ThisIsVlad

Mcleod Ganj is no longer a quiet little mountain town. since the dalai lama will be doing his teachings soon, people have slowly been arriving in town. the teachings he will be giving are mostly aimed at tibetans, and they account for most of the new arrivals, but there are lots of westerners as well. and if i thought there were a lot of monks here before, there are many many times more of them now. when we first got here 2 weeks ago, there were hardly any people around, but now all the streets are packed w/ people. from what i hear, pretty much all the hotels are full by now. the town is tiny… really tiny, and can barely handle the amount of people that are here now.

yesterday, we finally signed up for the teachings, and after getting a little badge w/ our info and a photo, we headed to the main temple here to claim a spot to sit. we had already been informed about how crazy finding a place would be. basically, the teachings are general admission, and they expect to get an insanely huge crowd of people… anywhere form one thousand to five thousand. of course, everyone wants to be as close as possible to the dalai lama. so what people do is they come to the temple a couple days early and put down cushions, blankets, signs, or whatever to claim a “seat” on the pavement in front of the temple.

when we got there, there was stuff sprawled everywhere, with tiny handwritten notes as to who was claiming which spot. some people used cardboard taped down w/ duct tape. others tried to tie down blankets. it was absolute chaos! pretty much everything by then was full, but we ended up finding this *tiny* little strip of empty space (a couple yards long, but only about a foot wide!!) that we saved for 5 people by taping down some paper plates with our names on them. but the chaos doesn’t stop there. we’ve heard that a lot of these saved spaces end up getting shuffled around by people who try to squeeze in one of their own spots. apparently arguments ensue, people yell at each other. utter madness. people who are *buddhist monks*, who are supposed to hold peace and compassion above all else, fight each other tooth and nail on the day of the teachings. people are willing to do just about anything to get close to the dalai lama.

oddly enough, after we saved our places, we found out that the dalai lama does the teachings from the second floor *inside* the temple. you dont even see him (except when he walks in and walks out)! there literally is no advantage to being close to the front or not! so people are fighting over these spots just to be near where he is, even though they wont see anything anyway. crazy.

the temple itself is an incredible place. inside and outside there are many many prayer wheels, some big some small, some red some golden, and even a few that are absolutely enormous (7 feet tall). there’s a long path around the temple that goes through the woods where people circumambulate the temple. along the path are tons of stones with what i assume are tibetan prayers on them. the prayers are written in many different colors, and the walk around the temple is so beautiful and serene. incredible mountains and forest on one side, the majestic temple on another, and the path is filled with tons of tibetans walking slowly while holding prayer beads and muttering prayers.

watching the tibetans around here is quite a sight in itself. their devotion to their religion and to the dalai lama in particular is so overwhelming. watching them say prayers, fidget w/ their beads, and do prostrations on the ground in front of the temple is so incredible. everyone is decked out in fancy costumes. they get up from before 5:30am to go do their prayers at times. such a devout group of people. but i guess it makes sense that they love the dalai lama so much. he’s incredibly charasmatic, he’s a political leader, he’s a spiritual leader, he’s an incredibly wise author, he almost singlehandedly brough the “free tibet” cause to the world stage, and many people’s eyes, he literally is a god.. a reincarnation of a buddha.

i can’t wait till the teachings start…

*v

just 2 days ago i wrote an email to gerlandon saying that i was really wishing tha i could enjoy some snow. it’s been lightly snowing on and off in between hail and rain up here, but the snow has always melted as soon as it hit the ground. i kept looking at the distant mountains, covered completely by snow, and wishing that the snow would fall here too. well, it finally did. last night it started snowing pretty hard. we walked back to our hotel room and i was a bit bummed that probably by the time we got up, the snow will have melted and we wouldnt be able to enjoy it…

i was totally wrong. i woke up, looked out the window, and the world was white. snow everywhere!! the trees were covered, the roads were covered, buildings were covered.. everything. it was all incredibly beautiful. as we walked throuigh town, it was amazing how different everything looked. red robed monks plowed through the white powder, trying to shield their faces from the snow w/ umbrellas or with just their cloaks. snow sprinkled cows wandered about. amazing!! at one point i felt a few snowballs hit my back. when i looked up, it turned out that a bunch of monks standing on top of the monastary were throwing snowballs down on the people below while yelling cheerful “good morning!!!” too funny. actually a lot of people in town seemed to be 5really excited by the snow and lots of people were running around, playing, and having a blast.

cow, braving the snow

monk

caryn

the walk up to the meditation center was a tough one. the road is steep as hell, and is tough to walk up on a normal day, but being covered with snow, it was extra difficult. we walked up the road taking in the spectacular scenerey, and shivering the whole time. even the monkeys were cold today, and instead of digging in the dumpster as usual, they were all huddled together under a buildings overhang. one of them was stealthily trying to break into the hotel! it was pawing through an open window, trying to squeeze into it, and after giving up, started trying to steal the curtain hanging inside! this was definitely one of the many times where i had to wonder.. is this really my life?? walking through snowy passes in the himalayas while watching monks plow through snow and monkeys huddle around… that’s stuff that belongs in a movie.. not my life.

monkeys

monkeys

me, trying to stay dry!

we spent the day in the meditation center, where we all struggled desperately to keep warm while we meditated or listened to the teacher. the snow kept falling and falling all day, and judging from the amount of snow on the rooftops, i’d say we got about a foot and a half of snow!! we started our treck back to town. b this time, the snow had stopped, and a lot of it was tuening to ice. it was nearly impossible to get a good grip on the road, and people were sliding and slipping the whole wa down the steep road. in town, it was moe of the same. the roads were so slippery!! every step you took had to be very slow and clculated to keep you from falling over. we had so many close calls, but luckily never actually fell to the ground.

the stupa at Tushita meditation center w/ prayer flags

all in all, it was such a cool day. i’m so glad that i got to see a least a little bit of snow this winter!

monks in the town square

temple in town (pre-snow)

this statue in our meditation center is over 10 feet high!

*v

over the last four days, i’ve been going to the Intro to Buddhism class that i signed up for. class each day is from 8am to about 5pm. getting up each morning is so tough!! the class is taught by a buddhist nun named Rita. she’s originally from switzerland, but has been a nun for the last 14 years and she is a really really good teacher. we’ve learned an incredible amount of stuff in such a short amount of time. it’s really a lot to take in. class starts off with 45 minutes of meditation, followed by 2.5 hours of teaching, then an hour for lunch followed by 1 hour of group discussion, then 2 more hours of teaching and then 45 minutes of meditation.

buddhism is both a religion and a philosophy. part of it is about acheiving peace of mind and calmness in your daily life and also about showing compassion to others. that’s the part i’ve always been interested in and have always wondered if i could somehow incorporate into my own life. as far as the religion part, although i’m not shopping around for a new religion, i always find it inetresting to learn about the religion of other people. i think it definitely gives great insight into their culture etc. one of the main things that separates buddhism from most of the religions we have in the west, is that in buddhism, there is no “god”. no creator or anything like that. buddha was just a normal person like you and me who acheived enlightenment. something that apparently, others can do for themselves too and become a buddha themselves!

following is a ridiculously brief overview of what i’ve learned and some thougts about it:

Suffering and Attachments

one of the main thoughts in buddhism is that life is suffering. no matter what. you may think that your life is good, you’re happy most of the time, you have lots of friends, job security, blah, blah… but really your life is suffering. that may seem a bit bizarre when you first hear it, but here’s the line of reasoning: all the things that you value in life are impermanent, in other words they dont last. they may bring you temporary pleasure, but none of them will last and when they disappear, that gives you pain beacause of your attachment to them. pleasure is not the same as happiness. for instance, you may get all excited about your new car. you love it and treasure it. a week later, someone does a hit and run totaling your car. because of your attachment, you are now miserable for a long time. same thing goes for friends. you have a good friend. one day your friend decides that they hate you and never want to speak to you again. once again, you’re left feeling like crap.

basically, you just go through life picking up possessions and friends left and right, but it only brings you temporary pleasures. not real happiness. often times, these material things will end up not even giving you temporary pleasure even. so, what to do? well, you’re supposed to work on making yourself really happy, from the inside, by following the buddhist path instead of getting happiness form your attachments. you are supposed to eliminate desire from your life and that way, you will not feel depressed when these things disappear.

in some ways, i really agree with this. although i dont really think that life is suffering per se, i do think that a lot of sorrow in people’s lives come from unhealthy attachments. especially in the fast paced money-centric bay area, so many people are obssessed with getting that huge house, the shiny new car (or 2 or 3), the biggest stereo, the hottest new cellphone, etc etc. they’re constantly striving to get bigger and better and newer toys. and where does that leave them? usually misearble. they get sick of their toys so fast, and just end up wanting something else even newer. they begin to find their life empty. or, they lose their job and can no longer buy the toys they want and now they’re miserable. or they’re jealous of the fact that others have more than they do.

so much importance is put on material possessions. it’s absurd. and when i look around, it’s usually the people who have the least who are the happiest. in my own life, i must admit that i do love my toys. i was psyched to buy that new 40 gig mp3 player. and a new digital camera. but, at the same time, i’m not that *attached* to them. if i ended up not having these things, honestly i wouldnt care all that much. heh, maybe i’m good at this “not having attachments” thing. currently… i’m on the road and i own virtually nothing. all i have is a backpack, and it pretty much only has clothes. i have virtually nothing… and i want virtually nothing.

but, attachment is not necessarily only about things. in buddhism, it applies to people too. you can like people, and even love them, but your goal should be to keep from being “attached” so that way, if they leave you or die, you will not become unhappy. and that, i really disagree with. i think it’s important to miss people. in a way, missing people is a really beautiful thing because it just shows you how much they mean to you. in a previous post, i wrote that “i think people are lucky that we care enough about each other to feel such intense and strong emotions when someone passes away. people love each other and slowly form strong unbreakable bonds together and when those bonds are severed, severed by death, the only thing that can break the unbreakable, it is only right that our whole world should come crashing down on us. i think life would be horrible and ugly if we could just shrug off the death of a loved one and not care. it’s only when someone’s absence can really hurt you, that they mean the most.” and i really do still think that. sure, these attachments to people do cause suffering, but i dont necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

and last, the thing that most people are most attached to… is their own body. and thus, when it is time for them to die, and to lose that body, most people can hardly face it. but, that’s another topic altogether which i’ll mention below.

Meditation

so, let’s say you want to shrug off all of these attachments. you want to end the suffering and become happy. how do you do it? well, buddhists believe that everyone is born with a pure mind, or what is called a “buddha mind”. unfortunately, since that mind is stuck in a body, it’s perfection is clouded by all sorts of delusions (like attachments, anger, pride, etc) which keep you in the state of suffering. you need to slowly work on getting rid of these delusions to finally clear your mind, and maybe some day even attain enlightenment. this clearing of the mind is done by meditation.

over the last few days we’ve been meditating twice everyday and it is so hard!! you are supposed to sit still, crosslegged, with your back straight, and fixate on clearing your mind of all thought. first off, it’s uncomforatble. my back ends up hurting and since it’s *freezing* in the meditation hall, you’re often distracted by the cold. secondly, it’s virtually impossible to think about nothing. well, at least for more than two seconds. i’ll start off, clear my mind, and then two seconds later i start thinking something, which goes off on another tangent, and then another, and pretty soon all of a sudden i realize i’ve been thinking about stuff for like 5 minutes. crap!

so, i try to clear my mind again. i try to stop all thought. this lasts maybe another few seconds before i start thinking again. arggh! it’s *so* frustrating. practically impossible. one technique that is supposed to help is to concentrate on your breathing. you concentrate on yourself breathing in and out in and out in and out. this kind of helps because it keeps my mind still for a bit… but then my mind driftes again. i start to think what i’m going to write in my blog about meditation!! doh!!

all of this meditation slowly teaches you to control your mind and relax it. instead of havinga billion thoughts jumbling around as most people do, eventually your mind has complete discipline and it thinks about what *you* want it to think about instead of it deciding for itself. once you can control your thoughts, you can control whether you have attachments to material things. you can also control your anger. when something bad happens, instead of getting all angry, you can keep your mind in check and realize that anger is useless.

this really does seem like a great thing to do, and i would love to keep practicing this. maybe someday i’ll actually have a clear mind, free from worries, doubt, and other negative crap. but… here i find something that i have issues with too. the object of this controlled mind is to have a “calm peaceful mind”. this mind does not experience the wide crazy uncontrolled highs and lows. it is always in check and in a state of serenity. well, although i would love to have a mind that is free from all bad things, i dont think that i would want to have a mind that is kept from experiencing the highs of life. you are not supposed to experience passion in buddhism!! i dunno, but for me, i’d rather be able to get really really excited about things… even if this means that the ups will sometimes have equivalent downs.

Karma and Reincarnation

most people are familiar w/ the term karma, but i dont think most people have a full understanding about it. the basic principal here, is that every action has a reaction. it’s like physics… but instead of applying to physical objects, it applies to positive and negative deeds. basically, if you do something bad, it gives you bad karma, and eventually something bad will happen to you. if you do something good, the same principal works. now, this is something that’s a bit more difficult for me to believe. i guess i’ve learned too much science in my life and things that aren’t explained by physics are often hard for me to believe. how can i really know that if something good happens to me, that it happened because of something i did before?

but it gets even more tricky. buddhists believe in reincarnation. when your body dies, your mind lives on and gets reborn in another body… and your karma comes with it!! so if you do something really really bad, even if the bad thing doesnt return to you right away, it can come back and get you in another life! so, this kind of explains the “why do bad things happen to good people?” question. even if they have been really good in *this* life, they may still suffer the effects of bad karma from the previous one. thus, we are always responsible for our own suffering and for our own good fortunes, even though it may have been due to something we did in a previous life.

so we go through life building up karma, and when karma hits us back (in a negative or positive way) tha bit of karma dissipates. believe it or not, this is a great source of happiness for monks and other buddhists. if their life is horrible, for instance, if they are a tibetan stuck in prison and being tortured, they see that as a result of bad karma that they have acquired, and now since the bad karma is affecting them and dissipating, they now have less bad karma! so, their pain is a good thing!! they are actually on their way of getting rid of tons of bad karma. interesting way of looking at things, eh?

so, what are these deeds that give you good or bad karma? well, there’s a ton of different ones. bad karma is acquired by killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, slander, etc etc. good karma is acquired when you give offerings to buddha, follow the buddhist practices, and also mainly when you do deeds of compassion. compassion plays a huge role in buddhism and it’s incredibly important to help others. i definitely think that’s one of the really good points of the religion. in fact, one of the main reasons for wanting enlightenment (which i’ll mention next), is not only for yourself, but because when you’re enlightened, you can help others more and help them acheive enlightenment!

Enlightenment and the Buddha

the main goal as you continue to practice buddhism, as you continue getting better and better karma and you keep strengthening your mind is that eventually you’ll acheive enlightenment, a state of awakening where you have pure bliss. you finally see the world as it really is, and your mind is no longer clouded with delusions. the state of nirvana. once you are enlightened, you become a buddha. this came as quite a shock to me. i though there was one and only one buddha, but it turns out that the buddha we always hear about (who started buddhism in 500 BC) was just one of many many buddhas. buddha just means “the awakened one”. apparently, any one of us can fulfill our “buddha potential” and become a buddha one day.

Death

there is a lot that the buddhist faith has to say abouty death. in buddhism, death is not altogether a bad thing. if you die, you just become reborn, so there really is no reason to be afraid of it. but, people dont want to die because of their attachments. they dont want to leave their possessions, they dont want to leave their friends and family, and they most definitely dont want to leave their most prized possession… their body. so, through meditation, you are supposed to try and decrease your attachments so when the time comes to die, it is not a sad thing.

the other cause for our fear of death is because we feel we are permanent. of course, we theoretically know we’ll die, but most people dont *really* accept it and always think of death as some far away thing that wont happen for ages. so beacuse of this denial, when death does occur, especially if it happens much earlier than we thought, we are terrified. so in buddhism, we’re supposed to concentrate on our own impermanence. that we may *not* live to be old. we dont know when we will die, and it may be soon. even tomorrow.. or even tonight. grim thought, huh?

our exercise for today was to spend our lunchtime thinking that this was our last hour of life. our last meal. how would this affect our emotions? would we enjoy our food more because we want to enjoy our last moments? or would we not want to bother to eat since, well, what’s the point? it was a rough exercise. everyone spent the hour of lunch moping around. for me personally, at first i tried to enjoy my food as much as i could. normally i may have thought it crap.. but hey, it’s my last meal!! all of a sudden it didnt taste so bad. but then i got really frustrated. this is my last hour!! why am i wasting it eating subpar food in this damn cafeteria. shouldnt i be out enjoying my last time on earth by having fun??

anyways, one of the points of the exercise was obviously, that anything you want to do.. do it now!! dont hold off. dont wait to do it cause you have plenty of time to live and do things later. maybe you dont. the buddhists would say to meditate and acquire good karma while you can. my own view.. would be to enjoy life all you can. have fun. live life to its fullest. dont settle for a crap job, or dont waste your time being bored. get out there. enjoy things. seize the day and all that cliched stuff. really.

the Silent Treatment

one of the rules of this class is that we’re supposed to not talk on our breaks or at lunch. at all. we have to remain silent. this is so we can think about the things we learned without chitchatting to others about them, or about other nonsense. lemme tell ya… it sucks!! i hate being silent. eating food and just sitting there. ugh. especially when you’re surrounded by all these people. i constantly want to ask people what they think of the course, or how they’re doing, or whatever… but i cant.. instead we all just sit there in silence. and it’s an uncomfortable silence. a room full of people just staring at each other w/ nothing to do but think. ugh!

so, i guess that’s it for now. that’s a rough synopsis of what i’ve learned. of course, i’ve really really simplified a lot of the concepts and left tons and tons out. but it’s some basics. it’s definitely some interesting stuff, and i’ve really been enjoying the classes. i’m eager also to see how much of this i can actually apply to my life.

in the mean time, the weather has become even worse. it’s been snowing and hailing on and off for the last few days. but it hasnt been cold enough so far, so the hail would just melt when it hit the ground. but tonght it’s below freezing. all the roads are covered w/ slushy ice. you walk around and stumble into muddy puddles hidden by the ice. the rain/hail comes down like crazy. and we’re soaked all the time. but i guess like buddha said, “life is suffering”!!

*v

i went to my first intro to buddhism and meditation class today. in the short span of time that i was there, there was a ton of information discussed. this definitely seems like it’s going to be a very interesting class. i have a lot of thoughts on everything i heard today, but i’ve got limited time online now (since i need to wake up at 6:30 AM tomorrow!!!) and i’d like to spend some more time thinking about everything i’ve learned before i post about it. so instead, i’ll spend a little time whining about the weather.

it’s cold here. DAMN cold. and rainy. it rains pretty much every day here, and every time we leave the house we have to wear all sorts of layers to keep us warm and wear raingear to keep us dry. going almost anywhere is somewhat of an ordeal. we’re constantly soaked, and although the rain makes this place look even more beautiful and magical, we still often wish it would finally stop! the roads have turned to piles of mud, and we have to leap over particularly dirty parts, puddles, and rivers of water on the road. they have bizarre systems of drainage set up all over the city to try to direct the excess water and you often pass virtual waterfalls in town.

it’s a constant battle to stay warm and dry. when we come back to our hotel room, there is no heating so it’s pretty much the same temperature inside as it is outside. we have only one source of heat… the hot water heater. after a couple days here, caryn came up w/ a brilliant plan… she would pour hot water into empty water bottles and we would keep these in bed to warm it up. we began to horde our bottles when they became empty and now we’ll have like 4 bottles filled w/ hot water rolling around inside the bed. this doesnt exactly provide all that much heat, but if you put your feet directly on them or hug the bottles, it’s nice. caryn even puts hot water bottles inside outr shoes to dry them out. heh, desperate times call for desperate measures!

despite the fact that we have hot water, it’s nearly impossible to shower in the hotel. the water pressure is virtually nonexistant, and comes out in a tiny trickle… basically pouring straight down. so when we shower, we have to practically hug the wall just to get under the stream. not the most comfortable thing.

when we got up in the morning today, it was pouring as usual. we were rediculously tired from having to wake up “early” which was 8am and wondered what it was gonna be like the following day when we had to wake up one and a half hours earlier than that. after a sad breakfast of peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches that crumbled to shreds in my hands, we started the hike up the hill. hiking at 8am sucks. hiking uphill sucks even more. hiking in the rain, uphill, at 8am is the worst. we made it past the ferocious dumpster monkeys without incident today… but by the time we got to the meditation center we were wet, cold, sleepy, and exhausted.

life is hard, eh? heh, well, maybe i’m exaggerating about life being hard. it really is amazing up here and despite all the difficulties w/ it, the rain is definitely enjoyable… but i think a few days of sunshine wouldnt be such a bad thing!!

*v

i’ve been meaning to write this post for ages now cause all this has been weighing on my mind. i’ve kept putting it off an putting it off though, until now.

one of the most disturbing and difficult things about traveling in india is the sheer quantity of poor people here. everywhere you look there are people begging in dirty shabby clothing. you see old limping men, mother’s w/ sad looking children, hungry babies, and possibly saddest of all… the many many cripples. often times you see peope who are so severely crippled that it’s hard to even look at them without whincing and turning away. people w/ legs so absolutely useless, that they have to crawl along the ground on their arms and pull their lifeless limbs after them. i’ve literally had nightmares about these people.

seeing all this on a day to day basis is absolutely heart wrenching. it weighs on your mind and soul constantly and it’s often a battle to remain cheerful and enjoy your day when there are so many around you that dont have the luxury of a home, clothing, food, or even decent health. you want to do something… *anything* to help these people, but in another shameful and sad way, you often just wish that you could avoid them in order to spare you from the grief of witnessing their lives. it’s difficult for me to comprehend how these people live. just the few minutes of their lives that i witness seems so sad and depressing, and yet i only see the tip of the iceberg that is their misfortune.

so what can be done? it’s impossible to help every beggar that you see. if you even gave 20 rupees to each one, your money would soon be all gone. plus… well, there are many concerns about giving money to beggars. what will they spend it on? will they definitely buy food? or will the money be possibly be used on alcohol or even drugs? who knows where your money will go. so then, everyone says that it’s best to instead give to an organization. organizations have better resources and will be able to spend the money for a much better purpose than any individual. for instance, just by buying food in bulk, an organization can feed many many more people than if you just gave money to one beggar. but organizations have their downside too. organizations have their own costs.. they have to pay for advertising, pay their staff, pay rent, and all sorts of other administrative costs. how large of a percentage of your money will actually go to the needy and how much will just disappear?

so, what to do with your money is definitely a difficult dilemna. but there’s more dilemnas than just that. one thing that bothers me to no end is how much food gets wasted here. portions are often big… no, not big, huge! so many times when caryn and i have eaten there’s still tons of food left over. and, right outside the restaurant, there will be dirty kids begging. these kids will be yelled at, chased, and sometimes even hit with sticks by the owners of the restaurant to keep them away. it’s just insane to me that there are people… people who are just a few yards away who desperately need food… and right next to them is a heaping plate of leftover food that just goes into the garbage. the frustrating thing is that restaurants here dont really have “to-go” containers. there’s no way for us to take our uneaten food with us to give away later. instead it just gets thrown out.

i was sitting and eating outside at the omelette shop one day, when i saw some kids begging nearby. they looked all sad and distraught when they came up to people asking for money. but then, when they were alone they would start giggling, playing around, and smiling big grins. i started wonderring to myself as to whether these children really were as desparate as i thought. if they had such a hard life, how can they be playing around and having such a good time? maybe the sad face was all an act? but then my next thought was “sheeez. what the hell do you *want* from these people, vlad? you want them to be sad *all* the time? do they have to justify their poverty to you by never smiling? is that what you are hoping for?? if they have one second of joy, are they not worthy of your pity now??” and so it goes… the never ending internal mental debate. sadness and guilt, guilt and sadness churning around.

a few days later, caryn and i were chilling on top of a sand dune trying to watch a sunset. as i posted before, we were hassled every few minutes by people that tried to sell us sodas, chips, etc. we didnt want anything, but people just wouldnt leave us alone. we couldnt even get 5 minutes of peace an quiet. it was so annoying and i was getting so frustrated… and then i thought to myself, well, these people are just trying to make ends meet. isn’t this what people always want from the homeless? to “get a job”. well, these people found a job. they’re not begging. their selling soda. and yet, the sheer numbers of people forcing sodas etc on you is exhausting in itself.

i was talking to caryn and said, that maybe we should change our tactics. maybe we should give up our grand notions of donating money at the end of our time in india. maybe we should just give small amounts of money to the children we see begging instead? maybe hand out say, 100 rupees per day? but then caryn made the really good point that if you give to begging children, really you are just contributing to child labor. these kids should be in school. or they should be *playing* and enjoying their youth. instead their parents force them to walk around asking for rupees. where are these children’s parents? who knows… but i’m sure the parents realize that sad children will pull at people’s heartstrings. why send your child to school when you can force them to go earn you money? do we want to encourage that kind of thing?

plus, another suspicion is that i wonder just how much money these people make. how many tourists can a child talk to in one hour? 30 maybe? lets say one half of them hand over a meager 10 rupees (although i suspect many will give much more). thats 150 rupees per hour. more money than a waiter in a restaurant here would make. it would appear that begging could be a much more profitable job than doing real work.

all of these things have been whirling about in my head for the past month. so many questions, and no easy solutions. so i decided to poke around online for some thoughts on this issue. and i came across this post on lonely planet: read me!!. it’s a facinating read, and here’s an excerpt:

—————-
– Begging is almost always run by the local mafia
– Beggars have to pay a “license fee” to the mafia for the right to beg at popular joints (temples, traffic intersections etc.)
– The going license fee for the most popular spots in Bangalore (MG road, Domlur junction) is Rs. 600 a DAY per beggar
– The babies that women often carry are hired by the day (going rate Rs. 20 a day)
– These babies are almost always drugged with dhatura first thing in the morning. No wonder the child usually sleeps peacefully through the traffic noise and smoke
– The children are organized in ruthless gangs – the older boys are firmly in command, and “rule” with a heavy hand. The few girls that there are, are routinely sexually abused by the group of dominant boys, who in return provide them “protection” from adults and other boys. Younger boys are the most mistreated lot – they do almost all the work, and suffer the worst kind of physical and sexual abuse. The gang leaders collect all the earnings of the group and pay off the mafia and the police.
—————

ugh. unbelievably disturbing isn’t it? unfortunately, i’ve actually heard this from some other people who live here as well. after reading this, i definitely decided that i wouldnt give to beggars anymore. my money would definitely help a lot more if i gave to an organization instead. i definitely dont want my money going to random mafia people, i dont want it used to encourage little children to beg instead of going to school, and i most definitely dont want it to be given to people who apparently are maimed *on purpose* so they can make more money by begging. so now, when i see beggars.. i keep walking and turn the other way. but it’s hard. really hard. sometimes i cave in and dig through my pocket for money even though i know that i may be causing more harm than good. but… i dunno… there are times i just cant bring myself to say no.

so, now we’re in mcleod ganj. caryn and i spent two days helping an organization that helps put homeless kids in school and gives them a place to live. it was only 2 days of our time, but it felt really good to be finally doing something to help. after our meditation classes next week, Jamyang wants some more help w/ stuff, and we are looking forward to helping some more. currently his organization (well, one of the many organizations he’s helping) is only housing 20 kids, but that’s a start and those 20 kids will now have a chance to grow up and lead a happy productive life. hopefully soon, he can make his organization even bigger and help more. as for us… we’re still going to donate some money before we leave india. we dont have much money to give.. but i guess every little bit counts.

*v

yesterday we spent another day down in daramshala helping out jamyang. it’s weird, i’ve actually hardly ever worked w/ microsoft access, and dont know too much about it. actually, i was a bit worried that i wouldnt be able to actually do the things that jamyang needed, but after a bit of tinkering around, i finally figured everything out. he ended up not really needing any more computer help for now, so between now and tuesday we have two “days off”. on tuesday we’re starting a week-long course on buddhism and meditation, two things that i’ve been sorta interested in all of my life, but have never really put any research into. actually, i remember way back in the day, my best friend and i decided that we would start meditating… i think that ended up lasting less than a week before we gave up, heh.

anyways, since we had the day off, we decided to walk around the mountains between several of the small villages up here. it was a really nice walk.. very peaceful and quiet with incredible views all around. it’s been raining like crazy lately, so a lot of the roads are a muddy mess, but they’re still decent. we walked past small buildings built barely hanging on to the sides of the mountain, tibetan prayer flags hanging in between trees and other structures, and even monkeys.

it turned out that there were tons of monkeys up there scurrying about, eating food out of dumpsters, and jumping from tree to tree. i walked up to take a phhoto of one that was eating garbage. i walked closer and closer hoping to get a good shot… when the monkey attacked me!! all of a sudden it made a squawk and lunged towards me with an angry expression on it’s face! i jumped back. it then backed up and then lunged towards me again! it landed jus a few feet in front of me, and i started swinging my umbrella in front of me to keep it from getting to me. it ended up lunging a me 3 times total, with me frantically swinging the umbrella in fear. finally the monkey gave up and scampered off. phew!!

it looks angry, eh?

tibetan prayer flags

the rest of the walk was pretty uneventful other than us spotting some odd looking creature. it kind of looked like a ferret or something. maybe a mongoose?

*v

as of today, caryn and i have a new home (well, temporarily!). we’ve decided to stay here for a while and are gonna be living here in mcleod ganj for a whole month. it was a really tough decision. we only had 2 months total for india, and giving up a whole month of it on one place was difficult… but we really like it here. the town itself is really nice and relaxed. the scenery is absolutely incredible. and plus, there’s so much interesting stuff to do here. the final thing that definitely made us want to be here was that the dalai lama is going to be doing his yearly teachings here in a couple of weeks. yup, that’s right. every day for 2 weeks straight, we are going to be attending speeches given by the *dalai lama*. i just cant get a grip on how cool that is!

it’s weird to think that we’re still in india right now, because mcleod ganj really doesnt seem to be like india at all. most of the stores are tibetan, many restaurants are tibetan, the temples are tibetan, and most of the people you see on the streets are tibetan. it really does feel like another country. in particular, it’s been interesting being here during Losar, the tibetan new years. although there isnt much in the way of celebrations, people all around town are running around in a good mood and lighting of firecrackers. also, there’s a tradition where tibetans are supposed to wear their nicest clothes for new years, so we keep seeing people in fancy shiny tibetan outfits. seeing as i dont really know anything about tibet, i bought the dalai lamas autobiography which, by telling his life story, tells about the history of tibet and how it became ruled by china.

tibetan prayer wheels

like i mentioned in my last post, this town is completely full of monks. i’d probaly guess that about 10% of the people you see here are monks, or at the very least 5%. everywhere you look, there are tibetans with shaved heads wearing the traditional red robes. it really gives the town a mystical air. we’ve been hoping to do some volunteering while we are here, and ended up spending some time helping one of these monks named Jamyang. and what kind of help does a monk need, you may wonder? oh, you know, help with excell speadsheets, photo resizing, and template making.. typical monk stuff, heh.

we met jamyang randomly the other day in an internet cafe. we were sitting around waiting to use the phone, and he was on one of the computers. he turned around and asked me if i knew how to resize photos so that they were small enough to be emailed, and just by luck, i have a program that resizes photos so i helped him out. when he found out that i make websites and know a bunch about computers, he asked if i could maybe help him some more the following day. apparently, from what we’ve heard later, jamyang is always running into the right people at the right time. good luck just follows him around.

jamyang spends his time here in mcleod ganj by helping others. among other things, he runs an organization that helps get schooling for extremely poor kids who live in a homeless camp. apparently, it’s difficult to get these kids, who’ve had no structure in their lives, to go to school… and then just as difficult to persuade schools to have anything to do w/ these kids. sometimes, parents of other kids have actually threatened the school to not let their children attend if the homeless kids are allowed in the school. and then, often the parents of the kids dont want to send them to school cause the kids could instead earn money for the family by begging. it’s a difficult battle on all fronts. recentl, in addition to funding schooling, he’s set up a hostel where a small group of these kids can live so they dont have to live on the streets. truly admirable stuff.

just hanging out w/ this guy is an experience. he’s so warm and charismatic. he practically radiates positivity. he moved here from tibet 12 years ago, and although he misses his parents a ton and they really want him to come back, he insists on staying here to help people. today we went with him to his office in darmasalla. the funding for his organization comes from another company, and he needed some help making expense spreadsheets etc. i havent used microsoft acces in ages, but caryn and i struggled through it and eventually were able to make him what he wanted. tomorrow, we’re gonna go down to his office again and help out w/ some other stuff. it’s really cool to be able to put my computer skills to use for a good cause!

colorful houses on the hillside

*v

tibet 2.0

back home, pretty much everyone has heard about the movement to free tibet. it’s become quite the popular cause to support, with backing from many celebrities, and bumperstickers galore. but if you asked most people if they knew exactly where the tibetan government currently resides, i’m sure most people would answer w/ a blank stare. i know i would have if someone had asked me last week. well, it turns out that the tibetan govt in exhile is in a tiny little mountain village called McLeod Ganj up in the indian himalayas. this is where the dalai lama lives, and also happens to be where we are right now. when we read about this town in our guidebook, we knew we couldnt pass up a chance to come up here. plus, it randomly turned out that today is tibetan new years, so we cut our time in delhi short to rush up here as quickly as possible. unfortunately, there’s no new years celebrations here at all! in fact, tibetans celebrate new years at home w/ their families, so if anything, this is a bad time to come up here since so many places are closed! *sigh*. the one time we actually get somewhere in time for a holiday… nothing happens!

himalayas

the himalaya were created by india millions of years ago. the earth used to be one huge continent, and eventually, it split into 2 chunks, a northern part and a southern part. well, india was on the southern part, but some how broke off, and swam across the ocean until it crashed into the northern part causing the himalayas to rise up. of course, india didn’t just barrel across the ocean at top speed, this happened over millions of years, but still, that’s where scientists think that the himalaya came from.

after an exhausting and painful 13 hour bus ride, we arrived here a little after dawn. dayum. the views from town are absolutely breathtaking. huge snowcapped mountains everywhere. misty skies. green valleys below. everything is just so damn scenic!! the air is crisp and fresh… such a change from the smoggy air in delhi. it’s so weird to be here. it’s hard to believe that just 6 days ago, we were sitting in the *desert* where it’s *hot* amongst *camels* and now we’re so high up in the mountains and it’s freezing and there’s snow to be seen. india is such a diverse land geographically!

when we piled off the bus this morning, along with a handful of tibetan monks dressed in their robes, it was pouring. everything was wet, and it was a struggle to find a hotel while getting soaked and hauling our packs. and like i said earlier, a bunch of the hotels are full because of new years. despite all that, we were so excited to be here. there’s something really awesome about rain, and it’s especially enjoyable up in the moutains. and there’s something really awesome about seeing monks running about town everywhere. i could instantly tell i’d really like this place.

so far, we haven’t really gotten a chance to do anything. we weren’t prepared for this weather, and spent most of the day shopping in darmashala, a small town a few km downhill from mcleod. on the way back up to mcleod, the jeep we were getting a ride in broke down. after trying to fix it for a bit, they decided to try and push start it. in other words, push the jeep till it’s going fast and then pop the clutch to get it going. since we had been going uphill, they had to try this maneuver *in reverse*. the driver peered out his side window over his shoulder into the darkness and tried to steer while being pushed backwards. ugh. rolling quickly down an incline, backwards, in the pitch black, over gravelly wet roads, when there are hairpin curves every few yards is the most sketchiest thing ever. in the end, they weren’t able to fix the jeep, and we caught the next bus into town… phew! another close call!

tomorrow we’ll start exploring this town for reall. we have so many things we want to do here, and our plans are totally up in the air….

*v

delhi, india’s capital, is a gigantic bustling city packed w/ all sorts of different historical sights. there’s so many of them that you could spend days on end there and still not see all that delhi has to offer. it was going to be tough deciding what to go see and what not to see. so, just to be fair, we ended up seeing none of them. heh, yup, this is our 3rd day in delhi and we have still not seen one single sight.

during our trip so far, timing has been a huge issue. our timing has been incredibly poor time and time again. it seems like countless numbers of times we’ve arrived in a place only to find out that a huge festival had taken place there just days before. we’ve hopscotched all over the place with an uncanny knack for missing every single interesting event, gathering, show, or holiday possible. well, finally our luck had changed. the stars aligned just right, and we happened to get to delhi, one of the most famous cities in the world, right when one of the most famous singers in the world was going to play a show there. yes, Sting was playing in delhi for the first time in 17 years.

i’m not the world’s hugest sting fan… in fact, i actually dont even know that many of his songs, but the stuff that i’ve heard i’ve liked, and well, a lot of his songs are practically classics. i was defintely excited to see this show ever since i first heard about it a couple weks ago, and we have been carefully timing our trip to hopefully get to delhi at the same time as the show. tickets were pretty pricey. you could get tickets for 25$, 35$, or 45$. it was a tough call but you only get a chance like this once in a lifetime, so we shelled out 90$ for two tickets. plus, this was a benefit for tsunami relief, so the money was going to a good cause.

90$ on one hand doesnt seem like that much money, and back home when i still had a job, i’d probably have no problem spending that on a concert, but here, where a meal is only 3$ and a hotel room is 8$, 90 bucks can go a long way. as we left the store, caryn and i worried a bit about spending so much money on a concert. so, to get our minds off of spending all that money, we went out to the most expensive restuarant in all of delhi and spent a crapload more money.

the restaurant is called bukhara and is located at the sheraton hotel. it’s clear across town and we had to take a rickshaw to get there. sheez, taking rickshaws here in delhi is practically impossible. we’ve been told that there’s no such thing as an honest rickshaw driver in delhi, and from what we’ve seen, it’s totally true. every single one of them tries to rip you off, and to rip you off big. the transaction usually goes something like this:

you ask the hotel how much a rickshaw should cost, let’s say they tell you 40 rupees. when you go outside, the rickshaw guys run up to you all smiles and “eager to please”. “you want rickshaw?! come, come!! no problem! good price!”. you tell them where you want to go, and they will invariably tell you that they will take you there for 80 rupees (double the price) although often they will even try to say 100, or 120 rupees! you look at them in shock, and make your most indignant face possible… “80 rupees!!! no way, it should cost 40!! the hotel said so!!!” at this point they will drop 4 or 5 lies on you saying that your hotel is wrong or that there is lots of traffic, or that the place you want to go is sooooo far. often they will say that your place is let’s say 25km away, when really it’s only 9km. you tell them that you refuse to pay 80 rupees, and they drop the price to 65. still too much. after going back and forth for a few minutes, either you storm off angrily, they tell you to get lost, or you finally agree on a price like 50 rupees, which is still higher than what you should be paying.

the whole thing is ridiculous, and it’s incredibly frustrating to deal w/ this time and time again all day long. it’s especially frustrating to know that every single one of these people is looking you straight in the face and lying. absolutely shameless. to combat this bullshit, rickshaws have meters. a built-in gadget that calculates how far they’ve gone and tells you the actual price of your journey. it’s great theoretically, but almost every single one of these guys will refuse to turn on th meter. no matter how much you plead w/ them, they just wont do it. you begin to wonder why these things even have a meter. well, once in a blue moon, someone gives in and actually uses the meter. this is such an incredible rarity, but dont get excited, because usually, they will still rip you off. they know the city and you dont. it’s *very* easy for them to just zig zag back and forth and take a route that’s twice as long as it should be. either way, you’re screwed. of course, we’re gtting used to it by now. we’ve dealt w/ unscrupulous taxi drivers in many countries now, but i think that delhi may be the worst. argh!

anyways, back to the story. bukhara is at the sheraton, and it honestly felt very weird being there. we’re used to hanging out in 8$ hotels, while the cheapest room at the sheraton goes for over $300. so this is how the other half lives, eh? we felt a bit out of place, but oh well. the food there was absolutely incredible. so freaking good. we got tandoori prawns that were *huge*, practically the size of lobsters and they tasted so good! everything else we had was delicious as well. it was the best meal we’ve had in a while… and yet we were still shocked when we got our bill. one hundred bucks. ouch!! so between the sting tickets and the dinner, we had really demolished our budget, but i guess you gotta splurge sometimes.

the following day, we set out for the concert. it had been raining all day, and now we were doomed to see the concert while soaking wet since it was outdoors. the concert was general admission, so we tried to get there somewhat early to get a good spot near the front. we waited in line till the doors opened and people slowly trickled in. we ended up getting the best spot ever… right dead center and about 7 people back from the stage. i couldnt believe how close we were! our luck was on the upswing, and at that point it stopped raining!

eventually, sting came on and the concert was brilliant. he played all his best songs, and a bunch of songs that i hadn’t heard that were really good as well. the sound at the concert was crystal clear, and being so close to the front we were able to see absolutely everything. this concert had been hyped on the news etc for a while now, and people in delhi were so amped for it. i dont thing huge name bands like this pass through india all that often. apparently there were 18,000 people there and from what i saw everyone was absolutely thrilled to see sting. when the show ended everyone around us was chattering about how good the show was. it had been quite epic! actually, one thing that i found interesting was that almost everyone around us was speaking english. hardly anyone was speaking hindi. it was so weird.. like we were all of a sudden in america again. why do so may people in delhi speak english to one another? is it cool? is it a remnant from the british days? we’ve also noticed that a lot of commercials have parts that they put in english too. odd.

well, after the show, we planned to stay in delhi for a few more days to finally do some sightseeing, but we had an abrupt change of plans, and are now heading up to the mountains tomorrow. more on that later…

*v

one of the 6 main towns on the tourist circuit in rajasthan is bikaner, a small town in the north of the state. it’s less touristy than the other five and that is part of its draw, however unfortunately we’re on a tight schedule and there’s so much to see in india, that we didnt really have time to check it out. but, we absolutely couldnt resist stopping there for one day anyways because nearby, in the tiny village of Deshnok is the Karni Mata Temple.

when we walked up to the temple, there was a large sign out front claiming that this temple just might possibly be the “8th wonder of the world”. although this seemed like quite an exageration, i gotta say that this might be the most unique temple i’ve ever heard of. that’s because the temple is dedicated to rats. yes, that’s right, rats. The story, as far as i can understand, is that a hindu god brought all dead storytellers back to life as rats, mainly to piss off another god. so at this temple, rats have free reign and they are *everywhere*.

outside the temple, when we took off our shoes, a tiny rat scuttled by.. and then we walked in. everywhere we looked there were rats. hundreds of them.. maybe even more. they ran around across the floors, they drank from little bowls of milk set out for them, and they swarmed and hopped all over the fences. we saw huge piles of rats swarming over each other trying to get at food, and we even saw rats “boxing” with each other while standing on their hind legs and throwing punches. i realize that for some people this might be their worst nightmare, but luckily i have no fear of rats. we read that it’s good luck if a rat scampers across your feet, which happened several times to us, and supposedly it’s very very good luck if you see a white rat. after wandering around for a bit, we got to see one of those when someone else pointed it out to us.

i was so glad that we ended up trecking all the way out here even if it was just to see only one thing. i’ve seen sooo many temples in my life now… big temples, small temples, intricate temples, colorful temples… but never anything like this. it was kind of like a scene from some crazy action flick where all you see is rats everywhere you look. “8th wonder of the world, eh?” i thought to myself as we walked out… quite possibly!

also, here are the few photos that i took at jaisalmer and Deshnok

*v