Third week of January 2012.
Greetings fairy tale hunters across of the world, as we in the guild continue to hunt down fairy tales of the yeti. I hope you are enjoying the articles and the video galleries. Mission control, back in the UK, tells me that their world map is filling with fairy tale hunters from every continent. So join the guild of fairy tale hunters by sending your ideas via the contact links.
This past week has been full of new discoveries and yeti clues. There are two new fairy tales, which I have discovered by interviewing people and you can find them in separate articles. Though for now I must tell you about by journey to the ruined castle. I started by rumble-tumble and twisty-twining my way to Bandipur, on the roof of a bus and clinging to the back of a jeep.
The eagles appear to be following me as I arrived in this peaceful sanctuary that is Bandipur. The candle lit cobbled street of this ancient Tibetan trading route greet me in a furry of children spinning cart wheels and singing songs. The clear morning air opens across a skyline of distant mountains as the Annapurna calls to me of its secrets. Here large bats sleep in giant caves and flower garlands flutter from the craggy temple peaks. A much needed haven that has taken my dreams back to West of China. I suppose if I was a fairy tale giant I may just be able to see over the peaks to that land of candle lit songs. Evenings full of the Arabian night’s tales from my meeting with Sasha the Rug Collector. He wove the night stars with adventure and romance from the Almond Blossom of Moroccan Esowera, crazy spinning back streets of Mexican Oaxaca, Macedonian citadels and feverish bartering over steaming pots of spicy masala pepper tea. Such place we must go to next for they are the warp and weft that is the fairy tale tapestry.
Onward and down into Dumri and on past the exposed bellies of overturned lorries to the jingle of the latest Hindi pop music to Besishahar, and then off the map and a kneeing busting hike up the thousands of rocky broken-teeth steps into the jungle of the snow leopards and the garden slopes of the Kings of old. This is where the kingdoms four hundred years ago took refuge from the malaria drenched valleys below, where brother fought with brother over the crown of the known mountain lands that became Nepal. And now all that stands are the ruins hidden in the jungle. Here I was greeted by Shamser and ceremonially welcomed to the drum beat, prayers and national anthem of Nepal at the Diamond Hill Academy of Gaunshsar-1.
Our days were filled with fun and laughter as the students in the school of the ancient capital of the Kings joined the hunt with their imaginative stories of the mountains through the windows of their school.
The roof of the world was ablaze at night with fiery lightning and the giant kilometre deep valley below boomed with angry thunder. Rained pounded on the metal roof as inside Shamser’s family and friends, plus a fellow adventurer from Seattle and I danced to traditional Nepalese songs by the beat of a long hand drum.
The day dawned golden and clear and I searched to complete my mission I had been given by the school children guiding my hunt for fairy tales. Leopard tracks took me to the Kings ruined temple, his long forgotten fortress and the silent remains of the village, its round houses now gripped by the roots of the forest.
If there were any yeti kept in the dungeons they had escaped back into those mountains a long time before I had arrived. The stories of the people were now only held in the sounds of the flutes or locked in the secrets of the bees.
Let us never be down hearted fairy tale hunters. Let us sing as we listen to the whispering wind and the creaking of the branches and let us share the dreams of the wild stormy nights as we tread lightly in wild footsteps. On we shall go, we will carry our journey into new realms, searching for new stories and uncovering new clues in our adventure.
