Backlog!

Yikes, wrote this up yesterday then the power went out so I saved it on the desktop. Luckily the place opened on time so I can update real quick before we have to leave for our flight in an hour!

I am quite a bit behind so I will try to summarize. Liz, Jessie, and I parted ways in Delhi and I began my travels with Greg. On the 4 AM taxi ride to the IGI Airport, the taxi driver asked me if I "have marriage" or a girlfriend, then told me I was very handsome.

Our taxi driver in Calcutta, on the other hand, got lost at least 17 times on the way to the center of the touristy section of town, demanded a tip, and wouldn't take our 20 rupee bill because it had a small rip in the edge. (We did not figure out until two days later that people in Calcutta don't fancy taking ripped money bills from you.)


The Sudder Street area of Calcutta perhaps involved even more people hassling you to buy something or visit their shop than Pahar Ganj. Nobody told me I had nice hair, though.

The highlight of the area was a small shack with a green tarp roof where an old man and a young boy worked diligently preparing food all day. After my pathetic attempts to order food in Hindi (when the main language of the region is actually Bengali) they served up a delicious plate of food for only 10 rupees - how sweet of them not even to try to rip me off. They could have quadrupled the price and I would have thought it was reasonable.



The five day quest to try all the exotic looking street food (sodas, fruit salads, weird ass protein milkshake) surprisingly did not harm my stomach, and it was not until pristine Ramnagar when I got what I termed dysentery. (In reality, it was simply a 24-hour lack of any kind of digestion, coupled with a lack of any kind of pain.) A course of ciphro cleared it right up but I do feel bad for anyone who happened to ask me how I was feeling those three days.

Yes, I did jinx myself, saying that I know I can trek with a stomach virus - I definitely had some eventful rest stops on the first day of our small trek through beautiful Kumaon.

December 1st saw the start of my Month of Meditation (to be followed by other months of meditation.) It's been 6 days now of trying to clear my brain for 15 minutes every morning. I can't say I've become any more focused, but I have been much less frustrated at the moderate lack of focus that I encounter.

Seeing old friends in Ramnagar and making new friends was.. nurturing, spiritual, incredible, beginning of a beautiful lifelong thing!

Now we are in Kathmandu, leaving for Pokhara tomorrow. The process of obtaining my Thai visa will cut into a week of my teaching time in Pokhara, since I will have to go back to KTM. Darn processing times.

A celebration beer is waiting for me due to the fact that I GOT MY FIRST GRAD SCHOOL ACCEPTANCE so more on Nepal later.

Pearl of wisdom for anybody who's made it this far:

You see others as you are, not as they are, more than you think. So set the intention to be at your very best and you will be surprised how good people are to you.

Good night!

Back to Delhi

Had a relatively stress-free journey to Pahar Ganj and settled into a reasonably priced hotel with a clean bathroom, helpful desk staff, and cheap airport taxi service. (What's the catch? Hoping there is none..)

Please note that in order to fit all our bags and all 3 of us into one rickshaw, I was lucky enough to get to ride shotty with the driver, basically half hanging out of the car to avoid being elbowed in the boob every time he made a turn and having the ultimate front-row view of the ridiculousness that is Delhi roads. No, I am not being sarcastic when I say lucky. I freaking love sitting shotty.

Went to a cafe with Liz and Jessie to get my morning cappuchino fix, then we split up while Jessie went to get passport photos and Liz went to use the phone. I just wanted to go to the passport photo place and grab the key from Jessie so I could go back to the room and stretch.....

I get to the passport photo place. Jessie is not there. "Passport photos are 100 rupees, ma'm." "I'm just looking for my friend." "She already left." So I leave the photo place and start walking back to the hotel. Some guy is following me and I am trying to semi nicely explain that I am just looking for my friend while he is trying to show me another place to get passport photos. Then I say no thanks and get asked if I want to do shopping. I say I want nothing, thanks.

Get to the hotel, nobody is there. Attempt to walk around.
"Taxi, ma'm?"
"Do you want to do shopping, ma'm?"
"What do you want?"

I say nothing, thanks.

I duck into a side alley which ends up being a loooong street full of fruit and vegetable stands. Here the vibe is completely different - I do not get offered to buy one thing, it is unusually quiet, peaceful, and orderly for India.

**Keep in mind that quiet, peaceful, and orderly for India still involves dogs on top of banana peels making narrow escapes from rickshaw drivers who are trying to make their own narrow escapes from motorcycle drivers while people with bags of fruit are ducking this way and that and bike riders are backing up into a semi parking spot next to a pile of trash.

But anyway, orderly, peaceful, everyone buying fruit and doing their own thing and I don't even really feel like I'm getting that many stares.

Back on the main drag, making some left turns to get back to the hotel. I stop to look at bags and find one that I really like. Of course the shop owner coughs all over everything in the world when he gets it down but honestly, that barely even phases me at this point. Then someone runs over from across the street and says "ma'm, I have much more bags in my shop, it's just across the street." And the owner of this shop is also like yeah, let's go look at the bags across the street so I think fine, I'll look at more bags. Note that at this point I am in an open spot on the main drag, completely visible and safe. But then...

THE STORE OWNER HAS THE NERVE TO OPEN A DOOR TO A PRIVATE STAIRCASE AND BECKON ME UP THE STAIRS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do I really look like I have ONE TOTAL BRAIN CELL and I am going to follow you up a sketchy staircase to "look at bags?"

At this point I keep walking down the street, lividly fantasizing of punching coughing creeper man in the teeth.

And the comments continue.. hello how are you? where are you from? I like your hair! Do you want a rickshaw? Do you want an ATM? Come to my shop!

By the time I made my third loop around the block looking for my friends, though, I think I was emanating enough "I-will-punch-you-in-the-teeth-right-now" vibes that the constant nagging somewhat died down.

Yeah India!!!!!

Manali is...

I am really having issues producing semi-coherent sentences right now, perhaps due to the Kingfisher Strong I was downing while waiting for dinner. We did a gorgeous waterfall hike today, had lunch in someone's apple orchard, saw ridiculous looking vintage ski clothing, and now I am more or less procrastinating leaving this Internet cafe to begin the walk back to the hotel in the brutal cold.  But once we are home, there will be fire and friends and beer. And more untangling of the yarn. Good night!

Songs from a Distance

Is a poetry book by Bhuchung D. Sonam, a Tibetan writer living in Dharamshala, that I happened to pick up and flip through at the Commonground Cafe while Liz and I were waiting for our meal at the same time as he was having dinner and doing a book signing with an Australian tour group one table over. The book was meant to find its way to me - half of it is what I feel about life and the other half is what I should learn about life. And yes, I got a free signed copy.

Check out www.tibetwrites.org or http://www.rangzen.net/author/bhuchungdsonam/ to learn more!

Now we are in Manali, back in the mountains, staying in a rest house with a sun deck from paradise. The nights are chilly and the views and stars rival those of the Dharma valley - of course, it is more built up though, complete with road. The leaves are changing and it's crisp, very satisfying.

I have been nursing a slight sleeping-on-a-bus hangover for most of the day, been relatively sluggish and spent a lot of it stretching and untangling my yarn. Apparently, Liz and mine's sleeping pill and motion sickness medicine induced state of unconsciousness on the bus led to some ridiculous looking cuddling positions. I can't really tell you much about the bus ride except a delicious plate of rice and dal at 9 pm, waking up to duct tape a window shut that kept sliding open, then suddenly being ushered into a hotel in dark Manali at 3 AM.

Anyway, today is sluggishness and hanging out with the couples staying at our hotel, promising them that we will party tonight and questioning if I can hold out.  A lady at a guesthouse was wonderful to let me borrow an Agatha Christie novel for the night, even though the policy is usually no removing books from that guesthouse's library (it's a different hotel from the one where we are staying.) So tonight will most likely consists of cuddling with my book along with all the warm clothing I own. Yeah late-fall high elevation. Good night!

Independent Travel

Most vivid memory:

Hearing the Muslim call to prayer in the middle of a country club in Delhi near the bus station, that we may or may not have snuck into through a gap in the fence, sitting on the grass with a very special recreational apple near a more or less abandoned mysterious temple. The music was coming through so clear and surreal amidst the grass in this completely surreal place, an oasis in the middle of the bustling city where the city noise was almost completely blocked off by the barrier of the trees. Trash was virtually non-existent which is practically impossible in Delhi, trust me. Instead there was a clean lawn to relax on, birds and trees, old buildings to explore, and eucre to be played.

Other impressions? In Mukteshwar we flew. Went paragliding. I felt like I could see the whole world. Bought two sweaters at the same shop where I found my gem of a sweater last year. Saw dear old friends. Had my first one-on-one encounter with a threatening dog that involved scrambling to find and throw three rocks while getting out of the territory that dog was protecting. Collapsed into a giggling fit with Manoj's friends while attempting to wring my towel out over the fire. Took a nine hour bus to Delhi. Haggled with rickshaw drivers and hotel owners at midnight. Got on a "VOLVO" tourist bus to go to McLeod Ganj after being very sketchily driven there from the main bus station and tricked into taking the (SWELTERING) AC bus for an extra 100 rupees. Took sleeping pill on said bus at 7:30 PM and spent the good portion of the rest of the ride passed out. Arrived in an awesome town at 5 AM, two cups of espresso and five hours later we have found a hotel, found our friends, explored, and my graduate school applications are one small step closer to being completely done.

Namaste!

Svecha gorela na stole

After finishing up the trek, we are briefly in Almora before ending up the program in Syat. Even though we were in a lodge in Munsiari just a few days ago, the technology and buildings here feel so much more foreign. Is it because the trek is over and I know I won't be back in the woods tomorrow for an undetermined period of time? Is it because the program is coming to an end? Because I've been to Almora before, so this is a familiar place with technology and not another new exciting destination? Who knows?

I woke up at 5 of my own volition and decided that it was a great time to get up and get on the Internet, much to the shock of my roommate who insists that it is unnatural to get up before it is light out. Well, I have had a fabulous hour taking care of business, googling Russian poems I have been craving, and watching the sun peek out from beyond the haze over the hills.

I won't have Internet that much but it shouldn't cost you anything extra to text me, so I would love a "hello" or an update!

Chedabagar

I am channeling my blog through my father because as I had warned, has been spotty at best (read: five minutes per month IF your day in town happens to coincide with a day that the power is on). Anyway, when you’re in Himalayas, who needs facebook? All my worries about a sense of permanence and being distracted from the now were swept away by a very strong physical sense of the great distance the airplane covered before it dropped us at New Delhi. Eight thousand miles is comprehensive! The landscape here is so vast and the mountains so much greater than you that together they act as a vacuum cleaner and sponge, sweeping away your worries and absorbing them into their mass. Last year I felt I was learning so much about the humanity and the tiny role I played in it, but this year the dominant discovery has been how much I have yet to learn.

Instead of thinking about how this experience will let me take knowledge and awareness back to my “other” life, I realizes THIS is becoming my life, and I can work instead on constantly being the person I’m out here because that IS who I am, not some alter abroad ego. Life is so rich with meaning, the air is thick with it. I think that if you really find meaning once, it becomes easier to rediscover it in the seemingly mundane things you do.

That meaning is personal and highly individual, but you are lucky if you can recall a time when you felt inspired, in awe, and full of purpose – wouldn’t we all be much better members of society if we could approach everything we do with complete reckless commitment? Anyway, dusk is descending and with it the hum of cicadas above the Ramganga river, trees glowing eerily perched above the hilltop, and fireworks going off in the distance to celebrate Deepwali in a smooth transition from the daytime blasts of dynamite that would jolt us out of our haze every so often. I am off to enjoy this in-between stage before night sets in.