Bloody taxi drivers and gem scams

Now look - I think telling lies to people is really bad, but I've caved in and started having to fib to taxi drivers telling them I have a girlfriend to get them off my case! Can you believe it - today I was getting "You looking for boom boom? Boom boom???? Yeah, I can tell! You definitely looking for boom boom!!!!!!!!" Now listen, I am obviously the only guy in Bangkok who is NOT looking for any bloody boom boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[I'm still not happy about lying, but I was thinking I do have some friends who are girls, so perhaps technically "girlfriend" is not an out-and-out fib... I do worry about these kinds of things, believe it or not!]

Ok - just picked up my tailor-made shirts from the tailors and they are incredible. I can't believe I didn't bring my camera. The fitting room is literally wallpapered with US govt business cards and one of the guys getting some shirts when I turned up - a huge black guy with the regulation buzz-cut hairdo - smiled at me as I was saying I can't believe these prices. NZ$40 is just insane for nice tailor-made cotton shirts. Must try to swing by tomorrow and take a couple of pics. Victor the part-owner is such a nice gentle guy for such a crazy part of town.

Nice things of the day? Visited Wat Po, the famous temple her from the 16th century (I think). Takes up a space as big as a couple of rugby-fields I guess and one building has the biggest reclining Buddha I can imagine there is in Thailand. You have to see it to believe it.

http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/Asia/Thailand/images/WatPhoBuddha02.jpg

Missed the Royal Palace again (amazing place with murals from the Ramayana, the story of the divine avatar, Rama) but will try to catch it tomorrow first thing.

But I did get some really nice smiles. (And I love a good smile :) Nice smile from a caretaker of one of the smaller temples within Wat Po. And got some real tingles from being there - obviously an active temple. Lovely smile from a beggar in the red light area. Alex tells me the beggars are all syndicated through some kind of beggar pimp gang people and the ladies are often sitting with kids who aren't even theirs! But if I get a nice smile, I am always going to drop 20 baht - roughly 80 cents or so - I mean who cares? And that is a lot to them! Nice smile from a girl in a traditional massage store (no, not a brothel!) as I was admiring the beautiful lotus flower blooming from a tiny pot outside. Kinda stunned a lotus can grown in such a small pot, but there we go. Of course it's a hot as a hot-house here, so I guess that helps a lot! In fact my T-shirt was drenched by the time I'd walked back from the Royal Palace. No tourist in their right mind would walk all that way (about 45 minutes) but I like walking to see a city - you get such a different perspective.

But walking does have its problems. Especially if you are dumb enough to consult your tourist map on a street corner near the tourist spots! Can anyone really be that dumb??? (Ok, I will never make that mistake again! ) A guy stopped who seemed nice enough and asked where I was going - and the conversation moved on and he told me that because yesterday was Wesak festival (and it was), there were some temples open today which are never usually open. And some of the government tuk-tuks (motorcycle rickshaws) can take tourists around them for only 20 Baht - i.e. nothing at all! So what did I have to lose? However while I was admiring one of the Buddhas that he dropped me off at, a Chinese-looking guy (who claimed to be Thai) just happened to bump into me and started telling about the gem tax which is exempted for a few days a year and how rubies and sapphires will be extremely rare soon as the mines are running out. He spent ages telling me how much he'd made, and it simply seemed like a random encounter at the temple - as the tuk-tuk driver was nowhere near us. I thought well now, I've been praying for good luck, so maybe this is a little wind-fall. But investing in gems is pretty mad. I tried to look for signals as to where this was good or not. The reclining Buddha in there had such an odd expressing - seemed to be saying "Yeah - really?"

Anyway, once the tuk-tuk driver took me over to the supposed govt-controlled gem store, it suddenly became obvious. The place was a gem store, all staffed by Chinese people, with no other customers were in there. "Where you come from sir?" asked the middle aged man who greeted me inside. "New Zealand" I replied. "My dream country!" he purred. Come one - there was definitely something going on. The most ominous thing was that as I'd got out of the tuk-tuk taxi, and started walking across the street towards the store, the door eerily started opening from the inside - they'd seen me coming...

Then I remembered that the blasted tourist map warned people that tuk-tuk drivers often take people to fake gem stores. And I'd honestly been thinking about paying some serious money over! But only if it looked really legit and there were heaps of other people doing the same of course. So I walked around the shop, thought it looked really bad and walked out and back to the taxi. The driver didn't seem too disappointed, and I guess he got his fee for dropping someone over. He wouldn't take me back to the hotel though (too far!) so I walked. But it was a very good lesson.

From now on, my rule is this. Anyone who tries to help you in the street who isn't a westerner is a bloody crook! Yes it's hard, but it's been the case all the time up til now. And I am still stunned at their smoothness...

And of course plenty of people have been stung - take a look here!

http://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/gemscam/

On the positive side, I've found a great tip for bargaining. Show an interest in something that you have no desire to buy. They name the price (in this case a watch for 2000 baht). Keep telling them you don't really want it or need it. Then the price drops and drops. "Ok, you take it for 1000 baht" Now this is after they'd assured you you couldn't get it for that earlier because it's such a nice piece. Well, the problem is I didn't really like or want the watch so I left it. Oh, to have the balls to do that with something I really like! Note: Alex assured me that you can never get anything for less than 60% of the opening price, so that seemed to be doing well. But there's only so much you'll pay for a rip-off designed watch from a street stall, right? (Especially as all their watches are way too big for my skinny little wrist :)

Ok - it's 10:20pm and I've missed Alex which is probably just as well. Going out drinking with him at the bars might be a very bad idea. And of course when I say "bars", you can assume that all bars within a mile radius of here are full of syndicated Thai girls ready to hook up with sad westerners. I should try a Thai beer before I leave, but I might have one back at the hotel, though it is actually pretty empty late at night. Obviously everyone else is down at this end of town! Well, who knows :)

Flying back tomorrow afternoon and it will actually be good to be back home. Bangkok is nice, friendly, very pretty in places, amazingly green with lovely trees all around, but it is hard work just wandering around checking the place out and my suitcase is begging to be emptied. Such a shame to leave all this cool food behind, but maybe I will eat a lot more tom yum soup when I get back. Apart from the fact that eating the noodles in it tends to spray soup all over your shirt, it is actually bloody nice. And Thai people look so damned healthy by and large, it must be good for you.

All right - that's enough for now. Kinda hoping tomorrow will be nice and uneventful!

Lots of love,

Richard :)

[BTW the next day I just sunbathed by the pool for the first time on the trip and it was truly wonderful!!! You lie there in the gentle midday sun - for ages too - and sweat like you're in a sauna. I can tell you it is so strange when you are used to the New Zealand sun which fries people in minutes. I think I could handle another trip back here sometime. It's a weird place, but with the food and the sun and perhaps a little shopping and sightseeing, you can really enjoy yourself.]

One last thing... a couple of 1000 Baht moments :)

BTW two little moments that really struck me...

When I checked into the hotel, just as I was heading up to the room, the guy at the desk said as an afterthought, "If you bring a lady up to your room, there is a fee of 1000 baht!" Well, I told him that there won't be any of that!!!! :)

Then at the tailors, while I was choosing material, I asked how much each shirt would cost. Victor said "1000 baht". I actually felt sick. I'd come all this way to get what were supposed to be really reasonably priced shirts and now I'm being charged so much money???? Honestly it was an awful moment. Then I asked for a calculator... and it worked out that this 1000 baht was only a mere NZ$40 each. Bloody hell, this is insanely cheap!!! Ok, so it remains to be seen how they turn out, but so funny to watch my own reactions changing so wildly.

The other side of Bangkok (gasp!!!)

Bloody hell - what a day... :)

Flew in from Delhi where I'd spent a few lazy days with my Indian friend who luckily had a bit of free time seeing most Indians are on holiday at this time of year. Only did the one past life regression on her in the end, but that was cool. She also introduced me to a photographer friend of hers and he spent quite a few hours telling me about the spiritual path he is following and what his guru is like. He also took me along when he dropped off some lenses to a friend of his gurus, who just happens to be insanely rich and has a large estate just outside the Gurgaon business district where I was staying. Talk about amazing!!! This was the most spectacular home I'd seen in all my time in India... manicured gardens with peacocks roaming around (very auspicious animals), a long beautiful drive, a huge house full of marble and all manner of lovely things. The owner - unexpectedly - turned out to be a really nice, even self-effacing, retired businessman. It was like stepping into another world... I asked the photographer how much this place was worth when we were leaving and he said not to even bother with that question - he said with just one of the paintings on the wall, he could retire for the rest of his life!!! This millionaire has a huge yacht and sails to exotic places and has just bought some place in Monte Carlo too if I remember. Well, he must be special if he isn't one of the zillion corrupt business people here.

The photographer spent ages telling me about all the corruption in India, which is the reason he quit law (which is what he graduated in) and turned to freelance photography. I won't bore you about it, but he told me how all the judges, politicians, policemen, public officials and pretty much everyone can be bought and it's not just occasional, it's totally unavoidable. He was hilarious - hugely passionate about all the crazy things in India, and he was the first Indian I met who swore like a Kiwi, though I think it might be because he's spent a bit of time overseas. (Most Indian people avoid the F word for the most part, but he is just so full of passion about everything.) And he was good enough to teach me the Kriya Yoga breathing technique - another really unexpected bonus.

Ok - so I survived Delhi with a few mild stomach upsets, but nothing too bad. In fact one surprising thing was colour therapy which I would have totally pooh-poohed in the past but when I got the runs again (just mildly), my Indian friend coloured my middle fingertips with a yellow marker and while I was convinced it would do absolutely nothing at all, I noticed from then on I became quite blocked up - first time in the whole trip!!! But enough romantic stories about my bowels.... :)

Anyway - today has just been unbelievable. I flew in overnight to Bangkok from Delhi and suddenly realised I have two and a half days here - what the hell was I going to do with all this time??? I decided to go to a reasonably famous tailor who makes shirts (supposedly Jonathan Hunt and lots of CIA staff get shirts made there) and made my way nervously over. I was convinced that the place would be super busy from the great article I'd read on the net, but luckily when I got there it was empty because it's actually the Buddhist Wesak festival today and most people are on holiday. The friendly Sikh tailor, Victor, told me that on other days they might have up to 20 customers waiting in there. (Ok, maybe exaggerating a little but they are supposed to be really well known.) Was a lovely experience and we ended up chatting about my temple tour and he was telling me about Sikhism and how I should look into that - plus visit the Golden Temple at Amritsar of course! He said you walk into the place and because of the spiritual energy you immediately get goose bumps. I was getting goose bumps just listening to him and imagining it! A really warm and friendly guy and he's a half owner of the store. So glad I went there, though nervous about how the shirts will turn out... Decided not to get a suit - just too much money and hassle and my bags are totally full to overflowing with Ganesh statues, books, CDs, 8-foot marijuana plants, Indian servants, etc etc. Luckily Thai air state that there's a max weight of 20kg but allow up to 25 or 26 kg without charging excess baggage - luckily m y Indian friend and her husband knew these things as I was really panicking!

Ok - so the tailor was really pleasant. But when I wandered outside and thought "What on earth am I going to have for lunch?" I kinda dithered and started looking at the street stalls. as it happens, I got chatting to an American buying a Harley T-shirt and then the day took a wild turn. Seems he's an American college lecturer in public policy who is flying through Thailand all the time. He told me that this area where the tailors are is also the centre of the notorious red-light district here - I couldn't believe it! He was good enough to recommend a place for lunch and I had a really nice tom yum soup and he started telling me how things work around here. Honestly this is the longest tour commentary I have ever received in my life!!!

We hung out for hours having a juice here and an ice coffee there and he pointed out all the infamous bars, how the Girl Friend Experience (GFE) works, who all the punters are, what the costs are etc etc etc. I think we were chatting for about 6 hours if you can believe that! Honestly, I initially couldn't believe half the things he was saying - how most of the guys looking for sex here were either Aussies, "psychotic alcoholics" or both and said that most of them start drinking really early in the morning and are looking like extras from a George Romero zombie movie by mid afternoon! I thought he was exaggerating until I saw people staggering down the street - and no kidding, they were walking like zombies!!!! This is just such a totally bizarre world here!!!!! I can't tell you everything he said - I'd wear my fingers out - but he explained all the anomalies of Thai society, why it's so safe and there are no muggers (because of their belief in karma), why ladyboys are accepted and even have TV shows (because the monks earn a lot of money from them by doing spiritual forecasts or blessings) and how the monks are totally corrupt - mostly being smokers, gluttons (they are often overweight) and sex fiends!!! I was laughing my ass off at so many of the things he was saying - the guy should be a travel writer or have a wry travel show or something. He was trying to convince me to try some of the Thai girls myself and couldn't understand that I thought it would bring me bags of bad luck if I did. I was surprised he was so keen to hang out, but he said that finding a person who was easy-going, half-intelligent and not dead-drunk was quite hard in this part of town, so he was happy for the company. And I was a good audience for his musing about the madness of Thailand. Sounds so depressing though. He said that many of the Aussies are staying in really cheap rooms - US$10 a night with really basic amenities and only three snowy channels on the TV (these are the room highlights!!!), they turn up with two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks and of the money they spend on the room, the girls and booze, the majority is on booze. So that's why the girls they were walking back to their rooms were not that great looking - they are doing everything on the super-cheap until their money runs out.

And if that's not depressing enough, there's a place called Pattaya two hours away which is party central for booze and sex - and some alcoholics go there, spend the whole time drunk and every now and then, someone will run out of money and because they've hit rock-bottom, they'll just jump out of their hotel window. He's trying to convince me to go out there as he says it's the wildest place, but it honestly sounds like hell to me.

Just to illustrate one point of his about the kinds of guys who hang out here, a portly guy with an accent stopped and chatted to me in a mix of German and English for a bit. He was nice and from Switzerland but totally drunk and seemed to be a bit of a tragic figure. Also Alex said that it's not uncommon to meet neo-Nazis covered in SS tattoos in Pattaya getting Nazi paintings done cheaply but expertly by the amazing artists there. You just bring a book and they quickly whip up an oil painting for an astoundingly low price. Alex said he saw a huge portrait of Hitler once which a customer had commissioned - and the painter was displaying it proudly there...

Ok - Alex said I should join him for a drink to see what the bars are like, but I don't want to be pressured. Seems all the punters are easy-going and I can't imagine many fights here. But weird that one of the bars in the rings of places Alex showed me is mainly patronised by American "security contractors" from Iraq on R & R or actual CIA staff. It's no wonder, as he tells me the US embassy here is almost two blocks long! Wow...

Anyway - enough madness. Nice to relax in the peace and quiet of this nice upstairs internet cafe and it is so cool to be back in Thailand where the streets are cleaner and people are really mild and for the most part much more friendly than Indians, though Indians seem infinitely deeper in their conversations. Alex said he's no racist, but in all his trips here he has just found it almost impossible to have a conversation with any depth with Thai people. He says they are lovely and warm, but seems to think that it's their lack of deep thought that keeps them from the worries and anxiety that afflicts the rest of the world. Not sure what to think but it is an interesting idea. I think the main reason I haven't had a deep conversation with a Thai person is that nobody speaks English that well!

Time to try to forget this area and its drunks and Thai girls and find some sanity somewhere else. Just such a juxtaposition - a lovely spiritual conversation with the tailor then this explanation of how the underworld works here.

Just outside Delhi

Hey...

I'm just in a place called Gurgaon (the 'n' is kinda silent for some odd reason) and it's just outside Delhi. Like London, Delhi has gotten a bit too crowded and expensive space-wise so all the big companies have set up their headquarters in this area out of town and it is not anywhere as run down and chaotic as the usual Indian cities. A real breath of fresh air! There isn't even the smell of pee everywhere... Unbelievable!

Last two days with the group were the icing on the cake. I had a hard time on the first day and was really trying not to show my frustration and anger which was building up. First a group of us tried getting a taxi to one of the shopping areas and the taxi driver took us somewhere else where he was obviously getting kickbacks. I was pissed off but the others seemed happy to spend a lot of time in this pretty overpriced store (ok, Stacey got a nice Tibetan singing bowl). Just that bare-faced dishonestly really rattles me - and rattles other locals too of course, as we were warned in the street about it. Then we went to the last temple on the tour and there was a priest at each temple inner sanctum - plus a donation box. So after emptying my wallet of reasonable sized notes at the first three, I ran out of change and felt I couldn't approach the other ones. Not the end of the world, but with the lack of sleep from the overnight train and the morning's taxi scam I was really getting in a shitty mood - which was also pissing me off, as I really wanted to enjoy the trip. I went to chill off but sitting with the Russian lady on the trip, then discovered that there was a bookshop attached to the temple. A few of us piled off over there and magically a book ended up in my hands that was the answer to months of wishing. It's David Frawley's "Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses". I assumed you always needed a teacher, but Namadeva correctly me most firmly and told me that this book is excellent and can be worked from directly. (Apart from a typo in one of the mantras - so damned annoying that the authors don't check them better!!!) So Namadeva explaining all this on the first night made me forget all the problems of the day. He'd picked up that my mood was a bit off (even though nobody else picked it up and were even asking if I ever get angry - so funny!) but I told him it was all ok. And I assured him that I will keep in touch.

Last day with the group I asked Namadeva about some health problems after breakfast and he gave me a special energy healing (nothing visible - he just sat there) and it was like nothing else. I am so non-sensitive to these things that I just noticed my heart beating a bit faster, but it's an incentive to do more mantra work. He said I had blocked energy in certain places (very likely indeed!) and he was removing the cause and making sure the channels stayed open. Not sure what happened, but it was an interesting moment!

After that we all shopped like crazy, I found a really different and peaceful statue of dear Kali Ma - and while I was showing it to Namadeva back at the hotel a middle-aged Indian couple came over and asked if they could touch it. The man held it and gazed at it for a while and his wife touched its feet and then touched her forehead, lips and heart out of respect, then they thanked us and we all said namaste to each other with our hands clasped. What a wonderful place this can be at the right moments! Then my Indian friend arrived at 4pm and I took her round the various hotel rooms to allow her to meet everyone. It was an odd way to do it, but it ended up so much better than meeting a ton of people en masse, as the conversation can always flow much easier when things are more intimate. Then we had dinner, swapped more farewells and hugs and went our separate ways. A nice 3-hour farewell :)

Now a few thoughts about India.

Pee. Don't get me started! Every town of any size seemed to smell of poo and wee at every turning! Worst moment was when we'd finished in the Himalayas and arrived in a town called Harwal or something like that and thought we'd do a spot of shopping. Well the town was so poor that we were stunned by what was in the shops - not quite medieval, but it was a bit of a dead loss really. The only thing most people came back to the rendezvous point with was a few child beggars who were actually quite cute and actually smiled. Namadeva, the book author and tour leader, refused to allow us to give them any money as he said he'd almost started a riot once on a previous tour and definitely wasn't up for a repeat performance. Shame, as 20 rupees each for a few kids is nothing (divide by 30 = 66 cents NZ = cost of a shoe shine).

Haggling. My Indian friend here told me that shopping in one place near our Delhi hotel is so much fun as you ask the price and immediately offer them half price and go from there. Well I got up the courage to try it and hell, it worked !!! Unfortunately it was always for something I had little interest in, because if they saw you were interested (and I was so trying to hide it), then bargaining was really hard. But who cares - as they said, if you want it, just get the thing.

Jytte. Pronounced "Yoota". She was this cool lady in her late sixties on the trip who was just so lovely. Remember I mentioned she was brave enough to drink from the Ganges? Anyway she was an absolute pleasure to be around and felt like a something of surrogate mother for me on the trip. A lovely shop girl in Pune made such a fuss over how much she liked her and even the Pune hotel staff presented her with a rose! She's one of those people who when they smile, their whole face lights up and more. And a great story-teller too.

Big news hot off the press - my Indian friend got me to give her a past life regression session and it turned out great! She is a natural though - so amazingly intuitive that she could really sense all the dynamics in each scene we went through. A somewhat quiet life, but quite pertinent I feel to understanding this one. So good to get another successful session under my belt. Then we did a nice Tarot reading for each other - very cool!

Ok - now running off to look for some more books! Prices here are just too good to ignore, plus the range of books here is insane! You should see the sized of the Vedic astrology ones...

Hope everyone is still well at home & looking forward to coming back (but not having to cook for myself again - this is still so sweet!!!!)

Fire ceremonies and mantra initiations in the Himalayas, then back to Delhi

Jeepers - sounds like it's been a while since I've found any place with convenient email. Shame really as it has been so full on it's been unreal.

We spent a few days at Pune (spelled "Poonah" in the old British days but pronounced "Pooneh") and that was actually really nice. I started the habit of wandering around the streets really late at night because we were having dinner so late and I really wanted it to digest well - plus I was kinda curious, especially as we usually spend no time in the cities. It's amazingly safe on the streets, though odd having so many people out at midnight wandering around for goodness knows what reason. Funnily, one of the few times in Pune we had a spare half day when we weren't visiting temples, they chartered a bus to go around shopping and it turned out to be a minor disaster. The "shops" were the same touristy stuff I was getting rather tired of (silk scarves, carving of elephants etc) and I was getting such an oppressive feeling that I decided to cut it short and walk back to the hotel, seeing that I knew my way around the town better than everyone else. Then I heard later that the others had met some slightly aggessive people on the street with sticks as they headed back to the bus. I guess that little expedition was just ill-fated from the start.

Amazing how much stuff some of the ladies have been buying!!! I have been looking at things but I must be setting the bar pretty high as most stuff just doesn't appeal. However there were some Nepalese tanka wall-hangings that were simply incredible which a few people bought lots of. Amazingly detailed Buddhist fine paintings on canvas with lovely silk borders - and often using real gold paint! All seemed a bit too complicated to me and I don't know the Buddhist deities too well, so I passed on it, though I do have the guy's card and he is keen to sell as much as he can overseas of course. Was mind-blowing just being shown all his stock. This is the kind of thing here, though the picture looks nothing like the quality we saw:

http://www.dhushara.com/book/budd/tanka1.jpg

One lady on the tour who owns a New Age store in the US bought 20 of them at an average of US$100 each. She was very pleased :)

Ok - from Pune we visited all eight of the very famous Ashta vinayaka temples - eight very special temples devoted to Shri Ganesh. It's said to be a great blessing to visit any of the temples and we visited all eight in one pilgrimage. They are all scattered out in the middle of nowhere, so visiting each one meant bumping around in the dusty country roads for hours at a time. Have a look on the excellent page below - the story is that there are eight incarnations of Ganesh and each one was for a different time period. The current one is Siddhi Vinayaka with his left turning trunk, which is why there's the importance placed on checking the trunk whenever you buy a little statue of him.

http://www.chennaionline.com/hotelsandtours/Placesofworship/2005/02temple38.asp

The statues are all very um... stylised, which really threw me initially. But I hear that each one is hewn from a piece of rock which looked like Ganesh, so hence the different styles - some short and squat, others taller etc. All red too! Have bought a few little statues of them, but mostly pictures.

At each of the temples, we queued until we got up to the sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, where the statues is kept. Each statue has been the focus of puja rituals for such a long time that being in the presence of one imparts a weird kind of energy. I didn't often notice it as much as the others until I started doing an energy visualisation linking myself to the statue and then I could feel it quite well. At one temple in particular, we all stumbled out as spaced out as if we'd been on drugs! And I can assure you there's no dope being smoked or wafted anywhere we've been. Quite a new experience for me....

Then we zipped off to Delhi and unfortunately the last day at Pune I decided I was totally invincible and decided to break the number one food rule and had some cane juice from a street vendor. Well, I did survive, but honestly, I thought for a while that the trip was over, my diarrhoea was so bad! Like zero warming!!! Diarrhoea and total wooziness & light-headedness - much like campylobacter but luckily with no tummy cramps. I hit all the pills I had (including the Immodium which didn't seem to work) and finally the Russian lady on the trip gave me some killer diarrhoea medication she'd picked up from Stanford which knocked it dead. My Indian friend gave me lots of advice on the phone and said that the cane juice vendors are the dodgiest things in India - people catch all sorts of stuff from them! So that's another of my nine lives gone. But 24 hours later I was up on my feet and ready to head to the Himalayas.

We took the train and bus to Rishikesh (the train station at Delhi was a nightmare!!!) but made it ok. The mountains were nothing like I imagined in the foothills and we were very entertained to see monkeys in the trees. I scared them off when we stopped for a leak but one of the other gals was confronted by an angry male and she was terrified!! Visiting Rishikesh and standing in the Ganges was a lovely moment, and I chatted briefly to a couple of sadhus who had the biggest smiles in the world. No wonder - all the street vendors seemed to be selling very large chillum marijuana pipes and the tour guide said that yep, a lot of the sadhus (serious spiritual ascetics) were big pot smokers. Nice vibes though! Funnily enough the tour leader wouldn't stand in the Ganges because he said you could catch bad stuff even by dipping your feet in it!!! Well, I hadn't come all that way for nothing... But I was stunned when the Danish lady took a sip of the water! Very brave... BTW she had diarrhoea for most of the trip, but I think it was all from back in Bangalore.

Sadly the people who live around Rishikesh don't seem very happy at all! No smiles from the vendors and honestly their little townships seemed quite hellish to me for being near such a sacred place. However the main sacred spots at the river itself and the really high peaks. So from Rishikesh we wound our way very slowly up the narrow mountain roads all the way to Auli, at an altitude of about 9000 feet if I remember. And there we camped in nice big tents for a few days with the now peaks all around - including the second highest peak in India, Nanda Devi, a truly glorious sight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Devi

There at the camp site we performed 5 fire rituals or yagnas, where each one was devoted to a different aspect of god. In each yagna, we set up a fire and the 1008 names of the divine aspect were chanted as we offered rice and ghee into the flames. Great for me as I am such a fire bug, but hard for the asthmatics!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yajna

Thomas the group leader said that we were releasing a ton of karma with the rituals and while I was none the wiser, the more psychic in the group had interesting visions of the Shankaracharyas watching the ceremony and the spirits of the mountains were said to be very appreciative. As Thomas said he got from one meditation after, a spirit of one of the mountains rued "Nobody does this kind of thing any more!"

The altitude was a minor problem for me as I probably didn't drink enough and woke up with some nasty headaches. But wandering around the area we saw some lovely landscape - very much like good old NZ funnily enough - except there are lots of wild rhododendron trees there, though none of them are flowering right now. We all got sunburned too, as the air is so thin. Luckily I just got my forearms toasted and they aren't too bad.

From there the bus rides became very arduous, even more so than for the 8 Ganesh temples and we finally hiked up to Babaji's cave. (Bbaji from Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi) That was quite a day and for some reason when I finally made it to the cave, I had a serious pain in my prostate. I couldn't understand it as it's not like I'd cycled up on a 10-speed or anything and after we did our mantra initiations there, I noticed it had disappeared. Thomas said later that this was a great blessing and I had received some serious healing. Sounds good to me! No pain, no gain I guess. It was amazing the doors that have been opened to us on this trip and the swami who looks after the cave sat with us as we did our final fire ceremony to Shiva at the temple below.

Well from there we survived an arduous overnight train ride back here to Delhi and it's pretty much over now. The train was terrible though and a few poor souls were sitting in a bad place where the air conditioning was spewing damp air all over them, and they felt really awful and moved as fast as they could. Funny thing is, even though it is pretty warm in India, most of us turn off the air con as soon as we get into our hotel rooms - it just ain't necessary.

Ok - my hour's up so time to look for some more rudraksha malas and maybe a small marble Ganesha!

Chennai to Bangalore

Hey...

We've started the process of visiting the various significant temples around the place, but it has been reinforced how extremely different this tour is from any one they've done in the past. For instance, we got the rare honour to meet both Shankaracharya gurus at the Kanchi Math, a Jagadguru at the Hanuman temple yesterday who entertained us with lovely stories and then we met Guru Mata Keshavadas today, who is a very sweet and stately 70-year-old. (See http://www.templeofcosmicreligion.org/ - though the photos at that site must be from 15 or more years ago.) My mind is in a bit of a whirl with all the travelling here and there, but it is so cool. And educational too.

The temples are amazing, and we've seen three temple images now where each temple image has been carved out of a huge single block of granite. One in the Hanuman temple yesterday just outside Bangalore (30 feet tall), one in a Vishnu temple (amazingly huge black bull) and today one of Vishnu (again 30 feet tall) in human form at the Sant Keshavadas temple outside Bangalore, where we did special pujas and climbed up stairs to pour milk over the statue. This is only day 3 and it feels like we've done so much already... The group leader really knows all the people around here, and knows how to open doors. And we still have the 8 famous Ganesha temples to go.

Chennai (Madras) was a pretty awful place but, everything is a lot better in Bangalore where we arrived today which is so green and wonderful and beautiful in comparison. It's a lot cooler too which is nice. No need for sunblock here as yet - the sun is so mild, even in the midday heat. However we need to take our shoes off before going into each sacred area - even outside - and walking across the flagstones today at the spectacular Vishwa Shanti Ashram was pretty painful for our delicate western feet! Get a load of the views of this amazing place. And the gardens are really something too. Quite a wonderful place all in all. (Ok - apart from the toilets of course which are very... er... rudimentary.)

http://www.vishwashantiashram.org/Ashram_Views.htm

(Spot Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot - scene from the Bhagavad Gita.)

I've had a bit of time to get to know the group and over the last couple of days, and the people are thankfully really cool. Had some really interesting conversations I thought I would never have with these kinds of people, and I have been surprised that people aren't too serious.

Highlights so far....

Best things about the trip? Wonderful Indian food - and in particular, amazing lunch at the Sant Keshavadas temple where people were amused by how the the lady dishing the food out kept picking on me to keep feeding. (I must look a bit skinny.)

Nicest moment in last 24 hours or so? At the Ramakrishna Centre in Bangalore, a couple of kids asked me in the temple meditation area "From where are you coming?" (English is such a 2nd language here) and we chatted and in the end they gave me a nice tour of the gardens. They were so awesome and had such serious little faces, but big hearts. That's one centre which has a terrific vibe. But strangely, Ramakrishna was a huge devotee of Kali and there is no sign of Kali here whatsoever. Odd!

Biggest worry? Buying too many Ganesh statues. At this rate, I will have one for each day of the holiday! No worries, luckily someone said that posting things back home is dead cheap. (So they say...)

The pilgrimage begins: welcome to hell...

Just arrived in Chennai (Madras) this afternoon and after the sheer majesty of the Bangkok international airport, it was like flying into a rubbish dump - the first sight out a window being of a parking lot full of broken down vehicles, and the airport looking like an old disused one that we flew into by mistake. I was going to take a photo of a particularly sad part of it with staff just sitting around with vacant looks on their faces, but there are armed guards around the place and after Richard Gere's recent gaffe causing riots, I don't want to die just yet :)

Funnily enough, my old boss Rudolf took me out to lunch to tell me about India and described Chennai as a hellish place. I thought that sounded a little extreme, but I have yet to find any evidence to the contrary! The taxi driver seemed nice enough on the way to the hotel, but pleasant conversation gradually turned into a story of how his family were all destitute and sick etc. I said "Sounds like my family! My Dad is a cripple, etc etc..." but it didn't register he was too focused on begging for all the money I could give him. Gave him a whopping tip in Indian terms (ok, pretty mild in Kiwi terms) but he was so unhappy I hadn't turned my entire estate over to him. He was the first of the demons in this hellish place. And this place truly is hell. I mean, the streets even stink of sulphur - and amazingly strongly in places. The stall holders in the malls are like pit bulls when you are lured into their shops - they just won't let you go. That's ok - the prices are really low for everything here - even the full buffet at this large hotel I'm at was under NZ$10. So hard to believe! And it was one of the best Indian meals I think I've ever had too. Don't get me wrong - I don't hate the place just yet, I'm just still trying to find some charm. It feels a bit like a war zone actually, but the hotel is pleasant and the staff are really friendly and much more courteous than some flash European hotels I've stayed in. And for some reason I felt wonderful after the meal. I have admittedly had to run (yep literally) to the toilet a couple of times since then, but maybe that just shows how super-efficiently food can be digested here. (Just trying to be positive...)

Speaking of that.... there was some real terror earlier this morning when I woke up in Bangkok. I was awake at 5am and came to that most horrible of realisations (as you do) that I'd been such a complete idiot to ignore all the rules about not eating fruit & ice etc in Bangkok eateries. I love the idea of breaking rules, but now it looked like I was going to pay for it really bad!!! But luckily fate had already stepped in. Last night I'd met this really cool lady at a traditional Thai massage place and she was getting worked on by four different masseuses and had them all in stitches with her funny stories. She was also one of the few people in Bangkok who spoke good English so she told me all about herself and how she had been having chronic pains for years. Being an eternal font of unwanted advice, I told her I believed that chi gong might really help - especially if her doctors couldn't - and that perhaps a mysterious illness might best be dealt with using a mysterious therapy. So as I lay in bed this morning with my life flashing before my eyes, I downed a few vitamins and started into some serious chi gong while enjoying a wonderful David Frost interview on renegade Aljazeera TV. (God, that channel is terrific!!!) And half an hour or so later all the queasiness was gone - seems I got to it just in time! Will have to bear that in mind for the rest of the trip, knowing my old stomach.

Ok - highlights of last 24 hours....

Most entertaining moment: being approached in the street last night in Bangkok by all kinds of seedy guys after my traditional foot massage (this is 11pm) who ask "Excuse me - would you like to have a Mona Lisa massage?" etc and flash pictures of racy women. I laughed at one guy and told him he really should have it himself. These touts are quite chilled thankfully about being turned down and the city streets - even the darker side-streets - seemed really safe for such a big city. Ok, I haven't been to many asian cities, but this place beats KL hands down. And parts of Bangkok are so damned beautiful, it was really quite romantic - seriously!

Most touching moment: walking past one of the rare beggars in the street. This middle aged lady had a really elegant look about her - and as I gave her some coins, she gave me one of the warmest smiles I've received so far. I was actually quite blown away. As I walked off, I somehow felt this kind of energy resonance or something all over - can't help wondering if something odd was going on there. I still can't think of her as a "beggar" - real beggars look quite lost or hardened. There was just something so dignified and serene about her. Weird...

Biggest surprise - seeing a large shrine to the elephant-headed god Ganesh in a public square with passers-by offering bundles of smouldering incense to him. Seems Ganesh is second only to the Buddha here for devotion.

Anyway, the rest of the tour group is arriving at midnight so I guess tomorrow I will find out what kind of people I am going to spend the next three weeks with. Hopefully Lady Luck (i.e. Lakshmi) will be kind to me!

Oh man! The tour party has just arrived outside.... I am so nervous!!!! (Mummy!!!!)