Third Mile Temple

Everything is wet and green. The dark rocks are splotchy with mold and lichen, and the fog-shrouded distance is lined with the trunks of tall, thin trees that branch only at the top. It has been raining off and on all day, but I lost my umbrella two temples back. Not that it would help much here, where the forest canopy collects the rain into scattered spills. Picking my way down the slick, uneven steps, I'm glad for the first time today that I had decided to wear shoes for our temple tour. My paint-stained hands desperately grip the rusty handrail on my right and brush against the dirty colored Tibetan prayer flags that hang from the rail and cling to the mossy rocks. The site manager had warned us that the path was too slippery to be safe, but Prakash seemed to think we could handle it. "I grew up on mountain, so I am like mountain goat," he jokes, trotting easily down the steps.

The going is slow, but after the cramped jeep ride I'm happy to have my feet on the ground. Fifteen of us had crammed into the rickety, low ceilinged vehicle, and I had opted for the extra elbow room afforded by the backless end seat in the middle row. As we bumped along, I felt grateful for the handbar in front of me, but its presence made our ride feel too much like a roller coaster for my tastes. The jeep careened around endless switchbacks and precarious mountain roads, as if ready at any moment to hurtle off the ledge and triple, spiral loop-the-loop down into the valley below.

About half way down the path we half to stop and take off our shoes. I try not to think about the loosely bandaged gash in my left foot that I'd gotten stepping on a suitcase latch the night before. I can feel it pinch with every step, but I don't have any attention to spare it. I've been stuffed up all day, and the last couple legs of our jeep ride had shifted the gunk out of my sinuses and into my right ear. My balance is shot, so I have to watch carefully where I put my feet. Now and then I hear a squeal as sometime slips on the moist stone, followed immediately by an "I'm alright!" Comforting.

Ahead of us our guide is explaining something about how this site was discovered just a few years ago by a swimming boy. He's a strange looking man, with smooth rounded features, high cheekbones, and a prominent chin-dimple. He looks so much like the Hindu deities in the pink pastel dioramas that decorate a few of the temples we have seen. Here and there along the path are mysterious copper boxes welded into the stone. Each features a tiny, burnt looking bowl that I figure must be used to burn incense during the drier months. Small nooks will be filled with half-hearted shines, as if trying to soak up second-hand sanctity from the temple below.

More altars around the cave entrance below. Hindu shrines are like nothing in American churches. They are dirty, cluttered things, smelling of rotten fruit and buzzing with bees drawn to the flowers and milky sugar water. From outside the cave is little more than a hole in the wall. Lalit hands us his dim flashlight, and Nita lights up a tiny flickering candle. I switch on the LED on my pocketknife. Not much light. Three of us go in first, ducking blindly into the hole. I can sense stairs under my feet, but the roof isn't high enough to do more than crawl. We pick and feel our way through the short tunnel, twisting past jutting rocks with contortionist purpose. Thick, wet drops of water plop down onto my neck and scalp, causing the thumb-pressed dots of paint on my forehead to run down my nose like multi-colored mascara running form a teary third eye. The wet walls dance red in the candlelight. Ahead we hear chanting.

We sit off to the side and wait our turn, lulled into fascination by the fast, arrhythmic chanting of four orange-clad monks. My ears pick up the occasional rhyme, and unconsciously my head starts to nod, waiting for someone to drop a beat over this elaborate freestyle prayer-rap. The shrine is as messy as the ones outside, but seems somehow to have been arranged with more purpose. Yellow painted stars glimmer on the ceiling, and for a moment I forget how claustrophobic the space is. The air is hot and choked with incense. Around us the earth silently rumbles.

The three monks get up, and the priest motions the three of us down. Indicating that we should repeat, he starts to recite the puja. When he pauses we intone the words as best we can. There is something relaxing, trance like about it. The prayer speeds up, repeating with minor variations. With a practiced calm, he summons Ghanesh, then Vishnu, then Kali, then the hundred million other gods whose names I do not know. We're babbling, not really sure what we're saying. The priest lights a couple of sugary looking squares with a match and tosses them into a golden object resembling a candlestick. We reach out to touch it, and together the four of us wave the flame in circles before the altar. A moment later he is thrusting sticky balls of orange, sweet smelling rice into our hands and pressing yet another daub of caked red paint to our foreheads. We namaste and stumble out, dazed.

Outside we sit on benches and wait for the others to finish the worship. Our guide informs us that the rice balls are prasad, the jutho (saliva) of a god. Human jutho is ritually polluting, but jutho from a god is a great blessing. Unfortunately it is not hygienic for westerners to eat, so, at Prakash's suggestion, we wait until no one is looking and surreptitiously slip them into Nita's offering basket. The idea that a blessing could make you sick just wouldn't make sense to most Nepalis.

I'm a good fourth of the way up the path before I realize that my sinuses are clear and my balance restored. Grinning, I leap up the stone steps with more energy than I've felt all day. Once we're back in the jeep it fades pretty quickly, but still I feel renewed. Back at the program house I catch a short nap, dreaming of echoing tunnel chants and yellow-starred rocky skies.