Rishikesh to Nepal.

DECEMBER 15

What a night!  With the person in front of me "reclining" his seat, there wasn't room enough to get my legs in front of me, so I attempted sleeping first with my legs 90  degrees from normal (stuck out in the aisle), then 45 degrees down the aisle. Most uncomfortable!  Cold and backbreaking, and wicked annoying when someone's big suitcase kept sliding down the aisle and bashing into my legs. About 2 a.m.a Tibeti man in the back seat saw my plight and offered to change seats.  What a blessing! Not only could I stretch my legs down the center aisle, but the Tibeti doctor sitting beside me shared his blanket, and he and a Tibeti lady had me sandwiched tightly between them, so that  I was warm as toast!  Talked with a very interesting Russian lawyer lady from Uzbekistan- also sharing the back seat, then got a nice sleep till abou7 a.m.

Eating at the ashram.

We arrived at 9 a.m.  and caught a taxi to uptown Rishikesh and checked in to the Sivadananda Ashram overlooking the Holy Ganges River.  Free room and board, but you can make donations.  ( I think we have 4 days before we have to buy our robes and shave our heads.)  This is Anushree's Dad's Guru's Ashram.  I have read about him-an amazing man who gave up all for the service of others.  Quite austere rooms (naturally!!). Fairly comfortable beds. Mattresses and blankets are interchangeable, but it is COLD!  No place to go to get warm except to bed.  I wanted to help out at 6 a.m. in the kitchen, but it was so cold, I'd have frozen.  Not many devotees staying here at present.  We attended chanting sessions, worship services and meditations.  All religions are welcome here.  A lady from Argentina asked if we were going to be here on the 25th for the Christmas service.

Footbridge over the Ganges.

DECEMBER 16
Slept in this morning. Too cold and dark to go to the 4 a.m. meditation. The temple walls have lots of open windows and the wind blows right through, and the marble floors can get wicked cold on your bare feet.  We even missed the 7:00 breakfast.
 Set up the next stage of our trip; 3 hour taxi ride to Haridwar, (($16), then 15 hour train ride to Gorakhpor, nearest stop to the Nepali border crossing. ($150). Spent the day in meditation, services and talking to some very interesting people.  To the internet store to update the blogsite.  I tried out a Sitar.

Yes, it's a cow. Just walk around it.

DECEMBER  17
Did more Ashram stuff, then at 3:00 caught our cab to Haridwar.  Arrived at the  station for our 5:00 train to  find that our train was 6 hours delayed due to the heavy fog that hangs out along the foothills of the Himalayas all the way across northern India.  It was a cold, dark, crowded railway station, and those 6 hours dragged slowly by.  No edible food, so we survived on our old standby of crackers and cookies.  Finally boarded the train at 11:00 and dragged all our gear into our very own little cubicle. We are traveling 2d class A/C.  The cubicle has 4- 3foot by 5.5 foot padded beds, and a curtain to pull over the entrance for privacy.  We had missed supper, so made up our beds crawled in and drifted off to sleep to the gentle rocking of the train.

DECEMBER 18
COOOLLLD NIGHT, even sleeping in all our clothes.  I got up sometime in the night and put one jacket on regular way, and my second one on upside down with my legs in the armholes.  We traveled along slowly all day.  No breakfast. Ordered lunch, but somehow it never appeared.  Finally, at 5:00, 26 hours after leaving the Ashram, we arrived in Gorakhpur, rushed off to a hotel, dumped our bags and raced off to a restaurant to fill our empty stomachs.

Safety procedures. what are they?

DECEMBER 19
Up early. Breakfast on a hotel roof in the freezing cold fog, then another 3 hour  taxi ride through the thick fog to the Nepal  border.  Had an easy crossing, only to find that there was a transportation strike, and there would be no busses until the next day.   Had to stay at the border, a trashy, decaying little town? and a rather risky place to hang out, but we got a room in a new hotel, and found a nice restaurant for supper. Booked a bus for Kathmandu.

DECEMBER 20
Up before daybreak after (need I say) another cold night. Caught a DELUXE??? bus, (like an old school bus with padded reclining seats) for 7 hours (actually 10) ofvery rough roads, mountain hairpin turns and high speed thrills.  We arrived in Kathmandu  at 5 p.m. and checked into the Kathmandu Guest House, oldest hotel in the Thamel (tourist) district and extremely classy!   We took their cheapest room- $25.  Many westerners here.  None of them seem to smile!  The Guest House had a comfy reception area complete with lots of nice easy chairs and couches and a fireplace fancy little boutiques gift shops,  even an ATM.  We got 4 extra puffs, and for the first time in a week, we were warm all night!  Had a nice Nepali supper in a near by restaurant.

DECEMBER 21
Took the Thamel (tourist) district temple walking tour.  Nepali and Tibeti handicrafts galore, all packed in very narrow, little streets not much wider than a sidewalk, and tucked among little Hindu and Buddhist temples. The streets are pretty empty until about 8:30, then they become jammed with rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, and lots of motorcycles travelling much too fast for such crowded conditions.  Just walking down the street becomes an "extreme sport" experience.

Woman spinning Prayer wheels.

After lunch, we visited the Swayambhu (monkey) temple.  Many, many steps up to the temple through great heards of monkeys and souvenir stalls.  Lots of Buddhist pilgrims (mostly Tibetans) there praying and spinnng the prayer wheels.

The all seeing eyes of Buddha, over a stuppa.

The inside of a Tibetan Buddhist temple.

DECEMBER 22

Moved our backpacks to the Ganesh Hamal Guest house where we made reservations to stay Dec. 24 and 25, and caught a taxi to the small village of Pharping nestled up in the pine -covered hills on a pilgrimage route, and surrounded by temples and stupas. Great spot, quiet, (power goes off at 7 p.m.) fresh, cool air and friendly people, a nice break from the rush and clatter of the city. 

Dharamshala, MacLeod Ganj.

December 9  ( p.m.)
Off to Dharamsala, northeast  of Amritsar nestled in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains.  Took a local bus (kind of like a very old, beat up schoolbus-no knee room, no shock absorbers, and full to the brim with people.  Seven hours of ROUGH, WINDING, HIGH SPEED thrills.
The traffic was ridiculous! No one stays on their side of the road!  They pass, sometimes three abreast, then pull in only fractions of a second before colliding. We were picked up by Jen Hogan,  niece of a friend from Parkman, who is putting us up in her guest house.  We sat down to our first western meal in almost 2 weeks.

Jim's house.

A Tibetan monk.

Nursery at the Tibetan school

 

December 11
Had our first Hindi lesson yesterday.  Off for Macleod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exiled Government. Pretty much straight uphill all the way. We had breakfast on a restaurant deck overlooking the whole world!  Among other things, we had chocolate pancakes, French toast, and Tibetan Tsampa, (roasted barley porridge) and butter tea.  Snow covered peaks behind us.  The temperature is COLD in the shade, but nice and warm in the sunshine. The town is full of maroon robed monks, acting in ways I never expected!  Rather than being pious, quiet, seriuous and staying separate from us normal-clad folks, they were dining in the little restaurants with westerners, talking on their cell phones, and constantly smiling and laughing.  They must spend a lot of time with the Dalai Lama, who is ALWAYS laughing, smiling and joking around.   Tons of Tibetan handicrafts, music, clothing, old coins and crystals for sale in the tiny shops.
We visited the Kalachakora (Wheel of Time), The Dalai Lama's temple.  He lives up the road a bit further.  Didn't see him.  He makes himself pretty scarce now due to the Chinese Government's  present threats on his life. Met a couple of really cool monks who taught me how to do the Tibetan prostration prayers. Great exercise!

December 12
Back up to Macleod Ganj. Visited the Tibetan Children's school, a school for orphans and for the children of parents still living in Tibet that smuggle their children into India so they don't have to learn Chinese. (The Chinese are forcing all children in Tibet to learn Chinese instead of Tibetan.) It is a beautiful school, supposedly the nicest school in India.
Back to Jen's for a last meal at their hose.  Lots of great discussions, and lots of laughter.  Reminded me of home.  I really miss it.

 

The "Eagles Nest" hotel.

December 13
Went up to a hilltop (mountaintop on Maine terms) above Macleod Ganj  today, a fancy little stone hotel at 8,000 feet elevation owned by Jen's friends, Bo and Shiela, a British couple.  We went as friends, invited for the weekend, and dined and slept in luxury, well, kind of.  It never got above 30 degrees in the shade, and got down in the 20s at night O.K. in Maine when you have winter clothes and a warm house to stay in.  They did have one room with a wood stove that was nice, but the dinnig room and bedooms were frigid!  The spectacular views and te even more spectacular sunset on the snowy mountain peaks made it all worthwhile.

Panorama of the view from "The Point"

December 14
Slept in. Too cold to get out of bed.  Many blankets and hot water bottles at our feet made for a nice cozy night.  Back down the hill and caught a bus for the town of Reishikesh, 14 hours to the southeast.

                   
                                    A new insight into the treating to beggars:
There are far more beggars in India than there are people in the state of Maine.   Most are disabled in some way, missing arms or legs, blind, deaf, or struck with some horrible disease.  They walk right up to you, or if they can't walk, drag themslves up to you and stare pitifully up from the sidewalk or gutter holding out their little money cup.  When you first see them, you either get a big lump in your throat, dig in your pocket and leave them a few coins, or pass on by-being very careful not to glance down and catch their eye-with a  guilty conscious.  But, after a few weeks, you become hardened to their pleas, and they almost become invisible to you. This "invisibility trick" is the way most tourists (and locals) treat the beggars.                                                                                                                                                          But how can we do this?  They are fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters!  Put yourself in their shoes.  You are dirt poor ,probably live on the street, and on top of that, you are either blind, deaf, have a disabling disease, or are missing limbs.  Then, insult upon insult, people TOTALLY IGNORE YOU!   The least we can do is to acknwledge their presence and to reach out to them in some way.
The other day I saw an old lady dragging herself down the street on her back.  At first, I saw her only with my eyes, and hought "What a horrible sight!".  Suddenly, I saw her with my heart, and tears welled up in my eyes. As I slowly went by, we made eye contact and she smiled! Maybe she felt my compassion?   That incident changed the way that I react to beggars.  I now walk right up to them, bend down and hold their hands and give them the biggest and realest smile that I can.  They always smile a great big smile right back, both of us get misty-eyed, and  we both separate, still smiling. It is a moving experience to say the least. 

Golden temple of Amritsar.

It is December 7th and we are off to the north to Amritsar by train. It was a 7 hour trip, most of it in the dark, so not super exciting except for the fact that they fed us almost constantly.   We are presently 20 minutes from Pakistan, and about a 20 hour drive from Kabul, Afghanistan.  Suggested we do a weekend road trip over, but got no takers.  Amritsar is in the Punjab, home of the turbaned, bearded Sikhs and their famous Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of their religion, Sikhism.
We attempted to get a room at the Golden Temple guest house, but found the huge mansion full, with the 60 by 60  foot central plaza and all 4 stories of the balconies absolutely overflowing with sleeping bodies!  The dormitory wasn't much better.  The beds were a series of connected benches running along the walls, and werer nearly covered with people.  We found us another much quieter and much less quieter place down the street.                                                 
Went out to find a breakfast restaurant, and found the traffic on the roads were so heavy that we actually considered hiring a rickshaw to take us across the street.  Finally got across, ate and took a rickshaw home.  We visited the Golden Temple later in the day.  It was almost as spectacular as the Taj Mahal.  And here, Sam was asked by even more people to stand in with them for their family photo!  The temple is in the center of a pool of sacred nectar.  It is surrounded by a marble walkway. Nice spot, peaceful and away from the noisy crowds.  Thr top of the temple is covered with 1500 pounds of gold. The temple is guarded b a handful Sikhs carrying spears-amazingly low security for such a valuable piece of property!
I, (Steve) got up early the next morning and went to the Sikh's feeding center at the temple.  They feed 10,000 people a day here for free. The 2 story building will seat (on the floor, of course) 1,000 people at a time.  I peeled garlic, shucked peas, handed out plates and washed dishes (one of the 125 dishwashers washing at that time), then sat  down to a fine breakfast  of sweet saffron rice with cocoanut milk, chapattis and curried vegetables-quite delicious.

Ba'hai Lotus temple.

Sadhu holy man.

Mahatma Gandhi's salt march memorial.

Mahatma Gandhi's cremation site.

India Gate

      Our first 2+ weeks in India have been like being in a whirlwind.  We arrived at international airport in Delhi about 10:30pm on Dec 2 after a 2 day stay in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.  Kelly Ch'ng a former exchange student at the Guilford high school had kindly invited us to spend some time with her and her mom.  She helped us book our flight to India on a budget airline, took us out to her favorite Chinese restaurant in KL and a roti restaurant for breakfast.  No major problems getting into India and what joy to be met on the other side of the customs barrier by Anushree, our exchange student from 6years ago.  She wouldn’t hear of us staying anywhere except with her and her parents in their flat (apartment) in the Dwarka section of Delhi. It will tell you a lot about their hospitality that when we walked in the door at midnight we were met with hot Indian chai (tea) and a complete Indian dinner.  It didn’t let down from there.  Her mother, Kusum, made sure we were fed well and often during our stay.  She introduced us to several different items of Indian cuisine which we had never had before.  Her father was helpful with information about some of the places we want to go and made suggestions about other places we might want to think about (which is why I am writing this in his favorite ashram).  A friend of hers arranged for a car and driver for the days we were in Delhi.  Anushree spent one whole day showing us around what she considered the “must see “ things in Delhi; which included Gandhi's Salt march statues, India Gate, the Parliament and other government buildings (all grouped together and viewed from the outside only) Rajghat; the memorial at Gandhi’s cremation site and finally the Akshardham Temple complex with incredible gardens, buildings, carvings and the evening ended with a musical fountain and light show. AWESOME! (and dinner when we got home!)

Taj Mahal

Family picture at Anushree's.

Anushree's neighborhood.

 The second day began at 6:00 when we got up to leave for Agra and the TajMajal. We went by car (11 hours round trip by auto (Steve mentions the traffic in an earlier blog) and a few hours at the Taj with Annushree and a guide telling us about it. It is even more awesome in person than in the photos.  Another day in Delhi we saw the Lotus Temple (Ba'hai) The Red Fort in the Twilight and visited a Kashmir rug shop.  Sam and I spent one day hanging out at Anushrees home doing laundry, going for a walk with her dad and dog Lobo and best of all for Sam he got to play with the neighborhood children.  Mind you that all of this is being enjoyed in the declining stages of jet lag! Our 5days with Anushree and her family were over way too soon and we barely scratched the surface of Delhi. Anushree and her dad, Rakesh, saw us off at the Delhi Railroad Station and we took the evening train to Amritsar.

 INDIA

                We have arrived! India, the land of extreme contrasts;  where one's senses are on constant overload by the bizarre sights, sounds and smells. The magnificent temples of intricately carved stone surrounded by tiny shacks made of rusty tin, rotting wood scraps and old rags, the dilapidated auto-rickshaws vying for road space with the brand new BMW,  the elegantly dressed lady stepping over the legless beggar sleeping on the trash-covered sidewalk, the constantly changing smells-of spices coming from the street stalls, of raw sewage from a broken sewer pipe in the gutter, from fresh fruits in an open air shop window, from burning coal in the stoves of the many street food vendors, from a huge bouquet of flowers, from the human sweat of the multitudes, the sight of a cart full of brightly colored, neatly arranged vegetables with a dead, rotting rat underneath it.

The sounds; the sounds of foreign languages, of constant car, truck, bus, auto-rickshaw, and scooter horns, radios playing songs with strange sounding musical  instruments , cows mooing and roosters crowing right downtown.

The sense of personal space being equivalent to that in a VERY crowded elevator-carrying on a conversation while nearly rubbing noses.

And, yes, the traffic.  Foot traffic so heavy that it is impossible to identify where the sidewalk ends and the street begins.  We got caught up in bumper-to-bumper traffic, (mostly auto-rickshaws, huge trucks, buses and scooters), on a major 4-lane divided highway, and just barely moved for over an hour. As we came out of it and began moving again-we were in the slow lane (actually in the ditch), we were passed, first by a man on a horse at full gallop, then by a farm tractor towing a burlap bag full of hay the size of a small house, a camel pulling a wooden cart of scrap metal, and a water buffalo pulling a trailer load of hand-pressed, dried manure pancakes (cooking fuel).  Don't see stuff like this on I-95 very

Malaysia, round one.

Dinner at the Dim Sung restaurant with Kelly (taking the photo) and her mother.

The Chinese temple with Kelly.

Goldfish in the temple pond.

At Kelly's house.

We arrived at the airport in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on Nov. 30th where Kelly was waiting to pick us up and take us to her house, It was late, so we pretty much crashed when we got there. The next morning we went out for breakfast/lunch at the market and got some exotic fruits to try (including durian an extreemly foul smelling frui tthat dad loves) then to a huge mall nearby Kelly's house, and spent a great day catching up/hanging out and trying to get tickets for India. Then next morning we went to a local Indian roti restaurant for breakfast and spent most of that day continuing to work on getting tickets, finally got them and went to a traditional Chinese dim sun restaurant for supper. then next morning we went to visit a Chinese temple and flew out to New Delhi at 6:00

Roti making at breakfast..