4KM High 5 Elements Temple - Sacred Muktinath

There: May 5, 2011

The 5 Element Journey - Sacred Muktinath - Dream Fulfilled

Bright an early, I caught a bus up to Jhomsom - a 6 hour adventure along a white-water river and a VERY steep canyon road [I was used to the kind by then]. During a bus change along the way, I met a large Hindu family of pilgrims going to stay at the ashram near Muktinath. The head of the family took me under his wing and made sure I got the right tickets at the right time [a non-trivial business on Nepali public buses]. The women of his family fed me pahat and the kind gentleman taught me Hindi and Nepali as our heads bobed to the not-so-gentle rhythm of the rocky road.

The bus was filled with Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims - and one man began to sing sacred hymns [that one is to sing upon the approach to the sacred sites, as my new Indian friend explained to me]. I'll never forget the whole bus singing and clapping to "Paco decade.....Paco decade" ["Show me the path! Show me the path!"] to the bumps and twists of the road - I couldn't resist joining in....it was SO MUCH FUN!

We had a stop-over at Jhomsom, and chose to continue on to Muktinath the same day [that would only make for a 12 hour day on the road ;o)]. Now, bused don't go to Muktinath. It's too steep and too rocky. But jeeps do. So, imagine a 4 wheel drive tuna with every crevace filled with human limbs or luggage....the jeeps have been modified for the Nepali-style travel. I.e., per 1.5 meter seat, one is to fit 5 people [math, anybody?]. Yep, pretty cozy. I didn't care - I simply meditated through the time that I could stop laughing at what was happening inside the cab - a seat falling out from under 5 people across from me....and them trying to fix it in transit....and such. It was caricature kind of funny. After only 1.5 hours of that joy, we were up there - at ~4000 meters.

My Hindu companions headed off into their ashram, and I went looking for a hotel. It so happened that Hotel North Pole had its last room waiting for me [ON THE ROOF - WITH ITS FULL ROOF FOR ME TO PLAY ON!].

View from my roof

It was warm, insulated [unlike most of the lodges on the trek] and smelled like dry firewood [a cozy scent that never fails to remind me of our family summer place at Ugra]. I loved it instantly. As it also happened, the hotel had a delightful new cook from Pokhara - who could cook FRENCH food like nobody's business. I blissed out to his spinach/mushrom quiches.....and the staple of lemon tea.

And that night, the much talked about altitude sickness did come. I woke up at 2 AM as though I was in a gel. Breathing gel. Swimming in gel. I felt like I was leaving this body. It was unlike anything I've read describing AMS. I swallowed my fair share of Dilmax [the local remedy for AMS that trekkers in Pokhara recommended for this very case]. No difference. I hesitantly awoke one of the hotel managers [who also happened to be that excellent cook] - though he did not know what to do, he's given me plenty of hot water and paracetamol....and then surprised me with an offer of massage. I know - sounds strange, but in that condition anything that could potentially get my blood moving sounded good. So, there we were on a roof of "The North Pole" near the sacred Muktinath, at 4000 m - doing a massage. I felt better enough to fall asleep.

The next morning I woke up in a gel again - everything in slow motion. It felt like my reality movie played at 14 frames/second instead of 24. As I came out of my warm roof "nest," I somnambulically approached the first person I saw, which happened to be another Sanskrit-speaker - a high-spirited Russian woman named Victoria who was warming up in the morning sun with her faithful big-lens camera and a tripod.

"Hi, do you know what to REALLY do about AMS [Gornyazhka in Russian]?" She took one look at me, laughed and said that she was there the night before too and is also in a "recovery" state, but "take at least two fizzing aspirins/or Vit C - it thins your blood - and you'll feel better soon." DUH! I knew that - except that my brain was in a "0" mode, so the thought didn't crawl by. And her Nepali porter mentioned - oh, yes, and garlic soup and lemon juice/tea. Naturally, I ordered both immediately and moon-walked to my Vit C and took a bunch.

Then I planted myself next to my "rescuers" and watched Victoria passionately shoot in every direction - it turned out that our rooftop was THE perfect observation point for the happenings all around - new jeeps arriving to the ashram [just next door], pilgrims walking up to Muktinath, folks leaving town....it was all there for the colourful gazing. Oh, yes, and ont he other side of the roof, we got the most spectacular vista of the Himalayas.....with plenty of stunning "Nilgiris" [that's what the Nepali call a big Himal=snow mountain that doesn't already have a famous name ["nilgiri" literally means "Indigo Shiva"]. A constantly changing theatre of the sky.....this just doesn't fit into words.

It was there and then in our mutual slow motion that we've had our life-universe-and-everything conversation on the Dark Nights of the Soul that we've both experienced, on the nature of reality and re-inventing one's life....on Upanishads and Yoga Vashishta.....Magical, really.

I realized that Victoria too has reinvented her life a couple times - she was a mime by education who has gone into an unrelated business and created a successful company, then got divorced but a year ago.....and is now re-inventing her life yet again. I don't know if I've ever met such a light-spirited and open being of courage - a spirit of a child in a 30-something body - with sprinkles of wisdom. Sipping our garlic soup/lemon juice/vit c/aspirin concoctions [no, not all mixed together ;o)], we've laughed our way right out of AMS.

Eventually, we gathered ourselves to explore the sacred temple.....and what a feast for the eyes that was! Semi-loony babas at the entrance speaking in tongues, the ornate colourful robes of the pilgrims climbing up the steep steps, walls of "mani" wheels spinning in the wind [each "wheel" has 1000 mantras "OM MANI PADME HUM" inside, and the belief is that if one spins the wheel, one will get 1000x the benefit of chanting the mantra once]....random horses/goats wandering by, delicately carved crafts and cozy yak woolens being sold by the sun-faced local women....

The temple itself lives up to the name - there are 100 fountains behind it where some bathe, some drink, some chant mantras, 100 fires, where pilgrims burn flower petals and incents, 100 bells of different sizes......you get the idea.

And several stupas surrounding the temple.

The whole landscape is laced with the mandala-like web of strings laced with colourful flags playing with the wind.

The temple grounds nestle in the "armpit" of a canyon - where the canyon meets the bigger mountain chain....it has a feeling of an amphitheatre, a bowl. I appreciated the natural geometry of the place when I discovered an entrance to the roof of a roof [where the main staircase ended at the main roof, and the little wooden ladder led to the very top, which I, naturally, climbed up to].

Stupas, burning fires, dense webs of sacred flag strings, sounds of the 100 fountains in the distance....and the mystical wind singing through the flags.....and Himalayas as far around as I could see...........eagles dancing before me in celebration of life and the 5 elements.... I've never appreciated the "sound of silence" as I did in that moment. A wave of appreciation has come over me - I sat within my other big dream, I realized. I was WITHIN the Roerich picture so cherished in my heart since childhood! It was all around me - changing every instant - colours subtle and precious in every moment. Ahhh....words are such a futile exercise!

We spent another day there and then headed back for the hot-spring heaven - Tattopani - it was time for me to head to India and for Vicka to finish her trek through Gorepani and catch a flight home. So we took a bumpy jeep ride down to Jhomsom, which Vicka has somehow managed to video - and it appeared that the camera hardly moved!

That's what I call a steady hand!

And in Jhomsom, two surprises have awaited us. First was my realization that I left my lucky trekking poles at the ticket counter at Muktinath. How about that for a sign that it's time to stop the trek? I guess, someone needed them more. And could there be a better time to surrender the poles than at the intended end of the trek? And the second was the double rainbow unlike any I've seen before: there was an actual full circular rainbow around the sun, and another big fat one over the snow peaks. We went mad with camera action.....and folks just kept walking by. Hardly anybody else looking up.....just us - the two camera-mad fools who couldn't get enough of the miraculous sight. I just wonder, how many times we walk by miracles like these by simply failing to look up.

[Helios' chariot]

As we stopped for a lemon-tea fuel-up before the next long bus ride, we found both rainbows gone - but 5 minutes after we captured their reflections on our "film." Just long enough to play with us they were.....Carpe momento indeed!

Vicka's amazing Nepali guide - Sam.....he learned Sanskrit/Russian in 18 days and knows more about Nepal and mythology of the local sacred spots than anyone I know.

Vicka and her faithful camera - UNSHAKABLE!

A waterfall we saw on the way down from Jomsom

That night, we fueled up on roasties and other yummies at the oasis of Tattopani,

and soaked our tired limbs in the wild hot springs [imagine a sand-bag bordered water hole] under the starry sky. Vicka's wild and brilliant/unusually "plugged in" [the Force was strong with him ;O)] Nepali guide Sam and I ran back and forth between the hot springs and the white water river nearby for a contrast dip. It's something I've never done - hold onto the rocks of a fast glacier river while my body whirls about in the chilly current right after steeming my brain in a sulfur spring.

Both Dippers, Casseopea and the Northern Crown witnessed us that night - so bright with no other lights around.....The moments I live for....

The roof of our idyllic hotel in Tattopani.....can you believe this?

~~~~~~~~~~~

A seriously bumpy ride from Jomsom down [the jeeps there are adapted for compactness, shall we say.....not comfort. Image: sardines in a can - shaken, not stirred].