We trek through the foothills, through village life, past old men

nodding at the morning sun, bent-backed women carry grass-filled baskets

home to goats and buffalo, and milk cans hang on fence poles,

drying in the morning sun.

We pass quietly awed by the vastness, the beauty, by the distant

snowy peaks and the path leads us higher into the forest where

mist blocks out the view and completes the silence so the only

sound is our damp footsteps.