Everything good, everything bad: Leaving India

Tags

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

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

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Incredible India

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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So many things to love in Hampi

Tags

Hampi, happiness, India, Personal growth, Travel, Traveling, Travelling

In Varkala we were ill, in Bangalore we wandered around the Botanical Gardens wondering about The Future, and in Hampi we got happy again.  There’s so much to love here.

Temples, so many temples.  There was a huge festival and many people slept inside the temple afterwards.

Monkeys.  On Christmas Eve I watched a monkey eating scraps from a bin.  I bought some bananas and dropped them into the bin (I was cautious about being too obvious having got surrounded by monkeys in Nepal), but unfortunately this frightened the monkey and they came after me, teeth bared.  They didn’t want the bananas either.  An Indian man shooed it away and gave me back the bananas which I fed to some less intimidating cows.  On Christmas Day we went back to the main temple and hand fed the monkeys peanuts in shells, which they liked.  On Boxing Day we threw some peanuts on the ground for some languid looking monkeys, one of whom quickly sprang up and jumped on my husband’s bag where the nuts were.  ‘Never describe a monkey as languid,’ he said when he had recovered.  And just to cement the full range of monkey experiences, my husband saw one cradling a dead monkey in its arms.

The scenery is almost too much to take in, it is so unreal looking but so peaceful at the same time.

The people
Such sweet simple pleasures to be had here.  Buying roasted peanuts in shells, bananas, coconuts and chai from the roadside stalls.  Peanuts have become the new cigarettes, prompting interactions and sharing them with people.  So many school trips and families here for pilgrimage, sleeping outside in the temple area or at the roadside.  So many kids saying hi to us.

Everything…  We arrived early in the morning on Christmas Eve after a night of little sleep (there was a reason why ours were the only two beds left, they were over the back wheel arch, and the road to Hampi is very bumpy!)  Sitting at the chai stall under the full moon, the stalls closed and brown, the streets dusty and grey.  Bits of colour from the pink and purple of skirts.  Buses arriving, tuk tuks coming to meet the new arrivals.  Every place is something new, a new start, a new state of mind.  I am so happy we are ending our India journey in Hampi, where I first fell in love with India back in April.

Thank you very much for reading

For more pictures of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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Meet Rachel Hill

Tags

dreams, Ecstasy, Inspiration, love, Music, writing

Adie of From Adie With Love tagged me in a question and answer post.  I’m supposed to answer those questions, then come up with three questions of my own to ask three other bloggers, who I will tag.
It was very nice timing to go with me changing to my real name and my husband taking a photograph of me that I didn’t make him delete immediately- the above was taken on Saturday in Varkala just before we left for Hampi.

Adie has been a kind supporter of me and my blog and it’s been nice connecting with someone across the pond, Adie has answered questions that had mystified me (e.g. why do Americans all have such nice teeth.)  Adie blogs about all different subjects, and their writing is absolutely flawless.

Like Adie, I had a slight hitch this week which getting tagged to do this saved me from.  We left Kerala on Saturday, due to arrive in Hampi on Sunday, but because our flight from Trivandrum to Bangalore was delayed by three and a half hours we missed our night bus to Hampi.  I had planned to do some pics of the journey and our arrival in Hampi and do a travel update for my Sunday (today) post.  Instead we had to book into a hotel in Bangalore- for two nights as we need it for today as well- and get a new bus ticket for tonight.  On the plus side, there was a bus agent right by the hotel and last night we got the last two tickets on tonight’s bus, two minutes before he closed.  And the time at the airport meant I got most of this post drafted then, intending to post it next week, so it all worked out!

Anyway, here are my questions and answers:

What has been the happiest moment of your life so far?

I had a child at nineteen and was the sole carer.  This had the effect that I was very cautious about my health and safety.  Even though the 90s spanned my twenties, I never took Ecstasy because of this.  Also, I was an alternative/punky type who when I did go out frequented, in my late teens and very early twenties, The Jacquard an alternative nightclub and gig venue frequented by Goths,* Punks and Crusties.
*The DJ actually listed himself as King of the Goths in the phone book, and had an immaculate looking Goth girlfriend who was only allowed to wear black and purple.
This was downstairs only though.  At some point there started to be a night put on upstairs.  The DJ was someone from a local record shop who a friend had a crush on.  She and her best friend looked like more punky/gothy/alternative versions of the women from Strawberry Switchblade

but because she liked the DJ she started dressing in orange and yellow tie dye and going upstairs with all the ravers.  We, the downstairs people, were appalled at all the colourful clothes, and I didn’t find out what I was missing until many years later.

Fast forward to 2009.  I met my husband at the age of thirty-nine and fell in love, and he fell in love with me, in a way that was real and reciprocal, and that I realised I hadn’t ever experienced before.  (I’d thought I’d been in love; I’d liked people who hadn’t liked me back; and I’d experienced people being convinced that I was the one but not feeling it myself).  This, though, was so powerful it triggered a full on ‘spiritual awakening.’  I documented all this in a little book called How to find Heaven on Earth:  Love, spirituality and everyday life,  99p on Amazon UK.

At the time I didn’t know what was happening, I even searched love and spirituality on the internet and got a very interesting article that I printed out, highlighted, and still have I believe!  There were many moments of bliss from that time, but the stand out one that springs to mind is the first time I took Ecstasy.

Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, England, can be described as a faded sea-side town, an area of serious deprivation, tacky, even.  But my husband’s choice of destination for that night was inspired.  With its colourful faded grandeur sea front buildings and beautiful, outrageously bright neon lights, Great Yarmouth beach and its sea front at night will stay in my heart forever.

Driving down the Acle Straight towards Great Yarmouth, I began to feel the effects come on.  I felt as if the G force was pushing me back into the seat.  My husband put on How soon is now by The Smiths.
‘I’m not crying,’ I said. ‘I just have tears coming out of my eyes.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person to cry coming up on their first E.’
When we arrived at the beach, I wound the window down and experienced the breeze on my arm, which felt incredible.  Likewise, smoking a cigarette, having a sip of cool water.  After a while my husband said, ‘Come on, get out.’
‘I can’t, I can’t walk.’ I said.
‘Of course you can walk, people dance all night on this!’
Walking on the sand, having a drink with ice cubes in it, let alone when we got home(!), that whole night was amazing.
But the How soon is now moment is the moment.

If you hadn’t decided on the career choice you’ve found yourself in, what would you have done instead?

I wanted to be a writer as a child, if I wanted to be anything.  I certainly wrote.  Then I got a career to support me and my son, this involved a few years of studying, volunteering and working, then three years of training, and twenty years of working at it.  I left my occupational therapy career in February.  Right now I have this year of travel.  It was a few months in before I realised that having this year off meant I could write a book, and a little while before I actually started doing it in earnest.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated?

On the surface I don’t seem to have much of a problem with this.
But when writing and reading the above, self confidence and committing to personal goals has clearly been a problem.  Underlying a lack- or excess- of motivation are other factors.  Committing to writing and feeling I can do it only really happened this year, the year when I turned forty eight.
I keep myself quite busy but I also like being quiet and reflective.
At home I do sometimes find it difficult to summon the motivation to do housework etc, and my car is always an absolute disgrace.

Thank you very much for reading!

I am tagging the following three people:

Ms Lockwood at The Lockwood Echo: not a real newspaper

Mr B at Bryntin

The High Heeled Paper Girl

If you wish to participate, here are your three questions:

What’s been the most significant ‘moment’ of the past seven days (that you’re happy to share)?

What do you least like about the Christmas-New Year period?

And what do you like most about it? (I know it’s a hard one Mr B, but there’s got to be something!)

The Rules

♦ Answer the questions you receive (straight, funny, absurd…up to you)
♦ Create three questions of your own (for those you tag)
♦ Tag three people

Project 333, kind of

Tags

Alternative living, India, Kerala, Living on a boat, Minimalism, Narrowboat living, Project 333, Travel, Traveling, Travelling, Travelling light, Voluntary simplicity

The photograph above shows all the clothes I’m travelling with, except underwear and footwear.  Project 333 is a framework to help people apply minimalism to their clothing.  The original Project 333 link here

This is from a post of mine from March, just before we left:

‘This is my empty clothes drawer and the pile in the photo above is all of my clothes that I am leaving.  I realised today that I haven’t worn hardly any of them since being on the boat, but also that I have lots that I love, plenty of warm things as well as summer and going out clothes; a very small amount- that drawer wasn’t even half full- but that I really love.  I have so few clothes compared to a year or two ago, yet I am infinitely more satisfied with my wardrobe (drawer).

I am excited, I am happy and I absolutely can’t wait to get to beautiful, beautiful India!’

I arrived in India at the end of March 2018 with 9kg and have been reducing that ever since.  My own current Project 333 is driven by travelling with a 7kg hand luggage allowance only.  At home it’s driven by living on a narrowboat with limited storage space.

Warm clothes came with us and were abandoned in Delhi, replaced in Tokyo and Nepal; and from now to be kept for North Vietnam and arrival in and return to UK (in March 2019).

Having only a few clothes means clothes get worn out easily through lots of washing and wringing.  Plus things sometimes seem unsuitable as we move to a different area.  And sometimes I just want a change! Clothes we no longer want are left behind for staff or given away.

The items I am most happy with are the three dresses made from Malaysian lungis- two metres of material worn by men- here is a picture of man wearing a lungi- bought in Varkala, Kerala.

This is the tailor’s shop who made the most recent two and who fixed the first one which had been made several times before by other tailors when we were here last time and wasn’t quite right- an earlier post described my difficulties finding clothes to fit me in India

This is my current, full list:  Two bras, six pairs of knickers, three pairs of socks, one black summer dress, three lungi dresses, one purple vest top, one black summer top, one black vest, one thin black sarong/scarf, one pair of thin black trousers, one blue warm shawl, one pair of warm black leggings, one pair of warm black trousers, one blue long sleeved top, one orange-brown jumper, two modest tops, one pair of shoes and one pair of flip flops.

Pretty much everything.  Last weight 7.5kg including handbag and tablet.

I don’t usually cart bottles of shampoo or other general products around; it’s part of the settling in process to find or pick a local shop, introduce ourselves and buy shampoo and conditioner- can buy sachets for a short stay- plus toothpaste, loo rolls, tissues, and moisturiser.

Right now I am happy with my clothes- this is unusual on this trip.  I can wear a nice dress to go outside, and lounge indoors in a sun top and sarong.  Thin trousers and scarf mean I can add cover ups as required.  We are in a tourist area so the dress code is more relaxed; I’ve only really covered up fully when going into town, the hospital or to avoid the sun.  I’ve enjoyed being able to wear my new dresses here, even though they are still fairly modest by Western standards.  I hope my clothes will be suitable and I’ll still feel happy with them in Hampi, then Cambodia then Vietnam.  At least I have plenty of warm things for arriving at Heathrow in March…

PS I have decided to be brave and use my real name online from now on.  Sorry for any confusion!

Thank you very much for reading

For photographs of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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The complicated stuff…

Tags

Alternative living, Enlightenment, family, India, Minimalism, Personal growth, relationships, Self realisation, Travel, Traveling, Travelling, Voluntary simplicity

These photographs were taken by my mum on a recent holiday.  Once a month or so she’ll send me a photo of something of interest with a few lines.  I do the same.

My son and I communicate mainly via messenger messages and occasional video calls.  We exchange news, everything’s going okay.  A couple of times recently he’s needed money and I’ve sent some.

It’s been a source of some anxiety and a fair amount of guilt that these relationships aren’t as close as, as what?  As some other people’s family relationships look from the outside?  As my idea of what these relationships should look like?  (except that I have no idea…..)  As what they were?  No, that had to change.

Anyway, in the midst of my painful illness I had a moment of clarity:  I realised suddenly:  Maybe they are happy with it being this way.

When I went to live and work in New Zealand for a year I had a similar experience of interpersonal conflict to that which I wrote about in my post ‘Every day beautiful, Every day shit,’  only without the self awareness to deal with it or take any responsibility for my part.  I emailed my mum, she emailed me back a long pep talk, and was probably quite concerned.  Even when things were going well, I used to phone her from New Zealand a lot.  I was thirty-five years old.

My son seems to do better the more independent he is from me, without me worrying about him.

I’ve written about my relationship with my son here:  This is life

Because of her own experience; property, security, inheritance were pillars for my mum.  Again due to her own experiences; as a child, teen and young woman I was conditioned to be anti-marriage, anti-men, anti-relationship.  Anti creating a world with another.

And yet that’s exactly what I’ve done with my husband and it’s amazing.  Right now, reading Krishnamurti, discussing ideas, being on a joint quest…

Here is a blog post summarising the life changing decisions we took to dismantle our previous lives and get to India here:  Orientation

And the impact it had on my relationship with my mother here:  The price of freedom

But what can I do, what is my part in fixing or accepting responsibility for these relationships?  Mother and son.  Past and present?

And what about our decisions?

I’ve been a big fan of the idea of illuminating the darkness, and taking responsibility for everything that’s ‘wrong’ in one’s life, for any sadness.
But I’ve realised that it’s also about accepting responsibility for my own happiness.

My husband and I discussed, Could we live with later thinking that we had gone crazy and regretting it and own it, the good and the bad?  We discussed the charge of, will we regret it? worst case scenarios and solutions, but still I say, It’s better than dying without having lived.

What, pregnant at eighteen, getting a career to support me and my son, getting a mortgage at thirty-five years old that would last until I was sixty, so that on my deathbed I’d say Well I couldn’t have done that (any of the exciting things- I imagine possibilities flitting through my mind on death), and then realising, Oh my God, you could have done!  You could have done!  You could have gone out and done x, and x, and x, there wasn’t anything to worry about.  There was never anything to worry about.  Your life is your life*, best message for all even with kids.

We had lunch and talked about keeping hold of this attitude to life once we return to the UK.  How?  Manage fear.  Don’t take life too seriously. Remember the people we’ve met travelling and how it works for them.  I wrote a post about some of them called Sab Kuch Milega (everything possible).

We’ve cemented voluntary simplicity minimalism and ideas about reducing consumerism, by having bought a boat to live on.  There’s no space to accumulate.  There’s a physical check on it!  The moorings are in a completely new area of the country.  There won’t be any old influences.  We’ve given ourselves the best chance we could.

So if the reason for doing all this is the pursuit of enlightenment and the definition of enlightenment is to see things as they really are…

Can you have light in some areas and not in others, just as some bits of life can be going ‘well’ and others ‘not so well’?

While we were in Pushkar my son had his teeth done.  It was such a good thing (after ten years of rotten teeth and poorly gums etc the problems are gone, and he quickly recovered and was so over the moon about facing his fears and it being resolved);  but at the same time it was so sad (that they ever got that bad, that it went on for so long, and that he had so many teeth removed).

I spent that night talking, processing, again, wishing to go to a place that can’t exist, where he’s an adult with no teeth problems, or to go back to his childhood and somehow do it all again correctly whatever it was that I did or didn’t do that could have altered it.  I don’t know what that would be and I don’t know if I could do it even if given a chance, so impossible, pointless….

Just days after, even hours after, he seemed okay, and a month later, it was as if nothing had happened at all.  It doesn’t escape my notice that he was able to finally take charge of himself while I was away.

 

The night I asked myself all these big questions about my family relationships, I dreamt about going round to my mum’s old house (a sixteenth century farmhouse that she’d lovingly restored and lived in for forty years (true)) as she was preparing to sell (true), and her pointing out memories, including a bit of plaster on the wall where a butterfly had landed and made a print (dream only!).  Maybe you could get someone to cast it, I said, in the dream.  Her so attached to bricks and mortar, making that house her whole life.  She regarded herself as custodian of the house, she put it above a relationship (she said she couldn’t marry or live with anyone as they would be able to claim half the house if they separated).

I thought about what I could have done differently on my part.  The thing would have been to keep separate, not share boyfriend details, not spend each holiday there, not run every decision by her, not do everything she said… yet at the same time it was hard as I was nineteen with a baby, twenty and single mum of a toddler…..  So maybe like with my son’s teeth there’s nothing that could have been done differently by me at that time.

And of course now there’s definitely nothing that can be done.  No time machine.  It- things, all things, can only be fixed in the present.

So exchanges of emails with photos, a few lines, and me living my life, in India, writing a book, discussing Krishnamurti and deepening my relationship with my husband, really it is the way things are.

For photographs of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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Part of a reflective review inspired by illness, our return to Kerala, and by being eight and a half months into our twelve month trip.

* Your life is your life, go all the way (Charles Bukowski)

For photographs of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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The down side of travelling

Tags

Coping with pain and illness, The downside of travel, Travel illness, Traveller's tummy

Traveller’s diarrhoea is a well known side effect/price of travelling.  So much so that when meeting fellow travellers, talk invariably turns to the state of everyone’s bowels.  ‘Yep, it’s not all about having the trip of a lifetime, it’s also about having permanent dysentery…’ and ‘If I had guts like this at home I’d be in hospital.’

My husband and I have been suffering from various ‘tummy, toilet and bottom related’ problems recently, nothing serious, but oh so painful!

For those of you not totally desensitised to talking about this stuff, I promise you that the rest of this post is just about coping with pain and not the gory details.

The first part of this week was mainly spent lying down on the bed.  Views and objects loomed large.  Switches on my side of the bed, one was set in the middle between on and off, I don’t know what it does.  The other turns the fan on and off.  I accidentally leant on it and did that a few times.  The only time we turned the fan off on purpose, other than when going out, was earlyish one morning when it actually felt cool.

Our room gets the sun and becomes blazing hot in the afternoons, it eventually cools a bit then strangely gets really hot again in the night.  One afternoon, before getting treatment, I lost control of the pain, crying, sweating, over heated.  I had planned to walk to the post shop but the thought of going out was too much.

‘It’s not you,’ my husband said, ‘The pain is not you, it’s not who you are.  You’re more than the pain.  You’re still there.’

We probably both thought about going home, but that would mean returning to freezing cold UK and getting a job, so no, not yet.

Not wanting to be touched.  Not wanting to be in the body.  In the midst of the worst, standing on one leg in the yoga tree pose, looking in the mirror, or brushing my hair, trying to have some other experience or view of this body I was in.

Pain and illness is so exhausting, just getting through each day trying not to push it away, and trying to keep one’s mood up or at least level.

One day, unable to feel better at home, I went for a walk, all along the cliff top.  I bought an ice cream, remembering something I’d seen once:  ‘Be in the moment, unless the moment sucks in which case, eat a cookie.’  I rarely allow myself chocolate or ice cream, so this, chocolate covered ice cream on a stick tasted nice.  The big white-headed eagles and the sea still looked nice too.  I clambered down over the rocks onto the beach and had a paddle, then stood and looked at the sea.

In bed in the evenings, we watched The Affair on Netflix and once we ate a small handful of chocolate éclairs, just to experience something sweet.

It was so hard to get comfy and such a pleasure when I did.  I remember learning at university that positioning is so important, now I see why for myself.  One night I lay awake in bed deliberately just to enjoy the sensation of being pain free.

When we arrived, I’d said to myself- and the woman in the little salon downstairs- that I’d get my hair henna-d.  So when the worst subsided I went.  She told me to sit while she finished up and got ready, and I settled into the waiting chair, a slightly reclined, very padded cane armchair.  She gave me a foot stool.  I fell in love with that chair.  It was the first time I’d felt comfortable sitting for ages.  Just being in it felt like therapy for my poor body.

I accepted if not enjoyed (as I usually would) the sensation of her touching me, putting on the henna, washing my hair when it was done.  It still felt therapeutic to feel a bodily sensation other than pain.

As I began to get a little better, my mood lifted, I felt like dancing or skipping.  Food tasted better.  I could appreciate the sea and the sunset view before dinner.  I noticed when I noticed things; the palm tree outside our balcony, a big black and white cat on a not so hot tin roof, my sense of pleasure returning.

‘I thought about having sex,’ my husband said.  ‘I mean, I don’t want to actually have it yet, but I thought the fact that I thought about it was a good sign!’

We spoke about pain at dinner.  ‘I grip my arm, I find a speck on the bathroom wall to hold onto.  (In Nepal there’d been these little sparkles in the black wall and floor of the bathroom that looked like stars.  Here, the black pants in the bucket, following the bubbles from the water down to black, the black pants being both a reflective surface and being reflected…)  And I sing sometimes.  What do you do?’ I asked my husband.

‘We’re completely different like that.  If it’s really bad I’m just with the pain, I’m not trying to go anywhere else.  It’s like how you keep the light off when you go to the bathroom in the night so if there’s a spider you won’t see it, whereas I put on all the lights and look.’

We weren’t going to go out for dinner, I was going to skip eating altogether or just get a parcel (take away) soup but I didn’t want to go on my own really.  My husband said, ‘I don’t mind going out,’ so we went and ate dinner- soup and salad (alongside fruit salad and smoothies that’s my staple diet).  It was the first time we’d really laughed in ages.

So we didn’t leave on Sunday, instead we’re staying here in Varkala, near the hospital and the doctor.  Health services are very good here, we know people, and the food is safe and good.  We plan to leave for Hampi on 22nd December now.  We are getting better and will hopefully be fully recovered by then.

Thank you very much for reading!

For photographs of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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‘My mind is full of stories, my eyes are full of pictures*: Kerala

Tags

Help Kerala, India, Kerala, Kerala floods, Kerala holidays, Kerala street dogs, Kerala tourism, Love India, Love Kerala, Papanasam Beach, Travel, Varkala, Visit Kerala

On the beach, after our sun gazing meditation (see previous post) we saw five dogs lying in the sand, they all looked the same.  Maybe they were the litter of puppies we’d seen on the beach in August, all grown up.  I also saw the brown and white beach dog that would have been ‘my’ dog had I not nipped any emotional attachment firmly in the bud.

Tourists do sometimes adopt dogs for their stay, but I couldn’t allow myself to go down that path… falling in love, wanting to ship home, or to start a feeding programme or animal charity…  Not after everything I went through to let go of my cats, my everything.  Link to tear-jerker post here: You can’t take a cat in a backpack around India.  When we were here before (May-August) I occasionally fed dogs something, especially mothers with puppies, but that was it.

Walking back to our guesthouse along the cliff, I saw ‘the dog with the funny teeth’ (header picture), and ‘the Disney dog’ (pictured above) a white dog with markings that look like it is wearing eye makeup.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so pleased and surprised to see the same dogs, after all it’s only been three and a half months.

The sea had changed of course, it had turned a deep holiday maker blue but still turned greenish in the late afternoon as it had before.  The beach itself was smooth, no extra channels or walls of cake-like sand, and so wide now that the monsoon season is over.

We went to Aranmula to buy a mirror for my stepdaughter.  These mirrors are special; made not from glass but from a secret alloy of metals, apparently they show you how you really are!  Here is a link to an interesting article about them.

This area was badly affected by the floods of August, they showed us how high up the temple wall the water had been.  Their house had been under water.  Our taxi driver translated.  ‘Where did you go?’  I asked.  ‘To the top of the temple.  We had no food for two days, then the helicopters dropped food.’

Even though this area had been so badly affected just back in August, the mirror shops and workshops were all up and running and open for business.

Sadly, it seems that tourist numbers are down, even in Varkala, where we are, which was unaffected by the floods, with people seemingly cancelling their holidays without checking whether or not there is a problem first.  This is a shame, because Kerala relies on the tourist industry, and needs the income even more after the floods.

It’s been lovely to see Varkala in season time, everywhere spruced up, lit up and busy; although it’s not as busy as we’d expected, when we were here before during the off season there were very few foreign tourists.

Varkala, Kerala, is a perfect introduction to India.  The beaches are beautiful and the dress code is more relaxed; locals are long used to Western tourists and one beach is used mostly by Western tourists and it’s okay to wear a bikini or swimsuit there.  It’s quieter than Goa, not so partyish, with Ayurvedic treatment centres, Yoga schools, families and older tourists as well as younger people.  On the cliff is a tourist strip selling great food, fruit salads, smoothies, vegan, continental and Indian food.

Papanasam beach, ‘The Benares (Varanasi) of the South’ is a ten minute walk from the tourist strip and is mainly frequented by Indian tourists, pilgrims, and holy men and families holding poojas.

Leading away from Papanasam beach is Beach Road, home of authentic local food at a fraction of the prices up on the cliff and various stalls selling bananas and lungis.

The town of Varkala itself (a short auto rickshaw ride away) is not touristy, there are restaurants there with the menu in Malayalam only, and no English spoken.  Fortunately, ‘masala dosa’ and ‘chai’ are universally understood.  Trivandrum/Thiruvananthapuram is an hour away and has an airport and a train station.

Lest this has turned into something of a regular travel blog (I’ve felt sentimental and moved to promote Kerala!), I’ll finsh with a couple of lovely quotes that have inspired me this week:

This from Des from Think Ahead in the comments section of my blog:  ‘Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile with yourself after being provoked.’

And this, which would make the perfect manifesto for this blog, as well as perfectly describing how I choose who to follow, and ultimately aspire to be in the world.  From The High-Heeled Papergirl:  ‘I came to the realization that when you are unconditionally honest, people bond with you, and most of the time they accept you for who you are.’

We leave on Sunday for Hampi, where we will spend the rest of December, and the New Year, before leaving India altogether early January.

*our dear friend Renata, on why she is never ever bored

Thank you very much for reading

For photographs of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

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Send a message via the Contact Box (private message via email)
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Meditation methods

Tags

buddhism, death, Dynamic meditation, Impermanence, meditation, Meditation exercises, mindfulness, Mindfulness exercises, Non attachment, Osho, Pema Chodron

My husband and I have been meditating almost every day since arriving in Nepal (we are now back in India).  Sometimes this has meant nothing more than lying on the bed and trying to follow the breath for ten minutes.  Sometimes it has meant doing something we’d do anyway, but intentionally and mindfully.  We take it in turns to ‘lead’ and we both feedback afterwards.  Here are some notes…  You know what they say, ‘Meditation- better than sitting around doing nothing.’

Ways to start

Three deep breaths in and out

Drop into silence

Visualise a spinning pillar of white light running through your centre.  As it spins, visualise things and stressors that have stuck to you flying off.

Cut etheric connections (cut the ties) to anyone who comes to mind*

*This keeps you light and free and in the moment.  It pulls your energy back into yourself which can be helpful if you are feeling depleted.  It doesn’t mean you don’t love or care for other people.

Meditation methods

Meditate on your out breath
This is from Pema Chodron’s book ‘The wisdom of no escape,’ which I bought and read in Varanasi, after a Sadhu told me to ‘pick a guru.’  What you do in between each out breath is kind of up to you, but if you catch yourself thinking, just say gently to yourself, ‘Thinking,’ and return to following your out breath.

Reading then sitting in silence
My husband read from a Buddhism piece:  ‘A knowledgeable, logical mind does not help, because life always throws up new things.  Be flexible.  Be a mirror, not a painting.’
‘‘Don’t just stand there, do something,’ people say.  No, Buddha says, ‘Don’t just do something, stand there.’  First, learn to stand still.  Then when you act you will be acting, not just reacting to having your buttons pushed.’
Then my husband read a story about the Buddha being totally immune to a crowd insulting him.  It made sense, although the very next day I got caught up in the conflict I wrote about in ‘Every day beautiful, every day shit.’   Still, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Music came through from the balcony of the dorm next door, earlier, Nick Cave, ‘Into my arms,’ and The Righteous Brothers, ‘Unchained Melody;’ and during the meditation, Portishead then Morcheeba.  The music belonged to Harrison, a twenty-one year old Australian, but it could have been ours.
In meditation I thought/felt:  No time, no place, no past, no future.  The timeless nature of travelling.  Now India, now Kathmandu.  No one else from home or past around.

Visualise a golden light
Spreading through your body, encompassing your toes and over the top of your head.  (Although don’t get hung up if you can’t make it do this)
We started this by cutting the ties, and as I did this I felt myself rising like a hot air balloon.
I felt as if I rose up to my source self, merged, and then came down together.  I felt as if I’d now be better placed to make decisions during the day out of awareness, and that that’s why we meditate.

Follow your out breath with your eyes open
This is more faithful to Pema Chodron’s method.  With about 25% of your attention on following your out breath, the rest of your attention can be taken with being aware of your sensory experience.
I stared softly at a patch of carpet and felt the sun from the window on my arm.  After a while my peripheral vision seemed to expand so I could see more.  I allowed myself to shift my gaze, remaining focussed on my out breath.
Despite having been trained in mindfulness via work and having participated in a weekly therapist’s mindfulness session for years, this was the first time I had really understood why the instruction is given not to label things.  Not to say ‘carpet’ or ‘dog’ instead, ‘colour,’ ‘sound.’ Even better, just experience or feel the colours, sensations and sounds without words.  Because words are thoughts, or at least the beginnings of thoughts.  Hear dog barking, label it as a dog, start thinking about the dog and why it is barking…
To be suspended between the out breaths and to just experience the world- the warmth of the sun, the sound of women talking on the rooftop opposite, the colours and texture of the carpet with no words, just for a moment…

Who? Who? Who?
We did this in our head, rather than the more traditional jumping around with hands in air saying ‘Who, who, who?’ (as in, ‘Who am I?’). It is a dynamic meditation from Osho.
This is who I am, just this.

Follow breath, focus on area of pain
The breath and the pain may be in separate places at first, they may come closer and merge during the meditation.

Meditate on the nature of impermanence
All the places we’ve stayed.  Transient friendships.  Could you survive like that?  People we met do.  The more secure and independent you become, the less comfort you need.  Old friends would be your joy, the icing on the cake.
I thought, Detach from body, let it run itself.

Meditate on that we and everything is/are made of the same stuff
Extremities tingling and dissolving.  Caterpillar to butterfly analogy: Dissolve, Rebuild, Dissolve, Rebuild…

Meditate on your own death
We started off by cutting the ties.  The etheric connections were like sinewy fleshy tendrils coming out of me, I would have needed a saw to sever them.
I concentrated on pulling back the energy from the world into my root.  Then the energy rises up through my body and out the top of my head and beyond, into another realm.  I thought that is probably what happens during death.
Non attachment therefore helps with the process of death.

Reading aloud/listening
We’ve both been ill, so sometimes we’ve cheated a bit.  I read one of my just made blog posts aloud and my husband listened to it.  He stayed mindful throughout.  I got distracted a couple of times with corrections, and with worrying that my reference to thoughts of suicide and self harm would upset him.

Sun gazing
(As the sun is going down, at the point at which it is low enough to be safe to look at)
This was over the sea at Papanasam beach, Varkala, Kerala, India.  The sea looked glossy and pearlised under the setting sunlight.  The instructions from my husband were to focus on absorbing the sun’s energy and hopefully help heal any ailments.

Walking meditation
This was mine, another kind of cheat one, we’d missed the morning’s meditation as we’d got up early to go out, however it turned out to be a good one.
Walk from guesthouse to the restaurant, keeping in contact with each step, each breath, even if we have to speak to someone because to not do so would be rude.
No one spoke to us, except to try and sell us stuff, a smile and a wave of the hand, I might have said No thank you, sufficed.
It was amazing how powerful it felt to walk along like that.  It was almost as if we were in another dimension, like walking about on drugs.  The close company of breath and footsteps felt almost magical.

Thank you very much for reading!

Getting in touch
Comment on posts (comments are public)
Send a message via the Contact Box (private message via email)
Follow/send a message via my new Instagram: Sadie Wolf so_simple_so_amazing

For photographs of our trip see Instagram travelswithanthony