Patience is Bliss...

Well, I was going to write about how great McLeod Ganj was and how blissful I feel after listening to the Dali Lama talks and being in such great presence. However, it is going to have to wait, yet again, as I am writing this a local guy is peering (as in watching the screen closer than I am) over my shoulder ( as in pulled up a chair right next to me to watch my screen), telling me how nice my name is, (which he just read off the screen) and saying 'I can be your facebook friend', as he is watching my every move on the computer. Mark is sitting right behind me, and yet they still have no respect. Therefore, if I keep writing my blog at this moment, I am going to write an angry blog, and that is not what I want to portray about the beautiful places we have been and wonderful experiences we have been through in this past week.
So, until next time. I'm gonna whoop some ass.

New Beginnings...

Well, I guess things turn around once you can stop thinking negative and get thoughts out of your head!


After the terrible train ride we arrived in Amritsar, which is a city in Punjab. The Punjab men all wear turbans, so that they can grow their hair. Due to their religion they are not supposed to ever cut their hair. Thinking that it was going to be yet another damn Indian town, with damn Indian men, I didn't expect much. However after a few minutes, of walking around, things changed. Mark and I were looking at a map and a man tapped me on the shoulder. I'm thinking "Don't touch me you bastard!", but it turned out he was trying to get my attention because there was a small trickle of water coming downstream, and I was going to be right in the middle of it!! After that I felt like the bastard! That's when I eased up. The people here turned out to be very nice, of course there is always going to be some incident, but that happens at home as well. Punjab has lots of ice cream, and nice people. MY FAVE! However, we didn't stay too long because we had plans to see his Holiness; the Dali Lama in a couple of days and didn't want to miss out. We jumped on a bus and headed up north to Dharamsala, also known as McLeod Ganj.  A beautiful bustling small town in the cold mountains.

TIRING EFFECTS TAKE PLACE

Well, I thought I was strong enough, I thought I had the ego pushed down far enough to not take over. Well it seems India has taken over, and well.... I have Broken down.

The men here; I don't even know how to describe what the feeling is like but the best I can say is this:
I feel like I am standing naked.... Alone....And all these man are judging me in every action I take.
I had a train ride a couple nights ago. It was a sleeper train. This means there are 3 beds on each wall in a cubicle, so 3 beds facing 3 beds, with no curtain. Then you have people passing by going to the toilet, looking at you sleep, its not that dark so they can see in.
Well, this is what happened:
The train stopped.... The people who paid for their bunks got off, which means every man for themselves get on the train, but Mark and I stay in our original spots, lying down trying to sleep. This train ran from 21:40 to 7:20. These people got on around 3:00am. They were all men, mark was sleeping. They all got on and watched me, I had woken up and heard them so I saw what they were doing. Sitting there watching me sleep.

So.... being in India, you have to get used to people watching you at all times, judging you, or the like. So I put my blanket over my head, and kept sleeping.
Until, I felt a hand grab my knee. Well I have heard of a lot worse places for these boys to touch, which doesn't make it alright with me, however, I woke up and saw these boys walking away. I didn't say anything because I was coming out of my sleep, and didn't realize what happened until a couple seconds too late. Therefore I stayed awake.... Waiting...
They came back, and saw I was awake, but they tried sneakily to take pictures of me. So I had to speak up, cause I know the difference between paranoia, and my rights to be a human. I said some mean things and not knowing if they understood me but one guy sheepishly said "Sorry".

I find it hard to be nice to the men here, I make mad faces at them or just look to the floor because they are taught that if a womane looks into their eyes they want to have sex with them, like a whore. Which, as you know we are not taught pretty much the opposite back home. This is how I read people, by what their look is in their eyes. And I read a lot of sadness. So, instead of going like the heard and looking down and letting these boys/men look at me like I am a piece of meat, I now make faces at them. Stupid, ugly, rampid faces, until they either look away or get so confused they run into someone else, which does happen regularly. Just today a guy on a motorcycle ran into another guy on a motorcycle because he was watching me walk on the side of the road. Mark noticed it, I didn't even see what happened until the crash, and Mark told me.
This is probably the hardest test of life I have ever gone through. And I see women traveling alone in this country, although have never met them, due to the fact that they are always going as fast as they can, to and from places.
A test in the school of life. I WILL PASS, AND I WILL SUCCEED. THE EGO WILL NOT SUCCEEED.

Stop 3 in India

Delhi

Supposed to be the most energetically draining city in India, but after Varanasi it wasn't too bad. We knew most of the tricks people use to make money, and scam you so we escaped a lot of the hassle. They try to get you to their shops where they make you buy stuff, or bring you to private places where they sell you double the price for bus and train tickets. Anyway, Delhi has plenty of rich, some middle class, and WAYY too many poor. On one street there are beggars, people with no food, shelter or clean water. Then walk one street down and you have: BMW dealership, McDonalds, KFC, shopping malls that I can't afford to go into. Its quite sad really, that anywhere you go, if the money was distributed throughout the country, there would be no poverty, and hopefully greed would go away. However, we always say no to beggars, we do give to organized charities, and try to buy at local stores that support the community. We said no to a couple of people begging for money and after they understand they aren't getting anything from you, they spit at you and say mean things, one time we even got called Bastards! It is quite the rat race here, and well everywhere in the world, a race for money, yet no one is happy. I believe we still have time to make this world a great positive place to live in.  Money isn't life, yet we need it to survive.
Well, onto a train again to a spiritual place called Rishikesh, to help us with meditation and yoga and the calming down of this tiresome place some people call home!!

Stop 2 in India

Agra

The only thing good, and not really my thing, in Agra is the Taj Mahal. A building so beautifully built to encase the emperor's 3rd wife when she died. She was his favorite wife and he wanted to do something special. So inside this gigantic building there are 2 bodies, the emperor and his 3rd wife. It is pretty gigantic and amazing building, and a have to see if you are in the area. After seeing that, get the hell outta Agra, it stinks worse than any place I have been and everything about it is not happy, especially when I got sick from the food, and our toilet leaked out the back after you flush!.
My least favorite!

First Stop in India

Varanasi
A whirlwind of winding alleys, people always in a hurry, almost every corner reaks of urine, and yet there they are the Holy Ganges. The ganges are a sacred river that the hindus belive will wash away all their sin, after the cremation of the deceased, the bones and ashes are thrown in.

However, in the past thousands of uncremated bodies were thrown into the Ganges during cholera epidemics, spreading the disease. Even today, holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy or chicken pox, people who had been bitten by snakes, people who had committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not cremated at the ghats but are floated free to decompose in the waters. In addition, those who can not afford the large amount of wood needed to incinerate the entire body, leave behind a lot of half burned body yet they dump half cremated dead bodies into it.
They float lit butter candles and flowers to send a prayer on the water, they somehow wash their clothes in it, and last of all they bathe in it. It is the color of grey brown.  It is one of the top 5 polluted rivers in the world, due to the fact of what dies in it, or goes in dead, and the massive amounts of garbage put into it."According to official standards, water safe for bathing should not contain more than 500 faecal coliforms per 100ml, yet upstream of Varanasi's ghats the river water already contains 120 times as much, 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml;
After passing through Varanasi, and receiving 32 streams of raw sewage from the city, the concentration of faecal coliforms in the river's waters rises from 60,000 to 1.5 million, with observed peak values of 100 million per 100 ml. Drinking and bathing in its waters therefore carries a high risk of infection"
CRAZY! Yet these waters seem to still be holy and great enough to bathe in??? I don't understand.

Varanasi is still one of my favorite cities though, even through its crazy dirty chaos it has a sence of love and compassion.

Quotes

These are a couple of quotes I found from reading a book about a man on a spiritual journey, around the mountains in Nepal and Tibet called the Snow Leopard.

"No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."

"The flower fulfills its immanence and intelligence, implicit in its unfolding.
                                     There is a dicipline.
                             The flower grows without mistakes.
A man must grow himself, until he understands the intelligence of the flower."
-This one I believe is something we all should learn, that if the flower grows imperfect, it still grows. We must understand that mistakes cannot be made, we learn and grow.

"Least you discriminate against the so called 'lower functions', for these too contain the inherent miracle of being. Did not one of the great masters attain enlightenment upon hearing the splash of his own turd into the water? Even transparency may be a hindrance if one clings to it."

Whirwind of E-Motions

The arrival into India was what you could call organized chaos, although it isn't really that organised at all. There is a 1km lineup of cars, people on bikes, motorbikes, and walking. To get through is a madhouse, because the lineup goes both ways! It heads into an arch that says on one side thanks for coming to Nepal, and vise versa to India. You can cross the border as many times as you want at this crazy place because nobody checks your passport to make sure you are who you are and there are no bag checks either, you just walk through the border and go about your day. 

Obviously we got our paperwork done because we are flying out and the aairport is a little more strict, however I could have been having a beer, and smoking a joint as I crossed the border with illegal orphans in my backpack to sell across the border. I obviously didn't bring anything over the border because we have all been through LAX, and if you haven't well its pretty much the most guilty you will ever feel, (for doing nothing) in your whole life! So we always take precautions. Anyway there is a little sign that says immigration office on one side, and then after you got your stamp, you walk across the border, pushing through people, (cause if you don't you will be surely left behind, or trampled, or run over!) And find the other sign that says immigration, and get your new visa stamped. 

As we walked through though, there were little girls walking with bags on their head, it looked as though they were rushing, and we still don't know why, but as they ran across the border, an army man cut open their bags to expose about 20 kg of rice. I don't know why he cut the bags, but he let them hold onto them and run across the border. Maybe its their way of checking your luggage I don't know. But you just keep your comments to yourself and go across as fast as you can, haha. Its CRAZY!

So we found a bus, (oh I should add it took us about 1.5 hours to get to the border crossing from the closest city we were at) And 5 hours later we were in the next border city called Gorakpur. We booked a night train that was supposed to leave at 11:15pm. We ate some supper, and then waited for 5 hours at the train station, while everyone stared. It is weird to be stared at. We know that staring is rude and try not to do it, but they sit by you and look, like there was a fetus growing out the side of our heads or something! It is crazy, you can stare back at them but they will just keep looking, they might look away for a couple seconds but then its back to staring. I get it more than Mark, but I knew this coming into the country that they would look at the WHITE GIRL!!!! But WOW, its crazy. SO I started making weird faces and making weird sounds cause I feel like if they are gonna look at me I might as well put on a show!! They don't even smile or wave, just a straight face the whole time. WEIRD!


Anyway, the train was only 2.5 hours late which was good because the other train we heard was going to be 8 hours late, that's business in India, you just have to be patient. We got the sleeper train but it is pretty noisy on the tracks, so sleeping was not really persistent. We arrived in Varanassi at 10:30am, needing a shower and some food, as well as a place to stay. WOW what a crazy place, its fast, colorful, and full of excitement and MADDNESS! We are about to stay our first night in India not in transit, after being through their crazy alley streets, getting blessed by a Sidu, and drinking Chai tea with a snack of Dhosa on the side of the road. SIDE NOTE: when you get street food, weather its a tea or food itself, they usually give it to you in stainless steel plates and cups so you stay there and eat/drink and there is no waste. Unless you just get a samosa or small snack with no sauce, they wrap that in old newspaper and send you on your way!

I could wirte a heck of a lot more but I should leave some to the time. But I do have to explain the smells. The smell of curries cooking, milk tea being brewed, people peeing on the buildings, cow patties wherever they feel like going rats in the streets, eating all the garbage that is carelessly thrown on the ground. One mimnute you can't wait to get out of the urine encrusted street smell, and don't know how people can sit there in the alley and live like that, but when you turn the corner, the most beautiful big river and Ghats, and fresh food being sold!
Were not in Kansas anymore!