morning glory

so.… the morn­ing to end all morn­ings… i decided to just scope out the region around the base of the moun­tain instead of climb­ing to the top.. the early morn­ing bike ride through a few new vil­lages and around “new” to me ..stu­pas was incread­i­ble.. fog around the river for dra­matic effect.. that even­tu­ally dis­ori­ented me a lit­tle when the moun­tain was fully hid­den. after hop­ping a stream, I met an old man who was invit­ing me to his house( i thought for cheeya) but after the very steep trails to his place I found my self frozen at this 65yearish man with a cane offer­ing me the most out­landish amount of pot. after a com­pli­cated cha­rades game we took a very con­fus­ing route back to the road(to cover his tracks) and met a younger man who spoke a lit­tle eng­lish (and was very inter­ested in my bike) he llead me to the local cheeya shop and then con­tin­ued to lead me… ask­ing if i could help him…? or was he say­ing that he was help­ing me back… for a fee.. or for my bike… i had a very bad vibe so i started a sec­ond cha­rades rou­tine to part ways. fol­low­ing a new route i was faced with a rowdy bus full of com­mu­nist flag wavers and was not so sure waht to do.. so i started pump­ing my fist in the air and yelling and they let me pass… i ended up find­ing a beau­ti­ful gorge and ancient bridge to take a rest after a wild excursion…all before 9 in the morning.