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Published: April 29th 2011
Hariyom....I still don't know exactly what that means, but people say it as a greeting here, so...Hariyom.
I think last time I left you at Goa. From there I started my travels in the north of India. I thought that meant it would cool down but i am still sweating! I visited only one major city in Rajasthan because i had visited all the rest on my last trip. After being in the south in relatively small cities, it was quite a shock to suddenly be in a big, crazy, dirty, chaotic place. there were so many tourists and so many locals roaming the streets. But there are even more shops so the owners bombard every tourist they see to get some business. They say its better to travel in low season.....but here it's actually worse. Since there are less tourists than in the busy season, people are getting less business and are even more aggressive. Prices go down a bit but it's still not worth being attacked if you so much as eye something hanging in a store! I hear "heellooooo, heellooooo madam" and i dont even know which direction its coming from!
I did buy some spices and it
Jodhpur
The blue cityturned out according to the kid who worked at my guest house, that most shops selling to tourists not only charge higher prices but also dilute the spices with coloring and whatever other cheap materials let them make a higher profit. He was amazed that other Indians so easily cheat people. As he thought more about it though, he said "maybe I should go into business selling spices!!!" Instead, he settled for going to his local shop where he knows the spices are legit and buying some for me at his local price. I could smell the difference between my somewhat fake spices and the authentic chilly and coriander that he bought me. But what can you do as a tourist....you're bound to get ripped off. The funny thing was that if the spices were real, it wouldnt have bothered me...they only ripped me off my 25 cents!!
The amazing part of this city is that it's all painted blue. I have no idea why but you can see in the picture that it's literally a blue city!
From Jodhpur I went to a small town in northern Rajashtan to visit a family I met last year. It was
Street food
on the right is the biggest wok I've ever seen really nice to be in a house and hanging out with an Indian family. I always meet really interesting foreigners here, but it's rare to connect with any locals, since men just want sex and women dont spend much time out of their houses. Indian men have actually asked me why I'm alone and explained to me that Indian women are scared to go out alone, because they don't think it's safe. I always find this weird because India is one of the safest countries I've been to. Its funny that tourists find it safe but locals dont. I think they've just been scared for so many generations that it hasn't occurred to anyone that there aren't any more threats tot heir safety.
When I told the family I came to India this time for a yoga teacher training course, they got really excited and asked me to teach them yoga. So here I was, a westerner, teaching yoga to an Indian woman and her daughter!!! It was as if I was introducing something completely new to them....not something that originated in their own country thousands of years ago!
From there I wanted to head quite far north to McLeod
Chaos in the market
Bicycles, Rickshaws, cars, motorbikes, pedestrians and don't forget cows all share the street Gang. I met a girl there last year who was there again studying yoga and she arranged a Reiki 2 course that i wanted to join. Gettting there wasnt as simple as I thought. The guy who's house I had been staying at decided to drive to Delhi the same day I wanted to go. So I went with him. The drive was about 6 hours, on 2 lane roads....sometimes 1 and a half lanes! He dropped me off at the metro in delhi and i took it to the main train station. the day before we left he said he wasnt sure if wed make it in time for me to catch the 9:00 train so there wasnt a point in booking in advance. he said its no problem to just go to the train station the day of and get a ticket. But since things in India tend to change day to day, it turned out when i got to the train they said "no". no one could explain why, all they said was "no ticket now, come back at 7:00". So i went to the tourist section of Delhi, down the street to buy an overnight bus
ticket. But my luck, the only buses leave at 5:00 (so half an hour later) and i hadnt eaten much that day and was still too nauseous from the drive there to imagine sitting on a bus for 14 hours. so i figured id take my chance with the train. i went back at 6:00 and the guy said come back at 7:00 only and i'll see what i can do. but he couldnt even tell me if there were seats available or if i was wasting my time. there isnt really a sense of time or wasting it in this country! i came back at 6:30 (ive never been so punctual or persistent in my life!!) and finally at 6:45 the guy waved me over and said there was one ticket left! I took it....grateful that i could leave right away. but i had 2 hours to kill so i walked around a bit and got dinner. i had stored my bag at a luggage storage on the street (for 10 cents! haha) and with all the stress of waiting around for the train ticket i completely forgot that the luggage place closed at 8 pm. i got there
at 8:15 and the door was close. i got the feeling that something didnt want me to go to dharamsala! but i just screamed and stared at the door until someone came up to me and said "go to Ajay guest house" and he started to tell me where to go. i swear it was like a voice whispering in my ear. i dint even see the guy! so i went to the guest house and told the guy my problem...not really sure what he could do for me. and he just stared at me like he didnt give a shit. but i begged and told him i had a train to catch. and after a few minutes of phone calls and talking to some other guys in Hindi he produced a key. so he had the key the whole time but just didnt wanna help me!! shithead. usually people are so helpful here. so someone took me to get my bag and i made my way to the train. whew. It was some adventure trying to get here but im happy to be in the mountains now and in a town filled with really chill Tibetans. And nothing went
A monk walking
with Buddhist prayer flags in the background wrong...so i guess sometimes its not a sign just something to give you a hard time so that you know the great things are worth fighting for.
McLeod Ganj was amazing. I stayed at a guest house with a great view of the mountains, hanging out with my american friend and studying Reiki....so I am now officially a Reiki healer 😊
Since I hadnt learnt enough, I decided to come to Rishikesh to take another yoga course...this time Iyengar yoga with a swiss woman. It ended today and it was quite intense! 10 days of 2 classes a day of only asanas. I learnt more in these 10 days thought than in the past few years of yoga put together. The amazing thing about the course is that the 50 people in the class are all very experienced. About half are already yoga teachers and about 90% have taken classes with this woman before. So no matter how much I think I know, there are many people who are more skilled and more experienced than I am, wherever I look. It's extremely humbling.
In Rishikesh, there are very narrow bridges to get across the Ganga. I am staying on
Street food
momos....Tibetan dumplings, steamed or fried the "other" side, which means i have to cross the bridge to get from my guesthouse to my yoga course. t sounds simple, but in reality, this can be quite time consuming! Because not only are there pedestrians crossing this bridge, but bikers, motor bikers, people pushing carts selling food and cows. It can get quite crowded!!!
From here, I'm going back up north to do a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Silent....as in no speaking for 10 whole days aaahhhhhhhhh. I'm already nervous! people here tell me im a chatterbox! so i guess itll be good for me! And hopefully I'll really learn how to meditate.
Stay tuned to find out if I have a breakdown or come out of it calm and quiet!
Namaste
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peggy fleming
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trish's blog
Dearest Trish, I have read all your blogs- truly amazing and a joy to read. You are having an experience of a lifetime-the learning one does not achieve through books.You have an advanced doctorate on LIVING. I am extremely proud of you and your accomplishments. Keep it up. Love,Peggy