First-time INDIA
First impressions of India: The taxi ride from the airport was astounding! Already there was chaos, pollution, poverty, cows along the highway seemingly oblivious to the traffic whizzing by... Really third world. I hired a bicycle rickshaw to guide me around Old Delhi. What a culture! What a difference from Moscow!
India is going to take some getting used to...
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Namaste! Welcome to India.
I took a bus from Delhi to Manali to visit my friends David and Detchin. But first I asked (via email), "How long is the bus ride?" David answered, "12 hours but maybe 24 hours, and if it's 24 hours that's good, because this will help your karma as you learn to be more patient." The bus journey took 18 hours, and yeah, I did indeed detect a positive change in my karma. India will do that to you too, I think, if you give it a chance...
Manali is fantastic and I plan to stay a while. When I imagined India from afar, this is not what I imagined. This place is much nicer! Manali has much to offer: stunning scenery, gorgeous trekking, a Tibetan community, Buddhist and Hindu temples, good restaurants and stores, all cheap. Rooms start at 1 US dollar. There are some beggars, but nothing like Delhi (it'll break your heart). There's a yoga ashram next door, too, and what visit to India would be complete withou a few yoga classes? I arrived with a one-way ticket, completely free, and with no schedule, a truly transformational World Tour, and here it begins in earnest...
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We hired a jeep and drove to Indian Tibet, our destination being the Pin Valley monastery where we stayed as special guests. Travelling with the local Rinpoche, we visited villages, gompas (shrines), and caves where people reside during spiritual retreats. Villagers offered us tea and delicious meals. Some of the gompas contain wonderful art that escaped from the Chinese Red Army in 1950. I certainly learned a lot about Buddhism! We got within one kilometer from China at the village of Gue. The border guards are paranoid, I'm told, and photos of them are strictly prohibited. That's why guide books do not list the village of Gue. Also, it's really remote. But it does have a unique 500-year-old mummy (see photo).
The Tibetans plant barley (with the help of horse and yak) which they trade for other essentials. Winters are harsh. Women do most of the work. The villagers speak Tibetan as their first language, but the signs are in Hindi. The single-lane dirt tracks were okay, but we averaged only 20 km / hour. Of course, the scenery is dramatic. Going up from Manali, everything is green and humid with waterfalls, but once across the first pass, everything is mostly brown. There is a huge difference between Tibetan villages and Indian towns like Kaza; two different cultures. Beer up here is served warm, and it's not so good, so we procured the local home brews. Chung comes in two varieties, rice and barley. Rice chung is like thick sake. There's also arak, distilled barley chung (strong). Some ex-monks at the monastery had some. These beverages were also warm and not so good, but drinking them with ex-monks was good fun. I saw no computers in Indian Tibet. The only beggars were children asking for candy.
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Manali was good to me, and it was hard to leave. Ah, relaxing at David and Detchin's house, going for hikes, meeting new friends, reading good books, hanging out with monks, and practicing yoga every morning at the Shri Hari Yoga Ashram. Tourist season is coming to an end as most foreigners head south to Goa for the winter. I'm going to go to Goa too, via Nepal...
I rented a motorcycle and drove with friends Stephen and Ela to go paragliding at a ski area. I got in one solo flight then I quit while still alive. What an adrenaline rush!
The motorcycle I rented was a Royal Enfield, a powerful bike with antiquated technology. One day, despite the bike's fuel gauge showing fuel, the bike ran out of gas. I hitch-hiked to where I could buy a liter of petrol then I hitch-hiked back, but by then it was dark and the motorcycle's headlights didn't work. Feeling bold I rode home anyway. I followed a truck to protect me from the obstacles ahead. This was dodgy but I loved it, the adventure, India!
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I'm back in Dodgy Delhi having finally gone beyond the plans I made in Colorado a year ago. For the first time I have no schedule, and that feels great. I'm getting used to India. Contrary to my first impressions, I now see an emerging world power with excellent infrastructure and a growing middle class. The people are generally peaceful, tolerant, and I feel safe regarding violent crime (but not theft). The beggars and the filth are terrible, but that's reality, and I think everyone should see these things with their own eyes, because if the eyes don't see it, then the heart doesn't feel it. Watching it on TV doesn't count.
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A word about Buddhism: I am not a Buddhist because I do not subscribe to the "religious" aspects of ritual, prayer, and belief in reincarnation. But these are not important to the core philosophy. Buddhist ideas are consistent with the laws of physics once one realizes that reincarnation does not exist in a literal, physical sense. There is no eternal self, so what is there to be reincarnated? This point is widely misunderstood - maybe because we humans have an instinct to live forever? Once one gets past the ritual and dogma however, the Buddhist philosophy is plausable even to scientists, and the teachings are full of wisdom. Take the notion of karma for example, cause and effect. Good people tend to cause good things to happen, and this makes them happy. The idea of meditation is designed to teach people to control their thoughts, in order to control their speech and actions, which helps create good karma. Buddhists thereby teach themselves how to be better, happier people. I found that similar ideas are taught in Hindu yoga classes (the ones taught by bona-fide gurus). The core philosophies are similar, especially compared to the Christian notion that humans are inherently sinful, so in order to go to Heaven, we must ask forgiveness from the Church. Hmmm. But OK, the idea of sin does teach many Christians to be better people, so great; but the idea of believing impossible things on faith teaches them to dismiss science (and logic), so not great. Religion has proven itself incapable of solving the Earth's urgent problems, but science has a fighting chance. That's why I say: Teach science to the children, so that they learn to discern fact from myth. Also teach the Buddha's wisdom regarding how to be a good person. Thanks.
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