a bit broken and battered with the Buddha

Well hello everyone! After nearly 7 weeks it has been so good to contact people and catch up with what has been going on back home. I cannot explain how wonderful my experience was on the project in Jharkhand and will start a seperate blog entry which i will update when i can about my experiences there, but to do all that now would take too long so i will pick up the adventure from the 18th March, the day i left the project.

I got up, as usual, at 5.30, finished packing and my taxi came to get me around 7am to take me to Jasidith, the nearest train station at 4 hours drive away! Some of the kids from my class came to school early to see me off which was very touching and on the drive out of the villages when ever we passed children from my school on their way there they broke into smiles and started waving manically when they saw me. I had half a mind to tell the taxi driver to turn around and drive straight back, not that it would have made the slightest difference as he didn't speak a word of English. On the drive to Godda, to check out of the state with the police, we passed Chandan and Siddarth (Siddarth had arrived that morning and Chandan, one of the teachers at the school, had gone to pick him up) on the motorbike and stopped quickly so i could say goodbye. At the police station I was told that for 2 weeks out of my 6 week stay in Jharkand i had been the only tourist in the entire state! This goes some way to explaining Indians reactions when i told them i had just come from Jharkand, "but why did you go there?" or "no you can't have done" or " are you sure you mean Jharkand, next to west Bemgal madam?".

When we got to the station the taximan got someone to get me a ticket, as there had been no way to book one before hand, this was the part that i was really dreading, incase there were no tickets left. The only one i could get, apparently, was a general ticket, they were trying to explain it to me but with my lack of Hindi and their lack of English we didn;t get very far. As far as i knew i at least had a ticket that would get me onto the train and arrive in the right city. When i got down onto the platform a very kind lady saw me looking a bit puzzled trying to work out my ticket and came over to help, thank goodness. She took one look at my ticket and told me that under no circumstance was i to get on the general carriage, there would be no women there only men and no where to sit for 9 hours as it was the festival of Holi coming up and the train would be fit to bursting, also this carriage was far too dangerous for me as we were travelling through Jharkand and Bihar. Instead she told me my best bet was to just get on one of the sleeper carriages and ask a TT man (someone who works on the railways) to find me a spare berth somewhere, which inevitably he would be able to find somewhere. This turned out to be some of the best advice i have ever had, ever! The train was packed and absolutely manic. I found a very harrased looking TT man who told me fretfully to find somewhere to perch myself and he would come and find me later when he could get me a seat. With a huge rucksack and people packed into every spare scrap of space this seemed to me to be asking the impossible, let alone that he would then be able to find me again, but knowing that this is India and magically things always seem to work out some how i did as i was told. i found the only available place to "perch" which was in the hot and sweaty pantry car, where they make the food for the 2nd and 1st class passengers, sat on top of an enormous bag of rice. The men working in the pantry car thought this was hilarious but took pity on me and sureptiously passed me rice and roti when they could.

After about an hour the TT man did in fact find me and informed me that there was a spare berth in 3AC, i've been using sleeper class as it is the cheapest and you get to usually meet some really nice Indian people - 3AC, 2AC and 1AC i had heard tend to be a bit snobby and filled with upper and middle class Indians. I must admit though it was very nice to be somewhere clean and with real airconditioning that felt extremely safe, and i ended up being very greatful for my seat here. There were two very friendly families with me and although the older girl of one was rather pompous she was really quite nice although she insisted i start praying to God and become a vegetarian, all pronounced through perfect English. The other family had an eight year old girl who jumped onto my berth and demanded that i talk to her and tell her all sorts of things; she was really quite fun and we whiled away a happy couple of hours together. The stop at Patna was intense and i got squashed in the mad rush to get on the train as i had got down to stretch my legs; i'm ashamed to say i practically ran back to my seat! People had already started playing Holi and were covered in smears of purple, green, red and yellow that had stubbonly refused to wash off.

Got to Mughal Serai, the station just outside of Varanasi that most major fast trains go to instead, and after being followed around by a very persistent rickshaw wallah i found the sahre jeeps i was after that would take me to Varanasi for just 30Rs. This tiny, brightly coloured open sided van was promptly packed with 8 grumpy, tired Indians and myself, and two people hanging off the back. Ear splitting hindi music made the 40 minute drive to Varanasi very enjoyable and felt very indian. Next, and thankfully final part of this journey - by now it was approaching 10pm, was a rickshaw from the Varanasi train station where the jeep dropped me to my hotel in the old city, all i could think about was bed and a cup of tea. I had decided to stay at Yogi Lodge and turned up to be told that they had only just given away their last room. i cannot explain the mild panic that set in. it's 10.30pm, don't really know where i am and had no idea of where to go to next. i was now at the mercy of the rickshaw driver, not a good place to be, they always know a hotel run by their brother or uncle, where they inevitably get a commision and you get a shady room with an over inflated price to boot. i was therefore sceptical when he told me he knew a very good hotel not too far away. All in all the hotel wasn't that bad and once i'd haggled him down got the room for 150 Rs with my own bathroom which wasn't too shabby.

I thought before going to bed i will have a much deserved lie in in the morning, as on the project we were always up and doing chores from between 5.15 and 5.30am. By 4.30 i was wide awake and unable to get back to sleep, and at 5.30 finally gave in and got up to go for an early morning walk along the ghats and watch the sun rise. Headed out, not thoroughly convinced i knew the way but thought i had a rough idea. So so wrong. After wandering around a very dodgy area for half an hour came to the conclusion that i must be going in the wrong direction and headed back to the hotel. Then saw a sign for the lotus restaurant which i know is right by the ghats, this sign was pointing in the opposite direction to the way i'd gone, and in a few mintues was relieved to find i knew exactly where i was. 7.15am and fianlly down on the ghats although i'd missed the sunrise. Had a nice morning hanging around on the ghats and drinking chai and chatting to the locals before going for some truly heavenly ice cream.

The heat was so intense, just sitting you begin to sweat and you can feel the backs of your legs sticking to your clothing, while beads of sweat tickle your forehead and threaten to run into your eyes. Keeping out of the sun at midday is a must as it just too unbearable, i cannot imagine quite how hot it will be back in india for April and May!

I went down to the main ghat that night to watch the nightly Shiva puja for which Varanasi is famed. hundreds of people converge on the ghats to watch the preists perform some of the most elaborate puja i have ever seen. the entire ceremony takes about one hour and involves flame, torches, incense, horse tail brushes, conch shells and marrigold flowers. a very chatty indian woman nattered away to me, apparently completely unconcerned that i spoke not a word of hindi, and grabbed my hands and bashed them together to get me more involved in the nights proceedings. It really was most fun and beautiful when everyone went down to place the floating flowers and tea lights into the Ganga.

*so far i have been copying out bits from my diary but here it all goes a little strange, i woke up on the second day of short stay in Varanasi, i was leaving that evening to make my way to Nepal, and just had the worst day. i couldn't cope with anything and as it was nearly Holi the streets had gone mental and everyone seemed either to have gone temporarily insane or were blind drunk or stoned on bhang (hash).*

Friday 21st march

I spent the whole of the next day running around getting all the little things that i needed to get me to the border and to get my visa. I had nearly been reduced to tears on the main road as people just would not stop bothering me and the rickshaw drivers all seemed to have decided their challenge for the day was to drive as close to me possible, so that every 30 seconds i thought my life was in serious danger, so decided to head back to the hotel and wait it out there until 6pm when i had to go and get my night bus to Nepal. On the terrace was a man i had seen around the hotel a bit and bumped into at the train station when i was forward booking my train ticket that would get me to Delhi after arriving back in Varanasi from Nepal, but we had never spoken.

This man turned out to be my saviour that day and i wish i had written about him sooner so that i could remember exactly what he said to me. He was from France although he had been born and spent his childhood in Africa. He was a very seasoned traveller and a Buddhist, and had finally seen the light after working a commercial job for 12 years, that he wasn't happy, money wasn't important, television lies and the materialistic west had got something very very wrong. He was working on a farm in France before he came away and loved the physical work. He, however, just like me, was feeling the strain in Varanasi. Although we both agreed that we loved the placeand that it had a very special energy, our bodies and minds were sick and stretched and desperate. I think it has been the cumulative experiences of the last two months catching up with me, also learning to take the peace and quiet and honesty of the countryside for granted, i was just not prepared for the coty when it hit me, all at once and full in the stomach. Finally the poverty, and the dirt and the sickness of the people and the animals has taken its toll on me and that second day in Varanasi i just closed down and could not cope.

i think since i got here i have remained very open and rolled along with the people and the situations that i have come across. but that day i was just flighting it all day and never felt comfortable, my mind was pushing back against everything unfamiliar it was coming up against (which in India is everything) and by the end of the afternoon i was emaotionally empty and drained of all energy, and the thought of having to go back on the street and then face a 10 hour bus journey was all too much and i was filled with dread and my insides felt raw and ravaged. Luckily i met my french friend; he convinced me i wasn't being weak and that it happened to the most experienced traveller. He had been in Bodh Ghya for over a month which suffers with people living in extreme poverty. It had got too much so he came to Varanasi. However, the dirt and disease here and the constant requests for money and never having a single minute left alone to be with your own thoughts had wrought the same affect on him as it had in me. He had gone for a therapeutic oil massage, which apparently really helped, and then struck lucky by accepting to go to someones shop where they made therapeutic oils. He kindly allowed me to try one which was supposed to help with tension. I don't know whether it was the oil, his kind words and gentle calming manner or whether it was having a conversation with someone who felt the same as i did, but i definitely felt better and more able to face the world again.

The bus journey was interesting to say the least! A very local, blue and white, battered and broken bus creaked into bay 7 as i watched in horror, i had been praying for the nice shiny purple one. Now, i had heard that it is customery for people once you have a single belonging on a seat to justifyably call it theirs, even if this object has been thrown through a window and they are not even standing on the bus, but as there was no one around i guessed i'd be ok. Two seconds later 30-40 people seemed to decend on the bus as i tried to throw myself bodily onto the vehicle, knocking people with my enormous rucksack; i was damned if i was going to spend the next 10 hours standing up. Managed somehow to throw my rucksack onto the mountainous pile of luggage at the front of the bus and squeeze myself into a seat at the front and thankfully next to a window. The bus didn't leave for another hour but it was already so packed that even if i had wanted to get off it would have meant climbing through the window. i must admit that i was slightly surprised that there weren't any other travellers heading to Sonauli on the bus but assumed no one else was stupid enough to pay to sit on, what quickly began to feel like granite, and go through some of the roughest towns i have seen yet. at times they looked like sets from films about WW1 or 2; roads which looked like they had been blown apart while buildings crumbled about us were slowly meandered through as though the driver was frightened of going over a mine. We made several stops at the road side shacks that service the many truck drivers along this main road. They consist of mile upon mile of dirty burnt black tents with an aging man tending the gas stove while armies of young boys ply their hungry customers with roti and subjhi, the pot for chai is constantly bubbling. Luckily i was befriended by two nice Nepalese men who were very gentle and just made sure they kept an eye on me and came over if they thought i was getting a bit too much attention. After a body numbing and sleepless night we arrived on the Nepalese border at about 7 in the morning. horrible dusty town and all closed up when we got there at about 7.30am. Still had not seen a single tourist which was slightly disconcerting. Got a rickshaw who took me to change some Rs into dollers for my visa. Then about 1 km to the border; it really was most unimpressive, just a big sandy coloured arch and a few frightening looking police. no one even checks your visa, i'm convinced you could just stroll straight through, but probably worth doing it by the book just in case. in a very small wooden shed i filled out a form on a scrappy and stained bit of paper and received a small stamp in my passport in return. this done my rickshaw driver took me up to Bhairwa, the nearest town, to get a local bus to Lumbini only an hour away. The bus was very tiny but i got a seat to myself which was a relief. Through the local countryside it quickly became apparent that the bus generally did more stopping than it did actual moving and once when they couldn't get it started again some men had to jump out and push.

Lumbini is a tiny little village really only comprising of one strip with a handful of hotels, one restaurant and some travel shops. It's only here to cater for the people coming to visit the birth place of Buddha which is situated in a huge park witha lake. Around the development several countries have built buddhist temples typical to their home country, thus bringing buddhists together from all over the world at this, one of their most holy sites.

After checking into my hotel, room is a bit shabby and damp, but i have my own bathroom and its cheap at 200 Nrs, i went for a walk around the development park. As you enter the park there is a beautiful road that leads down to the main site, the Devi temple, which marks the exact place where Buddha was born, it is lined with large brightly coloured flowering plants and the forests stretch away to either side. There are two small temples before you get to the Devi temple surrounded by lush gardens and Tibetan prayer flags. The most amazing sense of calm surrounds you as you walk among the monks and the pilgrims and was exactly what i needed after the insanity of Varanasi. I went to the Devi temple where the 3RD century BC ruins are that mark where Buddha was born. outside this temple, the ruins are covered by a simple brick temple, are more ruins really only consisting of a few low walls spread around the garden. But in the middle is a huge tree covered in prayer flags. there are flags everywhere obliterating the sky. i sat down under a treet to catch up on a bit of diary writing when after about an hour i was joined by a very old very frail Sadhu who came and sat so close to me i could smell his skin, like sweet warm flour. He didn't say anything, i presume he couldn't speak any English. i showed him the pictures in my book of the Kumbh Mela which he poured over. He grabbed me hand and turned it over with the palm facing up and began sketching the lines there with his fingers. I wish i could have understood what he was saying, but several times he pointed excitedly and waggled his head, so i'm guessing he thought he saw something good there.

I saw some of the other temples and then went back to the hotel where i spent the night talking to a really nice girl from Finland, who's english was better than mine, an english man called Edan - very interesting, and his friend Veronique from France.

Sunday 23rd March

Oh dear, the inevitable has happened, i am poorly sick! yesterday i hired a bike to get around the development and see the rest of the temples, at about 12, after rushing off to the nearest toilet, i knew something wasn't right and swiftly headed back to the hotel. Still not wanting to believe it - even though i felt like hell - i went on the internet but only managed half an hour before i rushed back to my room which i then didn't leave until 10 this morning when i dragged myself to get some fruit and some water. Am spending the whole of today in my room - this is rubbish, i feel lousy and there's nothing i can do but lie here!

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