needs a reset. It is too about linking these hulking, wind-blasted water towers with the faucets of the urban centres. All is connected.
Perhaps it is the perfect place to end or as Abu likes to say “a good place to maybe begin something else”. Those eyes of the tantric master Padmasambhava remain like blue orbs in my head following me for the remaining days.

An offering of tea is accepted. My little pot and leaves are little liquid gifts offered up at every opportunity to remind perhaps that not all journeys need be just taking and passing through.

Mustang will remain and it will continue to change and evolve with time. Abu too will evolve and change…and so too have I changed with this journey. In the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’, Padmasambhava is attributed with saying of this idea of change, past, and present, “Abandon your notions of the past…cut off your mental associations regarding the future, without anticipation. Rest in a spacious modality, without clinging to the thoughts of the present”. Not quite sure I’ll be able to fully forget those eyes nor be anticipating another round of Mustangs colours…or Kunga’s words.

An offering of incense at Lo Gekar

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In the Land of Ayni (Part 1) – Outpost Magazine

Part 1 of our journey into the Andean world and my own slight obsession with the concept and Quechuan word, Ayni, here.

The Quechuan word ‘Ayni’…a sublime and old Andean idea; a responsibility that one has to one’s community. A guiding principle and philosophy rather than any law, it very roughly translates into ‘reciprocity’. A part of the social responsibility to one’s community and the earth, the Pachamama. The idea is a living thing and not simply an arcane idea where one can sit on one’s ass and simply ‘not collaborate’.
It remains a term (and concept) that stays in my blood from our precious weeks in Peru, and like so many of the mountain concepts, its’ time is always and it is
‘now’. Read more about our journey and the characters in an upcoming piece in the very Canadian Outpost Magazine. And, oh, the characters oozed integrity…and every one of them could slug back tea.

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