India - The Better Late Than Never Overly Long Narrative Prose Piece
I realized this past weekend -- while chatting with a friend -- that I was kind of done with India. Not done in the sense of forever. This was the kind of done that comes when every day life has encroached sufficiently on the memory of an event that talking about it becomes a chore.
So here it is. The final telling of that which was. Time to cuddle up with some hot chocolate, turn on your Christmas lights, cuddle under a blanket with your laptop. It's going to be a long one....
**********
New Zealand
On Wednesday, September 3rd, the longest flight of my life departed San Francisco International Airport bound for New Zealand. For those that haven't had the pleasure, long haul flights are actually pretty enjoyable. There's a personal video console with private controls, so you can watch what you want, when you want. There's even video games and miscellaneous other goodies. If you're going to go somewhere, pay that extra money and go far.
One glitch: Air New Zealand had a creative interpretation of the VGML special meal request. This is supposed to be "strict vegetarian" (aka vegan). Unfortunately, Air New Zealand interpreted fish as vegan. I guess it wasn't meat, eggs or dairy ... So, hungry as I normally am and with little other in the way of options, I tried the fish. This is not an experience I will repeat again. I had fish breath for days. My stomach felt funny. It made me wonder how people ever got the idea to eat fish in the first place. Mental note: vegans + fish = bad.
Not that it kept me much from enjoying New Zealand. For those not in the know, New Zealand is AWESOME. Yes, it is indeed just as amazing as we've been led to believe. I swear I was close to leaving the country with the title to some land. That's just how appealling it was.
On the first day (the day where time had no meaning), I got my friend Ram to take me out to the beach for some surfing. This was winter by their standards, but it sure beat Canadian winter. A wet suit was required, but it was a good introduction to surfing. I even caught one wave: shooting forward on the crest of a wave with the sound of roaring water crashing around you. For a first effort, not bad.
The second day, we hiked up a mountain. The mountain was maybe 8000 feet above sea level at its peak, but we didn't go nearly that far. We stopped at the point where there were the first flecks of snow on the ground. (And subsequently got passed by a man who was running up the mountain; New Zealanders are generally in way better shape than you or me.)
Now for the awesome. Both of these places (beaches with excellent surf, 8000 feet worth of mountain) were a short drive away from my friend's house. Plus you can walk into stores and restaurants barefoot. <3
I had a run in with some police. But that's another story.
*****
Malaysia
I was swayed by the cheap fare and the promise of another country to see. That's the trick that Malaysia Airlines employs.
Kuala Lumpur was like any other major city in a lot of ways. Excellent infrastructure, bright lights and lots of people. Lots of commerce. The only striking thing is the strong culturual diversity. Indians, Chinese and Malay (some of Arabic descent) all mingle in what seemed like fairly equal numbers.
My interest lay north of the city. The start of my pilgrimage. The Batu Caves are the home of some Hindu temples, and a fairly popular pilgrimage site. I got my chance to make an offering to Murugan (aka Subramanya) -- son of Siva, lord of war and general symbol of courage. And that's just what I needed: a little courage to carry me through.
*****
India, Beginning
India is a crazy place filled with crazy people doing crazy things. Trying to catch a taxi to the hotel was a fascinating lesson in Indian culture. First of all, lines are meant to pushed through, not waited on. Jam your hand forward and into the space you wish to occupy. When you are within reach of the desk, jam money into the face of the clerk. (Note: when you learn this fact and are 6'2" in a nation of short men, you don't have to fear waiting in lines anymore.)
Second point: the swindle, the scam, the cheat. They surround you on all sides. Your white skin screams target. Hold on to your bag. Hold on to your papers and documents. And for the love of God, hold on to your money. The deal he is offering is an insult. It's a given. It's your choice whether to go for it or not.
As one of my co-workers explained, the philosophy goes something like this: "Look out for yourself; lie, cheat and steal from your friends and family; screw everyone else." This is Delhi. Luckily not a place I was going to stay for long (at least at this point).
In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the time I spent living in Tunis. Or at least, the part of Tunis that I lived in. The smell on the streets of rotting food and garbage that had yet to be collected. The rough and chaotic way in which things were assembled. The crazy drivers. India was just a little bit more: more poor, more crazy and a hell of a lot more crowded.
By morning, I was gone: on a train bound for Haridwar.
*****
India, Haridwar
Haridwar is the closest we could get on the train. It's situated along the banks of the Ganges. A holy city by the reckoning of most, and my first sight of the Ganges. It flowed quick enough to be dangerous, but people would still bath in it -- washing away the sins of a lifetime.
We were clearly out of place in Haridwar. We were two of the only white folk in the entire city. We were also ill-equipped for the sudden heat. The temperature had gone from 15C as high a high in New Zealand, to about 35C and humid in Haridwar. The sun was intense. While wandering around in the afternoon after arriving, we both managed to get some form of sun stroke or heat exhaustion. That evening we simply slept -- too drained to do much else.
On the way out of Haridwar, we stopped at a temple for some more blessings. At the same time, I discovered what was going to be my bane for the first week or so in India. While a 6'2" man has many advantages dealing with lines, his head also happens to be at the same height as ceilings and doorways. This is a warning to any taller nations that wish to invade India: mind your head. I was bleeding from my scalp as we found ourselves some means to move on to our next stop: Netala.
Netala is near Uttarkashi, in the province of Uttarkhand. Elevation: 1000 metres and surrounded by the Himalayas. The road was winding (to say the least), and really only wide enough for one car. The turns were sharp and frequently blind. Custom dictates that one honk a horn while going around a blind corner. Of course, the way echoes work off of mountain walls, the sound of the horns tends to be lost. Well, until you are right on top of each other. You have not lived until you've squealed to a stop in front of tourist bus that is similarly trying to stop before hitting you. Bonus points if you're on the cliff side.
I was also reassured by the marvels of modern Indian engineering. In Uttarkashi, there is a collapsed bridge. Not an old collapsed bridge. In fact, it looks like it was the bridge they were building to replace the old one (which we drove across). A bleak reminder of the transient nature of existence. Plus, it looked kinda pretty.
*****
India, Ashram
So, some of you may be curious about what I was doing on ashram. Well, other than being a hippie. If that doesn't accurately describe you, then let's make this a choose your own adventure: skip to the next section. Otherwise, here is what Sadhana Intensive is like.
Sadhana Intensive was a course designed by Swami Vishnu-Devananda in his later years. An attempt to give yogis a taste of what his intense practice was like. This ashram is a particularly special place for it. This is where Swamiji attained jala samadhi (was committed to the Ganges after his death), and was also quite close to the place where he actually performed his own intense sadhana. The ashram closes its doors to guests while the course is going on -- giving the participants a particularly good opportunity to dive into their own practice.
The course is about hatha yoga: asanas (exercises), pranayama (breathing), bandhas (locks) and mudras (seals). It starts inocuously. The food is kept quite minimal and bland. At the start, there are two practices a day, and they are easier and shorter than practices that I've done on my own. By the end, it was the most intense practice I've ever done.
The last full day of practice, I practiced three times for a total of about nine and a half hours. Of this time, about 2h15m was asanas, and about 6h was pranayama. Yes, six hours of breathing exercises.
"How dull," you must be thinking, "How uncomfortable." (Possibly also: "How crazy.")
And yes, it was uncomfortable and very difficult to sit for such extended periods. But the goal here -- at least from a physiological perspective -- is to learn how to control respiration. Slow the heart down, slow the breath down and thereby control the mind. At my personal best, I was breathing about 80 times an hour. A normal healthy adult is typically breathing 80 times in about 4 to 7 minutes.
So what does it mean to not breath a lot? Well, for me it came in phases. At first, my mind would rebel. It didn't want to be there. It wanted to move. It wanted to stop. Then the mind starts to calm down and distract itself with day-dreaming. Finally, the day-dreaming stops. That's when it gets really interesting. There is nothing but the breath. The mind is tired of fighting and gives up.
There are other peripheral effects to this. Rather than going into all of them, I'll just deal with the most common and obvious. When the body is trained to deal with less oxygen and suddenly gets more oxygen (namely, the practice is over), you suddenly have a lot more energy. Sleep less, get tired less easily and can work harder for longer. This actually worked out for me fairly well, because after the ashram we header further up into the Himalayas.
*****
India, Gangotri
We met this awesome friend during our stay at the ashram by the name of Deep. He was an Indian from the Assam region (home of tea), and was a very friendly guy. Under his prompting, we rode a share jeep up to Gangotri. Mental note to self: share jeeps in a nation of small men is equally not a good idea. While the trip was only about 100km, it took several hours and the jeep was not really big enough to sit up straight. It was also crammed with 14 people. Good times.
Gangotri is an interesting place. In winter (which we were fast approaching by the time we arrived), the town closes down. Only a handful of hardcore swamis and sadhus stay through the winter. In winter, they cut the electricity and water supply. In summer, Gangotri is a place of pilgrimage.
A couple of hundred years ago, an Indian general wandered up to find the source of the Ganges. He discovered that it was a glacier. At that location, he built a temple. The temple is Gangotri. It's considered one of the Char Dham (aka a major pilgrimage route).
But times have changed, and the glacier from which the Ganges flows is receding rapidly. (Unfortunately, the rate of withdrawal is increasing and the entire glacier will probably disappear in our lifetimes.) The glacier is now 19km further back from Gangotri.
So this was the plan. Even though I had nothing more than light hiking shoes, a T-shirt, a thin short-sleeve thermal, and a thin summer hoodie ... we were going to make the hike to the glacier. Not the brightest plan I've ever hatched, but those that know me really well know that I prefer adventure over premeditation.
(Or, to quote Buffy: "Don't you ever get tired of fights you know you're going to win?" Which leads peripherally into an interesting talk on TED.)
We set forth the following day for the glacier -- leaving around noon. The plan was to walk 14km the first day to a government outpost (Bhojbasa) that had tents for hire, and then to hike the remaining 24km (out to the glacier and all the way back to Gangotri) the next day. The environment was very harsh. During the day, we were sweating and had to take off our shirts to cover our heads from the sun. When the sun crested behind the mountain tops, the temperature dropped rapidly down toward freezing. I gained a new appreciation for those crazy fuckers that try to climb Mount Everest. Namely, they are totally bonkers.
The views were spectacular. We stood at 10 000 to 11 000 feet. Mountains rose up on either side of us -- snow-capped, majestic and huge. Blue mountain goats crossed our path. Small streams trickled down the mountain sides. And in the valley, a very thin and cold Ganges flowed.
We arrived in Bhojbasa after the sun had disappeared behind the mountains and just about at sunset. It was dark. It was cold. We were hungry. And for those that are curious, Bhojbasa is a dive. After a rather unsatisfying meal, we turned in.
Unfortunately, the evening did not go entirely well. Even though I was in bed for 10 hours, I only slept maybe 4. In the middle of the night, Deep fell to the influence of rapid elevation change, harsh hiking conditions and bad food. He was sick. I don't think I've ever heard someone sick with such ... vigour. I kind of wish I'd gotten out of bed when I heard him get up, just so I could have witnessed the distance he managed to get with his projectile vomiting.
By morning, we were all tired and a bit cold. Deep was too ill to carry on, and spent an hour or two at the camp before starting a slow walk back to Gangotri. Ram and I pushed on to the glacier, with hopes that we would catch up to Deep on the way back.
We hiked. We hiked fast, and we hiked hard. This was largely to stay warm, but it had its benefits. We were the first people to arrive at the mouth of the glacier that morning. We walked right up to the mouth. We took water from the source. I grabbed a few stones. And we turned to head back just as the sun was coming up over the mountain tops. It was another bright and hot day ahead of us.
We did catch up with Deep. He was much better after having a little time to take it easy. We got back to Gangotri, and slept very, very soundly.
*****
India, Rishikesh
The trip out of the Himalayas was hair-raising at times. For part of the journey, we had a suicidal driver who was enjoying the fact that the roads were mostly downhill. There was a moment -- not long into the trip -- when the thought occurred to me: "I am going to die today, and that's okay." Needless to say my acceptance of fate was not tested that day, but it definitely ranks up there as one of my more exciting car rides.
Rishikesh is ... well ... awesome. Not in the grand majesty kind of way. Not in the deep divine inspiration kind of way. Rishikesh is a place one could relax and write a novel ... or two. Here I'm talking about the spiritual part stretching between two "pedestrian" bridges.
The spiritual part doubles as the tourist part. Maybe this is a good time to explain that tourism in India is spirituality, and vice versa. They are one and the same. So, all these spots I went were pilgrimage sites. But they are also tourist traps. Except the souvenirs are malas and idols. So when I say the spiritual part of Rishikesh, I really do mean the tourist part. A big mix of white folk (foreigners) and natives on pilgrimage.
It seemed to me as though some foreigners had set themselves up to spend the rest of their lives there in Rishikesh. I had that thought too. I even did the pricing. The hotel I stayed in was essentially a one bedroom apartment -- kitchen, living room, balcony, bedroom, bathroom, and a small dressing area. It was within a five minute walk of a beach along the Ganges. It was a short walk from two major ashrams. For one whole year, it would have cost me a little more than USD3000. Making a hotel in Rishikesh about one-sixth the price of a smaller and less luxurious apartment in San Francisco. This has been filed away in my brain as "good to know". I'm hoping this file will be opened again in the future....
One of these two major ashrams is the Divine Life Society. The home -- the baby -- of Swami Sivananda. The guy who taught the guy who taught the people who taught me. It's old and it's huge. It's interesting to wander around a place overrun with swamis. In the west, ashrams tend to only have one or two swamis at any given time (except for special events). During satsang, there was a sea of orange filling the front rows. Driving drums and bells and harmonium and singing and clapping and a hundred or two of my closest aspirants partying it up -- yoga style.
(By the way, "pedestrian" bridge in Hindi means "bridge on which pedestrians may try to pass, while being assosted by beggars and nearly run down by bicycles and motorcycles".)
*****
India, Delhi
Delhi is a shit hole. There are no two ways about it. Don't go there. Spend as little time there as possible. Everyone is out to rip you off. Things are expensive. The vegetarianism of Uttarkashi is largely abandoned. It's the fusion of the worst of western culture and the worst of Indian culture. I ate at Pizza Hut and Baskin Robbins. Let us not speak of this place again.
The one upside was the hotel we stayed at gave us the choice of a room with a circular bed ... or a room with a heart-shaped bed. (Awesome!) We went for the circular bed because it had a bathtub in it. Well, so we thought. A bathtub with no stopper for the drain. Not to be deterred, we invented many fascinating mechanisms for stoppering the tub (heel works best, but requires concentration) only to discover that the tub leaks.
And there it is folks. The worst of two cultures. Delhi tries to make things with the western veneer of consumerist luxury, but does so with substandard goods. We had a bag of chips, for whatever reason. Inside alongside the chips was a strand of human hair. A sterile bag with hair inside. We laughed so hard that it felt like we would never stop.
*****
The Journey Home
Well, the trip home become my new longest single trip in the air. From Delhi, I flew all the way to Newark in one jaunt. 14h20m in the air.
Immigration was interesting. I was really nervous about my visa. It was my first time processing a TN extension, and I was worried because I had left most of the extraneous supporting documentation in San Francisco. If the immigration official wanted to see all the paperwork, I was out of luck. So when I got to the front of the line, and he asked me a question I didn't quite make out, I was immediately nervous.
"What?" I asked.
"Google's stock tanked," he said with a smirk.
"Huhn. I'm sure it will come back up," I replied trying to smile and be friendly.
You see, during this trip I had not checked the news once. Total radio silence. Complete seclusion from my normal worldly affairs. On returning to my apartment, I found out that all my investments had tanked. That the whole stock market had tanked. Later that afternoon, a friend told me my bank didn't exist anymore.
And you know what the best part was? I didn't care. And that's what a vacation is for....
So here it is. The final telling of that which was. Time to cuddle up with some hot chocolate, turn on your Christmas lights, cuddle under a blanket with your laptop. It's going to be a long one....
**********
New Zealand
On Wednesday, September 3rd, the longest flight of my life departed San Francisco International Airport bound for New Zealand. For those that haven't had the pleasure, long haul flights are actually pretty enjoyable. There's a personal video console with private controls, so you can watch what you want, when you want. There's even video games and miscellaneous other goodies. If you're going to go somewhere, pay that extra money and go far.
One glitch: Air New Zealand had a creative interpretation of the VGML special meal request. This is supposed to be "strict vegetarian" (aka vegan). Unfortunately, Air New Zealand interpreted fish as vegan. I guess it wasn't meat, eggs or dairy ... So, hungry as I normally am and with little other in the way of options, I tried the fish. This is not an experience I will repeat again. I had fish breath for days. My stomach felt funny. It made me wonder how people ever got the idea to eat fish in the first place. Mental note: vegans + fish = bad.
Not that it kept me much from enjoying New Zealand. For those not in the know, New Zealand is AWESOME. Yes, it is indeed just as amazing as we've been led to believe. I swear I was close to leaving the country with the title to some land. That's just how appealling it was.
On the first day (the day where time had no meaning), I got my friend Ram to take me out to the beach for some surfing. This was winter by their standards, but it sure beat Canadian winter. A wet suit was required, but it was a good introduction to surfing. I even caught one wave: shooting forward on the crest of a wave with the sound of roaring water crashing around you. For a first effort, not bad.
The second day, we hiked up a mountain. The mountain was maybe 8000 feet above sea level at its peak, but we didn't go nearly that far. We stopped at the point where there were the first flecks of snow on the ground. (And subsequently got passed by a man who was running up the mountain; New Zealanders are generally in way better shape than you or me.)
Now for the awesome. Both of these places (beaches with excellent surf, 8000 feet worth of mountain) were a short drive away from my friend's house. Plus you can walk into stores and restaurants barefoot. <3
I had a run in with some police. But that's another story.
*****
Malaysia
I was swayed by the cheap fare and the promise of another country to see. That's the trick that Malaysia Airlines employs.
Kuala Lumpur was like any other major city in a lot of ways. Excellent infrastructure, bright lights and lots of people. Lots of commerce. The only striking thing is the strong culturual diversity. Indians, Chinese and Malay (some of Arabic descent) all mingle in what seemed like fairly equal numbers.
My interest lay north of the city. The start of my pilgrimage. The Batu Caves are the home of some Hindu temples, and a fairly popular pilgrimage site. I got my chance to make an offering to Murugan (aka Subramanya) -- son of Siva, lord of war and general symbol of courage. And that's just what I needed: a little courage to carry me through.
*****
India, Beginning
India is a crazy place filled with crazy people doing crazy things. Trying to catch a taxi to the hotel was a fascinating lesson in Indian culture. First of all, lines are meant to pushed through, not waited on. Jam your hand forward and into the space you wish to occupy. When you are within reach of the desk, jam money into the face of the clerk. (Note: when you learn this fact and are 6'2" in a nation of short men, you don't have to fear waiting in lines anymore.)
Second point: the swindle, the scam, the cheat. They surround you on all sides. Your white skin screams target. Hold on to your bag. Hold on to your papers and documents. And for the love of God, hold on to your money. The deal he is offering is an insult. It's a given. It's your choice whether to go for it or not.
As one of my co-workers explained, the philosophy goes something like this: "Look out for yourself; lie, cheat and steal from your friends and family; screw everyone else." This is Delhi. Luckily not a place I was going to stay for long (at least at this point).
In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the time I spent living in Tunis. Or at least, the part of Tunis that I lived in. The smell on the streets of rotting food and garbage that had yet to be collected. The rough and chaotic way in which things were assembled. The crazy drivers. India was just a little bit more: more poor, more crazy and a hell of a lot more crowded.
By morning, I was gone: on a train bound for Haridwar.
*****
India, Haridwar
Haridwar is the closest we could get on the train. It's situated along the banks of the Ganges. A holy city by the reckoning of most, and my first sight of the Ganges. It flowed quick enough to be dangerous, but people would still bath in it -- washing away the sins of a lifetime.
We were clearly out of place in Haridwar. We were two of the only white folk in the entire city. We were also ill-equipped for the sudden heat. The temperature had gone from 15C as high a high in New Zealand, to about 35C and humid in Haridwar. The sun was intense. While wandering around in the afternoon after arriving, we both managed to get some form of sun stroke or heat exhaustion. That evening we simply slept -- too drained to do much else.
On the way out of Haridwar, we stopped at a temple for some more blessings. At the same time, I discovered what was going to be my bane for the first week or so in India. While a 6'2" man has many advantages dealing with lines, his head also happens to be at the same height as ceilings and doorways. This is a warning to any taller nations that wish to invade India: mind your head. I was bleeding from my scalp as we found ourselves some means to move on to our next stop: Netala.
Netala is near Uttarkashi, in the province of Uttarkhand. Elevation: 1000 metres and surrounded by the Himalayas. The road was winding (to say the least), and really only wide enough for one car. The turns were sharp and frequently blind. Custom dictates that one honk a horn while going around a blind corner. Of course, the way echoes work off of mountain walls, the sound of the horns tends to be lost. Well, until you are right on top of each other. You have not lived until you've squealed to a stop in front of tourist bus that is similarly trying to stop before hitting you. Bonus points if you're on the cliff side.
I was also reassured by the marvels of modern Indian engineering. In Uttarkashi, there is a collapsed bridge. Not an old collapsed bridge. In fact, it looks like it was the bridge they were building to replace the old one (which we drove across). A bleak reminder of the transient nature of existence. Plus, it looked kinda pretty.
*****
India, Ashram
So, some of you may be curious about what I was doing on ashram. Well, other than being a hippie. If that doesn't accurately describe you, then let's make this a choose your own adventure: skip to the next section. Otherwise, here is what Sadhana Intensive is like.
Sadhana Intensive was a course designed by Swami Vishnu-Devananda in his later years. An attempt to give yogis a taste of what his intense practice was like. This ashram is a particularly special place for it. This is where Swamiji attained jala samadhi (was committed to the Ganges after his death), and was also quite close to the place where he actually performed his own intense sadhana. The ashram closes its doors to guests while the course is going on -- giving the participants a particularly good opportunity to dive into their own practice.
The course is about hatha yoga: asanas (exercises), pranayama (breathing), bandhas (locks) and mudras (seals). It starts inocuously. The food is kept quite minimal and bland. At the start, there are two practices a day, and they are easier and shorter than practices that I've done on my own. By the end, it was the most intense practice I've ever done.
The last full day of practice, I practiced three times for a total of about nine and a half hours. Of this time, about 2h15m was asanas, and about 6h was pranayama. Yes, six hours of breathing exercises.
"How dull," you must be thinking, "How uncomfortable." (Possibly also: "How crazy.")
And yes, it was uncomfortable and very difficult to sit for such extended periods. But the goal here -- at least from a physiological perspective -- is to learn how to control respiration. Slow the heart down, slow the breath down and thereby control the mind. At my personal best, I was breathing about 80 times an hour. A normal healthy adult is typically breathing 80 times in about 4 to 7 minutes.
So what does it mean to not breath a lot? Well, for me it came in phases. At first, my mind would rebel. It didn't want to be there. It wanted to move. It wanted to stop. Then the mind starts to calm down and distract itself with day-dreaming. Finally, the day-dreaming stops. That's when it gets really interesting. There is nothing but the breath. The mind is tired of fighting and gives up.
There are other peripheral effects to this. Rather than going into all of them, I'll just deal with the most common and obvious. When the body is trained to deal with less oxygen and suddenly gets more oxygen (namely, the practice is over), you suddenly have a lot more energy. Sleep less, get tired less easily and can work harder for longer. This actually worked out for me fairly well, because after the ashram we header further up into the Himalayas.
*****
India, Gangotri
We met this awesome friend during our stay at the ashram by the name of Deep. He was an Indian from the Assam region (home of tea), and was a very friendly guy. Under his prompting, we rode a share jeep up to Gangotri. Mental note to self: share jeeps in a nation of small men is equally not a good idea. While the trip was only about 100km, it took several hours and the jeep was not really big enough to sit up straight. It was also crammed with 14 people. Good times.
Gangotri is an interesting place. In winter (which we were fast approaching by the time we arrived), the town closes down. Only a handful of hardcore swamis and sadhus stay through the winter. In winter, they cut the electricity and water supply. In summer, Gangotri is a place of pilgrimage.
A couple of hundred years ago, an Indian general wandered up to find the source of the Ganges. He discovered that it was a glacier. At that location, he built a temple. The temple is Gangotri. It's considered one of the Char Dham (aka a major pilgrimage route).
But times have changed, and the glacier from which the Ganges flows is receding rapidly. (Unfortunately, the rate of withdrawal is increasing and the entire glacier will probably disappear in our lifetimes.) The glacier is now 19km further back from Gangotri.
So this was the plan. Even though I had nothing more than light hiking shoes, a T-shirt, a thin short-sleeve thermal, and a thin summer hoodie ... we were going to make the hike to the glacier. Not the brightest plan I've ever hatched, but those that know me really well know that I prefer adventure over premeditation.
(Or, to quote Buffy: "Don't you ever get tired of fights you know you're going to win?" Which leads peripherally into an interesting talk on TED.)
We set forth the following day for the glacier -- leaving around noon. The plan was to walk 14km the first day to a government outpost (Bhojbasa) that had tents for hire, and then to hike the remaining 24km (out to the glacier and all the way back to Gangotri) the next day. The environment was very harsh. During the day, we were sweating and had to take off our shirts to cover our heads from the sun. When the sun crested behind the mountain tops, the temperature dropped rapidly down toward freezing. I gained a new appreciation for those crazy fuckers that try to climb Mount Everest. Namely, they are totally bonkers.
The views were spectacular. We stood at 10 000 to 11 000 feet. Mountains rose up on either side of us -- snow-capped, majestic and huge. Blue mountain goats crossed our path. Small streams trickled down the mountain sides. And in the valley, a very thin and cold Ganges flowed.
We arrived in Bhojbasa after the sun had disappeared behind the mountains and just about at sunset. It was dark. It was cold. We were hungry. And for those that are curious, Bhojbasa is a dive. After a rather unsatisfying meal, we turned in.
Unfortunately, the evening did not go entirely well. Even though I was in bed for 10 hours, I only slept maybe 4. In the middle of the night, Deep fell to the influence of rapid elevation change, harsh hiking conditions and bad food. He was sick. I don't think I've ever heard someone sick with such ... vigour. I kind of wish I'd gotten out of bed when I heard him get up, just so I could have witnessed the distance he managed to get with his projectile vomiting.
By morning, we were all tired and a bit cold. Deep was too ill to carry on, and spent an hour or two at the camp before starting a slow walk back to Gangotri. Ram and I pushed on to the glacier, with hopes that we would catch up to Deep on the way back.
We hiked. We hiked fast, and we hiked hard. This was largely to stay warm, but it had its benefits. We were the first people to arrive at the mouth of the glacier that morning. We walked right up to the mouth. We took water from the source. I grabbed a few stones. And we turned to head back just as the sun was coming up over the mountain tops. It was another bright and hot day ahead of us.
We did catch up with Deep. He was much better after having a little time to take it easy. We got back to Gangotri, and slept very, very soundly.
*****
India, Rishikesh
The trip out of the Himalayas was hair-raising at times. For part of the journey, we had a suicidal driver who was enjoying the fact that the roads were mostly downhill. There was a moment -- not long into the trip -- when the thought occurred to me: "I am going to die today, and that's okay." Needless to say my acceptance of fate was not tested that day, but it definitely ranks up there as one of my more exciting car rides.
Rishikesh is ... well ... awesome. Not in the grand majesty kind of way. Not in the deep divine inspiration kind of way. Rishikesh is a place one could relax and write a novel ... or two. Here I'm talking about the spiritual part stretching between two "pedestrian" bridges.
The spiritual part doubles as the tourist part. Maybe this is a good time to explain that tourism in India is spirituality, and vice versa. They are one and the same. So, all these spots I went were pilgrimage sites. But they are also tourist traps. Except the souvenirs are malas and idols. So when I say the spiritual part of Rishikesh, I really do mean the tourist part. A big mix of white folk (foreigners) and natives on pilgrimage.
It seemed to me as though some foreigners had set themselves up to spend the rest of their lives there in Rishikesh. I had that thought too. I even did the pricing. The hotel I stayed in was essentially a one bedroom apartment -- kitchen, living room, balcony, bedroom, bathroom, and a small dressing area. It was within a five minute walk of a beach along the Ganges. It was a short walk from two major ashrams. For one whole year, it would have cost me a little more than USD3000. Making a hotel in Rishikesh about one-sixth the price of a smaller and less luxurious apartment in San Francisco. This has been filed away in my brain as "good to know". I'm hoping this file will be opened again in the future....
One of these two major ashrams is the Divine Life Society. The home -- the baby -- of Swami Sivananda. The guy who taught the guy who taught the people who taught me. It's old and it's huge. It's interesting to wander around a place overrun with swamis. In the west, ashrams tend to only have one or two swamis at any given time (except for special events). During satsang, there was a sea of orange filling the front rows. Driving drums and bells and harmonium and singing and clapping and a hundred or two of my closest aspirants partying it up -- yoga style.
(By the way, "pedestrian" bridge in Hindi means "bridge on which pedestrians may try to pass, while being assosted by beggars and nearly run down by bicycles and motorcycles".)
*****
India, Delhi
Delhi is a shit hole. There are no two ways about it. Don't go there. Spend as little time there as possible. Everyone is out to rip you off. Things are expensive. The vegetarianism of Uttarkashi is largely abandoned. It's the fusion of the worst of western culture and the worst of Indian culture. I ate at Pizza Hut and Baskin Robbins. Let us not speak of this place again.
The one upside was the hotel we stayed at gave us the choice of a room with a circular bed ... or a room with a heart-shaped bed. (Awesome!) We went for the circular bed because it had a bathtub in it. Well, so we thought. A bathtub with no stopper for the drain. Not to be deterred, we invented many fascinating mechanisms for stoppering the tub (heel works best, but requires concentration) only to discover that the tub leaks.
And there it is folks. The worst of two cultures. Delhi tries to make things with the western veneer of consumerist luxury, but does so with substandard goods. We had a bag of chips, for whatever reason. Inside alongside the chips was a strand of human hair. A sterile bag with hair inside. We laughed so hard that it felt like we would never stop.
*****
The Journey Home
Well, the trip home become my new longest single trip in the air. From Delhi, I flew all the way to Newark in one jaunt. 14h20m in the air.
Immigration was interesting. I was really nervous about my visa. It was my first time processing a TN extension, and I was worried because I had left most of the extraneous supporting documentation in San Francisco. If the immigration official wanted to see all the paperwork, I was out of luck. So when I got to the front of the line, and he asked me a question I didn't quite make out, I was immediately nervous.
"What?" I asked.
"Google's stock tanked," he said with a smirk.
"Huhn. I'm sure it will come back up," I replied trying to smile and be friendly.
You see, during this trip I had not checked the news once. Total radio silence. Complete seclusion from my normal worldly affairs. On returning to my apartment, I found out that all my investments had tanked. That the whole stock market had tanked. Later that afternoon, a friend told me my bank didn't exist anymore.
And you know what the best part was? I didn't care. And that's what a vacation is for....
Labels: india
posted by desudation at 11:01 PM
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