Or: surreal experiences of Ladakh, part one!

Attempting to mantra my way out of exploding out of all the holes in my body, ham-sa ham-sa ham-sa, on the bus ride of treachery between Manali and Leh. The ride wouldn't have been so terrible if I hadn't had had bacteria in the belly, though there were two or three times when I clutched at Yogi, because the bus was leaning a bit too far off the cliff (these are narrow one truck roads for two truck traffic in the Himalayas, see.) At one point the stoic princess nearly clutched at me, because he had the window seat and could see the back wheel spinning off in the air. Hamsa hamsa hamsa, and looked up, as we neared Leh to see pink (or more accurately, dusky rose) mountains for the first time in my life. Some people are stoked to see the Himalayas and all, but for me, it was really PINK MOUNTAINS! Pink! I kid you not!

When visiting the school in Lamayuru, Yogas and I were led by the older boys to a classroom, where the younger students were practicing traditional Ladakhi song and dance. Suddenly I was sitting on the only chair in the room, and Yogi on one of three desks, and we were surrounded by the majority of the student population (maybe sixty students, age seven to eighteen) in a dim classroom with a dusty chalkboard, our ears filled with trilling lalala's. Traditional Ladakhi song consists mainly of very high pitched "lalalalalalala's." I will be happy to demonstrate upon request.

On the morning bus from Leh to Sakti, the bus driver put in a tape deck of Buddhist mantras. The bus was spilling over with people, and there were these women, old and young, sitting up front with me (I couldn't see into the back) serenely murmuring along for the entirety of the tape. It's possible my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it seemed like some of the people we drove past would mantra along with the bus, too. A small girl (and a screamer, too) fell asleep under the crook of Yogi's arm.

Jumping out of a truck in Lamayuru and being run at by a Buddhist nun: "Do you need a room?" "Yeah, a minute!" while I negotiated with the driver for a fee ("As you wish," with a smile.) Then I greeted her tall, loping monk friend, "jule" and he said "ni hao" and I said (in Mandarin) "You speak Chinese!" How did he know, because everybody here thinks I'm Korean or Japanese, and I've given to responding to "konichiwa" with "konichiwa," "namaseyo" with "namaseyo." As it turned out, he didn't, but the nun, whose gloriously shaved head I greatly envied, spent six years studying Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan. And I had a kickass time chattering with her, at the kitchen of her sister's guesthouse, while Yogi and Uke looked at each other bemusedly and said "Uh...I don't understand nothing."

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"I am curvecious.  Be slow." is by far my favorite Himalaya road sign, admonishing drivers not to kill themselves and each other, but more importantly, me, because my mother will summon me back to life just to murder me if I die in Asia.  (Conditions for traveling in Asia: don't die, don't cut your hair, email everyday.  Thus far not dying is relatively easy, not cutting my hair is getting exponentially more difficult every day - Jesus Buddha Allah, there's three barbershops on every corner in Leh! - and daily emails are a joke.)  A close runner up to my favorite "curvecious" is "Darling, I like you, but not so fast."