Kat Out of the Bag Chapter Fourteen By Steve Rudd

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Yogesh, my abandoned guide on all things Nepalese, had said that the small yak-herding settlement of Langsisa was worth seeing if seeing meant believing, being as it is so isolated and yet further east of Kyangjin. Yogesh and I had discussed where I might like to trek on my trip before we embarked from Kathmandu, and he'd proposed the Langtang trek as being an ideal one seen as though I was still something of a novice trekker, and because such a trek would fit nicely into three weeks.

He'd also, I remembered, waxed lyrical about the stunning views of a glacier that was spilling down from Tibet, but this I would have to miss too, as I kissed Kyangjin goodbye.

The men with whom I was now travelling suggested that we make for the Ganja La pass, due south of Kyangjin. After negotiating the pass we were to head further south for some miles, before turning west towards the sacred lake of Gosainkund. It seemed a most fitting twist of fate that this was the very same route that Yogesh had decided we would follow after we'd taken in the serenity surrounding Langsisa.

Just because I was embarking upon a search for a missing girl with three virtual strangers didn't mean I couldn't enjoy the passing scenery and life-changing culture of the area, and so I was excited.

But more than excited I remained confused. Why did the men wish to head this way? Did they know more than they were letting on? The girl could have been anywhere, surely. It was natural to assume that she'd been kidnapped, but there was also a very real possibility that she'd run away for whatever reasons she might have harboured. Young girls do stupid things for strange reasons all the time: home and away.

For all we knew she might even have returned home in the time that we'd been out looking for her over the past day or so. There was just no knowing, and I of all people seemed to be left in the dark as the sun put his hat on and hit the snow-crowned mountains with religious vigour.

I'd lost track of time in its entirety. I didn't know the day or the date until I consulted my watch. Far from being Friday the 13th (a day that I'd always held in nervous regard), it was Saturday. Saturday May 21st...as if that hard fact made a difference to anything. Days and dates set into a rigid calendar framework didn't mean much to these men of the mountains.

They instinctively knew when the seasons were on the cusp of changing, when the monsoon rains were coming, or when a heavy snowfall was in the air and on the cards. They didn't have the latest technology to help them predict weather over the next few days or weeks. They had their eyes, their ears, their noses. More than anything, they had an enviously close relationship with Nature herself, and that very often meant the difference between life and death.

Dave still played on my mind, too... the young adventurer who wasn't that unlike myself, except for my belief that he had a secret known to nobody other than himself concerning the missing girl - with her ring on his finger and potential gangrene on his toes. I'm no detective; never have been and never will be.

Continued..... Next Page

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