India 2020: Part 3

Tags

anxiety, Babas, Cows, India, Indian wedding, loneliness, Monkeys, Pushkar, Rajasthan, solo female travel India, Solo travel, Travel, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

Now and again I would suddenly feel, Oh wow, I’m here by myself, scary. Other times, I would feel, wow, make the most of it, appreciate it, soak up as much as possible. Still other times, it felt natural to be there, like a second home.

But like my month alone on the boat, two weeks was enough. I looked forward to the next adventure we could do together. I did go out one evening and have a mojito and a pizza, recreating an experience from last time, but in general it is my husband who provides the fun; I can be overly serious and work- ish.

Compared to the worst moments of our year of travel, I didn’t get super low or terribly panicky; maybe being alone I just had to keep myself together, five and a half weeks, almost six, was quite a long time. If I felt funny sometimes I still made myself get up, wash myself, wash my clothes, the bare minimum. I had a couple of minor slumps in the middle but in general I kept my mood up by having my mission, writing, and having a daily list and an overall to do list.

Often I would give myself something to do, e.g. go to a new cafe someone had recommended, go to the ATM, or a job such as get my train ticket printed. Because things in India tend to take longer and be more complicated, completing a relatively small task results in a burst of satisfaction seemingly out of all proportion to the task itself. I also rode the dialectic between being content to not do much, as always, and the fact that does anxiety stop me doing more.

Wedding season commenced, with music playing every night, and very loud brass band processions. One of the owners of the guesthouse invited us all to his daughter’s wedding (see pictures above.) I went with my Italian neighbours. As you can see, it was a beautiful experience.

I maintained good boundaries and I didn’t have any issues. But I was also aware of not saying no to everything. I did let a man, a Brahmin, take my hand and give me a very accurate mental and physical assessment. And one evening a man at a street stall stopped me, he asked me the usual questions about where I was from etc. We talked about Aloo Baba, then he said, ‘Actually I stopped you because I was going to flirt with you, but then I saw your face and that you have such good energy, you are a good person.’
‘You know what Aloo Baba says,’ I said, ‘Control looking, Every woman my mother my sister.’
‘They Aloo Baba rules,’ he said, ‘I have my own rules, ‘Beauty is for looking not for touching.’’
‘Well that works just as well,’ I said.

Late morning one day I was just getting up, I heard the sound of bins being moved and assumed it was the cleaning staff. Then I heard the sound of monkeys running about outside the rooms and a scream from my neighbour. I went out, she was standing outside her door with her skirt ripped all the way down the front, but luckily no injuries to her skin. She had come down the stairs and probably startled them and inadvertently blocked their escape route.

As before, there were always cows at the rubbish dump near the guesthouse. Towards the end of my stay cows always seemed to be licking each other, getting the bits they couldn’t reach themselves. It looked cute and I would stand there watching them. One day I was at the rubbish dump staring at the cows when one of the staff from the guesthouse came up behind me. ‘That is cow,’ he said, laughing. I never minded the way that being a foreigner meant sometimes being a source of amusement for locals.

There were always people around to chat to if I felt like it; at the rooftop restaurant at the guesthouse, at the coffee place, at the chai stall, or just out and about. Just as before, it felt like a place where people of all nationalities meet and connect with each other. I met people from Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Argentina, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Holland, USA, UK, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, Jordan, Georgia, and from India I met, as well as lots of people from Pushkar, a lovely family from near Hampi, and a Baba from Rishikesh, we swapped phone numbers.

One morning I was sitting in a cafe, a woman came in, there were no empty tables so I invited her to sit with me. We connected and had a good chat. She was my age, married but travelling by herself like me, from Australia. ‘It’s so good to talk,’ she said. She was going to Varanasi next so I shared some information about it. ‘See, you’re never alone, not really,’ she said.

Thank you very much for reading

More about Pushkar with photos: Pushkar blogs: Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys. Pushkar draft chapter extracts start here

About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in India and South East Asia.
I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

India 2020: Part 2

Tags

Cows, India, Karma, Magic, Memoir, Monkeys, Pushkar, Pushkar Lake, spiritual memoir, Travel memoir, Travel writing, writing

The solitude felt exhilarating at first. Five weeks alone, no work, no responsibilities. I couldn’t sleep until the early hours and stayed up reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Not only had I had my synchronicity on the train, the book contains a lot of magic. Also, I got my period just after arriving, The veil is thin, I said to myself (re magic, emotions, intuition and so on.) I’m in one of the holiest places in the world. I’m reading a magic book. I thought about all kinds of spells or rituals I could do, then realised of course, all I need to do is write the book.

At night there was the usual noise of dogs, a cacophony of howling which began around midnight. Temple chanting and bells began in the very early morning, and during the daytime there were sometimes loudspeakers outside the temple which felt deafening. A few nights there was the sound of different people being sick, or coughing badly. Once there were monkeys crashing about up and down the stairs and outside the room late at night; I got up and checked that my door was locked properly.

There were lots of monkeys around in the late afternoon, looking for food. I saw Ganesh from the hotel standing outside with his phone held up and wondered what he was doing; he was playing trance music to get them away. There seemed to be a lot more monkeys and they seemed bolder, Ganesh said they seemed extra hungry. Once one grabbed my food off my plate and grabbed at my clothes.
At first the evenings were long and cold, sometimes I put on music and did yoga, exercises and a bit of dancing in my room to warm up.

The guesthouse rooftop was just the same but at first I wasn’t very sociable, feeling shy probably, and I kept myself to myself writing. There were a lot of people in a group, drinking and getting stoned and another man alone playing guitar. But later when I spoke the people were really nice, and one came over and gave everyone Oreos, and after that we used to chat regularly.

One day I was working on the Nepal chapter, and re reading my blog about meditation and about how we heard some of our favourite music coming through from the room next door, Nick Cave, put on by Harrison, a twenty one year old Australian. At the same moment, The Pixies Where is my mind, one of my favourite songs, was playing in the rooftop restaurant, the music belonged to and had been put on by Lochie, an Australian, days away from his twenty-first birthday.

Everyday, get up, wash, dress, go out for breakfast. A full on experience just going out to get breakfast. I could chicken out and just go to the rooftop but the coffee wasn’t as good and I needed to walk before sitting and writing. I retreated there afterwards though to write and use the WiFi, which didn’t work in the rooms.

I mainly used the same shop nearby the guesthouse. There was another in the main street where I regularly bought bananas (for cows and monkeys.) One day they saw I had bought tissues from somewhere else. ‘Where from, how much, we have those here!’ ‘Next time,’ I said, feeling chastised. The other man said, ‘It’s okay.’ I remembered to take a bag out after that, fierce loyalty seemed to be expected.

As well as Ganesh and the rest of team at the guesthouse, there was also Shiva in the market to talk to. The staff at Raju restaurant remembered me from last time, we had spent Diwali there, and told me that if I needed any help, I could come to them. Sonu at the juice bar gave me advice about what to do about gifts for a wedding I had been invited to.

On holiday days especially there were lots of Indian tourists, many were dressed in jeans, and wearing clothes that were more Westernised than mine. But in general Rajasthan is a traditional area and there were many people in traditional dress, the women in colourful sarees and beautiful scarves.

People often asked what I was doing there, it was good to say I’m writing a book, even though it did seem a little extravagant.

I felt conscious of behaving correctly, both etiquette and decorum wise and ethically. I liked it when people said, Good Karma, etc, when I fed the animals, but I can’t really claim to believe properly in Karma.
The idea is appealing, of course and I couldn’t help building a hope around giving my book a good chance by maybe creating some good luck, but just being in Pushkar with the Pushkar energy and writing the book each day felt like magic and fortune enough.

Feeding the pigeons or cows or monkeys or giving a person some money was immediately and intrinsically rewarding; it gave me a warm glow, whether or not anyone was watching or whether I really thought it did anything else as well.

And Pushkar Lake provided some magical moments. One day I bought food from the little stall by the steps (Ghats) down to the lake. I fed some cows. I fed the pigeons, who swoop up and down in great clouds. I felt the wind of them. I looked at the water. From the steps two women walked down to the lake. Over their sarees they wore the traditional scarf like a veil which covered their heads and flowed over them to the ground. One woman’s veil was peachy orange, the other one’s a deep reddish pink. The shapes made by the beautiful gauze like fabric, the colours against the backdrop of the stone Ghats and the blue grey lake, it was almost too beautiful.

Later Shiva told me that he fed the animals every day, including throwing tiny pieces of chapati into the lake for the fish. ‘If I don’t do it I feel something not right inside, something missing here,’ he said, holding his chest. He told me that the wind from the pigeons flying was good. I’d felt that.

I met the poor nomadic man who lived in the desert and sold homemade instruments and CDs of his music in the street. Jonathan from Israel had bought him a goat last time we were there. He told me the goat was doing well and was now pregnant. We walked along beside the lake together, picking up string from the previous day’s kite festival as it harms birds and animals, he told me that earlier he’d picked out string from the lake using a long stick.

At the garden of a small temple near the lake I saw what looked like a monkey crèche in full swing, with baby monkeys swinging across the wires. Two trees nearby were often full of monkeys, including mothers with what looked like newborn babies.

I usually walked back the same way, and coming back to where I had started there was usually the sight of tens of pigeons sitting on a steep bank of steps as if they were at the theatre.

Opposite the steps on the other side of the street was a restaurant which served the best masala dosas in Pushkar. From the tables inside I could look out to the street and watch little birds raiding the fruit stalls and monkeys playing at the archway and steps of the Ghat. One day the restaurant was very busy and I had to sit right at the front. A very big cow came to the entrance, came right up the steps and nudged me for food. One of the staff came with a small dinner for the cow in a tin tray, made up properly with a neatly folded chapati on the top, and set it on the ground away from the entrance.

I ate at the falafel stall in the main street a few times. The meals were too big so I didn’t eat the chapatis and took them with me and gave them to cows. The second time the staff gave me a paper napkin to wrap them in. Walking away back towards the guesthouse I fed them to the first cow I saw and scrunched the napkin in my hand. I’m just too British to chuck rubbish on the floor, and the cow thought I was holding out on them and had more food. The cow was very big and wouldn’t leave me alone, determined to get the napkin which was scrunched in my hand. One of the stall holders told me, ‘Go inside,’ I went into the entrance to the temple, and they shooed the cow away with a stick. I’d tried to do a good deed and created a scene, but no one seemed to mind.

I managed to go to the Brahmin Temple without anyone speaking to me or offering to be my guide. Maybe it was because I arrived at the same time as a big group of European tourists and the guides all thought I was with them. I like to think it was because I was all prepared and strode through the crowds confidently. I’d asked Ganesh at the hotel what visitors need to do to be respectful, and arrived with flowers and sweets bought from a little stall, to hand to the Brahmin. There was a crowd of people and after waiting politely as people went in front of me eventually someone pushed me forwards. The Brahmin who was saying blessings, presumably, took people’s offerings, took some, handed some back, over and over as the people passed. His phone rang. I was surprised to see him pull out a smart phone and answer it and carry on with doing the offerings until I thought, This is India.

In the evenings many people go to the lake to watch the sunset. There were always lots of monkeys jossling around and getting ready to go to sleep. I watched baby monkeys swinging on wires outside guesthouses and thought, So that’s why the WiFi is often bad. Pigeons on the ledges of a tower flying off and on, fighting a little, sorting out where everyone was going to sleep. I met a few Indian families; lots of introductions and family photos.

Afterwards I sat at the top of the steps, near the big bell which Hindus ring as they come down towards the lake. The walls, faded colours with plaster peeling, were beautiful in the light. The monkeys were settling down to sleep. I watched a pale orange cat going about the eaves. It all looked and felt magical, and I welled up a little. A black and white dog, friendly with a smooth soft coat, came and put its nose under my arm and I stroked its head.

Thank you very much for reading!

More about Pushkar with photos: Pushkar blogs: Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys. Pushkar draft chapter extracts start here

About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in India and South East Asia.
I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

 

India 2020: Part One

Tags

Delhi, India, Indian train journeys, Main Bazar, Pushkar, Solo travel, Travel, Travel tips, Travel tips for India, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

I just spent five and a half weeks by myself in India. Depending on your perspective you may say, ‘No big deal,’ ‘How brave,’ or something in between. And that’s how I felt about it too. In the run up to the trip I got a bit anxious about the journey and about the whole trip. The news certainly didn’t help, and that’s probably what made my mum extra anxious about me going on my own. Anyway, I did it!

I spoke to two Indian people on the plane who said they thought I was a writer, ‘Ah we thought so, when you said you stayed in one place for a long time!’ I was pleased. I watched two films on the plane. Diane, an interesting portrayal of older women and difficult aspects of motherhood, and Richard says goodbye: ‘You’re unusual, the world is dying for you. Don’t give into mediocrity like the rest.’ The prospect of death helps to realise the feeling of being alive…

Arriving at Delhi airport felt familiar, but even inside the airport the poor air quality, which we’d seen from the plane as a smog enveloping the high rise buildings, made people cough and made my eyes sting. There was a long queue at immigration and I got tired but I made sure I concentrated hard on what I needed to do, get my bag, change money. John had booked my place to stay, choosing a place with good reviews and popular with backpackers, and arranged for them to pick me up. It was very nice to step out and see a sign held up with my name on.

The driver was nice, we chatted about his family- he had five daughters- and he slowed down so I could get a good look at the monkeys which hang out near Parliament Gardens, and which I remember seeing on our first journey from the airport to Paharganj (Main Bazar), on arrival for me for the first time, in March 2018. My guesthouse was slightly off Main Bazar and down an alley, I was slightly disorientated, and the driver had to show me where the entrance was.

Walking in it looked a little shabby and there were lots of men standing around. I was shown up to my room which was three floors up. I shut the door behind me and wobbled for a moment, then reminded myself that John had thoroughly researched this place. I went back downstairs, they were able to sell me an Indian Sim there and set it up for me straight away, and I went out to complete the rest of my mission namely to buy a fast charger, I got one which had two USB ports which was great as often there’ll only be one point in a room. I got crisps, coca cola and nuts, just like usual (only it wasn’t hot like usual), and water, and shampoo, and managed to accumulate an impressive amount of change, always an ongoing mission in India.

I slept and then went out for dinner, I walked the length of Main Bazar and felt unable to decide on anywhere, went back to the guesthouse and the staff advised me where to eat, just around the corner. I felt comfortable in the restaurant and had tea and more tea, and again, as usual, things felt much better with a belly full of warm food. And I didn’t get sick, a first for staying in Paharganj.

In the morning I had to wake the staff to let me out, I walked down Main Bazar to the end where the train station is. It was early and dark, but there were quite a few people about, including tourists with wheely suitcases, and I didn’t feel unsafe. My driver from the airport had said to me, ‘Don’t be too friendly to people in Main Bazar.’ The hotel staff had said, ‘Don’t listen to anyone at the train station unless they are wearing a black hat and black jacket,’ i.e. the official station staff, because scammers can tell you your train is cancelled (and I suppose then try to sell you hotel rooms, drivers and so on.)

I got to the train station and was about to go to the counter to ask which platform when a man told me it was platform 2. I thought it won’t hurt to believe him, so I went in, and when I checked on the board, he was right. Then I couldn’t work out how to get to it as one stairway was closed, again a man told me the way, and it was correct. So again, although there are scammers, of course, there are also tons of people who are just helping you.

It was five am and dark. You have to get to the station an hour before in India. Because we’ve taken trains before I knew that there are letters and numbers on small displays on the platform which correspond with the carriages, so I waited in the correct area, later making sure by checking with a staff member on the platform. I waited near a family group and messaged John to let him know I was okay.

I was in chair class, in the middle, next to a man Indian born, raised in the UAE and living in the USA, we chatted a lot. On my other side was a British man, who it turned out was listening to exactly the same book I was reading, Haruki Murakami’s The Windup Bird Chronicle. I wondered if we had a message for each other or something, but in the end we ended up chatting and then getting a taxi together to Pushkar, where he was also staying.

The train stops at Ajmer, there was full on hassle re taxis and auto rickshaws, and no pre pay stand there. I hadn’t been able to arrange a pick up from the guesthouse, and potentially that was the most dangerous part of the journey, getting in to an un pre paid taxi, or at least the part I would have been most anxious about. So if that’s all that book synchronicity did, made sure I shared a taxi, felt safe and was safe, that was plenty enough. The taxi dropped me at the bottom of the guesthouse steps, I texted John to say I had arrived and went in to what felt like a home from home, I even had the same room we had in 2018!

Photos: Sunrise on New Year’s Day somewhere between Dubai and Delhi. Supplies and change in my room in Delhi.

Pushkar from previous trip with photos: Pushkar blogs: Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys.  Pushkar draft chapter extracts start here

About the author
I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in South East Asia, mainly India.
I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Here I go again

Tags

escape the matrix, India, Minimalism, Narrowboat, Narrowboat living, Pushkar, Rajasthan, Travel, Travel writing, Voluntary simplicity

I had originally planned to go back to India by myself; I was keen to have some alone time and time to work on my book and I thought it would be a good experience to be in India alone.  But then we just had a month apart, albeit I was on the boat in rural Northamptonshire not in India, but I had plenty of alone time and no longer felt the need to push myself to go off on a solo adventure.  So we decided John would come too.  But life happens and something has come up which means he needs to stay here.  So it looks like I am having a solo adventure after all!

I’m getting an airport pick up from the Delhi guesthouse, I’m staying in a backpacker place with a travel/info desk, we’ve booked my train out of Delhi already- a day time journey in chair class, and I’m going to spend all my time in Pushkar where we’ve been before and know people.

I’m going to do as much book editing as I can, and the rest of the time enjoy Pushkar.  The delights and wonders of Pushkar are many and include: monkeys everywhere, fantastic food*, markets, a small mountain to climb, many beautiful temples to visit, lovely cows to feed, a holy lake and Babas (holy men and possibly women) to talk with.  And nearby Rajasthan cities to visit possibly too. * masala dosas, sabje bhaji, dal, aloo jeera, rice, homemade brown bread with peanut butter, huge bowls of fresh fruit salad with soya milk, all kinds of smoothies, great coffee, there’s even a French bakery a walk out of town…

Photos by my husband Anthony John Hill: the view from our balcony onto Main Bazar Delhi; the view from the guesthouse rooftop restaurant in Pushkar; one of the dear cows of Pushkar with a little friend.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author 

In March 2018 we sold up and left behind most of our possessions to go off travelling for a year, spending most of our time in India.  I wrote a blog and began writing a memoir of the year which I am currently editing.  My husband and I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.  Our days and lives are an interesting mix of the every day and the journey of self realisation.

 

Ganesh and the cat

Tags

Cats, India, Pushkar, Rajasthan

This cat often napped in a sunny spot in the outdoor area near our room in Pushkar.  Nearby was a tree, the same one that the monkeys often visited.  Lying or sitting on the big branches the cat was almost perfectly camouflaged due to its coloring.  This was unfortunate for the bird population; Ganesh from the guesthouse said that there used to be so many more birds in the tree, even parrots.

The cat was not at all friendly.  In the evenings it sat on a wall near the entrance to the guesthouse.  My husband tried to stroke it and got scratched- not for the first time on this trip.

When we told Ganesh about this, he looked sorrowfully at us and explained, ‘I have tried so hard to make that cat love me.  As you know there is no meat in Pushkar* so I went on my scooter to (town several kilometres away) and bought fish and chicken especially for the cat.  I fed the cat the chicken and the fish, then I put my hand out and it scratched me!  Then I showed the cat YouTube videos of cats being cats.  The cat watched those videos for twenty minutes, then it scratched me again!  Three times that cat scratched me that day.  I don’t love that cat anymore.’

*No meat, no eggs, no alcohol.  Although there is a restaurant that has eggs and alcohol on the menu, and other places that sell alcohol discreetly.

Thank you very much for reading

Monkeys!

Tags

India, Monkeys, Pushkar, Travel, Travelling

Near the temples by the holy lake is a small courtyard garden area.  One morning my husband saw it when it was full of monkeys, firstly all competing and jostling for positions, then settling down in their spots on the building or in the tree.

Another morning at the same place he saw just a few adults with lots and lots of baby monkeys, like a crèche, the baby monkeys swinging on the wires, doing somersaults and apparently having a great time.

I went back with him a few mornings later, no crèche but the two nearby trees were full of monkeys.  A man warned us not to stand underneath, ‘They may go to the toilet,’ he said.  ‘This is India, everything is out in the open.’

He was from Pushkar but lives in France and runs an Indian restaurant.  Indian restaurants are much less common in France and Germany than the UK because of the language barrier.  Many Indian people can speak  English, which is why there are lots of Indian people in Canada, the US and the UK, and hence we are also extremely fortunate to have so many Indian restaurants and take aways that even a small town will have at least one.

There was a small shrine in the courtyard garden/monkey crèche; the man said he does pooja and leaves offerings to honour his father but the monkeys destroy it, ‘I don’t mind,’ he said.  ‘This used to be all jungle, they were here first.’

There are two types of monkey in Pushkar, the black faced ones with the long tails, and the more stocky, shorter tailed red faced ones.
Both are found out and about in the town, and by the lake where they are fed along with the cows, birds and dogs.

Monkeys seem to enjoy making noise, one day at the lake I watched a succession of monkeys running along the ghats, each one leaping up to slam against a half open metal door that banged loudly shut before springing open ready for the next monkey to do the same, apparently just for fun.

At the guesthouse the arrival of monkeys is announced by the sound of them jumping heavily across corrugated metal roofs, a sound like firecrackers or thunder.

The black faced monkeys are welcome at the guesthouse, and do not cause any trouble, generally staying in the trees and coming down onto the flat roofs to be fed puri or left over chapatis from the restaurant.  ‘They are family friends.’ Ganesh from the guesthouse told us.

Both types of monkeys sometimes go up and down the stairs to the rooftop and garden like guests, but the red faced monkeys are braver and bound unafraid into the area right outside the rooms.  The red faced monkeys are disliked by the staff, who chase them with sticks.  Ganesh told me that these monkeys can be aggressive to humans, ‘make trouble’ for the black faced monkeys, and fight badly amongst themselves.

When I was sitting outside typing, Ganesh came to stand beside me with a stick. ‘I come to protect you.’  ‘Be careful, they come, you move,’  Ganesh calls the red faced monkeys ‘Donald Trump’ because they are always fighting.  The other, nice monkeys he calls ‘Barack Obama.’

In the interest of balance, I should say that Aloo Baba (see previous post), who lives in the desert and has planted lots of trees over the years, prefers the red faced monkeys, as he says the black faced monkeys jump around in the trees too much and break the branches.

In December we go back to Hampi, where there are monkeys everywhere in the town and in the temples.  People feed them bananas and coconut and except for them coming into your room and taking things that they think might be food, they are not scary.

Thank you very much for reading

Pushkar Babas

Tags

Aloo Baba, Babas, India, Potato Baba, Pushkar, Pushkar Lake, Rajasthan

Accepting the offer of a cup of coffee or chai and sitting down for a chat or just to spend some time together with the Babas at the lake was one of my favourite experiences in Pushkar.  Most even have paper cups so you don’t need to worry about hygiene, and the pots and pans are kept very clean as the fire is considered holy and cooking a spiritual practice.  Some speak English, some don’t, sometimes a passing friend will act as an informal translator, or if not it’s okay to just sit.  Their home is their temple, respectful visitors remove their shoes, do not take photographs without asking, and offer something; money, blanket, ghee, milk, food, either at the time or as a gift at the end of one’s stay in Pushkar.

Naga Baba (above)

Naga Baba who is currently staying by Pushkar Lake, went to live with a Baba when he was ten years old.  Apparently sometimes parents give their child to a Baba to give thanks for help they have received.  Naga Baba can lift great weights with his penis.  ‘If you meditate for fifteen years, you become very strong.’

Ram Dass (above)

Ram Dass was taken in by a temple at the age of seven when his parents died.  He has lived by the lake for ten years.  Like Naga Baba he lives out in the open.  He cooks his meals and makes chai on his holy fire which never goes out.  He built the fire pit himself, and built a second one while we were there.  He is preparing to move into a small tunnel like a cave under the bridge, at nights during the winter.  In the hottest months of the summer he goes to stay with other Babas in the Himalaya mountains.  He mediates every morning from three to six am, meditating on all the world and all the people.  ‘That is my work.’

Aloo baba (above)

A few miles outside Pushkar is Aloo Baba (potato baba), he has eaten only potatoes for the past thirty five years.  Now in his seventies he looks fit and well and says he still walks up the nearby mountain to keep fit.  As well as advocating physical work to make and keep the body strong, he also believes in control.  Control eating- hence the potatoes, which he cooks with salt and a little chilli; control speech, and control looking:  ‘Every woman is my mother or my sister.’  ‘No family, God life or family life, can’t have both.’

 

Towards the end of our stay I did see a female baba in Pushkar, presumably newly arrived amongst several other ‘new’ Babas we had seen here for the upcoming festival.  Ganesh from the guesthouse told us that there are Western women Babas in Varanasi, ‘As white as you,’ he said to me.  ‘And do they also sleep outside?’  I asked.  ‘Yes.’  ‘Are they safe?’  ‘Yes.’

Thank you very much for reading

The cows of Pushkar

Tags

Cows, Cows in India, Pushkar, Street cows

The cows of Pushkar

I think these are my favourite cows so far, with their long tails with their tassle at the end, their floppy ears and their huge curly horns.  The cows here are well fed and very big.  The calves (really I want to say baby cows) have thick ruffled grey coats and with their big ears look almost like donkeys.

As with everywhere I’ve been in India, the cows eat out of garbage and eat plastic bags.  Here I’ve often seen them eating big pieces of cardboard.

In the back streets and at the bridge near the lake, women sell armfuls of green stuff for people to feed the cows.  In the town stall holders put food down for the cows, and cafes give them the first chapatis and dosas of the day.  On the ghats by the holy lake little stalls sell plates of corn (looks like unpopped pop corn), different types of grain, and little ‘cakes’ for people to buy to give to the cows.  There is always corn on the ground, and on a busy day the metal tables in the last picture resemble an informal buffet.

Birds, including pigeons and the sweet songed little birds with yellow beaks are fed from outside shops and restaurants, and the corrugated iron roofs near the lake are thick with corn and pigeons.

Street dogs wait patiently outside cafes at the end of the day to be fed.

People everywhere feed the monkeys.

And I mustn’t forget the pigs and piglets!

 

Thank you for reading

Sab kuch milega: Anything is possible

Tags

Anything is possible, Couchsurfers, India, Inspiration, Inspirational people, Pushkar, Sub kuch milega, Travel, Travelling, Workstay

Sab kuch milega: Anything is possible

 

Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

Drinking ginger lemon tea at a street stall we met a man from Spain, aged forty-four, who has spent the past year cycling from Spain to India.  He is doing it all on a tall bike, the height of two bicycles put on top of each other.  He camps, which he tries to do after dark as he attracts so much attention and interest from the locals, albeit all positive.  He showed us a photograph of a big group of local people who had come to his camp to meet him, to see how he cooks, and to ask questions about his bike and his trip.  Arriving tired and wanting to wash and rest he often has curious visitors descend on him, who also arrive early the next morning and wake him up; although upon opening the tent to see lots of smiling faces peering at him he said it was impossible to be annoyed.  See his blog, it is in Spanish but WordPress offers a translate button.

On the bus we met H, an English woman aged thirty-one who has been away from the UK for seven years, teaching English in Spain for a few years but otherwise travelling using work stay and couchsurfers, (next stop Australia. (hosting a couch surfer also sounds great, scroll down the couchsurfers page to read a host’s view, it brought a tear to my eye!)  This was H’s fifth time in India, she said that often when travelling on buses she is the only foreigner, and her experience has been safe and positive.  We have met lots of solo female travellers and they have all said the same thing, despite the horror stories.  M, a young woman from New Zealand said that her experience had been that Indian people only want to check she’s okay.

H introduced us to J, a twenty-five year old man from Scotland, he has been away from home for four years, again using work stay, doing the online marketing for a trekking company in Nepal, building clay ovens, volunteering, and occasionally spells in a ‘proper job’ earning money for the next stage.

At our guesthouse we met a Spanish couple in their forties who come to India regularly as he buys fabric and has bags made which he then sells to tourists in the Canaries where they live.  He just looks to make enough money, not loads, and manages okay.

Also at our guesthouse we met a British man, fifty-two years old, who spent fifteen years living and working in Japan, first as a DJ in a gentleman’s club, then teaching English to kindergarten kids.  He then worked at a bar in Thailand, the job came with free meals and accommodation.  When that ended he returned to the UK, working most of the year and then travelling for a few months in South East Asia during the winter.  This is the fifth UK winter that he has missed.  He has now got it so that his pattern is six months in the UK working, six months travel, via careful budgeting.  ‘I’m a hermit, when I’m in the UK, I don’t go out.’

We met a mother and son, aged ten, from France travelling for a year, they’ve been to Malaysia, Indonesia, French Polynesia; after India they go to Myanmar, Thailand, then have to choose between Cambodia, Laos and The Philippines.  ‘A year is so short,’ he said, and told me he’d met a family with kids aged four, seven and ten who were travelling around the world on a boat for six years.  ‘So much time,’ he said.  He did his studies happily on a tablet in the restaurant, and proudly showed us his worksheets.

At the local juice bar we met a man from Austria who said he was in India for the winter with his partner and children aged two and four.  He said they’ve been good with the food- although they can spot French fries and Fanta on menus!- and their guesthouse has a big outdoor space where they can play.  Next they are going to Goa for the rest of the winter where they have friends, and there is even a kindergarten for the Western kids.  He said, ‘It’s great because here I have time for them, at home I’d be at work, but here, there’s nothing to do.’  ‘I know, the only thing to think about is, do I need to do my laundry, or do I need some shampoo,’ I said.  ‘Yes, go to the Himalaya shop, that’s it,’ he said and we both laughed.

At our guesthouse we met P, a thirty-four year old woman from Costa Rica who came to India to do a yoga and meditation course and is now doing educational and inspirational videos on YouTube.  Up until recently she was married with a house, a business, two cars and all the trappings of what is thought of as a successful life.  Despite this she wasn’t happy; she separated from her husband, dismantled her business, sold the house and cars, and went off to California to trim marijuana plants.  ‘But you have a doctorate!’ her parents said, but she went anyway.  Right now she is volunteering with rescued elephants in Rajasthan, India, and making her videos.

Also at the guesthouse we met A from Portugal, thirty-three, it was her fifth time in India.  She is an organic farmer and showed us beautiful photographs of figs, of which she grows many different varieties, avocados and glossy purple aubergines.  Together with other environmentally minded people she has successfully persuaded her local authority to vote to protect her local environment, not working along political lines, just to protect nature.  She comes to India for the spiritual and healing aspects, and says she comes here as often as she can when her business is quiet; ‘When the trees are asleep.’

Travel update

In Pushkar until 15th November, then to Delhi, briefly, then to Nepal for two weeks.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

Travel update

Tags

Delhi, India, Pushkar, Travel, Travelling

Photos of Delhi by my husband

Everything took a bit of a wobble this week, due to three things: an outbreak of Zika virus in Jaipur where we were meant to go to next; getting sick; and realising being in a horribly polluted city is, well, horrible.

We had a train booked to go to Jaipur in Rajasthan in the early hours of Monday 15th. However, there was/is an outbreak of Zika virus there. Zika, whilst it is very dangerous for pregnant women, is not fatal as far as I am aware, and most people who had it have recovered, but we still didn’t want to risk getting it. It’s transmitted by mosquitos and they just love my husband.

And then we got sick. I’ve had one or two days of a funny tummy quite often, even recently in Varanasi, Tokyo and Thailand, but this was the first time of being proper sick since the last time we were in Delhi, when we first arrived in March.

So we decided to skip Jaipur and go to the next place on our Rajasthan itinerary which is Pushkar, but could only get there by bus, it wasn’t possible to get a train at such short notice. This meant we had to stay holed up in our hotel room in Delhi until we were well enough to manage an overnight bus journey (no loos on bus!).

We’ve been holed up in our hotel room- for six days!*- not only because we’ve been sick but because the pollution levels of Delhi, whilst always bad are currently appalling.

They apparently implemented emergency plans, ceasing the burning of plastic and enforcing factory regulations, which sound to me like the kinds of things that should be happening all the time anyway, let alone other things like electrifying the auto rickshaws etc… I really feel sorry for the people who live in Delhi all the time.

Here is a link to a photo of a Bryan Adams concert that took place whilst we were there, and information about the problems and control measures.  

Anyway, this has made us reassess our plans, which had involved going from city to city in Rajasthan, a week in each, then Kathmandu, another very polluted city, for two weeks. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but the reality of being in a polluted city has made us question if that was such a great plan.

*Watching funny X Factor auditions on YouTube, watching Dear White People and Big Mouth on Netflix, and sleeping like a cat.

 

But, as my husband said, ‘Things change quickly in India,’ and here we are in Pushkar. We arrived Thursday morning and oh do I feel happy! Lovely big light room, comfy bed, super friendly staff, beautifully painted guesthouse with gorgeous roof terrace with food. We’ve met nice people at the guesthouse and out in Pushkar. Pushkar itself is lovely with its holy lake, well fed cows, lots of cool stalls and good food.

See you next week, and thank you very much for reading

Photos of Pushkar by my husband