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and then subsided into a truly deep sleep. Nourished by the rich air of these lower
altitudes, colourful dreams flowed through my mind.
Next morning I scurried quickly down to Deodi. As I cooked a combined dinner
and breakfast, a mongoose walked up beside me, had a good look and then strolled
off. Two days later, I was back in Lata Kharak, the site of our first camp, where hal-
lucinations overtook me, or so it seemed. The sound of pan pipes seemed to come
from all around the hills. I stared through the trees expecting to see Pan himself
appear, not for a moment questioning why the Greek god of the wilds would ap-
pear in India.
As I descended the steep grassy ridge toward the rhododendron forest, the sound
of music grew. Lata was still a few tiny, black rooftops thousands of feet below. The
clustered houses set amongst terraced hillsides rich with golden barley ready for
harvesting, a tapestry of colours that seemed sensationally rich after so many
weeks in the high mountain world of black, white and blue. I realised as I stopped
to take it all in that my pan pipes were, in fact, the distorted high-pitched sounds
of music blaring from distant loudspeakers. Our sirdar, Sher Singh, had told us of
the Nanda Devi festival at the end of October. I think he was warning us not to ex-
pect help from the village while it was on. When I arrived in Lata, I realised why.
A frantic, frenetic and mildly frightening festival of many parts was taking place
in every open place. Goats and sheep were being sacrificed in a bloody and appar-
ently endless line and then being skinned for the feast. Fakirs were walking red-
hot coals, and there were climbing ropes snaking upwards apparently without any
support. I watched one fakir push a knife into his belly without showing any sign
of blood or injury. All the clichés of Indian mysticism and magic were there, prac-
tised in a carnival atmosphere in praise of the great goddess Nanda Devi, a god-
dess that existed before the Vedas. Now the waters that flow from her are one of
the sacred waters forming the main artery of Hinduism, the Ganges.
Sher Singh was at home, happy and half-pissed. I gratefully took a glass of chang
while I negotiated the time and number of porters required to extract my friends
from base camp, now a surprisingly distant and quickly receding place in my mind.
'You must go in with your people tomorrow,' I explained. 'I will go to Delhi and ar-
range our flight for two weeks from now. The timing is crucial.'
'Yes, yes, tomorrow, after the festival is over.' I knew I was dealing with a concept
of time that made room for gratifying procrastination.
'And the festival definitely ends tomorrow?'
'Oh, yes, tomorrow, or in a few more days, six at the most.'
I calculated everything from that point forward - six days from now, one more to
overcome their hangovers, four days' walk in, five out, three days to Delhi, two
