Ready to go home

I'm back in Delhi now, my flight out of delhi to bangkok is late on thursday night. I get home to Boulder on Saturday. Tapavan was the last destination, the big goal, it was giving me energy, and now I'm a bit deflated, disgusted with India, can't see past her dirt and her beggars anymore, like I used to. I know there's beautiful spirit here, but now I just need to get away from here in order to see it. I got a nice hotel room here, with a tv, and I'm just watching HBO and playing drums. Some unpleasentness with my ticket home, will be worked out tomorrow. Tomorrow I also want to see the modern art museum here, which should be enjoyable.

Homecoming is really central to this trip, this trip was in a sense entirely homecoming; the formation of a wider worldview, streinghth, tolerance, to take back to my 'real' life. I will not spend my entire life travelling; the idea of a home gives my life meaning. How can I know what I have experienced until it is viewed from afar? How will I know how I have changed until I am thrust back into my old environment, with old habits and old temptations? But that won't really happen until september, when I go back to Rhode Island. Which I am also highly looking forward to. That fact though highlights that my trip isn't really ending--almost as soon as I get back, I will be thrust into a brand new experience, a new life, which I hope will be thrilling and rewarding and a lot of hard work. The search is not yet complete, the vacation not yet over.

Home makes this trip a work of art in itself, an object to be viewed and digested by american souls, my own, and not only my own. Each blog entry a small homecoming, a removal from immediate reality, an encapsullation and representation. Immediate reality is only a small part of the game in India; meaning is everything, and meaning is given to art by the viewer, by the reader, and I have been the viewer and the reader of this trip, and you have been the reader of my interpretations. And this process will continue--I will post a detailed and comprehensive reccollection of my trip, complete with all the good photos I have taken, on my blog as soon as I get it done; give me time, it will take a lot of work.

So look out for that, final entry on the blog, with all my photos, to be posted a few weeks after I get home. I think I'll send out a mass email letting people know when I've posted that, but I can't promise you'll be on it, because I always forget about you.

After that, I think I'll start a new blog, a fresh start, not go back to the tired poetic terrorism, so I'll let you know about that.

So that's that. I'll see you in Boulder, or in California, or in Rhode Island, and I can't wait until that moment, I miss you muchly.
Om shanti
jed

Tapavan

Ramram

Apologies for not updating the blog in a while. I'm sure you understand.

Yesterday I returned to Rishikesh from the most beautiful and meaningful part of my journey yet. Since I was in Varanasi, I have wanted to make a pilgramage to the head of the ganga, high in the himalaya, to understand how she is born and where she gets her personality from. My guru in Varanasi, Shukla-ji, had urged me to do it, and his spirit was with me in this journey where he has been absent from the rest of my independant travel.

So five days ago I took a miserable twelve hour bus ride from Rishikesh to Gangotri, through Uttarkashi. The roads were twisty, mountainous, and terribly repared, and typical of Indian busses, it was way overfull. I was fortiunate, though, to be at the front of the bus, so I was able to survive it. Crammed in the back of the bus was an isreali guy, who also somehow survived the busride, and we shared a hotel room in Gangotri that night. Early in the morning, after doing Pooja and Aarti (worship and river worship) at the temble of Ganga Mata, we set out on the road. It was he who first told me of Tapavan, the real destination, the real end of my road, high above Gaumuk glacier--he had heard it was beautiful but difficult to reach, and was determined to get there. I said that I was along for the ride, although I thought that my destination was Gaumuk, and would be satisfied with it. On the road, we met up with a Swiss guy, a Sweedish girl and a middle aged russian lady, and thus we formed a small herd of white people. This was to be the beginning of a much larger group. I had thought I was going to make the pilgramage alone and meditative, but it turned out well to have company, even if it did cheapen the experience in some ways. It made it feel a bit more like an organized school trip, but it was much safer and cheaper, and everyone was good people. We walked all morning to Bujbassa, and arrived at the ashram there at 12:00 noon, then just meditated the rest of the day away, I took my first freezing cold dip in the ganga there. At that point, the Ganga is a roaring mountain river, churning itself endlessly, and it can be dangerous. But this is part of her secret--as she churns herself, she purifies herself and mixes with the benevolent mountain herbs that grow along her banks. That night in Bujbassa we had a fantastic dinner, sitting on the floor with hundreds of hungry mountain Babas, chanting Jai Ram, Sri Ram, Jai Jai Ram from the bottom of our hearts, eating honest Dal Chowel--rice and lentils.

The five of us decided to all go in on a guide to Tapavan together, which was a great decision--after Gaumuk, the going gets rough and you need someone who knows the way and can save your life. But the Russian lady and the baba who runs the ashram in Boujbassa convinced us that our plan to sleep in Tapavan was folly, that it was impossible, and so I left all my stuff and my sleeping bag in Boujbassa. This was the mistake which was to define the rest of my experience. We walked out of Boujbassa emptyhanded, which felt pure and natural, like a baba man. We got to the head of Gaumouk Glacier in two hours, and it really is a beautiful sight. The ganga simply appears out from under a giant cliff of ice there, comes rushing full strength out of the ground. It certainly looks like the head of the river, but she had more secrets in store for me. We hiked up on top of Gaumuk glacier and over it to the foot of an increadibly steep slope, rockslides and scree, down which a stream of the ganga endlessly fell. This is Amar Ganga, the Eternal Ganga, which I have decided is the stream which lends the Ganga the loving and benevolent side of her personality, whereas Gaumuk glacier gives her her wrath. Even though Amar Ganga means immortal ganga, it sounds to me like love. Anyway, the only way up this steep cliff is pretty much the same way that the ganga takes down it, so we slowly made our way up, immensely hard work, constantly crossing over the waterfall, fearful of being swept away. It was a long steep ganga bath--it was a short climb, but one of the hardest ones I've done. I was glad I was empty handed. At that point.

We reached the top and were greeted with the most gorgeous sight I have ever seen: tapavan, the paradise, a simple green field wedged in at the foot of the monumental Shivling peak, hemmed in by glacial rock feilds. Tapavan means the place to do Tapas, meditation on the gods, and holy men have been living there for thousands of years, isolated from society meditating on Shiva. Shivling peak is the most spactacular mountain I have ever seen--it really looks like a Lingum, it stands completely strong and alone, erupting out of Tapavan just like the religous shiva lingums thrust out of their base, a phallus erupting from a womb. Amar ganga pours down the peak and through Tapavan, exactly mirroring the sacred offerings that are religously poured over the lingums in temples, flowing through tapavan exactly the same way. It's indiscribably beautiful, I'll post pictures when I go home, you'll see what I mean. Tapavan is at 4,700 Meters, about the same height as the peaks of the tallest mountains at home. This is where I took the most symbolically important ganga bath of my trip, in the ice cold Amar Ganga, enough to purify me for a homecoming. I collected ganga water in my last shampoo bottle, and found a rock that was shaped like a lingum to bring home. It was a gorgeous sunny day--the last week, all the peaks had been completely clouded in, but for the two days we were there, it was clear and beautiful--I couldn't help but pridefully think that the gods were actively helping me.

When we got there, we met the babas who lived there, one who runs a humble ashram and one who lives in a flimsy tent. They convinced us to stay there for the night, and it was truly the right decision--it seemed silly to work so hard to attain such a beautiful place, and then leave it in an hour. We had to stay the night. But I had only thin clothes and no sleeping bag. This was such a significant lesson to me; I have been carting around way way too much crap all around india for four months now, and the only night when i would have needed any of it, I fucked it up. This is exactly the story of my relationship with material objects--I'm just not good at managing them. But it was exactly as it should have been, because I felt more light and pure, I went to tapavan like I came into this world, naked. Not quite naked, but as close as is reasonable.

In the ashram, we met up with many more westerners who had been staying there a few days, including one American who had graduated from the University of Colorado. We spent the night all huddled around a small wood stove, with the baba who runs the ashram. I respect him for living in tapavan, but he wasn't exactly the most religous of babas. His meditation consisted of smoking a lot of Charras (hashish) and every twenty minutes he would belt out at the top of his voice "Jai Ram! Seeta Ram!" sometimes he would go outside and shout it off the cliff. Sometimes it would come out in belch form. The other baba, who was staying in a tent, was more spiritual, and spoke to us in good english about conciousness and god, inside and outside. But of course he directed most of his attention at the beautiful women in our group, it must get lonely up there in Tapavan. Ten years ago, Shukla-ji came up to Tapavan in search of a pure, divine Saddhu or Baba, a truly religous man. He spent a month searching the area with a german man who was writing his thesis on the topic. They couldn't find a single one that met their standards, after endless combing of that corner of the Himalaya. It's because we are now in the age of Kaliyug, the last age in the mythological history of man, when we are most impure and selfish and greedy. This is the beginning of the end, Hindus beleive, when we can't even rely on our holy men to be selfless and good. Not to say these babas weren't great people--they were--and they are certainly better than the ones that live off of tourists in Rishikesh.

So after the requisite hour of mediation, we all went to sleep in the same room. Those of us without sleeping bags huddled together under blankets, as close to each other as we could get. I spent the night spooning with a crazy Czech named Vladimir. It was a cold and uncomfortable night, I can't lie. But when I went outside to piss, I saw the most increadible night sky of my life--in the cold two minutes it took for my urine to unfreeze and leave my bladder, I counted five shooting stars. Incredible. I survived it happily, and in the morning there was a beautiful sunrise and delicious porridge, chai lovingly made slowly by one of the Isrealis, and a slow departure from Tapavan. Most of the people there left in one big group that day, and so the group I was travelling with swelled to maybe ten people. But they were all great people, and it was a good walk all the way back to Gangotri. On the way back, I bathed in the ganga at Gaumuk amongst the ice flows, and it was cold and I was reminded of my mortality. A swiss girl died two weeks ago when she got too close to the glacier. We slept in Gangotri, and in the morning, took shared jeeps back to rishikesh, much more comfortable and quicker than the bus, and not much more expensive.

So here I am now, in Rishikesh. That was the final and ultimate destination of my trip, now I'm just waiting to get home. My flight is June 2, and I think I'm not going to be able to move it sooner. So I'll slowly work my way back to delhi this week, maybe go to Haridwar on monday or tuesday, spend a night there, then go to Delhi and stay somewhere other than PharGanj, see the art museum there, try to get better feelings about delhi which I now hate, and then fly home. If by any maricle you are reading this from LA, and will be there on June 3, shoot me an email, yeah?

Ram Ram Seeta Ram, Jai Jai Ram, Jai Ganga Mai, Om Nama Shivaya, Hari Om, etc. These things have comprised half of my vocabulary over the last few days.

Hari Om
Jed

GangaJi

What is it about this river? The universal love of her waters binds North India to itself, her followers eternally crowd her holy banks to caress her freezing, dirty flow, because it is she who represents eternal purity and truth. Some say that natrual minerals and herbs flow in her waters, which can be scientifically proven to be inherantly pure and purifying. That if you keep a vial of the dirtiest Banarsi ganga water, in fifteen years, it will be as clean as mineral water. She feeds 80 percent of Indian farms, the breadbasket of south asia, she feeds in immense population.

Her waters eternally flow down Shiva's locks, she is his eternal soulmate and parasite, he is her eternal prison, in which her immense power is contained, because only he can contain her. Alone, she would wash away our dirty society, leaving only pure, conciousless nature, pure being. But her trickle down Siva's matted locks keeps her confined to these banks, where all may come to be united wtih her. ANd while shiva contains her, she cools his firey wrath, the supreme power of his tapas which would otherwise destroy us all.

How does this river have such a strong personality, that all, even forgeiners, who spend time on her banks fall in love? Is it all cultural, if we worship an object does it gain importance, only and forever in our heads? Or is there something inherant in her beauty and her waters?

I'm going to go take a bath in her, before it gets too cold.

Arrival in Rishikesh

I've come to rishikesh, which is a gorgeous town 25 km above haridwar. It's the home of a lot of new age spirituality and hippy westerners, but I expected to be more put off by it than I am. There are a lot of indian tourists here to, come to see the ganga and escape the heat.

I'm tired, but I'm in one of those moods which doesn't allow me to sleep through the day; it's cool and I feel like I should be out, and the momentum of travelling keeps flowing through me--I can only think of my next stop, Uttarkashi on the way to gangotri, and how and when I should get there. I feel like rushing into the hills as soon as I can, and then maybe having time to chill out in Rishikesh on the other end, before I go home. I still don't know how to get there, though, that was the goal of this afternoon. I'm going to go try to find out. Or maybe I'll just go back and take a nap.

Haridwar

So here I am, Haridwar, maybe after Varanasi the second-most-holy city in India. It's great and crazy, a huge center for Hindu pilgrims, especially at this time of the year--it's in the hills a bit, so it's much cooler. It has the feel of a giant shiva/ganga themed waterpark--the ganga flows just fast enough to make it fun, without rapids or rocks, and the water is cool and benevolent. It's a party all day every day, jumping off bridges into the ganga, bodysurfing, excellent Indian food, and lots of fried food, lots of blasting Hindi pop, crazy saddhus (holy men) constantly smoking ganja (why do you think it's called ganja? seriously, this is where it comes from, origionally. But it's strictly for saddhus, followers of siva). There are very few western tourists here, because they all go to their separate home along the ganga, Rishikesh. Every night, crazy crazy herds of people crowd on to the main ghat for the evening pooja, river worship, to put the Ganga to bed for the night. There's lots of chanting and fire and splashing and cheering. I'm staying in Prem Nagar Ashram, maybe 2.5 km outside of the main city, in a beautiful facility right along the river. The wife of the leader of the ashram is the Prime Minister (or whatever) of the state of Utteranchal, where I am now, in the congress party, and the ashram is sort of a seat of political power and negotiations. I'm the only forgeiner there, and my hindi is still almost nonexistant, so I just sort of walk in with a goofy grin on my face and say my namastes and then hide shyly in my room.

Although this place is great, I've made the decision to go to Rishikesh on Friday. I had earlier said that I want to avoid rishikesh because it's too touristy, but my thinking changed, and it sort of represents yet another shift in thinking about myself, tourism, and this trip around India. The reason that is easy to give for this move is that it will be easier and hopefully cheaper to set up the trek to Gangotri, which is important to me, and it will be cheaper if I get some other tourists to go with me. But there's also another reason, which it took time to admit to myself. I like the company of other tourists, and although I'm fine being alone, it's kind of boring. Things are more fun when you don't do them alone. A lot of tourists who come to india (certainly not all of them, not even the majority) are pretty good people, and interesting. Making Indian friends is great, but it's not exactly the same--there are communication problems, and always the awareness of con artists hanging over my head. I like talking with people who understand the words that come out of my mouth, who share a somewhat common background and experience, especially now, when I've been in India so long (by my own standards) and I'm beginning the countdown to my flight home, ready to go home. Tourists have an experience of India that is more like my own that we can talk about, most Indians haven't travelled around their own country, and their experience of India is hard work and family, as everyone's experience is. But this was sort of difficult to admit to myself--I'm supposed to want to fully engage with the culture, that's why I am here. I feel like I've done a good job of that, could have done better, but I got much deeper into India than most tourists do. But I think it's a product of travelling alone--if I had someone great to share this experience with, I'd probably stay in Haridwar and have an amazing time.

But I'm supposed to hate tourism in india, and I do...it's really the effect that we tourists have on the Indian economy and mentality that I hate; certainly there should be positive ways where forgeiners can enjoy the beauty and vitality of India without creating this really negative dynamic of greed and mutual exploitation. It requres an awareness of the problem on both sides--if a place decides to market itself as free of touts and commission men, such as Orchha, we could maybe foster a more positive relationship between the two sides.


So Rishikesh on Friday, then to gangotri, however I can work it out.
Om Namah Shivaya

A moment to think in Paraganj

So I've landed in a few hours in Paraganj, the hub of Indian backpacking, in Delhi. I'm going up to Haridwar this afternoon to meet up with the Ganga. Paraganj is, perhaps, the sole reason that India has a reputation as a dirty place. It's the dirtiest place I've ever been, and almost every westerner who comes to India goes through Paraganj, and gets sick on old food and repackaged tap water in the shitty resturants here. So I try to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Orchha was an absolutely gorgeous peaceful place, with breathtaking forts and palaces and temples. It was a small town, and wisely markets itself to tourists as a place free of touts and scams, and it was. There was a river with water in it, so I got to spend the hot part of the day sitting in it, like a water buffallo. This is where the Queen of Jhansi single handedly defeated the British in 1857. It was the capital of the Rajput state of Jhansi since the 1600's, and the Rajputs left behind lots of gorgeous forts and temples, which I could have spent weeks exploring. But I had already made plans to get up to Haridwar, and I don't regret only spending one day there.

This next portion of my journey, the last one, has been on my mind since early in my time in Banaras. It's really meaningful to me, and I hope it will bring resolution, purity, and clarity to my trip before I return home. Haridwar located right where the Ganga comes rushing out of the Himalayas, it is second only to Varanasi in it's holiness, and far surpasses it in natural beauty, or so I have heard. It's an hour away from Rishikesh, which is the local tourist city where the Beatles lived for a time while they wrote the White Album. I hope to avoid rishikesh completely. I will spend a week in an ashram there on the banks of the ganga, and then I hope to go up to the head of the Ganga, at Gangotri and Gomouk. Gangotri is where the temple at the head of the ganga is, where it comes leaping out of Gomouk glacier, but I hope to also hire a guide and trek up to the glacier itself.

I want to tell the story of the ganga here, because it's been really important to my trip so far, and it is really important to the citizens of Varanasi and Haridwar.

Ancient india was devided into thousands of princely states, who often warred with each other. There was no political unity. A powerful and just new king ascended to the throne in Ayodia (later, the kingdom of Ram himself). The ancient tradition is, when a new king ascends to the throne, they send a horse with his flag galloping through all of India. As the horse passes through the various kingdoms, the kings decide if they will be allys or enemies with the new king; if they will be ally, they let the horse pass through their territory, if they be enemy, they capture the horse and wait for the King's army to come. As the horse was galloping though the kingdom of the Kysrias (translated, of course, as "demons"), the king had his minions capture the horse. Immediatly they became afraid of the just king's wrathful army, and so they hid the horse, tying it to a tree next to the spot where an ancient and divine sage was deep in mediatation. This sage had made a solemn vow that if anyone was to disturb his meditation, he would immediatly burn them upon waking. This was not a malevolent vow, it was just to ensure peace. After being in India, I understand that this is the extreme you have to go to to get a little bit of peace, a bit of personal space. So the demons quietly tied the horse to the tree near the sage, and quietly left. In the mean time, the King of Ayodia realized the horse had not returned, so he sent out his hundred brothers (of course he had a hundred brothers, as any good king does), to find the horse. After much searching, the brothers finally found the horse under the tree near the sadhu. In their igorance, they assumed that the sadhu had stolen the horse, and roughly awakened him. As they awakened him, he opened his eyes and immediatly burnt them all into a hundred piles of ash with his karmic energy. After a time, the king realized his brothers had not returned, and went out himself to search for them. He came across the sadhu, and the piles of ashes. As he was wise, he did not blame or find anger with the sadhu, he instead repented for his brothers' ignorance and begged the sadhu to tell him how his brothers might find salvation in death and be released from the karmic cycle. The saddhu told him that only the river ganga could clease their sins and grant enlightenment. At this time, the ganga was not on earth, it was in the domain of Vishnu in heaven. For the rest of his life, the king did deep penance to Vishnu and begged him to bring the Ganga on to the earth. He was unsuccsessful. His son, the next king, did the same thing, tried despritly to get the ganga to come on earth and cleanse the sins of his forefathers. Again he failed. Only the third generation, the king's grandson, did penance severe enough for Vishnu to pay attention. Vishnu granted him his boon, and the river ganga came on earth, flowing from the feet of Vishnu. But the ganga had so much divine energy, it was so powerful, that it washed over all of creation. It could not be contained, it flooded everywhere. Seeing the dire situation, Siva immediatly lept to the rescue and caught up the entire ganga in his dreadlocks, keeping it firmly there. And so again, the king had to pray deeply to Siva, to get him to let the ganga out of his dreadlocks and on to the earth. After he prayed enough, siva said "I will let this ganga out of my hair, but how will we then control it?" the king said "I will control it" and siva began to slowly slowly let the ganga out of his dreadlocks, creating a divine, powerful, and very skinny waterfall (high water pressure, low diameter, you understand). The king lept in his chariot and began to ride, and the ganga followed behind him dutifully where he rode in his chariot. He rode all down the Himalayas, the ganga crashing behind him, over the ashes of his forefathers, granting them salvation, through all of current day Utteranchal and Uttar Pradesh, by Kashi (varanasi, land of salvation, ancient city of shiva) and eventually all the way out to the bay of Bengal.

So I am going ot go to the the place where Shiva let the ganga out of his dreadlocks, creating a waterfall which purifies the water right out of the himalayas, churning it with many natural herbs, and we'll see what is there.

From Khajuraho

As I was rolling in to Khajuraho this afternoon, the heat broke and it rained! clearly the gods are smiling on this place. It's beautiful and some of the people here are good--I chose to trust this boy from the old village here, and he's been taking me around, I met his family, nice honest hardworking people--father's a farmer, uncle makes trinkets for tourists (which is why he took me there, obviously--nothing is pure). Tomorrow morning we take a bicycle ride to a waterfall, then see the temples.

I want to amend what I've been saying about tourism a little bit. I'm not pure, and I'm not above it--all of the places I go are tourist destinations. The gangotri plane is huge and hot and flat, and wherever there is something interesting, there is a tourist destination. Also, in places where they are expecting tourists, you are more likely to make local friends, like I did here. But the small ones, honest ones are best--like bundi and here. Pushkar was just bad because of the drug culture there, but otherwise, small towns with farmers, hard working people, these are the best places to visit.

OK I'm keeping my new buddy (who insists I call him India even though his name is Bharat) waiting.
shanti
jed

From Gwailor

Hi all

I'm writing now from Gwailor, which is an interesting place. The city itself is a typical modernized Indian city--pretty affluent, from what I can tell. Towering over the town is a massive historical fort-the grounds inside the walls are probably two square KM. Inside it there are fifteen old temples and monuments you can visit on one ticket, and I had a very good day doing so. It was hot, so I went from one monument to another, napping or resting at each one for a half hour or so. The heat makes you slow. Right now it's hot even by Indian standards. It's 47 or 48 degrees every day, and I don't know what that is in farenheit, but it's hot as sin. Actually, I'm going to look it up right now. It's between 116 and 118 degrees F. I don't really mind it, usually I just do what I must and sleep through the hot part of the day, or just lay around and read. But today I was stuck in it--the fort is far away from the hotel. OK, while I'm bitching about the heat: I spend a hundred ruppees every day on water (one liter costs ten ruppees) and I still don't urinate. ever. I don't mind it as much as most of the tourists here now, and I don't even mind it as much as some of the Indian people; I think my body is built for heat more than cold, for some reason. These clothes really help--you have to wear giant baggy white clotes, as much cloth as possible, and a wet headcloth. It means that now my mind is stupid and I have nothing interesting to say on my blog.

I am also tired from zooming through jaipur and agra, which had sights to see but I didn't want to spend too much time in. Delhi, Jaipur and Agra form the "golden triangle" of Indian tourism, and most forgeiners who come here only go to those three places. And they are probably my least favorite places in Northern India. Delhi is what it is, it's got some nice culture and monuments, but it's dirty and polluted and huge and soulless. Jaipur might be considered nice, until you compare it with the rest of rajastan, which is breathtakingly beautiful, the people are hospitable and honest (some places) and it's charming. Jaipur is dusty, and the main palace is mostly closed because the maharaja still lives there. Agra is Agra--it's the taj, and nothing else, it's a huge dirty industrial city, with lots of communal tension/violence between hindus and muslims. There's a pretty good criminal sector there who prey on tourists, and many of the hotel rooms have faulty locks (I had to get the hotel guy to fix mine before I would go to sleep) so see the taj if you must, but get out. Basically, if you come to India, I would urge you to go a bit farther afield than the golden triangle--there are places which are closer or just the same distance from Delhi that are great.

Travel update

So I'm in Jaipur right now, but I'm taking the evening train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I'm going to see the taj tomorrow morning at sunrise, and then go to Gwailor, a small city with a fort south of Agra, and then to Jhansi, which is the railhead for Kujaharo, which is supposed to have the best temples in India, with erotic designs on them, and then back through Orchha (perhaps) to catch a train to delhi from Jhansi. Orchha is just a charming small town, maybe worth a night.

So Jaipur, it's the place everybody comes when they come to India, on the golden tourist triangle of delhi-agra-jaipur, but it's sort of unimpressive to me. Maybe I would like it more if I had seen it before i saw the rest of Rajastan, which was fantastically beautiful. So I'm getting out a day earlier than I planned.

OK, more later, sometime. Sorry the blogging is getting more erratic.
peace
jed

more photos, ramblings

Bundi Fort, From my guest house roof


View from my Hotel Room in Jodhpur:


Marrage processional in Bundi (Sometimes you just get the perfect photo)


The Maharaha of Koti Bedroom


On a bollywood set in Mumbai (note: It was illegal that I took this picture. Even more so that I'm posting it online. So don't misuse it in any way, I don't know how you would. I'm not worried, so much as excusing myself for the bad photo angle)


McLeod Ganj at Night (yeah, this is from a while ago)


Bhimlaht, Near Bundi


Bundi



So I get to write whilst the photos upload. I'm loving jodhpur, a great city, lots of beauty in the place and the people. It's maybe got the worst roads of anywhere I've been in India, because they are narrow and they don't use cycle-rickshaws, only motorized vehicles. I ripped my shirt irreperably yesterday when an auto rickshaw nipped me--such is the close quarters every pedestrian keeps with the vehicles. I was glad to lose that shirt, because today I went out and I bought a long Kurta (it's like a long cotton shirt that is long enough to be a dress) and a Lungi, (a man skirt, worn to resembe oversized daipur), so now I have traditional clothes. How to you spell dipur? I feel like I'm not even communicating the meaning of the word, my spelling is so bad. I'm talking about the garments that babies shit in.

Some thoughts and stories from fellow travellers I've met along the way:

An english man who is staying in my hotel has come to India to export antiques. ALthough he is coming to exploit and export India, he gave me a really interesting talk about how all of European culture from the middle ages on evolved from the Silk Route that ran from China and India. Europeans didn't know how to build large monuments out of stone, like the cathedrals that we now see. Indians who grew wealthy taxing the camel caravans that passed through their state on the silk route eventually became curious as to where the goods were going, so they travelled to Europe, taught them a lot of architecture and art, and in some senses, instigated the entire European Rennisance.

I met an english couple a few years younger than me (I have yet to meet any Americans, only English and Dutch and suchlike). They got to Delhi during the high tourist season, hoping to go to Agra or Rajastan or something. But the trains were all booked, and they were stuck in Delhi, staying in Paraganj, the shithole. They were despirate to get out of Delhi, so they went the one place they could, Kashmir. They flew to Srinagar, but the plane had technical difficulties, so it took two false starts and a day and a half to get there. Of course, when they were there, they were absolutely traumatized by the number of soldiers, the checkpoints, having guns pointed at them, etc. They had packed for hot india, and were high in Kashmir during the winter. The boy got deathly ill, and was put on a drip in a military hospital. They said that the place itself wasn't even beautiful anymore, the whole landscape is scortched earth, the military is everywhere, and there are always guns in your face. The situation there sounds really bad; just the other day, there was another massive massacre in Srinagar. Anyway, the whole experience traumatized them, and now three months later they are hardened badass travellers.

OK I think the photos are done. that was nice and fast.

Arrival in Jodhpur

I arrived here in Jodhpur early this morning after a long busride from Bundi. Bundi was the first place in India I was sort of sad to depart from--all the other places, I've been glad I was there and then glad to leave. But it was time to leave Bundi--I ran out of things to do, and was getting malevolant vibes from the monkeys. The monkeys cornered me in one of the painting rooms in the fort in Bundi, in the part of the fort I had to pay to get in, and then they stole my nalgine bottle and sat trying to get it open right in the doorway of the only exit of the room/cortyard. I had to shout at them and threaten them, to which they hissed and showed their teeth, until the fort attendant guy came and rescued me.

Anyway, I'm glad to be here in Jodhpur--it seems like a great small city, very bustling and busy, a lot of character. My hotel is great, and in a quiet part of the city; my room looks directly onto the giant fort which towers over this city. I took the good advice of some other travellers I met in Bundi. I'm kind of waiting for the city to wake up, and then I'm going to sleep through the hot part of the day cause I'm tired from the busride.

I'm in a bad mood now, just groggy from the bus and tired of every single Indian man trying so hard to be my best friend, so I'm going to quit writing before I say anything bitchy.

Bundi

What to say today, Bundi's a great place, perhaps the most inherantly good place I've been so far. It's a small town with amazingly friendly and honest people. The tourist ratio here is just right; it's enough of a tourist attraction that people are not surprised to see me, but there is not a separate economy in town for tourists. People are glad I'm here because they want their town to be more touristed, and also they are just nice. The town is one of the laziest places in the world--people are laid back and take it easy, and sleep all through the hot part of the day. It makes me feel like I'm on vacation, which in some sense I am. Am I? What are my real intentions here?

Tonight I'm going to dinner at the house of a friendly couple of guys--they run a corner store and an art buisness, one of them is a painter of traditional miniature paintings. I'm kind of interested in them because they might be a couple, in which case they would be the first openly gay Indians I have met, besides the transvestite beggars on the train. In the morning I'm going to have tea with a schoolteacher and his wife (also a teacher, not a housewife!); they invited me to the marrage of their brother tonight, but I had already committed to the other dinner and I don't have wedding clothes.

I just found out that the busses from here to Jodhpur (my next stop) leave at 6,7,and 8 in the morning, so I think I'm going to stay another full day and leave wednesday morning for a hot ten hour busride.

This morning I explored the old fort that dominates the town; it's sort of abandoned and decaying, but increadibly intricate architecturally and there are some well preserved frescoes on the wall that are very beautiful. It's got a gothic feel to it, and it holds so many secrets, so much history, so much death and love within it's walls. I don't think I've been in a building with so much personality in it. What kipling said is right (to remind you: a place men build in uneasy dreams, more the work of goblins than of men). There are many thousands of rooms I didn't go into--many of them were too dark and dirty and scary. Oh, I also visited Kipling's house here, and reminded myself that although he criticized british colonilism, he was very much a colonial, with a big British style house and he had lots of Indian servants and things. But he was a good writer. I started reading Kim, maybe his best book.

I think that's what I have to say today.
best
jed