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Songkran
I peered slowly around the corner. Snapping my head back before I was spotted I stood with my back pressed against the wall and tried to think. Chiang Mai had turned, literally overnight, from a peaceful mountain city to a war-zone. Now I found myself cowering in an alleyway trying to work up the courage to look out again.
I did. There were about twelve of them. Mostly young men, teenagers. All of them armed to the teeth with rifles and pistols and… I pulled my head back. Why didn’t I listen to everyone? I had been warned. I had been told not to go out. To stay in my hostel and wait it out. But I had laughed. I had been stubborn. I wanted to go on like nothing had changed. Like nothing was different. But there was a big difference. Songkran.
It wasn’t so bad this morning, when I had gone out for a run down the cool streets. Those who were up and about seemed normal enough. But now they were different. Gangs roamed the streets or set up makeshift bases on the footpaths. Pick-ups cruised slowly down the streets, the backs bristling with weapons and eager young warriors. Everywhere there was screaming and shouting, people were running down the streets or furiously trying to barricade their homes and shops.
I thought about the way I had come. It was the wrong way to my hostel but I thought maybe I could get around some how. I looked down to my left. An old man was handing weapons out to a small group of children. Some of them looked younger than ten. I pulled my head back into the safety of the shadow.
The kids were the worst. Not because they were more dangerous but because you never expected it from a kid. They’d look at you and smile and you’d think “it’s only a kid, look at him!” and then he’d charge. And so would all of his friends and brothers and sisters and parents. The kids were the worst. It was humiliating to be scared of a child. But these kids were dangerous. I had seen on the news before I left the cafe that nearly 100 people had been killed already, with about 1200 injured. Mostly drivers, either shot off their bikes as they tried to speed past, or people injured when cars lost control on the roads. Thousands more were expected to be killed or injured over the next few days.
I watched one of the red Sawngthaew pass by my alley. Maybe I should try to flag one down. Sawngthaew were a cross between a taxi and a bus; they were heavy, old pick-up trucks with metal covers over the back and rows of benches inside. They picked anyone up who was going their way for a small charge. Now they had slipped into the role of armoured cars, offering some protection to those foolhardy enough to attempt travel. I followed it with my head as it moved up the road towards the gang. One of the women stepped out in front of it and waved for it to stop. I saw it slow, I saw the people in the back peer out through the thin slits in the steel sides. The gang swarmed the truck, shouting and whooping. They stuck the barrels of their guns through the slit-windows and fired. I heard the people inside, young girls it sounded like, screaming. I ran for it. This was my chance. They didn’t notice me as I ran behind them, they were still firing and there were still screams coming from the truck.
“Do what I’m going to do, stay at home with a couple of beers and wait the whole thing over.” Andy sat beside me the day before. “This Songkran is no joke, lots of people are going to get hurt.” He was right, this wasn’t the time to be out and about. My hostel was dark and barren, like a prison cell. But it was safe from all this madness. I wished I was there already, but I had several kilometers to go. I darted up a street, sweat trickling down my spine. I staggered to a stop, bent over with my hands on my knees. Gasping in the warm air I looked up ahead. Oh no, god please no – there was a group of children on the corner. Maybe five of them. They were doing what all the crazy people seemed to be doing. Waiting for some poor sap to stumble into them.
I straightened myself up. I hoped that maybe my white face and expensive clothes would give them second thoughts about attacking me. I walked casually along the opposite footpath, right up level with them. One of the boys was standing in the middle of the road, watching me as I walked up towards him. His face was curious but his weapon was pointing down. I smiled. He smiled back. He shouted at the top of his lungs. I ran like crazy. I could hear them shouting and chasing me, and as I looked behind me I saw several men spill out of the shops beside them and join the chase. Rounding the corner I nearly crashed into a group of women. Two girls and a middle aged woman. They were loading pistols. One of them grinned at me and nudged the other two. They straightened up. “Police! Police!” I shouted and pointed behind them, hoping to distract them for a second. They didn’t even blink, they knew the police were powerless. Songkran was in control now. The first group was coming around the corner behind me so I had no choice, I ran full on though the middle of the women. They all fired and I felt a wet slap on my shoulder as one of them hit. I ran on.
Songkran had taken over Chiang Mai, the police made no efforts to curb it. They had become targets themselves for the gangs. It was all over the news, pictures of fighting in the streets, ambulances carrying off the injured. Traffic police trying to control the flows of cars in and out of the city. I stood in my room, panting. The steady drip-drip from my shirt forming a small puddle on the concrete. I stopped panting and shrugged. If you can’t beat them, join them. I tore off my shirt, chalked my face like rambo and raced out the door. At the entrance to the hostel I stopped. There were two kids on the street outside. A pistol in each hand and screaming out my best war-yodel I charged out the gate, knees springing to my chest and flip-flops slapping the ground. The kids saw me and took a step back as if to run, but then changed their mind and ran straight at me firing their guns. I fired too and their was a melee of whirling bodies as we leaped around attempting to secure solid a hit. I was winning, and I would have won if it wasn’t for their dad who joined the battle. He opened fire from the garden and hit me dead in the chest, nearly knocking me off my feet. I staggered back, saw that I was out manned and out gunned, turned on my heel and scarpered. What else could I do? The cheeky git had his garden hose!
This is Songkran, the Thai new year and the worlds biggest water festival. From the 13th to the 15th of April, the Thai celebrate with the throwing of water. Chiang Mai is considered the best place to be if you want to get wet in April, with tens of thousands of people taking to the street to drink, dance and attack everyone within sight with water guns, pans, buckets and hoses. Outside Central, the biggest shopping centre in Chiang Mai, armies of people can be found jerking to the thump of dance music and filling the air with water from huge fire hoses. The roads become moving water fights, with people waging war from the backs of trucks and motorbikes. On the stretch of road from the shopping centre to the area my hostel is in, about 3 kilometres, I counted no less than 30 water points, places were anyone driving on the road or (insanely!) trying to walk on the footpath would get a solid soaking. Old men and women with barrels of water dole out dishes of it over the head of passers by like it was a gift. Young men with tanks of water on their backs stalk the streets giving high-pressured refreshment to anyone they spot looking remotely dry. A particularly sneaky one are the groups of sweet looking girls walking around pouring ice-water down peoples necks! Blasting passing motorists appears to have the most appeal, motorcyclists being the most vulnerable. Most of the injuries and deaths associated at this time of hear are either due to dangerous driving (usually involving alcohol) or people simply being lifted off their bikes by a bucket of water. The Thai way of dealing with this is somewhat interesting, where instead of asking people to stop throwing buckets of water at motorists, they ask the motorists to slow down so that the attackers can poor the water on them instead! Even with all the associated problems, most Thais love this time of year and the children squirm in anticipation weeks in advance. The buzz on the streets is incredible, and everybody is smiling and laughing and having a great time. Songkran baby, YEAH!
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Best avoid the rickshaws…
I keep reading this particular gem of wisdom wherever I turn. I read it at tourism advice centres, on notice boards and even our faithful Lonely Planet. I pick it out of the hum-drum of back-packer conversations around me at our busy hostel chill-out room. I’ve been solicited this pearl by everyone back home who has ventured out into South Asia. Teachers, relatives, friends… People who I would consider well travelled, people who talk about the joys of experiencing the greater world. But it always seems to creep in there.
“Oh Thailand is great, but if you’re staying in Bangkok watch out for the rickshaw drivers.”
Watch out? What are these devious fiends up to?
“They’re everywhere, always calling out to you, telling you that you want to go somewhere you don’t. Asking where you want to go. God, I wish they’d just leave you alone!”
Yeah, righteous words brother…
“And when you do want to go somewhere, they either try to take you to their mates shop or tell you a crazy price! You can’t trust them at all! Then you have to argue and argue and they act like you’re stealing from them just because you want the right price. It’s just not worth the bother.”
Ahh, are we saying it’s the haggling that’s getting you down?
“And it’s not just that, when you get into the thing you are literally putting your life in their hands. They fly along at speeds that would make you cry, weaving in and out of traffic just to get there a few minutes quicker.”
So you don’t think taking the rickshaws is a good idea?
“They’re way too much hassle, mate. Take my advice, best avoid the rickshaws.”
This is normally followed by a knowing look and a genial pat on the back. I, of course, can only manage a slight raise of my eyebrows or slow nod, clearly this is a true master backpacker before me. I do tend to have one or two reservations as to the definite tone that this advice is imparted. Just one or two things itch away at me after hearing this conversation for the umteenth time. It always seem to make me go into a small, two-way soliloquy.
It’s true that they call out to you all the time, no matter how polished your I’m-not-interested-in-getting-a-rickshaw walk is.
Well, this is there living. In a street crowded with rickshaws, how many times did you take the first one that the driver gave you a wave? If you’re not interested, a smile and a shake of the head works every time. What’s the big deal?
True, they are very polite once you are. Here in Thailand they smile back and leave it at that. In India a stink-bomb and a machete couldn’t get them off you… What about the haggling? It’s a lot of bother and stress just to get a decent price.
It’s a common way to do business in a lot of Asian countries. It’s just another thing that make’s our cultures different, the very thing so many backpackers quote as their reason for travelling in the first place! As for stress, that nearly always comes from the tourist. They forget that a good deal is one where both parties are happy. They often treat the interaction as a battle of honor or something, that by beating someone down you are therefore a mighty backpacker, a street-wise viking with a will of steel! More like conscience of steel if you ask me. An extra 20 baht isn’t much to them, but makes a big difference to some of those drivers. Would it kill them to settle before it gets to the stage of strangling the poor git with your purse-strings?
Easy tiger! It’s not beyond reason to want to get your worth for your hard earned cash. That 20 baht is still money earned through slaving away at some crappy job. The taxis charge less, and they are air-conditioned to boot! Why pay for a hair-raising ride in a three-wheeler when you could have luxury for less?
Have you seen the traffic in Bangkok? The price is only cheaper if it says so on the meter when you get there, which might take all day. The hair-raising ride you complain about gets you there much faster. Plus you know that you’re only paying an agreed price, so there is no chance of the driver going for a wander to fatten the meter.
If you get there at all! Sitting in the back of one of those is like being strapped to an airplane at take-off!”
So what you complaining about air-conditioning for?
From there it tends to go downhill, and I switch off the confusing interaction in my head. What it really seems to come down to is the whole idea of what you went out there to do. If you want posh rooms with air-con and western toilets, no probs. But if you tell me that you want to experience the world and see life through different angles, and then bitch and moan about the changes you have to cope with…
It was six o’clock on the button, and I found myself waiting outside our hostel with a group of much less awkward-looking tourists. I had decided to go against the warnings of scams and misleading photographs and had booked my bus journey to Chiang Mai with a hotel travel agency. I knew there was a risk of being lumped with a cramped minivan instead of the luxury double deck-er tour bus that was advertised. The public buses were supposed to be just as comfortable and cheaper. Plus you got to see the bus before you bought your ticket. But I must confess that my decision to go private was heavily influenced by the fact that the public bus stand was a half hour taxi ride out to buy the ticket, a half hour taxi ride back to organise my bags and spend the 6 hour interval chilling out in front of the hostel telly, and a half hour taxi ride back out to actually get the bus. All that adds up to lazy-bum syndrome and going against good advice. Plus I wasn’t too worried, if it turned out to be a rusted old sardine can with missing windows in place of air-con, no worries. It would still be a fairly respectable transport vehicle by Indian standards (after all, it still had the recommended number of wheels).
What the warning should have included, which would have made me suffer the taxi nonsense, was a big fat red sticker at the bottem reading “WARNING! Tourist buses tend to carry large amounts of rich westerners in close proximity for large periods of time!”
I noticed her the moment I joined the swarming mass of tourists. She would have stood out like a sore thumb was it not for the dozens of others like her waiting at the private bus stand. She had her hair scrunched up and loosely tied to the back left of her head, her trousers were expensive looking and three-quarter length and her expression turned her face into a mouse in a spring-trap. Once cute, but currently mangled beyond all recognition. She was sitting on the curb, loudly complaining to the world in general about the bus being late. Every few moments she turned to one of the Thai organisers and asked how much longer the bus would be, using that I’m-being-as-reasonable-as-anyone-can-be-in-my-current-situation voice greatly favoured by completely unreasonable people. When the bus pulled in a little down the road she let out a loud “Fiiinally!” and promptly turned to the organiser to ask if she could be allowed to have her bag put on first as she was the one standing closest to where the door of the last bus had been parked. After that I lost sight of her in the scramble of people and the voices of organisers calling out for order.
Ah, crap – I thought as I saw her again. She was sitting next to the only two empty seats left, one across from her and one beside her. I chose the former. The latter was currently occupied by her shoulder-bag and legs, which were attached to her scowl of indignation that she threw at anyone who dared approach the chair in question. I assumed that she was trying to save the seat for a friend, a little cheeky in a bus full to capacity. It turned out, when one of the male organisers turned up to tell her to move her bag so that someone could sit down, that she had been planning to keep the second seat to stretch out on. She stared at him for a few seconds, made a big show looking around at the other passengers like someone being asked to throw their mother over-board to save on weight, and then moved her bag. “Ghghaw!” looking away for dramatic effect “Fine!” The poor woman who sat next to her sure had some journey to look forward to.
The bus, we were assured, was to be a luxury coach. It would have reclining seats, air-conditioning, a television and a toilet on board. It had been a luxury coach, once. The air-conditioning was long since broken and the television had a VCR attached and no tapes. The toilet was a fabrication entirely. None of this bothered me, as I was used to the heat and intended to sleep most of the long night anyway. It certainly bothered the other passengers, who complained in a multitude of languages for the entire 12 hours. As for the reclining seats, when the german lady in front of me politely asked if she could lower hers I said “of course”. When I later turned to ask the two British girls behind me if I could lower mine, they responded by staring at me and then one said, in a really bitchy scoff, “I have barely enough space as it is.” Later in the night watched them recline their chairs without even asking the people behind them. During the journey a group of five Dutch students joined us. They had tickets like everyone else but there were no more seats. For several hours a war waged downstairs between several rival forces, those who wanted to kick the newcomers off, those who wanted to stay on the bus they payed for, and those who just loudly complained about how disgraceful it was that the company overbooked and that we should be compensated. Alliances were forged and then broken in acts of vicious backstabbing. Groups broke into sub-groups and some even had break-aways who went out on their own to pursue a personal vendetta. When the battle finally subsided, a couple of the dutch students came upstairs, the ladies taking the seat beside me. My German neighbour had vacated it in search of place he could read, as the light above us was broken. Her friend sat down in the aisle, much to the disgust of the English couple who had to move their bags onto the overhead rack. Just as a few people were nodding off, the little brat, who had spent most of her time squirming around in her chair and complaining to the woman next to her about the woman next to her (seriously) suddenly shot her head over the top of the headrests. “Excuse me!” The Dutch man looked up. “Excuse me, I want to switch places with you. I would prefer to sleep on the floor.” The man looked a little confused and then replied “Eh, you want the floor instead of the chair?” “Yes, I can’t sleep in a chair. I was fine until someone took the other chair from me.” I started to laugh, both at the face on the woman next to her (trying to act like she wasn’t insulted) and the absolute audacity of the skinny little Hitler climbing over her. The Dutch man got out of her way as she climbed past him “You sure?” he asked as he took the seat “No, but I’ll try it for a while anyway.” I nearly cracked a rib trying to hold in the laughter.
“WAKE UP! EVERYBODY WAKE UP!”
Dazed people jolted awake, one girl gave a little yelp.
“WE STOP NOW FOR THIRTY MINUTE BREAK! GO FOR SMOKING, TOILET, DRINKS, FOOD! EVERYBODY WAKE UP!”
The intercom volume was set to ear-splitting and the man was bellowing at the microphone. Some people were half out the windows for fear of fire when it dawned on them that he was telling us that we were stopping for a toilet break. We sleepily rubbed our eyes and filed out of the bus towards the petrol station and truck-stop. The shop was the strange combination of a French Supermarche and a school canteen that all 24 hour truck-stops are. Only of course here the food was for Thai truck-drivers and included a range of Thai snacks. These were several shelves of vacuum-packed, shrivelled… brown things. All looked decidedly crunchy, in the carapace sense of the word. I had seen the insect stall on Kow San road. I wasn’t taking any chances. I bought a bottle of water and a packet of honeyed sesame-seed biscuits and sat eating them while listening to the shrieks and screams of the British men. They had somehow found a television with soccer playing. I was suddenly glad the television on the bus was broken.
A few hours later and most of the bus was asleep. Maeve, the Dutch girl beside me (who I know would cry at my spelling of her name), and I were chatting in whispers about our travels. The little brat girl stood up and stalked over to us. “Excuse me, I know you’re trying to be quiet and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that it’s bothering but I can hear every word you’re saying.” We both stared at her. “We’re trying to be as quiet as we can.” Maeve said, who didn’t like the girl. “I know, that’s why it kills me…” The brat was doing one of those fake smiles that wouldn’t win any Oscars. Why it kills her what? Why it kills her to ask us to be quiet? Why it kills her to have to listen to us? We both stared at her patiently. “Well I can hear every word you’re saying. I just thought you should know.” And with that she turned and stalked back to her to spot, apparently content with how the conversation went. Maeve shrugged and continued to explain the thesis that she has been postponing completing for the last 3 months. Suddenly the little brat girl made a loud noise “Ghghaw!” and picked herself up. Stomping down the aisle she banged and bumped against every sleeping passenger on her route, leaving a startled group of newly awake and very annoyed tourists. She must have been going down to complain to the bus driver, we decided, and I guess if she can’t sleep then it’s only fair that everyone else shares in her pain. Whatever she wanted from the driver or the people downstairs, she must have failed in her endeavours because ten minutes later she stomped back up to her spot again, knocking against everyone again to make sure they were aware of her frustration.
Why people choose to travel in such “luxury” is beyond me. People pay huge amounts of money to avoid travelling with the locals, to stay in places where tourists stay, and to keep from having to come into contact with the real country they’re visiting. I’d prefer to live with the minor hassles and inconveniences, grab a cup of chai from a passing vendor and share crips and roti with a Rajasthani Sikh. I’d prefer to travel on cheap transport and meet some of the people who live their lives on it. Hell, I’d probably prefer to catch a lift with a passing monkey circus and spend the night wrestling over the ownership of my shoes than listen to that little spoiled brat again!
Want my advice? Forget the rickshaws, best avoid the tourists!
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Hey you! Where you go?
The constant cry heard on the streets, the shouts from tuk-tuk drivers and the taxi men. Good question, I think as I step down into the teeming mass of life that is Khao San road. My body, now used to moving in crowded Asian streets, ducks and weaves of it’s own accord as I proceed along the wide gap between the stalls. Only this isn’t like an Asian street. At least, not what I’ve come to think of as an Asian street. There are rippling waves of human bodies, cramming into the long, pedestrianised street. Every colour of skin passed in and out of view, from the pasty fish-meat of newly arrived Europeans to the crispy tans of the rural Thais. It’s got all the ingredients of a South Asian city, hoards of push-stalls selling mouth watering delights, packs of rick-shaw drivers waiting to pounce on their would-be customers, restaurant touts clawing at passersby. But there are differences. Big ones that take a few minutes to set in. There are as many locals as there are tourists walking those streets. As many brown faces buying the street noodles as white. As many tight jeans and flip-flops as there are shorts and back-packs. As many high-pitched calls in Thai as there are of the deeper vibrations of English and German and French. I’m standing in the most touristic center of Bangkok, and it still firmly belongs to the Thais.
The street-stalls are not designed as a tourist attraction, the signs are in a scrawl I cannot even begin to decipher and the prices don’t change depending on your skin. The image is not of a poor, third-world people trying to scrape a living from the tourists. Competition is not rife among the salesmen, no one is scrabbling for my Baht. The scene is of an industrious commercial center, wealthy and poor Thais haggle over the price of fruit and gobble noodles at the plastic, portable canteens that cover the pathways. Groups of stalls form makeshift markets and people order fruit drinks and fried fish from a pancake salesman, who dutifully passes the request on to his fellow chefs. A crap-sausage seller abandons his cart to get change from the 7eleven he has set up shop in front of.
The morning is hazy, and very hot. At nearly 40 degrees in the shade, a steady flow of sweat has replaced the beads of moisture that was my appearance in India. Pausing to buy a chilled bottle of water from the woman outside my hostel, I step quickly along road my hostel is on. I pass a few travel agents and a hotel before turning down an alley dominated by massage and beauty salons. I smile and wave off the interest of a tuk-tuk driver waiting expectantly at the corner. I stop for a few seconds to drool at the fried chicken being served at one of the many canteen-like restaurants, filled near capacity with locals. Every time of the day is lunch/dinner/snack time for the Thai men and women, and late morning is no exception. Turning away from the temptations, I summon the courage and step with my very best expression of determination onto the zebra crossing. The constant flow of speeding traffic tries to fool you into thinking that you will never get across, but the trick is to make your own opportunity. I step straight into the path of a taxi which reluctantly admits that I am part of the current reality and slows from a screaming ninety kilometers to a crawl in the blink of an eye. I set my stare on the next driver blurring his way towards me and again he’s forced, but only at the very last moment, to return to a speed more suitable to land transportation. After striking home on the opposite path, I walk down a thin, dark alley and reach one of the small river docks. Buying a ticket for the public ferry I join the gathering group watching the boat pull up to the dock. I find a seat next to a middle aged man and smile at the routine comedy that is the exchange between the driver and the conductor. As the long vessel motors through the various pick-up points, I look around myself.
Young girls in mini-skirts with mobile phones chatter away loudly to my right. A young boy and his father sit in front of me, watching the passing scenery. Two western couples walk down past me to find a seat, both of the women are wearing loose tops that hang down, flaunting their sunburned breasts. One of the men is wearing only a pair of shorts, his uncovered torso decorated with tattoos. Behind me an attractive Thai couple are standing at the railings, the man with his arm around the woman’s thin waist, she with her’s draped over her shoulder. An old woman in helped aboard by her husband while they chatter away in Thai.
There is something that is so different to the South-Asian world we have left, so different that I have to stop myself when I start to see this bustling city as one that we’ve left behind in Europe. It certainly is like nothing in the Western world that I grew up in, but something so powerful links the two cultures.
Freedom.
Not the freedom from political strife, because there are few countries more precariously placed on the political merry-go-round than Thailand. Not the freedom from poverty or ignorance, because the Siamese people are still a developing economy and education is not as widespread as it should be. The freedom is that of expression. The freedom to walk and talk and act like you. Not how other people think you should, or how other people have in the past. And all of the craziness in this incredibly alive city is a testimony to this freedom. The prostitutes openly displaying their wares. The homosexual couples openly walking hand in hand. The young girls and boys openly dressing how they want, talking how they want, being out late and having friends from any kind of background, gender or race. Openness everywhere I look.
Neither of the Two Legends are religious. We don’t follow any system of belief but our own. And after coming from a three month swim in the religion-soaked environment of the Hindu cultures, it feels like I’m coming out of a heavy rain that keeps your head down and your mind closed.
I look around the busy ferry and the passing Bangkok, and I breath in the freedom with a smile.
I think I’m going to like Thailand.
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Ode To Nepali Cap
Cocked at a jaunty tilt
to display one’s brazen style,
The humble Nepali cap
remains fixed all the while
to old mens’ scalps
and young boys’ heads,
From morning yawns
to night-time beds,
All living lads
and buried dead.
Found down busy, urban streets
and in between the rural crops,
It’s fashioned on the cheery type
well know in fast-food shops!
Of lurid pink
like bubblegum pop,
Or sick’ning brown
like gone off yop,
A butchers lid,
a sailors top,
perched precariously
upon ones mop.
But please don’t laugh!
Fight urge to mock!
this mighty crown
above the frock,
To beat the sun
and cold wind slap
Nothing beats
The Nepali Cap!
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The Tourists That We Are
We couldn’t pronounce her name in Nepali, so we just called her by her nickname, Lady Luck. We were introduced by one of the park naturalists at the safari tour office. She was enormous, an absolute giant with a sagging belly and thighs like tree-trunks. She had tiny, beady eyes that were sunk into her broad head. The pink that replaced the white gave her a tired look, but she was alert and quicker than one might expect. She understood not a word of English, and remained silent for the most part, something that made it easy to imagine that not much was going on underneath that mop of wiry hair. But you would be wrong.
Lady Luck was our guide for the morning trek through the jungles of Chitwan, and only by her grace did we remain safe from the many dangerous animals that prowled the dense forests. Her footfalls were almost silent, surprising for such large feet moving over piles of dry wood and bush. She brought with her an aura of calmness that allowed us to move right up to animals that otherwise would never have allowed it. We got within three meters of a mother and infant white rhino, who grazed in the safety of the thick bushes. We strolled past wild boar, busy rooting through the cool morning mud. We stood amid a herd of spotted deer, and got close enough to a larger stag that I could have reached out and touched his tall antlers. We paused to watch four meter long crocodiles warm themselves on the shore. All of these species of wild animals regularly attack humans in the park, injuring and even killing tourists every year. She certainly earned the name Lady Luck, most tourists see very little without spending a week doing safaris in the jungle and grasslands. We saw peacocks amid their mating dance, troupes of monkeys flinging themselves through the trees and many types of rare birds. We even saw a tiny gold bird (which couldn’t help but remind me of J.K. Rowling’s Golden Snitch) which we were told was very rare and is said to be a sign of being very lucky.
After lunch I had intended to go and hide in the shade of our bamboo cottage, and perhaps sip some cool water while reading a little of my book. One of the park agents had told us that Lady Luck would be down by the riverside cafe if we wanted to join her. I had declined the kind offer, but had only plonked myself down on one of the wicker chairs when I was hauled out of it again by my friends. I complained that the whole scene was way too touristy for me, the riverside crawling with rich, white westerners drawling in American accents. “We just had a look, the place is really quiet! There aren’t many tourists around. It will be fun, come on yeh git!”
Flip-flopping down to the water-front I frown at the image we paint. With white naked skin, baggy shorts and backpacks we looked like every tourist that we spent so much time and effort trying to be different to. “What are we doing?” I moaned loudly as we scrambled over the dunes to the water. They had lied to me, the place was crawling with tourists splashing about in the slow-moving river. It looked like the Africa Resort, Disneyland and I felt irritated just being there. But then we spotted Lady Luck lurching over towards us. Her boy was wildly gesturing for us to join them all of that left my mind. Even I couldn’t help grinning at the opportunity to become children again. Hurtling ourselves into the water we followed the boys lead and clambered atop Lady Luck, our trio squeeling and yelling with joy as she flung us about like insignificant toys. Hanging on rodeo-style, we did our best to withstand the earthquake shaking that she gave us, eventually sending us cartwheeling and flipping into the water. Being blasted with mud and frothy river, we fought a doomed water battle with her for ten minutes before conceding defeat. Finally exhausted from the adrenaline and exertion we searched for flat stones on the river bottom, using their rough surfaces to scrub the caked earth from her leathery skin and give her a thorough exfoliation. While she lay on her side, half submerged in the fast flowing current, her head was dunked fully in the cool water, only the tip of her nose protruded to allow the air to reach her mighty lungs.
Staggering back onto the sandy shore, we toweled ourselves down and through back on pants and shirts. Waving goodbye to Lady Luck we sprang up the dunes back to our hotel.
We spend so much thought and effort avoiding the thronging tourists that overwhelm so much of the South Asian countries. We plan routes less travelled, we eat in local restaurants surrounded by local people, we travel on the packed local trains and ride on the rooftops of the local buses sharing our snacks with our fellow passengers. I’ve had conversations with Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims and Buddhists and rich businessmen and poor traders and old women and young students and uneducated farmers and highly-educated teachers. The one type of person I actively avoid is the tourist. Expensive clothes and too many cameras and bags that don’t fit through doors. I avoid the tourists because they are so often ignorant, too often self involved and almost always too happy to hold a passport as a shield and a guidebook as a weapon. But most of all I avoid tourists because I hate that I blend right in with them. I hate being seen as a walking money belt by the touts. I hate being given practiced smiles by businessmen. I hate being treated like a better class of human by the locals, because I was born in a society that often seems to have more money than love.
But I look down at my one hundred and fifty euro boots, throw my one hundred litre rucksack over my shoulder and hand my friend his professional quality digital camera. Some things are worth admitting you’re a tourist for a couple hours. Some things are worth cheering with the rich Americans and pompous Brits and sharing sun-cream with the skinny Germans and chain-smoking French. Sometimes it’s worth asking the gung-ho Israelis to hold your bag and smile at the bespectacled Japanese while you roll up your trouser legs. Some things are worth even me admitting that I’m a self absorbed, over educated, under experienced, self inflated Irishman who’s got dollars in his pockets like all the others.
And washing a three tonne elephant in a lazy jungle river is definitely, definitely one of them.
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“Kimchi!”
“Pay go pa?”
“Ung, chokumb. Dha pay go pa?”
“Na chincha pay go pa! Bring on the food!”
Twelve days of daal bhat later, we sit on the sunny step in front of our hostel. Twelve days of aching legs, blistered feet and daal bhat. Not that I have anything against daal bhat, in fact it was an instant hit with my vast midsection and fast becoming one of my hunger-busting all-time favourites. And not because of how delicious it is, which it certainly is. Most of the time. No, it’s not for how widely available it is or quick it is to prepare. These are some of its other qualities. The reason that the words daal bhat on a Nepali menu make the sides of my lips curl up is because of it’s special quality. You see, daal bhat is the Nepali equivalent of the Indian institution that they call Thali. One plate, one person, and the food just keeps coming! These are the all-you-can-eat dishes of the East! Man, now that is something! Anyone who knows me for longer than a lunch hour knows that feeding me can be quite an expensive activity to undertake. And in a continent packed with little people with even littler appetites it’s been quite difficult to survive on less than three dishes per sitting. But the hapless restaurateurs didn’t count on me “eating Nepali”, avoiding the common western bastardisations (the latest of which includes the mars bar spring-roll) and going for the king of the East-Asian table. The never ending plate of rice, lentils, veg and… kind of a… pickle? Whatever it is, it keeps coming!
But still, my love affair with daal bhat was tested during those twelve days. Walking across the mountains through the wind, rain, snow, sun and sand-storms for up to eight hours a day requires some serious Nepali fuel. But twelve days of daal bhat later, I was ready for a change.
“Kimchi!!”
The cry escapes our Korean companion the moment we make it through the door of the restaurant. She’s picked the restaurant, and the restaurant is as close to Korean as you can get outside of Korea. Young Korean tourists line either side of long, low tables piled with dishes of vegetables, rice and meat. Bacon fries on gas hot-plates and friends lean across each other chatting and downing the food as only happy Koreans can. Our waiter, the only thing Nepali about the room, hands us menus as we sit at one of the high tables. After the knee-nightmare that was the vipassana squatting there was no way that the two Irish men could handle an entire meal sitting cross-legged. Bowing to the superior knowlege (and ability to read the Korean menu) we let Ja Yeon choose our food. She orders chicken, beef and pork dishes and a couple of bottles of water. All Korean food is eaten communally so there is no need for plates, and long spoons and steel chopsticks are the only cutlery. The Korean technique for using chopsticks is an art in itself, and we spend some time testing our Miagi-style skills on a piece of plastic wrapping. Soon we are rubbing life back into our cramped Irish hands and we clear the table to make room for the trays of plates that start to arrive.
“Er.” I manage as the sixteen assorted plates and bowls are placed on every available table-space. When you order Korean food, you order just the meat. Salads, vegitables, chopped roots, bowls of rice and at least two kinds of kimchi arrive with every meal.
“Kimchi!!”
Ah yes, kimchi. When we first asked what this all-important food that Koreans spent so much of their travelling lives craving actually is, what we got was “Erm, it’s Korean food. Fermented cabbage?” Not very descriptive but I find myself hard-pressed to do a better job. For a start, kimchi is not just a food. It’s a Korean institution. Every meal; breakfast, lunch and dinner, from weddings to funerals is served with kimchi. Every Korean house has a special “kimchi fridge” that stores nothing but kimchi. Kimchi is attributed to Korea surviving the Bird Flue without a single fatality. This super-food is also attributed with aiding digestion, helping to replace healthy gut bacteria after illness and even with preventing cancer! It’s so popular in Korea, when taking a photograph (along with the Japanese bunny-ears) Koreans shout “Kimchi!!”. The Kimchi that arrives at our table is of two varieties. One is the simple Kimchi, a type of… fermented cabbage? Damn. The second is a beet vegitable similar to the radish. Both are red in colour because of the “kimchi sauce” and quite spicy.
“Kimchi!!” our friend jiggs up and down in her chair with excitement.
Now, Korean dining appears quite haphazard to the untrained eye. Friends reach across each other, spearing food into their bowls of rice to be gulped in big spoonfulls. In reality, Korean eating is a sophistication, a skill and a science all rolled into one. Let me tell you, western dining etiquette ain’t got nothin’ on the Koreans. Cutlery can never be left on or in a bowl, and if left aside must be spoon-face down with chopsticks on the right. Both must be at right angles to your good self and not pointing at a fellow diner. Rice must be eaten from the bowl in a neat and preplanned manner (not digging in the centre as is my personal approach. This gave much amusement.). Dishes are arranged in a certain way and food is never mixed except with rice or on the way to your mouth. Drinks are never poured for yourself and are NEVER topped up, only refilled when the glass is empty. Alcoholic drinks are drank at the same time, and usually in one go. Hence the phrase “One shot!” shouted at every drink. Not sure if that would work so well down the pub with a pint of Guiness. Best stick to water when a Korean is around.
Todays technique involved filling a lettuce leaf with a little of everything and then, with the aid of the chopsticks, is placed into the mouth. Not too hard? The lettuce leaves are big, the dishes many and my poor Irish gob is certainly not designed to handle six mouthfulls of food in mighty munch. The Koreans manage this with dignity and not even so much as a bulging cheek. My attempts were a little less successful.
“Like this?”
“Yeah, as you like!”
“Mfmffaramfarckckukkak”
Tears streaming down my cheeks, I half regurgitate my food onto the table and continue to choke. Much to the amusement of my friends. But I’m not the only one who can’t quite hack the Korean table laws. Ja Yeon spends most of the meal time laughing at our desperate attempts not to mess up. Most questions are answered with the generic pidgeon-english phrase of “as you like” because the methods are so simple and logical that not even the uncouth Irish boys could mess it up. As we invariably do. But our friend reassures us that because we are friends and she knows we don’t know the rules she is not offended. “Offended? By how we eat? That’s a bit extreme!” It turns out that if we were to join, say, her family for a meal it would be quite possible that the parents would be deeply offended by my chopstick irregularity, and even more so by the rice around the rim of my bowl!
Korean eating might be hard work, but the grub is great and the language associated is even better!
“Pay foo la?” Is your stomach swollen (same as a pregnant woman)?
“Ung (kind of throaty noise) Na chincha pay foo la.” Yes, my stomach is very swollen.
to the waiter
“Anyo hee ka say yo!” Have a nice stay, sir!
waiter to us
“Anyo hee kay say yo!” Have a nice go, sir!
And off into the Nepali night we wobbled, in search of a pool table and (for me) a pizza.
One of the things which continues to amaze me is how when you travel to another country, you learn so much more than what that country has to teach. Maybe it’s to do with mindset that you take with you to a strange land. Maybe it’s to do with seeing and doing new things every day. But I think it’s mainly the company that you tend to keep on your travels, the like-minded friends who are willing to give up all their plans and change their flights just to be with other good people.
Thanks Ja Yeon.
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“Welcome In Nepal!”
After a full day of traveling in an excruciatingly uncomfortable bus, we arrived at the Nepali border. The ride took longer than is should; apart from the driver stopping for a chai every hour at his friends’ restaurants, we also had a two hour wait while we waited for a new tyre to replace the one that burst on route. Stepping off the bus into the chill night air, we rubbed some life back into our battered knees (when discussing Indian buses, the phrase “leg-room” must be used rather liberally) and listened dutifully to our conductor.
“Two minute up road, you must get stamp”, vigorous gesticulation with fist and palm “Two minute more up road, you must get the visa”, animated air-scribbling “Two minute more, is the Hotel Nepal, here is your room for tonight.”
With departure stamps on our passports, we stamp across the border, receive an over-energetic smile and wave from the obviously under-stimulated border police, and present ourselves to the immigration office-staff. This consists of one important-looking man signing things in the background, one highly charged smile attached to a skinny man, and one masked figure. The system is three-fold, the masked man muffles something at the baffled tourists, who eventually hand over their documents and the correct fee, which is passed to the well dressed man at the back, who signs and stamps the passports, which are handed to the giant smile, who’s job it is to welcome you to Nepal. It’s not terribly efficient, but it eventually chugs out enough signed passports to get us to the top of the cue. When Paul is called to receive his passport “Ireland! IRELAND!” he is met by the grin with the body.
“Paul Colin?” reading passport
“Er, yes that’s me” out-stretched hand for the passport
“Welcome in Nepal!” smiling with unnerving intensity
“Thanks” Hand still waiting for passport
“…” Smiling and holding passport
“…” Waiting for passport
“…” Smile continues
“Eh, can I have my passport please?”
“…” Smiling and holding passport
“Hello? You still have my passport!”
The smile eventually hands over the document and Paul backs off suitably non-plussed. I’ve been watching with amusement from further down the que, and decide that something must have been missing in the communication. After a few minutes of other tourists receiving their passports I figure it out. When I get to the booth “IRELAND!” I shout confirmation. When the generic “Welcome in Nepal!” arrives I give my biggest grin and shout “Thanks!” back at the smile. It works instantly, and I receive my visa. Guess they forgot the extra entry fee to Nepal, smile!
After a short night in a mosquito breeding ground, we stagger out of the hostel to meet our Nepali bus. We instantly breath a sigh of relief at the comfortable seats and adiquit leg-room. We are just settling in for the eight hour journey when two young men hop through the door.
“You guys together? So that’s three bags?”
“Yeah, we already put them up on the roof.”
“Ok, that’s twenty, twenty, twenty, that’s sixty rupees in total.”
“Er, sixty rupees for what?”
“For bags! Twenty rupees per bag, no problem!”
“Actually, it is a problem. Why do we have to pay you for the bags? We have pre-booked tickets.”
“No problem, twenty per bag. Everyone pays, no problem!”
“We’re not giving you any money.”
“You don’t pay for bags?” His face turned a little sour “You don’t pay, you can take care of them yourselves.”
We watched the young men push down the aisle taking money from hapless Korean and Japanese tourists. “Are we paying them not to steal our bags?” We climbed onto the roof and to sure that our bags were securely chained down. Five minutes later the “bag minders” hop off the bus and we see no more of them.
The bus ride was much more comfortable and a good deal more interesting than the day before. Our bus (though we payed for a deluxe private couch) is more of a public shuttle that picked up and dropped locals the length of the journey. Groups of young school-goers, families with young babies, business men going to work. The bus barely accelerated when it was braking again to change it’s stock of passengers. At first it was hard to feel that we had left India, there was still the usual sari-clad women and men with tika dots on their foreheads. Everyone still said “Namaste” as the generic greeting (the same word in Hindi as Nepali. Our bus still had the reckless relationship with the rules of the road, tending to spend more time on the wrong side by the drivers sub-conscious preference. But we hadn’t gotten far into the day when I began to notice subtle differences from the great country that we just left the day before.
The clothes, though still containing the ubiquitous sari, was interchanged with much more western-style trousers and t-shirts. Gone were the young men with the tight-jeans and baggy shirts. And though many of them wore the dot on the forehead (a Hindu symbol making reference to the holy and all-seeing third eye) even the way it was worn had changed. The red tika smears were replaced with felt circles or jewels set below the hairline. The piercings were only displayed on the older women, most of the young girls wore nothing of the cultural dress that we had become so accustomed to. And there in lay the starkest difference that we first encountered, the women.
For two months we became used to the local women being covered from head to toe, never traveling alone and avoiding your eye. In our entire time in India, we spoke to barely a handful of Indian women, and then only in the cities. Outside the cities we had dulled our surprise on the countless villages of women coming only in two varieties. Teen-aged and being escorted by a mother/father/brother or being a mother herding children. Women that would have otherwise been young by our standards were middle-ages looking and sporting the rolls of stomach that only a mother of many children could have. Any young, unmarried girls must have been kept hidden from our sinful western eyes. But in Nepal, there were young attractive women everywhere. The mix of Mongolian and Indian genetics replaced the slim, petite build of the Indian woman with a more broad-face and curvy build. And the cultural taboo of women talking to and touching men was certainly not present. Girls and boys boarded the bus together, chatting away and sitting next to each other or mashed against each other in the press of the full bus.
There seems to be a much more relaxed and innocent approach to human contact in Nepal. I had one middle-aged woman grab me to help herself over the buses handrail (hitching her sari up unselfconsciously) and plonk herself beside me, wriggling into the tight space. A girl in her early teens snuggled against me to get comfortable enough to sleep, her mother slumped against another passenger herself. Babies were handed about the bus in a comical fashion, it seemed anyone with a free hand (or knee in my case) was
generally assumed to want to hold one. At one stage the woman next to me received a small boy, who after half an hour of bouncing around in excitement promptly flopped down on top of me to drool into my jumper.
As the bus winded it’s way around the epic scenery, it went through stages of being packed like a clown-car. There was a young boy who acted as conductor, horn and wing-mirror all in one. He spent most of his time hanging out the door, shouting at people who might want to catch a bus. When one such people responded he whistled a little tune that the driver interpreted and slowed the bus to a crawl so the people could swing themselves in. As soon as they had one foot in the door the boy would beat the side of the bus and the driver would ram the bus onwards. If people were too close to the bus, or were walking with their back to the traffic, the boy would whistle a continuous tune to warn them of the bus. This one in particular I found perplexing, seeing as anyone unable to hear the roar of the engine or the constant and aggressive honking of the horn would surely be unable to hear a light whistle. Perhaps in a country where the roads are a constant source of beeping and rattling, a musical tune is what gets people’s attention. Perhaps many people have gone deaf from the noise and the boy is desperately trying to find a tone that their ears can hear. In any case, that was how we made our way around the mountain roads, banging and whistling along.
At one point (when there were several disappointed men trying to get aboard the sardine can) the conductor boy looked around the bus and then decided on me. He asked me, quite politely, if I would like to travel on the roof. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Was he taking the piss? “No thanks…” He looked at me in mild surprise and then banged the bus to move on. I couldn’t think of why he would possibly think that I would find clinging to the roof-rack more favourable than my nice comfy seat. We later found out that many Nepali people prefer to ride on the roof, and to be honest we should have seen the signs earlier. Half the bus was energetically throwing up out the windows while the other half were begging for the boy-conductor to hand them the little plastic bags that the first aid box was stuffed with for this very purpose. Whenever the bus stopped for more than a second, the entire contents emptied themselves onto the road to cling to the steady ground. Apparently, Nepali people aren’t good travelers.
One man who clambered aboard the bus secured the seat next to me and introduced himself. His name was Durga, a high school teacher who’s subjects are English and Social Studies. He talks to me (in the flawless English that only people foreign to the language have) about Nepali life. He tells me that his father died two weeks before and that he was leaving the village to go back to work in Pokhara soon. He had finished the three days of silent reflection on of his father and had thrown a huge party for all his 200 close relatives. This is what is expected of the eldest son and he tells me in detail of the buffalo that he gave as gifts to many of his more senior relatives. He talks about how successful and energetic his father was, how he had a field of 470 orange trees and many animals. He talks of how his father got sick with stomach cancer and how he spent the few short months of pain being told by doctors that he was without hope. He talks about how he going to move to the village permanently to care for his aging mother, who relied heavily on his father. He tells all this in the open and honest way that no Irish person ever would.
One subject that we touched on briefly was the Maoists, and the recent peace treaty. Durga is a socialist, he supports the Maoists and is confident that they will win the election that the Nepali people have been promised in the next three months. He mentions that there is some kind of rally taking place in Pokhara where the Maoist leader, Puspa Kamal Dahal (nicknamed Prachanda) will be speaking. He says that he has huge support and that there will be thousands of people coming from the villages to hear him speak. Durga talks about how the Nepali people want a Republic like Ireland, free from the tyranny of the royalty. I can’t help but feel uneasy about people turning to communists as a way to freedom. The conditioning of my school history books and cold-war films has left an aftertaste of fear to the words National Socialism. But I smile at the educated school-teacher and shake hands with him as he leaves.
When we arrive in Pokhara we are swamped with touts and taxi-drivers all vying for our custom. It’s peak tourist season in Nepal, and no tourists have come. Fear of the fragile peace-treaty being shattered by violent demonstration has kept the crowds away. The industry is suffering hugely, and the Nepali people along with it. In the taxi ride to the lake-side (the tourist center) we weave through the truck-fulls of police in body armor and the throngs returning from the Maoist rally. Every lamp-post has a poster bearing the hammer and sickle that I associate with the Soviet Union, a red background with a smiling mans face in front. People tell me how incredible the Maoist leader is, if I heard him speak. Walking along the Lakeside our heads turn to follow the path of a small car. It has red flags and loudspeakers pumping out microphoned propaganda.
On the way to our hostel I talk to the young Nepali man who has secured our custom. He says that he will caste his one vote for the Maoist party. When I ask why, he shrugs and gives that one answer that I knew was coming “We’ve tried everyone else”.
Welcome to Nepal, the next year might get bumpy.
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In India…
We have been in India a week shy of two months. 7 weeks in these vast and intense lands, 53 days of experiences and emotions. And make no mistake, every day of life in India is an adventure! Every moment a new stimulation and a new reaction! In the Land of Contrast, our beliefs and ways of perceiving the world are constantly challenged, and so often beaten into submission. And we’ve loved every sweaty, confused second.
What you read in this blog is no more than what few minutes we scrape together to write a piece! We cannot possibly tell of every interesting thing that happens, every crazy situation we’ve found ourselves in. We cannot even tell halforaquater of what we see and experience. So we try to pick some of the biggest ones, the ones that mean the most to us, and the ones we hope you’ll enjoy reading. Nearing the end of our stint in India, we can see the changes this country has had inside us, the memories of joyful pleasure, and the scars of our continuing education.
To give everyone who’s been keeping up on our travels the slightest clue as to the sheer quantity and colour of our trip, here is a a short list of things not included in the posts. By no means exhaustive, these are a few things that spring to mind. These are a sample of our Indian lives, in no particular order or importance.
In India we were…
- Tempted to jump off a moving train to take a pee
- Cheered by young boys for our imitation of the Bollywood hip-thrust
- Invited home to sample an old man’s daughter-in-law’s roti-cooking skills
- Hypnotised by the lightning storms over Sarnath
- Rubbed vigorously with male genitals in a wedding parade
- Offered the sexual services of an old man by the romantic glow of a campfire
- Exhilarated while inching towards a sunbathing crocodile
- Humoured by the raunchy flirtations of a Eunuch lady-boy
- Wired for a full night from eating one Indian sweet
- Chased off a balcony by evil monkeys
- Serenaded by an old beggar-woman
- Disarmed by the friendliness of the Tibetan people
- Exasperated by the idiosyncrasies of Indian queuing
- Infuriated by the mosquito’s uncanny ability to get inside our fly-nets
- Impressed by the life-threatening surgeon-like skills of a street barber
- Deflated by the wonder that is the Taj Ma’small
- Entertained by a waiter’s animated description of slapping ungrateful customers
- Pelted by paint during the Holy festival at Varanasi
- Horrified by the floating corpses next to the bathers in the Ganges river
- Captivated by the discussions of Buddhist philosophy
- Appalled by the rudeness of so many tourists
- Enthusiastically spat on by a paan salesman eager to show his wares
- Childishly eager to spin the prayer-wheels in Mcleod Ganj
- Mildly battered when a crazed rickshaw driver clipped off a passing scooter
- Successfully intimidated by a male camel’s displays of masculinity
- Suitably awed by the vastness of the Himalayan foothills
- Disturbingly close to being involved in a white-vs-Indian brawl over train tickets
- Slightly unnerved by the stories of bear attacks on Mount Abu
- Nearly obliterated when a thoughtless Irishman dropped a boulder down a mountain
- In hysterics when a young Korean breaks into the “orc-dance” from WOW
- In a stand-off with a docile holy cow
- Headbutted by a not-so-docile holy cow
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Vipassana
I awoke suddenly to the sound of an echoing bell and lay slightly confused for a few seconds, we are in different accommodation every few days so i stared upwards at another unfamiliar ceiling and wondered where i might be, but it quickly came back to me. I made the decision just two days before to join Barry on the Vipassana (pronounced vip-ass-anna) course and for ten days was condemning my mind and body to solidarity. I pushed my mosquito net aside and threw on some pants, wrapped myself in my shawl and briskly walked into the cool night time air. The Dhamma hall was just a minute walk away, along a small pathway with recently layed trees and potted plants on both sides. I actually had a few minutes to wait, they ring the bell 20 minutes later and expect everyone to be in position on their cushions by then. We all took our assigned places and heard our Guru for the course, mr S. N. Goenka, who over a tape recording told us how to start with our breathing. The following words echoed in our minds every meditation session:”Start with a calm and quiet mind….” and then”Work diligently, diligently. Work patiently and persistently” and the 10+ hours a day sitting in silence began.
I will give an explanation first of what Vipassana actually is all about – is a very simple, logical technique which depends on direct experience and observation. It can be related to the three trainings taught by the Buddha as the basis of a spiritual path- adherence to a sīla (abstinence from killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and intoxication), which is not an end in itself but a requirement for the second part, concentration of the mind (samādhi). With this concentrated mind, the third training, in the context of this technique (paññā), is detached observation of the reality of the mind and body from moment to moment.
The instructions are not esoteric or difficult but basically involve retraining the mind to avoid its innate conditioned response to most stimuli. Although Vipassana includes body awareness as part of the practice, it is not a “body scan” technique. The purpose is also not to release past trauma, but to bring full awareness of the mind, body and all sensations and be fully present. This practice is thought to develop a deep, experiential understanding of the impermanence of reality and also brings to the surface and dissolves deep-seated complexes and tensions. The technique fosters development of insight and needs to be continued as a way of life in order to having lasting effects.
To see through the mode of impermanence means to examine things as to whether they are permanent. To see through the mode of unsatisfactoriness means to examine things as to whether they are satisfactory or are imbued with suffering. To see through the mode of non-self means to examine the phenomena that are the objects of the meditation to see if they have a permanent, isolated, and enduring entity. In other words, to see through non-self relates to having a sense of non-doership and a sense of non-possessorship while examining things, this relates to material objects aswell as human beings. One thing i disagreed with the practice was the fact that we inherently love ourselves and no one else, being used in the context of “My” and “I”, ‘My sister, my mother” etc. It sounded contradictory to me as after liberation you generate love and compassion for everyone.
The first three days of the course are concentration on the breathing in a small area of the nose, this is to sharpen the mind which is needed for the actual Vipassana technique. For the remaining seven days we work with more effect to detect subtle sensations over each and every part of the body. Once we remain in observation and eqanimous to the sensations we can change the ‘habit pattern of the mind’ to observe the same way in life.
The Rules:
Noble Silence: All students must observe Noble Silence from the beginning of the course until the morning of the last full day. Noble Silence means silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow student, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc., is prohibited (this includes eye contact with anyone) Also…
- to abstain from killing any living creature;
- to abstain from stealing;
- to abstain from all sexual activity;
- to abstain from telling lies;
- to abstain from all intoxicants.
- to abstain from eating after midday;
- to abstain from sensual entertainment.
- to abstain from using high or luxurious beds.
Note that new students are permitted a bowl of fruit after midday and may sleep of normal beds
Also no reading, writing, music instruments or any type of stimulants. Just basic stuff is allowed in like clothes, wash gear and a sleeping bag.
The Timetable:
4:00 a.m.———————Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 a.m.—————-Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 a.m.—————-Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 a.m.—————-Group meditation in the hall
9:00-11:00 a.m.—————Meditate in the hall or in your room
11:00-12:00 noon————–Lunch break
12noon-1:00 p.m.————–Rest and interviews with the teacher
1:00-2:30 p.m.—————-Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 p.m.—————-Group meditation in the hall
3:30-5:00 p.m.—————-Meditate in the hall or in your own room
5:00-6:00 p.m.—————-Tea break
6:00-7:00 p.m.—————-Group meditation in the hall
7:00-8:15 p.m.—————-Teacher’s Discourse in the hall
8:15-9:00 p.m.—————-Group meditation in the hall
9:00-9:30 p.m.—————-Question time in the hall
9:30 p.m.———————Retire to your own room–Lights out
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I will give you a brief rundown of some things that happened during the days, but both myself and Barry would prefer to keep our personal experiences of the meditation to ourselves, I hope you can understand why we wish to keep much of our personal thoughts private.
The pain of sitting without support for my back was troubling me, i met the teacher at 12 noon and explained to him i was in pain and would like to sit against the wall or something. Even better then that- i was permitted a chair at the back. It was a few inches off the ground and i had sit cross legged the same way as before, but i had a back on the chair so my spine was saved. I really got to experience the meditation in it’s fullest on the second day, and the hours felt very very long. On day three Ja-Yeon left in the morning so i again went to the hall to talk to the teacher, hoping he would tell me what had happened. When he would only tell me she left for personal reasons and even though she left a note i couldn’t read it until the last day, i decided that was enough and i was going to leave also. But when I went to tel the teacher we had a long chat he persuaded me to stay. There was definatly something charismatic about the teacher, and he knew my feelings better then i knew them myself. On the forth day I again went to the Dhamma hall at noon an talked to the teacher about leaving -my reasons were the intense pains i was getting for sitting for so long- and explained about my back injury. He told me to bring the x-rays to him and he would have a look, but was determined to make me stay and complete the course. I was sceptical about his interest in the x-rays, i didn’t know if he was actually a doctor, maybe he was but i was loath to question him for fear of possibly insult him. I grinded my teeth and stayed.
I can’t remember what day it was, but during the middle of the course the i got the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles theme tune stuck in my head! It was there for the rest of the course. Every day.
I remember day seven well, it was the best day i found for meditation so far. I really experienced so many sensations over my whole body, and also managed to complete “Aditthana” or “Sittings of Strong Determination”. During three of the one-hour group sittings every day you’re asked not to open your eyes, move your hands, or change your sitting position. This is what they say Buddha did for seven days under the Bo tree before attaining enlightenment. It was so difficult the first few times and i had to change at least twice in an hour (the pain was incredibly intense after the first half hour), but i completed it on the seventh day and left the hall with my legs hanging off!
For the last two days I longed for the end. The frustration was so strong, and day ten was a welcome relief. Being able to break noble silence was wonderful, and every word from every person i talked to felt so good.
It was an incredibly difficult experience, but also we felt rewarding in many aspects.
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Eve-Teasing
Sauntering out of a western-style restaurant in Asi Ghat we were full of good food and night-time cheer. Asi Ghat is the area past the last of a long line of ghats (steps down to the water) that line one side of the river Ganga. The Ganges is considered by many to be the holiest river in the world, and by at least as many as the most putrid body of water in existence. To the people of India the “Mother Ganga” is bath, washing machine, natural sewer, graveyard and shrine all in one. For the leather factories its a moving chemical waste dump, for the cities its the destination of about 1 billion litres of raw sewerage a day and for the people it’s their washing, cooking and drinking water supply. The half-burned remains of the cremated dead are swept into the river, as are the still born infants and miscarriages. Dead human and animal corpses can sometimes be spotted floating next to boats and bathers.
But despite all this, its still not hard to see why millions of people, past and present, continue to arrive at the Ganges and worship it. Even now the the river is beautiful (from a bit back at least) and inspires the same awe that captured the hearts of people centuries ago. As we head towards the ghats we see hundreds of people lining the near side (the side opposite the city of Varanasi is lifeless and uninhabited as the Hindu believe it to be evil, nicknamed the land of the dead). Mainly consisting of young men with their foreheads chalked and painted, the crowds await the beginning of the festival day. Feb 16th is the day of Shiva’s wedding and is celebrated along the the waterside with music and dancing from midnight to midnight. It culminated with the mass drinking of Bhang drinks, a potent drug made from hashish. But even though its only 9 o’clock the dock-sides are packed with excited faces and anticipation.
We had been warned by many people of the dangers of walking alone on the dark riverside steps, especially for women, but we paid little heed to the gentle warnings. We numbered three, two of us young and healthy western men, often a full head taller than the local boys. India has been one of the least threatening places I’ve ever visited, and nights wandering the streets here make Dublin’s rain-soaked footpaths seem frightening and perilous by comparison. So we walked into the throng with grins on our faces and wide eyes soaking up the atmosphere. We made it maybe a dozen paces along the first ghat before they noticed us, those red faced Indian boys. Primed with the invincibility that the groups provide and a lifetime of suppressed sexual tension they lock on to the presence of a young man and woman walking hand in hand. Cat-calling voices from a hundred throats well up and rice is pelted down from the steps above us. Shock quickly turns to embarrassed amusement and I walk on laughing at the attention the couple receive. It seems mostly good-natured teasing of a western “looseness” that my unmarried friends display. Still, glad to be out of the thick crowd we move on the poorly lit paths that run the kilometre to the Ghat that leads to our hostel and night-time safety.
We’re moving against the tide of worshippers and youths moving towards the concerts and quickly our nerves begin to fray. There are no women walking amongst the groups of boys and men except the odd western woman with her friends eager to enjoy the festivities. The men are pumped and filled with a childish excitement and are clearly wearing their hormones on their sleeves. Allow me to paint a picture if you will…
Imagine a 14 year old boy, who has never spoken to a female member of the human race other than hismother. His knowledge of the “ways of the world” are limited to hear-say and crude gestures provided by his fellow 14-year old friends. He is the kind of kid who giggles incessantly at articles in newspapers that mention the word sex, he thinks “cleavage”is a dirty word and his eyes bulge (along with other parts of his adolescent anatomy) at the sight of a woman wearing anything other than a complete plaster body-cast. Now imagine hundreds of these boys. Each one with his skinny chest pushed out and eager to impress his fellow adolescent peers. They are born into a society where it’s the woman’s fault if the men act like animals and where it is socially acceptable to try and cop a feel whenever possible. Western women are whores (on account of living with a man while unmarried, and their tendency to look men in the eye) and an unaccompanied woman is fair game. But these are not only 14 year-old children, many of them were upwards of 25, full grown men with mustaches to prove it.
Walking down the ghats was like trying to pass through a hyena den. Too cowardly to approach under the gaze of another man, they probe the defencive tactics that we quickly were forced to develop. Using our bodies and scowls we attempted to create space around the vulnerable female to protect her from the continual assaults. Boys with wicked grins danced and whooped around us shouting “Helloooooooooo!!” and “I loooove youuu!” trying to pass us with pretences of handshakes or just out-and-out making a dive for female companion. One group swarmed us and while we tried to physically remove the human-monkey halfbreeds several of them pinched and prodded at her chest and stomach. A yelp of anger sounded her rage at being so blatantly violated and the cackling men leaped back and cheered their success.
Group after group of them tried their luck at molesting her, as if we were a carnival amusement and copping a feel the prize. In the darkness the streams of men were even more frightening, and adrenaline and anger drove us to desperately dodge around them and bounce the more daring of them out of reach. One man walked deliberately close to the passing couple grinning cheekily to them. Then, once he had passed out of the man’s line of sight he ducked at attempted to grab at her from behind. She saw him clearly and dodged her hips away but this made him cheer. He turned and walked straight into my hand.
The small man was terrified and couldn’t understand why a white man was threatening him. The whole path of Indian men stopped to see what the big show was about, and perhaps to join in if this gora tried to push his luck too far. There is quite a bit of resentment towards the gora (a mildly insulting word for a white foreigner), after all, they arrive here with their wallets full of money to gawk smugly at the poor, uneducated Indians. The small Indian stares open-mouthed while I shout at him and he doesn’t even realise whyi could possibly have a beef with him until Paul rounds on him aswell. Realising the connection to his eve-teasing (the Anglo-Indian term for everything from cat-calling to sexual molestation) and he relaxes. “Ok, I am sorry.” He extends his hand and wobbles his head in sincerity. We use strong words in asking him to be on his way and he scampers off. The crowd continues on its way, the specticle over.
Back in the hostel we simmer with rage about the entire experience. In the West such matters are treated with contempt and serious legal consiquences. Here, the girl should take more care not to walk down such a place at night, she might as well be asking to be attacked. In the newspapers an article declared that a man recieved an unusually lengthy prison term of 7 years for murdering and chopping his wife up. Her parents didn’t pay the full dowery.
The night before we arrived in Delhi a young Australian girl was raped outside the hostel she was staying in. It was the same hostel we stayed in. Her friends were less than 50 metres away in the busy tourist centre while she was brutalised.
Filed under: India | 8 Comments
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