A Hindu pilgrim, recently arrived from South India, stood anxiously next to a bus stand in Mustang, Nepal. “I’m going to burn my passport,” he said. “I’m going to destroy all my documents and go to Damodar. I came here (on pilgrimage) to find Shaligram and I will find Shaligram. You can't put borders on sacred land.” I was taken aback. The Damodar Kund, a glacial lake several days’ walk far to the north, lay beyond the boundary between Upper Mustang and Lower Mustang, and without special permits and astronomical fees, foreigners were not allowed to cross into the politically contentious zone between Chinese-occupied Tibet and Himalayan Nepal. But this was not the first time I would encounter these sentiments. More than once, a Hindu or Buddhist pilgrim would explain how they might hide their passports in a mountain crevasse, strip off their clothes and travel as mute hermits (so that their accents would not give them away) and steal across the border late at night or in an area where there were no roads for government jeeps to travel. In every case, the reasoning was the same: they had come in search of sacred stones, and there was no border that could stop them. This was Shaligram pilgrimage, and where the Shaligram goes, so do the people.