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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grass thatched huts have given way to huge high rise apartments and languid lanes with the odd goats and donkeys have been replaced by bustling roads full of diesel fumes, tooting vehicles and shoulder to shoulder pedestrians.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.

Gaumukh contd.

Looking at the retreating Gangotri glacier from a sadhu's shrine to Shiva. The peaks at the rear are named after the Hindu Trinity.



After spending some time acclimatising to the altitude and the change in temperature we were ready to start walking. Gaumukh is 18kms along a well defined trail and another 1000 metres higher: our destination for the day is a small ashram 14kms along at Bhojbasa. Bhoj means birch, and the small vale was once covered with the trees which are long gone, except where humans can't access them across the river. Anyway, after a short distance from Gangotri we reached the gate of the national park armed with our permits. The fee for 2 days for Indians is Rs50, for "foreigners" is Rs350. The word Indian in this case, as is the case at all tourist areas like the Taj Mahal or the Mysore palace, does not actually mean a native of India at all. For example, the NZ cricketer Jeetan Patel would not be charged as a foreigner; a 5th generation Fijian of Indian racial background would not be charged as a foreigner; likewise a South African or my Sri Lankan Tamil friends from Melbourne for that matter. Rascism in India oozes from the entrenched discrimination of the caste system like pus from a wound; effortlessly and easily, and they can't see it. A certain incident on the Australian cricket field comes to mind. If the boot was on the other foot, they would be complaining the loudest.
Supposedly, this rule is because the "foreigners" have the most money. Ha! The foreigners who can get up there are the intrepid budget backpackers who stay in the Rs200 hotels - the Rs3000 (and much more) hotels are invariably occupied by the nouvea riche Indians - and there are plenty of them. There is a bigger cashed up middle class here than the entire population of the US. Just look at the $us50 million the IPL cricket spends. So on we walked along a stunningly beautiful trail, past small glaciers, through varying forest cover as the sun rose over the high peaks. Around each corner there was yet another massive snow peak looming.
There used to be five small temporary "dhabas" - a place to get a cup of tea or fresh paratha (an unleavened bread, folded and layered with butter like a croissant, then fried and served with pickle) or other snacks. In fact I had been relying on one to have some breakfast, but they have been banned this year. Now there are skeletal remains, detritus and rubbish lying around. They had bins by them, but they were no longer emptied except by the stiff Himalayan winds which spread the rubbish far and wide. An article about the new permit system in the newspaper after we returned said that "a slew of measures were put in place to limit garbage"; what a joke. The opposite is true, and now people carry their own food in wrapping and containers that they chuck anywhere and everywhere. It needs to be understood in the context that India is THE most garbage-strewn country in the world: Indians drop litter anywhere and do so without a second thought. Trains supply meals in foil dishes, plastic etc, and provide no bins so it all goes out the window making Indian rail tracks the longest garbage dumps in the world. There are 1.2 billion people dropping rubbish more than once daily...everywhere.
So we arrived up at Bhojbasa and the little ashram up there provided a simple dal and rice lunch (and very good evening meal). We were followed up the trail by a group of about 100 Tamils with their old guru. Some of them reached Bhojbasa, a few went on to Gaumukh 4kms further, but most didn't quite make it and turned back earlier. They brought their own lunches with them - all identical in foil containers with lids, a foil coated paperplate and pink plastic bags. When they finished, they just hoicked their rubbish over the ashram wall. I asked the well-educated Tamil next to me what he intended to do with his foil and plastic. He was just dumbfounded by such a question - it was literally something he had never given a thought to, and asked me why I asked. I told him that in most countries, people take all their rubbish out of the national parks and leave only footprints. He just couldn't grasp it. It rained most of the afternoon, and about 150m above us was fresh snow on the hillsides. Next day we walked on up to the big Gangotri glacier, from which springs the fully formed river Ganga as a raging torrent. We saw where the other Tamils had lunch in this otherwise pristine place. The scenery is utterly breathtaking, the higher you walk, the higher the mountains around the corner become. We heard the cry of what we thought was an eagle, Cathy looked up and spotted a mammal slinking along a ridge with fluid movements. We saw a flock of Himalayan "blue sheep" high above, and on the trail noticed some interesting scats; a couple of large ones full of fur, suggesting a leopard or wolf; another I thought may have been a bear. We also saw a small tailless rat - a vole I imagine. After a second comfortable night up there it was an easy stroll back down to Gangotri.

Gaumukh Pt2 - Indian bureacracy, rascism & garbage.

Pilgrims bathe in the Ganga below the Ganga Ma temple at Gangotri.









Sadhus call in for tea at the Gangotri ashram. Hot tea was available all day.



We arrived at the Forest Office at 10:00am when it was due to open according to the sign. It was set amongst forest, a couple of kms along the main road to Gangotri, then taking 2 turnoffs up into hilly country. All signs are in Hindi of course. A Russian woman was waiting there before us for her permit, and a surprisingly large number of people milled about, some in uniform and some not. A low-in-the-pecking-order employee opened most of the doors but no-one seemed to take up any posts for some time and it was difficult to figure who was actually employed there, and of those who was going to actually do something. Eventually our lad arrived who could not speak or understand any passable English - about as much as my Hindi which is negligible and good only for chai shops; but we worked out (with the help of the taxi driver's English) that we had to Apply For Permission to enter the Gangotri National Park in order to get to Gaumukh. The walk is 18kms from Gangotri and the park gate about 1km from town. So..."can we have an application form?" There isn't one. Oh. So I made up an applicatiom form with the usual passport and visa numbers etc. It looked official. A couple of Canadian girls and a Korean arrived down from Gangotri - they had caught the 6am bus all the way back after being turned from the gate the previous day. Making up a form isn't too hard for a native English speaker, but the Russian and Korean just had to follow along.
The next step was to fax it to Dehra Dun. ...well not quite. We thought that was happening, but and hour and a half later we discovered that the forms had to be signed off by the local chief, and he was just too busy...drinking tea and reading the paper or whatever. Being rather unimpressed by this I demanded to see the head man and was promptly ushered into an underling's office. Oh yeah? I then marched with rising blood pressure into the Big Office, followed by an angry Russian. It was a big flash office, with lots of new furniture and paintwork, 10 lights burning, obligatory pictures of Gandhi etc, but no boss. I followed a protesting lacky out through another door and buttonholed the boss out the back. "Government work takes time" he pathetically protested. "Inconvenience regretted" he spluttered. I was on a roll. He then tried to explain his tardiness by saying that actually they are trying to discourage tourists from wanting the permits. Aha, so inconvenience is deliberate? Not acceptable. It went on for some time while he squirmed and signed the forms and in a couple of minutes we were off. The Canadians shared our taxi back to Gangotri and the drive further into the greatest mountain range on Earth began. For 25kms the road is being worked on - a very rough gravel one lane track. For the rest it is a mostly sealed one lane track. There are so many vehicles that several times a bus or jeep has to reverse up to allow a bus room to get around a corner or to pass by - the road has no shoulder and the drops are thousands of feet straight down. Landslips keep on eating away the edge so the roads have to be dug back into the hillside continually. The views are pretty stunning, and the changing forest cover interesting to both of us. We arrived at the pretty little town by late afternoon. It is perched on the side of a very steep valley, with steep sides that reminded Cathy of Fiordland, but with Himalayan scale. The lower reaches covered by forest of pine and deodar. All vehicles have to stop before the town as there are no roads for them (aaah, sweet release from filthy diesel and relentlessly tooting horns). It was cold - probably a good deal colder than Hawkes Bay or even Melbourne at this time of year, and it took some adjusting, as well as to the altitude of 3000 metres. We stayed at a little ashram I knew in the town and had a comfortable but simple room. Most of the foreigners there learned only about the permit after arriving and most decided to by-pass the gate one way or another.
Next day we went for a walk to visit an old friend - a Naga baba who has lived in a cave on the bank of the river 1500m upstream from the town for about 10 years. Nagas are the sometimes fierce sect of naked ash covered sadhus who are utterly fearless. (In the cold he is always clothed though). I took his photo 4 years ago (which Phil Cottingham was able to deliver to him a few weeks later) and he gave me a big hug and told me how he had gone to the plains with his shoulder bag containing his loved photos and not much else. He was using it as a pillow when it was stolen from underneath his head. That's India for you. He asked me to take some more photos, which I did upon our return from Gaumukh.
I'll have to continue this yarn tomorrow - I've had a couple of days in bed with a bug, but am on the improve. Tomorrow is our last full day here before heading to Delhi. It is also Cathy's last day of masssage treatment and lessons - more on that too. I'll keep you posted. Another heavy storm today and an unusually cool May. Lucky.

Trip to Gaumukh

The road to Gangotri is sometimes carved from rock and the drops are precipitous for thousands of feet.




Well, the newspaper taxi seemed like a good idea. We arrived at the newspaper stand at the appointed 5am and indeed the jeep pulled in and added us to the already squeezed in crowd. Then picked up a few more, one of whom had more luggage to go on the roof than all the rest put together which made it quite top-heavy. The driver, who had spent a lot of time on his mobile phone, then handed over to the actual driver who was sound alseep when thrown into the driver's seat. He looked to me like he had had a hard night on the whisky and no sleep. Thinking that we were set to go, the jeep then headed straight across the road to the tyre repair "workshop". They decided to fix the spare. I counted about 10 patches on one side of the bulging tube, the tyre itself looked like it had been ground down on an angle grinder so the metal was poking out, and it had a large hole - but, hey, it was "only" the spare. Then they repaired the back rear tube. It was better but still had a few patches. An hour late, we headed up into the mountains. At first the road was excellent, and as soon as the jeep reached 50kmh the steering wheel shuddered so violently he could hardly hold it on the road, but luckily the road is so windy and speeds so slow that that was rarely a problem. The driver yawned once too often and I remonstrated as did other passengers and he stopped for water to freshen up. We arrived at Uttarkashi 6 or so hours later and decided that we had had enough mountain roads for one day, found a hotel and went straight to sleep.
In the afternoon we wandered about the town and checked out the jeep taxi stand for the next day's journey. A driver suggested we start around 6am for Gangotri. A stroll down a side road found the government Tourist Bungalow, and having never stayed in one was curious to know the costs. Serendipity. As soon as we walked in we saw a notice on the wall to the effect that all tourists and pilgrims who want to walk from Gangotri to Gaumukh now have to have a permit, which is issued only from Uttarkashi Forest Office or the headquarters at Dehra Dun which opens at 10am. We returned to the taxi driver and had no choice but to hire a jeep for just ourselves, at considerable extra cost. That done, he picked us up at the hotel in a brand new jeep with new tyres (!) and drove us to the Forest Office.
...to be contd.

Last post for a week

The old Hardwar chai walla is over 90 and nearly totally blind; but he makes a great chai.




We have arranged to go in the jeep that takes newspapers up the road to the town of Uttarkashi, starting early tomorrow morning. We will overnight there or a little further up the road at Ganganani. Once we arrive at Gangotri, there is no electricity, no internet or banks and most importantly no wheeled vehicles in the town. We hope to spend a week up there and if the weather permits, take a walk up to the source of the Ganga a further 18kms on at Gaumukh, which is slightly over 4000 metres and well above tree line.

Picnic by the Ganga

Our picnic spot on a little patch of beach by the Ganga well away from people.



I failed to mention the most peaceful part of the journey to Hardwar, and that was a too-short visit to the ashram of the great woman saint Shree Anandamayee Ma. It is one of the most peaceful and powerful places in all of India. I was lucky enough to see her before she died in the 80's, and her presence can still be felt there. While at Dehra Dun, which by all apppearances has little to recommend it, we went out to the Buddhist Sakya centre. The autorickshaw drivers seemed to think we said "police" when we said "Buddhist", but luckily Cathy had seen a Sai Baba temple on a map next door so that was the way we eventually made it there. It is the parent organisation of the SIBA (Sakya International Buddhist Academy) centre in East Gippsland, but the monk in the office hadn't heard of SIBA. It was a pretty underwhelming visit actually, but only a few hundred metres down the same road was the ashram of the yogi I had been wanting to see (Sri Shivarudrabalayogi); the one who is visiting Australia at present. We called in there anyway, and had a chat with a lovely young man at the office, and the whole place had a beautiful energy. I'd very much like to return there one day. I believe he is the real deal. There are hundreds of wannabees around here, but real ones are rare.
Today we went up the road for 20kms to a cave called Vashishta Guha which had been occupied for many years by an old sadhu. Quite deep into the hill it was quiet, cool and peaceful. We walked up along the sandy beach to a perfect spot for a picnic lunch - we had brought a loaf of wholemeal brown bread we found and tomatoes cucumber and bananas - a feast. A few refreshing dips in the river and it was time to get back to the waiting taxi up on the road. The river was surrounded by steeply rising hills and forest, and apart from the occasional inflatable raft coming downstream, it was a delightful respite from swarms of people, diesel fumes and tooting horns. The Accuweather website predicts 46 degrees for Hardwar on Wed so we will head up into the mountains.

Dehra Dun

Visiting the Sakya Buddhist monastery at Dehra Dun.


A few days ago we went to visit Dr Singh in Rishikesh who treated me for rabies 2 years ago after I was bitten on the back of the leg by a dog - it must have worked! Rabies is 100% fatal if the virus get into the bloodstream and 20,000 die from it in India ever year. Anyway, Dr Singh is genial company and not only highly respected in the medical community, but also in the indigenous Ayurvedic medicine system. (We also have some of his delicious Himalayan herbal tea on our shelf at home.) The unexpected upshot of the visit is that Cathy will be doing some classes in traditional ayurvedic massage techniques before she flies to Thailand, probably for a week.
Although the weather hs been over 40 every day, we have been having a swim in the great river Ganga every afternoon - there is nothing more refreshing. We go upstream a little to a small sandy beach surrounded by large rocks. Dotted around the rocks are huts occupied by sadhus - we saw one fellow with his matted dreadlocks (Sanskrit name is Jhata) about 2 metres long. He was sitting at a high spot with his hair tumbling down over the edge. We took the camera the following day but he wasn't there. The water is so cold it is not possible to stay in for long, so we take brief dips.
We temporarily left Rishikesh (and left most of our albeit light luggage there) for a short journey. Nearby Hardwar is one of the Hindu holy cities (and thus a vegetarian town) and marks the point where the Ganga leaves the mountains and reaches the Plains of India. At that spot there is a spectacular ceremony of lights every evening at dusk. Imagine a huge stadium full of people supporting the same team, making lots of noise, putting little leaf boats full of flowers and a burning oil lamp into the water to float down the river, banging gongs, chanting...except there were a lot more people than any stadium would hold. Hardwar is also one of those magnets for sadhus; hundreds if not thousands of wild looking men with matted hair carrying all they own, particularly a brass water pot and a staff.
From Hardwar we have come to Dehra Dun, the provincial capital of this newly formed state of Uttaranchal (which goes from here up to the border with Tibet). My initial interest in coming here was to visit a yogi whose late Guru I met years ago in Bangalore. He had meditated for 23 and a half hours a day for 12 years to the day - his successor did likewise for 7 years; but just before we set off we discovered he is in Australia! This place is also the headquarters of the Sakya branch of Tibetan Buddhism, so a visit there is proposed for tomorrow. We checked the weather up in the mountains from here and it is supposed to be minus 5 at night with possible snow and sleet. Hmmmm.

Ram Jhula

Cathy had some Mehendi - henna tattoos - done at Rishikesh.



Aaaah, it is so good to be back by the Ganga at Rishikesh; aaagh it is SO hot! Although not as hot as Varanasi, the mercury is hovering around 40 degrees every day. Curiously the river here is much wider and deeper and very much faster flowing that downstream at Varanasi. The first time I ever encountered this river was nearly 30 years ago - I arrived late in the day hot and exhausted, took a hotel near the river at Hardwar and headed down to the nearby steps leading to the water. I sat on the steps with my feet in the freezing water when two things happened unexpectedly. Firstly it was like being in the presence of a real saint - it was like having been meditating for months - a profoundly deep peace that was unshakable just enveloped me. The second thing was that a cow or bull went berserk and decided to gore anyone within reach; people screamed, jumped out of their sandals and ran as fast as they could. Well, everyone but me. I sat like a witness to the play when the animal turned toward me and started walking slowly with head (and horns) down. The Peace didn't alter, the animal turned a few feet from me and chased the others watching from the bridge. I had met Ganga, the goddess of the River and knew that this was not like other rivers.
Rishikesh here is 24kms upstream, and where we are at Ram Jhula (formerly known as Muni-ki-Reti) is 5kms up from the town and is the world center for yoga. Develpment has gone on apace over the years but the river is always the same. Cathy and I take a swim each afternoon for only a few minutes as the water is frozen snow and very fast moving so it doesn't have a chance to warm up. Our hotel overlooks a mango grove away from the noise of the bazaar, and backs on to forest. I lived in that forest years ago (there were no hotels then), and when we went up there yesterday we could hear the wild peacocks that are still there. Rishikesh is the "yoga capital" of the world and that's a fair claim to make. There are dozens of yoga classes or courses somewhere. In fact our hotel has a yoga room and classes there for a couple of hours each morning.
This place also has the best chai in India at a grubby little shop you wouldn't look at twice, and they also make the unspeakably delicious deep fried spiced apple samosas. Well, we are doing some yoga now to make up for it, although I think the samosas are winning.

The ancient city of Shiva

Seeing Varanasi by boat at dawn is popular with westerners, and for good reason. It is also very still and peaceful for a city with some of the worst traffic in India.


We jeeped down from the hills with occasionally showery weather in a share taxi. A little sad to leave the hills. I must say that it was an honour and priveledge to accompany Cathy on this quest to reconnect with auntie Grace's history in the region. It certainly opened doors I could never otherwise have imagined.
The Mahananda Express was due an hour or so after we got to New Jalpaiguri station, so we enjoyed a hearty breakfast at the station and rode in air conditioned comfort through the day and overnight to Varanasi (also known as Benares or Kashi, the oldest continually inhabited city on Earth). Comfort compared to sleeper class anyway - it was still the warmest night we have had for weeks. The a/c doesn't have the usual procession of beggars that sleeper class does, although some eunuchs came through for alms. They have a curious cultural role in Indian society. The train was due in at 3:20am so after rising early the train was 2 hours late. Still it was no major hassle and we arrived at a pleasant enough guest house not far from the river (THE river - the mighty and sacred Ganga). We took a tour this morning with the hotel owner to a few temples including one of the oldest in Varanasi, which was attacked by terrorist bombers a couple of years ago. We deliberately only arranged to stay one night here due to the heat - May anywhere on the North Indian plains is hot, but here is the epicentre. It is around 45 today and the power is off at the hotel so no fan. In the relative cool of the evening we will go to the bathing ghats at the river and a dawn foray is planned there with camera tomorrow morning before catching the train onward to Hardwar.
I remember reading a book by Paul Brunton who was an English journalist who travelled through India in the 30s looking for yogis and holy men. Here at Varanasi he saw old people lined up at the river looking at him in a way he felt disconcerting. He mentioned it to his driver, who said that they felt pity for him. The wealthy sahib was shocked at such a suggestion, but was then told that these people will attain Liberation by dying at Varanasi and then consigned to the Ganga, but as an Englishman he has no hope of such Grace.

Kalimpong

Dr Graham's school at Kalimpong



We came to this part of the Hills because of a couple of mysterious photos in the old collection. One was labelled "group at Kalimpong" and was taken around 1930 - we have been able to find out the names of several people and in one photo a group was centred around Dr John Graham who started a famous school up here in 1900. We went up to the school and they even have a museum, although any old visitor's books have been lost. We thought there may have been an entry from Grace. We trawled through copies of the school magazine from 1928-31 without luck, but it was fascinating time well spent. It seems the original students were orphans or Anglo-Indian children. They had a farm school to train boys for the colonies, in particular New Zealand. Those boys wrote back to the school from Otago, Wellington, Lower Hutt, etc. One had been gassed in WW1 but was back on the NZ farm working from 5:30am to 8:30pm. I was most interested to see both a girl and a boy with the surname Ochterlony who went from the school to NZ. Sir David Ochterlony lived near Delhi in the early 1800s with his 13 Indian wives and travelled with several elephants literally like a Maharaja. (Check out "White Mughals" by William Dalrymple). The school buildings are set on a ridge top a few kms from the main part of town (pop 177,000) on at least 100 acres, maybe more. Most of the buildings are British built - there are 24 "cottages" for boarders and each cottage is a huge 2 story mansion on acres of land, surrounded by small gardens and forest. It seems they were donated by sponsors, one of which was Sir Charles Bell, whose book I am reading on the 13th Dalai Lama, his close friend. Bell wrote the first English-Tibetan dictionary and grammar, lived in Tibet for most of the time from 1900-21. The ridge also has some of the only flat land for miles so there are large sporting areas and a sense of space not found elsewhere.
On the walk back down to the town, we suddenly heard sirens behind us: a Police vehicle was leading a convoy - the VIP was a Tibetan Lama. Since the traffic jam was so bad we walked past the motorcade and pranammed with folded hands to the Lama who replied likewise and smiled broadly. I still wonder who he was. I don't think it was the Karmapa.

...some postscripts.

Forest Dept. sign at Lachung North Sikkim.


I wrote that the newspaper article was in Nepali...so it was, but we were also told at our favourite sweet shop haunt that there was an article in The Telegraph from Calcutta. They rummaged around and found it for us; then the hotel where we were staying also gave us a copy of the article. They were quite chuffed I think. Cathy rather enjoyed noticing people noticing her too. Even when we arrived at Kalimpong today the hotel owner recognised her from the newspaper photo, and as we have some old photos taken at Kalimpong, he has arranged for an old friend to come and visit us this evening.
Since there were so few people in the Jeep, the guide brought his wife along as she had never been up into north Sikkim. At the first tea stop on our way north she was keen to see the photos we had, and when she came to the autographed photo of Hillary and Tenzing after they had climbed Everest, she said, pointing to Tenzing, "He is my grandfather".
A few more road signs that entertained us on the hilly roads: "Don't gossip, let him drive." "If you drive like hell you will be there". The most frequent was "Inconvenience regretted please", but some waxed poetic. "Keep your nerves on sharp curves". "Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky". "There are no passengers on spaceship Earth, only crew"

The journey to north Sikkim.

Kitchen at the house of the Tibetans where we stayed at Lachung.







We have a few photos, some labelled and some not, that we ascertained were taken in north Sikkim. We set off in steady rain which brought the temperature down and turned much of the road into slushy slippery mud (with precipitous drops - it would be a very long way down before the first bounce) but the old Mahindra (a Jeep copy) got through. One of the named photos was of Mangan Bazaar but the town of Mangan was a concrete jungle and unrecognisable although one of the people we spoke to knew that the photo had been taken in the "old bazaar" which we located on the way back and was by-passed by the new road. It had hardly changed at all, even with the same old buildings rusting away. One of them had 1903 written on it, although the photos were taken on a trip in 1950 and, we guess, in a Jeep (since ladies in the photo were wearing dresses). The next stop was 60 or so kms on at Changtung and a famous rock sacred to both Buddhists and Sikhs. The bare rock of the photo now has trees around it, a fence with Tibetan style prayer wheels, and a Sikh flagpole plonked in the middle with a Sikh temple adjacent. They reckoned their founder, Guru Nanak, had been there but local Buddhists aren't too happy about that. That photo had changed the most. Our destination for the day was Lachung about 125kms from Gangtok and took 7 hours - a lot of it on slippery gravel or mud in first gear. Although the Border Roads Organistaion had spent a lot of money on signs telling how wonderful they are, precious little had actually been done to the road which was no more than a rough track for a lot of the way. Some of the signs were quite entertaining, such as "No Harry, Be Happy" or "If Married Divorce Speed". We really liked Lachung and stayed with a Bhutia (Tibetan) family who fed us well and gave us their home brewed beer. In Tibet chang is made from barley but Sikkimese make it from millet. A bamboo flask about 4in wide and 8in deep is filled with fermented millet then filled with warm water the brew is drunk from a thin bamboo straw; when the flask is empty it is refilled with water - usually at least 6 times. It had a very pleasant taste and relatively mild effect.
Grace had taken a photo in Lachung which is still much the same, and although the local women were interested in the photo of a local chowkidar (guard), no-one in the town knew him. The town was surrounded by enormous snow covered massifs, which we saw little of due to mist and cloud. Next morning we headed further up the road for about an hour and a half to Yamtung where Grace had gone to the hot springs. We passed through forest of Silver Fir and rhododendron, past glaciers, grazing yak, and occasional fields of purple primula, multi coloured azalias and rhododendrons. Thick mist swirled in and stark old firs dissappeared into it. Snow covered the ground under the rhododenrons which were variously red, purple and pink, some with small leaves, others large. We reached the forest bungalow at Yatung which hadn't changed since the British built it in the exact style of buildings around lighthouses. After a short walk in bitingly cold wind, we went to the hot pools and enjoyed a hot bath with a few people including the forest officer we had spoken to that morning. We were back at friendly Lachung for lunch and chilled out for the wet afternoon, before more good food and chang. It was raining still as we left this morning, rained most of the way down and was rainingn as we arrived in Gangtok. We are assured this is most unseasonal. Tomorrow we head to Kalimpong for the last of Grace's photos. Incidentally, I mentioned the press at the school the other day. We we were shown Cathy's photo in the local paper, but it is all in Nepali so we don't have a clue what they said!

A remarkable day

Sikkimese archer.


Every day here has been remarkable, none moreso than today, and aunt Grace's photos along with her legacy in these parts has opened so many doors. Yesterday we finally caught up with Hope Leezum Namgyal, the daughter of the last King and his 2nd (American) wife. She also telephoned a friend of hers who is a curator of archives at the Institute of Tibetology, which was begun by the Dalai Lama in 1957 (with a lot of scrolls he brought out from Tibet then). We went straight up there and were shown an exhibition - with expert knowledgable commentary - of old photographs showing the relations between Sikkim and Bhutan. Time was short so we returned this afternoon, and they are keen to have some of Grace's photos for the country's official archive. However this morning was the highlight of the week. The school where Grace taught arranged for old students and teachers who knew her to come. The computer department had put some of the photos on a powerpoint presentation, and edited the DVD footage we had that had been done by TV NZ. One old lady, who spoke passionately about Grace, jumped up and named everyone in a large group photo - luckily it was being filmed at the time for future reference. Some of them were so excited they spoke in Nepali so we missed what was happening, but the man filming said he would give us a copy and put in subtitles. The computer man happened to recognise his grandfather in one photo. The principal was thrilled, and all present appreciated the connection with their past and their tradition. We were both felicitated with traditional Tibetan white scarves (kathas), and Cathy was presented with a superb volume on Sikkimese orchids; written by the nephew of the orchid specialist we had lunch with a couple of days ago. It was posted back this afternoon along with a rare volume of photographs taken by the first Englishman to come to these parts. Cathy was also interviewed by the local newspapers. It was a long day. The curator and the director of the Tibetology institute took us to the archery contest where a Bhutanese "sharpshooter" had been invited, and all including the Bhutanese guests were interested in the old photos. Rain threatened, we were tired so headed back to our hotel. Tomorrow morning we head up into North Sikkim for a few days. I hope we'll be warm enough.

High tea in Gangtok

Mr Prabhan in one of his greenhouses with orchid.


We had been invited to see someone who knew aunt Grace at 4pm. He doesn't want us to publish any names apparently, but he was private secretary to the late Chogyal (King), as his father was to the previous king, and his father to the one before that. He told me he went to school in Darjeeling before going to Bishopcotton school in Simla and then university in England. To say his English is impeccable is an understatement. He had also invited a friend of his who also knew Grace - Mr Pradhan was the Chief Secretary of Sikkim, probably the 2nd most powerful office in the land. They were greatly interested in the photos we had, could name a number of people in them, and we had much to talk about over pastries, sandwiches (with crusts removed of course), cream cakes and muffins and several cups of the finest tea. Mr Pradhan said he initiated a local tea estate which he said has the 2nd best tea in India (the best being somewhere near Darjeeling). This was enjoyed in a lovely old house that appeared to be of British colonial design and construction. Beautiful timber lined walls, wide timber floorboards, very old photos of Sikkim royalty on the walls. He also had a rare old photo of the Englishman Charles Bell with the 13th Dalai Lama, the King of Sikkim, and numerous other high lamas from Tibet.
Mr Pradhan gave us a copy of a newspaper clipping from New Zealand where he met up with Grace in 1990 while investigating orchids - he is first and foremost a horticulturalist with a special interest in cultivating from Sikkim's 540 native orchids. This morning we went over the valley to the Rumtek monastery, the seat of the Karmapa, head of the Kagyu lineage. The 17th Karmapa has not yet been to his monastery here, due I think to political reasons after he escaped from Tibet in recent years. The monastery is a replica of his old seat at Tsurphu in Tibet, and the room housing the relics of the last Karmapa is very powerfully peaceful, armed guards with Kalashnikovs and Uzi machineguns notwithstanding.
We could not delay too long as we had a lunch invitation with Mr Pradhan half way back to Gangtok. He has a magnificent terraced garden about 2000 feet below Gangtok making it a bit more suitable for his thousands of orchids. I lost count of the hothouses, shadehouses, and propagating sheds. They also specialise in grafting as many varieties of citrus (there must have been hundreds of rootstocks alone) as they can obtain from around the world to find suitable species to begin commercial citrus industry in Sikkim. He has an open permit to import anything he desires. We had a sumptuous home cooked meal, and Mrs Pradhan identified several women in our photos after lunch. Cathy is now at the school working on their computer for the presentation on Thursday. Although the temp here is a delightful 24 or so, it is 42 at Varanasi rising to 45 on Friday and getting hotter. That is our destination next week - gasp! But we plan to go to north Sikkim in a few days which will take us to high altitude and cold weather.

Gangtok 21st

Weaving traditional patterns on traditional looms.


We have taken a number of photos here, and in India generally we have taken photos of a number of interesting signs - usually interesting for the spelling, but here there was one that says "Plastic bags are illegal in Sikkim" and another that declares Sikkim to be an "organic" state - all produce here is grown organically, including tea. Part of our project here is to take photos of the same things that aunt Grace photographed many years ago - some of her photos date back to her journey through here en route to Tibet in 1930. There is an old photo of traditional archers, and while we walked over the other side of the top ridge, we came across the National archery championships. We were given seats under cover by the head of the National archery association, who we were told was also a former government minister - around here that spells important. He gave us tea and was very interested in the old photos, and knew some of the people in them. So Cathy took photos of modern archers using high tech American bows and arrows. The target was so far away as to be hardly visible, the larger circle 8 inches across, the bullseye 4 inches but they managed to hit it despite a slight cross wind. We later headed up a hill (wherever we go here it is either up a steep hill or down a steep hill) to a handicrafts institute to find a carved table like the one she has which aunt Grace brought back from Sikkim years ago. They didn't have any, but a senior person there said they would love to have a photo of it as so much of the old designs have now been lost. On our way out we went past an open door and noticed weavers inside, using looms identical to one in one of the photos we have. So Cathy took more photos there. Some of the old photos just cannot be taken again due to 6 storey buildings where open ground used to be, but some of the old shots are quite recognisable.
We are enjoying Gangtok. Darjeeling is 2000 feet higher up and was a bit of a shock after the heat of Kolkata - the climate here is a bit more agreeable, although, like Darjeeling it has rained every night bar one. Mornings are clear, clouds roll in, then thunder and rain. Today we meet an old man who said aunt Grace was his late sister's friend and colleague.

Arrived in Gangtok

Mazong House in Gangtok where Miss Scott began the Palgor Namgyal Girls High School at which Cathy's great aunt Grace was principal from 1949 to 1961. The school moved to other premises shortly after. Grace visited this house in 1931.


The morning we left Darjeeling the cloud and mist finally lifted to reveal the majesty of Kanchendzonga, the 3rd highest mountain in the world. We passed by and crossed the Teesta river and photographed the old bridge there that auntie Grace had photographed many years ago. We took a jeep taxi (not shared so we could spend some time at the border getting the necessary permits) and it pulled in to a taxi stand at a multi level car park, after I had written in the previous blog that I hadn't seen one in India. In fact there are several here. Gangtok is well organised; there are also footpaths with rails (less pedestrians on the roads means less horns tooting - well, a little less anyway), and most noticably in the main mall in town each shop has a small rubbish bin outside for litter, so it is the ONLY place in India which isn't covered by rubbish. That is the subject for another blog.
This morning we set about finding places that Grace had photographed (and copies of which we have with us). First we needed a map and were advised to go to a certain bookshop. After walking some time we never found the bookshop but I thought to grab a newspaper from a small shop. I bought a "Sikkim Mail" with a view to finding the journalists there and maybe have them print some of our photos etc. By "coincidence" I happened to be standing next to the editor! He called to his father who owned the shop and he knew Grace and said she was the first person in Gangtok to drive a jeep (so that's who started it!!). We also showed him a copy of an old letter from the Maharaja to Grace 20 years after she left here, telling the story of the death of his son (in a car accident) - it turned out the old man we were talking to was the son's close friend and was supposed to be in the vehicle that morning that went over the edge and killed him. He also told us the old cemetery photo we have is in Kalimpong.
We then walked up to an old stone house dated 1931 and a couple of our photos were taken there - one is entitled "From Miss Scott's garden". It was in fact Miss Scott's house, and Miss Scott started the school aunt Grace taught at. We were given biscuits and coffee by the owners who were most interested in our photo collection.
We then set off for the school and found it without much trouble. The principal and others were most interested in our archival material and recognised some of the people in the photographs - former students and teachers. They plan to contact them and get together next week.
I have just lost connection here so will try and save this.

An observation on Indian traffic

I read in the paper the other day that an official from the automotive industry was bemoaning that auto sales were down on last year. From ten and a half million the year before to only nine and a half million last year. That's 100 million vehicles every decade. And all the old ones are still on the road. While walking in Calcutta we noticed that the old Dalhousie Square in the city was being turned into a car park - the first one I've seen in India. Bad narrow roads, few new ones and nowhere to park. Gridlock cannot be far away and still no-one seems to have thought about planning. Now they are about to release for sale small cars for only a few thousand dollars so sales are expected to explode. Up in the hills here the roads are jammed with jeeps belching diesel - it has just about reached capacity here. And they want to cram more in over the coming decades. I shake my head.

Dorje-ling

Sign at Darjeeling...just so you don't get confused.


I wrote previously that the quiet room at the railway station was only disturbed by the occasional train - not so as it turned out. A big storm even by Himalayan standards came through at night, and I read in the paper that 70km winds took down many trees, killed one, and stopped 65% of all electricity in the region. The room we were in was large and our bags were a good 15 feet from the door, but so much rain blew under that our bags were still dampened - luckily the camera, lenses and related manuals were all in plastic bags inside. We took a crowded jeep taxi over the worst roads I've seen in India - worse than any of the bush tracks in Eastern Victoria, and then climbed...and climbed. Darjeeling is 7400 feet, higher than any land point in Australia, and quite chilly, felt even more so after the heat of Kokata. The Anglicised name Darjeeling came from the Tibetan name of this post, and we woke this morning to the sounds of long horns, cymbals and drums from the nearby Tibetan Gompa...then of course the constant sound of tooting car horns which does not let up until late at night. Darjeeling has 350,000 people which makes it larger than either Hobart or Wellington as I understand it. Perched up on a ridge top it was never designed for traffic of any sort much less the totally unregulated shambles so characteristic of India. Yesterday afternoon we walked a lot and have identified where one of aunt Grace's photos was taken from - it is some distance so we will walk there this afternoon. All government offices (as well as such things as the 150 year old "toy" train) are indefinitely closed from today - including Sir Ed's Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Weather is cloudy and I do not expect we will see anything of Kanchenjunga until we are in Sikkim - clouds and mist swirl around the ridges here. If you are reading this Pete, I thought of you when checking out the Darjeeling tea shops - there is some fine looking leaf here. Incidentally, the botanist among us here spotted some fine looking leaf growing at the last town too.

En route to the hills

Thousands marched for a new state of Gorkhland.




The train from Kolkata was clean and comfortable, except for the passengers: a woman had 2 small children which she was plying with sugar and caffeine - when she ran out of coke, she gave them sweet tea. The younger was still in nappies. So, predictably they squealed, screamed, shouted, cried, climbed, ran, jumped on the seats and made themselves a considerable irritant to all the passengers until they finally gave out after 11pm. We ordered dinner, but gave up at 10:30 and went to bed without. Unfortunately in Kolkata I picked up an unwelcome hitchhiker in my gut and remained awake all night. A passenger gave us some invaluable advice and suggested we stay at the retiring rooms at the railway station at Siliguri. Enormous room with 15 foot ceilings and very clean - $3 each. The only down side is the occasional VERY loud locos tooting from very close proximity. Our plans here are so fluid that they are sploshing about. We read in the paper the other day (you could check Times of India website) about some agitation at Darjeeling; riots, teargas, lathi charges (that means the cops mercilessly beating people with bamboo sticks) and a lock down of businesses. Hmmm, maybe we should go to Plan B. So we arrived at Siliguri and checked the place to obtain permits for Sikkim; ah, closes every second Saturday for some reason, maybe (this is India after all), as well as Sunday. So now we are thinking to go back to Plan A and go to Darjeeling anyway although there is more agitation planned for Monday apparently. We can just keep out of the way, and I read the ATMs will still function. I don't know if we are at higher altitude here - the train didn't seem to climb, but the weather is far more agreeable than Kolkata. I would have liked to have gone to Belur Math and Dakshineshwar up river a short distance, but it was just a bit too hot to do that. Another time.

Oh Calcutta

The entrance courtyard of the Howrah Hotel in Kolkata.


After a brief stopover in Chennai we already had our tickets for the train to Kolkata. Comfortable and effortless - we decided to go for the 3 tier air conditioned sleeper option (a little cheaper than 2 tier). It was clean, comfortable and a little more costly than the bus from Hastings to Wellington for a 30 hour journey. One of our fellow travellers runs a shop selling items from Sikkim at Siliguri, the destination of our next train. We just secured the last 2 berths on the train for tomorrow night - it is an 11 hour journey and arrives about 7am. The a/c trains provide clean (usually) linen, pillows and blankets. Incidentally, the temperature for Kolkata today is 36 degrees with 92% humidity. Another advantage of a/c trains is that the usual endless parade of beggars in different forms does not occur (I think there is a guard posted at the end of the carriages). There is no limit, however, to the parade of welcome chai, coffee, cool drinks, water, snacks (too numerous to list) and vendors of utterly useless junk and trash, although that does have a certain fascination.
We took a hotel quite near to the station which was built in the mid 1800s. It really would have looked elegant in those days, but is now only just holding together (incidentally behind the hotel counter is a photo of a bearded old man who looks English but with Hindu ash markings etc whose name was Shiv Shankar Shaw - when I asked about him they proudly explained he was their father, and also added that I looked like him!); although the area is probably the grimiest and grubbiest I've come across in India. Having said that we took a ferry across the Hooghly (that's NOT a Gerry and the Pacemakers song) avoiding the busiest bridge in the world, and have come to an utterly delightful city. The old slightly crumbling grand magnificence of old Calcutta. It seems the heritage buildings here are actually looked after unlike parts of Bangalore for instance which has been eager to demolish its built heritage. The trams still rumble along although not quite as crisp as Melbourne trams but it adds to a public transport system that would be the envy of many cities in India. We have just enjoyed strolling and observing. Calcutta still maintains a grandeur that few cities in the world could match.

Chennai formerly known as Madras

The old colonial mansion where the outdoor reggae gig was held. Next to the ocean, warm tropical sea breeze, great music, rustling palms, aaah, la vie tough!


The last post I wrote disappeared into the ether somewhere. It was from Puducherry formerly known as Pondicherry. I mentioned that although the primary drive to go there was the fact that the great seer, spiritual giant and home rule agitator Sri Aurobindo had made his home there in 1910 (we arrived 98 years to the day after) after being sought for sedition by the British - a hanging offence. As he was also fluent in French the French governor thought it best he stay, and he had a considerable impact until his death in 1950. We enjoyed the brief stay there, and Cathy had only just said to Saskia that she felt like some dancing, and lo and behold a French reggae band was playing next door on Saturday night. A good French reggae band! It was in the grounds of the old colonial mansion which houses Alliance Francais - huge double story whitewashed building with enormous columns and wide verandahs. The band set up in the courtyard on the lawn under the palms swaying in the cool evening sea breeze - it was right next to the beach. After a lot of walking during the day, our legs had given out by a reasonable hour, and to the chagrin of the guest house proprietor, the music was clearly audible even in our room. I quite enjoyed sitting on the balcony listening to both the waves lapping the shore, and the beat of the music. The unexpected has been popping up at every turn. We catch the train tomorrow morning for Kolkata formerly known as Calcutta. This trip has so far been revisiting places I have known, and tomorrow we venture into new territory for both of us. Quite exciting. At the place we had some meals in Puducherry, there was a map of Sikkim and Gangtok on the wall, which also showed aunt Grace's school; and the woman at the next table had just come down from there and gave us some accomodation info. I think it will come together nicely.

Coromandel!

The esplanade at Pondicherry. The beach sand was put there after the tsunami, but is already completely covered with litter. The only few inches not covered with litter was literally inside the empty litter bin.


Neither Cathy nor I have yet been to Coromandel in New Zealand, but we are here at the coast from which it has been named. We effortlessly caught the bus from Tiruvannamalai; a 3 hour journey for 1nz dollar. The breeze was quite pleasant and cool at first, but by the time we arrived at Pondicherry (now called Puducherry) the familiar feeling of sweat trickling down the hollow of the back had resumed. For some reason Indian politicians love renaming places, presumably to attract the locally nationalistic vote, so they can then spend even more money on the ubiquitous billboards proclaiming their own greatness while potholes grow in the roads and garbage continues to accumulate everywhere. So with Puducherry there is Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore, and we just yesterday bought our train tickets to Kolkata. The streets in this town have uncharacteristic (for India) kerb and channel gutters and some degree of tidiness, such as 2 squillion parked motorcycles will allow. Just around the corner from our guest house (overlooking the Bay of Bengal) we noticed that tonight at the Alliance Francais in Rue Dumas there is a reggae concert - guess who is a happy girl! Although it is only 34 or so degrees, it feels much hotter here by the coast as the humidity is very high. It probably won't be much different until we are up in the hills at Darjeeling.

Our last full day at Arunachala

The "special" rice meal at a hotel in Tiruvannamalai town. For an a/c room and some extra dishes, it cost a total of a whole dollar.



I confess to a twinge of guilt as I have introduced Cathy to a habit forming drug - of sorts. It is the infamous Chikki - a habit forming delicious South Indian peanut toffee. I knew an American once who went by taxi out from his hotel in Bangalore to see Sai Baba every day at Whitefield, about 20kms. Every day he was ignored, and every day he went out to the bazaar afterward and bought a piece of Chikki before returning to his hotel. Then one day Sai Baba stopped and seemed about to materialise some ash from his fingers which he did several times daily for someone or other, and when he waved his hand for the American, out popped a piece of Chikki! We called in to see Wendell Field a couple of days ago. Wendell has lived here for most of the past 40 years and is a painter of exception talent; he can hardly keep up with the commissions. He often said his best friend here was the remarkable beggar saint Yogi Ramsuratkumar. One day I noticed a sadhu at a small roadside temple who had a real Light about him. I slipped him some rupees for food and thought later it was just not enough. I later saw him at the Ramanashram and slipped him enough to buy food for a good while. There are many around here who wear the orange cloth which Narikutti Swami derisively called the beggars' uniform. Maybe one in a hundred is one like the one I saw. Later on he saw me a smiled a wonderful smile of deep happiness, then a few minutes later I came upon him at the corner of our road - how did he do that? Anyway, he gestured to me to put out my arm and he tied a small red woven cotton band around it, then gestured to ask Cathy's whereabouts (she was in the room) - I went and brought her down and he gave her one also, as well as a Rudraksha bead around the neck. Expect the unexpected around here. It has been a strange time of reconnecting with people I know. This morning we again walked around the hill and checked the bus timings on the way past. Tomorrow morning we will catch the bus to Pondicherry. It has been a wonderful time at this holy place and Cathy has said she can't wait to come back here. Talk about a duck taking to water.

The Hill works its magic

View of the big temple in the town from the Arunachala hill. The red gum tree on the left was from seed sent by Jon Bader to Narikutti Swami who planted it about 1980.


Yesterday morning Cathy was more keen than I to walk around the hill again so soon - my feet hadn't quite recovered. As she pointed out, 2 times around is a half marathon. We set off again at the same early hour to avoid most of the heat, and part of the way around an Indian fellow sidled up and talked to us, mostly to tell us about how wonderful is Arunachala. A little further on, he wanted us to see a swami he knew and waxed lyrical about how great he is. He phoned the swami on his cellphone at about 5:30am to make sure the gate was unlocked (there is a portfolio of photos of Indians on the cellphone waiting to be done by someone). Well, I thought, I'll roll with this. As we went through the gate and lovely shady garden, I thought that I recognised the house - I had seen it being built when it was just on open barren ground. We walked in and were introduced to the swami. I asked him if his name prior to his renunciation was Sheshadri, and it turned out I had met him 30 years ago; even went to his father's house in Bangalore and met his family. Our Indian guide was gobsmacked. The swami regaled us with stories and plied us with sweet tea. I liked him then and like him even more now. It also turned out that he performed the funeral rites for Swami Narikutti, who was originally from Australia and had lived here for decades. We resumed our walk well after the sun rose and continued in high spirits. Later in the day I bumped into an American devotee of Sai Baba who was one of 4 who sat and meditated with old Kunju Swami at his room in 1991. Kunju Swami was the last of the sannyasi devotees of Ramana Maharshi.
We have also attended a small group of meditators in the afternoons, which feels very good. We both feel very peaceful and if we were any healthier they'd make it illegal.

We meet an old Siddha

The old Siddha. His hair and beard form long matted ropes (that can just be seen at left) and have not been cut for 70 years or so. His hand is covered with ash that he had given us to take home.


A couple of days ago we decided to walk around the Arunachala Hill - a practice that has been recommended by many saints here over the years. During the full moon there are about 100,000 people doing just that, which is why we postponed coming here until after the full moon. We set off about 4:45am and had walked along the main road before most of the noisy vehicles. There are numerous shrines and temples dotted along the route, and the priests were up and about in the darkness doing their various pujas. The total distance is 12 kms - about the same distance as from Haumoana beach to Lotus in Hastings. We had covered a good amount before the heat of the sun rose, and then were lucky due to some cloud cover. I love this place. We also stopped in the town and had breakfast, and if you are reading this Noel, a very fine coriander chutney came with it and I thought of you! A couple of years ago I had met an extraordinary old man due to a confluence of many "coincidences" and I desired to see him again. The only contact I knew was the auto rickshaw driver who took me last time and I had no idea where to find him; then he came up to me and said hello! Result was that we were travelling down a little used road, for nearly an hour, then turned off down a track through the fields, past a small hamlet. At that hamlet someone had a Himalayan black bear on a lead - I felt sorry for the bear in the heat. We went across the fields to the house - more like a shed - where the old man lived. He is in his mid-nineties but has eyes like bright diamonds. His hair has not been cut for 70 years and his hair is in one rope tied up with cotton thread, and his beard is in another rope - maybe 10 or 15 feet long, a bit hard to tell. He sat in lotus (padmasana) posture for 21 years without getting up from his seat, and for 15 years took no food or water. When I last saw him all his fingernails were more than 6 inches long except his index finger nail of his right hand which was cut short to pick up vibhuti ash to place on visitors foreheads as a blessing. He spoke only Tamil, but luckily there was someone to interpret. He is a "siddha" in the old tradition - that is, through his austerities, he has developed siddhis - The Powers. He focuses his attention on someone and their problem is gone. He asked us to stand in a certain spot in front of him and he focused his energy intently upon us. I asked to take his photo and he obliged happily. That evening (and again today), when I sat in the hall during the singing at Ramanashram, I reached a depth of consciousness I haven't touched for a long long time. I have no doubt it was that old man. Energy is such a subtle mystery. Our health on all levels is excellent. We have decided to extend our stay here by another 5 days. Maybe tomorrow we might walk around the hill again.

Arunachala

The Arunachala Hill has been regarded as a holy place and had an unbroken line of saints living on or around it for thousands of years. It certainly does have a magnetic special quality, and is my favourite place in South India. I usually stay at the ashram of the saint Sri Ramana Maharshi, who died in 1950. It is a quiet place and designed for the meditator - apart from traffic on the nearby road, the only noise is from the numerous peacocks honking. The basic teaching of the saint Ramana was that all we can see think or feel, all ideas, beliefs and concepts belong to the movie and what is Real is the screen. When the movie stops the screen remains, and that is called here The Self; One without a second. Beyond time and space, the non-dual Real. If you can say "my" in front of something, then he exorted people to ask "Who is it who makes the claim?"
On a more prosaic note, the trip from Bangalore was effortless and comfortable; another a/c bus with few people aboard. Much warmer here than Bangalore although the threatening thunder and storm clouds produced no rain here. Cathy remarked that she feels more relaxed and happy here than at any time since arriving in India. It's a bit like that. I have received some happy smiles of recognition and that is always nice (including from the stone carver who made our Ganesh). This morning we walked up on the hill and meditated in a tiny cave Ramana lived in for 17 years. It was named after a saint who lived there about 400 years ago. Without going into a long story, instead of dying like normal folk, he turned himself into a pile of ash, which is still in the cave under a cloth and is venerated. To say it is a powerful place to meditate is an understatement. We headed further up the hill to a spring for some fresh water, then followed a path back towards the ashram (more than 1 km). Although it used to be totally barren, an Australian sadhu who lived on the hill for decades planted and watered an entire forest. It has taken on a life of its own now - there are birds of different types, a tribe of Langour monkeys (black faced forest dwellers), and I caught a glimpse of an animal about the size of a possum with a thick bushy tail. No idea what it was. What a wonderful legacy.