I was reminded that Prem was hired as a porter and not as a guide. This was my trek, and I was the one who was responsible for getting us out of this mess. I took out my tattered map that had been scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin a month earlier by an eccentric, Buddhist scholar friend in a Kathmandu restaurant. Now so close to the mysterious hidden monastery for which I was searching, the map disintegrated in my hands. I was left with ink smeared remnants of the napkin that had faithfully led me through my pilgrimage to one of the seven "Hidden Lands" that lie far up in the high snowy reaches of Nepal.

The idea of the "Hidden Lands" is that they are generally hidden and not easily found by those not actively searching them out. It seemed that they could even remain quite "hidden" to those like myself who were searching them out. The Hidden Lands always lay tucked away somewhere in difficult to find locations, concealed by deceptive canyon walls, residing in obscure Shangri-La like valleys or whose entrances are to be found behind cascading waterfalls. Hollywood has been imagining stories about just these sorts of places since celluloid was born. Now here I was on the threshold of my own Shangri-La, and things were looking desperate.

 
 

Sight | Story | Edwards