onward

My fellowship is over and the next leg of my india experience begins. . .

POEM
Incidentally, I read in many a cafe today (acclimatizing to 12,000 feet). In one such cafe, which also appeared to be a christian center of sorts, I read one of their Shel Silverstein books. I took down a good poem from Falling Up, which I will share:

Tell me I'm clever,
Tell me I'm kind,
Tell me I'm talented,
Tell me I'm cute,
Tell me I'm sensitive,
Graceful and wise,
Tell me I'm perfect-
But tell me the truth.

Moving on. . .

AMRITSAR and WAGHA
Since the end of the fellowship, I've travelled a bit. First I travelled with a fellow Fellow by train (fast, clean, fun) to Amritsar, from Delhi. Amritsar, in Punjab, is home to really friendly people and the Golden Temple- the big Sikh temple. The temple is, as name would have it, golden, and is surrounded by a huge pool of water and white marble. People can sleep on the marble, and the temple feeds thousands of people a day. Seeing the temple in the evening, glowing golden and filled with music and the chanting of prayers is indeed pretty amazing.

While in Punjab, I also went to the Wagha border- India's border with Pakistan- to see the pomp and circumstance that is the closing of the gates each evening. It really is a hilarious experience. There is stadium seating, separately, on each side. There is much more seating on the Indian side. First, the women were let into the stadium-like open air area, to choose their seats either in the women's section or elsewhere. Then the men and the remaining women were allowed to enter the area. The men's entry, of which I was a part, turned into a mad crushing dash. As I attempted to dodge the crushing rush (and eat the tasty popcorn which I had just purchased) I was reminded of my frequent reading in the paper of the many people who die in relgious and other mad dashes in India.

Once inside, the attendees on each side are regaled by loud Indian and Pakistani dance music (Indian music playing on the Indian side and Pakistani music playing on the Pakistani side, of course). This is a very odd experience. While I thought that the music on the Pakistani side was more danceable, I thought that the overall goings on on the Indian side contained more excitement. A group of perhaps 20 or so men and boys then started dancing in the middle of the stadium, along with the music. Next, there was the running of the flags. Men, women, and children- two at a time- took huge Indian flags in their hands and ran to the closed Pakistani border gate. Once at the gate the people would wave the flag and taunt the guards or do some sort of strangely lude hip movements. In any other context this would be punishable behavior. This went on for maybe 20 minutes, with different people. Then there was the "MC" who would intermitantly yell in Hindi- basically saying Hindustan is great and India is the best, etc. The crowd would chant responsively. Pakistan would do the same chants in Urdu about Pakistan being great. There was a hippie kid from Colorado who also regailed the audience with a puppet-like show using a big bird stuffed animal, that danced around sang and taunted the border guards. (If this all sounds ridiculous then you are getting an accurate picture). Finally, the actual "show" began. I can't say exactly what happened on the Pakistani side since my view was slightly obstructed. On the India side the border guards walked in what I can only call a flamboyantly gay goosestep fashion to the center. They stood in a row and yelled for as long as they could. The Pakistani guards did the same. It was sort of like Yom Kippur and the blowing of the shofar, but with dudes in uniform yelling into mics. Then there was a ceremony in which the guards on the two sides taunted each other and waved flags and took down their respective flags, opened the gates, and then finally closed the gates for the night. Good times.

DHARAMSALA
After two days in Amritsar, we headed to Dharamsala. Coincidentally it was our luck that brought us to this little Tibetan mountain town (in India) while the Dalai Lama was also there. Dharamsala houses the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. It also happened to be HHDL's birthday on our second day in D'sala, so the festivities and tourists abounded. I, and thousands of other people from around the world, attended HHDL's lecture, in his (pretty damn cool) temple complex. Thanks to a purchased mini radio, I listened to part of the lecture in English translation. As an understatement, HHDL seems to be a really interesting, cool, earthy guy. He would lecture about a facet of ideology and then make jokes about monks in the audience who were wearing clothing that was too hot for the climate. Due to slight illness, unfortunately, I did not attend the full lecture. Instead, I spent a lot of time at The Current Event, a coffee house next to our hotel, which both offered great views of the Himalayan foothills. The Current Event, like a lot of D'sala is owned and run by Tibetan refugees. The Tibetan museum schooled me on the history of Tibet and its occupation by China.

On a side note, people had been telling me about the beauty of Himachal Pradesh (state) for a while. And I didn't understand what they meant until I saw it myself. It is green and lush, with flowers, trees, mangos, apricot trees, apple trees, waterfalls, raspberries, and tons and tons of canabis plants growing on the side of the highways, roads, and gardens. Cannabis definitely deserves it's reference as weed.

VASHISHT
Following the "hippie trail" our next destination spot was Manali, or rather Vashisht, a small village above Manali. We took a night bus (8 hours) from Dharamsala, which I can only rename the bus of ill repute. Holy Shit! The driver, in combination with the shitty roads and mountain passes, was on a death mission. The first three hours of the bus ride were the most hellacious of the either hours and, in retrospect only, hilarious. We had a "dinner" stop after the first three hours, during which people were throwing up, dealing with GI issues, and crying about having to get back on the bus. Fortuantely, the following mountain passes must have been too trecherous for the driver to continue on the death journey that he was on and the next 5 hours were passable, but still highly unpleasant and sleepless.

At 530ish we arrived in Manali. We took an autorickshaw to Vashisht, where we were greeted by an old man who offered a room sans bathroom for Rs.150. Woo! The room was spectacular. A minimalist semi-clean arrangement with lots of windows overlooking the mountains and valley, a mango tree, apple trees, and an apricot tree. We also had a floor seating area with ground level tables. The proprietor, Nigey, also provided apples, a chillum, and smokables.

We met up with three other Fellows in Vashisht and together did some minor walking in the area. My primary activities, however, were sitting around at the World Peace Cafe, eating semi-decent Israeli and poor Indian food, reading, and talking to random people. I also got two excellent massages and watched movies at a local restaurant- Borat, Sideways, and Babel. That was sufficiently productive for my taste.

TO LEH
I am now in Leh a town in the Himalayas. It's part of the the state of Jammu & Kashmir. I have nothing yet to report from Leh, but the ride to get here is a story. It was the most amazing ride that I don't ever want to do again. (Well, I would do it again in a private jeep and with friends, perhaps.) The jeep from Manali left at 2:30am, and was crammed with 10 people. The alternative was to go by bus, but that journey would take 30+ hours. Instead we arrived at 7:30ish pm last night. To get from Manali to Leh one must pass through the second highest motorable road (17,500 feet) in the world. In order to get to this pass and beyond it we drove through mountains, sand dunes, desert, forests, and snowy peaks, the magnitude of which I have never before experienced. Amazing. My pics will do this landscape no justice. I don't know what else I can say in words about this drive, really. There were some harrowing moments and a brief feeling of being out of it due to the altitude, but otherwise it was just amazing. I guess there really is no story here.

As an interesting aside- peeing for women, as I may have mentioned previosuly in the blog, is not made easy In India- anywhere. This was especially true on this road, which was largely made up of rocks and craggy cliffs. We would get susu (pee) breaks on the side of the road. Men would easily piss on the side of the road, but the women had to seek out some largeish rock, or the back of a temple, or some random piece of gas basin behind which to squat. Interestingly, there were a lot of gas basins to be found on the road sides. There were also a frightening number of old and rusty trucks and truck parts scattered in the valleys and rivers below the roads on which we were driving. This pass from Manali to Leh is only open for driving from June to September due to the -30 weather, snow, and landslides during the rest of the year.