India in Two Weeks

I'm sitting in Delhi waiting to head to the train station for a short journey (about 4 hours) to Haridwar. From there, an hour long bus ride will land me in Rishikesh - the self-proclaimed Yoga capital of the world. Looking forward to it. Smiles

This past couple of weeks in India with Don have been nutz. What an incredible juxtaposition against the pre-India trip to Paris! Here is a short recap... some of my personal learnings and growth will be posted in the next day or two.

Don and I flew into Mumbai, direct from Paris. On the flight we met an amazing guy by the name of Ankush. Three men, sitting beside each other on the flight journaling. Weird - guess we've got to meet this guy. smiles. It turned out that he lived in Pune - our first planned destination after arriving. He invited Don and I to travel with him that night back to Pune and to stay at his place for the night until we got some bearings. He also said that it would be a softer entrance into India. Haha. No kidding. He lives quite well. We had a great time with him and know that we'll be seeing him again in the future.

We stayed in Pune for the first few days - a couple of which we spent some time at a huge Osho Ashram - a gorgeous spiritual center that catered to an incredibly diverse international crowd. Osho was a free-loving man...and a self-proclaimed 'dangerous' man that didn't like to follow societal norms. His preference - celebration. love. rich, sensuous experience. This lives on a bit at the ashram even though he is no longer around to hold the space for it.

We didn't see a whole lot of the city of Pune. We left on a 27hr turn 32 hr train ride to Varanasi, our next destination that was to kick off a fairly rapid trip to numerous cities and sites between Varanasi and Delhi over the past 9 or so days. The train ride a special unto itself. Incredible community as people visited and shared. Incredible noise - the train sounds often overwhelmed by loud auctioneer-like shouts of the countless vendors that walked through - someone selling peanuts. The next moment, Chai!?!? Coffee?? Coffee! Chai! shouted by a boy carrying a metal pot with a built on burning coal bed to keep the heat. tea bags and cups in the other hand. The next moment a women walks by clad in a dollar store - literally covered head to foot in streaming lines of cheap plastic items for sale. the next moment, samosas. the next moment, water. then, ice cream. Next, omelets. books. biryani. pens with lights on them. only 5 rupees - very cheap sir. good quality sir. There were also an incredible number of poor on the train, walking and crawling (some were quite physically challenged - to say the least) through the aisle begging for change. Incredible. Moving. A woman sitting across from Don and I was quite pregnant and experiencing a tonne of discomfort that turned into labor pains during the last few hours of the trip. what a trip. in all senses of the statement.

Varanasi was incredible . Its tight galis (very narrow walkways that lead through the dense layers of buildings that line the edge of the Ganga (the Ganges river)) were disorienting and maze-like... filled with cows, people, bicycles, scooters, motorbikes!, monkeys, and splatters of known and unknown refuse strewn here and there. small points of worship peppered here and there. goats. vendors. beggars. smells that change (as they seem to in india) every 5 feet. A few strides of my legs takes me through the scents of chai, cow shit, flowers, baking, urine, incense, smoke from all sorts of things - some toxic for sure, sewage, etc.... Everyone in the city seemed ready to help. And many of them seemed to be VERY well connected. Sir, I can show you to your hotel. Do you want a boat ride? Silk? Chai? Doctor? Musical Instruments? Drugs? Food? Offerings for worship (typically flowers or candles)? Astrology? See the sites? All of it - available everywhere. And they're more than ready to ask you over and over and over and over and over and over and over again if you want it. Sir! very good quality! Sir! very good deal. This place is a must-see as far as I'm concerned and at the same time it is quite challenging because of the huge push on selling to tourists. Worth it though to see all the ghats (the devotional areas that lead down the banks to the Ganga) and the bathing/ worshipping that is done daily. To see the Ganga, the funky strangeness of the city itself, the animals blending in with the people of the city (mostly cows and goats, although we saw some chickens, pigs and monkeys too - everything appears to live in harmony here), and the surrounding sites (we got to check out Sarnath - the site where Buddha is said to have given his first sermon to five disciples.

Next we traveled to Allahabad - one of the homes of the Mela. Apparently this is the main location - where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers merge with a non-physical, sacred, mystical third known as the Saraswati River. The Mela is a massive festival that happens every year. Every twelve years it becomes the Kumbha Mela - the largest festival on earth with about 16 million pilgrims visiting over a month period. We were there for the kick-off to the festival. Thousands and thousands of people - countless people everywhere camped out around this sacred confluence of rivers - coming to bath in the holiest of waters. Coming to wash away there sins as one reporter put it. Coming to worship a thread that weaves us all together. It was breath-taking. It moved me deeply - to tears - to be part of such a gathering.

From there we went to Chitrakut - said to be a mini varanasi with its small ghats along a narrow river. We took a boat ride, enjoyed a puja (a ritual of worship) and then I proceeded to eat some food that made me vomit violently during the night. I was sick the whole next day but that didn't stop us from moving on to our next stop (Chitrakut was proving to not be the appropriate stop in many ways), Khujaraho.

The next day in Khujaraho was amazing. I was feeling much better thankfully and we went to some 1000 year old Hindu temples. The sculptures here were very tantric in nature - incredibly sensuous! Some even explicitly sexual. One even with an animal mixed in! haha didn't see anything like that at Notre-Damne. smiles. The carvings and sculptures that covered and lined these huge monuments to hindu gods were incredible. Another must see for sure.

Orchha was next on the list. A stopping point between Khujaraho and Agra, it served us with some rest and a chance to photograph some amazing temples and stupas that were jutting out of the forest that this little town was embedded within.

Agra was a short stop as well. We had the immense blessing of seeing two wonderful structures. The Taj Mahal has been called by the poet, Tagore, a tear drop on the face of eternity! Beautiful description for such a miraculous place. My god, it is absolutely beautiful. Fairy-tale like. The entire main building and associated towers are white marble that swirls with undulating hints of color. Massive arching entrances where the marble is enhanced even further with ripples of texture that produce star-like patterns across them. A must see. The other must see in Agra is the Agra Fort. We almost passed this one up and we are SUPER happy we didn't. It is a photographers dream (as is much of india :) ). Massive, aged and worn, with a huge moat where crocodiles use to play. ;) This brick-red fort was turned into a palace/temple by a king of old and it shows. Layers of rooms, walkways, windows that highlight the Taj.... the kid in me craved to explore every little hidden passage and secret room.

And now, Delhi. Not too much sight-seeing here for me. Instead, rest and waiting for the next leg which is now only a couple of hours away. Don is comfortably on his way home. Off to the train station I go.

Love