such wonders. But then many other different-colored ones came by. And they came in combinations of colors that are always so startling when you find them in nature, and only in nature are such combinations of colors, maroon and green, red and gold, red with black, blue and gray, aqua blue and black, that never seem garish. I had a camera with me but I had no interest in photographing them. I couldnât anyway, they were never still. This was such a pleasant antidote to the leech of the day before. I never did run into such a sight again, a swarm of so many different butterflies, but the leech was a constant worry.
Author crossing one of the precarious bridges spanning the Arun River
Eventually, we could see the Arun River in the distance. We could also see the bridge over which we would cross it. That first bridge was a pleasant dream compared to some of the bridges I had to cross later, but the Arun at that point was wide and probably deep right there, and the bridge was narrow and long and I had never crossed such a bridge before. It was just before we crossed the bridge that I saw some Nepali script and a drawing of a star (as in red star) in bright red ink on the concrete foundation of the bridge. Maoists, I thought, at last here they are, this is a sign of them. They had forever been on my mind; I had weighed their presence and activities in Nepal before I came. Before I came, Dan had told me they were not killing foreigners and instead of saying back to him they are killing people, so we mustnât go, I was only too glad to be a foreigner and so become exempt from their wrath. Still they were killing people, and I have noticed that when someone starts killing people, though at first they draw a line at the kind of people they will kill, eventually that line gets erased as they start killing some other people. I canât really take the word of people who will kill their countrymen but not me. I only believed Dan because I wanted to, in truth I didnât believe Dan at all. I was afraid that if I ran into the Maoists they would kill me. Still, the thought of the garden and to see growing in it things that I had seen in their natural habitat, to see the surface of the earth stilled, far away from where I am from, perhaps I would be lucky and see only the writings of the Maoists, perhaps I would never, ever see them at all.
I crossed the Arun River on that bridge. It was exactly half past twelve and we were at an altitude of 2,044 feet. Everyone was very encouraging. They had all done it before. Sunam and Mingma and Thile did not laugh at me; the porters did not laugh at me. Sunam waited for me at the other end and told me how brave I had been to do it. He was very kind to me and was always helping me to put the best face on everything I did awkwardly. Early on he had shown me our route on the map, and I must have looked strange for he said, with much forced cheeriness, that it would be very beautiful, as if he knew to someone like me the word was a sedative. Once, when I had, after a great deal of huffing and puffing, got to the top of a ridge, only to see yet another ridge and then beyond that a huge mountain, I asked him the name of the mountain I saw ahead of me. He said, âThat is not a mountain, that is a hill and it has no name.â Exactly what he said. But of course, there are no hills in Nepal, there are no meadows, there are no valleys, there are only things that might be called hills and meadows and valleys, all of them little interruptions, little distractions in a landscape that is all mountain. I knew there were no hills but when he said that, I became truly silent. Earlier I had asked him about the red markings on the bridge, I had wondered out loud to him (though I whispered it) if that was a sign of Maoists. He said, no, it was just the Nepalese people expressing their opinions in the recent election. Of course, some of those opinions in the recent elections were those of the Maoists. I
Author crossing one of the precarious bridges spanning the Arun River
Eventually, we could see the Arun River in the distance. We could also see the bridge over which we would cross it. That first bridge was a pleasant dream compared to some of the bridges I had to cross later, but the Arun at that point was wide and probably deep right there, and the bridge was narrow and long and I had never crossed such a bridge before. It was just before we crossed the bridge that I saw some Nepali script and a drawing of a star (as in red star) in bright red ink on the concrete foundation of the bridge. Maoists, I thought, at last here they are, this is a sign of them. They had forever been on my mind; I had weighed their presence and activities in Nepal before I came. Before I came, Dan had told me they were not killing foreigners and instead of saying back to him they are killing people, so we mustnât go, I was only too glad to be a foreigner and so become exempt from their wrath. Still they were killing people, and I have noticed that when someone starts killing people, though at first they draw a line at the kind of people they will kill, eventually that line gets erased as they start killing some other people. I canât really take the word of people who will kill their countrymen but not me. I only believed Dan because I wanted to, in truth I didnât believe Dan at all. I was afraid that if I ran into the Maoists they would kill me. Still, the thought of the garden and to see growing in it things that I had seen in their natural habitat, to see the surface of the earth stilled, far away from where I am from, perhaps I would be lucky and see only the writings of the Maoists, perhaps I would never, ever see them at all.
I crossed the Arun River on that bridge. It was exactly half past twelve and we were at an altitude of 2,044 feet. Everyone was very encouraging. They had all done it before. Sunam and Mingma and Thile did not laugh at me; the porters did not laugh at me. Sunam waited for me at the other end and told me how brave I had been to do it. He was very kind to me and was always helping me to put the best face on everything I did awkwardly. Early on he had shown me our route on the map, and I must have looked strange for he said, with much forced cheeriness, that it would be very beautiful, as if he knew to someone like me the word was a sedative. Once, when I had, after a great deal of huffing and puffing, got to the top of a ridge, only to see yet another ridge and then beyond that a huge mountain, I asked him the name of the mountain I saw ahead of me. He said, âThat is not a mountain, that is a hill and it has no name.â Exactly what he said. But of course, there are no hills in Nepal, there are no meadows, there are no valleys, there are only things that might be called hills and meadows and valleys, all of them little interruptions, little distractions in a landscape that is all mountain. I knew there were no hills but when he said that, I became truly silent. Earlier I had asked him about the red markings on the bridge, I had wondered out loud to him (though I whispered it) if that was a sign of Maoists. He said, no, it was just the Nepalese people expressing their opinions in the recent election. Of course, some of those opinions in the recent elections were those of the Maoists. I
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