BlueRose6
Calcutta
Dear Everyone,
This is my last email from India as I am in Calcutta and leave for home tonight. I've been in the hotel room more and more, can't muster the energy for too many more temples or museums although we saw both Kali temples and Victoria Memorial here. We came back from a 3 hour outing and the air was so bad we were blowing out pure black snot. I will arrive in San Fransisco on the 15th pm. I am planning on travelling again soon (in 6 months) with Kiran to see Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia , but for now I am just worn out. I have travelled over 10,000 km. Basically almost all of India except for the mountian areas which are too darn cold. Not too bad for someone who has never spent time outside of the US except a week in Mexico. I have to say, I am really proud of what I accomplished because the travel here is very rough and it was very hard at times. I will need a time of building back my physical health due to a poor diet and air pollution etc...
We spent 10 nights on trains, 6 days on trains, taken over 11 public buses (and that was intense), innumerable rickshaws, taxis etc... Along with riding horses, camels, Elephants, jet skis, crossing rivers in baskets, just a fraction of what I have done. I spent New Years day floating down the Ganges in Varanasi, watching the cremations and the varied life that is a part of that holy place. It was a dream of mine to see that place ever since a teacher told me about it at Dominican so long ago. Then we went to Bodgaya, the spot where the Buddha sat under the Bodi tree and attained enlightenment. What a special place that is. There is such a sense of peace with all the red-robed monks and Monastaries from every Buddhist country in the world( Thai, Burmese, Tibetan, etc...) we saw them all and I have pictures of them. I hope you can all come to see me so I can share my experiences with you!!!
India for me has been wacky and wild and wonderful and painful. I never fail to be touched in my heart when I hear the prayers sung in the mornings and evenings from the Mosques. It is SO beautiful these words that I am not exactly sure of. Other sounds I will never forget are the chai and coffee boys on the train calling " Chai ai chaiaaaa , Coooffee offfee offeeeee". More impressions: The crazy streets with all the cars and bikes and cows and you name it. The pungent smell of piss that quite frequently assaults you. People shitting in the fields as you go by on the bus, white knuckling, fearing for your safety and with a childs head on your lap for lack of room and a Mothers exhaustion. Feeding monkeys through the window of your hotel room, hearing "just take a look" from EVERY shop keeper in the country, a genuine Namaste that makes you smile, sadhus (naked holy men covered with cremated ashes and wearing betel nut beads) bumming a cigarette, the same menu that greets your hungry belly day after day no matter where you are. "Tomato soup, finger chips, masla omelet. ( I am so ready for my own cooking I could cry) Expect something and it does not materialize. Expect nothing and the greatest wonder you every imagined appears. Taking your shoes off and putting them on again to enter the temples, off and on again over and over. An animal lovers nighmare, cows so hungry they are eating cardboard and licking bird droppings off the wall. Puppies so hungry they are eating cow shit. ANYTHING for sustenance. No neutered animals anywhere, I have seen more balls and lacatating teats on dogs than I ever have in my life.
I am back to the land of clean bathrooms and perpetual toilet paper in exchange for flocks of bright green parakeets and Demoiselle cranes in the pink dawn and Kiran's stories and his firm hand pulling me through the utter chaos of the traffic.
I am ready for home. I heard the birds again last night at dusk, in a huge tree outside of our window, there were so many of them bedding down it sounded like a fire crackling and popping away. And over that the sounds of the man from the mosque calling those who love God to pray, and the sound of the street and the smell of the incense followed by a whiff of piss... I send you these things to remember and to know India.
Lauren
Calcutta
Dear Everyone,
This is my last email from India as I am in Calcutta and leave for home tonight. I've been in the hotel room more and more, can't muster the energy for too many more temples or museums although we saw both Kali temples and Victoria Memorial here. We came back from a 3 hour outing and the air was so bad we were blowing out pure black snot. I will arrive in San Fransisco on the 15th pm. I am planning on travelling again soon (in 6 months) with Kiran to see Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia , but for now I am just worn out. I have travelled over 10,000 km. Basically almost all of India except for the mountian areas which are too darn cold. Not too bad for someone who has never spent time outside of the US except a week in Mexico. I have to say, I am really proud of what I accomplished because the travel here is very rough and it was very hard at times. I will need a time of building back my physical health due to a poor diet and air pollution etc...
We spent 10 nights on trains, 6 days on trains, taken over 11 public buses (and that was intense), innumerable rickshaws, taxis etc... Along with riding horses, camels, Elephants, jet skis, crossing rivers in baskets, just a fraction of what I have done. I spent New Years day floating down the Ganges in Varanasi, watching the cremations and the varied life that is a part of that holy place. It was a dream of mine to see that place ever since a teacher told me about it at Dominican so long ago. Then we went to Bodgaya, the spot where the Buddha sat under the Bodi tree and attained enlightenment. What a special place that is. There is such a sense of peace with all the red-robed monks and Monastaries from every Buddhist country in the world( Thai, Burmese, Tibetan, etc...) we saw them all and I have pictures of them. I hope you can all come to see me so I can share my experiences with you!!!
India for me has been wacky and wild and wonderful and painful. I never fail to be touched in my heart when I hear the prayers sung in the mornings and evenings from the Mosques. It is SO beautiful these words that I am not exactly sure of. Other sounds I will never forget are the chai and coffee boys on the train calling " Chai ai chaiaaaa , Coooffee offfee offeeeee". More impressions: The crazy streets with all the cars and bikes and cows and you name it. The pungent smell of piss that quite frequently assaults you. People shitting in the fields as you go by on the bus, white knuckling, fearing for your safety and with a childs head on your lap for lack of room and a Mothers exhaustion. Feeding monkeys through the window of your hotel room, hearing "just take a look" from EVERY shop keeper in the country, a genuine Namaste that makes you smile, sadhus (naked holy men covered with cremated ashes and wearing betel nut beads) bumming a cigarette, the same menu that greets your hungry belly day after day no matter where you are. "Tomato soup, finger chips, masla omelet. ( I am so ready for my own cooking I could cry) Expect something and it does not materialize. Expect nothing and the greatest wonder you every imagined appears. Taking your shoes off and putting them on again to enter the temples, off and on again over and over. An animal lovers nighmare, cows so hungry they are eating cardboard and licking bird droppings off the wall. Puppies so hungry they are eating cow shit. ANYTHING for sustenance. No neutered animals anywhere, I have seen more balls and lacatating teats on dogs than I ever have in my life.
I am back to the land of clean bathrooms and perpetual toilet paper in exchange for flocks of bright green parakeets and Demoiselle cranes in the pink dawn and Kiran's stories and his firm hand pulling me through the utter chaos of the traffic.
I am ready for home. I heard the birds again last night at dusk, in a huge tree outside of our window, there were so many of them bedding down it sounded like a fire crackling and popping away. And over that the sounds of the man from the mosque calling those who love God to pray, and the sound of the street and the smell of the incense followed by a whiff of piss... I send you these things to remember and to know India.
Lauren