Megalith photos

I see that the standing stones didn't post for some reason. Sooooo, here they are.

India's megaliths

Check out those stones!!!!

This is an area of India that the British called Little Scotland. The books all say it is because the hilly mountains, streams and forests are a reminder of Scotland. That may be true, but I think they called it Little Scotland becaue of the megalithic stones that can be found in many places. These are amazing. They are products of the Khasi Tribe. This tribe, which is one of the major tribes in this area still holds these stones sacred. Still, when one of great importance dies, a large stone is put up in their honor. Such a stone rising requires great ceremony and sacrifice. They sacrifice chickens and goats and have great ritual.

The stones are still greatly honored and there are still rituals done at them. They are very sacred; there are stories of people wanting to move one to another location and after they moved it and got home . . . they died. So the stone was taken back to its original location and put back up.

There are stones you can see in the villages we drove by. We saw one area fenced off with about 6-8 pretty large standing stones in it. I said it looked like a family graveyard in Kentucky.

Today or tomorrow we’re going to an area that has the largest standing stones in the area.

This really, really did remind me of the stones we saw in Scotland and Ireland.

The Khasi people still worship the sun, hold the forest to be sacred, and hold nature to be divine. Some of the people who are still active in the Kharsi Tribe have fly flags from their homes that are red with a white circle in the center, and in the circle is a red rooster. This is because there was a time when the sun left the earth. All the animals got together and tried to talke the sun into coming back. None, not even the humans, the elephants, the rhinos, or anyone could get the sun to come back. A rooster said “Let me try.” All the other animals laughed and asked “How’s a little bird like you going to call the great, mighty sun back.” The rooster said, “Please, let me try.” So, it went off and a little while later the sun came back to earth and life was able to continue. Since that time the rooster has been the sign of the Khasi people.

This area is about 5000 feet above sea level, and the people, rather than what we think of as Indian features, are more mongoloid or asian in their looks. Walking through one of the small villages reminded me of the people in the High Andes. The way they dressed, the way they looked and the whole sense was like we were back in Bolivia in the alto plano of the Andes. WOW, Scotland and Brazil all in one small area.

The bad news is that to drive 26 kilometers took us over 2 hours!!!! Tiny roads, more traffic than I’ve ever seen on a small road, and curves, curves, curves make for a journey that averages about . . . slow, slow slow.

It is lovely hear. But I got car sick for the first time in about 10 years. I found that I packed my “patches” and have one on. I hope that even though they are expired they’ll work just fine.

Well, I need go to see if reception is open yet so I can try to rent a phone card to get this and the other post I wrote actually posted.

We’re getting anxious to be back home again. It’s lovely here, but as Dorothy said “There’s no place like home.”

[I was only able to post one of my photos. It took half an hour to post these two posts I had already written and just pasted here and to load one photo]

Update on trip

Driving to Shilong

We’re on our way to Shilong at the beginning of a 7 hour or so drive. We have to go most of the way to Guwahati and then head south. So, I’ll take some time now to try to catch up.

Yesterday, Thursday the 31st of March was a day in which we were going to pick up a couple shirts that Stuart had made at a local weaving shop. This is a wonderful shop/school. The owners of the hotel we are staying at Iora, bought 6 or 8 large looms and gave them to the Sell Help Group. What this group does is teach local women/girls how to weave so that they can make some money for themselves. The lady who runs it is a wonderful, warm, and amazing lady. She was a school teacher but quit that job to run this group because she wanted to help the local women. They take several months teaching the women how to weave beautiful material. They weave cotton and three types of silk. Stuart had them make three shirts for him. They are beautiful cotton shirts with great designs on them. I’m sure he’ll wear them at the Retreat (as I will the ones I bought in Guwahati). The cotton short sleeved shirts (he picked out the fabric that was woven there, and picked the shirts up the next day. They didn’t quite fit, so they took them back and we picked them up the next day and they fit great) for about $9-$10 each. The silk long-sleeved, long tailed shirt was much more expensive. The material is about twice the cost of the labor for the cotton and the silk was much more expensive for the material.

Before we got to the shop to pick up the shirts, our local guide, also called Somnot, stopped by his house. He wanted to share an experience with us. The front part of his (I believe it is his extended family’s house) yard was surrounded in very pretty fabric or canvas and roofed with fabric or tarp. It was all colored and designed. He explained that his cousin’s daughter had begun her menses 11-13 days ago and this was the ritual/celebration of her entering womanhood. We took off our shoes and entered the enclosure. They had plastic chairs set up for us and we sat down. There was a ring of about 17-23 men with the young girl part of it. They were all chanting/singing in Hindi from the ancient sacred texts. There was a small altar with fire and other objects on it. The singing had started before we got there.

Almost as soon as we sat down, they brought us tea because we were their guests. They said we could take photos if we wanted to (I took one but I think Stuart took several). The father of the girl came over and proudly told us he was the father and introduced his wife, the girl’s mother. They were both very proud of their daughter and very happy we were there and thanked us for coming. (Again, this seemed very, very sincere.) Outside of the ring of men there were a group of women observing . The ring of men were family members and neighbors who had come together for this celebration. It was very, very touching to me and I found myself with tears in my eyes several times (and even writing this and remembering it, I am very touched). It was such a loving, happy, joyous celebration of this girls transition to a new time in her life.

The girl’s father, our guide’s cousin, again came over and told us that he too was a guide. He brought out the issue of the National Geographic from last year that had a big article about Kaziranga National Park, and pointed to the area in which the writer of the article talked about his guide by name, and it was him! He was very proud of this.

Then the men’s singing was over and we were told it was time to leave. We got out shoes and the mother and the father came over and thanked us for coming, shook our hands and were sad to see us go. We were told that it was now time for the women to come together for their part of the ceremony.

The love, the family, the community, and the sharing was amazing and touched my heart in ways it hasn’t been touched before. This experience combined with our experiences in the ethnic village gave me an understanding I’ve not had before of the closeness of extended families and of communities. The connection between cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. is like the best of connections of families that are functional. It also helps me understand how family/tribal societies are so totally different than what us westerners can understand; and why their is such a lack of understanding of the politics and culture by those of us in the US and the US government of tribal people’s like the mideast and Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. have.

The separate lives we live is totally beyond the comprehension of these people. Som, our friend/guide, has a brother that lives in Norway with his wife and children. Som’s sister-in-law is a home health nurse who visits the elderly who live alone and in homes for the elderly. When Som came back and was talking to his friends in Delhi, they did not believe, or comprehend how old people could be alone and not surrounded by family. It wasn’t that they couldn’t believe it as much as they couldn’t even grasp the idea of it. Such things are so foreign to the way of life here.

Also, this is a culture in which hospitality to guests and strangers is a way of life. It is like once you have been hosted by a family or person, you are their friend and a part of their life. And, unlike my experiences of “hospitality” in Turkey and other areas of the world, there is absolutely nothing expected in return. This isn’t a culture of “I gave you a gift, now you must give me a gift.” It seems to be a culture of “you are my guest, so I want to treat you like family.” This is pure hospitality, I think this must be like what was part of the ancient celtic/Scottish world. And that’s one of the reasons why the massacre of clan MacDonald by those who they had fed and given a place to sleep was so horrible.

This has been an amazing experience in ways that I had never expected. What a gift that is. Well, that’s about all I have to say about that wonderful aspect of the trip.

The internet went down here for a day or so, so I've been off the Net. So here's a post I was working on when I found I couldn't get on. No photos this post as the last post with 15 photos took almost 2 hours to upload the photos. I just don't have time today and had run out of batteries by the time we hit the ethnic village. Plus, how many elephant, bird, rhino, and water buffalo photos can I post?!! I have more photos than I know what to do with. I'll try to open a gallery on one of the gallery sites after I get home and cull through my photos.

Wednesday morning we did a jeep safari through the eastern disctrict of the park and then scounted out a boat on which we were told we could take our group for a cruise on the Brahmaputra. We don't think it will work for the group, but who knows. They said they do repair in the off season which is about to start. But besides being a little too small, we don't think "a little repair" will do it for us. When we were getting on the boat Stuart took a step and his foot went through one of the boards!! We had to watch that we didn't step in that hole while we were on the boat! It was a really pretty cruise though and because of the water, we all got sun burned (shame on us!).

Next we went to a village of the Mising Tribe. The three of us thought this would be just a quick visit, but boy were we wrong. This was a really amazing experience--like none I've ever had before. This is Wiki's page on the Mising Tribe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mising_people.

When we arrived near the center of the village we were met with a ceremony of greeting in which we were met by the elders and dancers. We were smudged and blessed and then we were "danced into the village". It was the beginning of a very unique experience for us.

The buildings here are all made of bamboo, and on banboo stilts because the whole area floods each year. Under each home is at least one dugout boat that belongs to the family since that is the only way they can get around in the flood season. Each building is the home of an extended family of 15 to 19 or so people. When the sons get married the wife moves into the family home. As the couples have children, the children live in the home with the rest of the family.

When we got to our destination in the center of the village, we were led to an elevated, covered bamboo platform. We took off our shoes and climbed a carved, log ladder that was about four feet long. (It was a log with foot holds cut out of it. It was very hard for us to climb, and hurt my feet to climb.) Once up we were officially greeted by the tribe's leader by having locally woven red and white scarves given to us by draping them across our necks as we were thanked for coming. Then we sat and the village men and women drummed and danced for us. As they started dancing for us, because we were their guests, we each given a brass bowl of their locally made rice beer. And, being their guests it would have been rude for us not to drink at least some of this. It was kinda sake like in flavor and had a very smokey taste. I figured if I drank about half or more of it, I'd not be rude. So that's what I did. But I felt bad that some of their home made beverage was going to waste.

Next, we were asked to dance with them. For those of you who know me, you can guess my reaction. However, because Lea had already opted out with "I can't see well enough to dance on the ground" that left only Stuart and me. It didn't seem polite for 2 out of 3 guests not to join in, sooooo I had to join the group. OH, what we do for our group, and the group trips!! The dance seemed to me like it would never end, and I felt pretty foolish the whole time. But the people were great and seemed to enjoy us dancing with them.

When the dance ended, we were told we were moving on. We climbed down the hard-to-use log ladder. As we moved toward our shoes, we were told that we'd be going to another building, so we should leave our shoes right there. Soooo, we began our bare-footed tour of the community. Our first stop was for lunch (oooops, we didn't know about this!!). We came to another elevated platform that was covered and had a "patio" in front of the walled area that turned out to be the kitchen. Woven bamboo mats were placed behind a wide plank of wood about 10 feet long and we were asked to sit on them. It turned out that the plank was our table. Then the food began coming out. We were told that the food was completely vegan! (We found out later that our local guide had put this entire event together for us in four days and was working on the food with the village up until an hour or so before our arrival. The food is usually chicken and pork with veggies. The food was also mostly "heat" (spice) free and had no garlic or onions. What thoughtful, loving and hospitable people these are.

The food was really, really good. There were only a few things that were a bit hard for me to finish. But I did join the "clean banana leaf" club! They don't use plates or utensils. That means the food is served on large banana leaves and we eat with our fingers, as the local people do here in India. We also ate with our right hands only since the left hand is taboo because it is used for "unclean" purposes in other aspects of life.

As we ate (in a very clean environment), underneath us the chickens and the pigs wandered. We could watch them through the bamboo floor.

After lunch we continued our tour through this village that has no running water (only an old-fashioned, to us, hand pump at one end of the village) and no electricity, even by generator. It really was like being in a "National Geographic" episode. We went to an area where the grains were stored for one of the families and where the fishing traps and nets are kept. They also showed us the handmade spears they make. They are out of thin bamboo poles about 10 feet long with sharpened points on the end. They use these to scare away the elephants and tigers what threaten them when they are in the fields!!!!!!!!! Really! These people are all about Lea's height and build. I just can't imagine them trying to fend off a huge elephant or tiger with a handmade spear. Wow, what an amazing people.

We then had the wonderful experience of seeing a mother with a two month old baby in her arms and Lea was invited up on the elevated bamboo "porch" to see the baby. We all followed and then were taken on a tour of this family's home (15 people live here). There are three sons with their wives and children, and their parents and grandparents that live there. We walked past two "rooms" with beds with bamboo mats on them that I think were the sons and their wives beds. (The children either sleep with the parents or on mats on the floor next to them.) Their clothes were on hung on racks along the hallway in front of each bed.

Then we got to the third bed and bamboo mats were put on the floor so we could sit and be welcomed. This is a very hospitality oriented culture. Because we were guests in their home, we had to be given, you guessed it, rice beer. We (Lea, Stuart, me, and Som, our friend/guide) sat with the grandfather. We were brought brass bowls of rice wine. (These brass bowls are family heirlooms that are passed to the children when they get married. They are a very heavy brass.) We sat there and drank wine and "chatted" as we learned more about how they lived. It was, of course, very dark in the house as there are no windows. The only light came through the bamboo walls and floor. They said that at night they use kerosine lanterns for light. In the next room, the kitchen, we could see the "fire place" which was a large flat rock? piece of cement? piece of wood? that had the bamboo fire on it. They were just finishing a batch of rice beer. Apparently this is the beverage that they drink from birth.

The one son was with us and introduced us to his very pretty wife who was the mother of the pretty baby we had seen early on the porch. After we were done, we got up to leave and were profusely thanked for visiting them and left with warm handshakes, smiles and warm eye-contact. It seemed that they were sincerely pleased to have hosted us and spent time with us. This entire experience was so touching, so sincere, and so humbling.

We continued on and were proudly showed how rice was hulled and other ways they lived. We were in a large (15 yard by 15 yard) opening area and told that recently a wild elephant had wandered in and caused a lot of damage here.

These people are self sufficient, create no litter; there garbage is all organic and composted, fed to the animals or otherwise used.

As our visit ended we said goodbyes to the people we had met, thanked them for their hospitality, got in our jeep and drove away having made friends in a wonderfully warm, and friendly village.

This village is less than half an hour from modern villages and towns!

What an experience that I will never forget.

Well, I've got to go now.

Kaziranga National Park

On Sunday we left Guwahati for Kaziranga National Park which is a huge World Heritage sitealong the banks of the Brahmaputra River. The park a little over 200 km (120 miles) and took us five and a half hours in our van. (I don't know why the previous section is underlined, I couldn't undo it.) We did have a half our or so tea and potty break. Getting out of Guwahati took a long time because ofcongested traffic and then for the first about third of the way they were doing highway widening which meant that it was bumpy, two lane road in some areas and congested two lane road in others.Beyond there is was congested two lane road that went through village after village after village. The trucks are beautifully decorated. And the buses often have sayings on them. Here’s one that caught my attention.

There is such a respect of animals here. Last week I saw a small dog sleeping on the side of the road and the cars just went around it. None tooted at it or tried to make it move. There are cows pretty much all over the roads. Sometimes they are sleeping on the warm concrete and taking up half the road. Here’s a photo of a typical bridge we went over. It shows the traffic and those of us using the bridge.

When we got to our hotel, Iora “The Retreat-Kaziranaga”, we checked in, ate lunch and took a

walk before we went to bed. We were exhausted by our travel day. The next day we were scheduled for a 6:30am elephant ride and an afternoon jeep safari. We did the elephant safari and then had lunch. The elephants are wonderfully gentle animals that brought tears to my eyes when I was first with them. They seated 2, 3 or 4 people.

Unlike the African elephants, these elephants don’t have the huge ears, their heads are down rather than up, and the highest part of their body is their back. They kind of lumber back and forth as they walk. It’s pretty easy to get used to and is really a nice ride. Here’s a picture of Lea, Stuart and their Mahout (elephant trainer, friend, rider) on their elephant.

One of the first things we saw as we headed out was a monitor lizard. This fellow was at least

six feet long and seemed content to let us watch him for a while before he wandered off.

Then we spotted our first of several rhinoceroses. These are one-horned rhinos whose population here at Kaziranga the home of the world’s largest concentration of these endangered creatures. They are huge and really odd looking. It’s like they are from prehistoric times. Being on elephants we were able to get really close to some of these. I bet we were within 15 feet of a couple of them!! Here’s one of my 30 or more rhino photos.

One of the many treats of our first elephant rides (we have two more) was seeing a baby rhino

that was just a month (or four) old. It looked like a really big stuffed toy. It was really cute. But I bet it weighted several hundred pounds and was about 2.5 feet tall and about 5 or so feet long. Here’s one of the pictures I got.

We also saw a lot of deer. On this ride we saw swamp deer and hog deer. I’m sure the have more official names than that, but that’s what the guides were calling them. Here’s a picture of Stuart and Lea on looking at one of the deer.

Here’s a better picture of them.

And here’s a mom and her fawn. We saw a couple of these spotted fawns and I thought they were really cute. They looked shy and would run away on legs that they seemed to still be getting used to.

Because this is still early in the year for the deer, their antlers are still growing and haven’t

hardened yet. Here’s one that we were able to get close to.

Most of the area that we were going through was what they call . . . you guessed it, elephant grass. It IS tall grass. Some of it was over my head even on the elephant. To get an idea of how tall it is, here’s Lea and Stuart on their elephant; and you can’t see the elephant.

more

Though these aren’t wild elephants (we DID see some on our jeep trek) I thought this was a great picture of our elephants heading off for a rest after our ride.

The elephant that Lea and Stuart were riding had a baby that followed it. It was really cute. When we were getting ready to get on our elephants, this one saw us and came right over to Lea to check her out. It was really sweet. Here’s what it looked like.

Here was the first elephant we saw. I thought it was a wild elephant, but it was one of the herd out at pasture.

And, finally for this post, here is a photo of a young boy in a steam giving his elephant a bath.

We completed this ride and my butt was sore. This was like riding a horse with a back about 4 feet wide. I was at the front, just behind the Mahout, and the board for our feet wasn’t long enough (or I wasn’t limber enough) for my feet to be on the foot board, so my feet just hung for the hour plus that we were riding.

All in all, it was an amazing; touching; exciting; beautiful experience.

We had breakfast and I took a nap and we later did a couple hour jeep safari to a different part of the park. During that ride we saw wild water buffalo, wild elephants, several kinds of storks, king fishers, parakeets and beautiful scenery. I’ll talk and show more about that later.

Until then, love to you, and in the spirit of the bus sign, and to me!

Trip to Madan Kamdev Temple

This morning was a trip to Madan Kamdev Temple. This temple is mainly ruins andis known for the "erotic" carvings on the ruins. Though it is ruins, it is stillan active temple with priests and altars. Here are acouple photos of the Gonesh Altar, the main altar, some erotic carvings and a beautiful stone head.

This area was in a beautiful setting on a hill with beautiful trees and a great breeze. This place

felt wonderful and there is a section that would be wonderful for a group meeting. AND our

guides said there should be no problem having a group meeting here.

The only problem is transportation. We don't see big buses and the roads are narrow (picture some of the narrowest roads we saw in Ireland and imagine them a bit smaller. In the

city,towns and suburbs, the roads aren't that narrow put they are filled with cars, trucks, motorcycles, local small buses, bicycles, people, and cows all trying to fit through the same area. We've never seen traffic and driving like this. The site was only 25 miles from our hotel but took an hour and a half to get home and about two hours to get to. It was a very beautiful drive and very interesting.

While we were there we saw a couple of real interesting birds. The first was a blue throated barbet which Som said was very rare to see. They are heard all the time, but very hard to see. It is a beautiful bird. The other one was a spangled drongo which is a black bird with curled tail feathers (check out that tail!). I hope these photos show them good enough for you to see.

We're off in a little bit to check out the local shopping and museum. Then, tomorrow we're off to Kazaringa to see some endangered rhinoceroses, elephants, birds and other creatures. There IS a chance that we could see a bengal tiger. They aren't seen often because of the high grasses.

Visit to island temple

[As an aside, all of India is 9.5 hours later than EDT. So, as I start this at 6:30 in the evening, it is 9am in Lexington.]

We had a great time on the island. Here's a photo of the small boat we took over to the island. On the way we pass a very small island (half the size of a football field) that

is the home to a lot of black kites, a large hawk-type bird with a slightly forked tail.

We got to the island, off the boat and started heading up the many steps to the temple. We

were greeted by several small goats. These are brought to the temple and given as an offe

ring. They live on the island thereafter. They were cute little critters. Then one of us saw one of the monkeys. They are endangered Golden Langurs. There are seven of them on the island and we a got to see all seven of them. They are really cute and fun to watch swinging through the trees. Here's a photo of one of them that held still long enough for me to get his picture.

After we were enjoyed our furry siblings for a

while ;-> we continued up the steps to see the temple grounds. As with all the temples we have gone to, we have to take off our shoes. If you

want to wear socks,

that's ok. What

is different here in India is that it's not when you go into the temple, it's often when you get onto the temple grounds. So for most of our tour we were barefoot or stocking footed. We had to watch out for goat poop and other things we might not want to scrape off our feet.

We first saw a small altar to Gonesh (here's a photo).

Then went and found an early temple

to Shiva. This island became an island during a large earthquake in the 1950s which changed the course of the Brahmaputra. Up until that time it was a small piece of land jutting out into t

he river. Though the temples are just 2-300 years

old, the area has been sacred "forever." This is a photo of the altar of the Shiva temple. As is typical it has a carved rock symbolic of the vulva with a stone phallic symbol on it. We have seen

many of these. Here's a photo.

We then went into the main temple that is the newest one. That altar is to three of the gods. As we looked at it the priest came up and put a spot of bright pinkish red in the center of our

foreheads. It was a blessing. He then gave u

s each a marigold flower as another blessing. It was very nice.

The temple has beautiful tile work at its entrence. Here's a picture.

Then we wandered until the sun was low enough that we thought we should head back. Here are photos of the local boat traffic and of Lea, Stu

art and Som relaxing.

Wow, I've been away from my posting because I just was too tired to keep going. I'll try to catch up about the days that I've missed between my last "reports" and now.

This morning we (Stuart, me and our guides. Lea stayed back and rested) were up and out at 6:30am to go to Deepor Bill which is a wetlands/fresh water lake just outside of town. It is also home of at least one of the city's garbage dumps. The dump actually serves an unusual (to me, at least) purpose. It is the feeding ground to an amazing number of Adjunct Storks. Because of this dump the numbers of this endangered bird is increasing. It is the home of the world's largest population of these swans. (And from my experience, the home of some of the world's most horrible odors!!) These storks are not as big as the Jabaru we saw in the Amazon areas, but they are about 5 feet tall. I'll post a photo of one with this.

In a few minutes we'll be off to a small island in the Brahmaputra that is home to an old Temple and some monkeys that I think they said are the Langur monkeys. Then we'll be back for dinner and bed.

I'll try to add some of the missing days' info before I go to bed tonight. I can't wait to share this wonderful country with more of my loved ones. I just love it here!!

Hello,

Clearly the flower photos would go with the day we went to the flower market. I don't know why they showed up here, but they did. I loved the way they carried the marigolds.

Well, I need to catch up on my writing and then I'll put some more info and try to have the photos with the related info.

Love!

Here is a couple photo of the folks trying to wash off the Holi Celebration colors and one of a fellow who is painted silver.

This is me in the hotel lobby when we arrived in Kolkata after 30+ hours flying.

Frank's India Adventure

We left the house at 7am on Friday to head up to the Covington/Cincinatti Airport for our flights to Chicago, to New Delhi, to Kolkata.

We got there and the go us on an earlier flight so we would miss the storms that were due to hit Cinci about the time of our flight. Soooo, we ended up in Chicago an hour or so earlier and just hung out.

Our flight to New Delhi left at about 3:35pm Friday and we arrived in Delhi at about 5pm Saturday afternoon. There's a 9.5 hour time difference, so that was 7:30am Saturday back home—our flight was about 16 hours!!

The Air India seats had nice leg room, but the cushions were very thin. If I'd brought a couple extra sheets of paper, I could have doubled the thickness! ;->

The flight out of Delhi was late and we ended up getting into Kolkata about 11:15pm after hour 2.5 hour flight. Then to the Kolkata Oberoi to check in. We walked into the hotel about 31 hours to the minute from when we left home.

At the airport we met Som (short for Somnat, one of the 108 names of Shiva), who will be our guide for our entire trip. He gave us each a marigold lei. They smelled great and were beautiful. Because today is the festival of colors, he put a pretty pink stripe down each of our foreheads. I'll post the phots when I have the band width to do it.

The drive to the hotel was uneventful as midnight on a holiday has the streets almost empty, Som said. The poverty will take some getting used to. We passed the Bookseller's area and it was, like we've seen in other countries, these little metal sheds that had the doors down for the night. But what I haven't seen before was that in front of a number of them were people curled up on the sidewalk asleep. Also at a couple street corners, on the sidewalk, people were curled up sleeping. We just forget what a wealthy nation we live in.

I did a little laundry, did this writing and should get to bed since it's almost 3am and we have an 11 o'clock meeting in the A.M.

I'll write more later.

Love and sweet dreams,

Frank

3/20

Got up in time for breakfast which ends at 10:30 and had a nice breakfast. This is a beautiful old hotel. This building is 300 years old and has been a hotel for 150 years. As with all hot humid countries we have our not-so-welcome travelling companion—mildew. My room isn't bad, but Lea and Stuart are going to have to change rooms.

We met a 11am with Som to go over the day and for him to get to know us a bit. I think he will be a great traveling companion. As he talked briefly about the history of India and the many, many other nations and cultures that have conquered and occupied it he said there was nothing to be angry about toward those countries/occupiers because each one of them helped enrich India. What a wonderful attitude! I told him that that was a lot of what we taught, that we should look at life as an enrichment process. It's not that we fell down, but that we got back up and learned from it—we were enriched by it.

India is such a sacred land. Ritual is a part of the day-to-day life of the people. But we learned from Som, that just like all religions, those that practice Hinduism can get into the empty formality of it. He went through a time where it sounds like he moved away from it because he had no idea what was behind his daily rituals (like greeting the sun each morning). Then he had people from other parts of the world that were coming to India to study, or because of, Hinduism and he began thinking that if educated people from other places in the world were coming to India because of Hinduism, maybe there is something to it. So he began looking into the history of it and the meaning behind the rituals and learned from it and sees the meaning and purpose of it.

We talked about the sacredness of all things and the fact that India is a sacred land and he was touched by it. I think he's looking forward to being with us also. I think this will be a good time.

We were going to take today as a sleep day, but it looks like we'll get together in about an hour (2pm) and drive around town a bit. There may still be some celebrations from Holi (the Festival of Color) still going on. Of course, I just realized that this is the equinox. Here, rather than it being the beginning of Spring, it is a celebration of the beginning of Summer. It is in the mid-90s today and quite humid. Nothing like it will be in October when the group is here. He says each day will be hotter until we head up to the north east.

He is looking forward to that part of the trip, he has been there, but in the Shillong area, he says it will be an adventure for him also. We'll have a local guide, also, there. He says that not only is the language in that area totally different than what he can speak, the written characters are totally different. He said he won't be able to understand a word they speak or read a word they write.

Isn't that amazing—that a country can be so diverse in so many ways.

I'm going to see if I can get a nap in before we go. We'll get back for dinner. We've arranged vegan dinners for our meals at all the hotels so that we can make sure they can work for the group.

Here vegetarianism is like what we call lacto-ovo without the eggs. So, being vegetarian with no dairy is quite different. They use butter and ghee in most everything. So we are having to be careful. But so far so good.

3/20

We went out for about about 2 hours—about all any of us were up for—and had a really nice time. We went down to the river (the Hooglia which is a distributary of the Ganges) to a couple of the local Ghats. During Holi, a celebration of color, people cover themselves in a bright pink color. Though traditionally it was only the pink color, now you see people who are painted green, blue and even some with black colors on themselves. Some of them are solid pink. It is really interesting. At the end of Holi (which was this afternoon) people go down to the river and wash the color off. Some of the color comes off but it seemed like most stayed on. We were told that the color would take 2-3 days to come off totally.

One section of the Ghat was for the males and the other for the females. The Ghats are more than bathing places, they seem to be the area where people come to the sacred river for sacred purposes. In the past, peole were brought to the river's edge to die. There were people getting massages and others just hanging out. It was a very interesting experience.

Apparently it is one of the few days of the year when young boys and girls may touch each other. They apparently put the colors on each other if they are "friends" or like each other. At one of the Ghats there was a very pretty young (pink!) girl with her father. She must have been 12-14 years old and she very nicely reached out her hands to greet us and wish us a happy Holi. I think she really enjoyed getting to do that. She had the sweetest, happiest smile.

Our local guide for Kolkatta is Shaunty (who knows how to spell it?) who is a 74 year old former school teacher. He said that since the life expectancy in India is 68, he is a ghost! ;-> He is a very friendly and knowledgeable man.

Both he and Som are being very flexible. They had yesterday scheduled for a full day of seeing ALL that we could see in Kolkatta. We told Som that we thought it would be a hotel/rest day, and he took that in stride. As we talked with him he explained that because it was Sunday and the end of Holi, we would have much less traffic and it would be easier to get around AND we'd get to see the end of the celebrations. We decided we felt good enough for that and had our short outing.

We got back about 4 and were whipped. Stuart and I had dinner at 5pm and had Lea's taken to the room. The chef came out and explained that he understood our special vegan needs and asked if we wanted western or Indian food. We asked for Indian and he made us a very nice south Indian dinner.

We were all in bed and asleep by 8:30pm.

8/21

We all woke up without an alarm about 6-6:30 and met for a nice breakfast at about 7-7:15. Now I'm doing a quick checkin here and then we meet Som and Shauty for our day in Kolkatta.

An exciting thing about today is that Ani is flying up to spend some time with us. It will be great to see him and spend some time with him. I think we'll see some sites and then it's a . . . you guessed it—a shopping day. We wanted to check out a market or two and FAB India so that we'd have an idea of what we could tell the group to expect when they were here. I think it will be a fun day.

I'll try to get on the internet and post all this later.

3/21 noonish

We are back from our morning outing. This morning we did the local flower market and a Jain Temple. We also saw great sites of Kolkata and her people as we drove through the city.

The way of life for most of the people is so very different. There is abject poverty, but it does not seem like poverty relates to unhappiness in this culture. The poor people seem no more happy or unhappy than the people who are obviously well-to-do. I saw people bathing at the side of the street with the water flowing out of a large faucet along the road, people brushing their teeth with that same water. Squatter's homes that consisted of sheetmetal, cardboard and tarps that were as wide as the sidewalk and about 20 feet wide. It is very dirty here, really quite amazing. But for some reason it (maybe it's my vast well of enightenment! ;->) it doesn't make me sad or unhappy for these people. The poor that we've seen don't seem to be poor because of bad health, crippled bodies, or other challenges; they appear healthy and most of them are doing some type of work.

My reaction is very different than to the poverty of Egypt, Mexico or even China. There isn't an aura of oppression or misery.

Well, on to other brighter, perhaps, subjects. The flower market was very interesting. From Shaunty I learned:

Flowers are considered the handwriting of the gods

The hibiscus flower is the flower of Kali because it is open and all the elements of the flower can be seen. It is representative of Kali saying "I give my open heart to you."

Each of the gods has a flower (or more) that are "theirs" and every flower has a meaning.

For example, the Marigold is Shiva's flower. Because Shiva has 108 names (or more) the marigold is Shiva's flower because it has more than 108 petals.

The tuberose is the flower of Kolkata and we were each given a beautiful lei of tuberoses with a red rose at the bottom.

It seemed like a much more informal flower market than we saw in Turkey or in Bolivia. But it was beautiful and amazing how many floweres and people there were.

We left there for the Jain temple. As we were driving there one of the things I found interesting that we learned was that the Indian people, before their freedom from the British 63 years ago underwent 900 years of slavery (occupation) from the Afgans, the Ottomans and the British. They are proud of how far they have come after 900 years of slavery. I found that real interesting.

The Jain temple is a relatively new one, having been build in 1863. I had always thought that Jainism was a branch of Buddhism, but it isn't. Jainism predates Buddha's birth. The population of India is 1% Jain, yet the account of something like 63% of the wealth. When we asked them why that was, we were told that because Jain's honor all life and kill none, they have never been able to be farmers, fisherman or taken part in those industries. Sooooo, they've always been business people, market ownes and the such. And, after century after century of being market owners they have acquired more and more wealth.

The temple is known as a jewel box because it is completely covered (inside and out) with tiles and mirrors. It really is pretty. The grounds and inner temple were filled with the aroma of burning sandal incense.

There was no photography inside the temple as it is an active place of worship.

After that we headed back to the hotel for a rest so we could get back at it at 2pm when we will go to the FAB India and another market or two. We have to make sure there's shopping for our folks! ;->

I had gotten a bird book on the birds of India so I'd be able to know what we were seeing and found out that the author is the "grandfather of ornithology" for India. This is the umpteenth edition and has great info in it. When I asked Som about it he was very excited because he really likes birds also. I saw a really nice field guide to birds of India in the hotel gift shop, but thought $56US for it was a bit much!! Som, said we'd find a place where it was much cheaper later today.

We'll that's our day so far.