Step 10: Get Politically Active

Or maybe the step should be "go to a politically active and important place and eat chocolate pie while pretending to be involved in the cause."

We are in Dharamsala, or more specifically McLeod Ganj, a town where many political refugees from Tibet come to seek asylum from the Chinese government. This is where the Dalai Lama came when he escaped to India so many decades ago, though he isn't often here since he is always travelling the world, inspiring, and fighting the seemingly hopeless battle for Tibet to stop being under Chinese rule. This is a land of mountains and freezing temperatures at night (in winter). A place where people from all over the world come to volunteer for countless organizations supporting refugees and the Free Tibet movement.

All joking aside from our title and subtitle, being here is... emotional. The Dalai Lama is a figure that brings thoughts of love, compassion, inspiration to mind but its almost like his political activism, the struggle of his life and of his people is often forgotten. People spend large sums to hear him speak, and feel connected to his ideology and even his religion, but continue to buy products made in China and support the ongoing selling of natural resources to China because it economically benefits our respective home countries.

It is so peaceful here. A beautiful mix of Indian and Tibetan cultures all in a town of only three roads. The mountain air is fresh and all seems quiet and joyful. But there is an underlying sadness here that is impossible to shake. The other day we were walking to find some dinner when a parade of people singing, holding candles and banners commemorating another person (age 29) who set himself on fire (self-immolation) in protest of the oppression of the Chinese government, and to demand the return to Tibet of the Dalai Lama.

It seems that Tibet has been ignored by Western media recently. This cause is no longer hip. But this is not because things are quiet or even close to peaceful in the occupied country - in November this year alone there have been 20 Tibetan people to self-immolate all over China, seven people in the last seven days, which means the numbers are quickly increasing. Many people are young, 18 to 30, most are monks.

Was this in the news? And this isn't rhetorical, we'd actually like to know. China has tried to keep this information from spreading by turning off the Internet though we've heard here that these actions lead to families and villages facing harsh punishment for this political defiance.

We've spent a lot of time here exploring the beautiful mountains and eating delicious food in Western feeling cafes. We're trying to absorb information like sponges and luckily people here are willing to teach and share, maybe because they know spreading awareness is one of the strongest weapons in a battle that is being fought by one side as non-violently as possible. Tonight for example were going to go watch a movie about the experience of crossing the border into India through the mountains and eat some momos (Tibetan dumplings) made by monks. Maybe this week we'll go speak some English at one of the many conversation classes around the city. In the end though we are here for a week and feel pretty powerless to do much but learn, which isn't much considering what is needed is action... enough to take on a country few seem willing to make their enemy.

Many more thoughts, still processing, nothing else to say for now...
a&a

Step 9: Eat, Pray, Love

I don't know why that woman went traipsing all over the world when all she had to do to get it all was go to Rishikesh (though we have no complaints when it comes to watching Julia Roberts take us through the adventures of Eat, Pray, Love on the big screen). Dumplings and yoga and nature, oh my. What more could two digestively weak and clean-oxygen-deprived travellers ask for than a town in the foothills of the Himalayas, with as much Tibetan, Nepali, Indian, Israeli, and Italian influenced restaurants with safely cleaned fresh fruits and vegetables, oh and German baking (streusel anyone?) as you would ever need. Yoga courses all day every day, hiking trails and hippie shopping stalls. AND, the safe-to-swim part of the Ganges running through it all. We are in heaven, or wherever Yogis go to paradise (we'll tell you the answer hopefully in our next post after our 7-day silent yoga and meditation retreat that starts on Tuesday). Our bodies are stronger already, and sore for good reasons this time, and our stomachs are almost back to normal. We're going to have a hard time leaving this place when the time comes.

One week later (yes it takes us that long to write these blog posts...)

Phool Chatti Ashram life:
5:30 Wake-up bell
6:00 30-minute silent meditation, then chanting mantras
7:00 Neti pot nasal cleansing, then pranayama (breathing)
7:30 Hatha yoga asanas
9:00 Breakfast and chai
10:30 Karma yoga (cleaning the ashram)
11:00 Meditative walk
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Chai, then free time
3:00 lecture and discussion about yoga and Hinduism
4:00 Ashtanga Yoga asanas
6:00 Puja ceremony and chanting
7:30 Dinner and chai
8:30 Guided meditation
9:30 Bed time

We spent from meditation in the evening until after lunch in silence except to chant, and meals were vegetarian, prepared with food almost entirely from their organic garden and cows (for milk, curd, and paneer).

I have to say, going into this, although open minded, we were curious (skeptical) as to what we would actually take away from it in the end. Neither one of us practice much organized spirituality outside of holidays and home visits, and here we were signed up for a complete Hindu immersion program with strongly suggested full participation. I don't think either of us have fully processed the experience; it's not often that you get the opportunity to invest a week of your life to learning how to calm your noisy mind and to spend time with people who have devoted their lives to this practice in order to become closer to their truer selves, to other people, and to a higher power. We didn't  come away converting to Hinduism (apparently not an option anyway), nor are we able to contort our bodies into pretzel formation (although we can both touch our toes now...),  but we definitely are feeling healthy, stronger, and thoughtful. It's easy to let the business of life get in the way sometimes.

What made us more hip this week? Well we learned so much about yoga, but it turns out it is nothing like what we do in Canada... No people did not wear lululemon to hold intricate poses 2000 years ago. Yoga is more a lifestyle, which means we are further away from being hip yoga-types in the sense the Western world would understand. I suppose pulling out the ukelele on the last night at the bonfire was a pretty hip moment. We played a québécois favourite (ma degeneration) and heard songs from France, the US, the Ukraine. But we also moved further away from hipness, not only because we are planning on adopting pyjama type clothing as a day to day wardrobe, but because we've decided that blankets draped around your shoulders is the new sweater. Maybe all this meditation is letting us "let go" of hipness, or maybe it's just turning us into new age hippies. Either way we feel calm, collected, and content.

Step 8: Finally post photos from fancy camera

Step 7: Manipulate Experiences to Make them Hipper

The history of Taj Mahal is a tragic love story. Who knew? Now that we've seen it, touched it, and even shone a flashlight at the marble to ooh and aww at it's translucency we can attest to how magnificent and beautiful it is. It seems as though many who journey across the country, continent, and even world to see this wonder have their own unique story, which only seems to add to the romance of the Taj. Here is our story...

We arrived in Agra exhausted after an overnight train ride, this time in sleeper class (aka no frills) at 6am. Now more cunning travellers we did a better job of getting a rickshaw to take us exactly where we wanted for a fair price and got a room at an awesome guest house which served us well for our days in Agra.

A while after arriving we briefly checked the CBC for some news back home. There we found an article about an upcoming visit of the PM to India. He was scheduled to be in Agra on the some of the same days we were, and to our understanding was planning to go to the Taj Mahal on Sunday. Naturally we immediately got excited about how 'hip' a story it would be to run the Prime Minister at the Taj Mahal. A few Facebook status replies and article checking later it was determined that Ed Fast, minister of Trade and something else important would be joining the PM on his trip. Ed Fast's parents lived across the street from where Alyx grew up and through other Abby connections is a part of the occasional musings at the Mac/Y household.

A few emails later and it was seeming more likely that a meet up with PM Harper at the Taj would happen. A cordial shake of the hands, a potential photo op, and most importantly a super hip story. Our set up was grand.

We put off going to the Taj Mahal by a day and admired the beauty of Agra Fort. The Mughals were certainly capable of producing some amazing pieces of architecture...

Sunday came and we did what everyone and the guidebook told us to do and we showed up in time to see the Taj Mahal at sunset. While the sun was rising we and all the other tourists were standing in a line outside the walls of the Taj. A half hour later the gates were open and we were filing through the long line slowly but inefficiently. All you can do is laugh, shrug and say "this is India!" But Amy is still in a passive aggressive stage where she points out the inefficiencies of the systems indirectly and loudly in front of those who seem in charge. About 2 hours later we were inside, unable to see the Taj through the thick smog, or perhaps fog (Agra is either very polluted or suffers from intense fog, or both), blaming an early visit of Stephen Harper for the late opening of the gates. Hey, if we missed him AND the sunset surely we had the right to add this to the list of the many other things we feel inclined to blame Harper for. Crime number one at this point? Robbing us of a delicious story.

The Taj truly is so beautiful, and simply amazing. The short story without names is that an emperor in the 17th century built it for his (third) wife after she died giving birth (to her 14th child). He is buried along with her underneath the Taj out of the way of the three million people who come to visit every year, though the mosuleum has elegant fake tombs that are viewable from a distance. Let it be said in writing that Amy has promised to build Alyx a building of such equal or greater magnificence.

We got the necessary pictures, and even got one of our first pictures together thanks to the help of a somewhat cranky British fellow. By then it was about 10am and we were hungry enough to dismiss the possibility of seeing Harper and call it a day.

Around 7:15pm we received a message from Alyx's parents. The PMO had gotten back to an email written by Alyx's dad to Ed Fast which Fast had then forwarded on to the PM. The Prime Minister would be visiting the Taj Mahal on Monday (though we are still inclined to blame him for missing the sunrise) but would Alyx and Amy available to come to five star hotel something or another at 7pm?

Let this sink in for a minute. Personal invitations to meet the PM in India.

By now we, the extremely hip dynamic duo, were in our PJs getting ready to settle in for the night, Amy feeling a bit frustrated with an upset stomach that had been bothering her all day.

So no, we were not free. Frankly we were not hip enough either. As neat as meeting the PM in India would be there is a huge difference between a smile and quick hello, or even a moment of staring at a distance at an historical monument/neutral territory and going to the PMs 5 star hotel in our baggy, smelly clothing. Socially, the situation seemed terrifying. Try as we did to get our hip story at the last minute we chickened out.

On the other hand maybe it's for the best of everyone. We make no secret of our left wing political views and pleasant conversation would surely have run its course quite quickly. Alyx's parents had something to talk about with their friends for a few days and have surely come up with a great story to cover up the true unhip story of what happened. And we learned that manipulate as you may to get an experience to bend to your most hip imaginings in the end it is the candid and unpredictable that make the best and most memorable stories.

So come on world, give us something to write home about...
a&a

Step 6: Breakdown

Step 6: Breakdown

We are currently sitting on a train, another 7 or so hours until we get to our destination of Haridwar, a town at the base of the Himalayas, just south of Rishikesh, where yoga has its roots and where we are truly headed. We are relegated to one of the third and top level bunks since our seats seem to have been taken over by a family who have made it clear to us that this is not their designated seating area but that they have no intentions of moving. We are listening to the sweet sounds of Stuart McLean and the Vinyl Cafe, snacking on our 10 hour stash of bananas and cookies. Its been about a week since our last blog post and we don't know where to start.

Last we wrote we were wide eyed, but healthy and adjusting to Kolkata and life in India. A few hours later a street side lassi (a yogurt fruit drink, very common and popular around here, and extremely delicious) brought us to our knees... in front of the toilet... and garbage can... and provided the first fierce challenge of this journey. Delhi belly, travellers diarrhea, stomach illness, or whatever you want to call it is hell. People often share that they get sick while travelling in India in passing, but this experience is still fresh enough for us to say that it is awful and nothing like what either of us had ever experienced. Until a few days ago Alyx was still suffering and finally decided to give in and pick up some antibiotics. We were teary eyed messes and half ready to book a ticket on the first flight back to Canada and probably would have if we'd be able to stand for long enough to walk to the Internet cafe. In the end we recovered enough to move and shakily got onto our booked train to leave one of the loudest, busiest cities in the world. We left never having actually made it to the house of Mother Theresa, and approached our second destination feeling weak and terribly unhip.

Varanasi.
Corpses, pilgrims, travellers (both Indian and non), a beautiful river, pollution, cows, cow shit, touts (people looking to take you on boat rides, rickshaw rides, to temples and silk shops), Western style coffee shops.

It was still very busy, crowded, smelly... Still a city. We fell into the trap of inexperienced travellers and got picked up by a rickshaw driver who had no intention to bring us to the guesthouse we wanted to go to, but rather the one that gave him commission for bringing in two "Canadian princesses." The guesthouse had a beautiful garden restaurant area and the rooms were fine, there is a limit to how many times you can say "NO" to their various tour offerings but we avoided being dragged around by sneaking out into the streets when nobody was looking.

Varanasi is along the river Ganges and it is as beautiful as it is maddening. Pilgrims from all over India come to this holy city to bathe and drink in the holy water, as well as pray and burn corpses. If you die in Varanasi it is said that you are relieved of continuing on in that vicious cycle of rebirth. It is also a place where silk has been made by hand for centuries. Tourists flock to see this, as well as the spectacle of people so publicly engaging in the most personal acts of life and death, and the result for foreign tourists is a city where every interaction we tried or tried not to have revolved around tours, money or selling things. Everyone, from 6 year olds to adults won't leave your side until  succumb to their demands or else learn to ignore all socialized western instincts of "polite conversation" and just walk by, harder than it sounds. They've even set up a brilliant system whereby kids get foreigners to buy these little candles to light and send floating down the Ganga for good karma... Something that none of the locals do (they do things like pray and do good deeds to improve their karma) and which is surely contributing to the pollution in the river. It is hard not to cringe thinking about millions of little candles at the bottom of this beautiful river.

We met one particularly interesting 12ish year old (he claimed to be 14 but we doubt it) who wanted to bring us to his uncle's shop. He was charming, funny, and used great lines (ex: let us just sit and drink chai, become friends, no pressure-no purchase, for without talking, what do we have?) and was frankly a wonderful canvasser, informing us that his uncle paid for his school and gave him 20 rupees for bringing people (unlikely it would be that high). When we made it clear we weren't going with him he stuck around and chatted with us anyway (but like a good salesman never actually giving up, casually offering us Hindi lessons, hand massages, and even marriage). He told us a bit about the ceremony we were witnessing and showed us his many tattoos, one with his name and others with the names of gods. We in turn showed him our tattoos and told him about looking out for clean needles and safe body art practices (harm reduction!). No surprise but it was definitely one of our highlights to spend some time having frank conversations with a local friendly youth.

In Varanasi, or maybe as a result of being slowed down by a bacterial infection, we started to find a more comfortable travelling mode. Lots of breaks, rest, water, occasional pizza or other "international" food, even a classic action hero movie or 2. And not always pushing ourselves to the limit. We hear that tackling these two overwhelming and chaotic cities first on our route may not have been a wise decision for a smooth intro to India, but we've definitely been initiated.

Oh and we keep forgetting our signature, how very unhip...
a&a

Step Five: Become a local celebrity

We arrived at the airport in Bangkok and did something sinful. To some we sank to the bottom of un-hip in seconds flat... to others perhaps we gained more hip points. We spent the last of our baht (Thai money) not on food (we were starving, and were not getting fed on the plane) but rather on a tall americano from, you guessed it, Starbucks. We even took a picture on our iPad, and unfortunately we can't post it right now, but if we could you would think that it was taken in Vancouver. Typical Starbucks decor, employees in the background were Asian.

From the moment we got to the airport we felt like we were in India. While waiting to get checked in and drop our baggage we were being pushed and shoved by the masses of fellow passengers. There was chaos, there was budging in line, there was pushing. There were dozens of flat screen TVs surely being brought to family and friends or to be resold in India. We were sweaty, but we were stoked.

Within five minutes of landing in Kolkata nothing in life made any sense anymore. Unbelievable traffic, honking every couple of seconds, cows crossing at leisure, people pulling carts packed with more weight than seems possible to move, crumbling colonial buildings, waves of food smells followed by the overwhelming stench of urine and outdoor latrines... who are we and what is the point of life?

Ok, maybe we're being a bit dramatic, but seriously, we were as prepared as we could get, including being prepared to feel unprepared and STILL we don't know which way is up. We are staying in a "backpacker" kind of district near Sudder st near central Kolkata, but this is no Thai westerner meet-up spot. We are very much in the middle of a huge Indian city with life going on all around us whether tourists are here or not. The only difference apparently is more budget accommodations and more people craftily asking newbies for money.

Amongst the chaos and disorientation that came along with landing, we stumbled upon an oasis almost right after checking into our room. We went for a walk to check out the neighbourhood and found a park. This park is a gigantic field, as big as the neighborhood we're staying in and actually on the south end houses the Victoria Monument (worth a whole weird blog post of its own). Vendors selling water, mixed chat, bel puri, chai (don't know what all that is yet) line the path, people playing cricket, flying kites higher than we thought possible, and pony rides. It was amazing to find a cool spot to sit and chill away from the street. And then it started. We slowly realized that people were looking, staring even, smiling and not, curious about what or why we were there. One couple shared their picnic with us, amazing dumplings, and then some nice guys asked if they could take a picture with us. This was foreshadowing for the next few days (and the next few months?) as more and more people (Indian tourists?) seem to see us as an attraction and want a photo souvenir.

In the last two days we have had our picture taken by people who have asked. We have been asked and declined, much the disappointment of those who asked. We have also had a crying child pushed by her father to pose with us. Nobody asked us, or the child, and we couldn't make a quick getaway because Amy was nursing her sore feet and didn't have her shoes on. It was so weird, and frankly kind of disturbing. Maybe they got wind of our hipness via social media from the Thais who also took our picture, though from a far and more discreetly.

The burdens of being so damn cool.

Step Four: Beach Bum in Communist Country

The north-east of Thailand (Isaan) was amazing. A rare opportunity to be a tourist on a path traveled mostly by local tourists, and a good way to get our travel sea-legs. About a week ago now we went as east as Thailand goes (Kong Chiam) to check out some 4000 year old cliff paintings (I know right!?), though we were more enamoured by the graffiti carved into the bamboo trees and translated signs ("slippers area" instead of "slippery area"). We ventured into one of Thailand's neighbours, Laos. One of the first things you see when you cross the border is the Laotian communist flag, complete with hammer and sickle. Kind of surreal.

One purpose of going to Laos was to explore some fo the country that our hip ancestors - the original "hipsters" - hippies, had first sought out as travelling chill vibe seekers. <History Break!> During the era of hippies the United States was dropping bombs in Vietnam, one of Laos' neighbours, but what isn't talked about as much is how many thousands of tons of bombs were dropped in Laos. One stat goes along the lines of the equivalent being a bomb every ten minutes for nine years. 400 000 of the unexploded souvenirs have been safely detonated by a dedicated group of Laotians, only about a billion to go. Of course this was mostly in the north-east of Laos and we were headed south so we didn't necessarily bear witness to the remnants of this war, but the history certainly deserves recognition.

Don Det... How do we even write about this tiny little island int he middle of the Mekong? Once a hidden oasis for those off the beaten track, part of the 4000 islands ("island" is a loose term, some are literally only big enough to fit a tree or a couple of shrubs), Don Det is easily the most infamously popular. Mini bungalows on the Mekong, bicycles to ride around, waterfalls to explore, even dolphins! For those who might be so inclined, there is also the option of adding a little "happiness" to most menu items at local restaurants. The definition of "happy," we found out (because everyone is really open about it) meant anything from marijuana to Valium. So, as you can see, we were set up potentially to lose ourselves in our bungalow hammocks for days, maybe weeks, as super hip chilled out beach bums. But... then we got bored. After a day and a half, we realized we are terrible at doing nothing! One aspect of our "hipness" we will have to work on, surely. We met a cool French couple... actually we've really only met French people in our travels, and overheard a couple from Quebec yakking away. Who knew that going to South East Asia would provide such an excellent opportunity to improve our French?! Anyway, this couple had just spent a year doing something called "Help Exchange" which is kind of like WWOOFing. There is an internet site you can visit and find requests people have put out there for help around their farm, or doing child care, or teaching, things like that. In exchange for about 20 hours of work a week they give you free accommodation and food, and often the kind of travel experience you'd only get from living with a family/working in the community. Cool eh? So it took us making our whole way to Laos, but we've found some clarity about the kind of world wanderers we are, or at least think we want to be.

The conclusion? Screw this hippy-dippy beach bumming and dolphin watching... we want to go places and see things and work for our experience. Don't worry, this is hardly the end of our adventures in becoming hip, the hip can still accomplish things during the day. We were on the first bus to Bangkok the next day, and about 30 hours later on a plane to where we find ourselves today... KOLKATA!