I begin my "wildlands studies" program today. The reason why I came to India in the first place, remember?
Here are photos of my adventures/ goodbyes in Mcleod-ganj.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021920&l=661ee&id=48102151
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021571&l=86852&id=48102151
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021342&l=c7ec4&id=48102151
Went to agra, the Taj mahal, agra fort, birthplace of Krishna temple yesterday with an all-indian tour group yesterday. Quie the experience! Got back at 4 am and had to make my way back to the hotel in Paharganj -- probably the most dangerous part of my trip yet. Unexpected dangers of the organized tour.
Much love! Thanks for reading this, if you did. I'll tell you mo' stories when I return. They're always better in person anyways.
Cheers,
emily
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
My blog...
... has been severely neglected, because I have started to keep a journal! There is simply no way for there to be time for BOTH a journal and a blog. One or the other, and a journal can be kept in nicer places (i.e. rooftop cafes, sides of prety paths). And can be handwritten on pretty paper, which I like. So, the blog has suffered.
News!
*Went to amritsar. Siksh galore, turbans, and swrds prominently displayed. Demure women. Great. People want to take photos with white people all the time. Why? I don't know - guess we're not common in provincial india? Not that Amritsar is provincial, but it's a pilgrimage site, so people come from all over. I am now in the photo albums of about 10 indian families. A goup of about 13 teenage boys wanted to take a picture with us, and started pulling on my hand (in the temple complex). An older Indian woman turned on the righteous anger FULL THROTTLE, yelling at the top of her (very high pitched) voice for about 5 minutes. They scattered, sans photo. ALso, went shopping, rode bicycle rickshaw (awesome!), went to a crazy boder guard-changing cerimbony, had rocks thrown at me by kids. Went to a fertility temple, which was a 'cave' made of concrete, mirrors, and had an obstacle course complete with water. Ate tasty fried fooods on the side of the road. Was hassled by many scammers. Almost didn't see one coming @ tyhe bus station.... close call with buying a "ticket" from the "station manager". Good thing someone has told me about it before, SO convincing!
*My women in the English class are making me fat by shoving an ungodly amount of food down my throat every day after class (all in good fun. "Sa, Sa, Sa" = eat eat eat).
*I am taking a massage class.
*I listened to the Dalai Lama teach today for 4 hours. It was honestly great the whole time. I feel like I've learned more about religion (in a scholarly way) from these 4 hours, than taking an entire class on religion&science back in the states. He's got a great way of talking about multiple world traditions (secular and religious), and has many things I could really get behind. LOVE!
*More politicking with Tashi and other young tibetans
*Friends in the poliitical prisoner crowd -- crazy crazy stories that are just so WRONG!
Mostly all!
Love,
Sikh man at temple
News!
*Went to amritsar. Siksh galore, turbans, and swrds prominently displayed. Demure women. Great. People want to take photos with white people all the time. Why? I don't know - guess we're not common in provincial india? Not that Amritsar is provincial, but it's a pilgrimage site, so people come from all over. I am now in the photo albums of about 10 indian families. A goup of about 13 teenage boys wanted to take a picture with us, and started pulling on my hand (in the temple complex). An older Indian woman turned on the righteous anger FULL THROTTLE, yelling at the top of her (very high pitched) voice for about 5 minutes. They scattered, sans photo. ALso, went shopping, rode bicycle rickshaw (awesome!), went to a crazy boder guard-changing cerimbony, had rocks thrown at me by kids. Went to a fertility temple, which was a 'cave' made of concrete, mirrors, and had an obstacle course complete with water. Ate tasty fried fooods on the side of the road. Was hassled by many scammers. Almost didn't see one coming @ tyhe bus station.... close call with buying a "ticket" from the "station manager". Good thing someone has told me about it before, SO convincing!
*My women in the English class are making me fat by shoving an ungodly amount of food down my throat every day after class (all in good fun. "Sa, Sa, Sa" = eat eat eat).
*I am taking a massage class.
*I listened to the Dalai Lama teach today for 4 hours. It was honestly great the whole time. I feel like I've learned more about religion (in a scholarly way) from these 4 hours, than taking an entire class on religion&science back in the states. He's got a great way of talking about multiple world traditions (secular and religious), and has many things I could really get behind. LOVE!
*More politicking with Tashi and other young tibetans
*Friends in the poliitical prisoner crowd -- crazy crazy stories that are just so WRONG!
Mostly all!
Love,
emily
Sikh man at temple
Crazily mirrored hindu fertility temple
Hindu temple's guru! Love the glasses!
An AMAZING place to eat breakfast (and one of teh cheapest in town). Rooftop cafe.
Tibetan migraine medicine. Diagnosed by feeling my pulse. APparently my bile is out of balance...
How vehicles look here -- color! Decoration! Hinduism!
Border celebration
Border guard man (a bit like a chicken,d on't you think? Or a vegas dancer's headdress? They do CELLENT high kicks as part of their routine, as well.)
(sideways temple at night (reflected in the pool which surrounds it)
Chapati (bread) machine. A flaming conveyor belt! They feed tens of thousands of people a day here, for whatever donation people can give The sisks are a fun people, very egalitarian (if militantly so!)
Golden temple at Amrtsar
Temple
The free food they serve everyone. HUGE amounts of food!
Sweet turbans on skihs.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The past, and FUTURE!
Tomorrow (hopefully) I will go o Amritsar. Tried to go today (woke up at 3:30! The other damn people forgot to set their alarm/ it didn't work, so it was just me and the taxi. Damn! But, another early day tomorrow, and at least I got to go to the doctor again to get some more meds).
SOme highlights:
Meeting awesome ex-poiltical prisoners. Why are they so happy and un-scarred (mentally)? They should be SO messed up psychologically... but don't show it. Good god. Must really be onto something with the whole 'love your enemies' and meditation bit.
Sick again: went to the dispensary where tehy gave me another thing of Cipro. You can by Xythromyacin, another anti-biotic (sp?) on the street as well.
Saw some debris from a landslide, had to wait till a cat came to clear it off in order to finish walkng home. Fun -- a big crowd of monks, botocrcycles, pedestrians, monkeys taxis and Indian pilgrams' cars blaring music. I thought it was a pretty hillarious scene -- everyone likes to watch heavy machinery.
Working on articels for teh 'compassion in action' newsletter.
Saw documentaries (pretty bad) on Falun Gong, saw an AWESOMELY hillarious bollywood movie called "Singh is King". The main character's name is happy. HIs brother is lucky. Boy meets girl etc. etc. predictable, dancing, silly translations in teh subtitles. Great.
Eating with DG and company, talking politics ad religion etc. with Tashi.
Top of Triund
Rouse atop Triund, with a mouthful of cookies, or Dal.
The doctor who gives anti-biotics to me all the time!
Waiting for teh landslide to be cleared (note people waitring and watchign on otehr side as well)
DG weaving! Their hands are SO fucked up from doing that all the time. Man. Calluses ad HUGE writs bones (bone spurs?)
T
SOme highlights:
Meeting awesome ex-poiltical prisoners. Why are they so happy and un-scarred (mentally)? They should be SO messed up psychologically... but don't show it. Good god. Must really be onto something with the whole 'love your enemies' and meditation bit.
Sick again: went to the dispensary where tehy gave me another thing of Cipro. You can by Xythromyacin, another anti-biotic (sp?) on the street as well.
Saw some debris from a landslide, had to wait till a cat came to clear it off in order to finish walkng home. Fun -- a big crowd of monks, botocrcycles, pedestrians, monkeys taxis and Indian pilgrams' cars blaring music. I thought it was a pretty hillarious scene -- everyone likes to watch heavy machinery.
Working on articels for teh 'compassion in action' newsletter.
Saw documentaries (pretty bad) on Falun Gong, saw an AWESOMELY hillarious bollywood movie called "Singh is King". The main character's name is happy. HIs brother is lucky. Boy meets girl etc. etc. predictable, dancing, silly translations in teh subtitles. Great.
Eating with DG and company, talking politics ad religion etc. with Tashi.
Top of Triund
Rouse atop Triund, with a mouthful of cookies, or Dal.
The doctor who gives anti-biotics to me all the time!
Waiting for teh landslide to be cleared (note people waitring and watchign on otehr side as well)
DG weaving! Their hands are SO fucked up from doing that all the time. Man. Calluses ad HUGE writs bones (bone spurs?)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Cloudy...
Well, to end the suspense the crazy eye-patch man rolling around in the middle of the street is apparently some crazy local drunk. He begs (one of the very very very very few Tibetan beggars... weird racial thing going on there), and when he gets money, he goes and gets SMASHED. Tehn apparently rolls around in teh middle of the streets. Ya know.
Toady, hiked up Triund (only about 20km distance-wise, but SO FAR up. And then SO FAR down. gah! So much steeper than our mountains in CO.) MOUNTAIN COWS. You know how cows aren't supposed to be able to go down stairs? That is completely false-- this whole trail was crazy stone steps, much harder to navigate than normal steps (bigger, and shifty). These cows did it with ease! While carrying things, including live baby goats on their backs! Wow. It must take some serious patience to herd those guys, though. They can do it, but really just want to eat the grass along te path.
At the top (after 4 hours of climbing, crazy fog blowing in n us, and katie's pee-time being walked in on by some giggly young indian guy) we drank chai at a little stone and tarp shack. Passed about 4-5 on the way up. Had Dal and rice, mirinda soda, tea, AND cookies. I was stuffed. Almost didn't make it to the top b/c my tummy was feeling funy. I think I might have swalowed a bit of teh local water in my shower yesterday. Theis is a completely uninspired post, because I am tiered! Maybe tomorrow I will have more exciting prose!
Love,
emily
Toady, hiked up Triund (only about 20km distance-wise, but SO FAR up. And then SO FAR down. gah! So much steeper than our mountains in CO.) MOUNTAIN COWS. You know how cows aren't supposed to be able to go down stairs? That is completely false-- this whole trail was crazy stone steps, much harder to navigate than normal steps (bigger, and shifty). These cows did it with ease! While carrying things, including live baby goats on their backs! Wow. It must take some serious patience to herd those guys, though. They can do it, but really just want to eat the grass along te path.
At the top (after 4 hours of climbing, crazy fog blowing in n us, and katie's pee-time being walked in on by some giggly young indian guy) we drank chai at a little stone and tarp shack. Passed about 4-5 on the way up. Had Dal and rice, mirinda soda, tea, AND cookies. I was stuffed. Almost didn't make it to the top b/c my tummy was feeling funy. I think I might have swalowed a bit of teh local water in my shower yesterday. Theis is a completely uninspired post, because I am tiered! Maybe tomorrow I will have more exciting prose!
Love,
emily
Sunday, September 14, 2008
MOOOOORE Photos
, then I 
I have taken far too many photos to put them all up on the internet (the connection here is quite slow, and I can only add five at a time). If the muber of photos I have is any indication of the quantity of memorable experiences I've been having, then I have already had more than my share! These photos are primarily of circumnabulation (going in a clockwise circle around the Dalai Lama's house and temple), hiking to a waterfall in Dharamkot, around town, teaching my English class, and one great picture of monks playing badmitton with a view down the valley. The girl above is Rinzin, an awesome lady who I'm rying to help get into college. International admissions to US universities is IMPOSSIBLE (or nearly so). Any advice? Connections? I would appreciate these from anyone! Can't write now, have to run to class. Although one very weird thing happened already this morning: a man with a cazy eyepatch (very 3-d) was lying in the middle of the road, stopping traffic. Everyone around was just staring, and seemed to have no idea what he was doing. Very odd. Most people won't even sit on teh ground here without a cushion or something to protect them from the nastiness taht is all around. A good idea, what with trash and cow and dog poop all over the streets. I have NO idea what was happening there -- don't think it was a protest, as the Tibetan peole I asked were just as curious annd confused as I.
Love,
Emily
I have taken far too many photos to put them all up on the internet (the connection here is quite slow, and I can only add five at a time). If the muber of photos I have is any indication of the quantity of memorable experiences I've been having, then I have already had more than my share! These photos are primarily of circumnabulation (going in a clockwise circle around the Dalai Lama's house and temple), hiking to a waterfall in Dharamkot, around town, teaching my English class, and one great picture of monks playing badmitton with a view down the valley. The girl above is Rinzin, an awesome lady who I'm rying to help get into college. International admissions to US universities is IMPOSSIBLE (or nearly so). Any advice? Connections? I would appreciate these from anyone! Can't write now, have to run to class. Although one very weird thing happened already this morning: a man with a cazy eyepatch (very 3-d) was lying in the middle of the road, stopping traffic. Everyone around was just staring, and seemed to have no idea what he was doing. Very odd. Most people won't even sit on teh ground here without a cushion or something to protect them from the nastiness taht is all around. A good idea, what with trash and cow and dog poop all over the streets. I have NO idea what was happening there -- don't think it was a protest, as the Tibetan peole I asked were just as curious annd confused as I.
Love,
Emily
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