Journeys
Words
Images
Cloud
Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)

The Language Company The Language Company
ratings: 2 (avg rating 5.00)

Subject to Change Subject to Change
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
ratings: 2 (avg rating 3.50)

Amazon Associate
Contact
« The Chinese Virus | Main | River Meditations »
Sunday
Dec052010

Elevations

Greetings,

From the HatSa river zone to Phongsali at 1430 metres is a twisting 20K dirt road ride. It is cold and delicious with splendid mountains. It reminds me of Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan and Tibetan landscapes.

At 5 a.m. loudspeakers blare a mantra from a bare tree. "Welcome to a new day in your eternal mindfulness..." This continues forever. 

Mountains and valleys are shrouded in early clouds. The old town rocky paths feature Tibetan and Chinese red wooden homes made from bamboo, straw, packed dirt, wood and cement plaster. "Modern" homes are cinder block. 

This is the simple complete rhythm in a northern tribal zone of human energies peaceful laughter inside language music.

In the market village women lay fresh green veggies on banana leaf mats.

  • A woman chops chillies, a mother hauls water.
  • A woman puts on her bright yellow socks.
  • A woman tears lettuce leaves for her steaming noodle soup.
  • A woman sells crabs wrapped in banana leaves.
  • A woman unloads her heavy head yoked woven basket filled with greens.
  • A woman carries her world on her back.

In slow motion I meet many children. We draw the chalk alphabet on cinderblock walls. We sing and dance. They sing, You are fool whether you dance or not so you may as well dance. 

Metta.

 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.