Land of the Midnight Sun

En route, somewhere along the Norwegian coast.

Hei hei from Norway, where I arrived here mid-June to join the salty dog sailing crew of Ms. R., the mother of my Trinity college roommate, G. All those years ago when I was told about the annual boating trips commandeered by Ms. R., I thought, “Now THERE’S something I MUST pursue!” It has taken me five years, other travels far and wide, and another stint at university life before I was able to make concrete this once-passing fancy. But here I am basking in the midnight sun, marveling at the unfathomable fjords and sheer mountain peaks, keeping a lookout for reindeer and moose herds, dining on a cornucopia of seafood, aquavit and brown cheese, and coming to grips with such novels terms as bow and boom, port and starboard*, battening hatches and hoisting the main sails, and learning the intricacies of gale forces.

* Fittingly, the word starboard is descended from the Old Norse words stýri meaning “rudder” (from the verb stýra, literally “being at the helm”, “having a hand in”) and borð etymologically meaning “board”, then the “side of a ship”.

But before I regale you with tales of the high seas, there has been an intervening period of time where I was MIA and so apologies for my correspondent absence. Indeed, I have not sent a massive missive since last summer’s sojourn to Nepal and India, and some of you may have been wondering whether I packed it in and took up with the sadhus to live an ascetic existence. The answer is, Not yet! I returned to New York to work for the Irish government at the UN during the General Assembly, while also finishing my course work at The New School. Since January I dedicated most of my time and sanity to the academic endeavor of my thesis, “Recasting Identity: Constitutional Deliberations and Dalit Rights in the ‘New Nepal’”, which utilized much of the research I’d completed last summer. I survived, despite having my computer stolen the night before I handed in my thesis (losing only my bibliography – a pain to be sure, but not as painful as a year’s worth of work which was thankfully saved on a flash drive!). I visited my dad in Oregon for 2 weeks and said the briefest of hellos/goodbyes to a bare handful of Portland peeps, returned to New York in time to graduate and pack up my life & apartment into a 5 ft. x 7 ft. storage space, and swiftly departed in a cloud of 747 exhaust to land across the Atlantic, home in Ireland.

It was a balm on my harried self to have a blessed handful of weeks on the aul’ sod. The weather, as we Irish are quick to discuss, couldn’t have been better. It is almost a different country when the sun shines. Not to say we’re a grim bunch, but with some exposure to nature’s ready-made vitamin D people smile more, laugh readily, and are ever so loquacious in giving thanks for beautiful climatic conditions. Living a short walk from woods and the beach, I took every opportunity to be outside. The fields, carpeted in a rainbow of bog lilies, bluebells, honeysuckle and clover, sensually assault the senses. Down on the north shores of Galway Bay, small waves crashed a soft lullaby kept off tempo by the crackle and pop of seaweed in the sunshine. Across the way, Clare’s hills sat in a dull haze countered by the brilliant sparkle of the water. When I wasn’t rambling, I was cooking wonderful feasts, lounging in front of the telly watching such classics as The Quiet Man, Gleaming the Cube, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, and sleeping in what became my 12-hourly nightly rituals and afternoon siestas. I attended the beautiful wedding of an Irish friend from NYC, complete with céilí dancing and speeches that showcased the gift of gab while not leaving a dry eye in the house.

But the best part of being in Ireland was spending time with my family and friends. One day my mom and I went calling on my friend C.’s family home in the country outside of Galway City. In the brief hour and half we were there, no less than six pots of tea were consumed, as siblings, aunts, uncles, and a grandmother also stopped in to say ‘Howya’ on their ways elsewhere. It was not yet 11 AM, but the table was laid with cookies (“biscuits”), carrot cake, and lemon meringue pie. Bursting at the seams, and despite the misty rain that fell, we then made our way to Coole Park for a walk in the 7 Woods. An area of 1,000 acres, Coole Park was formerly the home of Lady Gregory – a dramatist, folklorist and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre along with W. B. Yeats. In the early 20th century Coole was the centre of the Irish Literary Revival, with poets and authors including Yeats, G. B. Shaw, J. M. Synge and Sean O' Casey all returning to Coole time and again to talk, plan and derive inspiration from its incredible setting. The old manor house no longer stands, but the ancient woods, lakes and gardens are today open to the public. Our walk was followed by yet another spot of tea, this time washing down delicious homemade scones and jam while seated in a traditional working farm, where C.’s mother works and hosts busloads of tourists looking for an “authentic” Irish experience. The most authentic aspect, though, is not the thatch roof cottage with the turf fire and lambs baaaaa-ing away in the background, nor is it the custom of high tea at 4:00, but rather the genuine warm welcome delivered and received. Besides rain, Guinness and leprechauns, is that not what the Irish are renowned for ?

So I was well fed and watered when I left Ireland mid-June. As I flew east from Dublin to Copenhagen and north to Trondheim, my tinge of melancholia was soon overcome by excitement and nervousness at the immanent sea voyage. Will I get hypothermia if I fall in the water? Do I look like a fool if I don’t know how to tie a minimum of five different sailing knots? What if I get seasick all over the cabin? Do I say ‘Good morning!’ or ‘Ahoy!’ when I awaken on board? These and other seemingly innocuous thoughts plagued me as I spent the following couple days wandering the rainy streets of Trondheim. Not having any spare kidneys to sell, I limited my spending to the bare cup of coffee to sip on and watch the Norwegian world go by. Of course, our preconceptions of a place are riddled with stereotypes – I thought everyone here would be dressed in animal skins sporting helmets with horns. Hardly. Though many inhabitants of these northern lands do have sparkling baby blues and hay-coloured manes, just as many are dark-eyed with raven tresses. My host Ms. R. bore my incessant questioning of the whys and wiles of Norway’s politics, pastimes and pre- and post-oil boom history with patience; she herself Dutch but living here and teaching school for the better part of 30 years.

We cast off a day later than planned due to the rotten weather. Pulling away from our mooring in Trondheim the waves were chopping, the wind was howling, and rain was pouring down. The crew was 5 in all, including an old friend of Ms. R. – T. – and his two daughters aged 13 and 15 who were seasick that afternoon (and subsequently for much of the journey). Surprisingly my delicate stomach doth not protest the rocking boat! My duty that first evening and for most (but not all) of the trip was mess cook, and that expression speaks truly. Learning to cook at a 45* angle does not do much for the notion of food presentation. One evening, a sudden lurch of the boat gave me a lovely hued bruise down my arm, and also left T. eating his dinner from his lap. There is little grace in oceanic dining! The weather finally cleared just as we docked the first night, and I gratefully stepped out onto solid ground and tried to lose my sea legs. This became de rigueur as each evening I would attempt to shake the shakiness from my appendages. Easier said than done, for as soon as I gained a semblance of stability, it was back to the boat to gain some rest before the next morning’s early departure.

The route we took the following week not so much as hugged the coast as kept it somewhere starboard as we headed north. We docked in small harbours, some with small villages and others with a collection of houses, largely vacant except for the summer holiday-makers who descend in July. One evening we stopped at an island called Leka. After a wee weenie roast on the rocks to celebrate the summer solstice, I wandered off to explore. Leka has been inhabited for at least 10,000 years, as evidenced by rare Stone Age rock paintings in a cave in one part of the island. It is also the site of “Ørnerovet,” a famous incident in 1932 in which a three-year old girl was snatched and carried off by an eagle! She was found alive and barely scratched, having been flown up a nearby mountain and deposited near the eagle’s rookery. But for me, the most interesting part of Leka was the large Viking ship burial mound. The saga tells of the chieftain King Herlaug refusing to submit to Harald Hårfagre – the man who came to unite Norway in the 9th century. Instead of submitting to Hårfagre, Herlaug and 11 of his men dug a hole, placed their ship in it, and were themselves buried alive inside it along with provisions needed for transition to the next world: tools, weapons and assorted livestock. Amateur excavations carried out in the 19th century uncovered the skeletons of 2 men and swords, but after local protests the mound was again left to gather the dusts of history. Today it is merely a small grassy knoll in the middle of a field near the shore, but walking up and around it gives a great sense of historical time, re-imagining what occurred beneath my feet more than a thousand years ago.

Another night we stayed on the island of Broga - the evening of the 23rd/24th; the fest of the nativity of St. Hans/St. Johannes/John the Baptist. Beyond the religious commemoration, many customs associated with the Nativity of John the Baptist are in fact more related to the concurrent celebration of midsummer which themselves are remnants of pre-Christian pagan midsummer festivals. Large bonfires lit all up and down the coast, including in Broga. The evening sun lighting up the coastal cliffs, reflecting the St. Hans fires that burned below. The island’s only public house had a late opening of 11 PM that night, so I enjoyed a cold Scandinavian draft and learned some choice Norwegian phrases (i.e. if someone is annoying you, one says, ‘komme bort du spøkelse, or ‘Get away, you ghost!’).

Just after Broga we passed through the Arctic Circle. As we continued north, the rolling rocky hills became replaced by taller glacial peaks, and the air gave off a decidedly crisper chill. Regardless of our latitude, we docked at the island of Fugløya (Bird Island) and had the afternoon to enjoy a fantastic beach with sparkling turquoise waters. The day was fine and warm, and omitting the temperature of the small waves that lapped the shore, one would be mistaken to believe they were in the Caribbean! We hiked up a small mountain and sat to watch the puffins skimming down as if on a zip line from their nests in the rocks to crest smoothly into the ocean 300 meters below. Unfortunately, the puffin population in the North Sea has been radically declining over the last few years, but scientists don’t exactly know why. Possible factors are not yet properly understood but it is thought due to climate change in the form of an intensification of winter storms that may be affecting the ability of puffins to find food. So it is with a little cheer and yell of “go puffins!” when I see the little buggers now.

We arrived in the Lofoten Islands, our final destination, a day ahead of schedule. Docking in the village of Reine, I found my way off the boat and wandered in the misty dusk down to the shore to examine the hele (sp?), or wooden racks of cod that are left for months to dry and cure in the salty sea air. The cod is then shipped abroad – the heads to African countries like Nigeria where they are ground and used as a base in a popular fish soup, and the meat to other European countries such as Italy and Portugal - ironically known, at least once upon a time, for their own sea catches.

Dodging the angry seagulls who saw me as an intruder and threat to their sustenance, I got out of the rain and into the local restaurant/bar – a small but charming gourmet haunt that seemed to be carved from the hull of an old ship. I got talking to two Swedes, one of whom works in the restaurant but was dining that night with her visiting friend. I had been admiring the crown of flowers worn in her hair, and was duly informed that it was Midsummer’s Eve – a big night in the Swedish calendar where bonfires are made, children dance around phallic poles (not my description), and general revelry is enacted. Curious as to how they would be celebrating here in Norway, I boldly invited myself along and they were kind enough to humour me. Returning to the large rooming house where they - as part of a small contingent of Swedes - live and work during the summer, we imbibed alcoholic beverages and filled the next few hours with random chat. It was a welcome change to be with new faces, so I was mildly shocked when they started tripping off to bed that it was 3:30 in the morning. I stumbled back to the boat in the morning light that had hardly changed from the previous evening’s, and awoke with rattlesnakes in my brain to say Ha det! to T. and his daughters, who were headed back to Trondheim.

Ms. R. and I then sailed on to Kabelvåg, where I land-lubbed with the incredibly hospitable A. for the past week. Stationary sailing knots have been traded for dynamic hikes and cycles around the island. I went fishing, and landed an impressive piece of seaweed! It has been a heretofore unknown luxury to sleep a bed that rests on solid ground. My feet that were perpetual blocks of ice on the boat have finally thawed. And it is good too to be back in the world of communication again, including being glued the latest World Cup games!

I very much enjoyed my adventures on the boat, and would love the opportunity to continue developing my nautical skills and dirty sailor’s brogue. But now the next stage of my European adventures with be completed by iron horse. I will be in Norway for another week visiting with my aforementioned home girl G., then am pointed south, heading to Croatia via Berlin and Vienna by train. Plans after that are still not finalized, but I will keep moving until my Interrail ticket is null and void – sometime at the beginning of August. So and as always, I’ll keep trucking until the road ceases to rise up and meet me.

Namaste Means Goodbye as well as Hello

View of the Annapurna range at beginning of trek, Nepal (Author photo)

It is a bit embarrassing to be writing this final installment of my trip, many months after my return to New York from Nepal and India. My bags are since unpacked, the few gifts of incense, prayer flags and tea smuggled in have been distributed, and the entire experience – from my discombobulated landing in Kathmandu to my exhausted and exhilarated departure from Delhi – seems like so long ago. How quick it is to fall without hardly noticing back into the racing, raucous ruckus that is this city; it makes my meditations on this summer spent abroad all the more distant. A three week traverse through one-and-a-half-thousand miles, and a return of seven times that distance again. It has been hard to find the time to reflect on the multitude of places and senses experienced then in the midst of constantly shifting impressions, especially since I’ve since been in the final leg of my MA with full-time job working at the UN during the General Assembly. Despite this, and alongside the de-fuddling of my befuddled brain, I finally manage to log this entry. Less of a blog and more of a letter family, friends and fellow travelers, this is a recant of last summer’s escapades in the Asian sub-continent.

Backtrack: Tea with the Maoists

As per an earlier entry *scroll way down*, at the beginning of July my fellow New Schoolers and I made the perilous journey south to Chitwan, Nepal’s main national park. I say perilous because the only “highway” in Nepal is a windy two-lane road flanked by drops of hundreds of feet to the Himalayan valley floors. No barricades. Cars and trucks laden with goods coming back and forth from India often plunge over, being little regard for blind corners, coupled with the fact that Nepalis don’t like to use their lights because they think it wastes gasoline. At one point our little bus stopped, and we rafted for a few hours down the Trishuli River - my first time rafting! It being the rainy season, albeit no rain at that point, the river was swollen and brown, and we definitely caught some air. Needless to see we made it alive to the jungles of Chitwan to spy on bathing rhinos, actually bath with elephants, walk watching birds, and while not chewing over what it would feel like to be chewed by a hungry tiger, relaxing by a river in the Terai savannah. Though humid, it was a welcome, quiet and much needed respite from the hot pong of the Kathmandu summer.

On our way back to KTM, our indefatigable professor Ashok had wrangled an audience with Maoists ex-combatants living one of six UN-monitored cantonments. This meeting was duly recorded below, and if you’ll grant me excuse to toot me own horn here through shameless self-promotion, an article was subsequently published by one of Nepal’s English-language newspapers, Republica (who for some reason failed to archive the story, but it was basically the blog entry) and also filed a radio piece with Free Speech Radio News (http://www.fsrn.org/audio/peace-accord-jeopardized-status-maoist-combatants-nepal/5102).

Kicking it in KTM

One of the most asked questions about my summer was what exactly I did every day. Well, by early July I had moved out of my home-stay situation and got a small flat with another girl in the program. My day began early enough, as is typical in Nepal to rise with the sun, the rooster, the morning chants, or in my case a combination of the three. A gulp of Nepali coffee - the Himalayan hills one of the understated coffee growing regions of the world - a cold shower and I was out the door, walking through my neighborhood to the main road where I hailed a tuk-tuk (or tempo, as the little three-wheeled, electric mini-car/bus/autos are called there) and ask in my pidgin Nepali if they were going to the neighborhood where I worked. Without fail, each morning when I clambered onto the back or squeezed into the front seat with a little old lady and the driver, it was always to the curiosity of fellow early morning Nepalese commuters. What was this giant white lady doing? A few were curious to ask, and whether they had little or no English they were rapt listeners. They also found it incredibly amusing when I would invariably hit my head climbing out again at my stop.

I arrived at work around 9 or 10, and would spend the following hours tapping away at my computer. The day went until about 3, when the electricity was cut in one of the daily bouts of load shedding – up to eight hours a day sometimes – low compared to the winter when the capital goes 16-18 hours without electricity. Sustained by drinking the ubiquitous milk tea, my internship with Jagaran Media Center (JMC) continued until the end of July. While there, I conducted research examining the role of marginalized communities, specifically the situation of Dalits in the newly-democratizing Nepal. I attended a few seminars and interviewed Dalit writers, activists, politicians, and students. (This ethnography will be incorporated into my thesis, due in May of this year.)

Our time in Kathmandu ended with saris and a lovely send-off. All the host families, work supervisors, and others who assisted in making our cumulative trip a success were invited for a reception and dinner at a fancy hotel. The other girls and I had saris made; after a summer wearing the same tee-shirts and shorts combo it was a welcome change to dress up in all the regality reserved for Hindu matrons. The sari I’d chosen was chiffon in a lovely golden color. But to my chagrin, as soon as my fellow workers from JMC saw me it was all they could do not to comment, “Rachel, you look just like a Brahmin wife!” (Wearers of the ‘golden thread’, Brahmins are the high caste Hindus who most readily discriminate most against Dalits.) An entire summer spent studying the Dalit movement and I show up to a farewell party dressed to oppress.

Pokhara and the Gurungs

It was a mixed goodbye I gave to Kathmandu, mostly because I was stressed trying to pack and repack my bags, post a heavy care package full of everything that I didn’t want to lug with me for another 3 weeks, clean my apartment, say goodbye to those few but wonderful Nepali friends I had made and, in addition, be an active host to my friend F., who had flown over from New York to join me in a spate of South Asian travel. We boarded the bus at 7 in the morning and left Kathmandu; the next phase of our journey literally set in motion as we bumped and swayed our way east to Pokhara on the same highway of death.

Along with one of my classmates A., the journey was supposed to be a “short” 6 hour trip. As what should have been anticipated, but neglected in our footloose and fancy-free minds, we became stuck in a bandh a mere 15 miles from our destination. Taking justice into their own hands by preventing the passage of any motor vehicles, the strike took place in a village where a man was hit and killed while crossing the road. Calling for compensation for the family, the general populace quickly gathered and held up traffic. In our confusion we were the last off the bus, and joined the exodus who decided to leg it on foot to Pokhara. We passed the body of the poor soul lying in the middle of the road. No one had bothered to cover it with a sheet. The villagers just stood around, fanning themselves under the shadows of trees; nobody was going anywhere. Due to the heat and girth of our bags, we ourselves barely made it to the other side of the village before collapsing in an exhausted heap with some others who were all-too familiar with the daily reality of awaiting justice in a country where there is little.

After a four-hour wait watching bugs and the rain and eating the rest of our meager (and by this time melted) food supplies, we finally arrived into Pokhara at seven that evening. Reveling in the peaceful cleanliness of the city regarded as Nepal’s resort town, Pokhara is nestled on one side of Lake Phewa, in the foothills of the infamous Annapurna range. Pokhara is the land of Magars and Gurungs, hardworking farmers and valorous warriors who have earned worldwide fame as Gurkha soldiers. [Aside: The day we returned from our trek, there was another strike in Pokhara itself, this time because the families of the Gurkhas in the barracks built lean-tos around the camp; the army was forcibly removing them. The media, which had invaded Pokhara a few weeks earlier on the heels of Joanna Lumley (of AbFab fame; long time supporter of Gurkha rights), were noticeably absent from this strike.]Once part of a vibrant trade route extending between India and Tibet, to this day mule trains can be seen camped on the outskirts of Pokhara, bringing goods from remote regions of the Himalayas. The pace of life is markedly slower than the frenetic capitol, so we gratefully took two days to decompress, sleep, shop, have a beer or five and eat the worst steak of my life. Indeed, I am not much of a red meat eater, but after two months of eating dhal bhaat – rice and lentils – I jumped at the chance though I missed having a chainsaw to cut through this beef, which was probably not even cow but buffalo hide.

In Pokhara, we linked up with another classmate, C., who had been set to come to Nepal as part of the program but who couldn’t come for the entire summer. She and her hubby T. came at the end of July to see what she’d been missing all summer. Apparently, she had been missing Elton John and didn’t even know it; they happened upon the pint-sized crooner in a rug shop in Kathmandu and had their photo snapped with him for posterity. No joke.

The five of us had planned a small trek, much to the blatant perplexity of those Nepalis who wondered why the hell we were headed into the Himalayas during the monsoon season? The simple answer is we’d wanted to actually see the fabled mountains in whose veiled lap we had spent so much time. Also, the simple answer that one cannot go to Nepal and not trek, even in the rain.

The aforementioned Professor Ashok comes from a village a day’s hike into the Annapurna conservation area region, so he had suggested that we visit his brethren. Armed with our permits and hiking boots (or in my case, Vans Off the Wall), we awoke before the sun arose to wait for our young guide Bhakta, a charmingly shy, whip smart 17-year old who was from our destination village – Tanting – and attending secondary school in Pokhara. He collected our groggy selves, and the journey began in the back of a jeep, well, two jeeps. We bumped along for 45 minutes until we got to a river. We took off our boots and crossed over alongside young men piggybacking their old mothers, babies, and essential supplies across, then climbing into another jeep began an almost vertical climb into the foothills of the Himalayas. The weather was a blessed gift from the gods that day, and as we jounced our way up in elevation, we managed a sustained 15 minute breathtaking panorama of the peaks – our only full view of them the entire time I was in Nepal.

After leaving behind the jeep with the promise to return in 2 days, we set off full of piss and vinegar. Our hike up was crowned with sunshine and the odd delicious breeze. On our way up we passed several terraced settlements where people of all ages were working in the rice fields and maintaining the path. It was spectacular, but come to realize a brutal 4,000 ft. uphill hike. Like unruly kids in the backseat of a car, we kept harassing poor Bhakta as to the whereabouts of his village and how long it would be before we got there. It was always on the other side of the hill. Finally, as in a fairytale, we passed through a waterfall tumbling next to the entrance to the village, and fairly collapsed into our cots at the only guest house. Goes to show our Western weakling selves: the locals, including those easily in their sixties, move up and down the steep rocky-steps as quick and agile as mountain goats, and make the same journey in about half the time as we did without breaking a sweat.

At almost 7,000 ft., Tanting was surrounded by clouds due to the monsoon season, though occasionally they would part, revealing shadowy hints of the snow-capped mountains, angular and fierce towering above the rolling green hills. Terraced on the side of the mountain, the village, which we spent a scant hour exploring, has a school, a children’s nursery, and a little shop which was found, Hansel and Gretel-style, by following a trail of sweets wrappers weaving in between the houses. There are only about 1,500 people living in Tanting, and life there is fairly humble when compared to all the seemingly time-gobbling nonsense of life as we know it elsewhere in the world. There are no phones and no computers. Electricity exists through harnessing the power of a waterfall near the village. Admittedly, I was feeling the rise in elevation and stayed in bed with a headache while the rest explored the village, but as gleaned their explorations were minimal before they returned to the lodge, peeling of leeches from their bloody legs and feet. We whiled away the afternoon playing cards and drinking tea while watching the misty rain fall.

That evening, as the village’s honored (read: only) guests we were presented with a “cultural program”. Over games of bullshit - the card game, quickly mastered by Bhakta - we had curiously been discussing what exactly this program would entail. After a dinner of dhal bhaat, a number of women and a few men showed up to sing while we in turn were pulled onto the ‘dance floor’ – the space next to the fireplace – to wiggle and gyrate as best we could without knocking down the drying corn in the rafters. Given the strenuous hike, the altitude, and the lazy day, we all begged off after downing a glass of the local moonshine. Lying in our beds, we drifted off to the sounds of a single drum keeping the rhythm of singing and laughing Gurungs, deep in the Himalayan hills.

Up early the following morning, we got packed and ready to go, shored up by a bag of boiled eggs. As we were leaving the village, Bhakta’s family and friends came to the village path to see us off, blessing us with garlands of beautiful flowers and smearing rice and vermillion on our faces and cheeks. Our hike down was like floating on clouds; minimal exertion was countered by a drizzle that followed us in descent. It was really like stepping into a time machine, coming back to Pokhara, and in many ways I think the experience, albeit brief, of life in Tanting certainly put things into a contemplative perspective.

Upon our return to relative civilization, we had a hot shower (one of maybe 5 I had all summer), drank Everest beer and treated our young guide for his an earnest work to the shittiest pizza ever created – sadly his first one but hopefully not his last. F. and I took off the next day, parting with C., T. and A.; the latter who incredibly contracted malaria – or something resembling it – on the trek and spent his last week in Kathmandu practically on death’s door. (He is fine and dandy now.) We had booked seats on a bus south to Lumbini, where we were to cross over into India. However, though we showed up bright and early to the bus, pre-purchasing assigned seat bus tickets doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything. I was squeezed in to the dashboard area, first with 2 others (Dutch travellers, so you know with their lanky height it was tight), then plus another 5 by the time we reached our destination. The six hour trip, thankfully bandh-less, was like being on a roller coaster at the same time as inside a flashy old jukebox. Every time a herd of buffalo darted into the road, the driver would slam on the brakes or toot his horn as he barrelled by, barely passing them. F., to her good fortune, was distracted by the TV affixed above my head playing erotic Indian music videos.

Lumbini is a small and dusty border town that exists solely as the site of being the birthplace of the Buddha. But even then, with such an infamous heritage, I thought Lumbini would be a grand and opulent place. It is really just a large park, spread out over a few square miles, with about 10-15 temples built by Buddhists from around the world. We stayed just outside the park, on the town’s single street that had a handful of dingy hostels, one or two-ancient internet cafes, and little else. Arriving in the afternoon, we dumped our bags and immediately went for a celebratory beer for F.’s 31st birthday. Crashing early after the exhausting trek to Tanting and the bone-rattling bus ride, we awoke the following morning with the dawn. On hired bikes we cycled the short distance to the park, known as the ‘Development Center’. With little time before our date with India later that afternoon, we did not visit inside any of the beautiful monasteries, though we did stop to photograph them from afar. We did however visit the Maya Devi Temple, the site where Siddhartha was born in 563 BC under a sal tree (no longer there) after his mother Maya Devi bathed in a sacred pond (which remains).

Returning the bikes and grabbing our bags, we decided to forgo the cramped quarters of the bus and opted for the fresh air option. Suitably lightened by a rooftop bus ride, we crossed over that no-man’s land border from Nepal into India, gratefully with little hassle. Anxious to leave, as we had booked the train to Varanasi at 11 that evening, we went against the supposedly longer and crowded bus and piled into the first jeep we saw; a typical mode of transport from the border to Gorakpur. Laughing at our good luck (so much room!), we soon realized we weren’t going anywhere until the jeep reached double capacity. Almost 3 hours later, joined by a couple Europeans, some Nepalis and Indians, we finally left, pinched and squeezed with ten others in a jeep made for six. It was a fitting introduction to the country’s teeming masses.

Varanasi: Shiva, Silk Scarves, Burning Bodies and Cumbersome Cows

Varanasi, the final destination of many Hindus, is a heady place to discover in any mind state, and more so starving and sleep-deprived. After a 12-hour train, we arrived in the early morning hours to the ghost-white shroud of haze that covers everything in the holy city of Shiva on the Ganges.

F. and myself found our way to the recommended dive hotel (“a backpacker’s favorite!” we’ve discovered means dank, dirty and definitely not worth is), exhausted and dripping wet from the drizzle and swoosh of monsoon season in the northern Indian plains. After 2 hours of restless slumber in a closet-sized, mildewed alcove, and ravenous after a 24-hour diet of soda, chips and masala tea, we slipped and stumbled our way through the narrow millennia-old streets, hawked and hassled by every other person crying for us to Please come in! You like? Very good price! Silks madam? Scarves? What country you from? Hola! Bonjour? Hello!

The tiny streets below our feet were filled with vegetable peelings, terracotta tea cups, broken sandals, funeral crepe paper, and cow shit. The bovines, free to roam wherever they feel, are revered as gods but are impartially regarded as their nonchalance lets them wander in and out of houses, take a rest and enjoy the view by the river side, and piss and defecate where they please. So when not looking down to avoid the greasy slither, we pass through the city, formerly known as Benares, that Mark Twain called ‘older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all them put together.’

As our mutual first exposure to India, Varanasi was a corporeal overload with other-worldly attributes. Life and death are at their most flagrantly palpable, with people from all over the Hindu world come to bathe away a lifetime of sins next to one of 80 ghats along the Ganges. According to Hindu tradition, it is most auspicious to be cremated by Varanasi’s 3,000-year-old ‘eternal fire’ of Manikarnika Ghat, which burns up to a hundred bodies throughout a given 24-hour period. The ever-present tout explained to us that the cost of cremation is considered according to the weight and type of wood used, with sandalwood being the most expensive. Not everyone is burned, and those considered ‘pure’ when they die (pregnant women, children under 10, lepers) are instead tied to rocks and dropped into the river just off the ghat. For those not pure nor deemed eligible for the eternal fire (people killed in accidents, murdered), they are burned in the city’s electric crematorium, which uses so much power it causes regular and prolonged power outages throughout the city.

With another night in Varanasi, we traveled the short distance to Sarnath, the place where Siddhartha first preached his message of the middle way to nirvana, and thus became the Buddha. Along with Lumbini where we had just come from, it was one of the 4 holiest Buddhist sites; the others being Kushingar and Bodhgaya in India. A bustling center of Buddhism for centuries, Sarnath was desecrated by Muslim invaders in the 12th century and rediscovered by archaeologists seven hundred years later. The relatively recent (1931) Mulgandha Kuti Vihar temple with its stunning fresco of the life of Buddha by the Japanese artist Kosetsu Nosi stands in front of a bodhi tree that was transplanted from one in Sri Lanka, which was itself the offspring of the original bodhi tree under which Buddha reached enlightenment at Bodhgaya. In the 3rd century BC the Buddhist emperor Ashok had a giant stone pillar erected, and it forms the centre of the site. The pillar, originally adorned by the four-headed lion column represented today on the crest of India, is housed in a nearby museum. We took a boat ride down the Ganges that last evening, and from the water watched for hours the nightly ceremonies performed on the river’s banks.

F. and I had originally planned to go through Agra to see the Taj Mahal, then down to Rajasthan. However, not having booked tickets, all the trains headed our direction were full. Ready to leave Varanasi, we bought tickets instead to Delhi. Armed with the ubiquitous Lonely Planet India guide, we devoured it during the overnight journey and while rolling along planned our next move. I have always enjoyed trains, a rhythmic and reflective mode of transport. Getting to experience India in this manner, where everyone, and I do mean everyone, rides trains, it became the central part of our journey. I admit we did not traveling ‘Indian style’ sleeper class, but had an air-conditioned car with berths. Despite Mahatma Gandhi’s counsel that the best way to experience a country was to ride in its third class, I make no excuses for having the choice not to do just that. Except for one other French couple, we were the only goras (whities) with a lust for rail passage. We arrived into Delhi, having decided to continue on to Ajmeer and Pushkar in Rajasthan on the edge of the Great Thar Desert. But after we met an interesting fellow - an Irish/Indian ex-Gurkha soldier - we were talked into trading our tickets for Udaipur. We wandered through Delhi and ate at Haldirams (India’s answer to fast-food), then boarded another train heading south.

Incredible Udaipur

As what became the habit, we arrived in the morning, groggy and stiff. Immediately we were met by a tuk-tuk driver who almost talked us in to staying at his family’s guesthouse. He showed us his guestbook of foreign travelers who wrote comments about the place and his expertise as a guide, but we made him drive us to 5 other hotels before we took pity and said we’d stay at his. But then, we changed our minds again and settled in this beautiful little inn, definitely the nicest place we’d stayed in up until that point. Like many of the hotels in Udaipur, there was a fantastic roof garden with incredible views over the city. (I was glad to be in such a clean, nice place after being on a train for 3 days, since that night I woke up the entire hotel with my groaning innards. Ah, Delhi Belly. I’ll spare you the details but it was, bar an early episode in Kathmandu, the only time I got really sick while traveling. Anyhoo…)

Udaipur, the City of Lakes, is the historic capital of the former kingdom of Mewar and is known for its lavish Rajput-era palaces. It was a beautiful place, touted by Travel and Leisure as one of last year’s the top travel destinations. There were tourists, to be sure, but that didn’t stop the celebrity both F. and I felt ourselves to be when Indians would stop and shyly ask if they could take their picture with us. The shopping was also great, if I can let my girlish self through, as the town is filled with fantastic stores and stalls selling locally-made silver jewellery, rugs, and beautiful hand-spun cloth and clothing. We met an enterprising youth in one of those stores the first day named Krishna, who told us it was his birthday. Meaning, it was Krishna’s birthday, the little blue Hindu god known, amongst other character manifestations, as mischievous and little greedy. We were told that, as all across India, there were big celebrations happening for Krishna. So (and before my belly set to rumbling) we found ourselves perched on the roof of one of the city’s highest buildings, watching the dances and performances down below us. The highlight of the evening was when all the young and able men in the city form teams and build human pyramids in re-enactment to try to “knock” the pot of curds that, legend has it, his mother put in a tree to keep out of his reach.

Again, we had planned on travelling via Agra on our way back to Delhi, but we missed booking the train in time. Not having the stomachs to sit on a bus for another 12 hours, we ended up staying a few days in Udaipur. It was a great place to relax and nurse our exhausted digestive systems and just be. We went sightseeing to the magnificent City Palace – actually a mass of palaces spaced between terraces, courtyards and corridors. We ate the best India food I have ever tasted. We saw an amazing cultural show (sorry, Tanting) with traditional dancing and costumes and amazing feats of feet standing on broken glass with ten pots balanced atop the head. F. even dressed in the attire of a Maharaja’s wife and rode a camel along the street next to Fateh Sagar Lake which, along with Lake Pichola, Udai Sagar and Swaroop Sagar, are architectural and engineering accomplishments in their own right. These man-made lakes were constructed in the 17th century and are considered some of the most beautiful in the state.

We didn’t visit the Lake Palace in the middle of Lake Pichola (featured in the James Bond film Octopussy) as it is, like most of the city’s palaces, converted into a luxury hotel so there is no access if not a guest. I was tempted but didn’t in the end pull a Bond move and sneak over in the cover of night in a motorized alligator decoy. But one afternoon I did take a trip to the Monsoon Palace, a white marbled building high on a hill overlooking Udaipur. Originally an astronomical center, the 19th century palace was also to be a resort for the royal family, but was never really occupied for any length of time and so was abandoned and only recently opened to the public. The breathtaking view, as the sun set over the hills of Rajasthan, is one forever etched in my mind.

We left Udaipur by plane the day before we were to fly out of Delhi. We never saw the Taj Mahal, but did see a Bollywood film and hung out on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus, walking around in complete darkness sipping steaming chai in 100*F weather, meeting students from around the world as my Nepali homegirl R. enthusiastically filled us in on the campus gossip like a champion trash magazine.

Around midnight we took a cab to the airport, and waited until we could board the plane in the wee hours of the morning. Heading home, our long journey barely begun but already over. It was a brief journey, but I take comfort in the knowledge that namaste means goodbye as well as hello.