Straight to God's Ear
Dogs howling at the moon. I roll over and from bed I look up to eighteen thousand feet of snow-covered peaks, shimmering in the moonlight. Shit, I gotta catch a plane! I throw on my clothes and race down the stairs, grab my last pair of underwear off the clothes line, stuff them in my pocket, throw my bag on my head, stumble through the turnip patch and onto the trail. I drink in the vista one last time. Fields of blooming mustard greens tint the valley a hazy yellow, tall poplar trees line the paths, and every little house sports a well tended vegetable garden.
The stream that winds its way through Leh and past the giant prayer wheel nurtures it all. In this remotest corner of India, one spin of the wheel and your prayers go straight into Gods ear. Beyond the village, as the stream peters out, the view is a vast barren moonscape of chocolate mountains, where not so much as a blade of grass grows. In the distance on all sides, the biggest platinum mountains I’ve ever seen. I lope through the village at dawn, past the monastery and the stark grey palace carved out of the hillside in the center of town. The air is thin, the bag is heavy and I’m out of breath. I flash a smile at my taxi driver and he waits while I duck into the bakery to grab a cup of Ladakhi tea, brewed from toasted barley and fermented yak butter. Its hot and salty, and it feels
good on my dry lips.
I arrived in Leh from Delhi, and my bags were lost for three days. They assured me they were on their way, and I was a sort of relieved to be able to suss out the guesthouses without lugging "the bag". After checking out twenty places, I lucked out and found a big corner room with glass walls over looking that breath-taking view. It came with a solar water heater and a brand new blanket. Four dollars a day, including a breakfast of curried vegetables, organic eggs, curds, and hot ladakhi flat bread with local apricot jam.
In the hundred and six degree humid heat of South India, I had been grateful for all those Houston summers that had toughened me up. I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t complain like the rest of the tourists. I can handle mud and mosquitoes better than most. But Ladakh is as dry as a cat’s ass. The natives have skin like leather by the time they hit thirty. There isn't much oxygen, and every truck that rumbles through the village stirs up a cloud of choking dust. I drank a liter of water in a gulp, but still I felt desiccated. The Clinique moisturizer was long gone, and even though I slathered on the lip-gloss like a drunken queen with a tube of lipstick, my lips were chapped all the way to my chin. Last night at dinner, a booger fell out of my nose, and hit the table with a "plink", like a bee-bee hitting the Formica tabletop.
I came to Ladakh to see the Hemis festival. My timing was perfect. Once every twelve years, is the big one. They roll out the giant thanka of the Buddha, at the biggest monastery in Ladakh, which houses five hundred monks. It is perched high in the mountains in a stupendous setting. The ceremony begins with the sound of twelve-foot trumpets blowing across the desert. Then the monks emerge into the courtyard dressed in satin brocade robes and horrifying masks and perform a dance that dramatizes the triumph of good over evil that they have been performing here for centuries. I’m bedazzled, but quite honestly, it could have used a little help from Janet Jackson to punch up the choreography. It was eternal in more ways than one.
After the ceremony, I join the crush of pilgrims descending the hill. I spy a long line of traffic stopped on the road. A bus has overturned into the stream, and nobodies going anywhere. I ditch my tourist jeep that brought me here, and throw in my lot with a local guy. We run to hop onto the only local bus that seems to be leaving. The driver knows a shortcut that bypasses the wreck, about a hundred of us are crammed onto the bus, and we set off down a bumpy road, with me hanging out of the doorway by one hand, holding on for dear life.
When we finally rejoin the main road, Splat! A group of mischievous kids hits me with a big bucket of water, right in the kisser. I’m parched, sunburned, exhausted, and the dust on my face is now a mud stain running down my shirt. But in a not very Martha Stewart kind of way, it's a Good Thing. The wind is in my hair, the sky is impossibly blue, the mountains reach all the way to heaven, and those little suckers chose me to baptize on the road to Leh. I feel very alive, and I’m grinning ear to ear.
After all that rushing, I’m the first one at the airport. I'm flying into Kashmir, and security is tight. I pass through four security checks, and as I empty my pockets the first thing that comes out is my underwear. I can see the Muslim ladies behind me blushing beneath their veils. As the plane
alights, I revel in the indescribably majestic experience of taking off from the highest airport in the world, and flying over the Himalayas. To Shrinagar. The jewel in Kali’s navel. But that’s another story...
Dennis contributes recipes and party plans to magazines, teaches cooking classes, and develops recipes for Evolution Foods. He has traveled extensively, circling the globe four times collecting recipes and food lore. Dennis speaks French, with a working knowledge of Spanish and Italian. Today, Dennis continues to cater and cook for events nationwide for diverse clientele.