JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi Daniel Linden (feel good novels txt) 📖

and I decided to leave it like that. I went over and sat next to Christian and Curtis and asked what had brought on that burst of training at 8,000 feet after a ten mile hike through the mountains.

Celine sat forward and said, “The two Chris’ are in a spat. Christian thinks he is a better uke because he is young and fast and very quick. Chris thinks he is a better uke because he has been doing it so long and is a much higher rank.”

I looked at Curtis with an amused expression and he just shrugged and said, “I think the trail and the trip is getting long already. They aren’t used to not having a radio or IPOD or laptop or a telephone and someone there to talk to all day.”

“So they’re just talking?”

“I think so. They pushed each other around a little, but it isn’t anything you don’t see every day.”

Christian came back with a round of beers for everyone and we talked until Cook told us that dinner would be in a few minutes and we should come inside to the dining room. We all filed in and washed in the warm basins of water they gave us. We ate rice and lentils that had been creamed. There was a green salad and some type of cracker, or breadstick. Cook also made sure that we had some type of desert each evening, usually just some canned fruit or a pudding. We also had some type of vegetable, but I could not tell what it was. It was bland and had a pleasing texture and that was all. It filled the enormous void in my stomach.

After dinner I went upstairs and got my mandolinden and went outside and played songs for an hour. Before I had finished there must have been twenty-five or thirty Nepali men and women sitting around and listening. I know they had never heard anything that sounded like that because I invented the instrument, still, they seemed to enjoy the diversion it gave them. After that I retired and left the young people to their own devices.

In my room I put the mandolinden back into its case and zipped the reinforced cordura covering it. It is a small instrument like a mandolin, however it is tuned a full fifth below a mandolin and a full fourth above a guitar. It has six strings and the tuning is set to a fourth, the same as a guitar. It is unusual, but it has a lovely, pleasing sound and can be played by itself or used to accompany a voice or in ensemble.

***

That was the way it went for the next week. We would climb over passes as high as 12,000 feet; we passed through the towns Bhandar, Sete, Junbesi, and Mandingma and along the way we passed monks in Buddhist robes as well as many prayer walls. Each day began with tea and bowls of warm water served while we were still in our sleeping bags. We developed a routine and found a groove that suited us. Each day after breakfast Celine and Esra would start off with Bim. Chris and Curtis would follow. Christian would walk with me and we would bring up the rear while we talked about many things, but primarily aikido.

Eventually we found our way to the Dudh Kosi. This is the river known also as the ‘milk river’ which flows off the main glacier from Mt. Everest. It is so called because the pounding descent of the water causes it to fill with bubbles and foam giving it the appearance of thin milk. We finally began the hardest part of the trip to Namche Bazaar from the low country of the Himalaya Massif. At this point we started climbing up the tributary streams that fed into the Dudh Kosi and often would have to climb straight up winding switchbacks as high as a mile into the mountains. We would then turn around and come back down in order to cross over another tributary stream and follow the reverse path as it wound its way to Lukla.

Lukla is the village where an airstrip perches tight against an improbable, mile high wall. It allows trekkers to fly directly from Kathmandu into the mountains. It is the easy way. We’d spent the last 12 days climbing. This was supposed to build you up and get you ready for an assault on the huge mountains that lay ahead. The truth is that in many ways it broke us down.

Eventually we arrived at Lukla. Lukla is a major village and an important stop along the trail and is the gateway to the Solo Khumbu region which includes Everest. There are many fine lodges and numerous restaurants and places to buy things. Lukla is the main transportation hub in Solo Khumbu because of the airstrip and also because of it there are more trade goods and supplies available than almost anywhere else up in the high country. There is a school where children spend their time and learn the ways of Buddhism and the ways of the Nepal people as well as learning the new ways of the western world. We visited there the morning after we arrived. Celine and Esra were thrilled at the paintings being done by the children and arranged to purchase two. They would be held until our return. In the afternoon Christian and Curtis and Chris all found a wonderful clearing covered in dense soft moss and spent an hour training hard under the high Himalayan sky.

At this point I started to become concerned because until now we had not actually seen a high Himalayan peak. It would be clear in the mornings while we were deep in the valleys and as we rose higher and higher and tried to get to a point where we could get a good look at the giant Himalayan peaks the clouds would close in and we would be