In India, Hindu holy books extort devotees to seek the company of saints. A Sadhu is most often a wandering ascetic who has also often left a stable family and work life to seek a state of godly bliss. The word Sadhu means ‘good man’ or ‘saint’. They “...walk the streets, sit by the temples, camp under sacred trees, dwell in ashrams and akhara (ascetic camps) that are found everywhere. They are noticeable, available and approachable. They are called Baba meaning Father. One goes to the temple to pray to a God and one calls on a sadhu to associate with God, to attend to living examples of holiness, request advice, ask for an opinion, to ponder on what lies further than beyond, converse about the Invisible Whole or the nothings of daily life, ... read more

Sushil is 49 years old and has, for the past 20 years, run a chai stall which for the last 14 years has been under a peepal tree next to the river Ganges (Ganga) in Rishikesh. He was born 100 klms away and moved here with his family in 1979 when his father, a Village Development Office with the government, was stationed there. When he was 20 and his father and family again moved, he stayed on in this ‘World Capital of Yoga’ (made famous by the Beatles in the 1960s who discovered eastern mysticism there), living and learning yoga and meditation in local ashrams for about 15 years. He was a devotee of the famous Yogeshwari Malati Bal, who gave him Mantra Diksha (described by Sushil as the real deal and ‘proper way’ unlike a ... read more

Update: I arrived back in India on Sept 7th with Carolina after spending 4 months with her in Spain. We collected Gladys (the Royal Enfield Motorbike which I had left with my Mumbai friends Raj and Marge ) and took off north...... to Udaipur, Mt Abu, Pushkar, Bikaner in Rajasthan; then Amritsar in Punjab; and Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh). In March 2010 I visited the Rat Temple with friend Libby in Deshnoke, about 30 klms before Bikaner in Rajasthan. On this current trip we rode through Deshnoke but did not stop. However, I wanted to just focus in this blog on this pretty weird and amazing temple, using pictures from 2010. Karni Mata (1387 – 1538 if you want to accept that she lived for 151 years!) was a female Hindu sage and is worshiped as ... read more

I had returned to Switzerland for the first time since January 1983, having at that time spent the previous summer at an Alpage followed by picking grapes for the Vendange. I was taking the opportunity of the short hop from Barcelona to revisit my good friends Brigitte and Francois in Vevey. Carolina was with me and I figured we would just lay about a bit, swimming in Lac Lamont, and maybe mixing it with some meals and talk with Brigitte and Francois in between them having to work at the backpackers lodge they run in Vevey (it being the very busiest time of the year with the Montreux Jazz Festival on). The lay back certainly eventuated but we were meanwhile treated to a full week of wine, cheese, chocolate, walking, mountain stays, good company and visits ... read more

The Bull Fight! Picture the image. Its all about one man with sharp instruments taking on a disoriented animal, resulting in the satisfaction of the bloodthirsty crowd. In Spain, I have only seen the pretty disturbing spectacle on the TV and don´t really want to see it live. The bull seemed to die a pretty gruesome and slow death. In Catalonia, bull fighting is pretty well now banned. Castells! Picture the image. It´s all about collaborative participation of a team depending on each other for nothing more than the achievement of completing a feat of balance and strength. Today the castelles team of Mataró celebrated their 15 years anniversary. A castell is a human tower built traditionally in festivals at many locations within Catalonia. They were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the ... read more