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Andrew's house in Chiang Mai.


Although I had good intentions to write from Thailand, it just didn't happen. Thailand was an excellent decompression chamber after India: the roads are clean (India is THE most garbage-strewn filthy country in the world), the traffic relatively orderley with no tooting of horns, the food and water clean. It was also just as hot as India but more humid. Cathy had hired a small motorcycle and so showed me around Chiang Mai expertly. Her step-step brother Andrew who is resident there was a kind and generous host for a day and drove us up to a nearby national park for an outing after a delicious Thai dinner the night before. It had been 35 years since I had been in that area and a war was going on in next door Laos. Times change and nothing was recognisable to me. Still, it is very good to be back home again. After missing out on a night's sleep (for me the 2nd time in a week), we slept for 15 hours straight upon arrival home. The next morning I looked out the window in the spare room and looked at the ocean - wait a minute - we could never see the ocean before: the house behind had been demolished and the surrounding trees cut down. All of the wood from those trees are now in our yard drying out and waiting to cook pizzas in our oven. I have to say that is feels wonderful to be in cool weather again. It will take another week before we can get our internet connection back on line (with another provider), so when that happens I will shrink some of our large photo files and upload them into the stories previously written, so do stay tuned.

Final post from India

There is one road rule: always drive around the cow.


This time tomorrow I will be on my way to the airport to meet Cathy in Thailand, so this is the last post from India. Coincidentally, it is also exactly 32 years since I first set foot in this ashram and the scope of the changes is hard to imagine. A small city has sprouted from fields of sugar cane and rice; grass thatched huts have given way to huge high rise apartments and languid lanes with the odd goats and donkeys have been replaced by bustling roads full of diesel fumes, tooting vehicles and shoulder to shoulder pedestrians. The essence inside the ashram hasn't changed, and yesterday I was fully reminded of why I come to this place. Without effort on my part there was an extraordinarily deep state of peace, which is of its nature Divine. That is why I put up with all the shortcomings of this country generally, and I can tell you there are many.
It will take some readjustment to the cold weather: it is about 35 degrees here at present and it feels relatively cool with a lot of cloud cover and fresh breezes. From what I can see in the paper it is much the same in Thailand.
Upon arrival back home I will reduce the large photo files in the camera and upload some photos onto this site, so if anyone is interested do keep an eye out. Om Shanti.

Return to Puttaparti

Puttaparti street. I remember when there were fields on both sides of the road.




The entry to Ramanashram at Arunachala, and the ancient mango tree.

The week at Arunachala went quickly and I think it was the first time there I didn't either walk around the hill or go onto it. I was happy to sit quietly at Ramanashram. The first Englishman who ever met Ramana (in 1911) described him as being "like a corpse through which God is radiating terrifically. My own feelings were indescribable." In some ways that same energy is still "radiating terrifically" at that place nearly 60 years after his passing. It makes the "inside" deeply quiet and peaceful. So I was quite happy to "chill". I didn't go see anyone knew although I bumped into the friendly shaven-headed Englishman Kali Baba who first went there in the 60s and who only wears a piece of black cloth around his waist. We had dinner at "dirty corner" and talked about the NZ cricket team in the UK. There was also a quick visit to town for some kitchen ware to squeeze into the bag somehow, but mostly it was a matter of staying still. I was invited into the new archive building as I had donated a photo of the old Kunju Swami which I had taken nearly 20 years ago. He was the last of the old renunciate swamis around Ramana, and I used to meditate with him every night. The building was a copy of a traditional Tamil structure, built around a small central sunken courtyard. I'd like to do something like that at Oreti Beach one day. My return to Bangalore was primarily to pick up my new waistcoat (lovely job), and to visit the dentist. If anyone needs a dentist in India I thoroughly recommend Dr Ray - he did a couple of crowns for me 2 years ago at one sixth of the cost of having them done in Australia - it actually paid for the whole trip. Anyway I had a mild infection in a tooth so that has been dealt with; and now I have returned to Puttaparti for a final blessing from Sai Baba before travelling on to Thailand to meet Cathy. The external "theatre" around Sai Baba couldn't be more different to the small ashram at Arunachala - there are thousands of people and all the bustle that goes with this small city. Yet, as I found this evening, at the core of it, in his presence there is that same "radiating terrifically". In spite of the crowds and the security, there is something deep and profound here. I will drink deep of that before catching a taxi to the new Bengaluru airport on Thursday.

Full circle

I am back at the holy mountain of Arunachala in South India where Cathy and I spent a wonderful couple of weeks 3 months ago. It really is one of my 2 favourite places in India. Bangalore was a pleasant escape from the relentless heat of central India - a relatively cool 31 as the monsoon had arrived. It wasn't raining while I was there, but clouds kept the place cool. My primary point in going there was to visit my old tailor and have another waistcoat made. Nearly 30 years ago I was at Sai Baba's ashram trying to meditate - for about 2 weeks, every time I sat down near him all I could think of was a waistcoat. I visualised the silk cloth (khadi - the hand spun hand woven cloth the Gandhi used as a symbol in his agitation against the British. Khadi is now a subsidised industry) and the cut, style etc. Eventually I went to Bangalore, found the cloth and a tailor and had one made. That day I arranged to meet a friend from Melbourne who had been up north, and went to a particular hotel foyer. An American there admired my new waistcoat and I told him the story of how it came about: he thought that coincidental because his room mate at Sai Baba's ashram had had an interview with Sai Baba who told him "Wear a waistcoat - go and have one made". Then my friend from Melbourne walked in and the first thing he said was "How do you like my new waistcoat". Every time I've been to India I've had a new one made, so the new one will be ready in a week.
Although usually exremely hot, this place is also affected by the west coast monsoon and clouds have drifted across dropping the temperature.
I anticipate Cathy will write a blog of her adventures in Thailand shortly.

Bhopal - en route south

With Sarita outside their Ujjain house.


I've just enjoyed several days with an old friend Gary from Melbourne, who now lives with his Indian wife Sarita in the central town of Ujjain. It is relentlessly hot, over 40 degrees every day. I remember I was a little amused when the local Hastings newspaper described 29 degrees as a "scorcher" - how I would enjoy a cool 29 now. We spent most of the past few days either trying to keep cool, drinking Fosters beer and watching cricket on tv. The cook would slip in quietly in the morning and make lunch and again in the afternoon, when we would be plied with watermelon juice, or chai, or fried snacks (a local delicacy is mashed potato wrapped in bread with some spices and deep fried and served with coriander chutney) or all of the above. Sarita is a musician, specialising in sitar, practices every moring and a tabla player came each afternoon for more music practice. It was a house full of music at most times. Yesterday afternoon Gary popped out on the scooter and left the main gate ajar: a wandering cow spotted an opportunity, walked in, walked along the narrow front yard nibbling potted herbs along the way, then turned into the hallway and feasted on some indoor plants while I was sound asleep by the front door. Had Sarita not heard it chomping, it would have come into the loungeroom for dessert. This is being written from Bhopal, famous for the worst industrial accident in history - apparently the Union Carbide factory still lies dormant. This afternoon an airconditioned train will take me to Bangalore on a 27 hour cool journey - it must be in excess of 40 degrees here.
Cathy might write some entries for this blog from Thailand, and it sounds like she has fallen on her feet there (no surprise), with yoga classes, a great massage classes, and wonderful food from all reports.

Delhi

Cathy receiving warm hair oil. Very relaxing.


We had a week in Rishikesh while Cathy had some daily massages followed in the evening by some training with a professional masseur. The warm oil pouring from a suspended pot, swinging from side to side over the hairline she said was particularly relaxing. The oil kept on being recycled, and Cathy said she went into an unusually deep relaxation state. On the 2nd day of this, I went and photographed the setup. Since money takes precedence over everything in India, the hapless patients had to get their drips etc out in the narrow passageway. The only sour note was that when she went to pay, the erstwhile Doctor Singh upped the price from what he quoted by 2 and a half times. Not this little black duck. I placed the agreed sum (about double the fee at a proper Thai massage school which provides many more hours training) in an envelope, wrote on it the actual quote, the amount of service actually provided, and the amount of the contents and marched down to his rooms where the evening training took place. He obliged without demur - which to me was an acknowledgment of his own wrongdoing. India is just full of cheats and liars who are eager to fleece anyone but particularly foreigners, and they are usually quite skilled and experienced at it.
Be that as it may, we left the lovely Ganga river at Rishikesh and headed down here to the May Heat. It had been quite cool with unseasonal rains, but that is now a memory as the thermometer rises. According to the web, it is 39 today and "feels like 45", which it does. We have been utilising the new Delhi Metro - a clean modern underground rail line. This morning we went to Old Delhi and the enormous Red Fort. Before the British destroyed most of the interior after the 1857 Mutiny, it had been described as the most magnificent palace in the world. Even what is left is pretty amazing, although left to crumble and decay in a typically Indian manner.
As I write Cathy is on her way to the domestic airport to fly to Kolkata en route to Thailand, so there might be 2 bloggers writing here over the next few weeks. I'm off to catch up with an old friend from Melbourne who now lives at Ujjain, where it may be hotter than here, on my way back south.

Back at Gangotri

Nomi Giri Naga baba with Alan on bamboo pole. Ouch.












Cathy with the sadhu at his campfire.





The walk down was quick and relatively easy. A large Tibetan type dog which was extremely friendly, decided he would accompany us all the way. Every now and then he would cock his head to the side and I'd search the ground to see what he was hearing or smelling - one time it just turned out to be an aging carcass of a blue sheep; another he took off into a shrub covered hillside above, and whatever he was chasing (in the wrong direction it turned out) loosened some rocks right above us. I happened to be looking right at that spot and just managed to get us both out of the way before a large one came hurtling down right where we had been.
We met some friends from our earlier stay at Gangotri (who didn't have permits), and they managed to get into the park by paying some baksheesh. We settled back into our old room at the Sri Krishna ashram run by a friendly swami who makes (free) tea for anyone who sits down on a chair for more than 30 seconds. Next day we bought some food supplies and headed up the river to visit the Naga sadhu previously mentioned.
He had made chappatis for us and they were waiting and ready. We had also arranged to bring the camera to repeat the photo that I had taken years earlier and which had been stolen. At that time he walked over to the river with his companion - "chela" is somewhere between disciple and servant in many cases I think. Anyway, he had a bamboo staff, and a bag of vibhuti ash: he covered part of the pole with the ash, then removed all his clothes and covered his penis with ash before tightly rolling the penis around the staff. One end of the staff was then pulled behind one leg followed by the other leg so everything was tightly pulled behind him - then his partner climbed on to the pole and stood, and I took the photo.
This time there was a slight difference. He covered his whole body with water then ash, and I climbed onto the pole as Cathy took the photos.
We took some other photos as he posed on one leg while pouring water from his Kamandulu (brass water pot) that he wanted. Then went back to the campfire and had lunch. He also showed Cathy some massage techniques which she found very interesting (like skin rolling along the spine and lifting the body off the table with it). A different day.
In the town we happened to meet up with an English guy and an American who wanted to go down to Uttarkashi to get a permit, so we 4 hired a taxi to get down the next morning. Most hotels were full so we jumped into another jeep and went for another 6 hours and were exhausted upon arrival at Rishikesh. Cathy's ayurvedic massage experience was about to start.