Christmas at the Ganges

Our first hour in Varanasi we already knew this is a very special place on our beautiful planet. Walking in the dark with our backpacks, winding our way through the narrow streets of the old city trying to find our hotel. Hundreds of small shops that sell absolutely everything, squeezing our way past the big bulls and cows blocking the ally ways, being pushed out of the way by a family carrying their dead beloved to the burning ghats, we finally found it. We walked to the roof restaurant of our hotel and were blown away by the Mother Ganges. Little lampions floating on the river, chanting from the ghats and some last flames of the burning (cremation) ghats. Very impressive...

Varanasi is the most holy place for Hindu's to die. Many pilgrims come here to wait for their death, people of Mumbai and all over India get flown here to be cremated on the ghats.

Varanasi has 60 ghats, we are just 2 ghats away from the Burning Ghat. A large quantity of wood is piled up against the wall, small groups of people stand around the fires, one body after the other comes out of the narrow ally ways to the ghats. They are dipped in the Ganges before they are put on the pile of wood and set alight. Women are wrapped in red cloths, men in white. Women are not aloud to be at the cremation ceremony because there have been a few incidents of them jumping on the fire of their beloved. Women cry aswell, and crying is not aloud because then the soul has trouble with passing on. Children and pregnant women aren't aloud to be cremated so they are just set adrift on the river. (thank god we haven't seen that..) It is a very impressive thing to witness. Death is such a different thing in the western world. It is very much a part of life here, a new beginning so to say. For us it is the End. After the cremation the ashes are put in the river. (a ghat downstream people are bathing and drinking and doing their laundry..) Camera's are, needless to say, not aloud on this ghat.

Walking past all the ghats you see the most amazing things. Men and women bathing, Sadu's sitting around very stoned, covered in ash. people doing their own rituals to pay respect and honour the Mother Ganges.

On Christmas morning Dunc and I woke up at 5.30 and took a little row boat out on the river. It is amazing to see the sun come up and see all the magic happen around you on the ghats. Very romantic but for me the cristmas feeling was non existant. We had met some 'lonely travellers' who we adopted for a great christmas curry and lots of beer. After that, the 8 of us hopped in a boat again and saw the sun go down behind Varanasi and all the rituals for the Mother Ganges unfolded before us again. Duncan decided that he ould cleans his soul, free himself of sins, stripped down to his underware and bathed in the river. (Thank lord not completely immersed.) I just thought dangling my feet over the edge of the boat was enough..

A great Hindu christmas that was..

Lots of love from Incredible India,

Duncan and Ellen

Bodhgaya

It all started here some 2500 years ago, in Bodhgaya, underneath a tree. Prince Siddhartha was meditating and found enlightenment and so became Buddha. This is the birthplace of Buddhism.

An offspring of that same tree is still there, in the middle of the Mahabodhi temple. This is a place where the Dalai Lama spends a few months a year, where 45 Buddhist monasteries of different countries are, where thousands of monks walk around, meditate and chant.

Bodhgaya is a town in the state Bihar, which is the poorest state in India. And you can clearly see that.

The Mahabodhi temple is the most special temple i have ever seen. It is serene, peaceful, beautiful, wonderful, inspiring. You walk around and see all the monks doing their thing, hear the sound of bells and chants and smell the offerings and incense. The tree is amazing to see, I couldn't help feeling special walking past it..

But through the wall to the outside of the temple you see a lot of beggars sticking their hands through the gaps. And when you walk out of the temple, feeling all serene, you immediately get pulled at your sleeves by children and sellers. It is still hard to see the young children with knotted, lice infested hair, no shoes, rags as clothes begging for some food or money. It is not fair... And there we are, having to say no with a wallet filled with money in our bag.

We found an alternative, we buy cookies. Then you notice that really all they want is some attention, play and cuddle. They need to be kids.. And it is amazing to see the sad-begging faces of those beauties turn into big smiles. I sat on the ground for half an hour watching a DVD of the Dalai Lama with 3 kids on my lap, all cuddled up to me. Very sweet.

Yes, so a town of contrasts you could say.

We met 2 dear travelers friends. Robert, an American who we met in Puri. A professor in alternative religions. Very nice to talk to him and special that he invited us to have lunch with him in his monastery.

And Olly, who we spent Dunc's birthday with who we also had great chats, making us both think and aware of things in our life. Special guy, that Olly..

We heard one of the teachings of the spiritual leader of Tibet, Karmapa. Unfortunately we are leaving before His Holiness himself, the Dalai Lama arrives. That would have been truely special.

Can we all sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Duncan? He turned 43 yesterday. I tried to make it as special as I could for him, and I think he enjoyed his birthday. Streamers and balloons, presents and a cake.

Well, from this Holy place in India I wish everyone a beautiful snow filled Christmas with all your loved ones. Know that we are there in thought. And an advice for the new year; just be nice to one and other, it's not that hard.. Happy new-year!

Merry Christmas from incredible India,

Duncan and Ellen

Life in the Sky.

Very very happy boy this Duncan! 20 years and 72 countries and finally got to see these amazing, unbelievable, beautiful and sublime Himalayas! Sitting in a crazy little town called Gangtok, capital of Sikkim, north east of Bengal, bloody cold but what an amazing spot.

Arrived by jeep....4 hours from NJP to be dropped at the Sikkim frontier, independant country up until the late 70's. What a culture shock for us both. Lots of paper work on the frontier but what nice border guards. Very special to walk into a country over a bridge in the middle of nowhere!

A word on these people; Most are from Tibet and Nepal so really not Indian looking at all, rosey cheeks big smiles and a very sweet shyness about them.

Plastic bags were banned here a few years ago and big fines for littering so very clean streets.

Really feel like we are in Tibet with all this calm around!

Chilled in Gangtok for a day then off to the big mountains.....I mean really big montains with a guide, a driver and our new Australian/Bangladeshy friend Roy. 6 hours to cover 118 kms in a jeep but what amazing sights......monasteries, Budhist prayer flags everywhere, oh and this lovely planet's 3rd highest mountain, 8320 meters!!!!

Couldn't see Everest but fingers crosed that we will as we move a bit to the west.

Now trekking up here. Must, must give up smoking Duncan! On day 2 we struggled on foot up to 13500 feet and altitude really hit us all very hard....except for our sherpa who just laughed at us.....alot. As a foot note, Ron and Jambo Sherpa are so keen to involve me with a big climb to attempt Annapurna, about 7500 meters...gulp!!!!

Finding it hard to write this today as to describe this place really is impossible, I think I will let the pictures tell the real story!

Thanks to all our new friends for letting us into their homes and we will never forget eating in your beautiful kitchens so high and remote from the world.

But big thanks to our guide Ron and the amazing Jambo Sherpa for carrying us through this experience. And massive thanks to Jambo and family for inviting us into his home for spicy pork and way to much Nepalese rum!

Off to west Sikkim in the morning for more of the same.....lucky lucky Duncan and Ellen.

Again, lots of love from incredible India/Sikkim

Duncan and Ellen

Spikey In Calcutta

Our next stop of our incredible journey was Calcutta to visit friends who we met in Goa. Sanjay and Noelle. They were so hospitible that we could stay in their appartement. Unfortunately Noelle had to leave for a wedding in Bombay so we didn't see her much. Sanjay gave us a full tour of Calcutta and what a great city. Very clean compared to all the cities we've been to.
Sanjay's appartement is in the middle of a muslim district. When we drove through there to go for dinner in Chinatown, we passed many hundreds of goats. The next day would be Muslim-hallal-slaughter-a-goat-day. Poor little beeeheeee goats.. Not having a good, or any, future to look forward to. So we had a lovely dinner in china town. Lovely food, few drinks, and back to the appartement for a few. Duncan and Sanjay went back out to town for a boysnight out, I went to bed, very tired of travelling..

At 4 o'clock I woke up from a slamming door, some "ssshhhh" of the boys. Dunc came into the bedroom and woke me up. He said;"Ellen, I've got a surprise for you, you'll be very proud of me..!". I turned around, half opened my eyes and a drunken Duncan and Sanjay stood in the bedroom. As my eyes focused, I saw that Duncan was holding a black and white goat in his arms. "We rescued him from the muslims, we bought a goat..! I call him Spikey..!"

So Spikey slept next to Sanjay who wasn't very pleasently surprised when the goat had pooped all over the balcony, beehheee'd very loud but oh how cute he was... The masterplan was to liberate him in a beautiful park so he could find a girl-goat and live happily ever after .

Every one of us got strangely attached to Spikey, he was just like a dog. He travelled in the back of the car, he walked on a lead, beeheee'd when ever he couldn't see us. That late afternoon we took him to a park. Beautiful park but the gate was closed. Spikey couldn't get in.. And the gate was too high to drop him over it. Now what?! Sanjay picked Spikey's lead up again and walked though Calcutta. Spikey trodded with happy hoofs next to him and both looked very natural.

We found a beautiful leafy tree in a non-muslim part of town and decided to tie him on there. someone would find him and take care of him. So we did. We walked around the corner and we heard a heartbreaking BEEEHHEEEEE. But when we looked around the corner we saw that he was eating. Both Sanjay and Duncan had tears in their eyes and wondered if they did the right thing. As they were contemplating to go back to get him, Spikey trodded around the corner. He had eaten through the lead to follow us... Now we all fell definately in love with him but couldn't keep him. We put Spikey back in the car and drove till we found another park. This park had a low fence and Duncan dropped him over the fence after we all gave Spikey a big cuddle. Spikey looked at us with a funny look in his eyes, turned around to eat something and we ran to the car to jump in and drive away and not look back. We all hope and pray that he is alright.. WE LOVE YOU SPIKEY..!

After that adventure we went to a home party of a few friends of Sanjay. A very special experience. Such nice people, everyone is so hospitable. Everytime Sanjay was speaking Bengali to someone all I could understand was "Beeehhheeee.." in the middle of his sentances. Spikey was talk of the party.

I made lots of girl-friends. They tought me a bit of Indian dancing after a few rum-cokes.

I am not very good at it... Very nice party..!

That night we drove to Sanjay's family home, also with a friend of Sanjay in the car, Kunal. We drove past the park where we dropped Spikey but didn't see him. 'A yellow submarine' by the beatles will never be the same anymore. We sang our lungs out just to get the thought of poor Spikey out of our heads..

The next day, Sanj and his uncle named Mamma had organised a fishing trip. We arrived at the house of 'John and Joe' at mid-day where the first Vodka-cokes were poored. Behind the house was a little pond where we cought no fish at all. But it was very nice and relaxing.

John, Joe and their wives were very hospitable and we got lots of Indian snacks, a great lunch and more and more vodka. For us it is very special to be invited in their houses, we wouldn't have experienced it without Sanjay and Mamma.

Mamma invited us for dinner at his house. The most beautiful curry in India. In a very colourful house. We have got a new Mamma and Mom..!

So this was a very nice, lovely, privileged but exhausting experience. Many many thanks to you Sanjay, I know you'll have tears in your eyes and a cold space in your bed reading about Spikey.

Let's all say a prayer for Spikey..

Lots of love from incredible India

Duncan and Ellen

Jagganaut

I've put a little wooden statue of the tribal verion on shiva (Jagganaut), pretty much a southpark figure with big eyes, in front of me to give me some inspiration to write.

Fort cochin on the we(s)t-coast was very much a fishing town known for it''s chinese fishingnets, but it was not very special, especially knowing it was pissing down with rain. We stayed at a lovely homestay with a typical midclass-family who gave me a rosery as a safe travel present.

So we decided to escape the 2nd monsoon and head for the east-coast. A night train to Mamallapuram. After seeing Hampi with its 2860 temples is was OK to see. The amazing Krishna's Butterball (huge rock) that has been balancing there for the last 1500 years was impressive, even the Emporer couldn't move it with 200 elephants.

In 2004, Mamallapuram was hit by the tsunami and many people were affected. Consequently there are a number of orphanages in town. Interested as we were I asked one of the locals which one to visit and I quote: "I am not sure, a lot of them are fake, kids from neighbouring villages go there for the week and go home to mom and dad in the weekend, many of them are a scam to get money from the tourists."

Well, that's out of the question then...

The monsoon had cought up with us again and so we fled again, also strangly feeling the pressure of time although we've still got nearly 2.5 months left. We took the train even further north to Puri. Our train was leaving from Chennai (Madrass) at 8 AM, so alarm at 6 AM, quick shower and off we went. Undortunately the train had a minor delay of 12 hours in Chennai. Piss-stinking city with no real tourist appeal. We rented a room for the afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed an afternoon sleep. 24 hours in the train were fantastic, we discovered 2nd class AC where you get food, pillow, sheets and airfreshner. Some of the views you get are mind-blowing. We arrived at our station 36 hours after our last shower but we still had to get a cab to Puri, 2 hrs. Again, the rain had followed us and it was raining tropical drops the size of marbles. I was in desperate need of a pee, a poo, a shower and some food but the windscreen wipers of the cab broke. Our driver fixed it the indian style; with a piece of chewing gum and some wire and off we went again. Lots of toeters and bellen, holes in the road, cows on the street, bicycles and irresponible overtaking in 5th gear to save on fuel.

Finally we arrive in Z hotel and guess whet?! I HAD A HOT SHOWER, the first in a month and a half...!

Puri is a town where beer is illegal, hash is legal and all the waiters have a funny smile on their faces. Their gods look like southpark figures and they cut the grass by pulling it out by hand.

We've rented a bike for a few days (very expensive, IRP 500, Euro 7,-) and today drove around, through the national parks to the impressive Sun tempel in Konark.

I say goodnight to you all with an illegal beer in my hand, fireworks and loud hindi music on the background (wedding next door).

Namaste,

From Incredible India,

Dunc and Ell