Tied up in Kathmandu

Monkey Temple, Kathmandu
Kathmandu is nestled in the valley of the mountains around the foothills of the Himalyas- as most people know, as it is the jumping off point to the zillions of treks which eventually lead to the big one- Everest. It is also full of Buddhist and Hindu temples that are older than old- some around 600 BC or so.

Nepal is a gentler, cleaner version of India, and though some of the same "rules" or lack of them apply, people are a bit more laid back, and there is not so much rubbish around to clutter up the landscape- which is probably magnificent except that the 4 days I was there it was cold and foggy and smoggy [more on why later] and so I did not see the backdrop of the Himalyas -which was a bit of a disappointment.


Our first night saw us finding our hotel by driving the wrong way on a narrow one way street, which is the main shopping and nightclub drag for Thamel, a touristy district of Kathmandu. The hotel is gorgeous and tucked away a few streets back from the hustle and bustle, but easy to walk to the action if you want it. The lobby and surrounds are resplendent in "antique" wood carved pillars and decorations which add a nice touch. My room is practically palatial compared with the last few nights, and it overlooks a gorgeous garden. There is a German couple there, who are in the process of adopting a Nepali baby who had been abandoned by her parents....apparently a common event in Nepal- as we are to meet several people who are in similar circumstances. The baby [2 1/2 is called Sita, and her adoptive parents are beaming!]


Day 1 was spent chilling out [an easy thing to do because the temp is about 8 degrees C- though the TeeVee says it is 12, I do NOT believe it]- having massages and shopping and just hanging. Day 2: we head for a series of temples in and around the city, but only make it to one- the Monkey Temple, because the city is on strike over rising petrol prices and every street is clogged with traffic. We decided to go back to the hotel, because we knew we would not make it out of the city, and it took us 3+ hours to go about 2 km's



Monkeys eating brekkie at Monkey Temple
Day 3: My last day- the city is still under seige by the strikers and the is locked down- most shops have closed their doors and people are making fires out of kerosene and tyres at each intersection of each sector around the city. There is a bit of protest and a bit of festival feeling throughout and people are walking everywhere. The sky is filled with black smoke and it stinks of kero. We walk to Durbur square- which is filled with temples [Hindu, Buddhist etc] and I am given my 17th zillion guided Hindu religious instruction lesson -walking around the square with a young "government" guide. He keeps pointing out the Karma Sutra carvings on the temples with glee-walking clockwise around each temple, hand raised above his head, index finger pointing to the "frescoes", and I feel more and more claustrophobic: hemmed in by Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, talk- I am drowning in Hindu god words which revolve round and over and through my brain until I have to stop him and tell him to go away. He ends up following me [unbeknownst to me] and literally bumps into me that night in Thamel- at least a 45 minute walk away from where we were that afternoon. We had to be rude to him to get rid of him and he still followed us into a cafe. The waiter got what was going on and had to ask him to leave. Creepy! My only "bad" experience in an otherwise gentle time in Kathmandu.
Like most happenings in this part of the world, nothing turned out as planned- we were going to go to a school in the country and visit some Buddhist temples outside the city, but ended up bound to Kathmandu by strikers. The results were good, as the pricing bodies brought the petrol prices back to where they were- how long that will last is anyone's guess, but I was impressed by the speedy and positive results.

Back to Delhi with an overnight stop at a hotel for rest, recovery and a cleanliness pit stop. I have managed to develop sniffles and coughs so I need some r and r.



View of Pagoda from Hippie Temple,
Durber Square, Kathmandu

Buddha bound- Part 2

The Korean Buddhist
welcoming committee

Changing the robes
on the Buddha


Kushinigar: where the Buddha died. The town is hosting a group of Koreans who have come to change robes on the reclining Buddha- a statue which lies in front of the actual remains of the Buddha encased in another building. We are allowed into the Thai ceremony and are even invited to participate. The whole thing is being video taped, and where once I would have kept my camera in it's bag, I unashamedly take it out. Peldan grabs the yellow robe and poses, nodding at me to take his picture. Mr Singh, our driver, calls Peldan, Guru-Ji, and is very fond of him, because Peldan invites him to sleep in his room each time we stop [drivers are otherwise expected to sleep in their cars, and Mr Singh- a 62 year old like me- appreciates the comfort]. The next morning, they do a comedy routine about snoring and talking in their sleep, it is very amusing.

Out on the street, there is a parade or monks carrying signs that welcome the Koreans, but also advertise and encourage peace. They are accompanied by a truck blaring Hindu music, and an elephant-ah India! I stop to take a picture of the elephant and the driver motions with his fingers that I should pay him [the universal sign for gimme]. I take out 10 rupees and the elephant extends his trunk towards me and I pull back a little frightened. A small boy helps me hand the rupees to the driver.


We go back to the hotel, pack up and head to Lumbini, which is across the border in Nepal. Mr Singh will drive us to the border at Sonauli and then we will catch a taxi after buying our visas to Nepal. Mr Singh is sad and keeps telling me: "Ah madam, last day, last day".
We leave Peldan at Gorukpur to catch a train to Bodhgaya, where he will meet up with some other monks and head back to Delhi with them. When we leave Mr Singh at Sonauli, 4 hours later, I have a little lump in my throat- he has been a quiet, peaceful joy to spend time with.

Lumbini is where the Buddha was born, and our hotel is this extremely funky building set in the forest. I try not to look at the room, because it is not well kept and I am pretty sure the sheets have not been changed since the last guest. It is cold, and we retire for the night, sick of car journeys. If I come to India/Nepal again, I am bringing a can of Ajax and a sponge for the bathrooms.

Next day, we are out early in the morning, to view the plethora of temples lying deep in the forest. There seems to be a competition between the Tibetans, Vietnamese, Burmese, Thai, Korean and Chinese over who has the biggest and most elaborate temple. It is most upsetting to see all of this going on just kilometres from a poverty stricken village, where people live in mud houses with little or no facilities. We are taken through the misty morning on rickshaws -my driver sings and has taken it upon himself to guide us through the temples. All in all it is a pleasant ride- though I am hosting some bug in my stomach and feel queasy and nauseous throughout the ride.


Entrance to
Vietnamese temple
Ceiling: Chinese temple

The whole journey culminates at the Maya Devi temple, where Buddha's mother stopped to take rest, had labour pains and gave birth. There is a building which houses the ruins of the temple and the exact spot of the Buddha birth. At this moment, my camera battery dies and I cannot even coax one picture out of it. There has not been a hotel with electrical outlets in the room for 3 nights.

We come back to our hotel and a taxi is waiting to take us to Kathmandu. After changing drivers-the first one pocketed our money- we head off with the manager of our Lumbini hotel who is bumming a ride to Kathmandu with us. Thank goodness because we reach a town within 90 k's of Kathmandu to be told the road is closed until the morning because of an accident. The traffic is lined up for 10 or more kilometres with cars, buses, trucks and motorbikes. After waiting 2 hours we decide to try and drive as far up the road as we can and see if we can walk through the closure and perhaps ring for a taxi from Kathmandu when we reach a point that can take cars. We get up to an impasse and within minutes are told that the road is open. A collective sigh runs through all the of the people waiting, as they have been there since 9 AM- it is now 5 PM. We race to our destination and arrive in Kathmandu late at night. Our hotel is gorgeous!

More from the Hippie capital of Nepal.......

Buddha Bound

The Bodhi Tree

BODHGAYA: Home of the Bodhi Tree, under which a Prince named Siddartha sat and became enlightened. The town is loaded with Thai, Burmese, Tibetan and other Asian Buddhists, along with hundreds of monks, who are there for 3 or 4 days of chanting. We arrive in the afternoon and meet Peldan, the Tibetan monk who will travel with us for the next 4 days, in front of the temple, as hundreds of the above Pilgrims stream past us and hawkers of mala beads, plastic buddhas and Dalai Lama paraphanalia crowd around us to hassle us to buy buy buy! [This is India, a masalla of everthing].

Peldan takes us into the temple, where a monk is changing the robes on the statue of Buddha-and he winks at me as he looks down on the masses of us crammed into a room about the size of a public toilet. My stereotypes about monks are about to be broken in a million pieces over the next few days, and they start with this one wink.

Around the perimeter sit a nation of Buddhist monks, seas of burgandy, orange and yellow, while pilgrims sit outside the fenced in area and listen or walk around clockwise, prostrating themselves to the Buddha or running laps on the malas with their own private mantras. The Bodhi tree [not the original, that one died a long time ago, but the son or grandson of the original tree] is hosting an ordination ceremony for some Thai monks as the hoardes stream past. Up one level is another walkway, where you can look down on the chanters, and see piles of food, books [with sacred Buddhist texts- donated by a follower] waiting to be distributed to pilgrims. We decide to walk this perimeter in the morning, which proves to be even more crowded, and full of people who seem to be on a marathon-rushing through by pushing and shoving people out of the determined pathway. Seems to me to defeat the purpose, but I do not live in this part of the world or in this culture.

Bodhgaya is the first stop on our Buddhist trail. On the way to Kushinigar, where the Buddha died, we visit Rajgir, where there is a Japanese stupa high on a hill, and some caves where significant teachings of the Buddha took place. We reach the stupa via chair lift- the operative word being CHAIR. They are wooden lawn chairs hanging onto a cable by a very small hook. I calculate how far the fall would be and how many bones I would break if the chair fell with me in it. I mention this to Peldan when we get off and he tells me he has the same thoughts-only his are accompanied by visuals from a movie he saw of a helicopter crash. [Peldan loves movies and is extremely excited when we stop somewhere for the night and there is a TV- commanding the remote like a jealous lover]. I am happy to be in the company of a monk who is just as neurotic about heights as I am. Halfway down from the stupa [temple] we stop at the point where Buddha gave the heart teachings to his disciples. I ask Peldan what the heart teachings are and he tells me they are about nothingness. This doesn't really give me a clue- or does it?

Me at the Rajgir caves

Near Rajgir is Nalanda, where an ancient and famous Buddhist university lies. The university is a ruin now, a series of half buildings strewn in beautiful surroundings- very peaceful. You would hardly guess that a thriving, hustling market lies just outside the gates. Typical of spiritual history, another religious group [I knew but have forgotten] burned the university down. It is said that it took days for the library to burn because of all the texts there. Pelden and I wander around the ruins talking about everything from Buddhism- our original intent- to thoughts and visions and the Dalai Lama and the political scene in Tibet and even Richard Gere- he tells me I have Richard Gere hair.

Peldan and a local Sadwa

Next we head to Kushinigar, where the Buddha died. See you there!

Namaste!

INDIAN MATHS

Theories of Time:
by Mr Lal Singh

5 minutes = 30-60 minutes [sometimes 2.5 hours depending on the circumstances]

15 minutes= 60-120 minutes [this is a definite possibility- though nothing is actually definite in Indian time, but everything is possible]

30 minutes = 240 -560 minutes [again dependent on the circumstances]

1 hour= inconceivable in the theory of time.

1 day = 1 day [though in the mind may last anywhere up to a week or more]

1 week= 6-8 months [maybe, maybe not-never know though dependent on all or any of the above]

1 month= 4 or 5 lifetimes - this is a definite and a possibility and also dependent on all of the above.

Therefore:
I have been in India for at least 3.5 lifetimes each of which have lasted somewhere between 20+ and 50+ years]

Worth every moment! Priceless!

Pilgrimage to Varanassi

VARANASSI: It is the time of the Pilgrims, and the footpaths on the Ghats are lined with Hindu Pilgrims from all over India, who have come to make their worship at the banks of the sacred Ganga River. Sitting in various positions, all ages and sizes, they hold their metal bowls out to be filled with rice. It is their physical sustenance in an otherwise spiritually sustaining environment. It is that time of year because it is not monsoon-when the rains come and the waters rise and drown out half of India.

At 5:30 AM before the sun rises over the Ganga, they start their chanting, and as the sun comes up it rises to a crescendo and then descends. There is never a quiet moment, because then the bathers come to the bottom of the Ghats and wash themselves in the sacred waters.
We are floating down the Ganga watching all of this from a few metres in the river beyond the Ghats. We started around sunrise- though not really, this is Indian time, and we were supposed to start at sunrise, but made it about 20 minutes later[India time].....we float past each Ghat-there are squillions of them- our boatman, laconically sucking on Pan- this hideous red stuff that is some sort of stimulant and makes the Indian smile a ghoulish/reddish affair- especially when blended with blackened teeth- more common than not.


I have been meeting with Jim and Janet and Kate Woodworth from the Mtns, and we have had a jolly time. Kate who has been living in Varanassi for a while, leads us through snaking alleyways filled with a variety of shops, phone services, internet outlets, butcher shops, cows, motorbikes etc. I do not know how she finds her way. And I worry that if I had to do it myself, I would be lost in the maize for days. It is hard to realise all this commercialism lies just above the highly stylised spiritual ritual going on the Ghats below.

Kate has arranged for a private concert with Jim's sitar teacher, Tarik, and a famous Varanassi tabla player, which didn't happen last night- there was a long 40 minute discussion about it- and it came to nothing, but is happening tonight. We walk down to an isolated Ghat at the end of the line, and wind our way up a steep staircase lit by candles to hear an amazing concert played by two people who obviously play together a lot. It is absolutely delightful. They have made my trip to Varanassi something special.



Varnassi is the start of my Pilgrimage to Buddha, which is about to begin. Even though Varanassi is not a Buddhist town, we are experiencing the Indian expression of spiritual obsession at it's height. Small children and mothers abound along with families -both poor and middle class. It is a cacophany of sight and sound which I will not forget.


My tour guide and only companion- we pick up a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Bodhgaya, our next town- decides to swim the Ganga with an old friend...I wait on the shore-wary of the germs in the river. I am told by another Aussie that the Ganga is self cleaning, but I think I will wait for the scientific report. We convince them to swim half way- rowing over and swiming back. Another friend stands up in the boat and photographs the event. I am sitting on the Pandey Ghat steps drinking the ubiquitous glass of Chai and have gathered about 15 Indian men on the ariund me. We are all following their progress with lots of editorialising along the way and tons of talk of cricket....which I have spoken more about since I have been in India than the whole 35 years I have lived in Auz.

Tomorrow, we head off to Bodhgaya and to catch up with Palden- a Tibetan monk, and are driven by the delightful Mr Lal Singh, who drives like a Sunday driver through Northern India, and who I am besotted with. He doesn't say much, but when he does it's is priceless. He also takes us on a tour of roadside eating spots. Some are his favourites and he parades us to his cafe society friends.
This is Mr Singh and I at one of his haunts where we have been eating along the way....an interesting experience. The food is actually fresh and lovely though I am not game enough to drink the water which is served in big metal jugs. We waited here for an hour or so, til the fog lifted and so Mr Singh can find his way. He does not do that well under adverse road conditions. Being a cautious person by nature, he becomes over cautious slowing down to 30k's/hour explaining that he has the safety of his clients at heart, and I know this is true, because above all, he is a kind man. He tells me that his clothes-consisting of dhoti wrapped around his lower torso and legs, a long cotton shirt with the obligatory shawl draped over his shoulders, is the real Indian dress. He reminds me of Mahatma Ghandi in both dress and looks, which is probably why I am besotted.


Stay tuned for me Buddha bound.....Bodhgaya, Kushinigar and Lumbini. It is a pilgrimage of its own and we just happen to be following other Buddhist pilgrims from Thailand, Burma and Tibet-but more on that later.

DOORS of RAJASTHAN

ROMANCING IN RAJASTHAN

No, not me romancing, but the romance of the city of Udaipur is catching and the desert which follows lures me to romantic dreams.

Old Udaipur - new parts of cities are same same- is set out around a lake [or two or three- I never quite figured it out] and in the centre of the main lake- Lake Pichola- is the city palace. City Palace is this extremely extensive and amazing complex of rooms- all different styles and colours which is totally magnificent. It took me three hours to walk through the entire place. Rooms with mirrors, rooms of crystal, rooms of blue, rooms of pink= bedrooms, viewing rooms, entertaining rooms, galleries. All connected by a series of stairways and hallways which luckily have arrows showing the way. Up top, there is actually a garden with big beautiful shade trees and a pool of water- a peaceful retreat from the bustle outside. [except filled with tourists].

The markets are easy to manage and an afternoon boatride around the lake- where there are two other smaller palaces seemingly growing out of the water- is a treat. We eat at a restaurant on the lake overlooking the palace, which is awash in golden lights for the night. In the distance, you can hear the soft thud of the disco beat coming from new Udaipur. Across from our hotel, is a small shop which sells water and toilet paper and othe sundries and is called the Mozart Cafe for some reason. It is run by Mr Singh, who is helped by an orphan child who he has "adopted" and is teaching a trade, so that he will not be one of the many abandoned and begging children on the streets. My heart swells with emotion at hearing this. In the morning, I give the boy a toy elephant -from the box of 12 which I stupidly bought by another lake in Jaipur only days ago [how the hell am I going to get rid o 12 elephants???] He is delighted and keeps touching it and looking at it- a big grin plastered all over his face.The children here are precious.

We leave Udaipur and head for Pushkar. Rakesh our driver, starts telling me about all of the cheaters and thieves in Pushkar and by the time we arrive, I am reluctant to get out of the car or even the hotel for that matter. But reason takes over and the next morning, I'm marching through town at 7AM watching the shop keepers set up shop and hearing the usual Nameste and Good Morning! as I pass. No one wants you to buy at 7 AM. The shrines are working hard at this hour and people are dropping blessings and praying, so they are too distracted for commerce.

Thieves I say. Maybe. Maybe not. Never know. Sometimes they are in an unsuspected form. Like the Sadwa, who gave us a brilliant blessing and pumped an enormous amount of rupees from me- for living and non living relatives- to save their karma. For this I get a piece of red and yellow string wound tightly around my right wrist and a flmsy postcard and a plastic bag full of rose water flavoured sugar balls. I am uptight about this til we round the corner and are accosted by a band of monkeys who rip it all out of our hands and then fight over the measly pickings. You can only laugh really.

The market surrounds the lake and we are taken by a Brahman, who hits us up for support- can he call me Mama, and write to me in Australia and I will send him money to save his dying mother and father- who are somewhere between the ages of 50 and 80- depending on the context of the current conversation. I am weary and feeling sad that spirituality has a $ sign attached to it, but then maybe I am being naive.

That night, we are taken by camel into the desert- an amazing ride- and I have a new respect for both camels and camel drivers. My camel, Raja, is a rebel and stops for munches and drinks. I get worried about a suspected limp from one of his legs, and I mention this to the driver, who says to me: "Are you OK? If you are OK, I am OK and the camel is OK". So I sit back and enjoy the ride. We end up on a spot in the desert at sunset, and are first entertained by children- cheeky and begging.

I give them some chewing gum, and we play games cheng and pulling long green minty threads from our mouths up to the sky. The sun sets and we are entertained by real gypsy dancers who, again, pull me up from the bindy covered blanket I am sitting on to stir up some dust- twisting and turning in the fire light. Dinner is served and we know not what we eat because it is pitch dark. But it tastes all right.

Before long- and probably because we are not buying the gypsy wares set out before us, the camels are loaded and we are undulating our way back into town. The view is wide from atop a camel and the stars loom above us- the lights of Pushkar twinkling in the distance. In reality we are about 1 kilometre from town, but it feels like light years away.

Very romantic.

Images to follow........

RAJASTHANI DUST

Ever picked up an old book that has been in some secret place for a number of years, whose pages have turned yellow on the edges and who smells ancient? When you leaf through the the book, dust which seems to be embedded in the pages, rubs off on your hands and sinks into your skin.
Rajasthani dust melts into your skin in the same way.

The minute you cross the border into Rajasthan, the fields that were filled with mustard and potatoes and cabbages-well irrigated and green- slowly turn to beige coloured sand and the dust flies through the air, being churned up by trucks and tractors who barrel merrily along the highway bringing some of Delhi civilization to outlying towns and cities. The trucks and tractors are tarted up: multi-coloured fringes and tassles flying against the wind. Tinsel and cheap raffia decorate the tops and the sides and back are painted with round breasted women carrying water urns on their heads [you get more circular/gobular breasts with the arms in that position] amidst a field of orange and yellow flowers- with the ubiquitous words: BLOW HORN PLEASE across the bottom of the painting. None of this scene exists along the highway, unless you count the number of stalls which sell truck decorating paraphanalia to passing trade.

The highway links a string of small villages to each other and sometimes major cities as well. Towns built of local rock walls and cow pat roofs, some crumbling with age or use. Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan is a 6+ hour drive from Delhi along this green to yellow to beige landscape. Jaipur is famous for a lot of things- mostly blue pottery and silver, but it also hosts the mandatory fort- this one is called the Amber Fort because it looks amber yellow in the sun- and it is perched high on the surrounding hills guarding the city. Also in Jaipur is the City Palace and Pink City- which is a maze of shops selling things which range from sweets to car parts to kitchen appliances and steel form work for highway construction- which is often spread across the footpath/pathway just in case you are not looking down to cause a spill.

Like any city, it is majorly populated, though a bit easier on the hassle scene than say Delhi, where beggars are endless and everyone asks you to buy something [post card, booklet, wooden boxes etc etc] so many times it feels like you are in the Twilight Zone and the person asking you is suffering from short term memory loss. But back to Jaipur where the same snarly traffic happens and you take your life in your hands crossing the street- there is NO right moment, and there is no meaning attached to a zebra crossing.

Our hotel is gorgeous- clean and tidy and called the Hotel Glitz- do you not love the name? Every evening in the dining room there is a gypsy band [gypsy meaning nomad- but these ones are obviously not] replete with dancing girls who keep dragging me up from my table to wave hands in the air in time to the music and to twist and turn me round and round until I can barely stand up for the dizziness. But I laugh outloud because it is so much fun, and they are laughing with me as well.

Behind the hotel is a Hindu temple, where the head Hindu priest [?] chants in a microphone, which blasts through the neighbourhood- or at least our room- 24/7 and I want to go offer him some throat lozenges- he must be tired. I am tired of hearing this all day and night. I hear him cough each time I am convinced he is just a recording, so I know it is happening in real time [or perhaps we are still in the Twilight Zone].

From Japipur, we head to Bundi.

Bundi is the best town! It is my favourite so far. Very small and easy to navigate...people are ultra friendly- they have not been innundated with tourists yet and therefore are not as jaded as they are in Delhi or Jaipur. Each morning I go for a walk, I am greeted by children, shop keepers, grandmas, mothers and cows: Good Morning! Nameste! All accompanied by monkeys clattering across the tin roofs above the shopes. I arrive back at the hotel- which is inside the city palace gates- happy and content. The Palace, which rises majestically above our extremely rustic but charming hotel, looms over us- it's ancient walls black and smokey with age.

One afternoon, I am taken to the fort [surprise- a fort!] at the top of the hills [delighted with myself that I can actually walk up the hills without coughing up my lungs] where we view many old buildings and temples and the town of Bundi is laid before us- a maze of blue and green houses [blue= brahman, green= moselem]. It is a checkerboard of muted brilliance in the dying sun. [photos to follow, as the promised USB port on this computer is non-existent! sigh]

I have many lovely conversations in Bundi. Hardly anyone actually wants to sell me anything, which is rather refreshing and for some reason I have made fast friends with a 50+ man who owns a shop, so we sit each morning and sip chai together and talk about the world and how it has changed and how much we hope the coming generations will do better than we did at making the world a more meaningful place to live in. There is no agenda here, and I am at peace in these moments.

Next we head for Udaipur- city of lakes and the City Palace which is still in good shape- ie: not abandoned to history and operated by a real living Maharaja.

Nameste!
Genie

everything-nothing-something like that

EVERYTHING:

I am slowly realising why everyone who comes here has an intense experience- be it positive or negative....India is full of many things on many levels, and there is a constant process of filling up and letting go. A careful balance of opposites is always in play- there is beauty in the palaces, the plentiful fields of mustard and canola, the spashes of colours in the clothes and houses and then there is the rubbish piled high and wide and cow shit and spit and green slimy algae floating on stagnant ponds. There is the sweet smell of cardomen and cinnamon floating through the air one minute followed by the pungent smell of urine or something rotten or burning plastic.

The sight you see above is Shimla at night. A glorious little town nestled at the feet of the Himalayas...where global warming has made it's mark, as the snow line is far into the distance.

Another highlight was viewing the Taj Mahal at 6:30 AM as the morning sun slowly came alive, lighting this magnificent building, all pink and rosy in the early dawn. Like Machu Pichu, not photo does it justice- but here is the money shot on the Princess Diana Bench - for which there is a queque at all times [even 7AM]. - you will have to wait for it, as I have only managed to upload a couple of images here- even tho they say the internet connections are high speed here, they are not, so you will have to wait for the whole slide show when i get home. I have so far about 500 snaps of my trip and I am not even 1/3 of the way into it.

Agra was a trip- it is approaching the New Year, and so the population has swelled to thousands and the traffic is snarly and noisy [Indian drivers spend a lot of time beeping their horns no matter what the occasion- passing, not passing, moving around pedestrians, turning in front of oncoming traffic- the backs of the trucks ask drivers to beep the horn, with signs saying HORN PLEASE- usually under an amazing fresco of dancing girls, or Krishna or Shiva]. When we first came to Agra, we were taken with a guide to the Taj and waited in a queque for 45 minutes to get into the front gate...then waited 20 minutes to sit on the Diana bench, then another 45 minutes to get into the mausoleum, where Shah Jahan and Mumtaz's empty crypts rest [the bodies are down stairs in the basement]. By the time we got into the mausoleum, it was pitch black and our guide led me stumbling around in the dark...it was much better in the morning, where we saw the magnificence of the room.

Agra was followed by Jaipur, which is just across the Rajasthani border. It is a BIG bustling city, with lots of hotels, textile factories- they make clothes for you in 2 hours- carpet shops [always] and other merchandise. We saw the Amber Fort, which is amazing and beautiful...and the pink city another delight. But the best thing was spending New Years Eve at the hotel in their dining room, replete with gypsy musicians and young dancing girls in the most splendid costumes and make up who kept calling us up to dance with them. It was delightful and lots of fun. This was followed by a trip up to the roof of the hotel where we watched fireworks. Below is part of the Amber Fort in Jaipur.....there are so many amazing shots to choose from- as everything you look at is pretty amazing. Glad I brought the 1 Gig card with me....[I had to buy another one as well].

Now I am in Bundi- an absolutely delightful sleepy town in So Rajasthan-with blue houses and extremely friendly people. It is wonderful to have the children sing out Hello from the roof tops, along with everyone else in the village saying Namaste or Good Morning, and NO ONE wants to sell me anything! None is begging, none of the Indian men are flirting with the not very secret agenda of selling me something. Today I learned that Krishna had 168 wives/girlfriends, so I reckon the flirting techniques are not only ingrained, they are part of the spiritual training.

The weather is divine and the feeling here is lovely. On my morning walk, everyone came out to say hello, nodded Nameste at me, and even the monkeys clattered their way back and forth across the tin roofs of the shops-drumming me down the street.

NOTHING:
Typical Indian experience: One person stops, looks skyward. Within minutes lots of other people are also looking skyward. They remain this way for quite a while, until someone says: "What are we looking at?" and the first person says: "Nothing". The crowd disperses, quite content with the experience.

SOMETHING like that......:

If you ask someone: "What is this?" You know when they do not know what it is- but will give a valient try to give you an answer- followed by "....something like that"- which means that the answer they gave you, may or may not be true/real/factual. And in the end, what does it matter?

Tomorrow, we are onward to Udaipur-city of lakes and -you guessed it- palaces- with perhaps a fort or two thrown in for good measure it's been at least 6 hours since I have seen one.

Nameste

Our driver Rakesh and me..........resting.