Rishikesh, Haridwar and elephants

Sitanshu proposed me to go with him to Haridwar to meet up with our friend Daniel who felt really lonely. We said YESYES, and so... 

Haridwar is in 50 km from where I am now, so we took Sitanshu's superscooter, he found me a biiig and warm jacket and voila, brrrrum through the jungle, here we are in a crazy city, one of the places of pilgrimage of Hindus, where they wash away their sins in the waters of Ganga, the sacred river. 

Every evening there's a ceremony of yatra, when just after the sunset the bells start to ring simultaneously and hundreds of baskets with flowers and candles are put into the water. Thousands of people come here with their families and stay for one night just for the ritual and jumping into the Ganga and then leave. A very special scene, must admit! And the city itself has a very strong dark energy, here people come to die (as well as to Varanasi), come to find their roots (at so called pandas - some kind of ancient statistics bureaucrat - someone who has the name of your family in the registers and would right down the number of born, passed away, of marriages etc since your clan had been here last time). Impressive! Oh, and beggars, dealers, handicapped, poor and opportunists find their place here very easily. Once in 12 years Haridwar welcomes the Kumbh Mela with around 1 million visitors, mamma mia!

We didn't stay so long (I felt I didn't belong there) just ate some samosas (my first here, yamyam, and 10 roupies only!)

Here's the stand with spices for sacrifices to Ganga

Then we left for the house of Sitanshu's cousin, who has just got a baby. Voila, I'm entering the real Indian culture. They showed their wedding album, let hold the baby (who has no name as according to the Indian tradition they give the name on the 21st day, and until then the mother and the child are kept in the bedroom provided everything they'd need and the woman is not supposed to enter the kitchen, wow!). Sitanshu's cousin would cook for us (yammi paneer with tomatoes) and we'd speak until late. Sure the men got drunk - they haven't seen each other for one year and it's like in Russia, you have to drink for the meeting! In fact drinking and eating meat are prohibited in Haridwar, so I've no idea where Sitanshu got his whisky from!

The next day after the breakfast with chapaties and some pickles (French people would say "berk" now:) we left for Rishikesh, THE city of yoga and ashrams - very touristic and very well adapted for foreigners. I loooved the surroundings, it's just between hills on the Ganga, and it's much more India than "nomansland" of McLeod Ganj. Beatles stayed here in late 60s (that's where they wrote the biggest part of the White album) and since then the city is invaded by hippes and NewAgers. I'll go back there in some weeks and see. I liked the atmosphere - much lighter than Haridwar, and nature is all around. 

On the way back (no photos though) I saw two wild elephants in the jungle - my first elephants in wild nature!!!! Impressive and scaring, they are so big and strong that Sitanshu got this fobia of elephants on the road :)

Voila great day :)

BE HAPPY!!!

India, finally!

People have been asking me about India... I remember I was always answering "got no idea, I haven't seen India yet, I've been in Tibet so far", and that was true until three days ago, when I left Dharamsala for Dehradun on a public super-jumping bus. The trip itself was fascinating, we passed by the smallest villages, through corn fields, through cities with big commercial centers. And everywhere I was staring at people (and haha they were staring at me - "yellow hair, yellow hair") - on the bus stop going to the bathroom (sorry, but there were NO bathrooms, all natural and around you))), through the window passing by some school children, some women washing clothes literally on the road, some cows steeling chapatis from a street kitchen, some markets with loads of mangoes and papayas. It was a great thing to do - to take a simple local bus, not the fancy Volvo with going- down sits and nice smell. I was shoulder to shoulder to the Indian People, felt oneness with an old man snoring in my ear and leaning on me until 5 AM, absorbed with my whole being the smells of the road, the dust, the farts of neighboring passengers. LIFE! :)

So, now I am in Dehradun, in a wonderful place called Vipassana house, where I got through www.wwoof.in, I very much wanted to do some farming, but somehow managed to come here instead :) there's no farm here, just a beautiful big house belonging to Swami Aman who is right now in the South (cold here))), taken care of by a nice-nice family of Master Ankit, 13 y.o., his mother Mrs Rupa and her husband. 

One doesn't have to do anything just to be with the float, there are no obligatory works, you do smth when you feel it has to be done. There is a meditation room, where we do group sittings every evening, a kitchen, where I make my fruit salad with pomelos and papayas taken down from the tree (one of my moments of ecstasy today, when Sitanshu told me to go and get a banana...from the palm-tree, my first picked-up banana!). 

Another miracle that happened here were two friends from McLeod that I literally bumped in in the house - by a miracle they came to the same place - we had no idea we would meet here! So Nina and Daniel made my first two days even more home-like. Now there are gone and I'm the only guest here.

What do I do here? Today I finished my 2-days Pranic Healing with Guru-ji. It's a system of healing similar to Reiki, here we use Prana, the universal energy, getting it from the air, ground, trees, and being a channel on the way to the patient. I had some great experiences like seeing the aura, feeling the chakras and being healed from smaller ailments like my T7, that was disturbing me during meditation sometimes. So now I'm going to practice and later take more advanced course! Guru-ji told me it could be very effective on autistic children, as their aura is usually disturbed and I can help them to fill in the gaps or take away some symptoms. Great! Feel very inspired and motivating, and apparently my hands are rather strong. So if any of you would like to be a Giney Piggy for me, you're mostly welcome, we just need to fix the time and I'll tell you what to do!

Oh, and so... about India. Dehradun seems to be a typical North Indian city with markets on the streets, crazy traffic, men selling coconuts along the roads, big shopping centers with Reebok, Adidas and LG adds, fine sweet shops (oooh, you haven't seen those halawas!), chai stand and holy white cows all around. Since I arrived I was taken around by Sitanshu on his scooter, driving here seems to be nuts, but when you're inside, you see everybody is respecting everybody (though without rules))), and there are no accidents at all on the roads, just crazy honking! Today I took a bus  to go to Guru-ji's place and it was also funny - they have special men hanging out from the front door and while the bus moves he is announcing its number and where it is going as well as telling the driver where to stop and if everybody who wanted to squeeze in succeeded. Oh, and one ticket (around 7 kilometers trip) was 7 rupees - around 9 cents...

Ok, tomorrow I'm chilling down and doing lots of small things like starting my brown rice diet and giving Tibetan massage to Sitanshu... 

SOME SMALL THING (remember, one day the will be the big ones)

So, I left McLeod Ganj... this place is magic, I spent here more than one month and would stay for years! It's not for nothing that Dalai-Lama chose  Dharamsala as his residence, the energy is fantastic here. I always felt as if I had been born here in one of my past lives - deja vus once in two-three days. I felt like home. With people (Tibetans are kind and loving and naive and simple and caring), places (just stand in the middle of the Temple and listen to LIFE around you or go up the mountain and feel the wind from Himalayan tops on your cheeks), food (momos... well, may be I was a momo in one of my lives as well), freedom and inner peace... Lots of things happened to me on the spiritual level as well! One of them is life-changing, but I'll tell you later...

 I feel very happy, very very happy, every single minute. And I am grateful to life and Universe for bringing me here (somehow I was bound to go to McLeod and I am happy I listened to my inner voice! Do the same, and lots of things will be aligned with your PURPOSE)

And here are some pics from the city - just "typical" stuff and small details

SIGNS AND LETTERS

HOUSES, PEOPLE, CARS

This is an Israeli car belonging to a rabbi who tries to bring young Israelis coming to Dharamsala back to the religion, rather colorful - both him and his car!

Bus station in Bhagsu and auto-rikshaws

Tibetan lady knitting (the whole daily actually)

Her grand-child

A wedding 

Indian children at school - they'd sing songs and play drums every morning, marching to their classroom afterwards

At Baba-ji's place

HAND MADE PAPER BY TIBETAN REFUGEES

CITY AND SHOPPING

That's how the water is supplied to the houses: EVERY house has its own pipes, so sometimes they are more than 50 in one place. And something is always leaking...

Buddhist prayer drums in the Temple in the middle of the city

Just a typical street

A sikh guy selling knives

Shiva Temple 2

Just before Takashi's and my leaving McLeod Ganj we decided to go back to the Shiva temple, the magic and mysterious place, full of energy and vibes. Crazy to see that it's just 100 meters from a Buddhist temple, so Tibetan monks are going up the same road as Hindus. Tolerance and respect... 

It was a beautiful day, we were superlazy and had some lay_down_in_the_sun_meditations :) 

Thank you Lord Shiva!