January 03, 2005
Udaipur
On the night flight to Udaipur I gazed out the darkened window and reflected on my journey through India from low caste rail car to high caste plane. I had wanted to be a traveler, living and breathing the country,...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:41 AM |
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The Blue City of Jodhpur
After free, quick, cold showers compliments of Pradeep, the owner, and one last plate of Italian food at the Desert Boys Guest House, we joined the Germans and the Brazilian for a beer on a rooftop at a café with...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:34 AM |
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Jaiselmer's Camels
The taxi arrived in Jaiselmer after dark. We had wanted to get there before then as its easier to find a place to stay in the daylight. But it worked out better, I think. We could see the lights of...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:32 AM |
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The Rat Temple
Bikaner was a blur, a rapid detour before Jaiselmer. We took the “deluxe” bus again – the 2 x 2 seater – and were told we would arrive in the city at six o’clock in the morning. We didn’t. It...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:29 AM |
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Puja
Pushkar was enchanting so Steve and I opted to stay a few more days. We found the most elegant place on the idyllic holy lake, the Pushkar Palace, formerly owned by the maharaja now made into a Heritage Home Hotel....Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:27 AM |
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The Mela
The Pushkar Fair, half the world away, felt comfortable. It was like our county fairs. There were people from all the local countryside and nearby villages becoming crowds of smiling excited faces, eyes wide, taking in all the action of...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:22 AM |
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Jaipur
Steve and I took the "deluxe" bus to Jaipur. Only two seats were left to be assigned by the vendor - last row in the middle of the aisle and the one to its right. It made for a long...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:12 AM |
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Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal was more magnificent than I imagined. I have never seen a photograph that speaks justice for the mausoleum, that captures the feel of the place. Built by the Emperor Shah Jahan for his thirty-nine year old wife,...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 01:08 AM |
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Un-attached
The Shabati Express was the fast two hour tourist train to Agra and the Taj Mahal. It boarded from Platform One, an area without the crowds of beggars and lower caste people that I had mingled with previously on the...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:59 AM |
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Steve's Welcome
This time I took the train first class on the way back to Delhi from Varanasi. For a while I had the four-bed cabin to myself. Along the way a dignified elderly gentleman in the white Punjabi of a Brahman,...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:52 AM |
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The Ganges River
At dawn we were at the banks of the Ganges River. The wake-up call the tour operators must have arranged to be sure the group was awake early enough had come at 4:25 am. I picked up the receiver and...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:45 AM |
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Touched
Our first excursion in Varanasi was to a part of the city known as Sarnath. I considered not joining the crowd that day after such an exhausting bus ride, but something made me go. And I was so glad that...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:43 AM |
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Compassion
Maybe I didn’t feel quite so blessed the next day. Well, I did, but the day was miserable anyway. We got up at five in the morning for breakfast and boarded the bus at six for what was supposed to...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:39 AM |
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Blessed
In the morning we boarded the tour buses once again so that we could go just outside Bodhgaya to see more holy sites. The first, twenty minutes away, was the main Bodhi tree, or rather a descendent of that first...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:31 AM |
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Bodhgaya
So I joined the pilgrimage and we all boarded a train towards Bodhgaya. This time my train experience was completely different. The first time, by myself, I was trying to be inconspicuous, not touristy, more the disheveled backpacking traveler type...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:24 AM |
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His Holiness
The taxi ride to the farm to see the high lama seemed endless. The Sakya Monastery had bought a nice house with some land at the outskirts of Delhi and that was where we were headed. We stopped along the...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:08 AM |
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Karma Tashi
My seat was number twenty-three. The characters were difficult to find, painted on the back, half scratched off. The bus was full. Three beautiful brown children were crowded into two seats - one of them mine. But the travelers at...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:02 AM |
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Physicians
"There are three types of physicians: unsurpassed, expert, and ordinary. The category of "unsurpassed physician" refers to the Medicine Buddha alone, because he is the Supreme Physician who dispels the afflictions of the three poisons of attachment, hatred, and delusion,...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 12:00 AM |
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January 02, 2005
The Austrian and Vipassana
I ate breakfast with the Austrian. Short wild blonde hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week or two, T-shirt, dark socks with brown shoes and the most brilliant warm blue blue blue eyes I have ever...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 11:56 PM |
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Venerable Tenzin
The 30 year old Venerable Jamyang Tenzin, the lama astrologer, chose to become a monk at the age of 14 and began studying Tibetan astrology while still living that life in Tibet. Astrology is a special art that must be...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 11:30 PM |
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Medicine and Astrology
I was sitting crossed legged at a table in a pseudo-Japanese restaurant in McLeod Ganj. I was exhausted and a little disappointed. I had just hiked back up the four kilometers from Dharamsala. The trip up may have been strenuous,...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 11:26 PM |
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Tsuglagkhang
Tsuglagkhang is the most famous Buddhist temple outside of Llasa, Tibet. It was not at all what I expected. Crude signs pointed the way simply in white letters on small wooden red boards – “Temple” - with an arrow. I...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 11:23 PM |
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McLeod Ganj
At last at McLeod Ganj, a place I expected to be a comfortable haven after the India I had just experienced. The bus stopped just short of the goal, right outside an archway over the road that proclaimed McLeod Ganj,...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 11:19 PM |
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The Bus
I don’t know how, but I awoke as the train rolled into Panthakot station. I actually did sleep – fitfully and with full bladder because the thought of facing more of a crowd of Indian men staring at me as...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 11:10 PM |
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The Train
At the New Delhi Train Station I found my way to platform #9. It was full – crowded with people like the rest of Delhi and everyone trying to squeeze into the shade. The train rolled in just on time...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 10:54 PM |
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Welcome to India
The flight was very long - eight hours from Chicago to London where I had a dull two hour layover and then ten hours to Delhi. We landed at two am local time. For an international airport the place seemed...Read this update
Posted by Kathleen at 10:39 PM |
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