I heard a rumor

http://www.inerudite.com

Back to back updates?

That must mean that I'm back in California!

And it's true.

India. It's been a love-hate sort of thing. And I have every intention of returning. Many times.

I'll skip the obnoxious conclusive post where I tell you all that I found God -- excuse me, S'iva -- and just throw a couple final photos on the interweb.






Happy days are here again.

I'll meet you at the cemetery gates.











My original flight was one of those tedious three-day-and-four-city affairs that I was, finally, lucky enough to be able to change. In a very welcome surprise, my new flight hopped over the North Pole, treating me to a stunning six-hour sunrise. Eventually we slipped ahead of the sun, the morning twilight ceding to black, only to rise again in a spectacular phoenix-like performance in Chicago. Que wow.













The future? And here's a photo that I didn't take but saw posted this morning by Scott Beale, Mr. Laughing Squid himself. In case you don't recognize it, this, "The City Under the Rainbow," is San Francisco.

I'll be back in around a week's time. So if anybody wants to offer me a super cheap or super awesome place to live in the City, do ring.





In the mean time, if you're in LA or the AV, do ring.




FIN.

Architectural orgasm, a rainbow

A finish line, a flight from Delhi to Chicago rapidly approaching. First: a flight to Srinagar, Kashmir. Kashmir, I had been told well over a hundred times throughout the last several months is (or was?) "paradise on earth." Any Indian who's never been there will swear to it. Anyone from there who doesn't live there now will swear to it. Anyone still living there will mumble it and sigh.

Srinagar, the capital and purportedly most beautiful city of Paradise, reminds me of an old self-deprecating Brazilian joke. Like the Kashmiris, many Brazilians refer to their homeland as Paradise On Earth. It's said that, on the portion of South America known as Brazil, God placed a paradise on this earth. In order to balance the scales with the rest of the world, He populated it with Brazilians.

It's a pretty place. And every face tells the story of twenty years of war, twenty years of paranoia. It was hard for me to ever feel at ease. And it didn't hurt that the guy whose houseboat I was staying on oozed nothing but paranoia, borderline-creepy kindness ("You will love me like a father"), and stories of how anyone I met was going to attack, rob or rape me. On my last night there I couldn't take the dinner conversation (see previous sentence) so I took the family rowboat and paddled around the black waters of Dal Lake, losing myself in mazes of houseboats and plots were the coming spring would see floating gardens. I didn't stay long.

Two weeks to go.

The undisputed highlight of my rambling down the Pakistani border back toward Delhi was my stay in Amritsar in the pilgrim's quarters at the Sikh's holiest site, the Golden Temple. Arriving well after dark, my first view of this magnificent temple complex was just before the holy Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikhs' holy book/"living" god and guru) was carried by a chanting and singing crowd of sacred servants to its nightly resting place. Four spotlights from the four directions gaze across the Amrit Sarovar, or "pool of nectar," -- the enormous tank of water the Temple sits in the center of -- at the gold, gold, marble and Golden Temple.

A description of the marvelous Golden Temple could never fit in the few paragraphs I have to dedicate to it. Sitting, stunned, somebody asked me what I thought. Even in its presence, even with the thing I was trying to verbally paint sitting immediately before me, I had no words. All I knew was that as I pulled at the far, tattered edges of my memory I couldn't think of any other building or complex that I had seen in the world that could measure against this; the Golden Temple under the light of the full moon. For me, it was everything the Taj Mahal should have been. Except without the outrageous admission charge -- without any admission charge, at that -- and with free food, free lodging and a free museum to illustrate it. Merriam-Webster's dictionary has its picture sketched as a visual description of the word "wow."

Minor mentions to McCleod Ganj, home of the Tibetan Government in Exile, and to Rishikesh, self-proclaimed global capital of Yoga (in tight contention with Berkeley, CA). I had a lovely time in both places but what can you say after oozing over Amritsar?








Two boats passing on a watery alleyway of Dal Lake, Srinigar, Kashmir, Paradise, India/Pakistan (depends on who you ask)




















Stilted Kashmiri house. Smells like Kashmiri tea -- the only thing India invented sweeter than the average cup of chai. It's like the sugariest cinnamon/apple crepe you've ever had, only in liquid form. Beyond delicious. Paradise for the tongue.

















Forty square acres of trash sculpture? Of course, I made a pilgrimage to Nek Chand's Fantasy Rock Garden in Chandigarh. It wasn't what I had hoped, but still a very cool place. Like a dumpster-diver's Disney Land! Fantasy land for the raccoon-spirited.

















A rainbow (of paint) on every face. Holi -- an annual festival where it's suddenly appropriate to dump loads and loads of paint and paint powder on complete strangers. Two weeks and multiple showers and scrubbings later, I'm still partly dyed pink. Easily qualifies as the most fun I had while in India. Road blocks by very aggressive painters. Woa to anybody silly enough to ride a motorbike to work.




















Three-page, centerfold closeup of the Golden Temple at dawn.


Hold me down.












And this, in hot competition with a New Zealand "Lord of the Rings Tour" for being the most touristy thing I've ever done, is from my visit to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh. It's best known as "the place the Beatles went" when they went to India. Abandoned around 13 years ago, it already looks like a relic from centuries past. Complete with dozens of little stone domes that give your "OM" that perfect transcendental echo and reverb. Ravi Shankar, eat your heart out. Ringo Starr, eat your heart out.

"Going native"

As this little trampoose begins to rattle to its natural finish I'm proud to report that I've learned to blend in with the locals.









At first, things were a little awkward.



















But, as they say, perseverance pays.


















Sometimes we saw eye to eye.












Sometimes we didn't.





















But love was inevitable.














"What's a nice girl like you doing in a barn like this?"












I hope you enjoy the photos. I suffered a traumatizing cow tongue in the mouth for the sake of that last one.

Quit monk'ing around

Ladakh. The temperature fluctuates between cold, really cold and oh-god-why-did-I-buy-that-flight cold. It's too cold to shave. I have the beard to prove it.

The only respite in the Little Land of Snows (the former kingdom of Ladakh, culturally and geographically similar to Tibet, is often called Little Tibet. Tibet, in turn, is known as the Land of Snows) is warm food and hot tea. Water is out of the question. Even if I wanted some of the icy stuff I'd be unable. My water bottle would routinely freeze through after a night of sitting on the desk in my room. So tea it is. The average Tibetan, it's said, will easily consume over fifty cups of tea per day during the winter time. I was doubtful about this claim until I realized that I was drinking -- on a slow day, mind you -- well into thirty cups of tea, myself! Thankfully, not all of it is caffeinated.

God save me.

I met very few foriegners in Ladakh. They say it's not the season. I can't imagine why... It is, however, festival season! The Tibetan New Year (Losar -- Happy Year of the Male Iron Tiger!) was only a handful of days back. Dosmoche, a three-day masked dance performed in several monasteries in order to defeat evil spirits, was the prior weekend. Starting today is the birthday celebration for His Holiness the Gaylwang Drukpa, head Lama ("Rinpoche") of several Ladakhi monasteries simultaneously and the head of the Drukpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Next weekend is another festival and so forth. It's like this all winter. I think it's what keeps people from killing themselves.

And it is, without a doubt, absolutely worth it.

One of the highlights of my (recently ended) trip to Ladakh was a visit to the enormous Hemis monastery. The town and monastery are high enough in the hills -- excuse me -- in the _mountains_ to be completely concealed from the valley below. This despite the fact that the monastery is said to house anywhere from 300 to 500 monks at any given time. Judging by size alone, I'd say the population of the monastery is around four times that of the "surrounding" town. Rhapsodizing to myself about the beauty and magic of Hemis in the winter, I determined to return and spend as much time as I could here after Dosmoche. I met a lady who agreed to let me stay in her family's house and about a week later I returned. That is, after the roads were finally cleared. The entire region had since been battered by a blizzard. A town to the west had been dumped with over three feet of snow overnight and nowhere had been unscathed.

I thought my first impression of Hemis was unbeatable. "Most magical place I've ever been," I repeated to myself. Seeing Hemis covered in snow, I happily stood corrected. I would again have to reassign this title the very next day but I'm getting ahead of myself. Overall it was a quiet stay here, meditating in a cold guest room and spinning prayer wheels in the main Gompa (monastery). The one thing I think bears mentioning before I move on is the one other foreigner I met here. After a day of trying not to slide to disaster on the nearby mountain ridges I returned to the gompa to find a monk struggling to carry water up the hill. Not initially excited to offer my help since I could barely breathe at this altitude without bearing a load, I felt the pinch of obligation and accompanied him back to his cell. Here I enjoyed one of several hundred cups of tea I had that day and was introduced to an Argentine fellow. A painter, living in Spain for the last 20 years or so, Arturo had set aside a few months in Ladakh to try and sniff out the long cold trail of another painter. The chief differences of the later from the former being that he was Russian and that he is dead. Both were in search of Shambala -- more commonly known as Shangri-La. Rumor has it that the Russian found it. The Spaniard, I'm afraid, didn't seem to be doing so well. Welcome back to the 18th century. Next stop: El Dorado.

Actually, my next stop was Gotsang. Another monastery. Another hour's breathless walk, chasing snowy peaks into the clouds. Bear in mind that I had already hiked a good hour and a half directly through snowy fields into the mountains to arrive at Hemis and you'll have a sense of how hidden Gotsang is. Known for housing a cave where the famous Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambava, the bringer of Tantra to Tibetan Buddhism) and another famous guru whose name I can't remember, but is somehow related to (or was himself thought to be a reincarnation of) Naropa, meditated for some time. At the time of my visit this new bearer of my Most-Amazing-Thing-I've-Ever-Experienced Title supported a population of four people. The caretaker; a Korean nun in the middle of a three year, three month, and three day retreat; a Vietnamese Lama, sent by his guru for the winter; and one other monk or nun with whom I didn't have the opportunity for introduction. Full of foreigners. Typical.

And so I fled to Kashmir. More on that later.

The soundtrack to Dosmoche and the Tibetan Buddhist Festival Season in general, courtesy of two monks with enormous trumpet-like 'gyaling's, and several more with cymbals, drums, bells, etc. Just add wooden masks















Three very cold wayward souls. Leh, Ladakh, India (sort of)

















Ever think that there's nothing more obnoxious than a swarm of clueless tourists? Well, you've clearly not dealt with the National Geographic folks on tour. Part of me is amused that I'll have been in attendance at an event being exoticised by the National Geographic Magazine. Look for me in the triple-wide center fold. (Third from the right. Ooh, la la.) The other part of me was busy arguing with the fellow on the left for treating people like animals. I may have jumped the gun but I certainly won't say that I feel that I was entirely wrong in my impression. My thoughts beyond that are, of course, a bit much to try and compress to photo caption-size so I'll save them for personal conversation later on if anyone's interested in more juicy details. Next issue: Andy gets schooled by Mr. N'tnl Geog.





No, really. Quit monk'ing around.

Two monks dressed as skeletons; possibly chitipati, possibly a symbol of impermanence? Either way, these guys were positively brutal. Their counterparts with less elaborately decorated skulls would offer candy or money to the crowd. If you could grab it fast enough they'd usually let you keep it. Much, much, much more often, if you try to grab the offering it would be snatched away and your knuckles would be CRACKed with a colorful wooden stick. These guys have reflexes like thunder dragons. Like Lords of the Funeral Pyre. I have another photo of an old lady cowering from one of th, hands pressed together, as he offers her money.








The famous Indus River. One of the few sections that wasn't frozen through. Photo taken on the rarest of days: a day with blue skies.

Lost in the crowd during a day of special prayers and teachings by the resident High Lama at the Shey Palace, Ladakh. Shey Palace and the neighboring Thiksay Monastery look remarkably like Lhasa's Potala Palace. There's a funny story about Thiksay in particular being constructed from a monk's drawing of Potala, quickly etched onto a carrot by a monk fleeing to a life of exile in India. By the time he arrived in Ladakh the carrot's water loss had caused it to shrink. So, too, had the drawing. And so Thiksay Monastery, or the Little Potala, as it's fondly called, was constructed as a sort of little brother to its Tibetan counterpart.

BBBack in Bangalore

Except not.

Just got into Delhi this morning after forty-some odd hours on a train and booked a flight straight away to Leh, capital of the semi-state of Ladakh. Now, Ladakh is my antidote to the heat of the south. In the heart of the Himalaya, in the same general region as K2, this is said to be the only still-remaining home of untouched Tibetan-influenced tantric Buddhism in the world. It also contains a little town that's supposed to be the coldest inhabited place on earth behind only some town in Siberia.

I'm flying in and out because all roads, which go through some of the highest passes in the world, have been snow-closed for months. I'm very excited about all this and very much hoping that I have enough layers of clothing to pull this thing off. The plan is to make a return to the California winter in a month or so feel absolutely tropical. It's hard to imagine the plan not working.

Delhi. I still don't really know what to say about Delhi except that she's lost her fangs. The sky is almost blue today. The pollution has miraculously parted, making the Delhi air breathable! I know my way around town, I know how much things I want are supposed to cost, have become much better at haggling, standing my ground against the particular brand of Indian scammers and so forth since I first stumbled, confused, through town on my way to Nepal. So back into the mountains! Back into the cold! Bring on the red nose! Bring on the shivers and daydreams of warmth and the "why am I here?"s!

I'll post photos soon if I can find an internet connection. Promise.

PS I had the opportunity to pay a very lacklustre visit to the largest remaining mangrove forest in the world. I'm (bittersweetly) happy to report that it is not being damaged by tourism. The average visiter can no more wander through this tiger-laden treasure, spanning two countries, than secure a private audience with the Pope.

George W Bush spotted in Bangalore!

Now maybe it's just me....

Maybe better not shared?

A passage, direct from my journal.

This is -- against my original judgment -- just too good not to share.


1.8.010
Within no more than a minute's time the entire trainload of people had lept [sic!] from their seats and vacated the train, leaving me sitting stunned, nearly alone, in the once-full car. Rushing after the crowd, streaming over the tracks to our replacement train, I leap from the platform landing and into the railway ditch where the tracks are lain. And land, both feet squarely planted ankle-deep in a thick river of human shit. Oh, India. Oh, India



Missing home,
andy

Filling in the blanks

I guess the photos give away what comes next, but I thought I'd try for an intermission since I feel like I'm writing an essay. I'm reading a book by a Professor of Vedic Studies, written in the 19th century. It's a collection of lectures he gave at Cambridge to a group of students who were soon to graduate and fill positions of rulership and administration in the British colony of India. It's a fascinating peak into the minds of the British at the time. For example, he simply takes it for granted that the reader assumes all Indians to be immoral, backward people and never hopes to try and convince anybody otherwise, but only to try and persuade the students that there are some positive aspects to Indian culture, etc. Anyway, the reason that I mention it is that I think the super-formal, lecture style writing of this book has seeped into my own writing. I spent the intermission trying to break out of it, but I apologize if I didn't quite kick it. I'm trying!

In Bodhgaya, too, I was soon on intermission. The Dalai Lama was due to be in town for a five-day series of teachings. I wanted to stick around for the his arrival but the price of a room in town had begun to skyrocket so I took a quick trip back to the mountains then came back for the last few days of the DL's talks -- including a special audience for Westerns, spoken in English. The contrast between seeing him here and trying to see him in Berkeley but being kept on the other side of a wall by security (and forced to pace, not stand and listen) was absolutely astounding. In a security guard's worst nightmare, after a special address given in English for the Western attendees, he invited people to come up to the stage for a souvenir group photo in which I stood some fifteen feet from him. Tragically, I didnt have my camera with me.

First on my Bodhgaya interlude was a stop Darjeeling and then I was quickly off to the tiny state of Sikkim, wedged between Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal. You need a special permit to go there (luckily, free) so the culture has remained notably distinct from the rest of India. The dominant language is Nepali, the culture is heavily Nepali/Tibetan influenced and the people even look more Mongolian and Tibetan than Indian. All in all, I felt more like I was back in Nepal than anywhere in India and I was glad for the break. Back in the cold. But it's easy to bear the cold when returning to the beautiful and mellow Himalaya.

I'll leave off there since this has gotten so wordy. I'll try and reply to the few individual emails that I have. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond -- I haven't been able to email anybody, partly because finding internet has been such a bear and partly because I've spent what time I was able to get online filling out different applications and trying to rebuild a two-year-old resume for a deadline that only passed two days ago. Maybe I'll write about it later. For now I just feel like I'm in grave danger of some serious rambling and side-tracking!

If you're interested you can see thirty-some beautiful photos of the teachings that I attended by the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya at http://dalailama.com/gallery/album/0/34

Word from Kolkata

So.

A lot has happened since I last had the opportunity to write so I'll try to be either concise or, more likely, try to give a few brief illustrations that I hope you'll find interesting. I'm now writing from the heart of Kolkata (the post independence, de-Anglicized name for the city that used to be Calcutta).

I left off as I arrived in Varanasi. I wish I had the words to describe this place but I'm not entirely sure it's even possible. V'nasi is, in a sense, a microcosm of India. It is to India what India is to the world and, just like India, many love it and many hate it but most develop a complicated and personal love-hate relationship with the place. The hotel where I spent most of my time was about a block removed from the part of the Ganges where a constant parade of dead bodies was carried, day and night, to their open-air funeral pyres. I don't know of anywhere else in the world where the line between life and death has been so blurred; the two so intermingled.

I've also never seen a people so obsessed with the sky. There are often more kites in the sky than the hundreds of birds, themselves being fed along the waterfront and led in enormous arks across the sky by men on rooftops, taunting them with food and scaring them off with enormous sticks and flags. The influence of the elements on people's psyche is also incredibly interesting. In most places, the earth is the dominant natural force in people's lives. So, too, the ocean or, in mountainous towns, so, too, the sky -- but always coupled with the weight of the earth below; the rock, the sand, &c. Not so in Varanasi. The thin, labyrinthine alleys, patrolled by minotaur-like bulls, make up the entire old town; all growth is upward. As I mentioned, the sky is a major influence. As is the river, the focal point of the entire town. It's virtual raison d'etre. In courts people swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and so forth with a hand placed over Ganges water. It's a big deal. And fire. Few places in the world are so dominated by fire. But unlike volcanic lands and other natural-fire type places, the constant fire here is that which I mentioned above -- the constant burning of corpses along the riverside. And so I've developed a theory that this abnormal balance of basic natural influences in people's lives is a large part of the totally unique "feeling" of V'nasi, the feeling that so many people wandering through describe as addictive. It's not uncommon for people to arrive with the intention of staying for a week and wind up spending a month or two wandering the alleys and ghats of Varanasi.

I, however, had a set date for my departure from the moment I arrived. Two weeks later I was back on the train, headed to Bodhgaya, the historical place where the Buddha finally achieved enlightenment. Here I had enrolled in a meditation course. I won't say much about it since it's so similar to the ones offered in the US.

--- Intermission ---






A testament to the enduring capability of foot power and another reminder of the abject poverty all around, Kolkata is one of the last places where you still see an abundance of foot-powered rickshaws. There's a guy in front of my hotel who can be found either sitting or sleeping on/under his rickshaw at all hours of the day. Unlike many of his fellow rickshaw "drivers," I've never actually seen this fellow pulling anybody.












A view from the hills: the peak at the top right of this photograph, named Katchenjunga (sp?), is the third-tallest peak in the world. Here, it's a slightly fake looking backdrop to the mountain city of Darjeeling.















Despondent looks from a guy in an aisle of many others, just like him, selling these fuzzy hand puppets who squeal and fire their tongues into the air when you squeeze your hands. The men selling the things in question, staring at each other squealing all day, by noon all look like they want to kill themselves.












A peak from the back of an enormous tent of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in a mid-lecture pose.

A quickie

I don't have a whole lot of time to write much of anything right now, but since questions had begun to arise about my health I thought I'd just share a couple photos and announce that I'm still alive.

I made it back to India on the 6th and have been in the city of Varanasi since. Directly on the river Ganges, this is considered a very (the most?) holy place for Hindus. There's so much to say about this incredibly powerful and frustrating and beautiful city but, like I said, I'm about to run off so that'll have to wait for another time. In any case, this is one of those places that you "feel" more than you can "see" and describing it in its personal significance to me, I imagine, would be a real task indeed.

I'm going to be starting a Vipassana course in a few days then trying to catch a boat to the Andaman Islands (wish me luck), so it'll probably be after the new year before I can give a proper update. Until then, I hope you're all healthy and happy!


Here are some photos of things that I saw since I last wrote.






This explosion of color is at Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha. The back lawn area has been overtaken by a million prayer flags. This is a guy who wanted me to take his photo after I showed him a photo I took of a little girl that was also there.








Blue Lassie. Oh man. This is the place to be in Varanasi. Yogurt and fruit drinks (lassies) is all they serve here, with the exception of a delicious desert that comes only in the night. The best in town, and this fellow here is watching the magic in action.






















This massive golden door is at a temple in Sarnath, the town where the Buddha gave his first sermon after his enlightenment. The temple in question is not actually the one in the place that the town is famous for, but immediately next to it. It's a long story, but I wound up never actually making it inside the gate. Oh, well.









And, finally, back in Varanasi and on a ghat along the Ganges, is a man performing some sort of puja. He was actually in a group of about four or five, but this was my favorite photo of the bunch.

A million stone staircases and pashmina for days

The mosquitos are out and they're out in numbers. I'm talking squadrons. Platoons. Real organization. That said, this post might end abrubtly and at a really strange time if I decide that the blood loss is too great. I may not make it through. Pray for me.

I slipped out of the mountains yesterday and hopped on a bus to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, where I'm writing from now. The other computers are all being operated by crimson-robed monks. I have thoughts and a couple bizarre photos that I want to share, but I'm going to hold my tongue for now and talk a minute about the most recent trampoose, to the Annapurna massif.

After a lot of trying to find trekking companions in Pokhara (read, muddling about), I decided to try and set off on the so-called 'Annapurna Sanctuary' trek, passing by both the Annapurna and Machapuchhre base camps, alone and just turn back if things got dicey or if I decided that I do actually need a guide to do this. You never know, but experience has told me that if you take your time, and talk a lot, you rarely need a guide for anything. Then you don't have to stop and listen to tedious lectures. Or, better, you _can_ stop. Even when there's no lecture prepared.

I indulged in a ripoff Leki hiking pole with all the money I imagined I was saving by employing neither guide nor porter and didn't even feel like an old man when I used it. Walking sticks are great. You can go forever with that tap, tap, tap. This one was named "Best Friend," on Rachel's suggestion. Tied to the handle was one of my cat finger puppets, the pink one named Guide. And so Guide, Best Friend and I set off early in the morning and climbed the first (massive) staircase into the hills above Phedi to the first of a series of wonderful mountain cottages.

The trekking in this area is known as tea-house trekking because you're actually walking through tiny, remote mountain villages the entire way. I don't know why it never occured to me before but, of course, people live in the Himalaya. In the Annapurna Conservation Area, I mostly met Gurung, Sherpa and Tibetans. Most of the economy has to do with catering to the steady traffic of foreign trekkers passing through all year long. You can buy apple pies and sleep in guest houses every night, all the way to the Annapurna Sanctuary (usually a 10 day trek in all). That, however, does not mean that this is just a little light walking. These are serious trails. Doable, yes. But beefy. I thought the hike around Macchu Picchu was bad... I thought climbing up a couple Aztec temples was bad. Oh, god. This was a walk up a million stone staircases to the roof of the world. A billion stone staircases. The stairway to heaven. And, holy shit, is heaven high.

It's hard to decide what aspect of the trek to write about so I'll just try and explain the story alluded to in the first photo below.

Like I said, I began the trek alone. This was great. I like spending time alone anyway. People, noise, pollution, &c. are a little too much for me to deal with all at once sometimes. Here I am, wobbling my way over the first in a series of passes, excited and full of energy. The cherry trees are exploding with pink and with life and the sky is perfect (eat your heart out, Cloud Appreciation Society). I part ways with this guy I had met as he arrives at the village where he lives. I had been carrying his axe for him while he gathered cow patties for fertilizer and we both speculated on the origin of my walking stick. Obvious ripoff, but from where? He said he liked Americans because he once owned a maglite flashlight and it was great quality. He attributed this to California. Good man.

So. We parted ways and I arrived soonafter at the ACAP checkpoint where they assure that you've paid for the privilage to trek around the Annapurna Reserve. I had paid and was waiting for the guy in front of me to be processed so I could sign the log book and be on my way but it became clear really quickly that, this time, it wouldn't be a quick formality. The guard was howling and laughing. The foreigner, draped in a huge red fleece and a huge, bright yellow backpack with no stomache strap, was embarassed by the unexpected attention. I was summoned forward.

"I'm going to make him wait, so you go first," the guard announced, "because he's been giving me a headache for four days now!" Hey? Brandon, dude in question, had just been found. He didn't realize it until then, but he was official lost. Had been for four days. His friends ,who had been panicking all week, were now anticipating his arrival at Landruk, a hill station a long day's walk from where we now stood. He had fallen ill and was unable to meet them where they had arranged that night. Or the next, or the next. He was reported missing. Finally healthy enough to walk again, he was back on the trail. By the simple fact of my being there, the guard announced that I had "found" him and asked me to escort him to Landruk. I wasn't sure if he was joking, so I agreed. What the hell. Not that this guy needed an escort, but I could use the company. And so I fell in with the reunited group of four with the same trekking plans as myself for the rest of the trampoose.

I could go on for ages if I tried since everything is still so fresh in my mind. But I won't. Just one last, quick description of the Annapurna Base Camp/Sanctuary. Imagine being in a grove of enormous redwood trees, or mahogany or some really big tree. Totally surrounding you. Now turn those trees into some of the tallest and some of the steepest mountains in the world. A narrow valley of giants with a tear right through the middle of it where a glacier passed through ages ago, leaving the ground there just a river of sand and pebbles, totally barren to this day. The cloudline, when it's not snowing, is in the lower part of the valley, so you can watch the clouds pour in and out of the mouth of the pass in a single afternoon like waves creeping ever so slowly onto the beach and receding into the ocean. Cairns everywhere. One, at the snowline, of a giant A, which I think stands for "Andy."


It's always really hard to choose which photos to put on the internet and this time I'm not even posting a good closeup of the snowy mountains. So if you want to see them you'll either have to ask me for one or look it up online.. Fair warning: everything looks fake, anyway, like a gargantuan movie backdrop strung up over a really long distance.








Shortly after being reunited, near the beginning of the trampoose in question.

View from a hill. Poon Hill at sunrise, last day of walking. And what a day it was. Massive decent from the ceiling of the world in one day makes for some seriously sore legs - and knees.

Still another sunrise. What an early riser I must be!

It's lonely at the top... And really, really cold.

Husked corn dries, hanging from a Gurung family's ceiling like a hundred color-challenged bats hiding from the day.

Kathmandu, round two

Yep. That's right. I still haven't left Kathmandu.

I told you, it's a black hole.

In my defense, I've been sick. Seems like everyone in town has got a cough and I caught it. I've paid for my room and told the guy that I'm leaving first thing in the morning three or four times now. Not knowing if I was ever still in there or not, I had three people walk into my room and wake me up last night alone. I guess that'll teach me to lock my door.

One of the first things that kept me here was a benefit being put on for SathSath (sathsath.org) that a friend of mine was going to be performing in. At first I had just wanted to be around for it, then we started planning a shadow puppet show (I bought three ridiculous cat finger puppets) to introduce his act. It's a long and tedious story. I tried telling it once and didn't do an especially good job, so I'll skip over it mostly. The punch line is that the show was shut down mid way through at the encouragement of the guy who basically runs the neighborhood. His businesses were suffering for the night because everyone wanted to go to this benefit with entertainment and all-you-can-eat food. So my friend never got to play, except for a small group in a guesthouse room. It had been a good night until the owner of the place hosting the event was carted off by the police and the crowd was threatened for booing and jeering the police. I've been boycotting all of the businesses owned by the jerk in question. (There's a lot more to the story than I have space to elaborate here.) Which, today, means trouble finding a place to fill up my water bottle so I've been drinking tea, etc. all day :P

Then there were the ever-present Maoist protests. The Maoists just split from the government coalition not too long ago because their demands weren't being met and have been holding the country ransom since. They're picketing the government offices from 8am to 5pm (business hours), so the government has instructed their people to arrive at 5am so they don't cross the lines. It's been like this -- peaceful protests and nobody -really- wanting to step too hard on the toes of the other. There was a major (planned) protest yesterday that shut down transportation on the highway heading to the airport, which is also the biggest highway in general and is the route to most nearby towns. Supposedly they may be shutting down the borders at random intervals soon, so leaving the country will be a little like a game of "red light green light." A protracted wait and then a dash for the border town. In any case, it seems like both sides are pretty keen on leaving tourists out of it and things, though politically tense, seem peaceful enough.

I had agreed to go and help paint a nearby school/orphanage that some friends are working at today and stayed in town longer so that I could go and do that (not that there was any transit operating anyway), but I had trouble sleeping last night and wound up waking up after everyone had left this morning. So I'm cutting my losses and finally bought a ticket to get out of here first thing tomorrow.

My strength is returning, and now I'm back on the road -- this time to Pokara, the seat of the Himalayas.

For now, a couple photos:

I finally made it to the "Monkey Temple" that I mentioned before. This is a baby monkey that is about three seconds from being tackled by a much larger monkey.

Another from the same place, these are just two photos I liked.

In nearby Patan, I was loafing around in the main Durbar (Palace) Square and noticed three flattened bottle caps wedged into an old crack in the temple floor that I was sitting on. Imagine my excitement. Sitting there, toying with them, this kid and another little girl not in the photo come screaming by, throwing flattened bottle caps at random targets. Then, without my saying a word or motioning to him at all, the boy walks right up to me and holds up this enormous stack of caps as if to brag. I gave them one of the ones that I had found as a reward for making my day.

This photo is of the bus park that is normally _packed_ with screaming, honking buses. I mean scores of them. On the day of the protests I mentioned earlier, only Maoist-flag bearing buses were allowed through barricades. They would pick up bus loads of people and shuttle them to the protest. Great idea, no? Why don't we ever do anything like that?

And here are a couple banner-wielding Maoists walking through an eerily quiet street in the center of town.

OM MANI PADME HUNG

I've been in Kathmandu for a series of Groundhog Day-feeling days that are making me feel a little crazy.

So today I made my first minor break from the gravitational/time warping fields of Kathmandu that rival any co-op living room I've ever wasted hours of my life in. Just as I was ready to give up on deciphering which of the buses flying by, maniacly wailing on their horns, was the one I wanted to flag down, somebody helped poor little illiterate me aboard a bus bound for Bodhnath, a Tibetan enclave about thirty minutes away. Since it seems like the entry to Tibet for Americans in Nepal isn't just expensive but really, really expensive, Bodhnath is probably as close to Tibet as I'm going to come. I loaded a photo of the main stupa below. I'm still trying to process my thoughts so I can't really speak to the experience except to say that it was every bit as beautiful as I had been promised.

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up to the same '''om mani padme hung''' chanting music in the streets, the honking of motorcycle horns and another round of battle with my stomache demons and attempt my fourth trip to Swayambunath Stupa, the "Monkey Temple." Then I'm putting a package in the mail, trying to figure out how to pay for a library book I forgot to return (if you want to help me I'll love you forever! -- it's mostly just a time zone problem for me.. 14hrs makes phone conversations with Berkeley really hard) and then I'm finally skipping town.

That's not to say that Kathmandu isn't a lovely place. At times it borders on magical. Everybody has been so friendly, etc. The pollution I had been warned about isn't anywhere near as bad as all the hype -- think any South American city. Definitely not worse than Delhi. The skies here are blue, in Delhi they're perma-gray. And I can certainly imagine worse wake ups than walking into a 1960s hippy flashback on Freak St. (named for all the hippies that hung around there in the 70s) with chanting and clouds of incense wafting by. It's just that I feel like I'm being sucked into a black hole and if I don't leave Kathmandu immediately it'll be at least another week or two before I can pull myself out, which I don't think is something I'm quite yet ready for.

The Tower of Power -- a pyramid of lightbulbs in a temple. You may ask yourself why?

Kissing Cowsins - I found these two tramping around in a square full of thousands of rock doves (vulgarly/commonly called 'pigeons')

Bodhnath is the largest Tibetan exile community in Nepal. This stupa is right in the center of it all. So many prayer flags and kaleidoscopic painted walls that it'll make the cones in your eyes bleed all kinds of psychedelic and leave you hopelessly colorblind for a minimum of two weeks. I'm not exagerating.

Stacks of butter lamps - always a spooky favorite!

Hope everyone is peachy. I miss you all!

If you want to phone up the Berk. Library and be my angel, I need to buy this book that I didn't return before the fines on it add up over six months and totally bankrupt me. I'll bring you back your own sacred Indian cow if you help me! Promise! Just send me an email asap and we'll figure something out... It may require fronting me a little cash -- but maybe not? BUT I'll love and honor you for _ever_.. and you get a cow!

And finally... If you've got time left to troll around on the web, you should go check out the beginings of ravenfacts.org -- this really made my day. If you already know about ravenfacts.org but haven't checked it out, it's worth it. If you don't, it'll probably be really confusing --- but still worth it.

The Rotary Chapter

Within a day of arriving in Bangalore (lovelier and greener than expected), our eight person Delegation was at our full glad-handing capacity and hard at work.

We visited/evaluated 32 schools as a team within two days. I personally flew by over 20. This meant -loads- of meetings with headmasters, teachers, students, and so on. I had a score of flower garlands draped around my neck, walked through more than a dozen rows of girls throwing flowers and flower petals on me, sat on just as many stages in front of waiting audiences, met no less than three "His Holiness, Swami-Ji"'s, attended a couple inaugurations as guest of honor, a wedding, ..... you get the idea. Nearly every meal was accompanied by a meeting of some sort. But, damn, did we eat well. I put on about five pounds in the last week alone. Part of this may have been that physical activity beyond shaking a million hands was nonexistant. I spent a lot of time in the backseat of one of our several vans. A lot.

Despite my skepticism before leaving, it really seems like the work being done here through local and international Rotary clubs is legit. Beds have been purchased for girls at a deaf school, "Comfort stations" (toilet blocks) have been/are being built to help female retention in primary and secondary schools, two ambulances have been made available for mobile clinics, kids are sitting in desks in some public schools instead of on the floor and a pilot program testing the CLE (Concentrated Language Encounter) teaching method in Indian schools is underway.

The success of most of these programs is being measured in terms of being able to land jobs and kids leaving rural communities for "something better." There are, as I see it, a number of potential problems with having this final goal but, in an impoverished community, who am I to say that there's anything more important than being able to feed your family and support yourself? Goals and politics aside, good is being done. And by people with clout. Real clout.

I'm not just talking big, beautiful houses, servants, and all that. It's connections. I've never seen the cell phone of somebody with real clout in action before but, I tell you, it's something to behold. Things get done. And quickly. This is the Owning Class amongst its own. And yet the common thread among these people -- or, at least, a major part of it -- has been an honest dedication to serving their communities in some way. Is it selflessness or the pursuit of the image of Benevolent Leader? Does it even matter? Of course the answer for any one person will be a totally unique one and I won't really get into any of it more than that for now except to say that it's been yet another good lesson in the Gray Spaces in life. There are no "Evil Capitalists," etc. Each of us is truly multifaceted.

Having been dropped in Central Delhi by a private driver, I'm on my own and turning to a notably new chapter in this journey. I left my dress clothes, except for one button-up shirt in Bangalore until February. As David Littlejohn might put it, I'm back in my regular rags for now. I hope my reception from here on is half as warm as it has been. And less awkward.

The mystery smell is making me sick so I have to go. Hope everybody is doing marvelously.

Tickled Pink: an Intro

So,

I figured that instead of blasting random groups of people whose emails I happen to have with the occasional (and potentially long winded) email about what I'm up to I would give this whole blog thing a shot and you can check in on it whenever you want! There. One less junk email for the ones I love. You're welcome.

This will be my, eh, Public Mouthpiece (?), but I still hope to be sending (and receiving!) individual letters and emails.

I'm writing from Delhi, in a crowded Bazaar wedged between the New and Old parts of the city. Lots of foreigners. Heavy smell of lacquer thinner making me a little dizzy. Temperature is great, though. All the smog and cow shit must have a beneficial effect on the atmosphere. This is my first day on my own, the Rotary Thing finished for now, to be resumed in February. In a couple hours I head to Gorakhpur, the first stop on my way to Kathmandu, Nepal, from where I'll try and weasel my way into Tibet before beginning the long trek back southward. In a sense, I still feel like my "trip" has yet to really begin. I've been running all sorts of errands trying to prepare to leave India this morning. That includes visa info, train ticket, a padlock and chain for luggage securing on trains (not sure this is actually necessary, but I've been warned enough that I'll give it a try), a Nepalese guidebook, and so on. I've got at least two solid days of buses and trains ahead of me, and as many as four or five, so wish me luck.. I'll be incommunicado for a spell.

I'm now officially a part of the World Wide Blogosphere. Tickled Pink. Truly.

And You,
You are my loyal readership. Aren't we mod?

(I blame any weirdness in this or the next post on the lacquer thinner-doused room I'm sitting in.. I'm definitely starting to feel a little loopy)

Testing, testing...

Holy hell, I have a blog..