Free The Hotel on the Roof of the World by Alec le Sueur Page A

filled with excrement and the decaying carcasses of dogs. The pungent stench of rotting flesh and maggot-infested pools sent me scrambling for the fresh air of the open square. Even rancid yak butter was perfume compared with this. Halfway down the narrow alley, at a point where the path consisted of stepping stones through the sewage, two men came out of a doorway, their eyes wide with excitement and their breath heavy with a strong alcohol. They stopped in front of me, blocking the only dry path through the nauseous street. Both had the distinctive profiles of Khampas. They stood tall and proud with red braid wrapped across their matted black hair. One was bare-chested with his chuba , the Tibetan cloak, tied around his waist. They stared at me in silence for some time, looking me up and down. Their surly expressions did not change and they held firm their position blocking the only dry exit. There was no one else around. There were no old ladies in the doorways, no little children smiling and waving from the windows. Alone in excrement alley face-to-face with two alcohol-steaming Khampas. I was a long way up the creek without a paddle.
    â€˜Do drigey rey?’ the bare-chested one broke the silence.
    I had no idea what he was saying.
    â€˜Do drigey rey?’ he shouted.
    I smiled at him but to no avail. He pulled a sword from its sheath, stooped over me and held it up to my chest. Why had I been so mean to the Rapper? Is this what happens if you don’t earn merit? Where was a Chinese soldier when you needed one?
    The other Khampa looked over his shoulder and moved in closer to me. ‘Katse rey?’ he called out with a nod of his head. The bare-chested one waved the sword closer to my face. Sunlight flashed in my eyes as he tilted the steel blade towards me. I could even see every detail of the intricate engravings running along the centre of the blade between the two razor edges.
    He withdrew the sword, pointed to the space beside us and made a series of cuts in the air to demonstrate a nifty disembowelling motion. He shook it in front of my face again.
    â€˜Katse rey? Katse rey!? ’ he shouted.
    The bare-chested one frowned in thought, recalling the only English words which he had heard, learnt from his wife.
    â€˜You how much?’ he called to me.
    It was with an enormous sense of relief that I suddenly realised they were not threatening to decapitate me if I crossed their path, but were merely trying to sell me the sword. Their scowls turned into broad gold-capped grins as I took the sword and examined it closely. The swirling engravings of the steel blade ended abruptly inside a gaping dragon’s mouth of silver which formed the base of the handle. The body of the dragon curled around on itself to provide the bulk of the grip. It was newly made, perhaps one of the imports from Kathmandu, and certainly practical for the man about town. But disembowelling daggers were not high on my shopping list and I had no intention of buying it, I just wanted to get out of the place with dry feet and in one piece.
    I shook my head and passed the sword back to him. Recalling Tashi’s words of greeting at the airport, I ventured the only Tibetan words that I knew: ‘Tashi delai.’ This earned me a great slap on the back that pushed me dangerously close to the edge of the excrement area. My two new Khampa friends strode off down the lane howling with laughter.
    There are only so many smells and sensations that the body can take on the first day of reaching an altitude of 12,000 feet, so after I had found my way back to the Barkhor I haggled for another rickshaw to return to the hotel.
    Two luminous figures ran out of the lobby at me as I walked across the forecourt. Greg and Dave had made it to Lhasa. Their permit had arrived from Beijing and the man in Chengdu had waved them through with a smile, happy to see the back of these two troublesome foreigners.
    Once in Tibet, they were anxious to set