When U Go

In the past few weeks I --

visited Varanasi - one of India's holist cities where people come to die and be cremated in open fire pyres along the Ganga river. The fires burn 24/7. It was intense and a little gruesome (like feet and legs dangling out of the burning wood). After the body is turned to ashes they are poured into the river. Children are not burned b/c they are pure and their bodies are put in the river and left to float and decompose. (I saw two floating bodies one day.)
watched amazing, colorful nighttime prayer sessions along Ganga river in Varanasi where dancers and people offer candels, dances, incense, songs and flowers to the river. (vid below)
got lost for hours in the old alleyways and streets of Varanasi - said to be the world's oldest city
shopped for silk
had my spirit crushed in Varanasi
had my spirit lifted in Varanasi
went to Darjeeling for traditional British tea and some cool mountain air
got robbed on a train
met a wonderful couple from Lithuania
braved Delhi for one more night (and had a bed full of bed bugs!)
did an Osho active meditation class with 15 other people that was fabulous
took a train ride through rural central India -- gorgeous and very, very poor
had a palm reading - apparently I will change jobs in 2007/ 2008 so there might be something it after all!
slept in an old royal house from the time of the Maharaja in eastern India.
caught a puppet show
gotten caught in countless monsoons
listened to beautiful traditional music on a sitar and accordion
stepped in cow shit at least 10x
had a ride in an Ambassador taxi
saw elephants and camels roaming the streets amid traffic
watched the world's largest sun dial (but it was cloudy that day!)
took the wrong train for 12 hrs to the other side of Bagladesh (totally my own fault for rushing)
visited an orphanage
ate a scrumptious breakfast off a banana leaf in S. India
jumped into the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal
have met so so many wonderful Indian people and other travelers

I'm heading to a yoga ashram for my last week in India and won't have access to the outside world. I can't wait to catch up with you all when I get back :)

Love, Stephna

I've been completely out of touch! My camera broke a week or so ago and I also just sort of got lost in the daily life of Dharamsala. It was such a nice place and I made so many friends that it was easy to stay for weeks. I taught English each day to a monk and a Tibetan boy who was the cook for a monastery. They were so fabulous! When I left I cried because they each gave me a white scarf to say good-bye -- symbolic of respect and honor. The same scarves worn in the Buddhist temples.

Traffic Chaos

Typical Indian driving tactics = survival of the fittest mixed with a dose of playing chicken with every possible thing on the road including, buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles, scooters, donkey-drawn carts, motor rickshaws, peddle rickshaws, bicycles and pedestrians -- which are the absolute lowest element on the road food chain. It’s no wonder there are so many gods in this country – all during a 10-hour bus or jeep ride I pray to as many as I can remember!!
The name of the game on the roads is drive as fast as possible while honking incessantly and pass, pass, pass.

Typical view of what is barreling towards you on every road.

Playing chicken with cows.

Monsoon rains washes out part of the road on the way to Punjab.

View from the front seat.

Tailgating :)

Pubjab man watching the traffic go by.

The Golden Temple

I met up with some of my old traveling peeps and headed off to Punjab state for one last trip together to visit the Golden Temple: the most sacred temple for the Siehks. (We learned about the temple when we did our trek a few weeks ago and met all of the Seihks.) We rented a jeep and driver so that we didn't have to take the god-forsaken public bus for eight hours.

The temple is gorgeous - it sits in the middle of a "lake" and the reflections are breathtaking. The temple complex is about an acre total, with the Golden Temple (leafed with pure gold) sits in the center of it all. There is a public kitchen that will feed anyone and everyone for free -- they wheel in huge buckets of food all day long. And there are beds to sleep in for free so that even poor people can make the trip to the temple and have housing. It's all part of the "compassion and charity" elements of Seihkism. The Seihks are some of the warmest people I've met in India. And they have a crazy facination with collecting pictures of forgieners -- I've taken at *least* 50 pictures with Punjabi Seihks since I got here! They are so nice when they ask it's hard to say no.

Four to five musicians and a singer sit in the bottom level of the temple and play for 20 hours each day. They play sitar, small drums and keyboard. (The temple closes with a great ceremony for four hours each night and it’s cleaned and shined from top to bottom, and the floors are washed with milk.) The musicians sit around a sacred book and sing the different hymns and chants from the holy book. The whole temple complex is wired with speakers so the sound is omnipresent all day. The sounds are lovely.

On the roof of the temple there is a room where top Seihks take two-hour turns reading the holy book which takes about 40 hours in total. There are worshippers who stay at the temple for two – three days and listen to the whole duration.

Lakshmi Narayan Temple

Yes, yet another temple! This one for the Hindu goddesses Durga & Laxmi (goddess of wealth). You give flowers as a donation. Just a few pics :)

An awesome family selling lotus flowers

Super cute kids near temple

More Pics from Dharmasala

A sign in front of the Dali Lama's house talking about his availablility.

Prayer wheels at Tibetan Buddhist temple. Spinning the wheel is equal to saying the prayer locked inside the wheel. There are about one hundred at the temple.

Boy spinning prayer wheels.

Man praying at temple. He will drop down to his stomach and then stand up, over and over for more than an hour.
He (and other worshipers) wear cloth pads on their hands to make it easier to slide their hands out in front of them on the floor and stretch out on their bellies and slide back up again.

Tibetan monk shopping.

Chilling at the tea shop :)

Tibetan Cooking and a Story of One Refugee

I'm taking a series of three Tibetan cooking classes - so far I've learned to make "momos" which are steamed dumplings and three kinds of bread :)

My teacher is a Tibetan refugee and his story is amazing. He escaped Tibet 10 years ago when he was only 13 y/o, he came alone without any family and his sister financed the trip. He crossed the Himalayas with a group of 10 others and a guide. They had a lot of trouble -- they had to wait for several days in the mountains for Chinese guards to leave an area; they ran out of food and b/c the elevation was so high the older members had a really hard time breathing. Miraculously, a group of Western mountaineers came along and shared some of their oxygen tanks and some food. This helped them continue on. When they got to the Nepal border, they were met by a gang posing as police who took them into custody and took almost all of the group's money they had with them to start their new lives. My teacher hid a small amount of money like 50 YEN in the spout of the tea pot he brought with him, and the Nepalese didn't find it. That was all he came to India with - 50 YEN and tea pot.

He's here now in Dharmasala and is doing really well with his cooking classes. He's married to a gorgeous Tibetan woman who came over six years ago via a similar route. Their families have been interrogated about their whereabouts so they can never go home or contact home again. They seem happy here, but def miss their home.

Pics fo what I've made :)

Dharmasala - Home of the Dali Lama (and another Lama)

Dharmasala is beautiful - it's in the north east of India and at the base of the Himalayas, and is the home of the Dali Lama and the exiled Tibetan government. Prayer flags snap in the wind and the views of the valleys and mountains are spectacular. India gave the Tibetans this town for their refugees and it's a place where they can live peacefully without persecution from the Chinese. Apparently the Dali Lama just walks around town when he's here. He also gives public talks. Unfor. he's traveling until Sept. do I don't know if I'll meet him. :(

Every year thousands of Tibetans make the two-month long trek through the Himalayas in winter first to Nepal and then from there they are transferred here to Dharmasala. They travel in winter b/c the snow is safer to walk on and it's harder for the Chinese guards to spot them. Hundreds get frostbite and have to have limbs amputated. Others don't make it at all. It's facinating to talk to people here and get their stories.

Besides the Dali Lama there is another very high holy Lama lives in exile here -- the Karmapa Lama. He's about 22 years old (but in the 17th reincarnation) and leads a branch of Buddhism that offshoots from the Dali Lama's teachings. Today I went to a ceremony at his monastery where he appeared for a few minutes to give blessings and receive donations. The ceremony was very organized. After bowing several times when the Lama first came out into the hall, everyone (including me) assembled into a line and had a white scarf with them. (I didn't know that you needed a scarf so I ran out and got one from someone who finished her blessing already.) As you get up to the front where the Lama is another monk takes the scarf wraps it over your neck and shoulders and then you can approach the Karmapa Lama. You do a quick bow and in return he hands you a red string.

The white scarf is an ancient Tibetan tradition -- the color symbolizes purity of intention and aspiration. The red string is called a protection and blessing cord. The lama ties a knot in the cord, then prays over it and blows the power of his mantra into it. It's supposed to symbolize the lama's protection even after departing from his physical presence.

You weren't allowed to bring cameras so I don't have any personal pictures, but here is one that I plucked from the internet.