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Rachel

~ following the white rabbit…

Rachel

Monthly Archives: January 2019

Cambodian cats

27 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in Cambodia, Uncategorized

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Tags

Cambodian cats, Cats

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I noticed in Phnom Penh that many of the cats had almost no tails, just little stubs, or else had funny little bent tails.

The three kittens who live here, and who are so delightful to watch, and such good company, are pictured here.

One of the three has a ‘normal’ long tail, the other two have short or broken/crooked tails.

So I asked my husband to look it up for me over dinner.  Here is a link to the article he found which was full of interesting information about history, archeology, cultural customs and genetics.

This is part of what it said about the tails:

‘… Arnaud Demarti, a French veterinarian who runs Agrovet, one of the largest veterinarian clinics in Phnom Penh, believes the short or crooked tails of Cambodian domestic felines can be blamed on a recessive gene.

“Two cats with a broken tail can only have a kitten with a broken tail. But a male cat with a normal tail can still have kittens with malformed tails,” he explained. He estimated that 80 per cent of cats born in the city have “a tail problem”.

“It’s rare to find a cat with a normal tail,” he said.

Demarti believes the Cambodian cats are their own, yet unnamed, breed of cats. He also said that the cats with short tails in Thailand most likely carry the same gene as cats in Cambodia.

But Marianne Clark, the secretary of the Japanese Bobtail Breeders Society in the United States, said short-tailed cats in Southeast Asia were most likely Japanese bobtails.

Japanese bobtails (which were introduced to the US from Japan at the end of the Second World War) were brought to Japan from China by Buddhist monks about 1,300 years ago. The monks kept cats to protect their religious scrolls, which were written on rice paper, from rodents in the temples.

“This can explain why there are bobtails throughout Asia. The monks brought bobtailed cats with them,” Clark wrote in an email.

There’s no doubt that Chinese travellers visited Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, as far back as the time of Angkor.

But Leslie Lyons, a geneticist at the University of Missouri in the US who specialises in felines, said we couldn’t be sure about Cambodian cats just yet.

“We have no way of knowing unless someone got some DNA and tested them for the manx mutation as a starter,” she wrote in an email.

“They could be manx [stub-tailed cats from the Isle of Man], could be Japanese bobtail, a new variant at either gene, or a whole new gene.”

Lyons said that a simple DNA test could identify whether a cat was a manx while bobtail cats could be identified by counting their vertebrae in an x-ray.

However, it appears no one has analysed the DNA or the x-rays of any short-tailed cats from Cambodia or any of the neighbouring Southeast Asian nations.’

Perhaps Governments and Universities in SE Asia have more important things to do, unlike me…

One last extract from the article:

‘Cats also play a role in Cambodian house-warming traditions. To bring good luck to the inhabitants of a new house, the woman of the house must walk around the dwelling three times with a female cat in her arms, Sokrithy said.

Finally, cats – especially females with three-colored fur – have a special significance to the Royal Palace. Such cats are used in the kings’ coronation ceremonies, and are believed to bring prosperity to the entire Cambodian nation.

At King Norodom Sihamoni’s coronation in 2004, a cat was carried up the red carpeted steps of the Royal Palace by the king’s entourage…’

After dinner I stood watching the kittens play, along with some Dutch people.  They told me about a show on Dutch television where kittens live in a kind of giant dollshouse… and that’s it.  It was made for adults, especially for people suffering from burn out.  I couldn’t find the Dutch one but I found this Icelandic made  one.  Presumably it’s franchised, unless more than one production team came up with the idea for a reality tv show about kittens living in a giant dollshouse?

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Thank you very much for reading

All the best

Rachel

Simplicity

25 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in awareness, Cambodia, spirituality, The matrix, Uncategorized, writing

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Illusion, Maya, Self realisation, spiritual awakening, The matrix, The search for meaning, Travel, Truth, writing

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I like the place where we are staying.

It kind of looks like it’s in transition, like it used to be more hippie-ish but has been taken over and is in the process of being changed.  The toilets used to be compost ones, the instructions for them are still painted on the wall, although the toilets are all newly fitted ordinary Western style ones.  The bathroom walls are decorated with murals of wildlife.

There’s an alternative pharmacy, now closed, and a very smart newly refurbished restaurant.

I found a ‘creative space,’ a big table, some art, positive messages on the wall, now unused.  Nearby was another smaller table, I cleaned it up and made it my work space.

Each morning we go out to one of the cheaper places and get breakfast (beans on toast, fruit salad, the most enormous coconuts), maybe have a short walk, then we come back and I write (first) and do any internet stuff (second) for a couple of hours.

Then snacks, or chips and Sprite at the on site restaurant at lunch time; the only thing that stops me coughing is Sprite or water with copious amounts of ice.  Then I rest in our hut for a while- I am currently watching Billions on Netflix.  God knows why I like it, but I really do.

Then later we go out for dinner (vegetarian Khmer soup with tofu- a delicious clear soup with lots of veg).  On the way home we pass a pop up stall selling vegan energy bars and, wait for it, vegan Snickers!  (a homemade version of, but the most delicious, and guilt free thing I have tasted since March last year!)

One of the subjects my husband and I spoke about in the sea in Koh Rong (see previous post, and the red pill blue pill definition in The Matrix post previous to that one for more context/supporting info), was, is the whole ‘spiritual journey/search for meaning’ a trap, or at least, a cul-de-sac?  There’s nowhere to get to, and nothing to find.  Does even beauty fall into that category?  Is even the luminous beauty that I notice and document every day all part of the illusion?

Maybe it’s okay if, like everything else, it’s not taken too seriously.  So, like, ‘That’s nice, now get back to work.’  And maybe, well, ‘Whatever gets you through the night.’

I don’t know exactly what I believe right now, but here’s some pretty things I noticed about the place.  I seem to have a thing about shells, specifically crushed shells under foot on beaches, or in the design of corporate hotel lino, but any shells will do, as well as mosaics.  These all come up a lot in the book, I’ve noticed.

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The above were all taken where we are staying.  The photo below is of our bathroom door in Hampi, just to prove some kind of point about themes.

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Writing update

The end is in sight for completing a half decent draft of the Kerala section (23,000 words- that’s like two dissertations you know!).  For anyone struggling with writing, editing or doing their dissertation, this is my advice:  ‘Get yourself a cup of coffee, put your hair in a bun, and handle it.’   (I’m sorry that only long haired people may get that.)

Travel update

We leave here (Otres Village, Sihanoukville province, Cambodia) on Friday night for a twelve hour sleeper bus journey to Siem Reap, where we will stay for six days before leaving Cambodia and going to Vietnam.

Thank you very much for reading

All the best

Rachel

Travel update: Cambodia

20 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in Cambodia, Travel, Travel update, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Cambodia, Coconut Beach, Koh Rong, Sihanoukville, Travel, Traveling, Travelling

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This is where we stayed for eight nights on Coconut Beach on Koh Rong.  It was more luxurious than it looks, it had electricity and a fan, and a mattress almost a foot thick, and lovely squishy pillows.  The beach was beautiful with soft white sand and the sea was calm and deep blue in the day and opaque green later on.  I walked to the local village to buy fruit and crackers each morning, and every day in the late afternoon when the sea was at its most beautiful my husband and I went in together and swam, floated, and discussed the meaning of life.  Cambodia is very hot, and each day I spent a good couple of hours indoors writing, working on my book.

I said the sea was calm, it was, until the day we were due to leave, when it was too rough for boats to moor up at the pier, so we stayed an extra day.  I was relieved as it meant I could spend the day sleeping on the lovely mattress, having caught my husband’s chest infection.  Yesterday we left, the sea was still a bit rough so the journey to the main pier (same island) in a small-medium open wooden boat was exciting/scary in places.  Then we got a biggish speedboat to the mainland- Sihanoukville- and from there a tuk tuk to Otres village where we are staying.  Otres beach is a twenty minute walk away and isn’t as nice as Coconut Beach and without much in the way of facilities.

That doesn’t really matter though, what’s noticeable is the building work going on all over Sihanoukville- loads and loads of huge high rise blocks, huts close together, and loads of land cleared for building work.  Where we are actually staying is nice, but step onto the main road around the corner and it’s dusty with building work all around.  Many of the businesses are for sale or rent and maybe it won’t be long before this area is redeveloped too.  Sihanoukville used to be popular with backpackers and hippies (we have seen a few drug addled Westerners stumbling around), but apparently it has changed beyond recognition in the last eighteen months.

We’ve found a couple of cheaper places to eat in the vicinity but apart from that we will probably not be venturing far.  The road to Sihanoukville was painfully bumpy and really dusty in the tuk tuk yesterday.  That is all fine though, our place is really nice, a wooden hut with a good mosquito net and plenty of shared bathrooms with free body wash/shampoo, an on site restaurant and, best of all super friendly cats and cute playful kittens!

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Thank you very much for reading

All the best

Rachel

The Matrix film 20 year anniversary

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Blue pill red pill, Take the blue pill, Take the red pill, The matrix, The Matrix 20 year anniversary, The Matrix 20 years, The Matrix 20 years later

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This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.

The red pill and its opposite, the blue pill, are a popular cultural meme, a metaphor representing the choice between:

Red Pill: Knowledge, freedom, uncertainty and the brutal truths of reality
Blue Pill: Security, happiness, beauty, and the blissful ignorance of illusion

The above from a very interesting Wikipedia page about the origins of the blue pill red pill cultural meme with some great links at the end to take you down the rabbit hole…

The movie The Matrix was released in the United States on 31st March 1999, twenty years ago this year!   So I thought we (!?) could do something for its anniversary.  Of course by ‘do something’ I mean write a blog post about it!

This year 31st March falls on a Sunday.  Conveniently for me, this is one of my posting days.  It is also just after my arrival back into the UK and I may be adjusting to culture shock/relative extreme cold.  Therefore I am going to write my post before then and schedule it as a present to my future self.

This post was partly inspired by a conversation I had with Jonathan Erdman about films and tv shows exploring consciousness and the nature of reality.

If anyone else wants to join me, there’s plenty of time to write a post and to watch the film if you’ve never seen it, before then.  The Matrix film means many different things to many different people, and I would love to hear your thoughts and observations.  If you do decide to join in, please tag me so that I don’t miss it, thank you.

Thank you for reading

All the best

Rachel

Writing, travel and life update

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in Cambodia, Travel, Travel update, Uncategorized, writing

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

amwriting, Belief, Cambodia, confidence, Living in the moment, Motivation, spiritual memoir, To do lists, Travel writing, writing

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Writing

In Nepal we met Matt, a fulltime traveller, volunteer and mountain climber.  Since the closest I have ever come to mountain climbing is watching Touching the Void I was fascinated to hear about what it was like.  Matt talked about moments of fear, of having to push it back down and not let it rise.  He said climbing was as much mental as it was physical.

I am by no means a full professional writer; I have been paid for short stories but otherwise I have self published mini books and do the blog.  Right now I am writing a full length book for the first time.  And yes, it is at least fifty percent mental.  By which I mean managing fear; motivation; why bother/what’s the point/should you be doing something else thoughts; distraction; lack of confidence; lack of concentration; and above all self belief.  I manage all this by, firstly, committing to bum on seat, internet off, for the set amount of time, an hour or two most days; and secondly, by just focussing on the next task in hand.  Here is my current list:

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Beyond that, of course, is a whole load more stuff to do, editing, polishing, ensuring it all flows and fits, sorting out my ‘spirituality’ ramblings, and my repeated use of phrases such as, ‘I felt a lightness, a sense of possibility,’ let alone the fact that does it even have a plot?  But if I think too much about all that stuff I’ll never face my next session!

Travel

We are in Cambodia for a month.  We had six days in Phnom Penh and we are now on the lovely paradise island of Koh Rong.  We have a week here, today is the second whole day.  I can walk up a very steep hill (exercise!) to the local village to buy bananas and oranges and sit and have a drink before the walk back- it’s not far but it’s very hot; swim in the sea which I did yesterday evening once it cooled, and eat.  Apart from that there isn’t much to do so I have absolutely no excuse not to get lots of writing done!  I got up early this morning, hence the sky is a bit cloudy in the photo, but that is the view from my nearest cafe.

Life

During our last weeks in India my head was busy with What’s Next?  I tried to stay in the moment, or at least, in the trip, but in the end I thought, Well I’m a writer, perhaps if I write everything down it will get it out of my system.  My husband had also been thinking about the future, so we decided to spend a bit of time talking about it, then forget about it.  I wrote everything into a Word document, thinking I’d put it on the blog, and then it disappeared.  I always email everything to myself as back up, so I could have found it, but I decided to just let it go.  I don’t need to do anything now (except write the book and the blog), and my future self can sort out the rest.

Thank you very much for reading

For photos of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Getting in touch/supporting the blog

Comment on posts (comments are public)
Send a message via the Contact Box (private message via email)
Press the like button to let me know you were here/liked it
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The Sunshine Blogger Award

11 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in sunshine blogger award, Uncategorized

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Blogging, sunshine blogger award

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Thank you to Sheree from View from the Back for nominating me!  I admire Sheree greatly for the following words: ‘We’re accustomed to spending Christmas with just the two of us, doing exactly what we want.’  Not many are brave enough to do what they want, either at Christmas or in life.

My last tagalong post came just prior to a long and unscheduled wait at an airport and was very timely; I enjoy being given a task at the best of times and with an extra three hours to use it was especially handy.  This came just before another airport wait, and then a transit wait, so again, very timely, thank you!

My answers to the questions I was asked:

  1. How long have you been blogging and what prompted you to start?

I started this blog in 2014, I was writing a book at the time which felt like a slog, but creating blog posts felt so easy.  So I suppose you could say it was writer’s procrastination, although of course the blog posts are writing too.

2.  What do you write about on your blog and why?

I suppose I write about anything and everything, subject wise.  Whatever has resonated with me or seemed important, or that I’ve  noticed.  My primary aim is increasing my awareness and learning about myself.  I share my experiences, observations and reflections honestly in the hope that this resonates with others.

3.  Typically, how much time do you spend each week on your blog?

Maybe five-ten hours a week.  I am writing a book at the same time so sometimes the blog has to be a bit lighter, or sometimes I ‘cheat’ and post extracts from the book up instead of writing something separate for the blog.  I also spend time reading other people’s blogs and engaging with bloggers and readers in the comments sections.

4.  What prompts you to follow certain blogs?

Original content, well written.   Recently I searched for new blogs to follow using the search terms minimalism, voluntary simplicity, alternative living.  We will return to the UK to live on a narrowboat so I want to have a community around me to support me on the path.

5.  Do your family and friends read your blog? And, if so, what feedback (if any) do they give you?

No family, I would be inhibited if that were the case.  Friends do read it.  Some friends really like it and let me know that it has resonated with them, which I really appreciate.

6.  It’s The Sunshine Blogger Award so how do you spread rays of sunshine on your blog?

I don’t intentionally do this all the time; some of my posts are possibly quite sad.  But I do notice and report on beauty and personal growth.  I also believe that by being honest here it might help others feel less ashamed, or less alone, if they have any of the same issues, or can just relate to some of the ideas or feelings I express.  And I cherish the connections I have made on this blog.

7.  If you could change one thing about blogging, what would it be?

Why do I have to approve pingbacks I have made to myself?  When I  link to one of my own posts I have to approve it, so presumably the link won’t work until I do??  Which  means I have to catch WordPress as soon as the blog is posted, which is not always possible.

8.  If you were to impart one pearl of wisdom about blogging, what would it be?

Write what you want to write in the way you want to write it.  That way we will all get more original content to read, yay!

9.  Who or what, if anything, has influenced your blog?

For the first few years I just wrote what came out without much reference to readers.  Now I am more aware that people are reading and so I am aware of handling things like reporting on episodes of low mood sensitively.  I did go through a phase of putting really long book chapter excerpts up, there are people who will read long pieces (thank you dear readers), but I do now generally try to not go too far over 1,000 words.  Although I break that all the time.  In terms of blogging etiquette, I aspire to be like Sam.  Sam has over 4,000 followers but responds kindly and personally to every comment.  Sam is not a full time blogger either, blogging duties fit around travelling and working.

10. What’s the best bit about blogging?

Total freedom to write about ANYTHING.  But of course with freedom comes responsibility.  ‘You are free to choose but not free from the consequences of those decisions.’  Hence my care re writing about low mood, and my avoidance of politics.  Actually I avoid politics in day to day life too, and that helps my mood…  The connections I have made.  Like travel, it’s been a way of finding my people.  ‘Let your weird light shine so brightly that other weirdos will be able to find you.’

11.  What’s your idea of “A Perfect Day”?

Wake up when I want, do a few stretches, get ready in a leisurely fashion, eat breakfast and have a walk, come back and write for a couple of hours.  Then…  go and see something nice, a walk with my husband, eat again… and again, watch something on Netflix, go to bed.  We are travelling so just a walk around the local area and going to eat something is plenty pleasure enough for me.  Sometimes we are actually travelling somewhere new and on those days I get nervous but excited as well.

My 11 Nominees are:  (I know these kinds of things are not for everyone so of course feel free to ignore/alter/cannibalize as you wish!)

Adie– I thought you could use any questions you like for your web interview thingy instead maybe?

Adie is one of the bloggers I have been following the longest.  Adie writes flawlessly about everything!

Ann Coleman-

The person you’d most like to have in your real life family or circle of friends; such a kind person who shares daily life observations in a warm and honest way.

Bereaved and being a single parent-

Totally original, because it is about a person’s life.  Often highly amusing but sometimes sad.

Des-

Big life stuff, everyday stuff, all life may be covered here in an engaging  and approachable way.

Minimal-Lol

One of the minimalist bloggers I found recently

Msteequeology

Pure positivity and sunny support

The Mustard Yellow House

Lives in a sunny house- a tiny house.  I found via searching alternative living.  Wrote a really lovely post about creating a garden, Christmas, and switching off the tech.

Seoul Sister

Asian American culture and personal memoir.  Totally original, informative and inspiring, and emotional.

Unexpected in common hours

Beautiful photographs to brighten your day.

Weeping Pines-

Beautiful writings to brighten your day.

What you blog about-

Words and music

My 11 Questions for you are:

1. How do you decide which blogs to follow?

2. Do you follow people who have different backgrounds, cultures and politics to you?

3. Can someone have different politics to you but still be a good person in your eyes?

4. Do you connect with other bloggers on a personal level?

5. Do you read all the blogs you follow?

6. What is your opinion on blogging every day?

7. Do you like getting a post from the same blogger each day, or do you find you can’t keep up?

8. Do you sometimes think what’s the point (in blogging)?

9. And do you sometimes soar with happiness when posting a good blog post, reading a good blog, or making a connection in the comments sections and think, ‘Yes, this is everything!’?

10. Therefore is blogging a metaphor for life in general?

11. When was the last time you felt really happy?

‘The official rules,’ if you choose to participate, are as follows:

  • Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog so others can find them.
  • Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
  • Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
  • Notify the nominees about it on one of their own posts.
  • List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or your blog site.

Everything good, everything bad: Leaving India

06 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in December 2018, India, Travel, Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Incredible India, India, India sleeper coach, Indian train journeys, Travel, Travel problems, Traveling, Travelling

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We arrived in Bangalore at 5am after our overnight train from Hosapete near Hampi.  Our flight to Cambodia wasn’t until 11pm so we had booked a hotel to spend the day in and to rest between one night journey and the next.

As we got closer to the hotel, the taxi driver asked us to phone the hotel for directions.  The call was put through to a call centre/head office rather than the actual hotel, and they had no record of our booking, even though we had confirmation.  The man on the phone refused to give us directions, even though we begged to be able to just go to the hotel and sort it out with them.

At the side of a main road in Bangalore, in the semi darkness, not knowing where we were, we gave up and asked the taxi driver to take us to a hotel.  He took us to one that was far too expensive, then to another before finding one that had a room.  Suspiciously, he rushed ahead in front of us ostensibly to translate or in case they were asleep.
The room we eventually got into was almost three times the price of the room we had booked into and was clearly overpriced.  The room was small and smelled of paint fumes.

After we had checked in and taken our bags up I went downstairs to ask for the WiFi password and saw our taxi driver (who had said goodbye and left) talking to the man at the desk.  We suspected that he and whoever was at the hotel had made some kind of a deal to overcharge us and split the money.

The hotel told us that breakfast was included, and lunch and dinner were also available although chargeable.  So when the restaurant opened we went down for breakfast.  We had masala dosas, which although tasty were almost empty they had so little filling.

The plan had been to try and sleep in the day, I did a little, but across the hall was a child with a very loud squeaky toy and then some building work banging started from another room.

We went down for lunch, but the woman on the desk told us that the restaurant wasn’t open for lunch, and there was nowhere obvious to eat nearby.  We bought some bananas and some juice and went back to the room.

We found somewhere to eat and booked a tuk tuk online.  It turned out there was a restaurant not far away just off the main road.  The food was okay and the place looked clean.  We felt better.  After all we hadn’t planned that it would be any different than this; rest in the room, go out and eat, it’s just that it had seemed to be difficult.

The online booking people gave us some money back to say sorry, which covered about half of the extra expenses, and the day woman at the hotel gave us some money back and booked us a cheaper cab than the night staff had.

At the airport things went well until passport control where we were told off for not having registered; we hadn’t realised that we should have done that, although we have been in three times and out twice before anyone mentioned it.

It was the first time we’d really had a day like that.  We had the delayed flight that meant we missed our night bus to Hampi but that hadn’t felt really stressful and solutions had flowed easily.

At the gate we met a British couple, one of them built narrowboats, which surprised all of us, since we live on one, and we exchanged contact details.

On the plane to Cambodia an Indian man sat down next to us and took our photos without asking or even saying hello and then went off and laughed with his friends.  It was in sharp contrast to our first flight out of India, from Chennai to Thailand, where we met a young Indian man on his first flight who took selfies with us which we were happy to do.

There also was a lot of turbulence on the flight…

But maybe it was good that our leaving day wasn’t so smooth.  It stopped us being too sad.  Spending our last ten days in India in what was probably our favourite place was a bit of a double edged sword.  I think we were both a bit emotional about leaving.

In the tuk tuk with our friend Anaconda from Hampi to Hosapete, day turned to night as we once again passed beautiful temples, shrines, and little houses with the interiors painted bright pink or jade green.  On our last journey leaving Hampi, also with Anaconda, night had turned to day.

Our last few days in Hampi had been so wonderful, even the monkeys at our regular chai stall had been the most entertaining ever on our last stop there, flying from the temple across branches up the tree and back again, causing a commotion, and crashing into the chai stall’s (empty)  metal oil drum bin and knocking it over just for fun.  At the main temple we’d sat and watched the many monkeys, adults and babies, before being invited down the steps to the temple lake to feed the fish (and monkeys) from big bags of puffed rice that two men had brought along.  Just like in Pushkar, where we regularly saw a man feeding bread to the fish, these were just ordinary local people feeding the animals.

At Hosapete train station we had a bit of time to wait for our train to Bangalore.  There were a few stray dogs around, one came around the back of the bench, it went near our back packs and without really thinking I clapped my hands to shoo it away, thinking it might pee on the bags.  I saw it had teats and was obviously a nursing mother.  I had biscuits for the journey in my bag but thought I won’t feed it; there were a few dogs around, and I didn’t want to attract a lot of attention or for them to fight.

Later on the platform, I saw a man in a lungi feeding a stray dog a bread roll and felt I bad.  Being in India can mean hardening your heart against things you see simply in order to cope.  But sometimes you can get it wrong, and I realised I’d got it wrong with that nursing dog.  The announcer was announcing our train over and over, using the new name for Bangalore, which is delightfully pronounced in a sing song way as Beng-ga-loo-roo.

My thinking brain said, Well you can’t help all the animals, you only occasionally help them anyway.  You can just feed a dog in Bangalore to make up for it.  But my heart said, Please give me another chance.  We were way down the platform from the bench where we’d been, the train was overdue and the announcer was still announcing our train.  From the distance a dog appeared coming towards us.  As it got closer, I knew.  Brown and white, slightly skinny, with teats.  I waited until she was a little bit past us and emptied out two packets of biscuits on the floor for her.

We were in two tier ac, the train was an old fashioned model with burgundy seats.  I was in the top bunk and lay there teeming with everything, as usual, and trying to write things down in my notebook in the dark.  Our last night in India was on a train, which felt like a good way to end it.

Thank you very much for reading

For photos of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Getting in touch/supporting the blog

Comment on posts (comments are public)
Send a message via the Contact Box (private message via email)
Press the like button to let me know you were here/liked it
Consider sharing on Facebook or Twitter if you think your friends might like it

Thank you for your support

 

Incredible India

04 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by Rachel in December 2018, India, Travel, Uncategorized

≈ 70 Comments

Tags

Chennai, Hampi, Hindu temples, Incredible India, India, Kanyakumari, Love India, Spiritual experience, Travel, Traveling, Travelling

We leave India for the third and final time during this trip on Friday 4th January.

Here’s a few highlights, with links to the relevant posts.

We ended our India journey in Hampi where my love affair with India began back in April.

In Kanyakumari, at the Southern most tip of India, where three seas meet and you can see the sun rise and sun set, I fell in love with the people and with the delightfully painted houses.

I was once more overwhelmed with love in Chennai.  Our dear friend Y from Chennai who we met in a seminal moment of the trip in Kerala, took us to his temple and gave us an unforgettable soul experience.  We stayed at Broadlands, where we were bathed in the Call to Prayer each morning, wandered around the fruit and veg market, drank chai, and fed the sadly very thin cows.  

Cosmic Recognition, a term coined by our lovely friend Renate who we met in Varkala; recognising and meeting our people along the way.  Thank you.

Thank you India!

Thank you very much for reading

For photos of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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