Sab Kuch Milega

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Everything is possible in India.....Sab Kuch Milega. You'll find it on t-shirts all over the country and whenever you ask a local a question they reply with those 3 words. You can go anywhere, eat anything and encounter every experience possible in India. I've been welcomed into locals' homes and slept on the floor of hotel lobbies; I've eaten street food wrapped in newspapers and dined at overpriced 5-star restaurants; I've hung out with wild monkeys, cuddled with stray dogs and squished with 8 people on a 3-person seat on a 5 hour train; I've climbed Himalayan mountains in flip flops and swam in holy water; I studied yoga, reiki, meditation, Buddhism, Hinduism, Ayurvedic medicine and Indian cooking...all with a tiny backpack and an even smaller budget!

Unfortunately the one inevitable that India can't change is my trip coming to an end. I know...poor me...I can already feel all the sympathy pouring my way!

My last few weeks were incredible...which made it even harder to come home. I mentioned in the last blog that I enrolled in a 10 day Iyengar course but I left out the style of an Iyengar teacher. She was aggressive and domineering, unlike how you'd imagine most yoga teachers to be. We held poses for 5-10 minutes, starting with downward dog and forward bends. If one of the 50 people in the class came out of a posture because their shoulders couldnt take the pressure, she would yell "did I tell you to come down...we'll hold it for 3 more minutes now!" The teacher had a serious leg injury (which is why she got involved with Iyengar yoga in the first place and it helped her tremendously) and it meant that she couldn't perform a lot of the postures correctly. So, she would use a student as her example. She often found someone doing it wrong and had the class huddle around them to showcase their mistakes. That meant holding the posture while she corrected it for as long as it took her to explain to the class what the mistakes were. I was her demonstrator one day in the L-pose (a handstand with your body bent at the hips and soles of your feet pressed against a wall) and I couldn't help but laugh through the pain shooting through my shoulders and back as she slapped my ass and thighs and yelled at me to stretch into the posture properly. It's not at all a spiritual approach to yoga but it motivated me to get into each posture correctly so as not to be her demonstrator ever again!!!
My last day in Rishikesh I visited what is now called the "Beatles Ashram." It's where the Beatles stayed for a few weeks in the 60's to compose some songs for their White Album. Unfortunately the ashram has been abandoned for the past 30 or so years so all that was left were the shells of buildings, overgrown trees and what used to be paths now covered in leaves. There were a couple 2-story buildings with broken windows that might have included some guest rooms, offices and a large meditation hall. Then there were dozens of dome-shaped cave-like single rooms that had bathrooms and a winding staircase leading to what could have been a small meditation room. It was creepy walking around a somewhat holy place, feeling the energies of all its past inhabitants including the most popular musicians ever. I could only imagine how incredible it must have been when it was a functioning ashram. It had been built with a gate surrounding it and today one man guards the complex. Every traveler I met seemed to agree he most likely put his own padlock on the gate and capitalizing on the Beatles visit 40 years ago, decided to charge an entrance fee to walk through the grounds. It's only about $1 but savvy backpackers sick of being ripped off every possible way in India, passed around the tip that it's possible to sneak in through the woods. Myself and the group of people I was with were vague on the exact way to do this so we ended up climbing up a steep mountain and getting caught by the guard. He tried to bargain with us but said if we wanted to get in for free, we could climb. So, on principle, we did. It didn't seem so smart when my flip flops couldn't grip the muddy mountain and I realized I might actually fall to save the 75 cents he had bargained down to! We made it up safely but to leave, we tried to go back through the gate. The guard refused to open it and told us to go back the way we came, which didn't seem too smart or even possible. He obviously knew that when he smugly told us to climb up for free! Luckily, we found the easier route everyone else had been talking about and got out safely, but not without telling everyone else on their way in to climb and not pay the rude security guard!

I had only a few days in between the end of that course and the start of the meditation retreat up in the Himalayas. On the way, I stopped for a day in Amritsar because I lost the pictures I had taken there last year. The main attraction in the city was the Golden temple, which attracts thousands of Sikhs a day...it's like their Mecca. It's a beautiful temple made out of gold, surrounded by a lake. Sikhs walk around it clockwise over and over and men and children bathe in the lake. It offers free food and accommodation to anyone who needs it, no matter what religion you are. It's the only free public toilet I've come across in the whole country. They take donations but basically volunteers spend the day chopping veggies and preparing the delicious thali they serve to thousands daily. Everyone sits on the floor, the volunteers and the people eating and miraculously I didn't get sick from any of the meals I ate there! I also went back to the daily border closing ceremony with Pakistan. It's a choreographed show with guards doing high kicks and cheering on both sides for "Hindustan" and "Pakistan." It's a 2 hour event just to lower the flags and lock the gates, but an entertaining show, nonetheless.
It was becoming high season in the north, so the bus I took to McLeod Ganj was full of westerners. Since there wasn't enough room for all of us and our bags, they had to be thrown on top of the bus. And of course, there was a man hanging out at the bus stand offering to deposit our bags on the roof for us for 25 cents. This man, who must be in his 50s or 60s threw each bag on his head - instead of wearing it like a backpack - and walked up the ladder to the roof. One guy said he would help cuz his bag weighed 25 kilos and the man threw it on his head like it was a pillow!!! And I had trouble carrying my 15 kilo bag on my back! His strength amazed me. This is just another example of how there is a job in India for everyone. They offer to do things like clean your ears, buff your shoes or carry your bags from the train platform to the taxi outside. Things we do ourselves and would never think to pay someone for, but in India someone raises their family on the income they get doing these menial jobs.

I met an Indian woman at the bus stand, waiting for our bus to leave. I was 15 minutes early so I figured it was a good time to pee before spending hours on a bus. When I asked her where the toilets were (you have to say toilets because bathroom is the word for shower room) she pointed to a building 20 feet away and said "but hurry, you don't have very long." It confused me because 15 minutes is more than enough time for me to pee and get back to my seat. It actually took me 2 and a half minutes total to walk there, pee, pay the 3 rupees fee and walk back to the bus. I understood her urgency over the next few weeks as I spent 10-15 minutes waiting for the toilet at restaurants. I would hear water running and splashing, being dumped down the toilet to flush it. It was always an Indian man or woman coming out., not another tourist, who had most likely used the hose to wipe themselves (much more time consuming than the toilet paper I carried around), and washed down their entire bodies and faces. Women had an even harder time doing all this in their saris. Whereas all I had to do was pull down my pants.
During my remaining 10 minutes waiting for that bus, I bought a samosa. As I was eating, 2 young, dark, girls in torn, dirty dresses came up to me and gave me the sad look while putting their hands to their mouths (that's the sign for food or eating...whenever I mimicked putting a fork in my mouth to ask where I could buy food, no one understood!!) I ignorantly assumed they wanted food and offered to buy them samosas. When they said no I pointed to every other food the vendor sold. They looked at me like I was stupid and said "rupees." It turned out they were trained to get money only. They weren't starving and begging for survival - I'm sure they don't overeat either - but begging was their job. Coming home empty handed meant having nothing to give back to their parent or pimp or whoever trained them to beg. It's hard to know in India which kids really are homeless or orphans wanting food or money to survive and which are given salaries by the mafia to beg on the streets.

I had one night back in McLeod Ganj before my meditation retreat. I shared a room that night with a girl I met on the bus who was also going to the course. At 3 am I woke up to pee and sat on the toilet facing a giant tarantula, bigger than my hand. I felt bad waking up my roommate I had met only 12 hours earlier but luckily she had no problems with spiders, trapped it under a bucket and slid it out of the room while I stood on the bed screaming!!!
With little sleep, we made it to Tushita (http://www.tushita.info) for a 10-day silent meditation retreat / Buddhist philosophy course. I had no idea what to expect except silence. After more than 3 months of dogs barking, cars honking, fire works and excited loud Indians, I was actually looking forward to giving my ears a break. The center is located in Dharamkot, in the himalayas, surrounded by trees and mountains and playful monkeys. After the first few hours of checking in and getting acquainted, the silence was enforced. At first the meals were strange....60 people sitting outside together around the tables, staring out into the mountains. It would probably have appeared to an outsider like it was an insane asylum, full of medicated patients. Then it got pleasant. No one had to make small talk and I could focus on my food and appreciate it. Most of the day was spent in classes, either in guided meditations, or learning Buddhist philosophy. It was so interesting I actually didn't want the course to end. The only time the silence was difficult was during breaks. Activities were limited since we couldn't leave the premises, listen to music or read books other than those related to Buddhism. Socializing seemed natural. I wanted to share my experiences and get to know the people I stared at everyday. We had one hour a day of discussion groups on a given Buddhist topic. And then it was back to silence. All I could do was think....about my life, about the concepts we were learning, about the kind of person I am and want to become and then occasionally about who spoke with what accent...just to get away from thinking about me! Towards the end the silence broke a bit. We would whisper in the corners or walk into the woods just to have a conversation about what was going on in our head and how we should process all the information we were given. Sometimes laughing fits would break out just when we looked at each other...we just needed to express something and that's what came out. By the last 2 days silence broke in our 13 person dorm...it was too much, living with 12 other girls and not knowing anything about them. The most entertaining times of the 10 days were the monkeys. Families with little monkey babies swung through the trees, gave each other make-overs (ok, cleaned each other but it looked like going to the beauty parlor) and splashed in the pool the center made for them. It was always entertaining to watch them wrestle each other. Overall it was incredible to be so introspective. I really learnt a lot about myself and hopefully figured out a little bit about how to incorporate the aspects of Buddhist philosophy into my life that focus on cultivating happiness.

After the course I stayed in the mountains in quiet Dharamkot, with no roads big enough for honking cars, instead of going back to the louder, more touristy McLeod Ganj. The next day, I took a trek with a few of the others from Tushita up to Triund. It's about 2,800 metres high and it took a little over 3 hours to walk the 3 km uphill to get there. It was so beautiful, we decided to sleep there instead of coming straight down. So, we rented tents and some sleeping bags, but since none of us were prepared, we froze once the sun went down. To keep warm, the 4 of us huddled in a circle and feel asleep lying on each other. But we weren't alone. Stray dogs got envious of our body heat and squirmed their way in and by morning it was the 4 of us and 3 dogs! With little sleep, we woke up in the morning and continued the trek. From there, it was another few km further to the snowline. The most amazing part was that there was a tea shop on the way up there. Everything really is possible in India...I could buy Gatorade in the middle of the Himalayas. That's where I had to stop because it was too cold to hike in the snow in my flip flops! Hiking up the mountain was hard enough and the guys had to pull me or push me up a few times so I wouldn't slide down, the snow was where I had to draw the line! And at that point we were about 3,500 metres up and the altitude sickness started to sink in so I went straight down.
And my last few days I spent wandering around, meditating hiking through the mountains and going to different lectures by Buddhist monks.

On the flight home, I thought about what it would be like back in Canada. It made me realize that India is my home, in so many ways. that it feels more like home to me than Canada does. I guess it just means I'll have to go back one day...wanna come with??!!!

Namaste

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Photos

Free food
Volunteers chopping veggies for the free meals the Sikh temple provides

Border closing ceremony
Soldiers/the tallest people in India

Prayer wheels
Inside each wheel are thousands of papers with the words "Om Mani Padme Hum" and turning one is like reciting the mantra as many times as there are papers.

A giant wok cooking lassies
Lassies are yoghurt-based drinks, popular all over the country.

Beautiful colors
Colors of flowers in India are so vibrant

Comments

[Jeff]

It never ends
The traveling, the learning, the growing. And sometimes you don't really have to go anywhere to travel, learn or grow. I think that's something to take away from your adventures. I always love reading your posts, with their candor and frankness, humour and perspective. Love it! Bring that to Vancouver!