It was yet another snowy day in the valley as I wrestled over whether to head down to the city or stay another week, but found it more necessary to take care of matters in town. After retreating in the face of a near white-out along two swiftly diminishing brown mud tracks, the snows that we had fled in the project area were now filling the valley. I purchased a ticket on an overnight bus from the small, muddy town back to the big city. It was a surreal journey through high snowy mountains and Tibetan towns tucked in at their feet beside icy streams. The bus - as usual- was filthy, smelly, smoky, and stopped 3 times in 20 hours. It was wonderful. I finished "From Heaven Lake" by Vikram Seth around 4 in the afternoon, had a huge bowl of noodles and yak meat in Madoi at 9:30 pm, saw that we had finally left the snows around 4:30 am, and was spewed abruptly at 6:45 am onto a street full of color and warmth and noise in the city. How strange to see green trees instead of snow covered grassland, tall buildings instead of tall mountains, tangles of traffic instead of herds of yak. But how wonderful to see my Shinay.
