Only a half hour drive and a one hour hike uphill and we are in another world. In the village of clouds. They call it Sarangkot here, but Mark and I call it cloud city. A beautiful place set in the mountains with a viewpoint that looks toward the Himalayas. A couple of stores, a couple of family owned diners, guesthouses scattered about, all surrounded by chickens, goats, cats and dogs, and little grass/mud huts that the villagers live in. We can't see much the first day because of the humidity in the air. The clouds are below us, above us and well basically all around us. We can see the next building over, a second later it disappears! The feeling of emptiness never arises due to the fact of the sweet serenity of the moist pillow-like clouds. We wake up the next morning to see the epic sunrise at 5am. We it seems to be yet another cloudy day in the village. So back to bed we go. Later that night, after spending the whole day walking around this magic place, we retired to our room. (I should mention it was $4.60 CAD, a pretty cheap room)We turn off the lights to pitch black and go to sleep, only to waken to tap tap taping noise. We turn on the lights and Mark says he seen a mouse run across, so we chase it out of our room, but when we get a good glimpse of it, it turns out to be a rat. We took our pillow cases off and plugged the bottom of the door and put all our shoes on it so there would be no chance of THAT happening again. We turn the lights off and lay awake with a twinkle of terror in our eyes, until the alarm goes off to see the next mornings sunrise.
Cloudy again. There was a glimpse of pink then it faded away. However, we did get to see some of the great Himalayan mountain tops, which are quite beautiful. But again back to bed we go. We make the final decent down the mountain that afternoon, not because we wanted to but because we ran out of money, there are no ATMs in cloud city.
That night, Mark and I went to one of our favorite places to eat dinner,(they give you free popcorn when you order a beer!) We enjoy our delicious and yet very garlicky soups and order another beer. Mark starts talking all sappy, sometimes he gets that way after a beer or three. So I just think it's cute and fluff it off. Then he says he wants to travel forever together and grow old together, and gets on one knee and proposes to me! (I'm tearing up writing this) All I could say was "what are you doing!! Are you for serious, no...really!!! I mean YES, I will marry you, of course!" With delicious garlic breath and fast beating hearts we kiss and hug and can't let go of each other. WOW (I know sappy).
Anyway, Mark tells me that this is the reason he has been spending all that time in the garage. For pretty much the whole summer, Mark was in the garage fiddling around, and every time I went to the garage door to open it, he would always stand up and be right at the door asking what I am doing. I thought he was really excited to see me or hiding something on his computer.But no, he was busy making me an engagement ring. He had bought a bunch of new tools, I thought it was for his job, but they were for making a ring to put on my finger. It is made from red oak, and is super shiny. The perfect ring. He made 2, so he could wear one around his neck too. So after over six and a half years of dating and falling deeper and deeper in love we are engaged! It seems surreal, but wonderful and even though we had a long night of drinks and laughter, I now feel exhausted but still can't get this fiancee smile off my face. Later Mark says he wanted to do it at sunrise, but it never happened, but I think it was perfect. I am happy to say I am engaged to my best friend, Mark.
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