Pondy to Tiruvanannamalai

Namaste Friends and Family,
We arrived in Tiruvanannamalai this morning via a very comfy lift from our newly made friend, Nadu. Nadu, like Luke, had been working on his laptop on our respective patios at the guesthouse when the electricity died in our few end rooms. They both went searching for the fuse box to get themselves back in order.

We made some great friends in Pondy, and even with the near constant rain, we made it out to Auroville twice. Thomas, the police officer who let us park our scooter at his home had us over for dinner one evening. His family was so sweet and his 5-year-old daughter was tickled to be sitting with her mother and me chatting. We practiced saying her colors together in English, but mostly she just giggled at me and with me.

The rains have been really heavy and quite of the norm for weather this time of year. We were planning to take the bus to Tirvu yesterday, but both Thomas and Nadu recommended not to because of the roads and some flooding. It was wet, but good to stay in Pondy another day. Nadu loaned us his very nice car so Luke could take me to one last lunch at Auroville before we left. Luke is such an awesome driver here, both on the moto and now in a full-sized car! skills.

This town is amazing with such a great vibe. It is raining here too, but at this point, we don't mind so much. We went to Ramana Marashi's ashram tonight for a bit once the heaviest rains broke. Tomorrow we will walk around Mt. Arunachala on the inner path and look for the temple that is for recieving blessings for babies (Oh, Shelbey and our mothers, I know you are going to love that!! hehehe!).

We will be here two nights and then we take a bus back to Chennai to catch a flight to Mumbai. From there we will hire a car to take us to Ganeshpuri, where Mukunda, my teacher is and then we are fly Mumbai to Delhi on the 20th and then our flight leaves Delhi at 3:05am on the 21st. And there you go, folks! Man, three weeks just flys on by, doesn't it?

And still no photos posted, even though I have been taking tons and videos too. So many good little clips of my view out the bus window or a street-stall dosa maker. Really great videos but I am having technological issues on my own and Luke is buzzing away with work--yeah for work and clients!

Will you be terrible sad if you don't get photos until we are home? It is a total bum deal. I know this, but it is shaping up this way. Don't be blue my little ladoos! I promise there will be visual treats soon, for now, it is up to your limitless imaginations, which may be just as fun.

Heaps and oodles of love to each and every one of you! This is from Luke and I both <3

Hanging in Pondy

We rented a scooter, not a moto for convenience this time in Ponducherry. I am just not ready to be driving Luke and I both around on a big moto, but I can give my man a whirl on a scooter! (Hold on back there blondie!) We found out that our guest house had changed the rules about allowing guest to park rented bikes inside their gates at night, but then we were told, after renting it, that there was a 50/50 chance of it being stolen overnight if we left out on the street. urgh. Luke has been logging so many hours for work this trip, during yesterdays go at the computer cafe, I headed out to get the scoop on parking situation. Every local whom I spoke to said the same, that it would likely get taken or damaged if we parked it on street overnight. So while Luke was working, I made friends with Thomas, the police office who is station near our hotel and he invited us to lock up the bike at his apartment that also happened to be right above the internet place where Luke was already working at. It is good made friends with a local cop, but to tell you how small this town is in some respects: the lady who owns the internet shop where Luke was asking me why we have been talking with the Police because she was spying out her window at us for the last few days. I love that she came right out with her spying and then started right in with the questions.

We were able to get reservations for meditation inside the Mantrimandir both today and tomorrow, so as long as it doesn't rain before it's time to enter, than we will have another hour inside this amazing structure. Here is a link to some interior photos since we can't take snaps while inside. The round, white room with the pillars is where we sit for meditation, or what the members of the community call, "concentration." I just do what I do in that perfect, beautiful space.

Luke is back working and I am catching us up here. We just had a new job come through that will put his flash skills to work! yahoo!

We are trying to plan the last week of the trip, as the beginning of the last week is officially here! Darn it, three weeks just blows by whether you are traveling or you're at home.

This trip has really helped us get more clear on what we want in life, how we want to live, to travel and the people we want to be with, to partner with. Deepening connections coming our way, as are big shifts toward new directions. Nothing like a little change of scenery, both physical and mental, to help you see your way.

Touching Down in Chennai

We had an easy set of flights from Amrisar to Chennai via a stopover in Delhi. We woke up this morning after a pretty good sleep in our Chennai budget hotel. It is a pretty clean, but they have no top sheets or blankets for us; no towels either and the dhobi wallah will not be bringing more until tomorrow. Those table clothes I have purchased at the FabIndia in Amritsar are coming in handy as a sheet now. I am just now realizing that we should have used those table clothes for the freezing train too. damn.

After negotiating a taxi for a few hours to take us to the EcoCafe for breakfast and to the attached Anokhi, then to Little Mount where St. Thomas lived in mediation and hermitry before he was martyred just a few kilometers away, and then to the Chennai bus station to catch an afternoon bus to Ponducherry. The EcoCafe is a yummy and a hip hangout for well-to-do locals and ex-pats. We have fabulous cafe lattes and breakfasts. And Anokhi, the most happy shopping I've had, perhaps in the entirety of my life. Sweet Mother, I have scored and will now be clothed in the new year. (btw, Ashley picked out the best shoes for me in Amritsar and I will including photos of those gorgeous little slippers in the future.)

Our driver had a difficult time finding the Little Mount and its chapel, so stopping to ask directions that were excitedly offered up by fellow taxi drivers, by auto rickshaw drivers, by men on the street, by the man in the EcoCafe parking lot who had lived and worked in the States. With a little back tracking and some this-ways and that-ways, we made it. It was a sweet little complex of chapels and then the cave of St. Thomas. This was also the place of several of his miracles: they are where he struck his staff into the rock and it opened up to produce a spring of water, a place in the stone where his footprint burned the ground below his foot and several places in this cave where he had placed his hands and there too were imprints of his hand. There were two young Indian Catholic girls who were in the cave with us; they were praying in Tamil, and except for punctuating name of Jesus which they spoke in English.

After the Little Mount, we drove to the bus station. We grabbed some water, some snacks and hopped right on an express bus which drives on the coast road to Pondy. Easy peasy. More soon about the bus ride and getting settle in here.

oxo,
Nichole

ps I am not editing these posts much, b/c I am trying to zip through them. I can barely stand this, but it is the only way that I think I can swing it b/c Luke is busy with work and so the blog might be written entirely by me this time, which is unfortunate b/c Luke's voice is so great.

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello.

The most blessed and damnable thing has happened: the antenna on my laptop is about 95% kaput. This means to be online, I need an Ethernet or I need to sit in an internet café typing instead of being out in the world. Again, sorry for the delay, but we are here again my friends!

Luke and I are in the Delhi domestic terminal right spending a few hours here before catching our 4:05 flight to Chennai. Luke is working away and I am catching us up here and enjoying my latest book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, which my sister recommended to me. I am up to the morning of Clare and Henry’s wedding and I am really enjoying it so far.

We left Amritsar this morning on a 8:30 flight, but first I need to catch you all up on our days in Rishikesh. After Rishikesh, I will start on the two great days we spent in Amritsar and a wonderful new friend that we made and traveled with. Also, I know we haven’t been putting up photos yet. I am especially sorry about this, as I know you all love the photos. Again, this is because my computer is being wonky and Luke using his to work, work, work. (three cheers for work, paychecks and staying connected!) Don’t you fret; we have been snapping away and I promise photos will be added once we get settled in Pondicherry where we are heading after a stop-over tonight in Chennai. For now, I am typing in Word and will add later once I have internet.

Overnight Train Hullabaloo

We decided that going to east to Varanasi on this trip, and to Bodgaya, were just too difficult with every thing else we were trying to do in the amount of time that we have. It really was really difficult to finally choose, because it meant not going to our friend’s wedding and also to miss another chance at receiving a blessing from the Karmapa, but the are other friends that we wanted to see and we will attend a full Monlam in the future. Also, we had the time we had spent with Kalpana going through the days-worth of wedding photos made us realize something---while we want to dance around in a wedding procession for a bit, we don't want to attend a huge, exhausting wedding on this trip. And maybe in the future as well. I know this is a disappointment to many of our friends and family, but you've got to take our word, OR get your own selves invited to an Indian wedding and we get our fix via your adventure!

Once we decided against the east for now, we bought two overnight tickets to Amritsar to visit the Golden Temple and to check out the Indian and Pakistan Border Crossing Ceremony. We got two first class tickets, which were anything but. We didn’t even get blankets or pillow the way the 2nd and 3rd AC bunks get, there was no plug to charge our stuff in our compartment, there was no heat and the window was immovable stuck up a few inches. Ashley, Luke and I put on every stitch of warm clothing we had, locked the compartment and snuggled in. (btw, 5 points to Ashley for rolling up her towel and plugging the crack in the window!) A few hours later after some surprising sleep—I only knew I was asleep because I had now been woken up—there was bang! bang! bang! at the compartment door. It is an older Indian man asking to be let in as he has also was ticketed a bunk in our compartment. If we would have know how many empty bunks there were and also the giant pain in the butt this guy turned out to be, we would have taken the opportunity then to zip up our packs and to move them and us down the train to an compartment. We had all been (mostly) asleep and had built up a level of radiant heat from having the door closed for a few hours, and in comes this bumbling dude. He leaves the door open when he heads to the toilet, he flips on the overhead lights, he offers to Ashley that she can come up and share his blanket and bunk with him...at least we think he did. Once he gets himself settled and has totally unsettled us, he starts right out the gate with bone shaking snores. Seriously??? I burst out laughing at how absolutely ludicrous this whole is scene quickly becoming. Ashley, who is in her own bunk below, begins to give him a push with her foot every half an hour or so, which helps with the snoring for short bouts, but then he begins. After one such “friendly” kick, Ashley and I are sharing a thumbs-up when he leans over the edge of his bunk and catches. After he wakes, he turns the lights back, comes and sits on the bunk that Luke and I are sharing and drinks the chai that he has just bought after leaving the door open again. It goes on from there, for another hour or so before he finally reaches his stop. Later we find out that the most of the compartments in our car had been open all night. We are totally bushed (and slap happy) once we arrive in Amritsar, so we walk to the nice hotel across from the train station and check in. After some sleep and showers and work (they have pretty good wifi) we are off to the Golden Temple. I need to log off for a bit, so I will add a separate post all about our time in Amritsar and also introduce you properly to our friend, Ashley. She is awesome and the only fellow traveller (and American) to make into an inner orbit of Luke and mine.

Until then, hugs and kisses from Luke and me!

Relaxing in Rishikesh

Rishikesh is so nice and mellow. It is easy and familiar. It is the perfect place to settle in and to get over some jetlag. After rolling out of bed, we grabbed some awesomely hot showers and headed out for some brekie. We landed at the Ganga Beach café where we could eat out in the open area under the Laximan Jula (bridge). Luke had brought a beautiful card and pair of handmade earrings with him from Boulder for me to open. They are beautiful, Indian inspired earrings and I will include a photo for you to see. I also got a card that David left for me before he moved on. He and I shared a great conversation about Arunachala the night before on the train and then the next morning, The Times of India did a cool little story on the mountain for their December 1st edition. He included in with the card and wished Luke and I all the best in visiting the mountain soon.

During breakfast, while we were making plans for the day and laughing at how goofy we are feeling from our jetlag, we are watching the monkeys all over the bridge. I’ve linked to the page about the bridge, and you will see too for our pictures that it is a beautiful, wiry web of a foot/moto/cow/donkey bridge. The monkey are up and down it; climbing the cables and the towers on each end. They play and fight with each other, and they also pirate from the locals and tourists who happen across their bridge with something they want. It is one of my favorite things to do while in Laxman Jula; to get some masala chai and to watch the monkeys work the rest of us over.

After a bit of a sit at the restaurant, there was a big monkey scramble high on the bridge. The big alpha male was hauling down the length of the bridge after another monkey, and all the other monkeys were hot pursuit to check out the action. After a bit of tussle, and horrible monkey screeching, we watched a tiny little monkey falling from the bridge, grasping at the air around him during his long fall into the river below. Whether he fell or was thrown off by the big male, or another monkey, we don’t know. We couldn’t see from our seats. As soon as he popped up, he began swimming determinedly across the rather stiff current of the Ganges and his mother had leapt from the bridge to a tree below and then scrambled down the rocky shoreline. Her huge leap was around 50 feet, from bridge to the tree below! As soon as he arrived at the water’s edge, she plucked him out and latched him safely to her belly before going off in the opposite direction of the big male still on the bridge above. Monkeys are very invested in their babies and this momma was no slouch.

The rest of the day we spent kicking back, going for a walk along the river and napping off that fresh, but weakening jetlag. We visited our friend’s, Abishesk and Kalpana’s parent’s shop, and they recognized us immediately from our time with them back in 2005! Their mom gave Luke and me both big warm hugs and invited us in for chai and cookies. We had brought printed photos to give to them from our last visit. Abishesk had grown about two feet in the last four years and Kalpana had gotten married, moved to Dehradoon and had a baby six months ago. It was a great visit and the first of many over the next few days.

(I am playing some catch-up here, so I realize I am bouncing around a bit. I am just going to rattle off some stories as they come to me.)

Blogging Backlogged

I have reconsidered blogging this trip; and then reconsidered again. And then reconsidered two more times, which I believe lands me back on a “yes” to blogging. Completely unplugging sounds sooo good to me right now and rare treat, but I have edits due for the immunity article I’ve written and a bio to write too. What to write for a bio? I am learning to speak in the third person and to appreciate all of my studies, education and experiences that have lent themselves to my writing.

This trip has developed as zoom, zoom, zoom then settling in here in Rishikesh. We had a wonderful time in Chicago with my sister and her family, Brandon and Rhonda and my folks. Lots of great time together playing cards, kicking back and eating great food. We also made a trip into the city—riding trains is a really joy for me and mostly any train will fit the bill.

We flew from Chicago to Munich, but first a bit of frenzied start. Quick version: wrong terminal, ride the train to correct terminal, try to get boarding passes from kiosk after lengthy, digital questionnaire, no boarding pass given, turned away from security when we gave them what the kiosk gave us, the brewing of I-like-easy-and-early-check-in tears from me, a wonderful woman hooking us up with boarding passes and a shortcut through security, Luke misreading the gate as B18, getting to B18 with not much time left before boarding, seeing that B18 is going to Dubai, finding departure screen and seeing that we are flying out of C18, dashing with bags to the C concourse, toilet, standing in line while Luke ran to fill water bottles, boarding with a spare seat next to us and a beautiful Serbian woman who was coming from a 2 month visit with her son and his family. She covered our feet with blankets as Luke and I took turns stretching into the empty seat between she and us, trying to get some sleep.


We slept pretty well on the flight. I was starved from not having a chance to eat before we boarded the plane. When I asked the attendant for another vegetarian meal, he explained that he had never seen anyone finish one of those before, so he happily obliged me and Luke and I shared another.

Once we got to Munich airport, we hopped the train to Pullach where our friends, Todd and Amanda and their son, Rider, live. For those of you following out trip last year, these are the same friends that we stopped over with our last time through Munich. Rider was bigger and chatting up a storm—it was sweet welcome. They hugged us, fed us before sending us and our weary selves upstairs to shower and down for a nap in “our old bed.” *exhale*

After a few hours of sleep, we went down to the Christmas festival with them for a ½ hour before hoping the return train to the airport. Easy-peasy train and airport experiences once we left our own country---what could that mean?

Are you with me still?

After our arrival in Delhi, we still had not made plans of what to do and where to go upon our arrival. zip. nada. So, while getting our passports stamped on entry, we made a plan to go to Rishikesh until something called us in a direction. Ohhh, I almost forgot! We didn’t have to check our carry-on sized bags in Munich, which meant, we had our bags when we arrived in Delhi! Holy Moly! This was seriously big stuff, and again, for those following along from last time, leaving Delhi without your bags and trying to get them delivered to you in another state is not too much fun.

Luke when to get a SIM card for his phone and I got in line with a horde of young Indian men to get us train tickets to Rishikesh. I shared my pen with the boys in front of me and then kicked the butts of any other dudes who tried to cut in front of my in the queue; it was a nice little arrangement that came from some friendly smiles and each of us having what the other needed.

We got the SIM, we got tickets for later that afternoon, I got us a taxi ticket to Pahara Ganj, Luke grabbed a coffee and we exited the building to....to a tidied up version of the madness we have come to expect from entering the oh-so-German Munich airport and exiting the oh-so-Indian Delhi airport. I cried “foul!!” Where there were once taxis and masses of porters and drivers, there were benches and modern food vendors with lighted cards bearing Coke advertisements. There was a taxi queue and not a willy-nilly crush of cars and drivers. We got in our taxi, we exited the airport campus and still, all these flowers and tided-up streets and food stalls. We just landed here a year ago, but so much had changed. At first we mistakenly assumed that it was simply that we were getting used to the whole thing, but then we found us it was indeed cleaned up for the upcoming Common Wealth Games.

We got to PG, got some breakfast and a room to rest for 3 hours and then hopped our train. We shared a row with, David, a British traveler who was a kindred spirit with Luke and me. He had just spent three beautiful and challenging weeks showing his 70-year-old parents around North India and Kathmandu. They had never traveled in Asia before and it was a lot of work for him to help them be safe and comfortable: it is simply so different that it can overwhelm you at times. It is still fatigues me greatly and we sleep a lot (!) while we travel here.

For this story, we are still not quite in Rishikesh yet! After the train arrives in Haridwar, we get a screaming deal on a share-jeep to Rishikesh, so David joins us to Rishikesh. Once we arrive, we settle in for very hot showers and a familiar bed, as we have stayed in the Sant Sewa Ashram before. The morning comes, and it is my birthday and the prayers from morning aarti are rolling across the Ganges from various loudspeakers and the ashrams on the riverbanks. Happy birthday! Love, India.

More to catch us up soon. Thank you for the birthday messages here, on facebook and via emails. I appreciate each and every one!!

Happy Birthday in Rishikesh

We woke up on the bank of the Ganges River in Rishikesh. Our sweet bodies are working hard to catch up with all the travel we have had over the last week. Last Monday morning we were in Boulder, then Chicago, then Munich, then Delhi and now Rishikesh. We are a bit worked, but so happy!