Text and photographs by Michael McCarthy
June, 2012, Vol. 16, No. 6
Maoist terrorists appeared as we reached 17,500 feet. How untimely, in another half hour of excruciating effort, we would have summited the mighty Gandala Pass. It was then downhill to Shey Meadows, a Tibetan plateau tucked away in the remote corner of northwestern Nepal. I pulled out my digital voice recorder.
“Looks like we are going to be captured,” I said softly.
“No, put away,” cried lama Tenzin. “They see you, they think CIA.”
In 1937, novelist James Hilton wrote the bestseller Lost Horizon, a novel about an imaginary paradise hidden in the Himalayas. He named it Shangri-la. Ever since, determined travellers have been searching for this hidden Himalayan valley, where time supposedly stands still, and peace rules. While few will ever experience heaven on earth, a perfect Himalaya valley does exist, one that feels like Shangri-la. Getting to it, however, remains another matter altogether.