Hello friends,
I hope this finds you all well. We are happily typing in a restaurant with free wi-fi in the shadow of the Taj Mahal here in Agra. It was a smooth trip, as much as unairconditioned overnight bus rides on a bus with a cheerful 90 decible horn used freely can be. We were dropped off a few Km outside of town, but an autorik brought us safely to the Taj, where we found a hotel, and went to explore the Agra Fort in the morning.
But we'd rather post our mountain adventures, since we have Wi-Fi again. We gave you highlights last night, so here's the whole kit and caboodle.
Monday, July 25th
Well, we've had adventures. In the morning we road with Augusteen, Lalitha, Pastor Luke Basca, and some random dude (SRD) who apparently wanted to a) honor us by seeing us off at the airport b) earn brownie points with Augusteen by sitting on his lap for 1.5 hours, or c) see an airplane. We both think c), probably. I imagine that watching an airplane take off for the first time as a 16-20 year old would be pretty interesting.
We had a tearful farewell with our friends before heading off for Delhi.
In Delhi, we had adventures! We successfully navigated both the pristine and empty airport express subway (nice) the crowded but functional subway system (getting hairy) but when we exited the subway into the chaotic streets of Delhi, our plan fell apart. We had the name and address of a hotel three blocks from the subway station, and had high hopes of a) being able to see it, or b) finding it based on the directions we'd received from google or c) asking for directions from a taxi driver.
Unfortunately, all three plans fell through. (Rachel would like to insert an I told you so here, noting that she suggested that we get a pre-paid taxi at the airport, since it was getting late and we didn't know our way around yet). So we found ourselves captured by a strange rickshaw driver taking us further and further away from our location, looking for someone who knew where he should take us. Luckily, he took us back by the New Delhi train station, and at an opportune time, Rachel and I leaped out into the teeming mass of men (apparently, women go to bed at 9:00 in Delhi. Good to know) to try and find our way back where we belonged on our own. Luckily, we found a very helpful taxi stand, where a government official with a cell phone spent 15 minutes trying to find our hotel, and eventually succeeded, sending us back with our original rickshaw driver (apparently he stalked us to the taxi station) to finally find our hotel, where he attempted to double his price. Luckily, I'm pretty good at ignoring people at this point, and he didn't try to follow us inside.
Its a very nice hotel-it has real sheets, both top and bottom, tile in the bathroom, cold water bottles, but most of all, it is quiet and off the streets, so we are glad to be here after a WAY too exciting adventure, and look forward to getting up early tomorrow morning for the train.
We should be able to find internet somewhere in Hardwar, but if not, we may not update again until we are back in Delhi on August 2.
Tuesday July 26th
We got up before the crack of dawn at 4:00, and had the hotel give us a hand getting a rickshaw to the train station. That was quite an experience, the streets were mostly quiet, filled with parked rickshaws with their sleeping drivers. It brought home to me again the differences in wealth-to sleep outside, in contorted positions on your glorified bicycle because you have nowhere else to go, and because you cannot leave your means of income without risk of theft. However, we eventually found someone to give us the short ride to the train station. Along the way, we found where we went wrong last night on the way to the hotel-I was 90 degrees turned around. We had been three blocks away and gone in exactly the wrong direction. Sigh.
The train station was chaotic, filled with hundreds of sleeping people. We found a small patch of urine soaked ground to rest for the 40 minutes or so until our train arrived (we couldn't quite bring ourselves to cut it any closer). The train, however, was lovely. We got an airconditioned sleeper car, and it was cool, quiet, and fairly comfortable. We both slept a lot, catching up after a few nights that were far to short, Samuel until 11:00 in the morning.
We arrived in Hardwar at about 12:00, and immediately went to Lonely Planet's recommended tour agency, to set up the next stage of our tour. We are going to head up to the Gangotri temple, which is the headwaters of the Ganges river over the next 4 days. It should be an incredible adventure.
After getting that settled, we grabbed a bit of lunch at a nice little restaurant, and then found a hotel to rest overnight. After laundry and a brief nap we headed out into the chaos that is Hardwar. This is one of the Holiest cities in India, so it is swamped with pilgrims, all wearing orange. It seems like there are parades all the time, with people with massive incense carriers, loud noise makers, and a festive spirit. Rachel noticed that the average pilgrim seems to be between at 18 and 25 year old male, who have little qualms grabbing American women in inappropriate ways in the massive crowds, so she's feeling a little gross.
Hardwar is the Ganga Aatri, a sunset festival where hundreds of people send prayers and lotus flowers and candles floating down the river, at a spot where Vishu is said to have set foot beside the river, so we came back out in the evening and found a beautiful quiet spot where people weren't constantly crowding around or asking for pictures or trying to start conversation to watch the flowers and flame float down the river, while the monkey's played on the nearby buildings.
We also watched people collect water to bring back home, and send ashes of their relatives down the river, so Samuel spent a little time crying, remembering his father, and all the suffering that we've seen in this part of the world.
Because of the early morning, and the adventure that begins tomorrow, we are turning in early tonight after a dinner of fried street food that Samuel proudly brought back after negotiating a meal with no common words with the vendor.
Tomorrow the mountains, we are excited to be among 20,000 ft. peaks.
Wednesday, July 27th
The Himalayas are awesome. The end.
Actually, we have some more stories than that. In the morning, we went to Mohans adventures (who we would recommend for medium budget adventures for sure at this point) to meet our guide, named Joshi. His English is excellent, and we learned he also speaks 6 languages from all over India, and is working hard on French (French guides make 2x English guides). Go Joshi. We also met our driver. We don't know his name.
We started off very very slowly-we learned that July 28-29th are particularly auspicious days in the Hindu calendar, so everyone is in Hardwar, particularly those worshipers of Shiva (God of sex and destruction-there's a reason everyone who worships him is a 18-25 year old man). This is why we've found it particularly nuts on a stick there. We had lots of time to talk, because traffic meant that it took 2 hours to go the first 15 km of our journey-or just a bit below our normal jogging speed.
We learned they carry large sticks with pots on either end of them that are ornately decorated because pilgrims used to have to carry all their food. We learned they blow horns and make noise because hey, noise is neat. We learned that they are collecting water from the Ganges between 2:00 and 6:00 tomorrow because that's the most important time, and then they will all rush down the mountain as fast as possible to their homes to dump the water on their personal/community statues of Shiva, hoping to set a record time, and certainly in a time frame such that the water is still 'good' (its a little unclear how this is determined, but there are trucks full of people and tanks of water advertising how long they will take to get to their home places, and I'm guessing you have to beat them). So, luckily, we're not going down the mountain tomorrow.
After crawling through Hardwar, we went through the jungle a little ways (yield to Elephants) and then through Rishkesh, another holy city, before hitting the mountains. And we mean that literally. Hardwar is about 750 ft. above sea level. Rishkesh is 1050 ft, a gentle uphill from Hardwar. As we came to the last street in Rishkesh, Joshi said in 150 meters we'll start climbing. He was right. We went straight up the side of a mountain, at pretty much as steep a grade as I've climbed in Colorado, up to over 6000 ft. within 30 km driving (much less as the crow flies). We went from foothills that were basically rolling hills to a cliff going up. It was very exciting. Within another hour, the air was cool and crisp, the trees were decidedly deciduous, and we were deep within the clouds and fog. We went upwards and down in this magical land around cliffs and ridges and by a huge man made lake from damming the Ganges (actually something else at point, but I'm too tired to look up what its called). We were stunned at the many small villages clinging to the sides of the mountains, and the terraced rice and bean fields that had been under cultivation for generations. Rock slides have frequently blocked the road (we had to turn around once and find another way) and it seems like there were at least 10 road crews we passed repairing the road.
We ended up at 6:00 (after our best 10 hour car ride ever) in Utterkashi, a larger town which is a major way station for trekkers and pilgrims alike. After wandering the market to stretch our legs and getting a tasty dinner at a local restaurant, we're looking forward to bed, and an early start tomorrow, when we'll arrive at Gangotri temple and enjoy hiking, seeing the sights, and apparently sleep at an Ashram (have we mentioned that Joshi is amazing?)
Thursday July 28th
The Himalayas remain awesome.
We got up early this morning, hoping to reach our destination in time to really settle in and enjoy the place. However, nature conspired against us. The steady rain we woke up to caused the 'soft mountain' (as our guide likes to remind us) to slide down over the road. Don't tell Carolyn, but mudslides are a serious problem throughout our route, we saw where an entire town had recently been washed away, and the road was blocked at three places about an hour into our journey. Because of this, we stopped for a leisurely and delicious breakfast, took a hike along the road towards the mudslides, gazing far down at the Ganges below us, and looking up at the spectacular mountains, and the waterfalls cascading down from the peaks far above.
After a couple of hours, everything was cleared (the Indian road workers in the mountains are AMAZING, and they are EVERYWHERE), and we proceeded up the mountain, though the traffic was bad for a while as we had to pass everyone who had been caught on the other side. From there, we got into the really steep parts, enjoying even more spectacular views and moving distinctly into a coniferous climate. Along the way, we learned stories about the Ganges, including how it came to earth (it used to be a heavenly river) to turn 82 angry brothers back human from stone, and how Lord Shiva caught it on his forehead (at Gangotri, where we are now!) We had a lovely lunch at a small spot beside the road, and crossed over what is apparently the highest bridge in Asia (Our guide claims 1300 meters, or almost 4000 feet from bridge to riverbed, but it looked more like 1300 ft. to us). We arrived at Gangotri temple at 4:00, and the sun was shining, the air was blue, the sky had cleared up, and we could see snow caped mountains overhead. What an increadible sight! We were delighted, because since it is monsoon, we were worried we'd never get a good Himalayan peak vista.
We wandered around the village, watching the raging river, seeing the bathing Ghats (where we may take a dip in the snow melt Ganges, which is said as to wash away the sins of 32 generations), exploring the temple complex, and admiring the cottonwood fluffs blowing in the wind (seriously-we have no idea what cottonwood trees are doing up here). Rachel was pretty tired, and was feeling the altitude, so Samuel went off exploring on his own for a while as well.
In the evening, we watched the temple's nighttime ritual, and received food offered to the God's for our trouble. Its pretty good stuff-rice mixed with almonds, raisins, and maybe honey. Samuel found it just slightly odd to eat food offered to idols, but was also delighted to have such a profound interfaith experience.
Now, we are both completely exhausted, so we've ordered room service (aloo gobi and bindi masala) and are quite ready to crash before another exciting mountain adventure tomorrow.
Friday, July 29th
One week to go in India-we leave next Friday bright an early.
Today was a highlight day.
We began with a dip in the Ganga river at 7:15 in the morning. It is fresh snow melt plus rain runoff from the mountains, and is every bit as cold as you might imagine. Luckily, it was not raining, and there was even a bit of sun, so it probably was no colder than 55 degrees outside.
We hadn't really been planning to get in until yesterday, when Joshi, our guide, said 'do you want to take a dip?' and Rachel and I looked at each other and thought 'you know, it is sort of a once in a lifetime opportunity...(or multiple lifetimes, if you're Hindu)' and Joshi helped encourage, since he kept reminding us that all Hindus are supposed to do this once in their lives, and it is a great honor to do so. So we went from uncertain to willing pretty quickly.
I brought running shorts, which served as my swimming trunks, and Rachel wore a Salwar Kami, which after watching people yesterday were both clearly appropriate wear for the occasion. We got in, kneeled down, and went under, and then quickly got back out again, since it was freezing, then dried off a little bit, and went up the hill to the temple. Because we were fresh from the holy water, we were allowed into the temple, where we received a red dot on our foreheads, a few sharp slaps on the back, a taste of sweet water, and some holy rice puffs and candy, before walking around the whole temple to complete the ritual.
It was quite outside our area of experience, but we were guided well by the Priests running the temple. It was a bracing dip, and also a profound experience to think of the millions of people who have found meaning and connection to God at that place.
After our dip, we took a nice walk in the Himalayas, wandering through the alpine forest alongside the Ganges for a little more than a mile. It was a beautiful trek, very Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp, and we felt connected with nature and with the world.
After our hike, we headed back down the mountain. We were a little worried-no cars had made it up the mountain since early the previous evening, and for the first hour and a half, we passed no one, so we were pretty sure we were going to find a point where we would be blocked, and would have to take a break of uncertain duration. Luckily, before we found the landslide area, they had cleared it, and the vehicles passing us up the mountain testified the way was open again.
Going down is faster than going up, so we did some sightseeing. We stopped at Pilot Baba's Ashram. He is famous for 1) being a former India Airlines pilot and 2) converting Westerners by the bucketload, particularly from Spain. We saw a sculptor at work, which was pretty neat, and heard some of the stories of Hinduism.
A note on Hindu mythology. Its remarkably complicated, with tons of gods and goddesses who have a host of complex relationships. Just for example:
This is the fuller story of the River Ganga: an important king sent out a horse for a grand tour of India during a fire ceremony. This is apparently a thing. After 210 days, the horse didn't return, so he sent out his 82 sons to find the horse, and get it back. They found the horse at the temple of a particular incarnation of the emotion of anger, where it was resting comfortably, not at all impeded in its journey. However, the Sons thought that the guru there had stolen the horse, so they got very angry at him and yelled at him, disturbing his meditation, so he awoke from his trance in anger (as one might expect, being an incarnation of angriness, and turned them all to stone. One of their sons (grandson of the first king), after a time, wishing to save his father and uncles, prayed to Shiva about how to save them. He learned that only the river Ganges, then a heavenly river, could deliver them. So he talked to the river, who was willing to come down to Earth, in fact she wanted to, but unfortunately, she was so powerful that if she came to earth un-mediated, she would flood the world. Luckily, Shiva was willing to recline in the Himalayas, and catch the river Ganges on his forehead. Then the king Bhagira led her down to the valley, which is why the upper reaches of the Ganges are called the Bhagirathi river. Then, the river washed over the 82 sons, returning them to life. The end-of that particular story
It is very old Testament, with stories of families with hundreds of children, people being turned into stone, God's getting angry, and lots of warfare. One thing I find interesting is that I (Samuel) am curious, interested, and fairly warm towards the Hindu religion as a whole. It has a focus on family, devotion, ritual, and recognizing God in one another which I honor, and think Christians might learn from. There is a stream of patriarchy it shares with most major world religions which is troubling for both of us. Also, Rachel is pretty weirded out by lingams, the primary way that people worship Shiva (one of the three main Gods), which are spherical rocks meant to symbolize the penis.
However, the two biggest stories in Hinduism are really hard for me. The Baghavida Gita, the epic poem that is the most important Hindu book centers on a battle between cousins, where the core message from the god Krishna to the hero is 'if I tell you to kill your family, then do it. Don't worry about your conscience, do your duty.' and the Epic of Rama centers around a family torn apart by a demon who steals Sita, the wife, who eventually throws herself on a bonfire to prove her purity to her husband after she is rescued. The fact that she is later resurrected is a rather cold comfort, particularly since the practice of forcing widows to commit suicide on their husband's funeral pyres was widely practiced, and still happens occasionally (forced suicide is a contradiction in terms, I know, but its the traditional language around the practice). Now, I acknowledge that all of our primary myths have their challenges-Abraham and Isaac, Lot and his daughters, Saul committing genocide trouble me, and even eating the body and blood of Jesus is one of the things Romans often pointed out as odd about Christianity, so I don't want to be insulting or dismissive, but my Mennonite soul has a lot of trouble with honoring those particular embodiments of the virtues of duty and devotion.
Anyway, back to the narrative at hand:
After Pilot Baba's, we continued down to Uttarkashi, where we visited a couple of temples. One was the temple that Uttarkashi is named after. A lingam to Shiva, held in a temple in the Indian plains south of Delhi, was threatened by the Mogul invasion, so they took it high in the Himalayas to be safe. Also there is a large temple to the goddess, and the central icon is a giant weapon, her weapon. This apparently descends deep underground, and is made of a strange and unknown type of metal. After a discrete question from our guide, Rachel and I were invited to receive a marriage blessing there, so we purchased a plate of offerings, received a red dot and a yellow dot on our heads, and circled the weapon three times. Then we moved on to Shiva, where I poured water onto the Lingam (as you may remember, today is a particularly auspicious day to do so) and Rachel whispered the desires of her heart to Nandi, his bull. We both thought about our hopes and aspirations for our continued lives together, and honored the ancient nature of the worship here.
Afterwards, we took a walk through town, stopped for fresh pineapple and pomegranate juice (very nice) and got to check E-mail, learning that Rachel's cousin had a baby! Congratulations and blessings on Eleanor Joy. Now, we are again enjoying room service, and looking forward to finishing our downward journey tomorrow, before planning the final stages of our Indian adventure.
Saturday July 30th
a quiet day of preparation
Today we rode the rest of the way down the mountain, stopping for breakfast (deep fried onion and potato sandwiches with a savory sauce-quite good, actually), to take pictures, to eat at a famous lunch spot (we are going to miss mountainside food stands-full lunches including bread, rice, a couple kinds of curry, and chai tea for under a dollar each), and to wait out a landslide which blocked our path. The landslide was most interesting, watching the bulldozer at work, plus 50 or so people from buses helping clear a path, and watching rocks roll down the mountain into the Ganges. It feels a little unsafe up here, but only a few people die every year. As our guide says, only the best drivers die. They are the ones who go to fast.
One note on the people we see on our journey-since we have traveled to one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in India, many people want to come to Gangotri, and there are rituals about how best to go. Many travel on foot, walking all the way from Haridwar the 700km or so to the 4 temples, and we say people from the youngest to the oldest walking on the road. Often these are Hindu holy men, marked by their ragged beards and appearance, but frequently just normal people hiking slowly along. A particularly interesting incarnation of this was teams of barefoot runners, racing up and down the mountain at a good clip without shoes, trading off their bundles of materials to fellow team members and taking their turns riding the cars or motorcycles. Often, these were the same young men wearing orange we'd seen in Haridwar.
We also got to see a famous international resort, based in the palace of one of the old Maharajahs, where we could stay for the cheap price of 1000$ a night. We passed.
The causal sexism of our guide is apparently infecting Samuel, who has a couple of times answered for both of us before checking in with Rachel. Hopefully cutting off contact will cure the problem. Joshi always directs questions to him, prefaced with 'sir' and while he usually checks first, a number of times, he's just answered outright, not always in the way that Rachel would have chosen.
Samuel speaking, its not really a pattern I expected to be a problem, but the presumption of everyone that I'll do all the talking (and decision making) is insidious. I'm working on being more attentive, since I'd really prefer to be a quietly liberating presence, rather than the contrary. I'll be doing penance as well, I imagine.
After getting down from the mountain, we pumped Joshi for information and assistance in making plans for our trip to Agra, which will involve a double sleeper bus tomorrow night, getting us to Agra early in the morning. It will be great, much better than our previous plan of burning one of our precious days in India driving cross country for 12 hours.
There we will see the Taj Mahal, of course, and other sights around Agra, before returning to Delhi for our final few days, including shopping and various touristy activities. Then, home. We would be happy to stay in the mountains another week (or month) and we'll both probably enjoy Agra and Delhi, but we are beginning to think of and talk about home more often, and we are ready, I think, for our journey to come to an end. After these arrangements were made, we went to dinner at the restaurant attached to the hotel we were staying in. We both agreed that we were not hungry enough for two full Indian meals, so decided to split one dinner and order a few appetizers. The menu had a section (after the Hot/Cold Drinks section) labeled 'appetizers,' with a few salads listed, and then several Indian words we didn't recognize. We decided to pick two things from this list that we didn't recognize. When the waiter came back, he handed Samuel a lemonade, and Rachel a cup of something that can only be described as fowl ocean water with little fermented rice chunks on top. So this is Jal Jerra. We each took two sips and called it good. But a new foodie expereince.
Sunday, July 31st
We had a nice day in Haridwar today-we were able to sleep in, before exploring parts of town we hadn't seen before. We enjoyed our first trips on bicycle rikshaws, and had a 2 mile hike up to the top of Chandi Devi temple, where the torso of Devi, Shiva's first wife, fell to earth (she was cut in 12 pieces, after she committed suicide because her father insulted her husband). It was incredibly hot, and we were both completely exhausted when we arrived at the top. After catching our breaths, we bought a Coke, unfortunately, an onery monkey stole it away from Rachel. We had a good laugh at him trying to open the bottle, and when he gave up, an Indian man opened it, and another Monkey came and stole it and drank. We took the gondola down (we should have taken it up as well) and returned for a nice air conditioned lunch. Samuel fulfilled a personal goal of ordering Chinese food in India-not as sweet, more of a kick, pretty nice.
In the afternoon we went back to Har-ki-puri, the most sacred spot in Haridwar, and the reason the Kumba Mela is here (a gathering of some 20 million people every 3 years at 4 different spots in India) when it wasn't completely overrun, and looked around, seeing the temples and watching people bathing. Then we went shopping a bit for friends and family and checked E-mail, before investing in a shower at a local hotel before our overnight bus ride (we decided a few dollars was a small price to pay to feel clean after a sweaty day on a 12 hour non-ac bus).
Tomorrow, Agra. We're going to try and do the Red Fort, and a few other sites. We'll see how hot it turns out to be.
