Latest blogs – Page 4

Writing Every Day, Pre -Post Trek

I have been writing every day since I reached Kathmandu before the trek, May 7th. I didn’t want to lose those fleeting thoughts that occur when the mind is free like it was during this trek. I’ve felt an undercurrent of internal change for the past year. Becoming is a vague, invisible process. I’ve been quietly hungry to end the strange stupidity that has me be anything I’m not. Simply Me. Haha. Great title to a book set surprisingly in the land of Zero Ego. Ha! That’s the best I can do: be who I am. Simple it sounds, but there are no manuals worth a shit written on the subject. There’s lots of writing, noble, beautiful, honest writing, but nothing works the same way twice. I am the one to discover what’s to be. The line between banal and profound is a tenuous, wiggly thing.

I’ve lived too long, trying to not give offense to others. I’m probably still a nice guy who will be happy to open the door for you and smile, but I don’t have time to always be nice or to worry if you will think bad things about me. I’m not in a hurry for anything right now. I just spent two days sitting on the deck looking at the gardens and hills, listening to the hawks screech, and writing. I’m happy. I have a lot to be happy about, but this happiness is groundless.

Cities and Human Sacrifice

A clash of cultures is evident in all the Eastern countries. The old, traditional ways are eroding. Erode is pejorative, perhaps evolve and change are better words. Continue reading Cities and Human Sacrifice

Re-entry, Kathmandu to Bangkok

I decided to leave for Bangkok a day early. The gentle demeanor of the Nepalese people evaporates on the streets of this super-over-crowded city. The infrastructure that could manage 500,000 people a few years ago has not been improved, so the five to seven million people who are here share, somewhat aggressively, the limited public space. There is a flow of sorts, but it’s as bumpy as the backstreets and alleys in which I spend most of my time. Continue reading Re-entry, Kathmandu to Bangkok

Flying out of Mustang

Post-trek re-entry into the “real” world started in Kathmandu, the wickedly over-crowded, hot, traffic-filled city of terrible roads, bad cars and worse pollution. At the moment I’m in Bangkok to complete the fulfillment of a lifetime’s dream of trekking in the Kingdom of Mustang. Bangkok, after Kathmandu, it’s looking like heaven. I’ve used this city as a convenient hub city for my Asia buying and travels, but we have never been good friends. I guess I’m just a country boy. I like lots of green, mountains, quiet, and open space. Continue reading Flying out of Mustang

The Hardest Day

It is fair to say yesterday was one of the two hardest days of physical challenge of my life. The other “hardest day,” I was twenty-one and fresh out of college and the first time really on my own. A friend and I were in the Rocky Mountains of Glacier National Park for my first day of my first backpacking trip. I was using my brand new $21.95 REI budget backpack to carry my 70 pound load. Padded straps would have been extra. We had 3,500 vertical feet to climb on a five mile trail, then another 3,000 feet to hike back down the other side of the pass. Heat stroke hit me long before we found camp, but there was no possibility of stopping. The pain and exhaustion were still excruciating hours after we set up camp. Continue reading The Hardest Day

Day II Bed Tea

5:50am this morning bed-tea arrived. This wonderful Indian tradition is a treat for guests in most Indian homes. My first experience of bed-tea was at my wife’s family home in Delhi in 1984 when we were first married. Tea and biscuits arrived at our bedroom along with about a dozen extra cups. I was delighted by the tea, but puzzled by the extra cups. Before I could ask my wife what’s up with the tray of cups, the whole family poured into our room and snuggled into bed with us. Question answered. A baker’s dozen of happy, chattering, warm Indian bodies. Bed-tea sounds romantic! Continue reading Day II Bed Tea

Bad Dogs in the Kingdom of Mustang

Four brothers, John, Hem, Mahesh, and I formed the Bad Dogs of Mustang Club during the first week of the Trek. We decided Bad Dogs are blunt, honest, and naughty. At first, Mahesh seemed too nice to ever be a Bad Dog, but he learned quickly, coming into his natural Bad Dogness with joy and creativity. We were together constantly for 24 days in hugely uncomfortable and challenging conditions and shockingly beautiful environments. We ate every meal and climbed every pass together. We had total permission to be ourselves. Blunt and funny, we cherished our freedom to be, with never a judgment of each other. We were bad and beautiful, joyous and compassionate. Brotherly love permeated our world. Continue reading Bad Dogs in the Kingdom of Mustang

An Artist?

I had written to a friend saying I don’t pay attention to certain things like proper filing of papers and washing the cars because it takes too much time away from the fun, creative parts of life, the intent being to free me from the (?) of life.

She wrote back saying “That’s because you are an artist!” Continue reading An Artist?

Hi Folks

Hi Folks,

I first heard of Mustang: The Last Forbidden Kingdom when I was thirty years old. I knew I would one day find and explore this ancient Tibetan land. I recently completed an eighteen-day, traditional Himalayan trek, with guides, Sherpas and cooks, to Mustang, now within the borders of Nepal.

This profound experience so altered me in some indefinable way that I am compelled to write about it with the hope that you will feel some of what I felt and experience the joy and freedom that defined this trek. I knew having this show and opening party was a mandatory event long before I left Nepal. Most of the smaller pieces in this show I found in the villages we passed through between the 13,000 ft. passes we climbed. Each piece was loaded on the backs of mules, the same way traders have done for some 30 centuries. It’s the real thing. I never imagined I would be dragging treasures through these high passes. David: Mule-Man-of-the-Himalayas brings you some of the most real everyday life artifacts ever seen! Funny, but it’s true. I laugh at the madness of what I do. I laugh with joy. I laugh at the unexpected discoveries that comprise the best story I’ve ever told. I laugh because I love life with its endless fears and pain, beauty and magic, annoyances and loves.

This is what I found: sweet people, silence, brotherhood, peace, joy, and love. I also found a dozen monastery doors, portable Tibetan Buddhist shrines, folk art, and a host of other treasures.

I sometimes think I should act like a museum curator, scholarly and erudite. I’m not. I’m a mad man on the loose finding extraordinary pieces from unexpected places. I’m motivated by beauty, awe, and fun. I live to discover, create and share the heart and soul of the cultures and people of where I have been and what I’ve found. What to do?

Authentic Mustang

Trekking in the Himalayan Kingdom of Mustang was everything I’d imagined and much more. The land was shockingly beautiful at every turn, the people endlessly sweet, and the villages simple and incredibly photogenic. The trekking itself was often extremely hard, testing my physical and psychological limits for hours at a time. Fortunately, I had no altitude sickness, even though the 13,700’ passes took every ounce of strength and determination I could muster. The air is thin up there, however, within minutes of crossing a pass, I was happy to hike on, as if no trial ever existed. Pain is forgotten in the face of such beauty, joy, and a powerful sense of accomplishment. The trek was about living in the present. It was a joy to be free, “off the grid,” and filled with simple happiness. That joy grew each day, as the world I once knew receded and the now became the all. Continue reading Authentic Mustang