The Stairway To Heaven

Later that night, the electricity in Joshimath decided to attempt doing something for once, and I noticed that our creepy old friend was nowhere to be seen, so I sallied forth from the protective cocoon of our hotel in a vain attempt to use the internet. It was then that I met Santoosh.

Santoosh (not his real name) is a respected figure in the Garwhal tourism industry, presumably because people appreciate his services but don't spend too much time hanging out with him. In any case, I happened into his "adventure shop", and at that moment everything changed. Santoosh had all the answers, and critically, his own car. Consulting with Girlface Buddha, we made a plan that not only got us everywhere we planned, but on a number of side-adventures as well, all in time for a festival day on the other side of the mountains. Lifted from despair to exhilaration, Girlface and I made our previously-thwarted trip to the temple village of Badrinath the very next morning.

Badrinath is one of the four great "river source" temples of Garwhal, sitting near the source of the Alakananda. I would also like to point out that it is incredibly far from anything and should really be known for the dramatic shifts of its weather more than its hallowed ground. When we arrived, Nilkanth mountain, which stands well over 6000 meters and was right next to us, was entirely concealed in a big white soup which we soon learned to recognize as the ubiquitous Himalayan snowstorms. So, we went to the village of Mana, which is very famous for being small and quaint, and because of its fame is no longer very quaint. The village is full of fascinating Hindu trivia, such as the very cave where the legendary sage Vyasa supposedly wrote the Mahabharata under the tutelage of Lord Ganesh. There is also a natural bridge supposedly made by the hero Bhima, and a very obscure splotch of rock that the locals will excitedly tell you is a naturally-formed picture of a horse. Mana is also the location of the most remote branch of the State Bank of India, which proudly boasts of having 100% coverage of Indian territory. Given that there are actually hundreds of thousands of villages without banks in India, I would say that Mana is the lucky beneficiary of pilgrim-targeted propaganda.

Beyond Mana is a rather austere valley with a difficult crossing to Tibet guarded by the Indian military, who mostly just sit around and make sure you claim to be on your way to the Vasudhara waterfalls. Girlface and I were about half an hour into the hike when we noticed that there was a snowstorm on each of the mountainsides about a hundred and fifty yards on either side of us...and that the entire valley behind us (the only way back to civilization) was also completely encased in a howling cloud of snow. Ahead of us, the clouds were rolling forwards at a rather troubling pace. We were now in our own little bubble of snowlessness, and it was getting rather cold. Girlface buried herself in the comically outsized sweater she had bought upon entering the mountains and left nothing but her eyes and a tail of shimmering black hair poking out the top. She was evidently displeased.

Since going back would have been even worse we pushed on through our bubble to the waterfall, where the stream that becomes the Alakananda jumps through thin air from a high cliff on a mountain so pointy and inscrutable that the ancients determined that the waterfall is the very stairway to heaven. It was here that the five Pandava brothers, the heroes of the Mahabharata, made their stirring ascent to paradise in the final chapters of that gargantuan tome. Girlface and I stood there as the storms slowly started to drift away from us and clear a path back to the village. We heard voices.

"Hello! Hello! What is your good name? And where are you hailing from?" It was a typical conversation with curious Hindu fellow-tourists. The voices belonged to two young men from Delhi who were there to see the falls as well. They marveled at its incredible plummet just as we had done, and poked in exhilaration at the large pile of ice at its base. Snow and ice are very wondrous things to most Indian people, though this feeling is known to reverse itself very suddenly and usually in correlation with a drop in the ambient temperature. Girlface shuffled over to a spot vaguely around where the water should have been landing and, with the speed of a striking cobra, bared on of her shivering hands to hold a water bottle out to capture some sprinklings from the stairway to heaven. I don't know what she plans on doing with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if her parents gratefully let her spill it all over the house from one of their balconies. Personally, I would commission someone to build a little boat in it with little tanning benches on the deck for Indian mythological heroes.

Together the four of us stood gawking at the point where the waterfall seemed to dissolve into mist in midair and then reappear as the slow melting of the ice below. One of the boys broke the silence. "Do you have a Facebook address?"

At the ends of the fucking earth.

All four of us walked back together, the boys shaking quite violently because they were wearing nothing but jeans and striped Delhi-ite office shirts, and Girlface waddling like a penguin and occasionally making some kind of muffled remark through about four layers of accumulated woolen clothing. The storm above the village relented as we walked, and a proper conversation resumed, at first concerning the cuisine and ethnic makeup of America, and then concerning the mischievousness of Jews.

It was one of the boys who asked "What are these Jews? They are the Yahudis?"
"Please, tell us about the Yahudis" the other said.
"I was talking to one Muslim man from Mumbai. His name Mr Feroz Khan. He says the Yahudis are very bad."
"Yes, and they control everything."

"Nah, nah" I tried to explain "They aren't bad. It's just that Muslims don't like them because of Israel-Palestine."
"Mr Feroz Khan says that the Yahudis own so many of the American medias. Is this true?"
"Uh, well yes, actually Jewish businessmen founded many of the..."
"And also they control the whole world."
"Uh......no"
"And he say also that the Yahudis take Muslims from their homes and never let them return."
"Ummmm well actually...yeah that one's true."
"So the Yahudis really are a danger?"
"No...I mean...there's Israel-Palestine", I began, as I launched into what I believed to be a fabulous Hinglish exposition of Middle Eastern history. Finally I concluded "...basically, don't believe anything Muslims say about Yahudis."
"Hmmm, well I think much must be true..." the first boy managed before his friend cut him off " -Yes, but the Muslims are often the trouble in the close-to-earth matters anyways."

Girlface and I proceeded to the Badrinath temple in a wintry rain, our part in the quest for world peace most satisfactorily completed. I hadn't spoken to her in a while, having been quite engaged in my temporary mission for the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Santoosh, who had rejoined us, displayed a rare moment of tact and left us alone on the bridge to discuss Girlface's apparent unhappiness. "What are you thinking about?" I asked. She pulled her outermost sweater down from her face and I knew everything was all right.

With more than a hint of sulking she said "Can the Yahudis please control the weather?"

Sexy Chicken

Enough of this fooling about at the bottom of the Himalayas: it's time to get up them bitches.

Girlface and I caught a morning bus for the epic 250-kilometer ride to the mountain town of Joshimath, a military and religious outpost that spends half of its year being home to thousands of people who live even deeper in the mountains, where winter gets too desperately cold even for strange Himalayan mountain people. All 250 of those kilometers were on a narrow, twisting road pushing ever further uphill through the Alakananda river valley, one of several places referred to as "The Valley of the Gods".

As the hours wore on, we almost became tired just by looking at the height and steepness of the slopes we were constantly about 10 inches from falling off of. There is just no horizontality in these mountains. It's so goddamn steep the children here don't even play cricket. They barely have enough ground for a half-court game of thumb wars. There is no 'missionary position' in the Garhwal Himalayas; sexual intercourse is instead referred to as 'getting belaid' because you can only do it while dangling in a harness. It's so steep you have to walk uphill to tie your shoes. I don't even know how that works. Logic ends at 10,000 feet.

We finally got to Joshimath and it was everything we hoed for: high, steep, and not quite as fucking cold as it could be. After weeks of over-100 degree heat in lower India, however, I was willing to deal with a spot of freezing rain here and there. It's really no prob...IS THAT FUCKING SNOW??? Friends, weeks after these events first unfolded, I can tell you that much of my reporting for the month of May is going to concern getting snowed on.

Arising early in the morning, we stretched and I donned my prize new possession: a ridiculous "hip" Indian sweater covered in nonsensical Hinglish-isms, mutually incompatible brand labels, and best of all, a prominent tag that reads something to the effect of "GIORGIO ARMANI. PURE ORIGINAL LEATHER". It's a wool sweater.

After our morning tea, we went to speak to the manager. I could hardly contain my glee when the combination of my stupid Indian sweater, stupid Indian haircut, and not-stupid Indian companion made the manager refuse to accept I was an American. He repeatedly accused me of faking my ignorance of Hindi, to which Girlface testified "Oh no, he really is quite ignorant." Leaving Girlface to do the talking, as the manager was now insulted by my ongoing "refusal" to converse with him intelligibly, we inquired as to the easiest way to get to the holy village of Badrinath, for which reason we had dragged ourselves hundreds of miles to this frigid hilltop.

"Badrinath is closed for another ten days" he said (in Hindi).

Well, that put a bit of a spin on things. It turns out that thanks to the Kumbh Mela, which had interrupted the various cosmic cycles of the year, the temples of Garwhal were still remaining closed several weeks after the clearing of the snows. We were left essentially with ten days in Joshimath, of all damn places, with nothing to do. "I know!" I said, "Let's find a crazy, perverted old man and go on an adventure with him!"

Well, that's not quite how it happened, but by that afternoon we were in a jeep with a crazy old pervert who was taking the time out of his busy schedule of criticizing the cooks at the town's main breakfast joint to show us around some village we had never heard of. It soon came out that the village, which was called Tapovan, was notable chiefly for its hot spring, and our new friend was making quite frequent reccomendations that we strip to our undergarments and splash hot water on our bodies. In retrospect, it was quite a mystery why we subsequently followed him a mile out of town to peer into another hot spring, which was little more than a violently foaming, sulphurous puddle of such suspect composition that he didn't suggest we disrobe there at all. Instead, he merely suggested that Girlface boil some eggs within, so that we might enjoy a hearty snack whilst frolicking in the hot springs back in town. He also wanted us to buy a chicken. I suppose he thought we should cook it, but by this point I didn't dare ask what else two young people and an old man could do with a chicken in a hot spring.

Nobody ever goes to Tapovan. Well, nobody except weird old Nepali men with hot spring fetishes, so we were stuck there for several hours before catching another jeep back. "What do we do for nine more days?" Girlface asked, visibly concerned that we had exhausted the touristic possibilities around Joshimath in a single creepy afternoon. Moreover, she seemed worried that though the attractions had run out, the creepiness hadn't. Pervo interrupted "Oh don't worry! There are many good things. You see me in morning. I will be at restaurant. There I can see your hotel."

Nine days... The afternoon was ony just drawing to a close and we were getting a little bored. Girlface was peering out the window and took me by the arm. "The old man is still sitting at that restaurant..." she whispered, "...what are we going to do? I don't want to go out..." She was right. There was something weird about it, and nine days under pervo-siege was a prospect not even Ghostface Buddha felt like having to deal with. I scanned the street carefully. If worst came to worst and the boredom were to start eating us from the inside... well... from the window I could see at least two places to buy chickens.

In Search Of The Galactic Chronicles

I couldn't stop myself: I had to go to Rishikesh. It's only a few miles upriver from Haridwar and is one of the most famous places in India. If you've heard the name, it's either because you know the Beatles went there, or because you too are fascinated by the odd place that now bills itself as "The Spirituality Capital Of The World". Rishikesh, which means "land of rishis" has been a hangout for Indian spiritual types for millennia, and here is why: it is the most remote and isolated place you can go in the Indian Himalayas without every having to actually walk uphill. Nowadays it is Ground Zero of the New Age, and aside from the many people who come here for its renowned yoga centers and serene ashrams, it is also full of goddamn moonbats.

It was my plan to mingle casually among the lunatics but I found infiltration impossible. Like their more grounded (and by "more grounded" I mean they believe in elephant-headed gods but nothing crazier than that) counterparts, they take their studies very seriously and expect some kind of commitment before revealing their wisdom. I was particularly annoyed that I couldn't track down the man whose sign promised he could reveal "Answers To Spiritual Questions, Indology, Galactic Chronicles." I could have visited any of his several blogs, but I disdain to do so, because it is well known that blogs are a complete waste of time.

My time spent searching for the Galactic Chronicles was not completely in vain. So, I present to you, meager as they are, the collected eavesdroppings of Ghostface Buddha's afternoon in Rishikesh.

"She is so, like, NOT on a spiritual journey."

"We can ask that nice man where he bought his beads!"

"No, it's not marijuana. It kind of smells pot-ish but the rishis call it, like, 'Ganja' because it's the herb of the Ganges, I think. It's a special herb."

"Sooooo I don't know what it means, but it was kind of special, Mum. You know I haven't had a girlfriend in seven or eight years."

"Yoga makes me fart."

"I know I shouldn't sleep with the guru, but it's his crossroads as well as mine."
"You really think so?"
"I mean, how can I know? Only he can see the crossroads."

"We don't have lentils in Canada."

"Do any of the ashrams have Skype?"

"There are too many rules here. I think I might change my flight to Dubai."

[At a restaurant] "Do you have any hidden meat?"

And finally, my two favorite conversational excerpts...

"Do you know where I can find a Vedic bakery?"
"Do you know what 'Vedic' means?"

"I don't believe in aliens, because the saddhus would talk about them."
"They speak Hindi all the time... they could be."
"No, they don't talk about worldly things."

Now pardon me, I must discuss worldly things.