Since my time in Bhubaneswar would soon be coming to an end and I hadn't yet seen much of the area surrounding Bhubaneswar, my colleague Sabita very sweetly organized an overnight trip.  And my NGO very generously paid for everything!  It was Sabita, Pushpa, Sikhya (Pushpa's daughter), Pushpa's father, and me -- which meant the four women were squished in the back seat.  One person always had to be sitting forward on the edge of the seat in order for us all to fit; we took turns, but they rarely let me do it so I could sit at the window and enjoy the view.  So sweet!  We had a driver who stayed with us the whole time, which is apparently quite affordable and common in India.  I'm not clear on where he slept -- I think it was in the car, out in the heat.  A guy's gotta make a living, I guess.  Ouch. 

We had a plan in place to beat the heat: Leave on Saturday afternoon, return to Bhubaneswar on Sunday morning by 11, rest for a few hours, and then set out again at around 4pm.  Saturday worked out beautifully, but on Sunday somehow everything moved a bit slowly, and we didn't return to Bhubaneswar until 3pm.  Since the car had no a/c and it was about 100 degrees out, I desperately wanted to go straight to the office to get into the a/c; at about 1pm someone said we were heading there, but we kept making stops.  When we reached Bhubaneswar I was so relieved... until we stopped at a restaurant for lunch.  We tried two restaurants that were either too crowded or didn't have a/c; finally, nearly in tears, I told them I had to get inside somewhere.  It was difficult to complain or make demands because they were uncomfortable too, and we made all the stops and took the whole trip just for me.  The heat definitely got to me, and I just couldn't fake it anymore.  I got back to the office at 4pm and cranked up the a/c.  I told Sabita that I wanted to partake in the evening's activities, but only if we could get a car with a/c.  I'm trying so hard not to be such a princess about it -- and not to toot my own horn, but I think I've done pretty darn well tolerating the heat without too much complaint -- but I'd hit my limit.  So at 5 we set out in a different car, blissfully cool in the a/c.

Highlights of the trip:

The Dhaula Temple, just outside Bhubaneswar.  Sikhya happened to have done a research paper on this temple for school, so she explained everything to me.

A visit to an ashram, founded by a man with the most fascinating life story.  He took us to a building under construction for the ashram, with a big sign that it's being funded by a group in... New Jersey.

I enjoyed going to the ashram, and I’m especially glad I met Sudhansu, but by the time I got home at 9:30 I was completely exhausted.  A most pleasant surprise awaited me at the apartment: Tanushree got an air conditioner in her bedroom!  Her sister and nephew were visiting and sleeping in her room, so I thought I’d stay in my room since four’s a crowd.  But she insisted, saying I’m part of her family now.  So sweet!  At some point during the night I actually woke up cold.  Woo hoo!

I cried today.  It was bound to happen.  I’m in India after all.  I recall crying a few times while traveling solo through China in 2006 although I can’t remember exactly when or why. 

Today I hopped on a bus to Konark, a town roughly one hour away famous for its UNESCO site, the Sun Temple.  It’s a stunning, large stone temple dedicated to the sun goddess, Surya.  It’s also known for its erotic carvings that decorate the outer walls.  My guide gladly pointed out the depictions of lesbians, threesomes, standing 69s, and bestiality (WHAT?!?!).  I’ll admit, for my first encounter of historic, erotic art, I was entertained. 

After leaving the complex I decided to check out the nearby Nine Planets Shrine.  It was a small, shabby looking building with several monks out front making simple lamps of 9 wicks in blobs of wax meant for blessings. 

I didn’t want pay the 50 rupees for a blessing, but I had one thrust on me anyways by the monk who followed me into the shrine despite my protests.  Then, when I went to make a small donation, another monk pressed me to donate more.  He SHAMED ME into donating more rupees!  Then the first monk demanded that I pay for my blessing! 

I left very angry about being corned like that and soon afterwards I decided to turn back to confront them for using such tactics. 

It wasn’t about the money.  It was very little money to begin with.  But it’s never about the money.  It’s about the principle.  Usually, I would let these sorts of things slide cuz it’s just what you have to deal with everyday.  I figure there’s no need to argue over a few dollars. 

I was angry that they made me feel guilty when I had nothing to feel guilty about.  Visiting the shrine was free and I made my first donation voluntarily.  Even a local girl who saw what happened told me afterwards that I shouldn’t have had to pay anything. 

I told some of the monks still at the shrine that I didn’t like how two monks simultaneously pressured me for more money in the name of their religion.  I also reiterated that I clearly said several times that I didn’t want a lamp or a blessing but it was just thrust on me as I was standing there.  I went as far as saying that it was stunts like this that made people from Canada NOT want to visit India.  I told the monk that I would leave my donation but that I wanted my 50 rupees back. 

A different monk then went into the shrine and came back with my 50 rupees.  He asked me if this is what I wanted and then gave me half of the cucumber he was about to eat.  I think he meant it as a peace offering.  I took both, said thank you and walked away.

I didn’t get very far when the overwhelming urge to cry forced me to sit down on a ledge next to a tree.  It just felt good to cry.  And I ate most of that cucumber.  It made me feel good too.  But I gave the rest of the cucumber to a cow that had wondered over to where I was sitting.  It was scavenging for food in the garbage that littered the ground.  I figured she must have been more miserable than I was at that moment.    

Yeah, sometimes there’s just cattle walking around.

First of all, THANK YOU to everyone out there who sent me happy birthday wishes!  Today is my birthday and many have asked me how I spent this special day. 

So here it is:

I woke up on the lower sleeper bunk of a train heading for Puri.  I left Kolkata the night before having said goodbye to the very experienced traveler friends I’d met in the city.  It was only 5:30 in the morning but everyone was already up and about so I had no choice but to get up.

It was my first experience on an Indian train.  It was much more cramped than the sleepers in China but I was also staying in sleeper class, the lowest class for beds.  Next time I’ll try one class higher and see what that’s like.

At the Puri train station I was met by Pinto, the friend of the owner of the internet café I went to in Kolkata.  I was very aware of how sketchy the situation could have been but Pinto turned out to be a really nice person.  He brought me to his guesthouse just off the traveler’s area of town.  It’s called Dog & Duck.  Yup…..DOG & DUCK HOTEL.  Nope, it’s not in Lonely Planet. 

I met the dog, Jackie, but there is no duck. 

Anyways, my room is large, clean, and it’s got a private bathroom so I’m happy with my new fancy digs!  Pinto asked me what I would pay for this room.  I tried to get him to tell me what it was worth but in the end I quoted him a price I read at some other hotel I read about in Lonely Planet.  I expected us to go into the usual song and dance negotiations but he just said okay. 

It was so easy for me that I was shocked into silence. 

So even though I think I’m getting a great deal here, I’m thinking I probably could have gotten the room for even cheaper!

Moving on, I spent the rest of the morning chatting with my new neighbour and then exploring the town for an hour or so.  I wandered onto the beach and had a chance to watch some of the goings on with the local fishermen.

Then I took a nap.  A lovely, peaceful, birthday nap.

This afternoon I learned how to properly take a hit off a glass coke bottle turned bong with the help of the stalk of a plant.  Apparently the key is in the technique for holding the contraption.

Okay, it’s February 24, my sister’s birthday and halfway through our time here in the quite lovely Oceanside city of Puri. My 9 days of diarrhea may be coming to some kind of close so I’ve begun taking a bit of food and water and tea. My sprained ankle (2 days ago) from falling down a step is recovering nicely as is my respiratory hacking etc. Gee, I’m sure I’ll be fine in no time. More important is that my mental and emotion state of mind is world’s improved from the first 2 weeks behind me. It’s due to many things but now that I’ve got things righted in my mind and I have a plan of how to live day to day with this group and our guiding Guru, it’s a huge confusion come to an end I believe. Now, if I were to encounter any additional physical difficulties it would not have a fraction of the impact of distress on me as all the stuff previous. Sure, hours on end having diarrhea half naked in an open field with locals and our group gazing was quite the life experience to start this spiritual tour off but truly it was nothing in comparison to the distress of relinquishing my brain to a group and a guru when none of it was making any sense.  Now it’s not that anything is particularly different except my shift in how I’m looking at it all and choosing to deal with it.

So, for some good news…the weather is beautiful, the skies-sunrises and sets and night stars and moon, the crashing waves, the activity on the beach 24 hours a day are all lovely. The time we spent at a special ashram was/is meaningful to me.  About a half an hour ago I had my fourth coconut…water and then if lucky, the jelly/meat. Today’s was my best yet.

It’s time to head out for a 3:30 meditation with the group on the beach. I do not have internet access here….we’ll see about that later.

The quasi plan is to stay here in Puri (at an ashram) until the 26^th. Then we head to Varanasi but that will take a couple of days.

Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. All is fine. I’m finally getting some peace…inner and outer.

Love,

Deb

It’s now the 25^th and I’m in my room in Puri after probably 4 hours of bus ride to nowhere as we head out to a destination but it was a cluster and we ended up coming back…..totally completely avoidable but I’ve come to learn to take this type of this totally in stride and use the time to meditate or at least to work really hard at taking it totally in stride and with a meditative mind. This could be part of my work here because so much time is consumed with what I would normally consider a total waste of time and poor planning and execution and unnecessary creation of stress for a group that one must figure out a way to deal with it if one chooses to continue to be a part of it, which up until now I have, though it’s just been over the past couple of days that I’ve come to any peace over it. Makes a big difference. So, if I can deal with this type of perceived chaos and unintelligence with a real inner peace, anything life throws at me back home should be a walk in a divine park.

Still very little time to be alone so again…an opportunity to do mental work to ‘be’ someplace else than where I physically am. Currently my roommate, one of the four of us who all share a bed…actually two beds pushed together…she is going over homework with her 10 year old son. I’d like to be taking a nap right now without this fluorescent light on and without this fan on, alone, but that’s not in the cards right now, right here, so I thought I’d write and if I have time afterwards, I’ll go find a space, a room, somewhere to try to get that nap. Then, I plan to submerge myself in the great ocean here. The Bay of Bengal. I’ll dry off in the hot sun, head back to the ashram for a meditation, wash my clothes, wash my body and get myself prepared for traveling tomorrow though I won’t be surprised if we don’t actually stick to that plan of travel.

This evening I will venture out to find an internet connection point. I’ve done a wee bit of scouting.

I slept on the roof last night with the boys including Scott. Concrete is harder than earth.

I’m good, doing well but rarely find myself in a moment that I’m self directing. Like I’d have wanted to sleep in a few hours this morning then go to the water etc. etc. But I still work around some of the quasi schedules with the group. You see, I want to eat with the group and meditate and sit in on classes with the group and go on tours with the group but the way it’s not organized makes it very difficult to do anything else in between those times except to sit around and be at the ready.

Just exiting the bus earlier was taking so incredibly long this afternoon after returning from our trip to nowhere that Scott and I walked ahead of the group back to the ashram and missed out on getting another coconut. Not such a big deal but it demonstrates my point. I’d like to have had one, but you have to stand around forever just in case our leadership decides to DO something like have coconuts. I cope these days by doing some of my own thing. I swiped an orange into my room the other day so I ate that. It’s not exactly the rules but not wholly against them either. Guess I haven’t explained all the rules…quite a few of them, but on the other hand for an ashram group, they don’t follow many typical ashram rules. I’ll explain when I get home….or not.

Each day I see new things which are totally India and interact with new people and I very much enjoy it. The open air crematorium where family members sit watch over the burning of the body of their loved ones, which onlooking cows of course. New tropical vegetation, lizards, monkeys, oxen, brown sheep today. Lots of lepers today begging. I don’t know why so many today versus other days. Last night on the beach, some men were pretty aggressive in either their gawking and begging, but I’m still pretty comfortable with most all that I’ve had to encounter.

I’m still coughing and hoping I’ll see the end of that soon. The digestive system seems mucho better yesterday and today….after 9 days of wee bits of rice and boiled potatoes, it’s pretty nice to eat some other stuff now. Man, it would be nice not to experience any of that upset again during this trip.

I’m itching my bug bites. Lots of people are totally eaten up.

I still need to find myself a large piece of luggage to replace the tearing one I have and to hold the sleeping bag and all my stuff so I’ll get everything into two checked bags at the airport on the way back which isn’t for awhile but I’m looking for a bag now. A friend used electrical tape on my bag to try to help it.

Good friends I made here have gone home now. Originally from Guyana, they live in Canada…we all feel that we will connect again. She, Utra, gave me an Indian – style outfit before she left. I tried it on and many nice comments came from that but I haven’t worn it out yet. I will. It’s very easy to wear and feels totally comfortable to dress like locals why I’m here, even at home it’d be easy. Today, my roommate gave me a decorative hankerchief she picked up in Delhi. More and more we really are feeling and acting like a community, a family. It just happens. It’s all good. It’s interesting. Amazing how many different ways one can live one’s life and where and with whom.

Our guru offered to meet with us individually and answer questions etc. I quickly wrote 10 of mine and got them to him last night…we talked briefly about them and we are to reconvene today…or sometime to go into more depth on them all. I’m very much looking forward to this. No real expectations, except that I’m eager for the conversations.

The word about today’s trip was that we were supposed to have visited a wildlife areas with elephants and lots of migratory birds. Feels like we should try that again tomorrow and just leave a day later. No one is eager for another moment on our red bus, but with most things, it’s amazing how one adapts to life. It’s now OUR bus, and I could so see people cheering and thanking the thing for getting us everywhere (not an easy task on this journey) around India safely…or almost safely and we’ve had lots of mishaps.

Hmmm…..looking at the time, thinking about the rest of this day.

By the way, doing laundry has been going just fine except for my jeans….jeans not conducive to things here and so difficult to scrub….I’ll have to try to wash them again when I feel like I have more strength. That, and my white jacket…I know, I know….I was willing to get it really dirty or destroyed but….this is something else….it disappeared for awhile ( this is common here) and when reappeared…well, I don’t know what it went through….I bet it could write it’s own blog….I need to try to clean it.

Today when we got off the bus to eat on the side of the road….well, I ended up sitting on someone’s spilled food…..so I then tried to clean my pants while wearing them while on the side of the road…..it’s always something. I haven’t looked at my but to see how successful I was at getting out the stain.

I think I sense that someone made tea….hoping it’s for all of us….think I’ll go check. I’ll try to grab some gore.  Don’t know how to spell it….hunks of cane sugar candy they eat with tea.

Talk to you later.

Deb