The Pleasures of Vipassana (days 6-11)

The Dhamma Setu Pagoda

Day 6

The Vipassana technique was taking shape, we were using our newly focused minds to observe sensation at the atomic level all over our bodies. We had become acutely (and painfully!) aware of sensation within our bodies to a point where we had begun to feel the vibrations of the very atoms of which we are made as they constantly shift and change. It was at times blissful and I will be bold enough to admit that, yes, it was especially pleasant on certain parts of the body! I even laughed my head off and cried with joy when eventually the laxatives kicked in!! Mr Goenka, however, was ensuring that we were at all times equanamous and that no craving or aversion should arise for any type of sensation because all sensations be they painful or pleasant have "the same characteristics of arising and then falling away" ..."nothing is permanent" ..."this is the simple law of nature ...Anicca ...Anicca ...Anicca (Pali). I found myself treating my butterflies to renditions in my head of the gentle morning chants between sittings. Occasionally though, vivid, obscure and often forgotten scenes representing things like me being unforgiving, my letting myself down, my being unwilling, my doing less than I could and me being angry were projected onto the wings of resting butterflies. My life's miseries. MY misery, MY VERY OWN SELF MADE MISERY. Mr Goenka was right!


Day 7

Draw a line in water and it disappears immediately. Draw a line in sand and it disappears some time later. Draw a line in rock and it takes much much longer to disappear. As is the way with the things that scar our subconscious which I had begun to witness in the visions. It was these mental scars of varying depth ("Sankaras" in Pali) which the technique had begun to free from where they had been subconsciously residing in our bodies. Sometimes Sankaras manifest as significant pain (ie as psychosomatic illnesses), sometimes as the little niggles that we all have but which don't really effect us, sometimes as something in between. Most of the time, even when we understand their existence, we don't even know that they're there apart from the odd weird dream where they might surface briefly. We were working towards freeing ourselves of these deep rooted scars and I was entirely bought in to the teaching by now. And why not? After all I had seen so many of my own deeply personal Sankaras being shaken out of position and had become quite miraculously pain free. In every session I worked "diligently" as Mr Goenka asked us to with textbook "equanimity" sat like a statue without even using the back of the chair. By the evening sitting I tried my first free flow ...oh yeah baby that tested my equanimity!


Day 8

The Female Cell Block

From the moments where I was unable to be 100% equanimous I can safely report that free flow Vipassana meditation, is exquisitely beautiful at a sensual level but I must be clear I don't mean that in a sexual sense despite there being some orgasmic comparisons to be made! In every sitting I was preparing for and carrying out about 6-8 free flows lasting 2-4 minutes each. In essence I had gained such control over my mind that once I had observed (but I like to think of it as awoken) all of the sensations that bind me together, I could push my awareness as a field of energy through my entire body in any direction with the energy basically surfing the atomic vibrations as it went. A sign went up allocating us "new students" to a cell in the pagoda. We were treated to two sittings in the pagoda, where I resumed my practise on the floor. The pagoda is beautiful and full of individual chambers which allow meditators to access the "Tibetan monk in a cave" principle the isolation ...the free flows were intense in there to the point of being exhausting.

Day 9

Back in the meditation hall, free flows were set off in new planes, left to right, front to back it was like being your very own MRI scanner. If there was a blind area or any arising pain (Sankaras were really being riddled out by now) which blocked the flow, then I just had to focus on that spot for a while after the flow and mentally massage them out ...they didn't just scuttle off, I am still working on some now, but they get looser and looser and eventually disappear with a cleansing free flow. I worked hard to remain in a meditative state between sittings, walking with one foot in the sun, one in the shade feeling the hot and the cool, remaining equanimous to all sensations I was observing as they arose and drifted away. And so the day passed, in sublime, deep and focused meditation. I equanimously accepted that we did not get to go back in the pagoda (...or maybe I was a little bit gutted). When I eventually crawled under my mosquito net, my body was an iron statue on a magnet bed and I needed ten minutes to muster the strength to get off and under my sheet.

"Noble Chatting"

Day 10

I was showered by 4.20am and in the hall early, eager to maximise my practise whilst still in Silence. At 10am the silence was lifted and a day of what the lovely and wonderful Mr Goenkaji termed "noble chatting" ensued. We still had group sittings though including a great session of loving kindness meditation to share our new found peace, love and compassion with the living world. We watched a film showing the other gorgeous centres Mr Goenka has established for meditation study and practise around the world before watching his formal address at a UN Spiritual Leaders convention on why it is was more important to help everyone in the world to be happy than to convert them to sectarian religion - it was very well received by the leaders of those religions and all of us as we blissfully relaxed our spines and smiled at those with whom we had shared our journeys and who were fast becoming new found friends. The old Tamil ladies and I held hands and smiled so deeply that it brought tears to our eyes, we knew we still couldn't speak to each other but we had shared so much. The Indians and westerners just let rip on the conversation front, there was so much laughter and a good few fondly sarcastic comments about chanting, working "diligently" and Anicca ...Anicca ..Aniccaaaaaaaaa"

Day 11

Having stayed up talking far too late 4am should have been a tough start but it wasn't and we all made the hall on time for our last couple of hours of Vipassana and loving Kindness practise. After breakfast everyone began to pack and head off in different directions a few of us to Pondicherry...

Postscript

I am sat by the sea now on a balcony in Pondy and I have been practising with Linda from Sweden, a fellow vipassana "inmate" for at least 2 hours a day for the 3 days since we finished. I feel exactly like a freshly laundered me. I have not changed, gone mad or become half-dove. I do not feel the need to sprinkle petals or give offerings to statues but I have been moved spiritually and cleansed but only by nature and its very very good. It seems a grave understatement to say that a weight has been lifted because I couldn't have told anyone exactly what that weight was before this or have known what many presumed forgotten parts that weight consisted of. The technique is shatteringly scientific and needs no form of blind faith or doctrine so the only thing you can actually rebel against is yourself and that is well explained throughout the course even though it was incredibly hard to take their word for that until you realised it ...for yourself.

I can safely say that despite days 1-5, the worst thing about the whole experience was actually just the mosquitoes which revelled in the whole lack of killing that pervades the meditation centre!

...and the butterflies? ...Equanimity set those free days ago.

Me and some of my Dhamma Setu "Fellow Inmates"

The Pain of Vipassana (Days 1-5)

"Well Well Well"" in all senses of the phrase!

What I just experienced was not a retreat as  lead you to believe, a retreat is gentle and uplifting, blissful even.  What this was, as clearly stated in its literature, an intensive course in vipassana meditation, a technique capeable of purifying the mind. The literature also talks about "surrendering" yourself to the teachings for ten days and becoming your own master thereafter. So I was forewarned ...but nothing could have forarmed me for what was to come and I am probably a bit too freshly removed to provide a truly balanced account so I will provide a factual breakdown of my various states as the course progressed

Day 0

We took five precepts which required us to chant in Pali (the ancient indian language that Buddha used) to agree to abstain from Killing, Stealing, All Sexual Activities, Telling Lies, All Intoxicants.

I realised that there were actually 12 days on this 10 day course but sat through the evening sessions changing position regularly.

Day 1

I sat and was mosquito eaten through the morning sessions which included a lot of tape-recorded pali chanting by Mr Goenka our tape-recorded teacher. I was supposed to be focussing on my breathing but my brain was a sack of restless butterflies, the chanting was a torturous durge and my back began to hurt. On some explaining about the metal reinforcements throughout my lower back, I was granted permission by the teacher to use a low platform with a backrest where you put your big flat sitting cushion and keep your position in the meditation hall. I felt shamed for caving in so soon and it didn't help anyway because the pain escalated. By the Discourse (a DVD of Mr Goenka comforting us on what he knew had been a tough day, giving us helpful tips and actually being very lovely) I was writhing in back-tension agony, wondering if I was supposed to be feeling serene or even just OK. Sleep came upon me like a ton of bricks.

Day 2

Was quite simply day one with the added misery of knowing what to expect, the Discourse opened with Mr Goenka saying that at least it was not as bad as Day 1! I shook my head, then hung it in shame as that was communication and I was not supposed to be communicating and my misery escalated a fraction more. I wished I had not given the management all of my valuables and agreed to stay for ten days. I thought a lot about prison, being a prisoner and what concentration camps must have felt like as I walked up and down on the Ladies Walking path which was lined with the beautiful gardens of the meditation centre. It didn't make sense, the place looked so serene when our 35 ladies and 50 gents (firmly segragated) had arrived.  Conspiring paranoid brain butterflies fluttered wings tatooed with lines like "in Thailand even the devil smiles", "Jekyll and Hyde", "luminous snakes are poisonous". I wondered if Hell might have made a better stop on my trip and I ditched my bra, convinced it was trying to restrict my breath and stab my spine.

Day 3

I had spent so long witnessing my breathing it had become second nature despite the pain. The teaching had moved on to spending ten hours a day focussing the mind on a limited area of the body. This was the area from above the upper lip to the nostrils both inside and out. Instructions were played in Hindi, then English then Tamil. Tamil was my playful diversion, I noticed that its Spanuguese-Indian sounds took 1.5 times the amount of time that English took to explain anything whilst Hindi took only slightly longer than English to expalin anything in. I wished the Hindi took longer, it sounded lovely in Mr Goenka's soothing tones, I escaped from the burning heart of Mordor when these Elvish tones blessed my ears. The concious relevance of the English language brought me sharply into the room and the soothingly delivered instructions were light relief. The odd subversive tattooed butterfly fluttered its wings when I warmed to Mr Goenka. During the evening group sitting (we were not allowed to step outside and walk during these 3x daily sessions from Day 0) my top lip began to sweat. I was so focussed upon it, I sensed every minute aspect of that pearl of perspiration's generation, it was a moment of personal glory. All of the butterflies were still.

Hells Bells

Day 4

Burning moth-ridden brain, incarcerated in hell. Signs went up saying that nobody was to change postion during the group sittings. My anti-dogma fuse blew as I felt a suffer-litttle-children-but-I-will-redeem-you vibe coming on, this was meant to be non-sectarian meditation not dictation. Rat moth butterflies with chronic torrets and fangs fought fiercely. One of the "phrases of the day" which were found on the notice board included the words "burn, burn". A kind note from Mr Goenka said that the idea was not to torture yourself. The teacher told me the pain would go. There was talk about purification being painful, why the hell did I seek this purification? Why the hell was I here? Those winged vampire creatures in my head forced visions of my worst moments of self and experience into my mind. I didn't want reminding, these things were random, deep, buried, moved on from, once noteworthy, irrelevant and forgotten. I was in the pit of my most depressive times with hot oil being poured onto me. I ransacked my backpack and reached out a craving hand to codiene for pain relief and and laxative for something to taste (amongst other reasons!). The codeine absolutely pasted me. Given the light, simple diet and deep mind surgery that was going on it was a truly narcotic experience...thank god I only took it during the discourse ...which was something about me creating my own misery.

Day 5

At least Day 4 was over. Having realised that taking codiene was probably against the intoxicant rules I saw the teacher who was not actually demonic and kindly talked about how a good body was just as important to the art of living as a good mind. I was moved to a simple chair and cushion at the back of the meditation hall with the old Tamil ladies. The teaching had moved from preparation to Vipassana meditation and milky white and turquoise butterflies occasionally danced from flower to flower.

Posh Curries and Ranting in Andra Pradesh

In the highlights section for each Indian state, the Lonely Planet reccomends its top five places to eat. This is the third night in a row that I have eaten in one of them. When you have no company, the place that you eat becomes of much greater importance and I can only salute the best places to eat in Andra Pradesh as they beat the sightseeing handsdown!

In both restaurants I have been hanging out in I have been able to drink beer from a glass, something that I have done rather more to celebrate that I can than because I actually wanted a beer, but it feels nice to be a westerner sometimes! Sandy Lane Restaurant in Vishakapatnam was at the opposite end of the long promenade from where I was staying so eating there gave my evening stroll delightful purpose and for the first time in India I had fish! For the record I am not eating meat and I vowed not to eat fish until I reached the coast because Mother India's waterways, despite looking all majestic and being called things as evocative as Ganges and Krishna ...are plain grim!


Sunset Blogging at Lotus Food City

"Lotus Food City" in Vijayawada is another gem of a restaurant which does a mean cashew and tomato curry. Excellent service is administered to tables set outdoors on platforms beside the vast, western facing estuary of the Krishna making it sunset dining heaven. It fails miserably on the name front and it almost put me off yesterday, however, it was supposed to be the best ...and I really needed the best after the day I had just had. Not only was I living in the railway station retiring rooms with a lone rat for company but I had also been harrassed to the point of waffling on like a mad woman about "how respectful I am of their culture and couldn't they just extend a bit of respect back".



Sight Seeing Should have been so reflective

I really do do everything I can not to attract unecessary attention. When I go out here, especially to a Hindu temple, I wear Indian clothes (not traveller indianesque outfits but nice respectable tunic, trousers and scarf sets), I even put my bloody hair up with no dangly bits but I still get chased by mobile phone weilding teenage boys and never get to experience the peace that these beautiful places are supposed to be suffuesed with.

Hoardes of young men would never ruin the peace for overseas visitors to Canterbury Cathedral because they have other places to go and be moronic in the west, sadly india's Tourism is still dominated by religious sites so they are rarely the peaceful havens that they should be.

Sight Seeing Should have been so tranquil

On Retreat - Back in February

In an hour I will get a bus out of Chennai to start my 10 day silent meditation retreat (dhamma.org if you're interested in the 4am-9pm schedule!) so this is the last opportunity I have to communicate.

I apologise for the last few blogs having no photos (or spell checking), Chennai internet places will not allow me to connect my laptop and plug in an SD card so you'll just have to wait.  I will be hitting a series of beaches after this which will be well provisioned I am sure.

...stay well my dears! x

Strolling along the Prom Prom Prom

One thing I find myself doing as a blond in India is keeping moving.  If I stop it always ends in a small croud of teeneage/twenty something boys staring and taking it in turns to stand vaguely near me while their friend snaps them on a mobile phone.  I am proably as old as some of their mothers and it is pushes my newly developed sublime patience to the hilt.  As such, Vishakapatnam's 2 mile promenade was perfect for keeping walking and came as sweet relief.  I did the promenade in the early morning before tuk-tukking off to some buddhist hill monastries, at one of which I was harassed by a group of young males so hell-bent on stalking and jeering at me that the guard called the police!  Dejected, I scuttled away but thankfully the second monastry was as peaceful as a pembokeshire dawn and a gentle sea breeze swayed the grass as I dealt with my contempt for the young men at the previous place through meditation!

My evening promenade was marvellous and I felt a part of the fun that everyone was clearly having by simply wandering, eating something, wandering, pausing and wandering some more.  Most of the food stalls that set themselves up for sunset at around 4.30pm had attractively arranged fresh ingredients around a chopping block and huge containers of a kind of puffed rice that I had tried at the Haats in Chattisgarh.  Everyone seemed to be happily filling themselves with the output of these stalls from a paper cone with the same gusto as a portion of chips goes down in Blackpool, so ever on the hunt for the next taste bud hit, I found a popular looking stall and when I reached the front was delighted that the waller spoke to me in English

"Ah lady you want Muri Mix sweet and little bit spicy" to which I added

"yes please and big lemon" pointing cheerfully at the pyramid of little lime shaped lemons

What ensued was healthy, delicious, wheat free, pure food genius ...given that I am so obsessed with chopping up veg at the best of times you should watch out friends because you will be trying this next time you visit me at home!! (Ellie's without the tomato centres though!)

Muri Mix (1 cone)

Mix the following by hand in a large bowl:

0.25 of a red onion finely chopped

0.5 of a tomato finely chopped

A small handful of corriander leaf and stalk

Half the amount above of finely chopped mint

A few cooked chickpeas

A few shelled peanuts

Several handfuls of puffed white rice

A spoon of masala

Some chilli powder to taste

Salt to taste (although a lot seemed to go in!)

Lemon juice to taste and to spreas the ingredients 

1 Strike, 3 States, 2 Worlds

I had a bonefide train reservation for one of India's reputedly most scenic routes which leaves Jagdalpur (in Chattissgarh) for Vishakapatnam on the east coast of Andra Pradesh everyday at 9.50am.  Not only did I have a ticket but the only ticket I could buy was in first class (again), so anticipating luxury I had charged my ipod and was looking forward to kicking back with a few bhajis and the odd chai whilst I wound my way down from the plateaus amongst the peaks of the Western Ghats. 

The state of Chattissgarh had other ideas though.  Jagdalpur train station was seriously decked out for a political rally, it had bunting strung between its palm trees, plastic chairs all over its platforms and ...for one day only the state railways were on strike!  I have no idea if these occurances were connected but with my future chances of making train reservations in mind I thanked my lucky stars that Chattissgarh only has two lines neither of which I would be needing to book again too soon.

If I was gutted not to be able to enjoy my luxury train ride, Frank from Belgium was relieved about the strike.  Frank didn't have a reservation and may well have had to face the full 9 hours  in unreserved second class ...stood up or if lucky he'd have perched on a wooden bench bwith umpteen fellow passengers.  To be clear, last time I travelled in unreserved 2nd class, a pretty young Indian lady who was incredulous at my presence the presumptively enquired "excuse me madam but why are you travelling in this compartment when money is not an issue for you?".  Cheap it is, and fun for a while too ...but not for 9 hours.  Regardless, we took our mixed emotions down to the bus stand and sought provisions for the apparently "only 5 hour", "300km" public bus trip over the mountains.

In developing countries (and Turkey), when a bus loads up with passengers at the bus stand, one must never assume that the bus is therefore full.  For some unfathomable reason, about 50 metres outside the bus stand/station/stop, there will be at least one additional passenger waiting on the road, I can only assume that it might save a penny or two on the ticket.  Another anomally is the fact that passengers here think that getting onto the bus is the be-all-and-end-all.  It has not hit them that allowing other passengers off the bus first will be far easier and will stop their children being maimed in the crush.

Fortunately for humankind there are scheduled stops during these epic passenger swapping journeys on which the westerners and the driver/conductor team seem to be the only fools to take the entire trip.  These stops are fine for men but do require a "sod it if I don't just wee here I will explode" attitude from the ladies but that aside they always have chai, snack and meal options.  At Jaypore, just below the peaks, we stopped just outside the bus stand where a couple of friendly lads mixed the nicest mixed fruit lassi (yoghurt, ice and fresh fruit) I have ever had.

Between the stops, our bus driver heaved the super-wide bus through some wonderfully decorated homes and villages.  The tribal villages of Chattisgarh gave way to the tribal and non-tribal villages of Orissa.  On both sides of the  state border the stunning tribal villages seemed to have selected their location based upon the most beautiful, wide and shady tree, however there was a sizemic shift in the non-tribal architecture as we crossed into Orissa state.  This shift was from non-descript concrete homes to indivisual, intricate, psychadelically painted narrow houses with external spiral staircases.  As the bus churned through the main roads, either side of me tiny streets burrowed deep into the towns flickering with low turquoise mud huts and skinny rainbow homes, dotted with luminous ladies doing the whole lot of stuff that women do everywhere.  I will most definately make a purposeful trip back to Orissa!

Somewhere in Orissa we left the 750m plateau for dust and ascended some serious hairpins in our very wide bus, the width of which, by this point had become a point of fascination ...it was laid out as a two seats, an aisle and then three seats all which were full size rather than being tiny little indian-sized-seats, but the roads were still one single track of 2m wide tarmac with rubbly edges for use when something else needed  to share the tarmac and we didn't fit them at all.  I digress, so we climbed and then, once we were as high as we were going we rumbled through some blown out hilltops into a range of forested mountain peaks.  It was stunning, beautifully  terraced paddy fields undulated in and out of the folds of the peaks for at least an hour before we began the heady descent passing wrecked trucks whose drivers must have run out of amphetamine and finally given in to the sleep they were so deprived of.  We clung tentatively to the edge of the mountain range as we dropped right down to sea level so the views over the cheshire-flat plains were outstanding.  Thankfully it did not get dark until we were safely down in Andra Pradesh and the road to Vishakapatnam was flat and even, in fact having meditated for a while I opened my eyes and we were on a dual carriageway!!  I had been so remote for so long that when we reached Vishakapatnam's bustling city centre my eyes were on stalks, there were giant lit billboards (like you see in Bangkok) traffic lights and big glass-fronted shops with sale-banners, advertised discounts,  AC and mood lighting, to be honest I didn't even see this stuff in Delhi and I barely make a UK city centre so I was genuinely wide eyed and giggly about the new world that I had arrived in!

NB

I don't bother trying to capture views out of windows, it never works so I apologise for all this writing and not a lot of anything else, but I had to do something to sit purposefully in this gorgeous restaurant all night on my own!

Am I a moron given how much of Asia I have travelled in during my lifetime for not realising that "paddy" meant "rice" before now? My grandad wil be turning in his grave if they're online up there yet!

Online Map!

Click here for my online map (thanks Sangeeta!!)

Route Map

This is a very low tech way of communicating my journey, but it is how I am keeping track myself, so if anyone knows a natty little website that I can link to please email me! 

Magic and Mystery in Karpawand

Very few people travel in Chattissgarh and the guide book is thin on advice but it does encourage a visit to a tribal market or Haat. Being very remote and as ever on the hunt for unique experiences, I opted for a couple of DIY touring days including a day out to Chitrakote Falls, India's widest waterfall (which was a bit low on water this time of year).

My second day, however was with Awesh, a genuine and passionate guide. I had wanted to visit some handicraft villages but as luck would have it something very special was happening elsewhere, so I took Awesh's advice on how best to use my day with him and a rather opulent 4x4 and we set off on Thursday morning for Karpawand via a great dosa shop (Dosa is a South Indian breakfast which broadly consists of a crispy rice flour pancake stuffed with spicy potato/onion, served with a number of scrumtious dips).

Off the main highway it was the old capital of Bastar's haat (market) and tribal villagers from miles around were bringing in grains from the forests and their fields to sell to wholesalers, with this money they then bought what they needed for the week from other tribes people and a plethora of fabulous-if-rather-practical stalls. The closest thing to leisure or recreation represented at this market was hair slides! 

The most common item beyond food seemed to be water carriers and despite the fact that everything is carried on the head around here, terracotta was the overiding material of choice - a bit of a liability I thought!

The tribal people, largely women, were delightful and engaging and it felt a great honour to be able to converse via Awesh rather than just smile at them. They were really happy to be photographed and to show me what they were selling. I saw what I presume was calcium carbonate chunks for sale (Awesh said it was a mineral good for bad stomachs), I ate a bunch of channa (split peas) straight from the pod and tried puffed rice, split peas and Bobos which are deep fried potato and gram flour with a super spicy dip ...yum!

From Bastar haat we visited a temple which was oddly hindu in this animist land and carried on through cashew groves and pretty little villages towards Karpawand.

As we drew nearer, ribbons of luminous ladies with children and men on bicycles were being sucked into the centre of the settlement by some kind of human capillary action, our huge car was embarassingly incongrous, yet there were nothing but smiles and festive cheer cast my way once I climbed out into the sunshine.

Another market was in its full throes here, this time with a healthy dose of fun and frivolity. Bangle sellers and plastic toy stalls abounded although the dolls that these stalls sell are badly moulded hollow effigies of fat blond children in mini dresses which stare out boogle-eyed from acetate wrappers. I have had a few of these dolls waved at me by excited little girls since I arrived in India ...I hope its not becasue they think I look like them!

(Knutsfordians we are not alone - the Bastar region is also known for sanding outside their houses ahead of their drunken festivals!)

Beyond the market, which I left with a pair of lovely ankle bracelets to adorn my pretty Indian suit, was a shrine and a couple of men with a drum and a pipe, this was where the numbers were about to escalate and the action was about to take place...

By means of invitation, the priest of Karpawand a week previous had sent the leaves of a special bay tree to all of the surrounding villages and the priests of each of those villages had accepted the bay leaves, thus accepting an invitation to Karpawand's festival on behalf of their village's Godess. Having accepted, each village was then obliged to bring its godess to the festival along with a Laat or two and a load of entranced Dolis. Laats are long poles which represent all kinds of elements of life and spitituality and Dolis are the pole bearers who have a load of shamen, musicians and dancers with them some of whom were painted up in rice flour paste.

As the godesses (Empty tinsle decorated wooden boxes carried on more poles) arrived at the shrine housing Karpawand's godess, women would go and axe open coconuts and bless the godesses with the milk. I have seen bus drivers do this at shrines in some places too, apparently the inside of a coconut is pure because the husky outside ensures that it cannot be touched (and made impure) until it is used for a blessing.

The laats, dolis and their entourages kept proccessing in, I think about 20 villages must have attended and there were about 100 laats in total, 10 of which were heavily decorated tree trunks which were swung around the shrine area dodging the brand new electicity cables and almost wiping out several members of the excited growing crowd as the music continued to crescendo. The Dhol (big) and Tudbudi (small) drums created an underscore of frenetic beats which soon began to rouse the medicine men and dancers into trances, the Mohri (pipes) twisted and curled these men as a charmer plays his snake, the energy was truly incredible.

The entire gathering then formed a procession to the market square, dancing and trancing as it went. Being part of the procession was unnerving, I had my bum groped and the dancing men who were clearly off their heads were waving machettees about and cutting their chests all around me. I would have been able to just drink it in without a second thought but I had just been informed that these tribal people will regularly kill one another (even a brother) over a single rupee! I was glad that I had spent most of the day chatting with the ladies, on the sidelines of this madness.

In the square, more rituals ensued including a lot of compulsory hooch drinking at the apparent request of the godesses or some of the other sacred furniture. The medicine men, who were by now supercharged with the spitir of the godesses and exhausted from their trances, sat in their "god chairs" some of which had upturned iron nails as cushions (nice) and were hoisted high as the throng again paraded, this time disapearing into the market to spread the godesses blessings with the people.

Chai Anyone?

Chai is served everywhere in large shot glasses or their plastic take-away equivalent, it sells for between 3 and 10 rupees. This infamous drink is a marvellously tasty caffiene and sugar hit but its too small to quench any thirst and so calorific that its not the answer to a big tea drinker's needs.

As such I have found that ordering a pot of black tea that I need to state clearly is to come with "no sugar" and buying lemons at the market to squeeze into it is a great way to get refreshed without getting fat.

Thinking back to Bandhavgarh

It would be an injustice not to share more of the beautiful Bandhavgarh national park than simply my search for illusive Tigers.

After 5 safaris (£82 which feels collosal over here!) I had truly witnessed Indian nature at its best.

Our freezing 5.30 starts revealled misty dawn views over mountain fringed grasslands, which would take your breath away without the array of waking birds and mammals which pepper these landscapes.

Spotted dear, whose earie warning calls symbolise a tigers proximity

Jackals who trot towards you so confidently that you expect them to shout "get off my land"

Grizzly looking Wild Boar whose snouts plough the plains

Canopy perching White Kites

Serpent Eagles that scan the jungle floor

Samber deer whose rumps had some tummies rumbling!

Bulbous headed bison in long white socks

...and the all important protectors of all things Tiger!

Raipur Righted

Its 7.30am and I am on the bus out of Raipur the state capital of Chattissgarh. This is a remote, hilly and forested state full of tribal villages which I intend to visit. According to the guide book, public transport is poor here and the capital is ugly. I saw Raipur between the train and the bus station by cycle rickshaw at around 6.30am as caravans of hand carts wove patterns with ox-drawn carts in amongst round faced ladies who bustled in luminous saris with bags of godknowswhat in the pre-traffic calm. To be fair, it was no uglier than my last state capital, Patna and nobody put Patna in the corner. Further in Raipur's defence, I left a sleeper train that was only 25 minutes late, pedalled through town without hassle or a pricing arguement and immediately bought a ticket for a 7am bus journey that the guide book says doesn't exist. ...what is more, I had just enough time to buy chai and bananas before settling into what is the most comfortable bus seat I have had on my whole trip ...so thanks Raipur, it was a pleasure passing through your awakening peace on your excellent public transport.

Blury Morning

NB: Whilst writing this post I have recognised a question from another passenger in Hindi and replied ...in hindi!

Tiger Tiger

Tiger tiger burning bright

Tiger tiger out of sight

Samber, langur warning calls

through the misty morning squalls

Tiger tiger burning bright

Tiger tiger don't take fright

Crouching, pointing guide says "hush

tiger resting in that bush"

Tiger tiger burning bright

Tiger tiger time is tight

searching, seeking, all eyes peeled

fifth safari needs to yield

Tiger tiger burning bright

Tiger tiger behold your might

Languid, muscled fire and tar

swaggering stripes towards our car!

Tiger tiger burning bright

Tiger tiger awesome sight

Humbled, eyeballed froze in fear

A close encounter, ...hugs, a tear

(...I took this and didn't cut the photo!)

　

Breakfast bus to Bandavgarh

The road to Tala from the sleepy train staion town of Umaria winds 30km over ever more forested hills dipping occasionally to cross wide sandy river beds whose shallow waters glisten in the early morning sun.  As I lifted gently from my deep sleep (courtesy of Indian railways being availed of everything but a first class ticket) I noticed that the stilted shelters which stipple the paddy fields of India were taller here, in fact they were six feet taller

...Not ony that, but thorny bushes marked compound boundaries surrounding tightly clustered dwellings and cattle pens of even thicker thorn thatch started to proliferate.  I began to wonder if I had found the part of India where both livestock and humans craved some privacy but in my next breath I counted six men having a morning dump on one patch of open ground so this theory did not hold true.

As we entered Bandavgarh national park, the paddy fields slipped away and the jungle clung to our tarmac strip occasionally yielding to thickets of bamboo or tall grassy meadows where almost immediately I spotted a small antelope cautiously raise its head from the grass ...and cautious every living thing should be here; for my latest destination has the highest population density of tigers in the whole of India!

Bring on the calories!

Orccha is quite unlike the hassle hell-hole of Kajuraho where a swollen population is intent on you becoming their next source of income or romance(a grim thought!). It was once the capital of an ancient kingdom whose inhabitants loved to build; surprisingly it does not have world heritage status and as such is popular with a more laid back travelers fraternity.  These places are normally well subscribed with budget restaurants that share a broadly similar menu of fresh fruit juices/shake/lassi, pancakes (especially banana), popular local dishes, "finger chips" and eggs in all formats.  In addition to this, Orccha has a couple of wood-fired pizza ovens to its credit and then it has Didi's cafe...

Didi is from Northern Ireland and makes a living from providing joy to westerners in the form of giant china mugs of proper tea and coffee and some mavellous food.  I had 6 days of this joy but if I am honest, having started out well each morning with banana, honey and cinnamon porridge I had succumbed by 3pm each and every afternoon to ordering just one more slice of lemon tart!  It was devine, sublime and oh so very sweet and lemony! It was more of a cheese cake than a tart really and I had to ensure that I got out on the bike or on foot to allow myself this indulgence on a daily basis.

...Fortunately the hiking was amazing and I found endless stunning spots to meditate at.