Happy Thai New Year!

I've had the pleasure of celebrating three different new year's days in the past four and a half months, and I have to say, in my professional and objective opinion, applying my analytical expertise as a casual cultural ambassador, Thai new year's is absolutely the superior new year's party.

Between the ages of about eight and ten I was engaged in a long-running water gun conflict with my uncle in Louisiana, purchasing larger and larger water guns every time I visited and working out newer and more surreptitious attack plans. Songkran is sort of like my eight-year old self's thrill experienced a million fold for three days straight. Imagine a whole country of children and parents and teenagers and elderly, all filled with the glee that comes from dumping a bucket of water on someone's head. It's a nationwide, three-day water fight, and it's amazing.

Happy Songkran!

Surreptitiously yours,
Rebecca

Namaste to India

We've returned safe and sound from India.

The food, the history, the saris, the cows, it's really all there. Two and a half weeks was such a tease.

A market in Haridwar:


Women in Delhi:


A visit of the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India.


The Golden Temple in Amritsar. Sikhs come here from across India to pray and take a dip in the sacred pool. It turns out we went on a sort of unintentional religious tour of India. We followed a giant Hindu pilgrimage with a visit to the holiest Sikh site, a trip to see the Dalai Lama's home town, another visit to the Ganges in Varanasi, and an excursion to the stupa where Buddha made his first sermon.



Street cow in Varanasi. I had no idea cows were such natural city dwellers until I visited India.


Procession of unknown purpose in Delhi:


Temple in Khajuraho:


Look closer! How tawdry! (I'd make a Kama Sutra joke but that's not really appropriate for a teacher):



And that is my final post on India. Goodbye dear country! Farewell one billion inhabitants! Back to the adopted mother-country and the rest of my vacation.

With fondness,
Rebecca

The best part of traveling

Not the cross-cultural exchange, not the melange of new sights and sounds and smells, not the thrill of chaos and confusion.

The food, right? If you don't agree we probably aren't close friends. Or, in the case that we are, I should warn you I may harbor secret reservations about your character.

Vegetable Thali. After six months of eating pork and rice, pork and noodles, fried pork, pork meatballs, and pork salad, I can't tell you the ripple of sweet bliss that ran through me every time I was asked "veg or non-veg?" before being offered food. The whole town of Haridwar is so holy to Hinduism that meat is completely verboten within city limits. I'm considering converting just for the food.



Delicious chutneys:



Street snack (chaat in Hindi):



A restaurant in Amritsar:



A shy little cook. His father REALLY wanted him to smile for a photo, but this was the best I could get:



Those chapatis are coming out of that hole that is in actuality a brick oven:



We took a cooking class in McLeod Ganj, so hopefully I'll be bringing some mad Indian cooking skills back with me stateside. And while I did love Indian food, I have to admit, I did really miss noodles. The pork, not so much, but the noodles, absolutely.

The only person to gain weight while in India,
Rebecca

The mighty Himalayas

A trip to McLeod Ganj, the home of the exiled Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama.






Here's the Tibetan healer I visited about my sinus infection.



I was given medicine that looked like this:



And tasted like soap mixed with dry tea. I had to chew three before every meal for five days!

Almost finished with post-facto updates.

R

Sacred baths and baba licenses

Well, it turns out that our visit to India overlapped with one of the world's largest religious pilgrimages, so we figured we ought to check it out.

Occuring once every four years, Kumbh Mela is a massive convergence of millions of Hindus from all walks of life: sadhus (devout Hindu holy men who have renounced their material possessions), babas (gurus), phoney babas, and everyday Indian religious tourists. They come to bathe in the sacred Ganges river at this most auspicious of locations.

The experience was unreal. We emerged off of our overnight train and were plunged into the chaotic streets of Haridwar amidst thousands of Hindu holy men.




Bathers at the Ganges.



Bathers drying at a calm spot along the river.


Along with the other visitors to Kumbh Mela, we took a purifying bath in the Ganges.



As you might expect, I learned some lessons about spirituality that day. Circa mid-afternoon, Anna and I were walking along the riverside when we spotted a group of Hindu musicians and sadhus under a tree. We stood watching from behind a small crowd until we were noticed and ushered to sit at the feet of the holiest baba. Resplendent in a WWII era helmet decorated with nut shells and a rhinestone hair barrette, the baba gave us a casual glance. It was right about the time when he took a giant drag from a pipe that we noticed he was fully nude. The baba then picked up a one foot segment of bamboo and started to stand. He proceeded to roll his flaccid penis around the bamboo stick, completing several rotations before coming to a resting position, squatting with the bamboo stick behind his knees. He meditated there for a solid five minutes before releasing his member and returning to lotus position. As we sat, stunned and speechless, he gave us a short lecture. He warned us to always ask for a baba's government issued papers, proudly displaying his own. It wasn't until a group of wandering babas approached and delivered a ten minute oration in Hindi that we finally snuck off.

Some sadhus on horseback.



It was quite a day. We made it out of town on an night train to Amritsar. We shared our car with approximately a million other pilgrims (small exaggeration). It smelled great.

The New York Times recently ran this article on Kumbh Mela. Supposedly 10 million people bathed on the final day (not an exaggeration). Next Kumbh is in 2014, if you're interested in going.

More post-facto updates from India soon.

Yours,
Rebecca

This had to happen

You guys are really no good at this game. I was at the Taj Majal, just miles from the fort where Shah Jahan was tragically imprisoned by his own son. Poor showing. That's like the easiest place in India to guess.

Yours,
Rebecca