tired. tired and i'm sick with a cold.

in delhi now. back in paharganj, the backpacker main bazaar running across the border between new and old delhi. it's hard to take. like the touts and shopkeepers of the khao san, times three, with devil horns.

from pushkar, the holy town of sadhus we bussed it to agra, home of the taj mahal. this would be viewing number five for me. it's just as beautiful, giant, in white marble, inlaid with jewels and blue and golden with the sunrise. unfortunately, because of what the Times of India calls a "western distrubance," we were surrounded in fog. fog that stretched in every direction blanketing an already polluted and dirty indian city with mist...cool mist and wind...and rain. i managed to get some great photos though. i'll post some soon.

from agra, headed north, back to the cool green valleys and icy peaks of the himalayas...on a train delayed 5 hours. we got off at haridwar...an auspicious and holy city near the mouth of the ganges river, seven hours north of delhi. the city stretches along the banks of the ganges proper and ganges canal, lined by ghats and temples. two temples sit high on opposing mounts above the valley are both connected to the ground by cable cars. surrounded by attacking monkeys and stray dogs, we removed our shoes and wandered...past beautifully carved idols and deities, in the smoky incense, chanting and bell clanging...

each night, puja (prayer) for the ganges is preformed at the 'footstep of god' ghat (vishnu once left a footprint here). the ceremony, called ganga aarti, is celebrated by hundreds with chanting, candles, palm-leaf boats filled with marigolds and bathing in the icy and dangerously fast-moving waters of the river. amanda and i shivered in the cold, while devotees stripped down (some entirely naked) and stepped into the mountain rush of water. it's astonishing to see, with the music and singing and candles...marred only by the constant prescence of beggars and touts soliciting for fake donations.

from haridwar we took a one hour bus further into the mountains to rishikesh. rishikesh is famous throughout the world for its tie to the beatles. they all stayed here, at the maharishi mahesh yogi ashram, studied with the yogi and supposedly wrote most of The White Album here. the ashram is now abandoned but we walked and peeked over the fence at its crumbling remains in the forest.

on the other hand, rishikesh is famous in india for yoga and is the self-proclaimed yoga capital of the world. the town sits on either bank of the ganges river (only a 100 km or so north, the river spouts from a a rock in the himalayas) in a deep cut green tree'd gorge, traversed by two swaying, steel-cabled, suspension bridges. guesthouses clamber down the edges on both sides...while monkeys...and cows...horses...some mules...motorcycles...bicycles...stray dogs...and people share the bridges. it's a beautiful setting. ashrams abound on the east bank, and yogic sadhus (holy-men) wander in orange robes smoking hash-hish from chillim pipes and praying to the river.

after a couple of nights in rishikesh we bussed it back to delhi. our plane leaves in 8 hours, at 3:15am. it's night now and we're just getting ready to head out for our last dinner in india. today was a long day at the 'toilet museum' (which was awesome) and the Ghandi Smriti (where Mahatma Ghandi was assasinated in 1948). i bought a little sitar too and i'm looking forward to learning to play.

goodbye india. i'll be back before you know it. you know it.

ps: the MAHA kumbh mela is in 2010...i gotta see that.

Labels: india, travel

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we're deep in rajasthan now. from the white city of udaipur, its giant lake and white capped domes, we headed north to ranakpur for a day.

ranakpur, the jain temple here, with over 1444 columns, no two alike, in a series of nine halls set back in the desert was peaceful and cool. we had to cover our legs with giant, mc hammer, pyajama pants rented for 15 cents and couldn't bring any water in (???). the four hour, bumpy government bus ride, each way from udaipur was a bit much though.

from udaipur we headed further to the blue city of jodhpur. it's a mish-mash of ancient twisting allweyways, buildings white-washed and stained with indigo, to a deep brahmin blue, brilliant in the day light. the meherangarh forth, of yellow sandstone sits high on the hill above the city, while shop vendors rip us off in the market by the clocktower below. the fort is incredible. i've been here before though, walked these halls, touched the walls. i was bitten by a rabid dog on the street just outside the market two years ago, and endured a month and a half of anti-rabies injections. good times!

after jodhpur, we hopped on the overnight express train west through the thar desert to the golden city of jaisalmer. so named because of the yellow sandstone used in almost every building here. as the sun sets, it glows golden. there's a great fort here and a palace, a few nice jain temples and a lot of camels. the fort is crumbling because of water over-use and wastage. it was never designed to hold or manage the amount of water that the hotels and restaurants within its walls use today. three of the 99 bastions have already collapsed and the fort is slowly sinking. it's a shame, not much is being done to save it, and jaisalmer's fort may not be here another 100 years...let alone 500.

in jaisalmer, amanda and i rented three camels, and two guides: piru and kabal, along with bedding and food, to take us the hundred or so kilometres around the circuit of ancient temples and cities through the great thar desert edging towards pakistan. it was a four day, three night trek, 5 hours on the camels a day. the stars out above the sand dunes in the scrub brush, were incredible and falling asleep in the cold of the desert tucked-in under layers of blankets with the sky above us was amazing. piru was a great cook, with over 20 years experience doing camel treks. he cooked a mean dahl (lentils and spices), tasty chapatis and vegetables and milked the camel every night for fresh camel's milk chai tea and rice pudding. we saw old temples and abandoned cities, but the best part was just the ride. bumping up and down on my camel, raja, was something i'll probably never experience again. i had an indiana jones hat, my mp3 player, views of eagles circling, deer, herds of bell-tinkling, non-stop farting goats and sheep, hoards of flies, lizards and cacti...and neil young singing "been through the desert on a horse (camel?) with no name, it felt good to get out of the rain..."

from jaisalmer we went train crazy, and made it the 800 kilmoetres through the desert to pushkar. that's where i'm writing from. hindu epics say that brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth and pushkar lake floated to the surface. it's a holy city, strictly vegetarian: it's impossible to find chicken (or any other meat for that matter) anywhere...eggs aren't even allowed. drugs and alcohol are prohibited...beer is nowhere to be found and sadhus (holy-men) wander around with sticks asking to have their photgraph taken for money. you're not allowed to take pictures of the bathing ghats that line the lake. people come here to wash away their sins, just like the ganges in varanasi. the lake is only about 250 m around a encircled by holy temples, snowy white domes, cows and monkeys and flocks of pigeons who shit everywhere. shoes aren't allowed within 40 feet of the water, which makes it hard to dodge the bird crap and cow piss anyways.

we're out of pushkar tonight, heading to agra to see the taj mahal. from there it's back through delhi to rishikesh (where the beatles studied at an ashram and wrote most of the 'white' album). home in 10 days! ahh!

Labels: india, pushkar, rajasthan, travel

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back in ahmedabad for the wedding, my father's home city, the capital of gujurat and a bustling, metropolis in northwest india.

ceremonies and family. my cousin from australia and aunt and uncle, my sister and dad, grandma and great aunts, cousins, neices and nephews and more uncles and aunties. amanda and i got mehendi (henna) on our hands and danced the night away to indian classical music (sort of). we drank chai and ate cookies for breakfast. we watched marriage ceremonies: my cousin being bathed in turmeric paste, the burning of cow dung patties, special rituals, fires, costumes and flowers, songs and music. she's a married woman now. weird, i remember when she was just a wee baby, i guess i'm getting old. after five days we hopped on a bus and headed north to where we are now, udaipur.

the flat plains of gujurat gave way to the hills and rocky cliffs of southern rajasthan. elephants now mixed with camels, and the men cao draped in giant, brightly coloured turbans and white knee length shirts. the women in coloured saris. we're in rajasthan now, a collection of princely states figureheaded by maharajas. a land of palaces and holy temples, of camels and pastel coloured buildings, lakes and rivers against a backdrop of palms and desert brush.

udaipur is known as the 'white' city and white represents purity. most cities in rajasthan have been designated a colour: jodhpur is blue, jaipur pink, jaisalmer gold and so on. we're staying at lalghat right on the enormous pichola lake, our rooms looks out on the water and the mystical lake palace. we spent today wandering through the city palace, rajasthan's largest, and are heading to an ancient jain temple in ranakpur on a day trip tomorrow.

we've decided to stay a couple of more weeks and will be here until just before christmas.

Labels: india, rajasthan, travel

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if you've had enough of cow poo. enough of being hassed 24-7. enough of diesel fumes and honking. enough of touts. enough of the mazes of alleyways and scabby, mangey stray dogs. enough of the sweltering heat. then you should come here. come to goa.

goa, india. the tiny, former portugese colony on the west coast of the indian subcontinent. beaches run down the 100 or so kilometre shoreline. not just any beaches, but the most beautiful i've ever seen in my life (and i've seen a lot of beaches). take the best of thailand, hong kong, hawaii, those of southern california, croatia, greece and turkey...mix them all up into one, add some hippies, sprinkle on a few beach-cows and beach-dogs and you've got goa.

i've been throughout the province, on my last trip to india, so i thought i'd skip out on southern goa and the bigger cities of panaji, margao and mapusa this time with amanda.

we headed to morjim. a tiny stretch of sand just north of the chapora river, that faces out into the arabian sea. we found a beach hut at the goan cafe, a little shack of bamboo on stilts that faced the sea and spent three nights swimming and suntanning, laying around in hammocks, eating fresh caught, grilled prawns and lobster in lemon-garlic, sipping on feni: the goan liquor of fermented coconut or cashew and staring up into the night sky...thousands of stars, the waves crashing. morjim is fairly low-key on the goan beach circuit. few come here, and there's not much to do other than lie around and swim.

from morjim, we headed south a few kilometres to anjuna, the centre of goa's trance-party scene. we arrived just in time for the huge anjuna wednesday market, where vendors from all over goa gather to sell their wares. everything from tattoo parlours to sarongs, to carvings and masks, sculptures, bed covers, hashpipes and hookahs sit under the sun. it's a maze of stalls, covering a good two or three kilometres square near the southern end of the beach. the same night we ended up drinking in excess and wandering the beach to 'curlie's bar' and playing with the phosphorescence in the waves. bats flew outside our room and sipped on the palm sugar dripping from giant flowers across from our deck, spiders built webs in our bathroom, ants lived off crumbs on the floor.

a few days passed on anjuna and again northwards, past morjim beach to arambol. arambol was once considered "undiscovered" and "the jewel of the north" but these days are long gone. hippies smoke chillim pipes and hash in the restaurants, fire poys spin in the hands of the unexperienced wanderers who come here, israelis on europeans..and russians, drums beat, and children play cricket on the long stretch of white sand the encircles arambol's bay. there's a craggy northern headland that juts out and is lined with shacks selling sarongs and jewellery and the main road to the beach is jam-packed with restaurants and shops. nevertheless, it's beautiful here and quiet, if you can find the silence, and hot. hot hot.

tomorrow we're hopping a bus for the 14 hour overnight ride back to mumbai and then a 12 hour overnight train ride to ahmedabad in gujurat for my cousin's wedding.

Labels: goa, india, travel

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bombay is india's masala city...spicy mix, that is. the largest slum in all of asia surrounds a hustling-bustling metropolis. i want to say that over half of mumbai's population lives in these slums, and i can, because i'm right...it's 55%, at last count. tar paper shacks, with tin roofs, crumpled billboards as walls, dogs chasing chickens, a mishmash of electrical wires, cows. the toilet is just along the road, an open stretch of asphalt. while rich indian's zoom by in air-conditioned ambassador cars, square and 'spitting diesel fumes', naked children defecate in the street. they rummage through piles of garbage and wipe with old plastic bags. these are the slums.

enter the city and it's like you've stepped into another planet. british colonial buildings, high domes, manicured gardens and churches. street stands selling lunch and sugarcane juice, covered bazaars up and down every street. pick yourself up an ipod charger, socks, a bag, fake rolex watches, a dildo, a pineapple...you name it.

we stayed in south bombay, in the foreigner-fueled annex of colaba, just ten minutes south of the gateway to india. our room smelled like sewage. drug dealers try to sell us hash-hish, opium, grass...whatever we desire. there's a subway nearby...yeah, a SUBWAY, and we buy sandwiches for breakfast. i eat a chicken tikka masala on wholewheat, a foot long, with mint ginger chutney and tonnes of veggies. it's incredible.

we pass by the gateway to india, a monolithic stone gate looking out over mumbai's eastern harbour. tourists gather here snapping photos. boats head to the caves at elephanta island. the water is toxic...you can't swim, and flotsam and jetsam, crumpled plastic bags and juice boxes gather in the corner of the bay. just behind us is the massive and majestic and beautiful taj hotel. rooms here run about $245US/night to upwards of $500US/night. it's got a street-level arcade of fancy shops, gucci, prada and blahblah, a tennis court, pools and bars, a nightlcub, a gym...oi! it's a nice place to stay i'm sure. we peek in the windows.

from there we head northwest up veer nariman street to the regal cricle and check out the art deco regal cinema, then up mahatma gandhi road towards the flora fountain, a beautiful stone neo-gothic fountain erected to the "glory" of the british general who dismantled bombay's fort. we head east to horniman circle and i find the exact same ear-cleaner who i met and photographed two years earlier. he's in the same spot, cleaning ears. we have ours done and after some swishing and squeaking, we can hear like cats.

back westwards to st. thomas' cathedral. below the stone slabs are interred the remains of malaria victims and british generals. we go on towards chowpatty beach, the long stretch of sand and curved bay of mumbai's western side. stop by the mocha bar on the way and smoke a 'blue lagoon' flavoured hookah and drink fresh juicy mocktails. it's nice and relaxing. up north on chowpatty we make our way up malabar hill towards the 'towers of silence'. these towers formed of three concentric rings are where zoroastrians, or Parsi's in India, leave their dead to be picked clean by giant vultures. we can see the vultures but the towers are off limits.

back home.

the next day is diwali, the indian festival of light. a huge holdiay celebration where indian's invite the goddes mahalaxmi into their homes by lighting candles and lamps and fireworks and leaving money to attract her. she brings more wealth along with her. we head to northwest mumbai to check out haji ali's mosque. legend has it that haji died while sailing on a pilgrimage to mecca. his coffin was tossed overboard and it floated back to this spot. so they built a mosque here. it's reached along a long causeway, crowded with pilgrims and lined with beggars. they shake their deformities, for pity, missing legs and limbs, festering sores. they chant "eee-y'ALLAH! eee-y'ALLAH!" in unison. at high tide, the causeway is underwater and the mosque becomes an island. on the way out we stop by mahalaxmi dhobighat, an enormous collection of tiny sinks where all of mumbai's laundry is washed. it comes from all over the city, is washed, dried, folded and sent back to whenst it came...each and every day. a sight to see, though amanda thought it was stupid.

from there it was back to chowpatty beach for famous behlpuri, a plate of rice crispies and cilantro, beans, cheese and spices scooped up with little puffs of bread. then faludas, cream and sugar and milk and tapioca looking things, some rice noodles, rose water and kulfi (punjabi ice cream) with a spoon. sounds weird but tastes great.

we walk down the beach to the saltwater grill. prices here are what we'd pay back home, maybe more...for india, we've just gone fine-dining. $14 for a mojito, $8 for a smoked samon-herb cream cheese bagel. we eat and drink and watch the diwali fireworks from the beach. it's nice to be served well, and lie back in a nice restaurant.

on the way home we pass hundreds of revellers lighting fireworks along the beach. it's a shame that all the spent firecrackers will probably just be dumped into the sea at the end. children so young i wouldn't trust them with a spoon, run around with matches lighting fireworks and firecrackers. they stand only a few feet away. ash rains down on my head. bang, kaboom, snap...everywhere. toxic smoke in the air. amanda runs screaming. all the way down the beach. i see truck loads of fireworks being unloaded. this could go on for some time.

we finish the night off at leopold's bar. a mumbai institution for foreigners. it's been here since 1871. they serve cheap food, good drinks and you get the kind of service you'd expect back home, from english speaking waiters. ice cold beers, giant pitchers in clear tubes that sit on the table (hard to explain but i'll post a video later). it's fun. we eat, we laugh, we go home to the sewage room and sleep.

next: GOA...

Labels: bombay, india, mumbai, travel

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i'm sitting in an internet cafe in varanasi. you can find me in the heart of the old city, and i mean 2000 years old, smack dab between pandhey ghat and dasaswamedh ghat on the ganges river. it's hot. smoking hot...and i'm smoking. smoking pine lights, in a white pack with a blue logo. they're shit but only 25 rupees (60 cents). someone just sneezed. a sadhu walks by outside. he's given up all his earthly possessions to pray and bathe in the ganges. his hair is long and dusty, he's wearing orange.

there's a fly in my hair. i'm coughing up polluted air.

varanasi is one of the oldest habitations on earth, second only to damascus in syria. some people think it's older. we're on the west bank of the ganges river. a holy, holy place. the locals call her mother ganga. ghats (or stepped docks) line the western bank. stairs lead up to the ancient, crumbling buildings and tiny alleys of the old city. some shops are big enough for only one person, the shop keeper, and even then, he has to sit. he retrieves whatever you'd like from the floor around him. cows walk by. dogs nap in the shady spots, wherever they may be. sometimes the middle of an alleyway, though i can barely stretch my arms across.

we're plagued with blackouts from the water treatment plant. uses too much energy. they last for hours, every day, every night. it's unexpected and we lie in the heat in our room, waiting for the fan to come back on.

the shopkeepers perform puja offerings every morning. wafting incense over their products, a little on the toilet paper, a little over the cigarettes, don't forget some on the bottles of coke and mango maaza. the corners of buildings are stained red from men spitting betel nut juice, from paan, sweet paan, paan with tobacco. i'm outside, though i feel like i'm inside, the eaves of the old buildings enclose the streets. a rat, a cat, a ferret, or was it a weasel? children are crying, some are flying kites.

we walk to the river. someone offers us a boat trip, a massage, a haircut, a shave, postcards, flowers, silks...it's too much. we dodge piles of manure. men and women bathe in the water. children run naked and splash. dunk themselves, wash away their earthly sins, reset their karma.

at manikarnika ghat, corpses burn. twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year. burning corpses. the air is sweet with the smell of sandalwood...and blistered flesh. swallows fill the skies above the smoke, darting in and out, nipping at flecks of ash and insects. the air is thick with insects, we breathe them in. we cannot take photos here, so instead we sit and watch people burn. their souls released to the sky.

Labels: india, travel, varanasi

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shimla. the british raj-era summer-capital of india, not less than 2200 metres above sea level in the foothills of the himalayans, the winding alleyways trickle down the cliffs and puff smoke, sandalwood incense, the stench of sewers and the sweet of punjabi jalebis (gooey orange whorls of deep fried sugar syrup).

of course, we managed to take a night bus to save on accomodation. the driver and his helper seemed to be running some sort of side-business, picking up strangers and friends on the streets along the way, between dharamsala abnd shimla, and dropping them off a little bit further down the road, 10 rupees here, 20 rupees there. all in good indian-business-like tactics. but, the problem, at least for us, was that we were sitting right behind the front door of the bus, and every time they opened and closed, or forgot to be closed, we froze. the wind and night air in india's northern hill stations is pretty damn cold. long pants, a jacket, a scarf, even a toque are definitely in order.

shimla was a bit of a disappointment though. our hotel was crappy, cold and overpriced. our room was decently large, but painted pepto-bismol pink, the bed adorned with a giant velvet heart. mirrors smeared with brown something or other (for the "look") plastered on the walls and ceilings. we paid for hot water. sometimes we had some, and other times we had no water at all (more often than not).

the city requires a lot of walking, up and down stairs, up and down hills. it's tiring and there's not a lot to see.

we hired a taxi and went to the jakhu monkey temple on the hill. a winding road all the way up a mountain just outside shimla. amanda almost lost it on several occasions and i was relegated to hand-holder extrordinaire, the wheels of the van just barely scraped by the edge of the road. the temple is devoted to hanuman, the hindu monkey god. rhesus macaques line the street and path all the way up. devotees give them prasad (food offerings) so they've gotten out of control. we had to rent two big wooden sticks at the bottom of the path, and let me tell you that the hike did not come without some frightened screaming...from the both of us. these monkeys are freaky.

we celebrated halloween at "THE BAR" in shimla's ritz cineplex. amanda dressed up like a cat, and i decided to keep it safe and not dress up as anything, i know...lame. she got some pretty wild stares and giggles from indians on the walk to the bar. unfortunately it was empty, except for a foreigner we met who's been living in south india working on oil rigs.

anyways, that's that. i'm in varanasi now. it's hot. it's great. we had an ant attack in the room, but i'll tell you about that later.

Labels: india, travel

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our last couple of days in Beijing were nice. the weather turned a bit cloudy and the sun refused to show his face, even for a moment. we spent one morning at the MAOsoleum, were the preserved body of Mao Tse-Tung lies in state in the center of tianamen square. going to see it is a wild and bizarre experience in communist policing.

no bags or cameras are allowed. you have to check them at a cloak room near the national museum, then make your way back to tianamen square. yellow lanes have been painted on the ground and everyone...and by everyone, i mean, thousands of devout chinese and a few foreigners, mash their way into the lines. soldiers and security guards, direct the foot traffic, perionically pulling people out of the line to search them or to question them. you're expected to be silent at this point. and everyone bows their heads and shuffles their feet. for me it felt like lambs being led to the slaugher.

as we entered the building, you are again searched up and down by many prying eyes. signs on the wall ask for "SILENCE!" just inside, a giant white statue of mao smiles and sits with crossed legs, in a giant white chair. hundreds of yellow and pink flowered boquets are spread out on the red carpet before him. you shuffle past and into the chamber where Mao rests in a sealed glass coffin, in a sealed glass chamber, with two fully armed soldiers at his side. you move past, and you're out and into the Mao gift shop. i wanted to purchase a very cool Mao bust in white porcelain but they were sold out. it's okay, i found it in a shop just outside of the forbidden city a couple of hours later.

we went to the beautiful and enormous Temple of Heaven in the evening and then spent the rest of the night drunk in a hutong laughing at all the spelling mistakes in the english signs around us. this one takes the cake, at a beauty shop, in giant yellow letters on the window: GEFVIDOF MOLE. it took us awhile, but eventually we got it: 'Get Rid Of Mole'.

off to Delhi the next night and arrived at 1:45am. there was a man with a sign with my name on it (the first time that's ever happened) waiting to pick us up and take us to our hotel. he stopped for gas, and then sped through the drunken truck drivers, rickshaws and buses, to central Delhi and our hotel in the Parharganj Area, just north of colonial Connaught Place. packs of wild dogs roamed the streets and chased the taxi as we turned corners. dogs...dogs everywhere at this hour. they kept us up all night, howling and attacking each other. i think i slept for an hour. oh yeah, forgot to mention the little cockroach who was there to greet us when we opened the door to our room...sitting on the bed. his friends came the next day and we had a party.

the next morning, we were up and off to Raj Ghat, the place where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. it's in a beautiful park on the banks of the Yamuna river, just east of central Delhi. in it's place lies a black slab of marble and beside that a small group with drums keep up the mourning and prayers all day long. across the street was the Gandhi memorial and the Gandhi museum, which always makes me shed a tear. it houses a beautiful collection of paintings and Gandhi relics, as well as the blood stained dhoti he was wearing when he was murdered by a Hindu extremist in 1948.

later that day we went to my auntie Yaminifoi's house for lunch and chatted about India and our trip so far. we'll see her again at the wedding in Ahmedabad in a few weeks. from there we took a rickshaw to the Qutub Minar, a 2000 year old, enormous stone tower, surrounded by old mosques and crumbling ruins. it dates back to the beginning of Muslim rule in India.

Amanda's feet are destroyed. cuts and brusies everywhere. she walked into a boulder someone had carefully placed on the street yesterday night. all the street lights were burnt out so we were walking in the dark. oi!

tomorrow night, we head north towards the Himalayas and the Dalai Lama's residence at Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj. today we'll be in old Delhi, at the Jama Masjid mosque, Chandni Chowk market and Spice Bazaar and the Red Fort.

Bysers!

Labels: india, travel

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the smog, the heavy air, the chattering mandarin, the colour red...it all hit us like a slap in the face stepping out of the airport into beijing on saturday. the crowds, the taxi drivers trying to charge us double, the communist mao-green and blue uniformed police men. each one holding clear flasks filled with floating green tea leaves in steaming hot water and a cigarette puffing away.

we took the airport shuttle to downtown, passing by congested tianamen, through 8 lanes in each direction and got off just around the corner from the forbidden city palace. passing by the giant concrete buildings that surround the infamous square, each topped with red flags, the yellow star of mao, his portrait hung proudly at the gate to the forbidden city...but "NO PICTURES please!", as amanda is learning. it seems the police don't like her too much and she gets yelled at left, right and center.

back at the same hostel...and i think the same exact room where i was three years ago. i'd say the streets are cleaner, the ancient alleyway hutongs that i loved so much are being bulldozed to make way for new apartments, but many still remain around the hostel. amanda and i spend our evenings sitting on curbs drinking 2.5 yuan beers (40 cents for 700 mL) mostly yanjing pijo and tsingtao pijo. we watch ladies bent at 90 degree angles putter by, bicycles, mopeds, short stumpy dogs running. whole browned ducks, with the beaks on, turn in giant glass ovens. children play hop-scotch. men rumble their throats and shoot green snot out of each nostril. everyone wants us to come in and look, to come in an buy. we drink our beers. who needs the theatre when there's a free show every night in the hutongs...this is china, i repeat to myself.

we saw the forbidden city on sunday. most of the main buildings are being restored, but it's still impressive. spanning almost 100 city blocks, it was the home of the emporers of china from hundreds of years ago until just recently. the park behind the city houses a massive buddhist pagoda in a park with a lake. families paddle swan shaped boats around and couples walk arm in arm around its inner side.

we wandered through tianamen square, through thousands of people snapping photos of the 'monument to fallen heroes' or the concrete block that holds the preserved body of mao tse-tung 'the father of china', which we'll go see today.

it seems that every morning there's something secret going on at tianamen and we've had to make enormous detours to get around the massive police lines and groups of soldiers "protecting the country". i asked one what was going on...he said 'it's a secret' with the kind of smile that told me that he had no idea why he was there either. the soldiers clear out by early afternoon and the square opens to the public again.

yesterday, we hiked the great wall from jinshanling to simatai. it's something most people rarely have the chance to do once, and i'm lucky enough to have done twice. it's a pretty grueling hike, up and down steep inclines of crumbling bricks over 10 km. the views are incredible and by the end of it i was exasperated both by the constant climbing and by the hassle of poor farmers who follow you the whole way trying to sell 'water-coke-beer' or giant great wall picture books and t-shirts.

i've taken hundreds of photos and should get some up soon. for now it'll just be these stories.

flying to india tomorrow night...

Labels: china, travel

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Settling into a sunset in Varanasi was the perfect antidote to the aches and pains of the 18-hour train ride I had just endured. The sun hung low in the sky. I was in a third story room, ancient palace windows in my shower stall, just holes in the white stone, peeked out and down the giant steps to the Ganges. Vultures circled over the mud flats and palms on the South bank. Such a contrast to the ancient palaces turned guest houses that crowded the North side where I stood.

I walked out on the terrace, lit a beedie and let the scents waft up from the water. Children gathered just below and played with the stray dogs, skipped stones along the river. Water buffalo and cows settled in for the night. The long-boats rocked and splashed against one another, moored on hemp ropes that ran up the sides of the stone steps and towards the city. A small crowd gathered, someone played a tabla, tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap. Sandalwood incense offerings burned at shrines and mixed with the fragrant muddy smell of the water, twisted with the sweet smoke of my beedie, then hung there in the humid evening air. I breathed it in, I watched the sky turn orange and red. Smoke billowed from ghats to the East, bright orange fires burning the dead. Songs and prayer, the wails of mourners in the distance. The oldest city in India opened her arms to me.

Labels: india, travel

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