The Waiting Land

by Dervla Murphy

  Such encounters with the mysterious can be at once stimulating, chastening and annoying. It is always exhilarating to glimpse regions that can’t be mapped, and it is healthily humbling to be challenged by subtleties against which rationality is no defence. Yet it is irritating, too, to be proved still vulnerable to influences which one is supposed to have long outgrown; and in the end one is left with just another big question mark. After firmly deciding that rocks and trees do not have spirits the only alternative explanation for such ‘atmospherics’ is that over many centuries enough people have come to this place with enough awe for its visible peculiarities and enough terrified belief in the power of its spirits to leave an enduring deposit of fear and unease in the shadow of that root-gripped rock. But this leads on to speculation as to why certain natural phenomena should so overwhelm the minds and imagination of men – and if one doesn’t then think quickly about something else one is back where one started.

  Now the track was climbing through maize-fields to a little village built on a series of narrow shelves just below the top of the ridge. There appears to be a vast amount of marble available locally, and this has been used here to create a uniquely beautiful village. For the final quarter of a mile the track was very steep and as I ascended a stairway of smooth marble slabs I had the illusion of approaching a royal palace rather than a primitive hill settlement. This marble is of many soft colours – pink, white, green, yellow, fawn – and discovered amidst the glory of the surrounding heights and depths it is intoxicatingly lovely. Then I found myself walking between the houses on shiny marble paving-stones, instead of the usual rough paths, and – most striking of all – I saw, on the ledge below, roofs of multicoloured thin marble slates, glowing with a gentle lustre in the clear air.

  I waited for the Tibetans in the centre of the village and when they had joined me Chimba explained that the local people were Gurungs, who would be less unhelpful than the orthodox Hindu Chetris in the next settlement; so we agreed to eat here. He and I then sat on the verge of a minor precipice and ate our hard-boiled eggs and raw onions, while the rest of the party dispersed throughout the village to beg for the use of fireplaces on which to prepare tsampa.

  Rarely have I picnicked amidst such enchantment. In addition to the marbled splendour of their roofs these houses had smooth walls of handsome stone slabs, so cleverly cut that no mud was needed to stop up cracks, and each separate stone seemed to be tinged a different shade of brown, cream or grey. Yet it was the texture of the stones and the apparent simplicity of the well-proportioned structures – which in fact must require considerable skill – that pleased me most. It is interesting that the availability of such unusual building materials has inspired local craftsmen to attain a much higher level of artistry than is evident in any of the neighbouring villages; and Chimba tells me that in all his Nepalese travels he has never seen anything comparable with this little settlement.

  No milk was to be had here, but when we had finished our meal Chimba proudly produced tins of powdered milk and Swiss drinking chocolate (both scrounged from the German expedition of happy memory) and while we were drinking this delicacy one of the many eagles that float continuously over these valleys swooped down with talons outstretched and seized a hen which was pecking nearby at our eggshells. What fierce-looking birds these are, seen close to and in action!

  When we continued after an hour’s break the path first went downhill through terraced maize-fields, then crossed a river before climbing steeply through more forest, and finally levelled out to swing around the shoulder of another mountain and bring us to this small village of grass-thatched ochre-washed Chetri houses.

  My crossing of the above-mentioned river made the day for the Tibetans. The ‘bridge’ was a single, narrow, slippery tree-trunk, about thirty feet long and some fifty feet above a flooded river-bed crowded with hideous-looking boulders. A single slip could mean nothing but death and after one horrified look I said, ‘No, thanks – perhaps in my reckless youth but certainly not now’. The Tibetans were tickled pink by such cowardice and several of them at once volunteered to carry me across on their backs; but I emphatically declined this terrifying though noble offer and while they all trooped over without a second thought I investigated alternatives. There were none. So I despairingly sat astride the damn thing and cautiously propelled myself across, which device had the Tibetans literally rolling on the ground with mirth. But it did get me safely, if slowly, to the other side.

  It was only 5.30 p.m. when we arrived here and as two hours of daylight remained we intended walking further; but on enquiring about shelter we learned that none existed between Toprung and Siglis, which is seven hours’ walk away. So, as sleeping out without tents isn’t very healthy during the monsoon, we are now billeted on the unwelcoming though not overtly hostile villagers. We will sleep on various verandahs at the approximate cost of one penny per sleeping-space and I’m among the honoured few who are to be accommodated on the verandah of the village store, which sells nothing but cigarettes, matches and cloth, plus kerosene at certain seasons. The weary Tibetans were jubilant at this unexpectedly early halt and it suited me too. While wood was being collected to boil big saucepans of tea for our tsampa supper I set off on an exploratory walk to the top of this mountain, revelling in the cool evening air and in the dramatic splendour all around me.

  The steep track of slippery yellow-red mud led me past several farmsteads set amidst fields of seven-feet-high maize. There were many goats about, and the usual Nepalese proliferation of undersized poultry, and despite the terrain quite a few cattle – mostly working bullocks in excellent condition. Here rice and maize are the chief crops, and even at this altitude there were a few banana trees, though their fruit was small and as yet unripe.

  While walking along the mountainside, away from the track, I was often looking down into farmyards on the terrace below and glimpsing vignettes of domestic life – a young father absorbed in play with his two tiny sons, an elderly husband yelling abuse at his cowed wife and menacing her with an axe, or a grandad milking goats while keeping one eye on his toddling granddaughter as she romped ecstatically with a pure white, newborn kid. Watching such scenes unobserved, one can forget the many gulfs that separate race from race and find security in our common humanity; then someone notices the foreigner and the moment of comforting union is gone. Every activity is neglected while curiosity seeks satisfaction and again the gulfs appear – wider and deeper in Nepal than in any other country I have known, because here, outside of the Kathmandu Valley, it is uncommon for people to come halfway to meet the friendly stranger.

  It would be futile to try to describe this region, for in exclusively mountainous countries every beauty is too extreme to be conveyed by any words that I might choose. None of the books or photographs studied before leaving home had even slightly prepared me for such majesty. Truly this is something that does have to be seen to be believed, and that once seen must be continually yearned for when left behind, becoming as incurable a fever of the spirit as malaria is of the body.

  When I arrived back in Toprung village it was still quite bright at this level – but the immensity of the valley far below was already filled with a solid-seeming, dark-blue dusk and above the opposite mountains towering clouds were gathering fast. Now it is half-past nine and for the past two hours sheets of water have been streaming from a black sky.

  20 JUNE – SIGLIS

  It was a relief to get up at 4 a.m. and escape from the hordes of bedbugs that had tormented me all night. Their invincibility made sleep impossible; I merely dozed lightly, woke to swear and scratch furiously, then dozed again, woke again, swore again, scratched again and so on through what felt like a week of nights. But on either side of me Tibetans were sleeping deeply, their total immunity affording thousands of bugs a blissfully undisturbed banquet.

  For me one of the advantages of Tibetans as trekking companions is that their conception of essential equipment matches my own; within ten minutes
of rising we were on the track again, walking by moonlight for the first quarter of an hour. Then quite suddenly it was light and we could see banks of silvered cloud softly rolling up the valley below us. As the rain had just ceased the whole world was dripping and rushing with water, and for the first half of our long descent to river level the path was in fact a swift stream, calf-deep, through which we scrambled among shifting stones and rough rocks. It is difficult to decide whether these paths are streams converted into ‘highways’ or vice versa. This area of the mountain was a mere tangle of scrub, neither forested nor cultivated, and once we lost our way and went scrambling down a few hundred feet in the wrong direction before Chimba, using some sixth sense, realised our mistake and led us up again.

  Today leeches were much more plentiful than yesterday, and the Tibetans made an absurd fuss about this minor annoyance; to hear their screams and roars one would imagine them to have been attacked by tigers. It was obvious that if I were to burn off every leech immediately its host noticed it we’d never get anywhere so, as the leech’s sucking is completely painless, I told the party to ignore the creatures till we had arrived at Siglis, where we could hold a mass deleeching session.

  The latter half of our descent was from paddy-field to paddy-field – a relaxation after the rough track, yet tiring in its own way because for much of the time we were dragging ourselves through knee-deep sticky mud. Each terraced field was about twenty yards long, ten yards wide and three or four feet high; stepping stones were sometimes set in the dykes, and it was only by finding and correlating these that we could follow the route, since our track as such was no longer in existence.

  We were still about three hundred feet above river level when we rounded a corner and saw Siglis – a tiny cluster of houses near the summit of the next precipitous mountain. I reckon that the village was then about two miles away as the crow flies – but eight miles as humans walk.

  From here the central valley broadened out for some miles to the north and was noisy with the speed of a wide, frothing river – which fortunately did not flow between us and our destination. Now we could also survey the narrow side-valley separating us from the Siglis mountain, and the tributary that here went raging down to the main river looked sufficiently daunting to set the Tibetans muttering prayers. I brightly remarked that when we got down to this torrent we would probably find quite an easy fording spot – but I was wrong. In fact it proved to be far too swollen for any attempt at wading, and there was a long delay while we searched for a spot where we could cross by leaping from boulder to boulder. Eventually Chimba found such a spot, though as the boulders in question were all rounded – and entirely submerged – no one considered this leaping game to be very amusing. I was then tempted to worry in a fussy Western fashion about the state of this river by tomorrow and the safety of the Tibetans when re-crossing it with heavy loads; but happily my temperament is in some respects more Eastern than Western, and as the Tibetans themselves were obviously not looking this far ahead I reminded myself that ‘sufficient unto the day …’

  The sky was now cloudless and clear early sunshine filled this wild world of powerful mountains, racing waters, scattered rocks and new green growth. I longed to be alone here: yet if I had had to choose my companions I would have chosen these Tibetans, who are so attuned to such remoteness that they never come between it and me as even the most congenial of Western companions inevitably would do.

  About half-a-mile from the river we came upon an isolated, impoverished Gurung farmhouse which also acts as a ‘transport café’, and here we stopped (having had no breakfast) to drink glasses of ginger tea before tackling the brutal climb to Siglis. This was my first taste of ginger tea, which is popular among those Nepalese who can’t afford the real thing, and I found it most refreshing.

  The track, now quite distinct, continued level along the valley floor for another mile or so. Then directly below Siglis, which was no longer visible, it turned left and went up and up and up, and still further up, until it seemed that we were doomed to spend the rest of our lives dragging aching bodies and rumbling bellies up an everlasting incline. Yet there was – at least for me – the reward that always makes such efforts worth while; even non-mountaineers know the ineffable joy of going higher. A peculiar triumph tingles in the blood when at each stop one looks down and sees how much farther away is the valley from which one started. Why this triumph should result from perpendicular rather than horizontal progress it is not for me to say; no doubt the psychologists have a word for it – but I don’t particularly want to submit the ingredients of this special joy for clinical analysis.

  Significantly, Chimba and I – the only adequately nourished members of the party – arrived here soon after eleven o’clock, an hour ahead of the rest. Siglis has a population of about 4,800 Gurungs, and during the past few years it has had a school of sorts, now closed because the teacher left since the government had forgotten to pay him any salary for fifteen months. Nor is this an exceptional case; all over Nepal recently-opened rural schools are folding up for the same reason. There is only one tiny store-cum-tea-shop, doing the usual trade in cloth, cigarettes, matches and, providentially, those nauseating Indian biscuits which are so inexplicably prized by the Nepalese. When we arrived I immediately devoured a whole pound of (literally) mouldy biscuits, while Chimba boiled a saucepan of rice on the storekeeper’s fireplace.

  I got through my biscuit marathon sitting outside the store on the edge of the terrace (inevitably every laneway here is a terrace) overlooking the valley far below. From this height the river’s roar is inaudible, and I savoured with gratitude the uniquely calming stillness of high places. Away to the north, at the head of the valley, gleaming snow peaks soared above the nearer mountains and directly opposite Siglis – beyond the river – I could see another high village; it looked deceptively near, though for the duration of the monsoon no communication will be possible between these two settlements.

  I had felt myself being almost weakened by the sun, which at 9,000 feet begins to have an odd sting in its heat, but as we ate our rice a procession of plump grey clouds came floating up the valley in a stately way; and soon long, coiling wisps of vapour had detached themselves from the main mass to send their cold moisture eddying through the village. Then, as we de-leeched the exhausted Tibetans – who came crawling up the laneway in twos and threes, characteristically laughing at their own fatigue – rain began to bucket down in a true monsoon deluge. Luckily, however, the efficient Chimba had already arranged for us to be accommodated in the local Panchayat headquarters, on the terrace below the store, and we hurriedly retreated from the downpour.

  This new building is a very unsound erection of wood, stone and mud, with a leaking corrugated iron roof. Such roofs are tremendous prestige symbols here, each iron sheet having been carried on a man’s back from India, and their impracticality is equalled only by their ugliness – which is the more distressing for being found in the midst of so much beauty. I cannot help suspecting some political significance in the extraordinarily bad workmanship of this Panchayat headquarters. The men who built it would certainly have done more skilful jobs on their own homes; but the Panchayat system is a political imposition from Kathmandu and the haphazard construction of its local headquarters reveals indifference to the innovation – and may well be a deliberate, oblique protest against Government interference.

  After my buggy night at Toprung, followed by a hard climb and a heavy meal, I was now almost asleep on my feet, so while the Tibetans prepared their well-earned tsampa I curled up in a corner on the lumpy mud floor and slept soundly for three hours.

  On our arrival here Chimba had tried to circulate the news that we had come to buy mats, but at this season the farmers are so busy that virtually no one – man, woman or child – is to be found in any village between 5 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. (When you have to climb down two or three thousand feet to reach your fields you do not come home to lunch!) A small group of us set off to tour the vi
llage at 5.30, but we met only tottering, toothless, totally gaga great-great-grandfathers, who had long since forgotten what bamboo mats were, so we soon gave up our futile braving of the savage mastiffs who were chained to stakes in front of every homestead.

  Siglis is quite unlike the ochre-washed, straw-thatched villages of the lower slopes. Here the houses are built of enormous stones plastered over with brown mud and the majority are roofed securely with weighted slates. Steep, uneven steps lead up from one row of houses to the next and this evening each of these stairways was a miniature waterfall. At first I had wondered – rather stupidly – why the original settlers, with a whole mountain at their disposal, had chosen to build at this height; but now, studying the village, I realise that it was sited on the rockiest part of the mountain, where cultivation of any crop would have been impossible.

  At dusk we borrowed a lantern from the storekeeper and set off again to attempt to trade. For the past half-hour people had been streaming back from the fields, carrying antique wooden ploughs over their shoulders and driving sleek black bullocks before them, and I was fascinated by the agility of these great animals as they climbed the narrow steps between the houses. Our camp had attracted great, though not very friendly, interest from the passers-by and we now found that though many mats were available few of the villagers were willing to sell them to Tibetans. Despite Chimba’s warning I was somewhat taken aback by the degree of sullen hostility shown towards us; whether it would have been more active without the restraining presence of Authority, obscurely represented by me, it is impossible to say, but undoubtedly my activities as liaison officer were useful, if not essential, and when I had solicited the aid of the co-operative headman we began to make some progress. Eventually he assured us that all the mats we needed would be brought to us early in the morning – but it remains to be seen how effective his influence is. It’s now nearly ten o’clock and the Tibetans are snoring happily around me; I only hope that the bugs in our bedding have been sufficiently atrophied by the cold for me to sleep too.