Varanasi Christmas

Checking into the very obvious guide book favourite was the right move for Christmas, lots of travellers have come together here and on Christmas Eve about ten of us had a party and created a Varanassi Christmas ritual. We built a focal point using a set of Russian dolls painted as Santa, and anyting sparkly we could find, in the middle of this we placed a little wooden candle stand that said "merry christmas" in German, which Sara's aunty had given her to bring out for Christmas. Our ritual was to each light the four birthday candles in the stand, blow them out quickly and make a wish. The wish I made that was nobody would get sick though our celebrations; apart from the effects of the 8% Kingfisher beer, everyone I have seen today has been alright, wonderfully the South African guy in the room nextdoor who has been ill for two days is also better and smiling again!

Christmas day has been a really relaxed affair, I wondered the Ghats with Julian from Essex who has been cycling around the world for over a year. It was really relaxing to just wander the full length of the Ghats, stand in awe, take photos and chat in lazy English knowing you would still be understood! We are staying at the North end of the city and at the southern end we stopped for Pizza under a Christmas tree, I went all out and had extra cheese, it was delicious although the beer last night followed by the pizza today has bloated me to excess and its a bit uncomfortable! In fact that could also be because I have eaten 3 times today and we are probably going to eat again later once a few of us have been to the train station to get our onward journeys arranged. Varanassi has served up probably my most enjoyable day in India so far, so a fitting Christmas day far far away.

I feel Happy!

Sarnath

The third and final of my buddhist pilgrimages was a wonderful day trip from Varanassi and a great way to spend Christmas eve. Buddha's first serman after he was enlightened was conducted in the ancient grounds excavated by the British at Sarnarth which I think pre-tourism woudl have been a gentle little village on the edge of the chronically maniacal city of Varanassi.

The undoubted highlight was my sitting meditation under a tree at the approximate spot of the first sermon, as my companion for the day and I sat ourselves down, a group of thai monks and the group of Thai nuns and women with them began a chant, which honed my personal definition of the word "enchanting". It was fabulous and they loved the fact that we we were doing sitting meditation to their chant, they even asked if we wanted to join them for more walking chants around the area, we had some lovely conversations but declined as I would never have been able to do the chants without some kind of advance training and memorisation.NB: The crest of India is a pillar with four lions on the head of it facing in each direction.  The Lion Capital as it is known was found here in Sarnarth and I went to see it in a museum but you have to put your camera in a locker to be allowed in ...so nothing to show!

Burning

Tonight I had my first view of the ritual burning of the dead on the Varanssi ghats.

There were 22 bodies and family groups in sight during the time we were standing there at just one ghat at 8.30 in the evening. There are ghats (broad stairways littered with temples) all along Varanassi's banks down to the Ganges where it is a great honour to be cremated.

I have just walked amongst families weighing dried wood on giant scales to buy and build a pire for their loved-one and then watched as others made final preparations by having the body placed upon the pire and adorning it with gifts of biscuits and sweet smelling spices and foods. The bodies are shrouded in white silk which when a pire is lit, burns very quickly revealing the body beneath. 

There were a few macabre silhouettes but fundamentally I was not revolted, afraid or especially moved. My companion who has been here before felt great compassion for the grieving families but I struggled with this as they (99% male) seemed as emotionless as the men standing in the aisle of the bus, some were on their mobile phones and one even took a photo of his loved one's lifeless face before the pire was lit. I am not sure what to make of it other than my regular pragmatism which says that this is just what they do here. I'll go back tomorrow and see if things change ...happy Christmas folks.

From Bodhgaya with Love

I was truly excited about coming here, I thought I would find a vipassana retreat and retreat amidst the energy of the place where Buddha found enlightenment.  I did find a retreat but then it was cancelled, I was not too upset because it was a bit of a "starve yourself until Christmas" kind of retreat which did not sound that ideal anyway. Most people here have been starving themselves because they are or have been really ill. As a result, and having visited buddhist temples from every budhist nation, I am now skipping the Dalai Lama's teachings which would require me to stay until new year and I am shipping out to Varanassi for Christmas...

The Tibetan Temple in Bodhgaya was stunning!

Smokey Bhodi Tree Blues

I went down to the main street (daderdada)

it was foggy with soot. (put...put)

I knew that my soul needed saving (daderdada)

but I didn't find much.

For I was coughing and sneezing and watching my guts

shirking from breathing and living on nuts

My meditation was going so swell

I realised the buddha had chose this place well

oh bodhi,

bodhi tree-ee

Expectant...

I feel surreal; light joy and gentle bewilderment with a satisfied hunger as I lie on my bed in this shimmeringly clean space (Rahaul Guesthouse) where I have set down my bags this evening. Despite getting my opportunity to walk Bihar's sandy tracks at entirely the the wrong time in entirely the wrong direction and with both backpacks, I eventually found Bodhgaya. Tibetans and monks ooze like saffron blood through the smokey streets here, and it feels supremely safe. I never like an arrival in darkness especially when you're disembarked alone from a bus at the opposite end of town to where sense and guidebooks suggest you will land, however, I feel secure here so its a wonder that I have left a fabulous tented restaurant full of interesting looking travellers and returned to my room at only 8pm, but I just feel odd. I have an expectant feeling that I want to let evolve and I think I will need an early start to allow that to happen. Already I do not want to talk to the fellow travellers but I feel that they want to leave me alone too, maybe I am just overwhelmed at so many people having been so remote these last few days, or lonely, or tired or maybe this is where I start to get to grips with myself...

President Hotel, Patna, Bihar

I am filled with a 1960s sense of journalistic adventure. The President is rather grand, I fell asleep to a saxophone playing outside with an indian band, when I woke this morning a copy of "The Times of India" was posted under my door - in full and glorious English, a uniformed room waller just delivered my chai and announced in beautiful English that "your tea is complimentary ma'am" ...and I should hope so too at seventeen of my English pounds per night. To bring perspective in, I have been paying up to 650 rupees but largely 350-500 rupees per night and this room was 1200 rupees with a stonking Biharian tax of 15.2% on top!

I came to be here having travelled for 13 hours by bus, second class train, tempo and rather too much walking from Kushinagar, the somewhat indian-tourist-spoiled (moving and well preserved historical sights excepted) village where Buddha gave his last sermon, left his body at 80 years old and was cremated.

Patna is not listed as a place anyone would want to stay in for any length of time and there are good reasons for this, 99% of the hotels do not accept foreigners, 80% of those that do are prohibitively expensive (c. £50), 50% of those that are affordable are dirty brothelesque pits and that leaves the tiny few that, lo and behold the lonely planet had already singled out as being the right places to stay. Unfortunately for my gorgeous companions from Barcelona and I, we did not go directly to the President Hotel from the guide book and decided to see for ourselves so we deduced these facts on Patna's accomodation ourselves whilst carrying half our bodyweight in backpacks, with our heads draped in scarves and blankets as we tried helplessly to melt our snail silohuettes into the frenetic evening crush-hour.

The boys settled on the hotel beyond the President where they secured a room for 200 rupees less than me, however, I am safe, very clean thanks to hot water quite literally by the bucket load (no shower) and for the first time since leaving home I have that ambient central heating warmth throughout my whole body. This said, I have decided to sit in my room this morning and revel in hot chai and a noisy electric heater as I write.

Bihar is India's most flood-prone state, it is also one of its poorest which is why it seems so ironic that its capital is the most expensive place for a visitor to stay. We entered Bihar by train from Gorakhpur and it was as misty and cold as Uttar Pradesh had been for the last few days, however, the area around Sonepur which the train gently rolled through on its approach to the Ganges was undoubtedly the most beautiful slice of India that I have seen on this trip. Tall palms and small oak shaped trees reflected themselves in irrigation pools and tickled the dusty paths that wound between endless small and varied crop fields. Ladies in bright saris bent in harvest fervour in the fields, men in turbans and dhoti (a sarong with the back tucked in at the front middle) turned earth with hoe-like tools and occasionally groups of people wandered or bicycled slowly along the tracks. Peaceful rural India, oh how we longed to get off the train and just wander those tracks.

After around 5 hours, our "super-fast" train (it said so on the ticket) arrived at Hajipur on the northern bank of the Ganges from where we took a tempo to Patna on the south side. Due to the propensity this area has for flooding, the bridge/causeway over the Ganges is collosal. The 5 Indian men who had the misfortune of sitting in a tempo (smaller than a Vikram but larger than an Auto with a logical seating plan for 6 small people) with 3 europeans AND their 6 backpacks eventually came to an agreement that it was actually 5.9km long and not 6km which had been winning the argument for much of the journey. All told they were justifiably proud of this lifeline and delighted that we were so excited by it too. And I was, it was my first view of the famous Ganges and we cruised high above it as the sun was leaving the mist to another cold night, reflections from the southern bank danced over the water and drivers threw garlands of flowers from their vehicles in acts of devotion with the intention of them dropping into its sacred waters. It was a magical few miles over this gigantic river system but it remains uncaptured because whilst my eyes feasted on this evening treat, my body was crushed under two rucksacks, between two passengers and I had completely lost the feeling in my left foot. The idea of trying to extract my camera with my free arm which had a range of about 45 degrees in one plane was proposterous and it was like this that we left the magic behind and entered Patna.

10 Rupees

A white foot hanging from an upper berth in the corridor of my sleeper train from Delhi is all I have seen of the west for more than 24hours. The last time this happened I was visiting my grandad's childhood home in central China in 1999 and the wonderment of my day rings true with that time. I will let the pictures tell of where I have been save to say that Ayodhya is the birthplace of Rama who was saved by Hanuman the monkey god and to that end, the Monkeys pretty much rule here.

I have begun to meet the indian people, especially women and their warmth strikes me. They are so keen to talk once they have seen a smile. I left the train with a woman of my age visiting her parents for the weekend. She kindly negotiated my cycle rickshaw for me, a mere 10 rupees which would certainly have been 40 in Delhi! She had a cousin in Southampton, interestingly the lady I nearly missed my train with (too busy chatting) had a cousin in Bournmouth ...it seems not only the elderly frequent Englands south coast resorts!

I took my first Vikram today, a Vikram is a large Autorickshaw with an open side leading to two facing benches for perhaps 3 small people. We had 11 in ours by the end of our 7km run although 3 of these were in the front with the driver where another few could easily have squeezed in. Essentially Vickrams do what Songthaws in Thailand and Jeepneys in the Phillipines do, which is ply a route picking-up and dropping-off on demand. The prices are cheap and fixed, I did almost the whole route for just 10 rupees!

Feeling hungry and frankly afraid of food, I returned to my tried and tested hunting technique for use in places where something sensible is simply not there. I cruised slowly through the food carts of Ayodhya in two sweeps, first sweep was to log where the locals were placing their bets. Sweep two, all the better for 6 years in the UK Food manufacturing industry, was a brief hygiene audit of the carts themselves and their operatives. After a short period of analysis and some deep breaths because the immodium was 7km away, I found myself with a 4 inch plate of veg noodles (noodles - yes I thought that too but I am quite near Nepal?) a plastic fork, a healthy number of fellow eaters and a chef who even chased the monkeys away while his clientelle devoured his work ...all for 10 rupees!

On my return from Ayodhya to Faisabad I visited a "cyber cafe". It was not 10 rupees or a cafe but it whiled away some time between the power going in the hotel and the internet going in the "cyber shop". Daylight was fading as I left and a hoard of street vendors were gathering at the junction. The warm smells and hussle around their carts drew me in and now here I am, in my enormous bedroom, monkeys screaming on the balcony, pot of black tea, Jimi Hendrix on my speaker to drown the monkeys, and a heap of warmed peanuts in shells which cost all of 10 rupees!

Delly's Belly leaving Delhi

During the night I felt a familiar tenderising of gut and for what could have been an hour my mind flitted between all too vivid multi-sensory memories of the train's toilet and concerted efforts to pretend I was not really feeling any form of liquification within. These agonising moments were punctuated by paranoia that the baby below me would start to scream on top of Uncle's monumental snores in the next upper birth. Then I had a vision, a vision of a lady stepping gracefully out into a non descript European city with a face of sublime peace. This was not the look of enlightenment, nor that of an awakened mind, but the look of relief that immodium can bring ...and like a flash the strapline of that very advert came to me, "almost instant relief". I thanked my lucky stars that I read those magazines at the hairdressers and resolved the problem from my medicine pack ...almost instantly!!

Note on a note

...today I saw a goat in a coat!

Children of the Street - Salaam Baalak Trust

Iqbal's father used to beat his family, his mother left with his sister and he and his brothers were soon abandoned in the street by their abusive father. Iqbal was 5 years old and spent the next 12 months fending for himself on the harsh Delhi streets. Before he was 6 he had been subjected to enforced back-street factory work, sleeping rough, had a hospitalising accident and had suffered innumerable health and welfare injustices. On Friday 16th December I had the pleasure of taking a walking tour through the New Delhi Station and the backstreets of Parharganj with Iqbal who is now 19, speaks superb English, hopes to be a software developer (with lofty Microsoft ideals!) and who was one of the most engaging young men of his age I have ever met anywhere in the world.

Iqbal's charm, new lease of life and his private education were thanks to two charitable organisations, one of which is the Salaam Baalek Trust. Salaam Baalek losely means Saluting The Children, which captures beautifully how this organisation works based upon respect for the true needs of these vulnerable little people. Boys on Delhi's streets endure a violet and risk littered life, however, they do typically earn an average of 200 rupees per day through recycling litter, pick pocketing or washing chai cups. Because they will be robbed if they keep hold of teh money and becasue the life is so relentless, they spend the moeny every day, more often than not on solvents and video games. I was especially appaulled by the oblivious arrogance on the faces of the men who sit at huge weighing scales in the shops which buy the recycled materials from the boys. I was fairly convinced too that they had a stake in the video game booths opposite or beside these shops ...what is given with one hand is taken away by the other.

Salaam Baalek Trust has numerous contact points around the city, one of which is in the heart of the railway station where possibly hundreds of boys sleep. These centres offer health and hygiene support as well as a safe environment for the children to report and deal with any harm they have suffered at the hands of police or others. Another role they play is to trace parents and re-home runaways, often with financial support to help parents to keep them and educate them if that is why they ended up on the street. For the boys who are already established on the street, these centres are there to encourage a CHOICE to leave the street and go into a residental centre. "Encouragement" in mind, one afternoon a week the contact centres play back-to-back films as a taster of the fact that when education is over, the kids in the homes get to watch TV and films together! I visited the station contact centre at one of these times and sat with the boys practicing my Hindi - although Iqbal had given us a crash course in how to ask someone's name before we went in!! I was struck by the smell, boys to me smell of fresh air or maybe damp earth but these boys smelt like the Delhi streets which hung in dank film on their skin. My heart went out to each of them as they sat on a blanket, reasssuringly boyish with their eyes fixed on the TV screen!

The enduring image of the day for me, however, was of the beautiful wide and scared eyes of a little girl in the contact centre office which locked on to mine as Iqbal casually explained that the two girls were "new-in today ...just found". You will have noticed that in my account so far I have not mentioned girls and that is because, as is always the case in India, girls are different. Workers for various charities scour the streets for lone girls because so too do darker forces. Within 48 hours of hitting the streets, a girl (unless her parents also live on the streets) will have been taken and put to work in a brothel of sorts where they would typically have to cope with 10-15 "customers" a day.

...now Iqbal had already informed us of this gut wrenching fact when I stepped into that office so the paralysis I sustained during those moments of eye-contact was overwhelming. I almost found myself speaking out loud to myself, telling myself "its OK Adele, these two are safe" but I couldn't take my mind away from the fact that the line is so fine and that every day, some will be saved from that hiddeous fate, and some will not, nor from the fact that Delhi is one city, in one country and this is happening all over this world we are supposed to share and take care of.

Salaam Baalek run two large homes for girls in the leafy suburbs of Delhi where they are given total safety, an education, and are encouraged to have ambition against all the odds. Like the boys home that I later visited, the girls receive counselling and have a busy schedule which I was delighted to read includes a session of meditation or yoga every morning after the "freshen" session! The key difference between the boys and the girls was that for the girls there really was no choice to stay on the streets once found, however, any child can still chose to leave the homes if they like, this way Saalam Baalek maintains the children's trust and continutes to Salute them.

Delly in Delhi with Delhi-Belly

I can only think that it is good to be ill so quickly after arriving because it will help me build a stronger Indian constitution. I spent the night being violently sick and the small hours losing whatever was left the other way. I was so thirsty it was awful because I threw up everything I tried to drink. By 9am I was sucking haribo to try and get sugar inisde me and I have been in bed all day. A very kind fellow traveller brought me bananas and Guava juice which I have now managed to keep down so this afternoon its all feeling much better.

Over 2300 people are added to Delhi's streets everyday, and with a population equivalent to 21% of the UK's total population, its no wonder that this mega city is a breeding ground for super-strong bugs. So yes, this must be good for me, depite feelng awful and the non-stop noise and pollution pervading every orrifice, this is actually a great opportunity for my immune system ...lucky me!!

Delhi by bike ...a note

Orange Bikes, white boat

Jet-lag, sore throat

Wool Hat, warm coat

Red Fort, dry moat

Pony trap, tied goat

loud horns, one note

Delhi by cycle ..and boat

...jetlag and a continuing sore throat made hauling myself out of Delhi's pre-dawn quiet (yes, its does go quiet eventually!) into a test of my will, but newly restored my will won the day. At 0610 I haggled a decent deal with a previously sleeping auto driver and was soon speeding through the sleep-deadened streets. Cold air forced its way into my jacket but I was able to breathe the pre-putrified air which hung only with dust ahead of its daily dose of molecular carbon.

Upon arrival at our meeting place we were given orange bikes (I love the Dutch!) and were briefed on the morning's ride, essentially we were to stay in single file and use the bell "generously". Within two minutes the group was bisected by a reversing minivan with no mirrors but by 1030 reversing minivans were small fry. Being a part of the phenomena that is Delhi's Traffic was a joy, I felt not a moment's stress but had I been watching my heart would have been in my mouth. As long as you stay alert and in the moment (which once again I had just been schooled in on my Devon retreat) then you just keep flowing with it. Horns and bells within the throng serve valuable purpose because 6 lanes of traffic, are after all, operating in close proximity within the three marked lanes!

Thankfully most of our ride was in the gloriously medieval narrow lanes of Old Delhi where ponies, sacred cows, sheep and goats meander with an ear for the nearest bell or horn. We cruised gently through alley ways of traditional nighbourhoods as people and dogs rose from their beds (some inside and some on the streets themselves) and began to soap themselves, pray, urinate, teeth clean, excrete, warm themselves on fires, cook and set up shop for the day. Down at the ghats life was also stirring; children in smart uniforms carried out their ablutions with cheeky smiles and men gazed out over the hazy river scene as sleep left their bodies. If it was not for the overwhelming stench of the long-dead Yamuna river this could have been confused with a scene from the Keralan backwaters. Early morning Delhi was marvellous indeed, the gigantic Red Fort and the monumental Jama Masjid in early light were spectacular and so the cliche lives, this is a place of great contrast where life is raw, splendid, filthy, religious, rich, deprived and delicious ...and I am captivated by it.

Delly in Delhi

Well here I am! I've had no sleep really for about 3 days until this morning when I arrived in the noisiest city on earth and promptly slept through the city's cocophony and the builders replastering the hotel staircase.  The gluey stench of the chemical mixing outside my door, the almost continual ring of car and autorickshaw horns, the unstifled hum of human life and the doves on my window sill tried to lure me out but alas they failed until I had had a good 3 hours sleep in a bed!

The flight was good although I did have reason to remember that Qatar is really not as good as Emirates.  The hotel sent a boy to meet my flight (a very big travel concession for me but it is day 1) I think he just goes and agets people all day but it was great and it gave me chance to admire the pillars outside the arrival hall (see below) instead of fending off wannabe drivers ...a good concession!

I have an indian SIM in my phone, some rupees in my pocket, I have bought a banana and done a lot of walking around.  I have been struck by how useful living in a house of 50 people you don't speak to for a few days is upon arrival in Delhi.  My ability to exist without eye contact seems to be fending off those who wish to sell me something, require a donation or would simply like to accompany me for a while and inevitably (I guess) take me to a shop where they get commission!!

I have booked a cycling tour of Old Delhi at 0630 tomorrow and until then I plan to eat and rest

I'm here ...its amazing what can happen in a month!

...quite a flat meadow actually

On Wednesday I reached my open meadow ...my last day at work.

I had ached for this day in recent weeks (note agonising poetry) and yet when it arrived I was full of sadness.  I had worked there for 5 years and 8 months.  It had been my constant companion, my place of professional growth, my primary focus and my network.  It had accompanied me through marriage, divorce and emotional turmoil yet I never until recently considered that it could have been the insidious creator of the later two.

The goodbyes were tough, even the emailing of them was a pull on my heart, but that same heart was lifted by the kind replies I received in those closing hours.

Mixed emotion was a sleep depriving demon inside me and at 0130 I got up.  I cannot recall what I did but I went back to bed at about 0430 and slept for 1.5 hours before leaving the compost in the sink, the computer switched on and a house that looked like it had been burgled.

...but leave it for a better place I did.

5 silent days of Buddhist meditation retreat in glorious Devon countryside

I was there!!