moving around.

nothing gives me the same thrill as having ground moving beneath my feet. as i said in the last blog entry a couple of weeks back, i took part in a week-long buddhist train tour through north india. and voila, here i am, back again and so so so sick of trains. but first things first :) the actual tour was intended to show travelers and pilgrims the places where buddha himself spent most of his life, where he was born and where he died, where he preached and lived. as you know i'm not much of a religious person at all - the only thing i like about buddhism is the fact that the teachings are more like discoveries as to how to live your life so that you can be happy - it's very down to earth and absolutely applicable in most cases! anyway. i decided to take part in the tour primarily because it would give me the chance to see the country a bit. i've mentioned this before, but india consists of 32 separate states, each of which can be considered as a separate country - the language is different, as is the distribution of wealth, religions and customs are other ones.. in the south especially christianity is a popular religion, whereas in the north most of the population is either hindu or muslim. i feel that india itself can be compared to the european union in a way: there's many cultures and peoples mixed together in one union, sharing a common currency and certain economic benefits - same goes for india, just it's all in one country! on one of my tamil learning books for instance it says 'by languages we are many, but as a nation we are one'. it's a pretty accurate summary of what india is, with its 24 official languages haha.


the actual buddhist journey only lasted for 8 days, just it started in delhi of all places, which meant that ganesh, amala and i had to somehow get from kodaikanal to delhi. it's funny how in austria, it only takes you about 7 hours to cross the entire country by train..in india, you can travel for over 50 hours in one direction straight and STILL be within india! it wasn't THAT bad for me. we only had to sit through a 12 hour bus ride from kodai to chennai (the capital and most metropolitan city of tamil nadu, my state), and a 36 hour train ride from chennai to delhi. yes, i spent 36 hours on a train! and it was great fun. one wagon had about 120 beds in it and in the separate compartments there were 3 on each side of the wall. what that means is that during the night it was not only extremely loud, but the whole thing got dirty really easily (have i mentioned indian-style squat-down toilets before? try those in a MOVING train). still, i got to meet some really interesting people - like a group of young arab israelis who were traveling to delhi to find themselves in buddhism. :) there were undoubtedly two things that i would describe as being 'just fantastic' during that 36 hour trip. 1) literally every 2 seconds, some guy comes along with a giant basket of rice/chocolate/biscuits/chips or a giant can of coffee/tea and tries to sell it to people. business must be really good, because he kept coming back. on the train, where you just sit and talk for half the time you're on it, eating and drinking is the social activity #1 - and i was right in the middle. indian coffee is SO weak and the cups are TINY. my record lies at 17 cups of coffee in one day - and i still felt tired. 2) you know those pictures you find on the internet with people traveling ON trains and buses rather than IN them? as we were going through the vast countryside (which kept on changing from desert to swamp to city area to giant lake) we saw loads of those buses and trains. and the good thing about all indian trains is that the doors aren't locked. so, yes, you can just open the door while the train is going full-speed through india, sit down, smoke a cigarette/drink some coffee/wave at people going by/take pictures. 

we arrived in delhi and immediately checked into our room. i don't know if i can describe this to you properly, but delhi is like an indian, chaotic and dirty version of new york without skyscrapers. what i'm trying to say is that there are 16 million people living in that city (twice the size of my whole country..just sayin'), you see people from many, many different places, and delhi is the city of contrasts when it comes to rich and poor. we went on this sightseeing trip (because we had the whole day to pass before we had to board yet another train - the ACTUAL tour) and the center of the city - connaught place - is clinically clean. as you drive by the endless gardens and palaces of various ministers and famous people, you notice how dead that part of the city is. there is not a single person walking on the road, the sidewalks are spotless, the trees are trimmed, the air is clean. and i swear, if you go one street further, the slums begin. slums need not necessarily be on the outskirts of a city, no. they can be anywhere. in chennaigucci suits in their bmws. politically seen, there is no such thing as insurance or health care or financial aid for people in need (stuff that again, we take for granted) the same scenario is true for delhi. obviously, seeing as we were on a tour-bus, the bus just avoided all of those areas and only showed us, lovely naive and unknowing tourists the 'real' delhi - the shopping centres, the shopping streets, the high-end restaurants and of course all of the famous palaces and archaeologically important landmarks, like the so-called 'gate of india'. 

did you know that some famous guy built a replica of the taj mahal in the middle of delhi?

or that mahatma gandhi's grave is on a hill, also in the centre of delhi, overlooking the whole city? 

or that indira gandhi is celebrated a hero just as much as mahatma gandhi is because she was the first and only woman (left-wing) prime minister india ever had?

in delhi, the number one method of transport are auto-rickshaws (that word reminds me of my montessori kids - we teach them words like rickshaw and chicken and some of them can't say 'sh' or 'ch', but say 'th' instead. rickthaw! thsicken! haha). we were three people traveling with gigantic pieces of luggage..in ONE rickshaw. because that's just how it's done in india! the rickshaws swerve through the rest of the traffic like it's nothing (just too bad there are about 3 million rickshaws in delhi alone haha), they can go really really fast and you can shake hands and talk with people in surrounding vehicles because rickshaws have no doors or windows. it's likea bench on three wheels. i would LOVE to bring one of those back home..:D

our actual trip started last saturday. we had to go to one of delhi's 5 or so train stations (of course, ours was the one that was the furthest from where we were staying). the moment we arrived, the whole 'omg, you're a tourist!'-scenario began. we (technically just i,  because my two travel partners have dark skin) were welcomed with a flower chain, a 'typical indian refreshment' (oh my god, indian tea!) and a red mark on our forehead. the group with which we traveled consisted of about 35 people, out of which only 4 or 5 were actual buddhist followers - the rest were, just like me, just somehow interested in the buddhist teachings and therefore also in the places where buddha lived and preached (if he really existed). and i won't bore you with the exact places and dates and times and all, but i'll only show you some of my personal highlights of the trip. basically, the trip was 8 days long and every day, we would get up at around 5am and go sightseeing till the evening. during the night, the train would go 200kms further and we would stop again at 5am.. quite exhausting! at the end of the last blog-post there's a map of all the places we visited..so add kodaikanal-chennai-delhi and back to it and you'll see what i was doing the last two weeks haha!
anyways. we were told that our group was somewhat extraordinary, because normally the actual trip is like a pilgrimage for really really devout buddhists. normally, around 300-400 people participate but our tour-date was already slightly off-season (because of the heat..i haven't even mentioned it yet. wherever we went, we were literally melting. it had at least 40 degrees in the shade and let me just say, this is the north, not THAT far from the himalayas, and it's march and not even properly summer yet. thank you, global warming!) so we had a really lovely time. our group was like a moving sangha (i.e. a 'family' of buddhist followers) and i met some absolutely lovely people who have, again, really opened my eyes to so many new things and places this world has to offer. we had a fantastic time and at one point we, slightly illegally, bought ourselves a bottle of cheap indian beer (we = me and our bed-neighbours in the train, to lovely men from sri lanka who have been living in canada for the past 30 years) and drank a little in the middle of the night. good times.
the actual trip went to many many places, including sravasti and kushingar, gorakhpur and rajgir (all of which are places where buddha taught/lived/died at some point in his life, basically they're all ruins and look quite similar haha so not THAT special for non-believers. there was only one place with a GIGANTIC, golden statue of the sleeping buddha - in the place where he died, or as the buddhists say, enter mahaparinirvan (nirvana))

..a famous tibetan site on top of a hill (45 minutes of climbing a hill - the view was spectacular) 

..the ancient university of nalanda, built and used in the years 427 - 1100 approximately!!!)

..and lumbini (in nepal. i crossed the nepali border, yes, and i have a visa in my passport to prove it haha, but south nepal looks exactly like india, just it's even poorer. the culture is the same (mostly hindus), the caste system is enforced and the facial features and clothing is just like what you would find in india. in order to see the real country and what we know of it, you have to go into the mountains and to kathmandu, which was around 800kms from where we were. so nepal was entirely unspectacular! what was fun though was crossing the actual border. there is a wall where india ends and a wall where nepal begins, but there are about 5metres in between. no-man's land in the most literal of ways!) 

HOWEVER there were several other highlights. one of them was the very first stop, bodhgaya, the place where buddha attained enlightenment. you know how one of the symbols of buddhism today is a fig tree? well, it's a bodhi tree (i.e. 'enlightened' tree) and it symbolizes the one and only bodhi-tree that stands in bodhgaya, india, where buddha, 2500 years ago, sat and finally became enlightened. buddhists come there from all over the world to meditate and to try to catch one of the somewhat sacred leaves falling to the ground. a tree like that takes between 100 and 2000 years to fully grow so it was seriously impressive. the whole energy at bodhgaya was just indescribable, there were tibetan monks and indian monks and japanese tourists and yet, the atmosphere was extremely calm and peaceful. colorful tibetan prayer-flags were billowing in the wind as everyone walked under the tree, amazed by its size and beauty and by the beautiful carvings in the temple behind it. even as a non-believer it feels special to be in a place like that, a place that holds so much meaning for so many people.

another highlight was varanasi. varanasi was one of the two 'extra' stops we made. it's the 'oldest living city' in the world (which means that it is the oldest city in the world that has been continuously inhabited for the last 5000 years or so!!) and it is situated on the banks of the holy river ganges. for hindus, it is the most holiest place. hindus come from all over the country to cremate their loved ones on the river-bank and to scatter their ashes in the river. and yes, the ganges itself is just dirty and disgusting BUT, hindu religion also says that once you bathe in the river, you are freed from all sins. basically, and logically speaking that means that as a hindu, you can commit a murder and immediately go and bathe in the river ganges and it'll make it morally okay for everyone. controversial much? anyway. the cremations that you can see along the river-banks are spectacular, to put it simply. bodies are wrapped in colorful paper and with flowers and are carried down to the bank, where there are crowds of people and cows and piles of wood. around 20-30 bodies are burned at the same time in one place. it is unique, and let me emphasize on the word UNIQUE to see someone setting fire to a body and to see a cow eating off the flowers just seconds before. we had booked a boat-ride along the river and went past the crematory sites very very slowly..i have never seen anything like it. of course, travel companies make big money with letting tourists park their boats DIRECTLY in front of a crematory site, which is just disrespectful and tasteless. imagine cremating a family member and having 250 tourists clicking pictures of it. i felt slightly better about our boat, because we 'only went by'. as a sign of respect for all the souls floating in the river, we each lit a candle and put it in the river. it's breathtaking to be on a boat in the middle of a river and to have thousands and thousands of lit candles floating beside you. 

the last highlight of the tour (and i promise, i will not bore you any longer after this) was the...*drumroll*..TAJ MAHAL! obviously not part of the actual buddhist pilgrimage, it's a little treat at the end of the exhausting 8 days of pilgrimage. we arrived at around 7am and immediately boarded a bus to go there and, as you can guess, because it's one of the seven world wonders it was already PACKED with tourists. the whole procedure of getting inside the place is interesting, foreigners (not indians!) have to cover their feet while indians are 'allowed' to go barefoot, foreigners pay 750 rupees to get inside while indians pay 10 (and that's EXTREMELY annoying because it's not only at the taj mahal, but also at any museum or archaeological site..foreigners are literally ripped off), and foreigners are only allowed to enter with a water bottle manufactured inside india (!) so no volvic or evian bottles are allowed. the place itself is spotless. and fascinating. you walk through gates and gates and parks before you slowly start to feel that something big is coming closer. and SUDDENLY, there it is, standing in all its glory. the taj mahal. a love monument built by a mughal emperor for his late wife. it took 22 years (!!!!) to build, there were thousands of people working 24 hours a day and when it was done, the emperor chopped off their hands so that they could never build something like it ever again. (do you know how long it takes to make a tiny marble elephant with a couple of stones inside the marble? we went to a marble factory afterwards. it takes a week to build something the size of a fist.) the whole taj mahal is, once you get closer, something i cannot properly describe. the detail it was built with, all the engravings, all the patterns, the inside..it's spectacular and i will let pictures speak for themselves. just one common misconception - it's by far not as big as you would think!! in fact, it is smaller than the average mosque you would find somewhere! 

beautiful, isn't it? oh, and i decided to kiss it just because i thought that it was my ONLY chance to ever kiss the taj mahal haha. so yay, i've been very close to one of the seven world wonders!


now to something else. because this was an organized package tour (i still don't understand why i decided to go on that one specifically, package tours are extremely unlike me!) everything was laid out to be satisfying for the tourists. what i'm trying to say is that i would really like to encourage everyone reading this NEVER to go on a package tour - you do NOT see things the way they are. we were traveling through the beautiful countryside and through villages in a luxurious a/c high-tech bus, we saw countless villages and the faces of thousands of people, but we were like in a capsule just traveling through and only stopping in front of the most expensive hotels for lunch and dinner. we got to see NOTHING of the people and of the culture, which is think was really really sad and disappointing. some people in the tour kept on saying 'you know, i heard indian food is really awful, especially the food you get on the street. who eats food from the street stalls? people are just sick in this country' and i just exploded, literally. when i asked the guy if he had even been here, talked to anyone, tried the 'disgusting' street-stall food, he answered no. i walked away. i hate people sometimes. the point of what i'm trying to say is that there are so many different sides of a country that you can only see once you spend time with locals and get over the fear of talking to someone who is different from you and trying to understand what their life is like. what was especially awful was the fact that the further north you go in india, the poorer people get. tamil nadu is, in comparison to uttar pradesh or bihar (two other states) an extremely rich region - although it is by no means rich when compared to any other country, of course. but in bihar, uttar pradesh and delhi, there are loads and loads of children on the street, begging. it's heartbreaking and it is unwise to give them money because they are part of organized gangs that make up to 60000 rupees a day (1000 euros that ultimately go to the gang-leader) but the fact that a child's life is worth nothing, not worth proper food or education or love, is disgusting and heart-breaking and shocking and appalling. but that's life in india. wherever you go, to whichever tourist site, there are children just flocking to the buses, begging for food, begging for money. you see the need in their eyes but you know that no matter how you want to help, they are lost. it's a government problem, it's an education problem and here i go again. this country is in a race against time. everything in the outside world is going by so fast that there is no time here to take care of the basics. water, food, electricity, education, security. so there is just chaos and the gap between rich and poor is growing. the few NGOs that are doing effective work have far too little power and there is hardly any networking between them..as a foreigner, you get a feeling of helplessness when you travel around because you know that although you are doing a good and important job in your community, there are still millions and millions and millions of people who are in need.
what i'm trying to say is that i would like to encourage people to go abroad and to make a change and to help, because it doesn't take a qualification to do that. you learn SO much and the longer i have been here, the happier it makes me to know that it is such an enrichting experience not only for me, but also for the people i work with. to come back to what i was trying to say with this paragraph - i will probably never do a package tour again because you spend a whole lot of money on getting to see sights, but ultimately, you cannot say that you have seen a country and its people, which is in my opinion what counts more. 
this picture down here pretty much sums up most of india for me. tourism, animals, dirt and children being everywhere just not in school. see what you think.

to end this post let me just say, it took me another 36 + 12 hours to get back to kodaikanal and i was showered with hugs and kisses from around 200 kids and 15 teachers when i got back. it's like coming back home to a family. and speaking of family, my mum is coming in less than three weeks and i cannot wait to introduce her to my world!! :)
speaking of going back, when we were going back from delhi to chennai, the so-called 'holi' festival was going on. 'holi' is celebrated mostly in the north of the country and first, people splash you with water and seconds later throw a bag of bright, colorful powder over you. once, twice, three times.. it happens all day long and at the end of it, the whole country is literally covered in colors (i stole the first picture from google images just to show you what i mean haha) the colors don't come off for at least 3 days! luckily, i spent the critical time on a train so i wasn't hit..only by some water as i was walking to the delhi train-station but the thrower was too slow to hit me with the powder too haha)

i hope that everything is going well wherever you are reading this from. i'm now off to continue reading a book entitled 'a fine balance' by rohinton mistry, a lovely piece of fiction about india. if you're at all interested in this country, its customs, the way families work and what life is like for people now and what it was like a couple of generations ago, read this book. it's considered to be a classic :) love from perumalmalai!