as my Aunt Ruth used to say. Thunder & lightning each night at the hill stations. Lightning in the mountains over Dharamsala, originating (I like to imagine) in Tibet. At a rest stop on the night bus to Manali, over a constant roar of thunder, my mother & I watch lightningbolts split the sky, like white veins of a god.

Yesterday, pouring rain in Manali. Cold. Today, hot springs! In the open-air grey-walled pool for gents, Ganesh the elephant god of prophesy presides from within a white stone, all of us in underpants, wading the grey steaming water, sulphurous-smelling, a slight stink of matches, so hot my skin goes pink soon as I get in, & I am stoned from the heat of it. About twenty-five of us in total, bathing, feet-washing, in yoga postures, chatting, or just breathing. The father of a family from Mumbai owns a neat mustache, eyes me from the centre of the pool, & exclaims, throwing up his hands, “India climate!” We look up at the ominous El Greco clouds. A sadhu with black beard & long hair drifts past in the water like an otter, then vanishes underwater for a long time. He climbs out slow onto the edge tiles & holds a tricky yoga pose, his hairy brown skin steaming. His eyes are dark & powerful & give away nothing. They are beautiful.

Two children, girl & boy, appear at the top of the wall beside us & peer down with brown cherubim faces. They drop white rose petals on us, from a bush up there, which float down like snow onto the sadhu & the Mumbai family & the water. They also let fall an orange mask, by mistake, which hovers in the water face-up for a minute. The Mumbai father puts it on and takes the fierce bow-&-arrow position of a god, & the children laugh. He tries to throw the mask back up to them but it’s too light, & after two tries gives up, waving his hand in dismissal.

Off to Banff in a few days—another odd mountain town, other side of the world—for a third cool springtime. Goodbye to my lovely friend, Tiina! Hello Canada, first time this year. I have no idea what to think of this. I plug my nose, shut my eyes, & submerge myself in the murky holy water beside the sadhu.

In a grimy parking lot at Majnu ka Tilla, the “Tibetan settlement” of Delhi, an Indian man staggers toward me to reveal his Jeans cut across the right thigh & a brace stabilizing his withered twisted leg, he holds out his right palm smiling big & says “Home leet!” but I am threadbare & stomach-sick so I smile weakly & remind him I already gave him rupees back at the street vendor but he just repeats “Home leet!” & I wonder if its “One leet” he’s saying & that maybe a leet is a few rupees & I shake my head no but his teeth are flat & big & white & he smiles like a dog on its back, obsequious & desperate, & he is pointing to a little vendor, “Home leet!” & I say “Omelet! You want an omelet?” & he nods & nods, grinning joylessly.

I meet my lovely mother at the airport. She is wide-eyed, drinking in all she sees, taking slow pictures of chaotic broiling Delhi (now over 40 degrees) & Najafgargh with the great patience that has always provided balance to my father & me. On our morning train ride north, toward the hill stations, crossing Punjab’s endless fields of sun-golden wheat, the heat rises & our car overpacked with Sikh boys & Hindu grandmas wilts. My nausea has passed, but I am still weak.

In the evening we arrive at Dharamsala to meet Tiina. She studies Tibetan buddhism & has lived a year of her life here, home of the exiled Tibetans & the Dalai Lama, who attends tonight a high-profile cricket game (between the Punjab Kings & the Deccan Chargers) that has brought half of India to Lower Dharamsala this week. MacLeod Ganj, the upper village, is such a cool & calm relief after Delhi. We eat breakfast (chocolate pancakes, fruit & honey with curd, filtered coffee (ie not Nescafe!)) on a balcony at Carpe Diem, the Nepali place, with a clear view of the Kangra Valley below the Dhauladar Mountains. It’s breathtaking here, the servants’ entrance to the Himalayas. Hillside houses, nestled shyly between coniferous trees, festooned with miles of bright prayer flags, are yellow & pink & blue & white. A hawk circles very close & slow at eye level. A small brown monkey descends calmly the drainpipe of an adjoining rooftop.

Still, I’m holding on a little tight. I can’t get that fella’s smile out of my head, the one with the sad leg. On Bhagsu Road an Indian man squatting on a low roof offers my mother & me hash. “No thank you,” I say. “What did he say?” my mother asks. She is taking pictures of two Tibetan women carrying great loads up a steep winding stairwell. A monk with a devilish twinkle drifts past carrying a flat of eggs.

This is a complicated place. The mix of people laying claim is precarious. There are the Indians from this region, Himachal Pradesh; the Tibetans who were born here & speak Hindi & intermarry; the newly-arrived from Tibet Tibetans, who often marry westerners & move to Europe or Australia; the drug-addled Tibetans; the loveable Tibetan monks, in bright reds & yellows, with mobile phones & sharp sneakers, who always seem to be chuckling to themselves or kicking a ball with children; the Indian beggars squatting along the road empty-handed or sliding a bow across a dusty zither; the bougey tourists with expensive luggage, noses in their Lonely Planet guides; the hardened travelers in kurta pyjamas & dreads & dangling earrings & muddy sandals, with faroff looks, from no country any more. This masala of beings is a bit like the minor traffic jams that happen on stairwells, between dogs & monkeys & cows & goats & chickens.

Last year somebody set fire to a bunch of motorcycles, & the Indians blamed the Tibetans & attacked Tibetan shops, smashing their figurines & bells. A few years back a Tibetan nun was raped. Recently, a tourist’s head was found in the underbrush of Upper Bhagsu.

About 100 years ago there was an earthquake at MacLeod Ganj that leveled it. Some Tibetans believe that the presence of the Dalai Lama prevents another such. But this place—so peaceful & violent, such a great example of integration, with all the pain of wounded India & these exiles shored against the mountains—is a kind of mirage. One shudder wipes the slate. Because we hurt we understand. I really think I should’ve bought that fella an omelet.

untranslatable voices on the Bagmati, the river a smog-trickle, they lift you roughly in your orange robe out of the white coffin, dip your smooth feet into the current of grey bilge, upstream a woman washes her feet, they touch your hair, wrap your dark penis in cloth, your cousins or uncles maybe, where is your mother, nobody weeps, a woman sneaks in close to take a pic of your face with her phone, in your pocket they find a note (a “to do” list?), they lay a torch at your throat, your thighs are ash, your robe a wing, & as your toes boil I think of Joan & monkeys hop & slide across a temple roof, boys hock a loogie over the ghat, Nepali pop blares on a cheap radio, many witnesses along this bridge pigeons sail under, life is such a spectacle so why not death, your face fleshy, no promise of grey in your hair, basted in damp hay, washed in the Bagmati, under the smog sun, sadhus weaving among, stoned ghosts, cohorts of ghosts, thinking as stones think, dead to themselves, one dressed as Hanuman monkey god poses for pics, that which was dark & alchemical in you turns to flies, butterflies, your thick hair smoke & your eyes butterflies, the crowd too is smoke, your foot yellow in the pyre & your thigh protrudes, your hand open, thin fingers, palm charred, & two monkeys hump without love in the ford . . .

On a black motorcycle, the Indian model Bajaj “Pulsar,” on the Baglung Rajmarg road north of Pokhara, trying to concentrate on riding on the left side of the road, & avoiding the chaotic traffic & threading bicycles & dusty fruitcarts & cows & goats & water buffaloes. Everything stops for a Maoist demonstration. Baking under the sun, families with umbrellas, mostly cheerful, some zealous kids waving red flags, cars with megaphones. The gung ho Maoists seized power & became the ruling party in democratic Nepal in 2008. A few skinny soldiers, overheated in dirty blue-camo gear & bullet-proof shields, escort alongside. I smoke one clove cigarette. Above the Seti River, in the garbage-strewn grass, I urinate. The river is grey, silty. Boys are fishing. One is waving up to us, yelling “Hello! Hello!” Wait, he’s not waving, he’s giving us the finger, & making an X with his arms. What does the X mean? At the Pema Ts’al Sakya Tibetan monastery, near the awesome foggy Annapurna Himalayas, the monk Ngawang sits under a tree in simple red & yellow robes reading a Nepali newspaper. He takes us on a tour of the classrooms. The monastery is new, constructed in 2005. Their temple is still under construction. Ngawang’s lama yells down to us in a cowboy hat from the temple roof, saying that we should stay in their guest house. Small bald children run back & forth on the tiles, over the Endless Knot design. Exams are just over. On one of the chalkboards, a single word remains: “LUCK.” Just after dusk, at the Phewa Lake at Pokhara, the last boats are floating back. We are smoking. The darkness is filled with creepers & a stuttering generator. Fireflies drift past at eye level, small silent souls. On the morning bus back to Katmandu, dehydrated & headachy from dust & heat & carbon monoxide, we stop for lunch at the Blue Heaven Restaurant. Buffet-eaters feast on Dal Bhat for 250 rupees. We munch on sour cream & onion chips & a coke, at a seat above a river. On the sandy shoal below, a dark naked woman struggles slowly to pull on her pants. Two boys point down at her, roll their eyes & walk off. She pours sand over her black hair. As our bus pulls away, she arrives at the restaurant, breasts flapping loosely in her unbuttoned shirt. Tourists with Gilligan hats & cameras & orange drinks back away from her, as if from a grim apparition. She is about eighteen. The diesel bus labours uphill. I fall asleep, panting.