The mountains and the spores

Lev and I had planned an adventure into the lower Himalayas, but after the intensity of the Kumbh Mela and the long ride back, we opted for some downtime. Lev needed it. Truthfully, so did I. It was strange — and oddly comforting — to have a friend from my “real” life with me again. But it was also confronting. Everyone back home seemed to be moving forward: careers, marriages, kids, plans. And here I was, living in an ashram with a rescued street dog curled up in my bed. My world had shifted. My friends were now kind, unfamiliar Indian faces. Somehow, they cared more deeply than many I’d known for years. What strange currents had carried me to this place?

I felt guilty even thinking of it as a burden. From the outside, I was “living the dream.” But it didn’t feel like a dream anymore. I’d burned my bridges. Scorched the earth. There was no going back. No safety net. And the weight of that choice — some days — felt just as heavy as the freedom I tasted every time I twisted Tara’s throttle and disappeared down the road.

It was a paradox I couldn’t escape: the rush of movement, the ache for roots.Movement kept me alive. Stillness made me ache. I wanted roots — I just didn’t know where to plant them. Or whether I even had the right.

We immersed ourselves in the rhythms of Rishikesh — yoga, swims in the Ganga, chai, sound healing. One of the ashram regulars, Marisca — a Dutch woman who split her life between Nepal and India — had once lived in the jungles of South America, set up NGOs, and trained as a shaman. She offered us a sound healing session. I rolled my eyes inwardly — ex-military pragmatist that I was — but figured it couldn’t hurt. At worst, I’d get a nap.

We lay on the marble floor of the ashram yoga hall, surrounded by candles, incense, singing bowls, strange stringed instruments. And something shifted. I dropped into a trance. Floating in that liminal space between wake and dream, a vision came: a towering, snow-capped mountain glowing electric blue. It stared back at me, silent and certain. Calling. I jolted awake. The image wouldn’t leave me. Maybe it was Nepal calling me.

A few days later, we motorcycled up into the lower himalayas. We’d sourced some traditional local mind altering medicine and hatched a plan: climb a mountain in the dark, watch the sunrise, and commune with the cosmos. Two ex-officers, no map, tripping on psilocybin — what could possibly go wrong?

We camped near the base of a tabletop mountain with panoramic views of the Himalayas. At dawn, we chewed the earthy spores, climbed upward, and reached the summit just as the medicine kicked in. The sky lit up in waves — purple, orange, gold. The peaks blazed in the morning light. We sat in silence, the kind that only comes when language is no longer needed.

And as we sat, I felt the illusion dissolve — not the one from the medicine, but the one I’d been carrying. That this journey had to be serious. That meaning had to be found. Maybe the truth was simpler: sit back, observe, let go. The sun rose over mist-covered valleys and lit up the rice paddies below. We laughed. We cried. We gave thanks to whatever it is that pulses through all this.

As the medicine faded and we returned to normality, we descended the mountain, minds still processing whatever had just passed through us. I didn’t have answers, but I felt lighter. Grateful just to have shared that moment with a brother.

A few hours later, we were back in Rishikesh for lunch.

Lev was leaving. Heading back to the UK to prepare for — a whole new chapter of life that was opening for him. I was grateful he’d come. Gutted to see him go. Maybe we’d cross paths again in South America. Maybe not. Before he left, he told me to stay strong and keep going. that the answer to most of our problems were on the other side of fear. He knew I was struggling his encouragement meant a lot.

He left the day before my birthday, we celebrated with a vegan salad and a bowl of hummus overlooking the ganges, how times had changed from our debauched lives in london. He took off in a cab and I was back on the road.

Forty-two. No kids. No home. No plan. Once I briefed generals. Now I lived in an ashram by the ganges, it made no sense to me anymore, my identity was unknown to me.

Word had spread. Monica and Tyagi turned up with a cake, a bottle of god-awful wine, and a croissant. I cried. We sat on my balcony, watching the river flow, laughing and telling stories. I felt loved. I felt lucky. I felt lost.

Part of me wanted to stay. Rishikesh felt like home. I had friends, community, a room, a dog. There were opportunities here — not flashy ones, but enough. I’d met Sean, a punch-drunk Irish boxer who’d survived a brain injury and reinvented himself as a yoga coach. We’d talked about starting a fitness business — boxing and yoga. Martial arts and mindfulness. Something grounded.

But that dream pulled against another — the road.

Freedom or roots. Adventure or safety. It tore at me.

Then Tennessee Nate messaged. He was coming from Delhi, heading north and east into Nepal. Guy — a British biker I’d found on Instagram — was in Rajasthan and struggling. I reached out. Told him to come join us. He seemed relieved at escaping the rising heat of the desert and keen to head into the hills with nate and I.

Guy was a walking contradiction. A gentle giant who looked like a Viking enforcer. Mo-hawked, skull-tattooed, with a beard like a fireball. He lived off-grid in a van in Devon. Wanted something real. Rode bikes like a man possessed by a deep need for freedom. He was as exuberant and loud as he was attentive and sensitive to those around him. Despite his size and appearance, he was patient, kind, gentle. Nate and I weren’t exactly inconspicuous either — both towering men, both full of stories, noise, and contrast. We’d be a strange trio of giants walking around the shanti streets of Rishikesh. The ride ahead promised to be anything but boring with these two larger than life characters.

Last Days in Rishikesh — Past Life, Future Life

The plan: regroup in Rishikesh, prep the bikes, head north into the Himalayas, then drift east to Nepal. Guy would peel off eventually — scouting routes for a motorcycle tour project. Nate wanted to see it all. I was torn. One foot in Rishikesh, one on the footpeg. Caught in a limbo between motion and stillness.

Before we could leave, I had to renew my visa. Three months in India already — I was puzzled at how long I had been there.

Then, by chance, an offer: a short-term private security consultancy job in West Africa. High pay. Just a week. Perfect timing for a visa reset. I took it. To the return to that world — mercenaries, corrupt officials, whispers of terrorists and deals in the dark — was jarring. It clashed hard against the riverbanks of Rishikesh.

And yet — part of me liked it.

I was part of a team again. With a mission. A clear purpose. The guys gave me shit for the yoga and incense, but I didn’t care. I’d missed the straight-talking, no-bullshit camaraderie. No performance. Just tasks and tempo.

But when I got back to India, something had shifted. I couldn’t sink back into the flow. I’d tasted structure again — discipline, banter, direction. And now, Rishikesh felt... soft. Beautiful, yes. But soft.

And it unsettled me.

What was I doing with my life? Was I still running? From what — guilt, shame, responsibility? From the failure I carried like a stone in my chest? From the quiet humiliation of being medically downgraded, discharged — not for wounds you could see, but the fragile kind that make people look at you differently?

I missed the man I used to be. Or maybe just the clarity he had. Major Clark. That title had held me together. Without it, who the fuck was I?

There was a fear inside me I couldn’t name — only feel. It pulsed in the background, growing with each passing mile. I rode to outrun it, but it came with me. Every time. Because it lived inside me.

I didn’t want to leave Rishikesh.

But I couldn’t stay.