Portrait tees

It began with a parting gift for our beloved Surinder when he left for his conference; we wanted to give him a token of our love and appreciation, and decided to sign a t-shirt for him. I mentioned to a few people that I wanted to draw a little caricature of him on it, and then when I did, everyone liked it so much that they didn’t want to sign near it! So we all signed in a little cluster on the back. I didn’t mean to commandeer the shirt, but I was glad everyone liked the portrait, and especially that Surinder really liked it!

Then, at the end of the course, we wanted to have a gift for the amazing Panday Ji, so it was decreed that I would make another shirt. “Amberlea, we want to give Panday Ji a gift, so you need to make another shirt.” I was happy to oblige, and it was so great to see Panday Ji’s reaction. I thought he’d know it was coming, since we made a shirt for Surinder, but he looked completely surprised and blown away. That incredibly humble man doesn’t realize the impression and impact he had on all of us!

Then I made one with Mark’s face on it, to wear when I met him at the airport in Kathmandu. I had it draped over a chair in my room before I left, and one fellow student walked by and asked “Fidel?” Which is funny, because that’s what Indians would say to Mark as he passed “Hey! Fidel! Hashish?”

So, now I seem to be a maker of t-shirt portraits. Me thinks there might be an etsy shop in my future.

My Annapurna Yeti!

Rishikesh: beyond the ashram

Rishikesh from Ram Jhula

India unearths your limits and pushes you to them, and sometimes a little bit beyond. It’s challenging, overwhelming, and impossible to ignore. But there is beauty and magic, too, that’s difficult to put into words. So much colour. So many sounds. So many smells. So much of everything.

Though my days were long at the ashram, we had Sundays off and a couple of breaks in the day, and after meals (when it wasn’t too scorchingly hot), I would walk down to the river and through the bazaar, past the chai, vegetable, and jewellery sellers, among the babas, sadhus, yogis, and others at various stages on their path to enlightenment. Oh, and of course cows – that sort of goes without saying, since they’re nearly synonymous with India – high on their own sacredness, leaving fecal landmines willy nilly for us lowly spiritual aspirants to dodge.

Rishikesh is spread out along both sides of the Ganges, which, since it’s closer to the source, is much clearer, having not yet accumulated as much pollution as it will have by the time it reaches Varanasi. Also, it’s cold. Blissfully, frigidly so. And since the daily high was in the mid-forties – and there’s no AC anywhere, just fans to push the hot, dry air around – a dip in the Ganges is going to happen, fecal contaminants or not. The river rushes past the ghats at such speeds that holding on to a chain is necessary, while the sand from upstream gets swirled into your pockets and crevices (yes, women must go in fully clothed, this isn’t Koh Phangan). This isn’t a leisurely river swim by any stretch. It’s a desperate attempt to lower one’s core temperature to survive the inescapable heat for the following few hours.

The neighbourhood I lived in is called Swarg Ashram, near Ram Jhula, and it’s about a half hour walk from better known Laxman Jhula, which is full of restaurants, stores, and more ashrams. It’s a colourful, vibrant area to walk around, and go for a contraband dinner after days and days and days of dal and curries (though delicious, sometimes you just want pizza – though don’t expect to break all the rules and eat meat or have a beer – Rishikesh is a dry, vegetarian town).

A few other highlights include a visit to The Beatles’ Ashram (I didn’t have my camera with me when I went, which is probably best for everyone, since I’d still be there photographing all the incredible architecture and graffiti and decay), rafting, visiting Hindu and Sikh temples, hiking to waterfalls, chanting in caves, and meditating under trees.

Share, don't teach.

I have been struggling with this post, and how to effectively share what my month in Rishikesh was like. Intense, challenging, overwhelming, amazing are some adjectives, but I think the experience was even more profound than I can yet realize, and with time, the lessons learned will reveal themselves. But for now, prepare yourself for some first-class rambling!

Of course there’s the practical knowledge I learned: anatomy, physiology, Ayurveda, yogic philosophy, the details of the poses, and how the body moves within them. All of our teachers were incredibly knowledgeable and clearly cared deeply about what they do, and once we grew accustomed to the Indian accents and new Sanskrit terms, (and once I got over my souvenir Delhi Belly from Delhi...) things got easier to follow.

And then there’s the funny anecdotes, about how we struggled to wake up for our 5:30 am class, or how monkeys would sometimes sneak into the classroom and try to steal our notebooks, or how, some days, we really had to coerce our bodies into doing all three of our 1.5 hour classes of yoga, or how, tired of eating sattvic Indian food day in, day out for weeks, we broke the rules (“no outdoor food”) and went for pizza.

Then there’s the deeper lessons you don’t even realize you’re learning, like how hard you can push yourself and learn to do so much more than you ever thought, or how profoundly humbling a teacher’s passion for their subject can be, or how to be courageous and believe in yourself with all of your heart.

Through all of this, it always felt strange that we would all be going home to our western countries, where all of this ancient knowledge isn’t ingrained, and where we’ve appropriated a few tiny pieces of this bigger thing called Yoga, and have lost the connection with where it originated.

Before I get too esoteric, let me back up a bit and talk about the differences between Yoga in India, and yoga in the west. Indian Yoga is a life path, it isn’t something that you do for an hour, once a week, it’s something that you live, completely and whole-heartedly. The yoga we’re familiar with, the stretching and the bending, is really just one tiny component, more accurately called Asanas, which means postures or poses. But in India, there is so much beyond the poses, and the poses are a means to an end, not the end in and of itself.

There are many different paths of Yoga in India. For instance, Karma Yoga is the path of action, or doing good things; Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion; Raja Yoga is the 8-fold path (and includes asanas); and Djana Yoga is the path of wisdom and knowledge. And even within Raja Yoga where the asanas are a stage to master, it’s more about how to master your seated posture to better facilitate meditation.

Yoga in India is not about toning or slimming, or even about lowering your blood pressure. These things may happen too, but it doesn’t matter. It’s about mastering your body, and through subsequent stages of controlling the breath and meditation, you get closer to knowing yourself. The word Yoga comes from the root “yuj” which means to join, and depending on your interpretation means various things, like uniting with yourself, uniting with the universe, or uniting with the great cosmic power, and so on. There’s a lot of room for interpretation, and things very quickly get very heavy. So how can we relate this to western realities where it’s not practical to spend our days trying to achieve enlightenment? (Pencil in some ‘Enlightenment time with the Cosmic Power’ before my 3:30, ok?)

A country apart, but worlds away

There is so much to update you on from the last month! I am now officially a certified yoga teacher, and Mark hiked the full Annapurna Circuit and Annapurna Base Camp (and he enjoyed himself so much he was willing to repeat a small loop of it so he could share it with me)!

However, since we’ve been together in Nepal, regular, sustained power outages and rural settings accessible only by foot have meant no internet time, but updates are coming, I promise! In the meantime, here’s a snapshot of what our months looked like. Almost exactly the same.

Rishikesh.

Not Rishikesh.

Inner and outer journeys

When we set out on this adventure, we knew our plans would shift and change, but of course, we didn’t know in which ways. Looking back, it’s interesting to see how differently things have gone than we anticipated. We’ve added destinations based on recommendations from travelers we’ve met along the way, lingered longer in places we’ve enjoyed causing others to get bumped, and other places have proved too expensive or too inconvenient to visit.

A few months back, feeling a slight aimlessness from constantly moving around and not “doing” anything (goodness, are we programmed to only feel satisfaction when we’re productive, or what?!), we decided that we would change the course of the trip.

I’d been planning on taking a yoga teacher training course for a long time, so why not look into courses in India? I have been practicing for many years and I love how rejuvenating, challenging, and soul-enriching yoga is, and would love to share that joy with others or at least deepen my own practice. So I researched ashrams in Rishikesh, considered by many to be the birthplace of yoga, found one that’s a good fit for my goals, and after much deliberation, registered!

So tomorrow I begin an intensive, month-long yoga teacher training program. I’m looking forward to the challenge and to immersing myself in something I’m passionate about.

Since I’ll be tied up for a month and Mark can’t stay at the ashram unless he’s in the program, he’s heading to Nepal to hike the Annapurna circuit, a 200+ km trek through the Himalayas! So we’re both embarking on journeys: mine primarily an inner journey, and his an outer one!

It will be strange and also difficult being apart, after being within arms reach of each other for almost five solid months, but it will be good for us, too. We’ve been using our days in Delhi to get a few provisions, since we have to divide up things we’ve been sharing, and resting up before the next phase of our adventure begins!

As a result things will be a little quiet on the blogging front for the next month, but I’ll post when I get to Nepal when I will be a certified yoga teacher, and Mark will have morphed into a full-blown yeti!

Peace out!

The Taj

How do you begin to describe something so well-known and hyped as the Taj? I certainly wondered if it would live up to expectations, but I can honestly say, it is incredible beyond words. Is it because of it's perfect symmetry that this mammoth mausoleum, with it's central dome, vaulted archways and soaring minarets, that it appeals so strongly to our sense of beauty? It's imposing size? It's idyllic riverside location and surrounding gardens? The creamy, marble surface that becomes a canvas for the sun to paint it's colours on? Of course it's all of these things, and something else, beyond words, that "the sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs" as emperor Shah Jahan wrote of his construction.

It was worth the early morning to be two of the first through the gates at 6 am, and see that classic view without people in it. We sat and watched as the first rays of the sun began to add dimension to the dome, and as the sky turned blue, the light on the Taj shifted through peaches and pinks then brighter whites. So incredibly atmospheric! I wonder had Monet painted the Taj, would he have done it in a series, as he did Rouen Cathedral so he could capture the shifting light and colour over the course of the day?

The Agra Fort

Just a few kilometres west of the more famous Taj Mahal lies the Agra Fort, once the second capital of India, and home to many conquering Sultans over the centuries, each adding or removing elements to create the complex we see today.

Within the moat-surrounded walls are many courtyards, arcades, pavillions, mosques, and palaces, with carvings so intricate they somehow make the marble look light and delicate, especially in contrast to the rough, red sandstone of the exterior walls.

An interesting feature I read about after is that because of the "90-degree turn between the outer and inner gates, the entrance is impregnable, because at the time attackers often used elephants to ram and crush a fort's gates, but without a straight ramp to gather speed, elephants are ineffective."

Sleepless, in India

Traveling around India is a pain. The train system is complicated and convoluted, and trains book up weeks in advance. Weeks ago, Mark navigated the confusion that is the online booking system and got us on the waitlist for the night train from Varanasi to Agra. Everything he read and researched said that if you’re within the top ten on the waitlist, you’ll be good to go, and you’ll get a bunk. We began in positions six and seven, and moved up to one and two the day before. So we headed to the train station, anticipating getting a bunk, but the chart had been prepared, and we hadn’t made it off the waitlist. We were then told that we could get an “open ticket” and then talk to the conductor on the train, and he would fill us in the ‘no-show’ bunks.

However, on the train, the conductor was completely unhelpful, and instead of finding us an empty spot (which there were clearly lots of), he said something in Hindi, and gave one of the baffling Indian head bobs accompanied by a gesture which we were not sure meant come, go, stay, good, bad, yes, or no…

When it came time to fold the bunks down and turn in, we found a couple of empty bunks and settled in, careful to sleep in contact with our bags, which everyone, including the station master, had told us to keep an eye on, because theft was a huge problem on the train. Awesome! G'night!

The bunks were hard, dusty filthy, and had no pillow or sheets (like the Vietnamese trains did).

After a mere two hours of sleep, we were woken up at midnight by some passengers who’d just gotten on the train, and had tickets for our bunks. Bummer. In a sleepy stupor, we looked around, and the train had completely filled up! There were no free bunks! The only spot we could find was one of the door alcoves by the washrooms which reeked of urine. So we crammed ourselves into that space, and slept beside our bags, on the floor. Or, rather, I slept uncomfortably in fits, while Mark valiantly kept vigil for thieves and Indian men staring at me.

Oh, I'd so much prefer sleeping on a hard, filthy bunk right now!

At some point the conductor came around and made us pay a penalty for sleeping on the floor! It was all very shady and unpleasant.

I kept thinking, someday we will laugh, and laugh about this… but it is not this day.

We arrived in Agra, bleary-eyed, at about 6 am, with ourselves and our packs intact, and headed out to find a guesthouse. And though the hotel we found was ramshackle, dirty, and overpriced, we could see the Taj Mahal from our room! Albeit through the bars on the window, which were there to keep the roving monkeys out—an actual threat! But still, we could see it, and it was splendid, and we watched it change colour as the sun painted various shades of light across it. Was it worth sleeping on the floor of a train for this? You betcha.

The Taj in bright, midday sun.

The Taj in a warm, sunset glow.

The Taj at night.

Intense India

Since I rambled on and on about Bhutan, I’ll keep it brief for Varanasi. In fact, I’ll sum it up in one word:

Whoa.

It is true what everyone says: nothing can prepare you for India. The few peaceful, luxurious days we spent in Bhutan did not help to lessen the shock. Varanasi is intense! The maze of narrow streets are clogged with people and animals and colours and noise and smells. People walking, people on bicycles, and somehow also on motorcycles, honking their way forward through the crowds, past stray dogs curled up underfoot in the middle of the street, somehow not getting stepped on, squeezing past massive cows eating piles of garbage, and leaving equally large piles of dung which is spread around from all those feet, wheels, and hoofs walking through it, creating so much more festering surface area for flies to languish. There is no denying the filth. And the noise! The noise is incredible! Talking, shouting, chanting, barking, mooing, clanging, sizzling, screeching, singing.

And that’s just the streets. These busy streets tumble down into the Ganges into equally bustling ghats. Bathing ghats, funerary ghats, laundry ghats. On the banks of the holy river, from before dawn, until well into the night, life is lived.

And above it all, majestic eagles and lime-green parakeets fly, dodging the kites that flutter and fly from rooftop terraces, across which, hoards of monkeys scamper and jump.

Varanasi is positively thrumming with life, and yet despite the overwhelming chaos, this place feels enormously sacred, and there is something utterly enchanting about it all.