happy hallowe'en

VII
It’s a lonely Halloween. A cold, lonely Halloween. Although Halloween usually is . I was recording last Halloween. This year I’m in Alchi. Cobalt Indus river. Orange and yellow crispy leaves trembling on the skeleton trees. Thatch roof huts and empty streets, every guesthouse has a lock on the gate. Tourist season is o-ver. I’m eating chocolate at dusk to celebrate- 10 rupees for a Kit-Kat. They’re cold.
Got off the bus this morning from Leh at the Alchi bridge- the only disembarker there. Trudge over the bridge, up a hill between highway curves, up another hill, down a dale, round a curve- the book said 2 km, but I’ve been trudging for 40 minutes. I’m on the right track, though- people are happy to help. Hit the town, find Lotsava Guesthouse- there’s a lock on the gate. Same with the six other guesthouses and hotels around. Look in the book, and the one on the outskirts is supposed to be open all winter. Trudge trudge. Find it- it’s open! Muslim-looking worker men are eating in the Kitchen/Reception area. The young Indian doling out the dal says there’s no rooms. I get in an almost-argument with him and one of the Muslim workers, saying that there must be at least ONE dormitory bed free. Nope, just for workers- the Indian shrugs and leaves, and the Muslim placates me by offering me free lunch. It works.
After I eat I thank him- he’s strange, dark-eyed limp-handshaker toothpicker. He suggests I try the next town. Thanks, and leave. But fuck that. Walk back to town (pack and all, still) and Lotsava’s open this time. Guy in the courtyard’s about as excited to see me as he would be a stray dog, but the good news is I get a room. Four lumpy white-washed concrete walls, thin balding carpet over concrete floor, and two hospital cots pushed together. A room. I go out to see the lonely gompa, a thousand years old. I go down by the river to see how fast and cold it is. I climb up above the town at dusk and watch the fading orange on the higher hills, kids below playing tennis-ball cricket in a windshower of crinkly leaves. There’s urgency in the air with this oncoming winter- stacks of wood and yak-dung on roofs, people hurrying from the stores home- you can feel the chill deepen every night, the days shorter every day.
I buy chocolate and go back to my white-washed walls. It’s pretty and cold and lonesome here- I am the only tourist in the whole town and not a single restaurant is open. I can’t wait for the warmth of sleep and the bus in the morning to take me back to Leh. Away from the ghost-town ghosts. Happy Halloween.