Back roads to far towns

 The Japanese Zen poet nomad, Basho (1644-1694), wrote the beautiful words "back roads to far towns". 

MOON & SUN ARE PASSING FIGURES OF countless generations, and years coming or going wanderers too. Drifting life away on a boat or meeting age leading a horse by the mouth, each day is a journey and the journey itself home.

The book, Back Roads To Far Towns is readable, translated, online for free here. 

This is a marvelous back road in India, high up in the Himalayas in a small, remote region, called Spiti, on the Tibetan border.

Scary Road to Langza in Spiti Valley - Trans Himalayas

Kishtwar

Roadtrip - The world's most dangerous road - Pangi via Kishtwar

When I lived in Manali from 1978 to 1982, I used to take long walks in the mountains with my friend, a mountaineer, Tarachand Thakur. Like this: 

Across the Forgotten Valleys | Uttarakhand

From the point of 1:50 in this video I walked this route on foot, alone, carrying a 35lb backpack. 

My eyes had been so used to being saturated with the complexities of the urban landscape, faces, people's bodies, their gaits, expressions, all the architectural details of the various buildings, dogs being walked, cars, windows, the pace of traffic, the many businesses withe their wares on display, the light reflected off glass. In this new world of the higher Himalayas, my eyes saw the lack of everything vividly, as well as what was there to be seen, the dun colored vegetation, the powdery dirt, all the shapes of the mountainsides with their boulders, lichen, every plant, the silhouettes of the mountains, the stark shadows. Immediately, I understood why the Tibetan people who lived here craved colorful accents in their clothing, bright turquoise or neon fuchsia lining of their brown or black wool chubas, blood red coral and honey colored amber necklaces, multi-colored striped aprons. I felt color starved at first, latching on hungrily to any purple azalea or white edelweiss wildflower hidden in the tawny colored turf. But then my mind adjusted to the more monochrome vistas. 

It felt strongly as if I were in the land, a visitor, that the land had the power, not like in a place dominated by people. The place had a strong presence which dominated everything and commanded immersive attention.