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With the village cheering Osman's kingly descent down the trail, my new porter, Prem Bahadur, and I turned back towards the mountains and continued the journey. Now, a week later and fifteen thousand feet up in a remote corner of the Nepali Himalayas, I stared into the worried face of my porter, Prem Bahadur, and shouted through the cold and persistent wind, "Do you have any idea where we are?" Prem shook his head and cast a desperate look up into the swirling snowstorm that had swept down upon us out of a lapis lazuli blue sky. Prem was the third porter of my journey. He had taken over for Osman and was turning out to be a very fine companion. He spoke the local dialect and was much more handy in camp than either Binod or Osman. But even with his experience as a rugged Himalayan local, this storm had us both thoroughly confused. I took out my tattered map. Now so close to the mysterious hidden monastery for which I was searching, the map disintegrated in my hands. With the light failing and the snow falling hard, Prem and I had to make a decision. I remembered that the map had mentioned a "crazy little bridge" that we had to cross before we would reach the monastery that was the centerpiece of this particular Hidden Land. I started looking for some sort of clue as to which direction we should head. |
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