Making plans for Muktinath

Evening kora is a habit I've become quickly attached to. This evening I dawdled up to Tsamchen Gompa and stayed there a while, watching the crowd around the stupa get larger as the sun sank. Spotted Lama’s distinctive, straightbacked figure as he strolled around one of the upper levels with his brother, so I went over. I asked Lama when I should go to Muktinath, and he said the 13th, which gives me a couple days to get ready. He suggests I bus to Pokhara and then fly to Jomosom, and then trek to Muktinath. I asked him if I'd be teaching the nuns while we’re still up there, and he said no, at least not in a formal sense, because they’ll be very busy doing puja, but, “You sit Muktinath some days, you no like, come back down, wait Bodhnath for nuns. You like, you sit for month, come with nuns all together.” I can't imagine not liking a grove of sacred pillars of flame and enchanted waters, but I appreciate Lama’s graciousness.

After kora, I tagged along with Lama and his brother to a couple of bookstores. We stopped first in Bodhnath Bookstore, and as we left Lama said to me, “I need book, they not have.” Then he said suddenly, “I need book? We need book? Which is right?”

“I need,” I said. “We would be both of you, your brother and you for example.”

“Ah…I need book.” He seemed pleased. “I practice English,” he added. Lama has a habit of talking about himself in the third person (as in, “When Lama small, Lama live at Muktinath”) which was initially confusing to me, and I found myself interupting a lot to clarify that he meant himself and not some other Lama. But now I wonder if he’s been calling himself Lama to me all this time because he couldn’t remember the usage of I. He used I quite a lot for the rest of the evening.

I'm realizing that when quoting Lama, the expressiveness of his eyes, hands and voice is lost in the writing. His words alone don’t convey the quintessence of his personality, since his English vocabulary is limited. I look forward to learning Nepali and being able to understand him better (and hopefully to do better justice to him in my scribbles).

Went to Dharma Books next, and Lama found the book he was looking for. A beautiful Tibetan book, long and skinny with a dark red cover. Both Boudha Bookstore and Dharma Books are largely Tibetan-language bookstores, with just a few books in English, mostly by the Dalai Lama.

Saw a guy nearly get his ass kicked on the stupa. I think he was trying to climb the upper level or something. I didn’t see exactly what started it, but another guy dragged him down and started whacking him. He cowered and ran off—counterclockwise, which made his attacker even more furious, since you're meant to walk clockwise around the stupa. It was the first violence I've seen since I've been here. People don’t seem to get angry in public. The traffic, for example, is the most courteous and unemotional I've ever seen. It’s crazy and dangerous of course, but nobody’s driving angry. They honk to avoid killing you, not because they begrudge you the street.

Tomorrow I'm going to seek out Thamel, which is the touristy area of Kathmandu, so that I can buy a few things I haven’t been able to find in Boudha.