I ask a giggling group of children where the trail to Muktinath begins.  Once on the trail, it's climb, climb, up and up like the initial ascent of an airplane, strain on the calves, rest on the barren landscape to gaze at the mountain peaks and the valley below.

A group of yaks with thick fur and long curved horns passes, lugging supplies to the villages above.  I stop in the village of Jharkot, find a room and leave my bag, then continue for the final stretch to Muktinath.

A stone wall encloses the temple complex at Muktinath.  I make my way inside to the Vishnu temple that the sadhu Nayar described.  It is surrounded by a courtyard with 108 brass water spouts in the shape of boars' heads.  108 tiny waterfalls splash on cement, fed by water from a spring that gushes out of a rock near the temple.

It's mid-afternoon and chilly out, but I strip down to a bathing suit and carry out the ritual.  I make my way clockwise around the temple, stooping under each of the spouts.  The water is ice-cold.  By about the 30th spout, it becomes painfully cold, pain which grows until somewhere around the 90th spout, when it becomes numbingly cold.  By the end, I'm tingling all over and flushed with energy, wide awake both physically and spiritually.

Beyond the Vishnu temple stands a sacred grove of poplar trees.  It is said that these trees sprouted from the walking sticks left by the eighty-four Great Magicians when they stopped here on their way to Tibet.

Other historical figures passed through Muktinath and left their mark here.  Padmasambhava is a Buddhist saint who brought Buddhism to Tibet.  He is said to have meditated here in the 8th century, and left his footprints in a stone near the Gompa Sarwa.  His terracotta image, along with those of Avalokitesvara and Sakyamuni, can be found inside the Gompa Sarwa in Muktinath.

The best-known temple in Muktinath and the destination of many pilgrims is the Jwala Mai Temple, where earth, fire and water mix.

Lines of Buddhist prayer flags are strung about the Jwala Mai Temple, but the door is locked.  I ask around, and finally an old woman, the keeper of the temple key, comes over and unlocks the door.  Under a metal grating inside the temple, the miracle of nature is kept safe.  Water trickles out of an underground spring, and next to it, a jet of natural gas keeps a flame burning, as it has for thousands of years.  The flame is small, the water only a trickle, but their flicker and flow are everlasting, and mark this as a holy pilgrimage spot.  Outside, the high Himalayan air is charged with a sacred spirit.

I walk outside the temple complex to the dirt road through Muktinath.  Groups of weary trekkers stagger by, flush with the excitement of crossing Thorung La, the pass that reaches skyward east of Muktinath, this morning.

Thorung La.  The trail from Jharkot to Muktinath is visible in the lower left.

They gather in trekking lodges and down beers as they congratulate each other on the physical feat they have completed.  The spiritual significance of Muktinath seems lost on them.

As the cloak of evening settles over the rugged terrain, I hike down to my room in Jharkot.