What a Motley Crowd

I absolutely love this city, which is composed of at least 3 or 4 separate cities or towns near each other. Because it is on a pilgrimage route and it is during the high season for pilgrims, it is very crowded, and there are tons of markets everywhere. The entire city is vegetarian, including the dogs and cats...I think the entire pilgrim route is veg. I love this because I can walk to any street vendor and say something, anything, and when asked a question, I just do a little head bobble, and I get something ridiculously delicious. I am drinking tons of chai. Finding a cold drink is a luxury--Fanta, water, or Coca cola--in the afternoon it is such a treat (and expensive, like 15-50 cents). In the whole city you cannot buy alcohol. I am dying for a cold beer. Simply dying.

Yesterday the rain stopped and it felt to be 100 degrees and so humid that crossing the road felt like swimming. In the mid-afternoon (like everyone here who can afford it who is not working in a store front or on pilgrimage) I slept for several hours in my room, cooled by my fan. (No air con which I am actually liking.) The heat lends a different feeling to this place, a place completely out of time and the outside world.

Yesterday was Krishna's birthday (Krishna is now 5,200 and some years old and his birthday this year marks the beginning of a new age with many changes to come), many people were fasting. At night I sat on the rooftop of our cottages (there are multiple rooftops and endless windings stairs up and down everywehre in the guesthouseand) and watched everyone walking to temple and listened to the songs praising Krishna coming from every direction. The women wore their best saris, many with gold or silver threads that glistened in the night. During the day there are few women outside of their homes, except for the Indian tourists and pilgrims. The women seem to work all the time washing and hanging clothes. Or they are accompanied by their families buying wedding jewelry.

In the mornings I do yoga on the rooftop. Our teacher has us doing head stands which is a little crazy when you are on a 3rd story roof. At night we drink chai, watch live news about bombings, bus accidents, Bollywood stars or live Hindu festivals, and listen to tabla music played by a very devout Hindu and sometimes accompanied by a strange style of guitar playing by our baba (sadhu). He is a real character. Not to freak anyone out but this place could be considered a little cultish in the U.S. (Don't worry I am not renouncing anything or giving any money to them beyond what is expected!) It is actually like an ashram but more relaxed (no rules) and filled with a very motley and international crew: the Japanese baba, the Japanese manager or worker (turns out she is no relation to the baba but coincidentally happens to live here, more on this later), and a very strange and very thin Russian woman about my age, and 3-4 devout Indian men, including the owner, the tabla player, and the yoga teacher, and the cook/gate-keeper/gardener/housekeeper. The place was founded in 1961 by a very eccentric Swiss woman whose picture now rests in a place of honor. The current owner, Pinky, calls himself Swami something or other in the guidebook. I think that this is for marketing purposes but I'm not sure. He was once a baba himself and lived in a cave but now he drives a nice motorcycle, smokes hash, and prays.

So an update, despite what I said the other day, the Japanese woman manager is not related to or a girlfriend of the Japanese baba. I think she found that having him there is a convenient cover story. She has very feminist sensibilities that she shares with the men (they are more receptive to these ideas than I would have thought) and walks around inside the gated area wearing tank tops which is nice (so I can too.) When she leaves she covers with kurtas or saris. She prays and talks with the men about religion and fasts with them but she does not believe in all of the Hindu beliefs. Sometimes I wonder if she is a lesbian and others I think she is a girlfriend of the owner. It is all very strange and yesterday I found myself imagining that these people are all part of some elaborate scam. (Again, don't worry they are extremely devout Hindus.)

One thing interesting is that I am never told "no" to my questions. Many questions simply elicit a head bobble. There are many people here who do not speak English but most of the larger shop owners do. But I feel very comfortable and safe here, I can walk anywhere and while I get looked at, people are very helpful and nice. They aren't pushy either and let me bargain. Yesterday morning I walked with one of the other male tourists staying at the guest house when I stopped to buy a huge bottle of water. I had bought one previously for R20 but when we walked up to the stand, I was told R30. I told her that I could get for R20, she did a head bobble, and I was so thirsty I told her I'd buy it. I didn't have the right change, so my friend, the guy, paid for it. When the woman at the counter saw my friend turn and start walking away so he couldn't see, she gave me the R10 back.

I considered continuing my pilgrimage north which would entail untold hours of bus rides into country where there are no trains but decided against it to hit a bigger tourist destination on the rail line. I am leaving my French travelling companions behind. One of them is very sick with a bacterial infection and after being plied with homeopathic and other remedies by the Japanese manager, finally accepted my Cipro. If he doesn't improve in a day, he will fly back to France and cut his trip short. The other plans to stay here and try to sort out this madness. I planned to leave to Varanassi tomorrow, the city you have all seen on t.v. as the place Hindus go to die. Cheery, eh? So today I went to the train station to buy a ticket. But I was told by the ticket agent, "It is not possible." Actually the 20 hour air-conditioned express trains were booked for a few days and even the reserved second class tickets were booked. So instead I'll take the bus to Hardiwar and then train overnight to Amritsar, in the Punjab. Amritsar is home to a golden temple, the largest Sikh temple in all of India.

The fun continues...from Hindu to Sikh.