Traveling the Himalayas

My friend who is a musician usually visits me and my family when he is on one of his music tours throughout the U.S. or around the world.

He was telling me a story that had to have taken place between 1985 and 1995. It had to have taken place after 1985 because that was his first journey to Asia when he flew from Switzerland where he was visiting his relatives to Nepal to Kathmandu to meet my family and I who had been in Thailand, India and Nepal traveling already two months and we planned about 2 more at that point. So, he flew from Switzerland to meet the 5 of us (wife and I and three kids aged 10 to 14) then in early 1996, likely March.

So in this story he was traveling alone through China by bus and was trying to get over the Himalayas to Pakistan before winter prevented buses going over the Himalayas. He said he was worried about having enough money to last through the winter if he had to stay on the Chinese side of the Himalayas at that point. So, he got on the last bus over a 17,000 foot high pass in the Himalayas to Pakistan. He thought everything was great but then the bus was traveling up a very muddy dirt road which led up into the Himalayas. If you have ever traveled during those times by bus you know that most roads then were always just one lane. And people coming in opposite directions always play chicken and many people die when no one gives in coming in opposite directions. So, some farm equipment with a big blade was coming towards them and everyone thought that it would move off the road and defer to the bus with 100 people on board. Nope. It drove the bus off the road and down a muddy embankment and almost into a river. So, 100 people (he said about 60 were Pakistani, 40 were westerners which means European, U.S. ,Canada, Japan etc) and about 5 or so were from China started all swearing when they got off the bus into the mud because they knew no one was coming to save them as they were the very last bus over the Himalayas that year and they all felt doomed.

So, they all banded together and gathered wood from the forest and land around them and all built a plank road up out of the mud and all together pushed the bus back up onto the road again. However, this took about 6 hours and it was now dark. So they reached the 17,000 foot pass but couldn't go down into Pakistan because it was now snowing on the road too much to survive it. They had to wait for daybreak and hope the snow melted so the road would be safe enough to travel on so they all didn't die in a crash off a cliff.

However, the 17,000 foot pass was about 15 to 25 below zero Fahrenheit so they now had another problem. Luckily, someone had built a survival shelter (probably relatives of the last bus that most or everyone had died there before sometime in the past). Luckily for them no one died or got that bad of frostbite during the night either on the bus or in the shelter with no heat or wood to burn for warmth and they all drove down into Pakistan the next day after the sun melted the snow.

Since my friend had one of the warmest down outfits because he was also a mountain climber used to 15,000 feet altitudes and above he wandered around and was inspired during the night to write a song about all this. And then another one the next day. And these two songs became his first two songs to become popular in the new genre he was beginning in his music. Within a few days or weeks when he got to Kathmandu Nepal he met his Tabla teacher (a type of drum played with fingers and thumb) and this also changed his style of music to make it more of an international sound. So, out of two near death experiences came a whole new side to his music career.

So he was telling me that he realized from this experience that even when you think there is no hope, often life is also giving you a gift. So the next time you are pissed off and in distress and think you won't make it don't forget to look for the gift.

For remember, in all our lives "There are no problems, only opportunities".  This is the very essence of the ongoing survival of the human race and always has been.