Friday afternoon, after hassling for a few hours to get everything done, from finishing up the Diwali projects with my 4th graders, to making sure my ipod was charged for the next kid to borrow it for the weekend, we finally headed towards the Bangalore bus stop to catch a bus to Mysore. The group this time: Elsa the girl from Malaga, DJ, my new great friend, 40 years old, New York theater director/writer/dancer, gay, an amazing soul...and I. Not kidding, this was the least planned trip I have ever set out for in my entire life...not a good thing to do in India of all places but then again it is actually difficult to plan in advance here with the many layers of fraudulence and nonsense one has to get through almost always over rupees... but the weekend turned out to be safe and really wonderful.
We arrived at the bus station and asked where we could catch the bus to Mysore; buses towards this city run frequently, every 20 minutes. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then a short lived but annoying nightmare began. We started to look for bus # 18, when it started pouring rain like I have not seen before here in India and there were people practically caring each other and pushing left and right with barely any room to move. We finally found the bus scheduled to leave at 8:40 pm, we were soaked wet off course and there was commotion going on about how there were five buses heading back from Mysore but they were stuck in a traffic jam so the wait would be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half (very typical in India). This explanation took about 40 minutes to obtain since no one, not even the creepy, mean men in the kaki uniforms pretending to know everything, knew what exactly was going on, and still no bus. By that time, I was about to cry as my feet squished out water from my closed toe shoes at my every step and I held on to my bags in complete paranoia, knowing my baby AKA my laptop, was in my backpack. I finally screamed out: "NO more, lets get a cheap hotel and head to Mysore tomorrow". We did and as we stepped into the budget hotel I breathed in deeply and said "Oh thank you Jesus"...yes, out load.
The next morning we ended up taking the train instead which took the same amount of time as the bus would have but it is much more comfortable and this already taking into consideration the crazy experience I had riding the train to Hampi. Nonetheless, Mysore is only two and half hours away and it ended up being very simple and quite enjoyable. We arrived in Mysore with a perfect amount of time to see the main sights of the city and enjoy a stroll around the palace area before heading back to the hotel. We first went up to Chamundi Hill on which they say resides the presiding deity of Mysore and its royal family, Goddess Chamundeshwari. There is yet another beautiful temple to see there dating back to the year 1128 A.D.; this temple is much more taken care of and cleaner than others I've seen. The view from the hill was beautiful; you could see the large Mysore palace, which is the main palace and here and there, a few of the 29 other palaces that were built in this city for the Maharaja's family.
Then our rickshaw driver took us to a typical Mysore Herbal and Oil shop. Mysore is known as the sandalwood city, since it is a large producer of sandalwood. They use almost every part of the Sandalwood tree including the oil that they extract from the inner, soft part of the stem. The oil shop was amazing; they had all sorts of oils that smelled so pure and wonderful. My personal favorite, Subba oil from the flower of the same name; off course it has a hint of vanilla in it =). It was great to learn about the Indian oils that they use for aromatherapy, reflexology, meditation and body massages all very popular here in India.
We then visited the Mysore palace, which I am not kidding, stands next to Versailles not in size but indeed in grandeur. The imposing facade has seven beautiful arches and the palace is built around an open courtyard. It has the most amazing "marriage hall" which I would refer to more as like a ballroom. I definitely busted out my ballroom skills with my new friend DJ =). The octagonal, painted pavilion has a colorful stained glass ceiling and the predominant theme in the glass as well as in the mosaic floor is the peacock.
Another notable sight in the palace is the golden throne, which consists of a main seat, a staircase and an umbrella, all golden. It has a Sanskrit inscription that reads: "Oh, King Krishna, Lord of the earth, you are resplendent with the blessing of goddess Chamundeshwari. You are the full moon of the autumn to the milky ocean of the Yadu race. This golden umbrella, which you have inherited from your illustrious ancestors, evokes the awe of the whole world". The history of the throne dates back to the 12th century.
Sunday night we actually got to see the castle all lit up since the entire building is actually lined with rows of bulbs following the contours of the structure. A total of 100,000 bulbs light up the palace every Sunday for one hour, it was so beautiful, it was fairy tale like.
Rewinding a bit though, Sunday we took a car over to Dubare, an elephant camp =). When we arrived we took a short boat ride to Elephant Island and as we pulled over to the tree root that served as the "dock" there were three elephants taking their bath in the river, it was so amazing. We then signed up to take a 10-minute elephant ride and Chandra, which I later renamed Pongo (because it looked like a Pongo, every sweet animal to me looks like a Pongo) gave us a sweet ride around the island. I just imagined "Las Isletas" which by the way are much more beautiful than this place by far, but with ELEPHANTS, that would attract more tourists to our lovely islands that unfortunately are barren of elephant and fish.
On our way back we stopped by the Tibetan, Namdrolin Monastery. As I explained in the last post, it was a village of Tibetan monks, from little 5-year old monks to 80-year old monks. The place was so holy and clean and peaceful. There were like five separate buildings, all Tibetan style buildings, and inside sat these monks in meditation. In one building they were singing hymns of prayer in Sanskrit and others were playing particular instruments, huge bongs and long, long trumpets I wish I new the name of. In another one of the buildings, the main one, there were no monks praying but there were three enormous golden statues of 60 feet in height, one of lord Buddha and the others of two Gurus. In a plaque next to the statues it says that they are made of copper plated with gold and inside the statues, are scriptures, relics of great beings, small clay mould stupas, and small statues, which symbolize the body, speech and mind of the buddhas. It was an astonishing sight, like nothing I have ever seen before. I honestly felt like I went to Tibet for two hours, it was a different world.
One of the walls read:
"In the Buddhist tradition, circumambulating religious objects like stupas, temples, etc. clockwise with faith, generates a positive energy bringing about happiness & peace of mind. Abandon all evil doings, practice virtue well, and master your own mind, this the Buddha's teaching- Lord Buddha."
The weekend in Mysore ended up being amazing and I was not expecting to see everything I saw; I am so grateful that my last trip here in India was to these places.
The way back was off course stressful and a bit scary. We were not able to get all the way back to Shanti Bhavan on Monday night because of Diwali celebrations. No one wanted to take us so "in land" so we had to stay in Hosur. Finally, in an hour or so we will head back to Shanti Bhavan. Luckily the children are not celebrating Diwali until today, so we didn't miss much. However, since I do not have my card reader with me, I will have to post pictures this coming weekend.
Thank you for reading about my experience.
Hugs and smiles.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Happy Diwali!
Namaste!
As at any other point in my life, I have yet again taken up one too many activities. But although these days I have much less time for myself, I am loving every minute of my busyness. For one thing, I decided to make more exciting activities and more memorable projects with my fourth graders. We have decorated our classroom with drawings and paper made candles to celebrate the Indian festival of Diwali (I'll explain more about it later). We made a mural for Columbus Day and we have started making pumpkins and skeletons for Halloween. We have also done some science projects, like seeing how onion roots grow inside of a jar, since they recently learned about roots, stems and plants. We did an experiment on the potential force of an object using small planks of wood that we hang from the desks and then let fall onto a still object on the floor. Seeing how much the still object moves determines the force of the falling object; the kids were fascinated and they understood the concepts really well. By the way, I didn't know about these until I read the "teacher book"; I'm certainly learning along with them.
Another fun activity I've taken up is choreographing a dance for all the teachers that we will all present on Children's Day, November 14th. The dance is hysterical and the kids will love it, which is the entire purpose. The best part of it all has been hanging out with teachers in a relaxed setting where we have gotten to know each other much more. They truly are amazing and they have awesome personalities; they are certainly a bit wacky, but good wacky, nonetheless.
Also, I have been helping the 7th graders with a presentation on South America. I have taught them things about Latin American culture and they seem to be enjoying it. They also wanted to do something special for their presentation "because we have to beat the 8th grade North America presentation". They asked me to teach them a form of South American dance so that they can surprise the school with it. I taught them some TANGO! They are so wonderful at it too. Not that I am an expert but I can tango a step or two and luckily I have managed to choreograph a one minute dance for them to present in spite of my limited knowledge =).
Finally, for Halloween, I am teaching my fourth and fifth graders THRILLER =)! I downloaded it at the Internet cafe a few weeks ago and re-learned it to teach it to them. They are so good at it and are loving the fact that get to be mummies in front of the whole school. One kid, Ajay said something really funny the other day as they were practicing: "Miss Blue Jay, I'm awfully sorry but your dance is not scaring me one bit!" he said this apologetically but also with a confused expression. I laughed and said "Ajay, Mr. you are not supposed to be scared from being a mummy in the dance, the point is for you to scare other people." "Oooohhhh". Haha, it was the cutest thing ever.
This weekend is the last of my long weekends while I'm here in India. It is the Hindu festival of Diwali also known as the festival of lights. It is held in the period October to November, to celebrate the new season at the end of the monsoon. It is particularly associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and marks the beginning of the fiscal year in India.
We have Monday and Tuesday off and we traveled south, to Mysore from Friday to Monday and will head back to Shanti Bhavan in a few hours to celebrate the actual day of Diwali with the children. I will write all about my experience in Mysore perhaps tonight. It is a beautiful place, much cleaner than any other city I've visited, and the Mysore palace, which is the palace of the Maharaja, is astonishing. We also went to an elephant camp and then to a Tibetan village that houses hundreds of Tibetan monks of all ages; sadly they are all refugees. Nonetheless, they all seem to be at peace and maintain serene and loving expressions as they devotedly practice their faith.
Anyways, I will try to upload the post and some cool pics tomorrow since we will be going to Hosur for a few hours to get supplies for a "Halloween fair" the volunteers will put together for the children =).
I hope you are all doing wonderful. As my time to leave India approaches, I have often felt overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and sadness for leaving these children, but knowing that I will see many of you soon makes me feel much better. I miss you.
As at any other point in my life, I have yet again taken up one too many activities. But although these days I have much less time for myself, I am loving every minute of my busyness. For one thing, I decided to make more exciting activities and more memorable projects with my fourth graders. We have decorated our classroom with drawings and paper made candles to celebrate the Indian festival of Diwali (I'll explain more about it later). We made a mural for Columbus Day and we have started making pumpkins and skeletons for Halloween. We have also done some science projects, like seeing how onion roots grow inside of a jar, since they recently learned about roots, stems and plants. We did an experiment on the potential force of an object using small planks of wood that we hang from the desks and then let fall onto a still object on the floor. Seeing how much the still object moves determines the force of the falling object; the kids were fascinated and they understood the concepts really well. By the way, I didn't know about these until I read the "teacher book"; I'm certainly learning along with them.
Another fun activity I've taken up is choreographing a dance for all the teachers that we will all present on Children's Day, November 14th. The dance is hysterical and the kids will love it, which is the entire purpose. The best part of it all has been hanging out with teachers in a relaxed setting where we have gotten to know each other much more. They truly are amazing and they have awesome personalities; they are certainly a bit wacky, but good wacky, nonetheless.
Also, I have been helping the 7th graders with a presentation on South America. I have taught them things about Latin American culture and they seem to be enjoying it. They also wanted to do something special for their presentation "because we have to beat the 8th grade North America presentation". They asked me to teach them a form of South American dance so that they can surprise the school with it. I taught them some TANGO! They are so wonderful at it too. Not that I am an expert but I can tango a step or two and luckily I have managed to choreograph a one minute dance for them to present in spite of my limited knowledge =).
Finally, for Halloween, I am teaching my fourth and fifth graders THRILLER =)! I downloaded it at the Internet cafe a few weeks ago and re-learned it to teach it to them. They are so good at it and are loving the fact that get to be mummies in front of the whole school. One kid, Ajay said something really funny the other day as they were practicing: "Miss Blue Jay, I'm awfully sorry but your dance is not scaring me one bit!" he said this apologetically but also with a confused expression. I laughed and said "Ajay, Mr. you are not supposed to be scared from being a mummy in the dance, the point is for you to scare other people." "Oooohhhh". Haha, it was the cutest thing ever.
This weekend is the last of my long weekends while I'm here in India. It is the Hindu festival of Diwali also known as the festival of lights. It is held in the period October to November, to celebrate the new season at the end of the monsoon. It is particularly associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and marks the beginning of the fiscal year in India.
We have Monday and Tuesday off and we traveled south, to Mysore from Friday to Monday and will head back to Shanti Bhavan in a few hours to celebrate the actual day of Diwali with the children. I will write all about my experience in Mysore perhaps tonight. It is a beautiful place, much cleaner than any other city I've visited, and the Mysore palace, which is the palace of the Maharaja, is astonishing. We also went to an elephant camp and then to a Tibetan village that houses hundreds of Tibetan monks of all ages; sadly they are all refugees. Nonetheless, they all seem to be at peace and maintain serene and loving expressions as they devotedly practice their faith.
Anyways, I will try to upload the post and some cool pics tomorrow since we will be going to Hosur for a few hours to get supplies for a "Halloween fair" the volunteers will put together for the children =).
I hope you are all doing wonderful. As my time to leave India approaches, I have often felt overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and sadness for leaving these children, but knowing that I will see many of you soon makes me feel much better. I miss you.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Meet the Parents
Last Sunday, October 12th the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders had the privilege to spend a whole 4 hours and 15 minutes with their parents after not seeing them for three months. That is how the kids referred to it, ‘the privilege’…talk about looking at the bright side. They kept mentioning their parents’ arrival since that day when we wrote the invitations. By the end of the week they couldn’t sit still as they counted the hours in anticipation. They told me they were not only excited to see their parents and siblings, but also excited because them and I would get to meet; they were adamant about me wearing my sari for when we met.
Sunday came, and I am not kidding their smiles that morning were so big and beautiful they could stop crime. “Miss, thank you, thank you, thank you sooooo much for wearing the sari, it’s soooo nice and its blue and beautiful…our parents are coming!!!!” Every sentence that day no matter how nonsensical it sounded, ended with the phrase, our parents are coming.
At first I thought that meeting the parents would be a bit awkward considering the language barrier, but it turned out to be a series of very moving encounters. All the families and their children sat around by the cherry trees and I went from group to group introducing myself and telling them something nice about their kid (because, even though a few of them are very talkative, I really did have something nice to say about each one of them)…. Some of them spoke a little English but most of them spoke Tamil or Kannada so the children were the translators. Many of the families gave me a fruit, or a small candy or an Indian sweet. I was so grateful for their generosity but even more for the way in which they gave me the gift; their eyes, although intensely black, transparently expressed gratitude and appreciation towards me. I am convinced that non-verbal communication is the most honest and truthful form.
Among their parents you could sense a sort of questioning, “Is my child okay here in this school? It feels so right to be next to him, how could I leave him here again?” But at the end of the day they made that decision once again and they all trickled out of the premises. Luckily the kids had PT after their parents left so all the volunteers went to cheer them up and we played kick ball and Monkey in the Middle and Dog and the Bone, aka Panueleta in Nica terms. Every day I wish to fill that void that these children have.
I have learned a new skill:
For a few days now I have debated whether or not I should include this particular incident in the blog but I realized that it has definitely added, in some way, to this experience and that it would make a good story. My scalp is infected by, oh you know, creepy crawly creatures…yeah LICE! Although I make several jokes about this infestation through out the day and the children think it is hysterically funny, this has been a catastrophic experience for me. No I didn’t have to get a buzz cut but this has affected my being in several ways.
Number one: My scalp ITCHES, it ITCHES, it ITCHES SOOOO MUCH. Number two: I have felt like a primate several times this week as I go about my daily tasks and activities with one hand up on my head, scratching away at my sensitive scalp. Number three: I have had vivid dreams about these intruding germs holding concerts up in the forest that is my hair…yeah I HEAR THE MUSIC AT NIGHT, it’s disturbing. Number four: the treatment ITCHES, it ITCHES, it ITCHES SOOOO MUCH.
Fewph, now that I got the venting is out of the way… I am now an expert in LICE detection and extermination. A skill that I hope doesn’t come in handy often, but if it must, I AM PREPARED.
I got the lice from my fourth grade girls. Even though their hair is short, which sadly causes many new volunteers to confuse them with the boys, they still get lice. And well I must admit that because I have grown so fond of these children, I probably hug them enough so that lice get the chance to travel over to my dense and frizzy, curly hair. The itching has diminished a bit since I started the treatment and hopefully they will all have chocked to death in a few more days.
This weekend Suparna and I are in Bangalore again staying at her aunt's place, using wireless internet, amazing! Today we went Sari shopping and off course got into a couple amusing arguments with rickshaw drivers, which is an inevitable annoyance. Tonight we are going to a party at a place called Fuga. We got the invite from a german friend of Suparna's who is doing a project here with his company for some time. The party is being organized by the Ives club which is a club for Interns, Volunteers, Expats, and Exchange Students in Bangalore city...should be fun to meet some internationals like me!
Sunday came, and I am not kidding their smiles that morning were so big and beautiful they could stop crime. “Miss, thank you, thank you, thank you sooooo much for wearing the sari, it’s soooo nice and its blue and beautiful…our parents are coming!!!!” Every sentence that day no matter how nonsensical it sounded, ended with the phrase, our parents are coming.
At first I thought that meeting the parents would be a bit awkward considering the language barrier, but it turned out to be a series of very moving encounters. All the families and their children sat around by the cherry trees and I went from group to group introducing myself and telling them something nice about their kid (because, even though a few of them are very talkative, I really did have something nice to say about each one of them)…. Some of them spoke a little English but most of them spoke Tamil or Kannada so the children were the translators. Many of the families gave me a fruit, or a small candy or an Indian sweet. I was so grateful for their generosity but even more for the way in which they gave me the gift; their eyes, although intensely black, transparently expressed gratitude and appreciation towards me. I am convinced that non-verbal communication is the most honest and truthful form.
Among their parents you could sense a sort of questioning, “Is my child okay here in this school? It feels so right to be next to him, how could I leave him here again?” But at the end of the day they made that decision once again and they all trickled out of the premises. Luckily the kids had PT after their parents left so all the volunteers went to cheer them up and we played kick ball and Monkey in the Middle and Dog and the Bone, aka Panueleta in Nica terms. Every day I wish to fill that void that these children have.
I have learned a new skill:
For a few days now I have debated whether or not I should include this particular incident in the blog but I realized that it has definitely added, in some way, to this experience and that it would make a good story. My scalp is infected by, oh you know, creepy crawly creatures…yeah LICE! Although I make several jokes about this infestation through out the day and the children think it is hysterically funny, this has been a catastrophic experience for me. No I didn’t have to get a buzz cut but this has affected my being in several ways.
Number one: My scalp ITCHES, it ITCHES, it ITCHES SOOOO MUCH. Number two: I have felt like a primate several times this week as I go about my daily tasks and activities with one hand up on my head, scratching away at my sensitive scalp. Number three: I have had vivid dreams about these intruding germs holding concerts up in the forest that is my hair…yeah I HEAR THE MUSIC AT NIGHT, it’s disturbing. Number four: the treatment ITCHES, it ITCHES, it ITCHES SOOOO MUCH.
Fewph, now that I got the venting is out of the way… I am now an expert in LICE detection and extermination. A skill that I hope doesn’t come in handy often, but if it must, I AM PREPARED.
I got the lice from my fourth grade girls. Even though their hair is short, which sadly causes many new volunteers to confuse them with the boys, they still get lice. And well I must admit that because I have grown so fond of these children, I probably hug them enough so that lice get the chance to travel over to my dense and frizzy, curly hair. The itching has diminished a bit since I started the treatment and hopefully they will all have chocked to death in a few more days.
This weekend Suparna and I are in Bangalore again staying at her aunt's place, using wireless internet, amazing! Today we went Sari shopping and off course got into a couple amusing arguments with rickshaw drivers, which is an inevitable annoyance. Tonight we are going to a party at a place called Fuga. We got the invite from a german friend of Suparna's who is doing a project here with his company for some time. The party is being organized by the Ives club which is a club for Interns, Volunteers, Expats, and Exchange Students in Bangalore city...should be fun to meet some internationals like me!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
'WL'
Namaste!
It has been two full weeks. I have been looking forward to writing about my recent excursion but I didn't get the chance last weekend and decided to leave it for when I was back at tranquil Shanti Bhavan. Ladies and gentlemen, Hampi, India is a gem. It is a place where time has stopped, where people and animals cohabitate in soothing harmony, where the plants are as green as can be and the sun shines so bright that you can see a perfect circle reflected on the cobble-stone streets.
But before I tell you about my experience in this place I must begin by describing our very eventful journey to get there. So we all got ready to leave on Wednesday afternoon. A nice taxi driver picked us up in a car somewhere between the size of a smart car and a VW golf, an "indie car" as they refer to them here. The five of us, Derek, Neil, Suparna, Elsa (a nice girl from Malaga, Espana I had yet to mention) and I crammed into the small car, excited to begin our trip. We drove directly to the Bangalore train station, expecting to quickly buy our tickets for the return trip and then have a nice dinner before the train left at 10:00 pm. Well, let's just say the night didn't turn out as planned.
Our e-ticket that we printed out the weekend prior had all 5 of our names on it, a couch number and seat numbers, and then peculiarly, it had the letters WL printed at the top of the page. We all must of thought they stood for the name of the company or something. Well, it turns out that the letters stood for WAITING LIST! OH CRAP! What to do now?? We were so confused as to how the system worked, and needless to say the people at the counter in the train station were anything but helpful. We were numbers 6 to 10 on the waitlist and for about 2 hours we sat around checking a small, beat up computer screen that sat next to the counter to see if the numbers decreased.
Finally, the three females got confirmed but unfortunately the males didn't make it. I went up to the counter with this pretend-petrified look on my face and said: "Hellooo Mr. (the hello with lingering ooos descending in tone and volume level), the girls in my group made it but the boys, our dear friends, did not make it on the train." Apparently the oooos helped since he proceeded to tell me that if we all wanted to travel together, that we could just share a tier ("bed") on the train and that no one could say anything. "Hmm, well that sounds sketch" I thought "but it might make sense, since the train tickets were only $15 each, even though it's a 10 hour train ride"...I told the group and they were like "OMG, lets do it"...we had received an email confirming that we had paid for all five of them, so we didn't feel terrible about it, but we indeed continued to doubt whether or not we would be A. allowed on the train, B. comfortable, and C. safe. By that point however, all we wanted was to have something to eat and to board the sketchy train to get to beautiful Hampi.
We figured out which platform the Hampi express train departed from and then grabbed a quick bite to eat at the train station restaurant...not bad for what you would expect, seeing as how the train station is crowded, loud, smelly, and dark. After dinner, it was still about 9:30 so we waited for our train sitting on top of our squished luggage witnessing how people would get in and out of the two trains preceding ours. While boarding, there were men helping women onto the moving train by throwing them on by their waists, YEP, scary! And there were people elbowing each other in the face as they tried to arrange their luggage inside, while others waved frantically through the windows, at the family members staying behind. All this just concerned us a bit more but it was certainly an experience to be riding an over night train in India, so we kept telling ourselves that, until finally, our train arrived.
Now for the funny/ridiculous part of the story, boarding the train was not terrible, but once inside, we were so confused as to which seat turned into what bed, and which three beds were ours. Meanwhile all the native Indians were laughing hysterically at our frazzled expressions. We basically sat in whatever spaces we found empty, waiting for the "DT" to come and tell us we were in the wrong place. From this point forward, the order of events went something like this: He came, he yelled, I hid my face behind my backpack as I tried to cuddle into a corner of the tier, Indian ladies chuckled, Derek stepped up and asked if there was a "tax" that we could pay, the DT obstinately said "200 rupees"! (AKA $5), we gave; we got 5 beds...talk about cheap bureaucracy! By that point it was about midnight but we still got to comfortably relax in our five "WL" beds and sleep for eight hours. Then at long last we arrived at the Hospet train station, just a 30-minute auto rickshaw ride from Hampi.
A bit of historical background on Hampi: In the Hindu legends of Ramayana, this area was the realm of the monkey gods; still today many of the city trees are crowded with "red face monkeys", timid but very nice monkeys, by the way. The Telugu princes founded the city in 1336 and over the following two centuries, the city grew into one of the largest Hindu empires in Indian history. The city's busy bazaars were centers of international commerce, overflowing with precious stones and merchants from far away lands. Then in 1565 the city was pillaged by a confederacy of Deccan sultanates, and the empire sadly fell and was abandoned for centuries. Today, a battle remains between those who want to protect what is left of the ruins and those who live there. The city was declared a world heritage site in 1986 but only some of the monuments hold protection status.
The city is divided into sections: The Hampi Bazaar is a village crammed with budget lodges, small shops and restaurants which all surround the huge Virupaksha Temple. Among these establishments are small cottages where the local people still live. The bazaar has either coble stone streets or dirt streets in which cows, goats, roosters and monkeys linger freely. Among them, children in their traditional Indian dresses play with pebbles or hang around asking tourists to take their picture, it's amusing. We stayed in this area of Hampi. When we arrived at our budget lodge, the Gopi Guesthouse, we went straight up to the roof top restaurant/garden where the staff greeted us delightfully. There was a table of French people, a table of northern Europeans (so good looking), and then there was one man sitting alone whom I must describe. I couldn't decipher where he was from, he was a middle-aged man, dressed kind of ruggedly, carrying one of those hiking, wood sticks...he looked wise, for a second he reminded me of Gandalf in The Lord of The Rings (yes, I do like that trilogy). He was looking out into the endless rock boulders in the distance and his face looked like a comprehensive encyclopedia of bliss and no he didn't seem to be on any sort of altering substance, he just seemed to be in an enviable state of satisfaction with the world and with himself, maybe it was Hampi, I thought. I didn't get the guts to chat with him; he just seemed to be on a different level of consciousness and I didn't want to interrupt.
After having a great breakfast we had to register in the police department. I thought it was odd but once I saw "the book" I thought it was awesome. Every tourist that has roamed this city has signed up in "the book" and it holds signatures from ALL OVER THE WORLD! I didn't check to see whether there had been someone from Nicaragua since the book was thousands of pages long, but it sure felt great to write down my country's name on it.
After that, the activities began. That day we walked through many of the ruins surrounding the bazaar and then walked down to the river where we took a "bamboo boat" ride through caves and huge granite boulders, it was amazing. We then went to an awesome restaurant where we ate great food citing on mattresses in which we then NAPPED for a couple hours. The falling asleep was the best part as we enjoyed the breeze blowing from the river banks and the sound of monkeys and birds in the distance harmonizing with the soothing sound of a sitar that one of the waiters was playing a few mattresses down.
When we woke up, completely rested and in the best of moods we took an auto rickshaw to the Hanuman or 'monkey god' temple. We climbed up 670 steps in the company of wild monkeys who were surprisingly good hosts to the temple visitors. Once at the top of the hill, we were all mesmerized by the beauty surrounding us. Contemplatively and in silence we sat watching the sunset next to about 50 monkeys, surrounded by acres of green rice paddies, banana tree plantations, and huge, sporadic granite rock boulders. I love high altitudes... The next day we woke up at sunrise and took a yoga class up in the rooftop of our lodge. The instructor was not that good at instructing, he was just someone that knows Yoga really well and decided to instruct in order to practice it more himself. Anyways, it was awesome to have done yoga before the long and active day ahead of us.
After breakfast, wee took a tour of the 50-meter high, Virupaksha temple and visited Lakshmi, the temple elephant. The Hindu temple is dedicated to god Shiva and it was built around a special small stone, referred to as a Shiva Lingam, basically a phallic object worshiped as a symbol of this god, representing also divine generative energy. People were praising the stone: some poured water on it out of a gold pitcher while others threw flowers and food around it; it was certainly an intense sight. As for the elephant, she seems to have come to terms with the fact that she is chained to a wall waiting for people to take her picture, but it was a sad site. It would have been way cooler to see her freely wandering through the green lands of Hampi. After that we biked about 6 km through the bazaar and the ruins of the royal centre (another section of the city), and although it was extremely hot, we had a great time. The ruins were intense; there are some huge rock monuments that sit hidden among banana trees; it felt like playing "Legends of the Hidden Temple", haha. That night, completely exhausted, we went to a restaurant, The Mango Tree, where again we sprawled out on floor mats, had amazing food under the soft light of kerosene lanterns, sat below an enormous mango tree and looked out into the river and the boulders once again is awe of the amazing view.
The next day we walked for hours deep into the middle of nowhere to find small waterfalls and rock pools that surround an area of the city. On our way we ran into Namu, a man who seemed to have lived out there in the wilderness for most of his life. He apparently has seen many tourists get lost in search of the waterfalls and he has now assigned himself as the guide for people he finds on the trail. The waterfalls were not huge since the monsoon season is now over and the water level has decrease significantly in the past month, but it was awesome to be out there where all you could see was untouched land and all you could hear was naturally running water and talkative wild animals in the distance.
That afternoon we lingered around the city for a while, played a game of Karam, which is an Indian game similar I guess to pool, except without the poles. And that night we took an overnight semi-sleeper bus back to Bangalore, since again our train tickets were "WL". It was a ten-hour ride and the driver was a wacko that made it seem like we were off-roading in a very unstable bus that needed its shock absorbers changed, it was horribly uncomfortable. But in the end, the traveling hassles were all worth it at the chance to see the paradise that is Hampi for three days.
Until next time!
Much love.
It has been two full weeks. I have been looking forward to writing about my recent excursion but I didn't get the chance last weekend and decided to leave it for when I was back at tranquil Shanti Bhavan. Ladies and gentlemen, Hampi, India is a gem. It is a place where time has stopped, where people and animals cohabitate in soothing harmony, where the plants are as green as can be and the sun shines so bright that you can see a perfect circle reflected on the cobble-stone streets.
But before I tell you about my experience in this place I must begin by describing our very eventful journey to get there. So we all got ready to leave on Wednesday afternoon. A nice taxi driver picked us up in a car somewhere between the size of a smart car and a VW golf, an "indie car" as they refer to them here. The five of us, Derek, Neil, Suparna, Elsa (a nice girl from Malaga, Espana I had yet to mention) and I crammed into the small car, excited to begin our trip. We drove directly to the Bangalore train station, expecting to quickly buy our tickets for the return trip and then have a nice dinner before the train left at 10:00 pm. Well, let's just say the night didn't turn out as planned.
Our e-ticket that we printed out the weekend prior had all 5 of our names on it, a couch number and seat numbers, and then peculiarly, it had the letters WL printed at the top of the page. We all must of thought they stood for the name of the company or something. Well, it turns out that the letters stood for WAITING LIST! OH CRAP! What to do now?? We were so confused as to how the system worked, and needless to say the people at the counter in the train station were anything but helpful. We were numbers 6 to 10 on the waitlist and for about 2 hours we sat around checking a small, beat up computer screen that sat next to the counter to see if the numbers decreased.
Finally, the three females got confirmed but unfortunately the males didn't make it. I went up to the counter with this pretend-petrified look on my face and said: "Hellooo Mr. (the hello with lingering ooos descending in tone and volume level), the girls in my group made it but the boys, our dear friends, did not make it on the train." Apparently the oooos helped since he proceeded to tell me that if we all wanted to travel together, that we could just share a tier ("bed") on the train and that no one could say anything. "Hmm, well that sounds sketch" I thought "but it might make sense, since the train tickets were only $15 each, even though it's a 10 hour train ride"...I told the group and they were like "OMG, lets do it"...we had received an email confirming that we had paid for all five of them, so we didn't feel terrible about it, but we indeed continued to doubt whether or not we would be A. allowed on the train, B. comfortable, and C. safe. By that point however, all we wanted was to have something to eat and to board the sketchy train to get to beautiful Hampi.
We figured out which platform the Hampi express train departed from and then grabbed a quick bite to eat at the train station restaurant...not bad for what you would expect, seeing as how the train station is crowded, loud, smelly, and dark. After dinner, it was still about 9:30 so we waited for our train sitting on top of our squished luggage witnessing how people would get in and out of the two trains preceding ours. While boarding, there were men helping women onto the moving train by throwing them on by their waists, YEP, scary! And there were people elbowing each other in the face as they tried to arrange their luggage inside, while others waved frantically through the windows, at the family members staying behind. All this just concerned us a bit more but it was certainly an experience to be riding an over night train in India, so we kept telling ourselves that, until finally, our train arrived.
Now for the funny/ridiculous part of the story, boarding the train was not terrible, but once inside, we were so confused as to which seat turned into what bed, and which three beds were ours. Meanwhile all the native Indians were laughing hysterically at our frazzled expressions. We basically sat in whatever spaces we found empty, waiting for the "DT" to come and tell us we were in the wrong place. From this point forward, the order of events went something like this: He came, he yelled, I hid my face behind my backpack as I tried to cuddle into a corner of the tier, Indian ladies chuckled, Derek stepped up and asked if there was a "tax" that we could pay, the DT obstinately said "200 rupees"! (AKA $5), we gave; we got 5 beds...talk about cheap bureaucracy! By that point it was about midnight but we still got to comfortably relax in our five "WL" beds and sleep for eight hours. Then at long last we arrived at the Hospet train station, just a 30-minute auto rickshaw ride from Hampi.
A bit of historical background on Hampi: In the Hindu legends of Ramayana, this area was the realm of the monkey gods; still today many of the city trees are crowded with "red face monkeys", timid but very nice monkeys, by the way. The Telugu princes founded the city in 1336 and over the following two centuries, the city grew into one of the largest Hindu empires in Indian history. The city's busy bazaars were centers of international commerce, overflowing with precious stones and merchants from far away lands. Then in 1565 the city was pillaged by a confederacy of Deccan sultanates, and the empire sadly fell and was abandoned for centuries. Today, a battle remains between those who want to protect what is left of the ruins and those who live there. The city was declared a world heritage site in 1986 but only some of the monuments hold protection status.
The city is divided into sections: The Hampi Bazaar is a village crammed with budget lodges, small shops and restaurants which all surround the huge Virupaksha Temple. Among these establishments are small cottages where the local people still live. The bazaar has either coble stone streets or dirt streets in which cows, goats, roosters and monkeys linger freely. Among them, children in their traditional Indian dresses play with pebbles or hang around asking tourists to take their picture, it's amusing. We stayed in this area of Hampi. When we arrived at our budget lodge, the Gopi Guesthouse, we went straight up to the roof top restaurant/garden where the staff greeted us delightfully. There was a table of French people, a table of northern Europeans (so good looking), and then there was one man sitting alone whom I must describe. I couldn't decipher where he was from, he was a middle-aged man, dressed kind of ruggedly, carrying one of those hiking, wood sticks...he looked wise, for a second he reminded me of Gandalf in The Lord of The Rings (yes, I do like that trilogy). He was looking out into the endless rock boulders in the distance and his face looked like a comprehensive encyclopedia of bliss and no he didn't seem to be on any sort of altering substance, he just seemed to be in an enviable state of satisfaction with the world and with himself, maybe it was Hampi, I thought. I didn't get the guts to chat with him; he just seemed to be on a different level of consciousness and I didn't want to interrupt.
After having a great breakfast we had to register in the police department. I thought it was odd but once I saw "the book" I thought it was awesome. Every tourist that has roamed this city has signed up in "the book" and it holds signatures from ALL OVER THE WORLD! I didn't check to see whether there had been someone from Nicaragua since the book was thousands of pages long, but it sure felt great to write down my country's name on it.
After that, the activities began. That day we walked through many of the ruins surrounding the bazaar and then walked down to the river where we took a "bamboo boat" ride through caves and huge granite boulders, it was amazing. We then went to an awesome restaurant where we ate great food citing on mattresses in which we then NAPPED for a couple hours. The falling asleep was the best part as we enjoyed the breeze blowing from the river banks and the sound of monkeys and birds in the distance harmonizing with the soothing sound of a sitar that one of the waiters was playing a few mattresses down.
When we woke up, completely rested and in the best of moods we took an auto rickshaw to the Hanuman or 'monkey god' temple. We climbed up 670 steps in the company of wild monkeys who were surprisingly good hosts to the temple visitors. Once at the top of the hill, we were all mesmerized by the beauty surrounding us. Contemplatively and in silence we sat watching the sunset next to about 50 monkeys, surrounded by acres of green rice paddies, banana tree plantations, and huge, sporadic granite rock boulders. I love high altitudes... The next day we woke up at sunrise and took a yoga class up in the rooftop of our lodge. The instructor was not that good at instructing, he was just someone that knows Yoga really well and decided to instruct in order to practice it more himself. Anyways, it was awesome to have done yoga before the long and active day ahead of us.
After breakfast, wee took a tour of the 50-meter high, Virupaksha temple and visited Lakshmi, the temple elephant. The Hindu temple is dedicated to god Shiva and it was built around a special small stone, referred to as a Shiva Lingam, basically a phallic object worshiped as a symbol of this god, representing also divine generative energy. People were praising the stone: some poured water on it out of a gold pitcher while others threw flowers and food around it; it was certainly an intense sight. As for the elephant, she seems to have come to terms with the fact that she is chained to a wall waiting for people to take her picture, but it was a sad site. It would have been way cooler to see her freely wandering through the green lands of Hampi. After that we biked about 6 km through the bazaar and the ruins of the royal centre (another section of the city), and although it was extremely hot, we had a great time. The ruins were intense; there are some huge rock monuments that sit hidden among banana trees; it felt like playing "Legends of the Hidden Temple", haha. That night, completely exhausted, we went to a restaurant, The Mango Tree, where again we sprawled out on floor mats, had amazing food under the soft light of kerosene lanterns, sat below an enormous mango tree and looked out into the river and the boulders once again is awe of the amazing view.
The next day we walked for hours deep into the middle of nowhere to find small waterfalls and rock pools that surround an area of the city. On our way we ran into Namu, a man who seemed to have lived out there in the wilderness for most of his life. He apparently has seen many tourists get lost in search of the waterfalls and he has now assigned himself as the guide for people he finds on the trail. The waterfalls were not huge since the monsoon season is now over and the water level has decrease significantly in the past month, but it was awesome to be out there where all you could see was untouched land and all you could hear was naturally running water and talkative wild animals in the distance.
That afternoon we lingered around the city for a while, played a game of Karam, which is an Indian game similar I guess to pool, except without the poles. And that night we took an overnight semi-sleeper bus back to Bangalore, since again our train tickets were "WL". It was a ten-hour ride and the driver was a wacko that made it seem like we were off-roading in a very unstable bus that needed its shock absorbers changed, it was horribly uncomfortable. But in the end, the traveling hassles were all worth it at the chance to see the paradise that is Hampi for three days.
Until next time!
Much love.
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