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Lonely women, short and two-wire, like Mongolian horses, all in a harness of jewelry and pointy hats, going the same way, were caught by him.
Tong was used to overtaking them. Women called monitors, dispersing local evil spirits. And Tong Rampa dispersed herds of rams, here and there, caught on country roads. Philosophically minded yaks - these true Buddhists in shaggy hides - were more sympathetic to him. Tong Rampa waved at him and continued to measure the dry, indented soil with his crooked legs.
At night he slept on the bare ground, only somewhere covered with grass, hard as a yeti wool, and breathed quietly into his usual lungs, even in his thin air, which seemed to be created only for the saints, stuck like a knife blade. His country, raised above the rest of the world, was made alive at that time. Big and small stars sparkled. Every now and then the rays rose to the sky, which the Tibetans believed were sent from Shambhala.
And Rampa continued his journey. It was not for nothing that he visited his brother - the lama told him about the secret passages to the valleys with hot springs. Tong memorized his verbal map and, thanks to his memory, did not leave his bones on any of the passes.
Sometimes on the way we would meet the villages. The smoked tents of the poor, the stiffened children, with humiliated impudence chasing foreigners, did not fill with anger Tibetan Tong Rampu, for both he and those who stayed here, knew the true price of the great mystery hidden in the local hills and mountains.
"Shambhala! Shambhala! - The Yankees nodded out of their SUVs, greeting Rampa with baseball caps and movie cameras.
This was how Tibetan, from time to time, various expeditions appeared, which, in fact, could only refine the water in the mortar. Tong Rampa entertained such explorers with his gait. He was in a hurry, only sometimes stopping to eat a dried pellet or to chew just a little bit of dried meat.
At night, Rampa began to feel the unknown and alarming bell beeping over Tibet: "Gong! Gong!" And at that moment, Rampa whispered the cherished mantra, the meaning of which had long been lost to his great-grandfathers: "Lakmurie Ton Jung-Go". And the salt lakes were becoming more and more common. The height of the lake even made itself felt as a mountaineer - the blood was constantly pushed into the nose, and the sand, stony from the sucrose, clogged the nostrils.
Tong Rampa crossed the valley of Fear and the plateau of the Ten Deaths, where he stumbled upon the bones of unknown animals. In the Gompa valley, salted as if in a cloud, in which even the dust, rolled by the wind, turns into thorny balls, he slept in the surroundings of human skulls.
Tongu finally saw the Lawngham Ridge and the three cherished valleys. He passed them safely and in February 1993, releasing a cloud of steam, he discovered Parayang.
Tibetan Tong Rampa soon walked bravely between the two lakes. One of them was spewing waves and the eternal wind over him. It was a lake of demons Rakshas, where the demon Simbu-Tso was sitting not some anonymous devil, but himself. The other - the pilgrims' blessed Lake Manzarovar - on the contrary, it was a calm holy water. Lake of Death and Lake of Life excited the traveler so much that he shouted out into the serene sky: "Lakmuri Ton Chung Go! And the clouds over the holy lake, and the wind of the devil's Rakshasa spread this shout, not a little, all over the world.
The Tibetan's clothes were shattered, his eyes were inflamed, but after a day Tong Rampa swallowed hot tea, seasoned with oil and fat, at the monastery of Chu Gomba, shaking with the inevitable excitement. Finally, Dargen appeared before him, and the Akshobia River began to whip foam at his feet.
And Tong Rampa shouted again with joy, looking forward to meeting the great mountain: "Lak-murie Ton Chung-Go!
The cat, without hearing the Tibetan call, was cowardly to the Austrian border. He did not hang around the police booth for long. The appearance of the two cologne-drenched, lacquered policemen Muri like toys in a supermarket did not surprise him.
- I've never met such a guy before, Willie! - I noticed one of the guards. - A walking biology manual, a real skeleton...
His comrade went back to the booth for his flask. This flask was as flat as all the women of the Croatian border village called Slivovtsi. It was in Slivovtsi that the shepherds' dogs, the ferocious Cerbertas, were tied up for Muri. Those were true fighters, not the kind of dogs that immediately slow down, just go too far. Fangs of wolfhounds, who tasted foxes and wolves, more than eloquently put up and climbed, while Muri, suffocating from humiliation, climbed on the turned pine.
The thugs wouldn't let him go until midnight. Perhaps the only entertainment they could find here was to listen to them, and they didn't want to hear anything. However, the barking got tired of the shepherds - in the end, people were throwing sticks at the dogs.
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