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The wedding is tomorrow.  In about 30 minutes the henna application starts for the women guests, most especially the bride who will have designs applied on both hands up to her elbows, and both feet. I am SO excited!  And later today we will all be transported by taxi to a large enough place to accommodate us all for an evening of music performed by the groom, his friends and hired hands.

Thanksgiving Day offered up a slow, steady arrival of wedding guests.   Tantalizing, beautiful and bountiful celebrants who lovingly welcomed me into their embrace.  There will be somewhere between 120 and 150 guests, a quarter of the size of a traditional Indian wedding celebration.  It is all fun and games in the days leading up to the ceremony, which will be more somber and serious. The groom’s father will conduct the ceremony and he is a natural teacher who likes to explain everything.  Yesterday he took time to break down Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and the Vedas for me.  When I still didn’t get my answer about why Shiva gets the most press, his wife, Sushmaa, explained to me that Shiva has the most interesting stories.  Still later, their daughter and my friend, Richa, explained the three gods as the CEO (Shiva), CFO (Vishnu) and COO (Brahma).

Yesterday the groom introduced some culture blending at a bar called Phoebe’s on the beach.  Tables were rigged to simulate what many know as beer pong in the states, but he learned as beer die (dice) when attending college in Vermont 10 years ago.  He hadn’t seen many of his college friends since until a few days ago when they arrived for the wedding.  Added to his college pals were friends from his theater work in Mumbai.  I spent the evening with a number of them on the eve of Thanksgiving seated at a long table lit by candles, one of scores of similar establishments lit up by strings of festive bulbs of light along the strand that is Palolem Beach.  The sea crashing on one side,  met by chill out music coming from the restaurant on the opposing side.  I could only make out pieces of the conversations that happened in between in this most intoxicating blend.  We had to move the table up by about 10 or so feet when the sea lapped at our ankles catching us off guard.

The groom’s brother lives in Bahrain and at least 20 of his friends traveled to attend the wedding and also enjoy the vortex offered up by this beach in Goa that drains you of any concept of doing.  They all come from India but have lived for swaths of their lives in Bahrain, and they bring a party with them wherever they go.  When the day had climaxed to a complete cornucopia, it was Thanksgiving after all, a few of the Bahrain party contingent took turns playing DJ on the sound system at Dreamcatcher. They played Punjabi music loudly.  No one, save the elders, was permitted the option of staying seated for long.  Dancing in the sand to Punjabi music on Thanksgiving is a custom I would gladly embrace as a new tradition any time.

At one point there was a promise of heading out to another bar along the beach where Silent Noise parties take place.  Because the noise is supposed to shut down early, a few enterprising folks came up with the idea to set up DJs who play to 3 or 4 channels.  You tune into the channel of your choosing with your very own set of headphones and dance on the beach like no one is watching.  I, however, had hit a wall and was happy to take my 3rd or 4th shower of the day instead before retiring in the safe cocoon of my mosquito-netted bed. After coaxing the 3 frogs that had taken up residence off the toilet seat and away from the shower hose, of course.

Yesterday was a lazy day spent with the groom’s side of the family, including my soul sister Richa who opened this amazing door for me when she invited me to attend her baby brother’s wedding.  It was a gorgeous way to spend black Friday.  Punctuated by meals, fresh juice (watermelon and pineapple), coffee, tea and conversation I got to see the world she comes from and understand more about the source of the abundance she exudes.

It’s 11:30 and I am henna-bound.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because my interpretation of this holiday is that it is an opportunity to sit around a table celebrating abundance with people I love and to take stock of what fills me with gratitude. 

This morning started with a boat ride into the sun to observe dolphins breaking the waves in pursuit of their morning feed.  We passed monkey island and butterfly beach to get there.  My own breakfast was fresh fruit, mango lassi, French press coffee and a banana honey pancake/crepe.  Then sea and sun and conversation with a woman from Germany about ashrams, holidays, Ayurvedic treatments and death customs throughout the world.  Lime soda letter writing and then something magic.

Two little kids, a boy and a girl, I’m assuming a brother and sister team, walked into the field of view.  They were a picture, straggly and cute as all get out.  He looked to be about 4, and she couldn’t have been more than 2 years older than him.  He wore jeans and a white shirt.  She had unbrushed hair in pigtails and wore a fancy-ish white skirt with a gold hem.  He carried a hoop and a tin circle, almost a cake pan but more shallow.  They were captivating even before they started their performance and entirely self-possessed.  No adult accompaniment to been found in their traveling circus. 

He started beating the tin, mostly to get anyone’s attention who hadn’t already been got.  Then she took the tin and continued the percussion while he bobbled his head so that the tassle on top made circles in the air above his head.  He girated his tiny little hips in a funny dance and contorted his body in and out of the hoop before taking back his turn at percussion.  She took her turn twisting in and out of her rubbery arms.  For a finale they put down their instrument, locked hands to feet and made somersaults in the sand.  Then they walked around and collected rupees for their performance.  Of course I was happy to oblige.

I was took taken to snap a photo, so you’ll have to draw your own. 

And may something similar happen in your day to pierce your heart with gratitude for the impromptu, simple things that make you happy and thankful.

Tuesday morning was our first full meal breaking the fast since Saturday evening’s violent purge, coinciding with our 2 week mark.  Papaya juice, porridge and white toast never tasted so good.

breaking fast

It was inevitable. Our delicate, sensitive systems were destined for a cleanse of epic proportions at some point.  Fortunately, we were in a hospitable environment that was able to accommodate our severely weakened state.  We literally slept the majority of the hours away for the additional day and evening required to recuperate after testing the plumbing system of our tree house, taking turns for a period of about 7 hours, eternally grateful for the fact that every bathroom in India tends to have a bucket kept for for cleaning and in our case saved us from having to clean up after ourselves when double duty was necessary.

The on-site Ayurvedic doctor visited us in our tree house 20 feet

 

Tree House

above a freshly planted patch of cardamon plants to deliver 2 tablets of VomiStop, which helped to stop the rampage.  The doc also suggested porridge, rice, toast, no spice, and nothing cold.  We called room service to order porridge once we were moved to a new cottage.  They only let you stay in the tree house one night to allow others the novelty.  However since porridge was not offered as part of the lunch buffet, and the lunch buffet was over anyway, the best they could offer was a veg sandwich.  That would have been the equivalent of using sandpaper on an open wound.  I bleated my discontent at this option and suggested we involve the doctor to call room service on our behalf.  Dawn called the front desk and the web of communication required to manifest this simplest of dishes materialized a single dish of porridge served in a brass serving dish with 2 spoons.

They were incredibly friendly at Carmelia Heaven, a tea plantation and resort in the higher altitudes of Kerala, but options outside of the given choices were not so easily negotiated.  Everyone is agreeable and nods in the affirmative, but as we learned, that does not necessarily mean they actually understand you.  While the desire to make you happy is appreciated, the fact that this ameliorating behavior is based on a misunderstanding is frustrating.  The further we traveled away from the more touristed coast was in direct proportion to an increase in this disparity.

The day before after an Auryvedic massage, feeling particularly naked and vulnerable, all I wanted was a cup of cardamom tea and a banana split.  There’s something about a banana split when I am far from home that makes me supremely happy.  I went round and round with the restaurant staff with this request to ultimately arrive at the fact that it was 3:02 pm according to the cell phone being used as a time device which was different than the clock that read 2:45 pm over his head which was different than the clock that read 2:30 pm in the office I’d just come from.  On top of that, the waiter informed me that my travel companion had already ordered coffee, lamb and potato salad to the tree house and well, it just wasn’t an option for me to also order tea and a banana split at 3:02 pm.  Mind you, banana split was something they offered on their menu.  He called the tree house from the restaurant phone in order for me to speak with my travel companion to verify.  As much as lamb, potato salad and coffee are things that I don’t mind, it wasn’t what I had a taste for.  I stormed out of the restaurant clearly the one that was not like the others, with my hair slick and oily from my treatment.

This incident fanned the fire from the previous day when we requested a taxi to Thekkady, 25 km away, for a spice tour to see how spices grow and are processed.  It didn’t seem possible to extract this request from a larger, longer, more expensive tour involving lakes, tigers and elephant rides.  The desire was put to rest, sort of, because the idea of spending another 6 hours driving around after our longer than anticipated journey to arrive at Carmelia was a bit of a killjoy.  However, the fact that I was missing something gnawed at me (read, theme of my life).  After the mini-meltdown of feeling misunderstood, I joined the 4:30 pm tour of the estate.  As fortune would have it, cardamom was growing in every direction, pepper vines climbed bay trees, clove, cocoa, coffee, cinnamon, sandalwood, and mahogany were all around me.  I just didn’t know what I was looking at.  Read, story of my life.

Back to the restoration to health, we managed enough porridge to start a base of a digestive system again and were awake long enough to catch the endings, beginnings and middles of CSI episodes, sci-fi, action adventure, and war movies.  This particular dose of delirium did not offer enough stamina to do much more and the scenes in these snippets of film infiltrated my dreamy state for the next few days.  Looking out over the thatched umbrellas at Palolem Beach this morning, I half expect to see Tom Cruise walk along as the too cool for you glasses drop into his hands giving him his next mission, should he choose to take it.

We had no intentions of staying a 3rd night, though the setting was lovely and the cool mountain air and strong breeze were a welcome reprieve form the heat and humidity of the lower lying seaside cliffs.  My ankles made a re-appearance as well, shirking a thicker version of themselves.  Perhaps this unintended cleanse is an opportunity to re-baseline some food choices.  For now, we’re both casting a suspicious eye on most things and the smell of spices that I typically love are still turning my stomach.

Our driver from Varkala to Carmelia Heaven, Suji, had never driven so far afield.  This heaven is amidst the land of spices at 4,000 feet above sea level.

friendly curiousity at the tank

Suji used to work in house-cleaning at the place we stayed in Varkala until he got his license.  As we got closer to Carmelia, he asked at nearly every traffic circle if we were headed in the right direction.  From what we could tell, directions tended to be a head nod and a hand lifted in the general direction away from the traffic circle.  I was curious when we left Varkala how he would navigate the 4 hour journey, which turned out to be 6.5 hours partially due to his cautious driving.  It was a harrowing drive at many turns, again more for me than Dawn, horns used to communicate when you are taking a turn.  Drivers that grow impatient will speed up on the ascent or descent to bypass slower moving traffic, requiring that they move into the opposing lane in a perpetual game of what seems like a well practiced version of chicken or Russian roulette.  Most times it works out just grand.  Still, its a bit about trust and faith.

Suji also had a great sense of humor.  He was our driver the day we went to the Golden Isle.  Once on the water, he made an attempt to point out a mosque on the horizon.  We didn’t see where he was pointing and due to what gets lost in translation, Dawn heard Moscow.  We all had a good laugh as a result.  Similarly, when we set out for what we thought was Thekkady (translates to teak wood because that is what likes to grow in this area at 3,500 feet), and we knew it was further afield than Suji had ventured before, Dawn declared this an adventure.  The word adventure was not in his English vocabulary.  How do you define adventure?  Dawn harkened back to Moscow, explained that not knowing a place, like Moscow, but being excited to journey there was was an adventure.  Every time something unique happened for the duration of our journey, ‘adventure’ was offered to encompass the experience.

Our adventure to spice country took us past a festival for Sabarimala and the shrine we passed is believed to be the place where Ayyappan meditated, his mount is a tiger.

Sabarimala

Thousands of very happy men and boys filled the streets , wearing orange and black lungees and various colored chalks on their chests and backs.  Further along the on the adventure we saw scores of uniformed school children heading home from school, either walking or in busloads, girls with samesame plaited hair holding hands, boys with easy arms over the shoulders of others, and older children shepherding the younger ones.  Countless villages, weathered walls, rubber tree groves, elephants, waterfalls, hours of lush foliage and eventually the sky opened up to the mountainous terrain of tea plantations in their orderly rounded patterns.

Kerala's Higher Altitudes

Our descent to Cochin to catch the 13:45 Madgaon Express offered similar scenes, except the children were boarding buses to go to school.  No elephants.  And our driver, James, was a rock star on the gas pedal, making our descent feel more like a chariot racing down the roadway.  We were both leery of how our delicate stomachs might respond to the twists and turns, and thankfully Dawn spared me knowledge of the fact that James’ tires were bald until yesterday when we were safely delivered and had slept some more in our Goan accommodations at Dreamcatcher where we were put up in the cottage termed Pluto before we were moved to Bliss later in the day.  You have to pass Little Venus, Moon Beam and Star Dust to get to Bliss.  The cottages are simple, elevated structures with thatched roofs allowing passage to creatures from the outdoors, such as the frog that jumped on Dawn’s forearm when she went to take a shower last night.  We think it was the same frog that she found again later in the evening when she went to use the toilet and found him in residence therein.  Since she knew what his suction felt like, she knew what to be prepared for from down under should he be so bold. 

We are commonly referred to as Madame (MADum) on this trip, that is once the person recognizes, or is told, that Dawn is a woman.  Her short hair and style of dress are not recognizable as choices women would make.  Other regular head-scratchers include the response we get when we respond that neither of us is married, nor do we have children.  It just doesn’t fit in this place where even in remote places huge billboards advertise gold, silk and weddings.

The restoration to health after illness is a remarkable thing.  Hard to believe that 36 hours ago we were incapacitated.  I sat for hours at an open air cafe yesterday looking up occasionally at the Arabian Sea and sunbathing Europeans, braving mint tea and veg Hakka noodles, well on my way to re-hydration while writing this entry.  Our traveling pharmacy served us well and pedialyte, cipro, and aleve all helped expedite the return to wellness.

It was good that Tuesday was a travel day, 4 hours in a taxi with James and a 14-hour train

Madgaon Express, Cochin to Goa

ride on the Indian Railways.  The train ride was a dreamy lull with minimal time required for hauling our gear to and fro.  It helped to mentally prepare for the crowds, heat, and smells to be expected at the station before boarding our train.   Dawn and I talked last evening about why some of the more unpleasant things aren’t making it into the blog, such as the smells, the omnipresent piles of trash, the fact that the sun soaked structures and lives could use some freshening up or a paint job, and the few penetrating encounters with beggars.    There was one young girl that really got to me when we were leaving Mumbai.  She came out into the traffic and reached her hand through the window and put it on my arm.  A friend told me to look at everyone, regardless of how they tugged at my heart, as a manifestation of god.  Another told me that you can’t have one blanket policy of how you will deal with the beggars.  Even using the blanket term of beggars is distressing to me.  The traffic light couldn’t change soon enough.  Dawn was trying to tell me something and I couldn’t hear her at all, I just saw her lips moving.  The young girl’s lips were chapped to the point of crust at the

corners and the thought of her bare feet on the black tarmac made my brain waves turn to white noise.  I couldn’t imagine the callouses she’d acquired to manage standing in the middle of the day in the hot sun on that black tarmac and the callouses on her feet being a microcosm of the macrocosm of callouses required to live her life.  Our knowledgeable lady guide, and others, told us that giving money or things that can be resold feeds into a bankrupt system that feeds on itself, so I looked at her for the manifestation of god that she was and swallowed my projections.  Dawn’s compassionate gaze in my direction and utterance of ‘oh sweetie’ assuaged my thin skin.  We both expected something much more intense than our experiences thus far based on what we read and were told.  We have not been raped, pillaged or had anything stolen and everyone is easy with a smile.  Helpful, friendly, magnanimous and quite beautiful. Still, the smell of layers of sun-baked piss, raw sewage, the belching, and abundant nasal passage clearing sans receptacle is downright overwhelming at times.

Cardamom is considered the queen of spices, and pepper the king.  Cardamom grows in clusters, the pods are part of the root structure and are harvested every 45 days to commence the drying process that will reduce them to a quarter of their harvested weight.  Pepper grows on a vine hosted by another tree and is harvested annually in December/January.  Exactly when it is picked and how it is processed determines the shade – red, black, white or green.  The scent of the white flowers that grow with the pods at the base of the cardamom attract snakes, cobras to be specific as I learned from Barrette, a 17-year old boy who looked remarkably like an Indian version of my nephew Ryan and my chosen consort who happened to be the General Manager’s son joining the plantation tour for an evening walk.  To deter the thousands of snakes that would be crawling in an orgiastic way amongst the cardamom roots for love of the fragrance, the plantation employs a threefold method to deter the revelry.  Still, I asked Barrette, do you see snakes?  He nodded in the affirmative.  I pressed further.  So, what does one do if a cobra comes along?  He assured me they are used to people and you just let them pass.  This information turned out to not be necessary during our plantation tour and mini-trek, nevertheless I was happy to have this information for the remainder of our time at Carmelia.

The beach is calling, more on Auryvedic treatments next time.  Yesterday was a point of transition.  Sharing a sick bed and 21 days of non-stop time together brought us to needing a tad more distance.  Dawn sets off for a few days at a boutique hotel to recharge the batteries.

Madames’ adventure to Moscow, and back to the sea again.

Inhale deeeeePLEE, exhale compleeeetLEE. So said the Sivananda-trained yoga teacher.  The class started at 8.  I was awake at 6.  The sleep pattern these days is erratic.  One night sleep eludes me, the next I am falling asleep in my dinner.  There’s no alarm clock or schedule to keep, just the ebb and flow of days to dissolve into.  This may be one of my favorite features about this mini-sabbatical.  Dawn loves the hot milk served with  coffee and the hose option given in lieu of toilet paper.  I also like that everyone takes off their foot wear, predominantly sandal-like, before entering any of the stalls or stores along this hippie village termed Varkala by the sea in the Indian state of Kerala.  Kerala is billed as god’s own country and between the vistas, food, and abundant body work options it is easy to see why.  It is the spice garden of India and cashew trees are aplenty too.

I snuck out quietly a few minutes before 7 and had a pre-yoga cappuccino at Coffee Temple on the Varkala cliffs overlooking the Arabian Sea yesterday.  Morning bhajans were playing over the sound system of this caffeine temple with images of Hindu gods, Amma and Jesus banding together.  Sitting at a seaside table with the silk-on-skin sensation of a breeze, the sideways sun not yet high in the sky illuminated everything in its path from the inside out.

Well within the belly of this journey, more days to go than past, losing track of days and dates, forgetting what we were supposed to do in favor of hours by the pool or staring at the sea.  Conversations, stories, observations, plans for the coming days, and business plans for future chapters.  It is fantastic to know someone for over  twenty years and have so much to learn about each other, still.  Over one of many delicious seafood dinners this week which included a happy hour blended bloody merry (their spelling, on special for 70 R instead of the usual 95 R, or about a buck twenty) and butter fish cooked Kerala style in a banana leaf with coconut milk, cashews and spices … slurp, we agreed that there are no spoilers for either of us, just enhancers in traveling together.  We both know how to be alone, and require it.  Taking time away enhances the time spent together, and we are both comfortable with silence, or talking when there’s something to say.  We even share most of the same rummy rules which we discovered over a weak Kingfisher lager last night while our skin turning browner by the day glistened in Odomos fending off the mosquitoes in the gazebo where all meals are served on the grounds of our accommodations.

The day before yesterday we hired a driver to take us around coastal Kerala a bit.  We visited Sivagiri Mutt, a famous ashram in Varkala, founded by the philosopher and social reformer Sree Narayana Guru who died in 1928 and has disciples to this day propagating his concept of ‘One Caste, One Religion, One God’.  A sign outside the ashram read, ‘The self and the world are not two.’  Very groovy philosophy indeed.

We also went to Ponnumthurut Island.  A boatman lead us out on a vessel called a vallam to the ‘golden isle’ just in time to visit the 500-year old Shiva temple during the morning mantras.  The boatman wearing the traditional skirt-like fabric that gets tied and twisted in numerous ways, pronounced luuGe.    We circumnavigated the island over the murky salt backwaters, home to many a species of bird, in the blazing morning sun in a clockwise path, disembarking at the midpoint to visit the temple.

Our timing was perfect – the priest came out of the Shiva temple within 5 minutes of our arrival, having said the morning mantra.  We could see as he opened the doors that the inside was alight with countless candles. One of the men who had been spearing leaves to keep the temple grounds clean clanged the bell a bunch of times to announce that the morning mantra was complete. Then the priest moved on to Vishnu’s temple.

We also went to an elephant cottage, but that was just sad so not uplifting stories or cute photos from that.  Hopefully we’ll see some happier, wild elephants when we go to Thekkady in the Western Ghats tomorrow.

The 170 km drive down from Cochin this past Sunday took 4 hours in a sort of driving meditation.  Suddesh, our driver from Munnar (a hill town in the Western Ghats), did a fantastic job navigating the road.  He said he sees 3 to 4 accidents each time he makes the drive which is approximately once a week.  We passed two fresh accidents during our drive.  Fire trucks and EMT do not rush to the scene of an accident, but eventually a vehicle with a siren makes its way to help out the injured.  The roadways are single lane with a shoulder, driver on the right side of the vehicle, left side of the road, British-isle style.  Anything that happens on the road it is very visible, including the distress of the injured.  We stopped briefly at the second accident, long enough to see that  a slew of locals were rushing to help.

The omnipresent obvious in this village is the sea.  You can hear it behind everything when you’re outside, away from the whir of fans and the cocoon of air conditioning at night.  Behind chat, the hum of insects, bird calls, motorized vehicles, and music from the various food establishments and shops along the cliff.  I spent nearly 2 hours with a man named Shabir, from Kashmir, on our second day here negotiating the price for some jewelry.  The strand of lapis I walked away with is gorgeous and was the one thing I went looking for.  Ever since I learned that lapis lazuli was the source of ink for many an illuminated manuscript at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, I’ve had a love affair with this semi-precious intense shade of blue stone.

Not one for organized religion, I do find the rituals and artifacts that various religions reference beautiful and fascinating.  The reason the Chester Beatty Library is one of my favorite museums is because it assembles the stories of many religions under one roof.   After a visit to the hushed, low-lit, non-denominational building, you walk away with the awareness that we humans like to tell stories to make sense of this life.  This was the subject of conversation over another coffee at the temple yesterday afternoon.  Dawn commented that she has built a world she feels safe in, and this reminded me of the class I am eternally grateful for taking at San Francisco State University over 20 years ago called Creation Mythology.  We read the stories that are the basis for many of the world’s religions in that class, and again the awareness I walked away with is that we humans like to tell stories to make sense of this life.  Our final assignment was to write our own creation mythology.  What would your creation mythology look like if you could cherry pick the qualities of the gods, goddesses, plants and animals that resonate with you?  For me it is a practice that invites, coaxes, and deepens the dropping into and integration of self, allowing an awakening into a more harmonious reality, no separation.  Excursions like this provide an expansive playground for such things.  And, like Jack Kornfield says with his book title of Buddhist meditations, After the Ecstasy, The Laundry.  How to be present when it isn’t all fun and games and travel and newness every day.

Yesterday during an extended period poolside, Dawn handed me her headphones saying I had to listen to a certain song.  Both of us listen to music all the time at home, but neither of us have been listening to music very much on this trip.  It was fun to be in this foreign world and transported again the way music has the power to induce.  I’ll probably use the song she played (some French band whose name and song title I can’t recall) as the music for a montage of photos from this trip.  But then I listened to the playlist I put together for this trip.  First it was a song my sister Sarah turned me onto when she visited last summer.  It was fun to have those memories for a song.  Then it got too hot where I was sitting and I walked into the shade, iPod nano clipped to my suit, sat on the edge of the pool, legs dangling in the still cool water and the following triptych played.  The songs and messages paralleled the day.

At the Bottom of Everything (Bright Eyes)

Out of the Depths (Sinead O’Connor)

Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)

Namaste-ji

Only the hum of the air conditioner at 3:30 a.m.  No traffic, no taxis conversing in the cacophony of beeps, even the crows cawing is silent at this hour.  Awake, mind whirring, digesting the feast for the senses served up by Mumbai, formerly Bombay.  Bombay (Bom Bahia) is the pronunciation of the name the Portugese gave this city in perpetual transition during the one hundred year stint from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s when the Brits moved in for the next one hundred years.  It means beautiful bay.

On our third full day in Mumbai we hired a guide through Mumbai Magic, a service Dawn saw advertised in a travel mag.  It turns out the owner of this operation, Deepa, started this business after leaving a successful career as a banker, having earned her degree from a prestigious university for finance.  Deepa, according to our ‘knowledgeable lady guide’, Sandhya, has a passion for shedding a different light on Mumbai, which is not traditionally a tourist city.  Deepa also has a passion for empowering women, hence her entire roster of guides is composed of knowledgeable ladies.  We were delighted to learn that we had chosen an operation that gainfully employs women in a country that has some catching up to do on this front.

And Sandhya as indeed as knowledgeable as she was lovely.  She has been giving tours for 22 years, and has lived in Mumbai for 35 years.  She self-educated for this industry through copious amounts of reading covering everything from the Hindu pantheon of gods and what they symbolize, to the history of the city, architecture, markets and so on.  The tours we paid for were an expedition to Elephanta Island and a wander through a food market in an area of the city called Matunga (people choose to live in this neighborhood for the quality of the food).  The topics we discussed over the course of our full day together, however, covered a vast catalog of topics.  She directed the taxi drivers that took us to Matunga from Colaba, and back to the YWCA after our food extravaganza, to take different routes through the city to also give us a broader sense of this western facing port city, termed the gateway to India.

King George V entered the stone-structure literally termed the Gateway to India built exclusively for his arrival in 1911.  Mumbai is strategically located and has been a center of commerce for centuries.  Shipbuilding, raw cotton, cotton mills, textiles, and now service.  Sandhya pointed out the defunct stacks of the cotton mill industry as we passed by en route to Matunga.  These buildings are now transitioning to residences and this is changing how communities are organized.  She guided us into an example of a traditionally structured community, and momentarily away from the foodie haven in Matunga where multiple families live in a 4 story building and all dwellings open to a central square.  She explained that in this structure everyone knew one another, festivals were/are communally celebrated, romances happened across balconies, as well as gossip.

Sandhya explained that Mahatma Ghandi situated himself in Bombay because he knew it was a strategic and powerful place to put his philosophy into practice to develop a base of support to resist the inequity of the cotton mill and textile industry which were structured to exploit the Indians and benefit the British.  Of course now there are statues and major boulevards throughout India named in his honor.  Ghandi is quoted as having said, “the world has enough for every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”  This quote was lifted and scribed with a permanent marker on oak tag and posted inside of a closed bank branch window when the Occupy Wall Street movement in Oakland called for a general strike downtown on November 2.  He also said, “my life is my message.”  Words to live by.

Ghandi using his intellect to stamp out injustice reminds me of the story about Shiva earlier that day in the Hindu temples carved into the volcanic rock on Elephanta Island in his honor.  We were in front of an angry Shiva, sword firmly held in his right hand after having decapitated the head of a demon of darkness whose blood would have propagated more demons had it touched the earth.  Fortunately Shiva has more than two hands, and was able to also catch the demon’s blood in a bowl while simulataneously ringing the bell to announce his victory.  A different level of multi-tasking  altogether, the symbolism depicted in this gorgeous carving created 1,300 years ago by a devoted craftsman demonstrates that with the sword of intellect, this human incarnation grants us the power to slay the demons of vice and not succumb just to instinct.  We have the ability to condition ourselves through our work, intellect, asceticism to become one again with the god source.

Sandhya pointed out that if you attempt to remember all the gods, goddesses, their progeny, their various incarnations, and their mounts you’re missing the point of Hinduism.  A living religion that offers a panoply of accessible gods all meant to symbolically provice entrance to choosing the path of enlightenment, and away from the darkness.

Elephanta is a UNESCO world heritage site and place of annual pilgrimmage every February/March when Shiva’s birthday is celebrated.  His birthday is determined by the lunar calendar, hence the lack of a fixed date.  Pilgrims pay homage at the intact Shivalingum, and there are two intact lingams within the caves.  The lingums look like the rounded half of an inverted capsule.  Many of the carvings with human faces that populate the temple were used as target practice by boys with their toys in aother century and have lost chunks of devotional detail.  Wonder how karma saw to their reincarnation?  The good news is that we cycle through until we get it right.

The ferry ride out to the island was a welcome respite from the heat.  It’s a funny heat in that it doesn’t necessarily feel oppressive at first, but it builds.  You see people all over the city succumbing to this exhaustion and napping in a variety of positions on the ground, amidst groups or solo.  Many sleep where they work in the evenings as well (i.e. in their auto-rickshaw or taxi), or a patch of dirt near where they work.  It’s expensive to live in Mumbai and many have moved here for employment, but western concepts of upward mobility do not translate into this equation.  This took some acclimating.

Once on the island it is a walk (or a train ride) to stone steps that lead up and up past stalls and stalls of vendors selling jewelry, postcards, books, purses, devotional miniature statues, funny t-shirts (Come to India!  One billion people can’t be wrong) food, and more.  We stopped for one version of an Indian burger (because it is India, you won’t find beef on the menu anywhere – in fact the bull is Shiva’s mount) of fried potato on a bun on the way down.  A delicious treat made all the better by having to safeguard it from the grabby monkeys on the tarp overhead and lining both sides of the steps. 

First crow just sounded at 5:50 a.m.

More on food.  We had an eye-roll to the back of your head delicious seafood dinner the first night we were in downtown Mumbai at Trishna consisting of tandoori prawns, crab cooked in plenty of butter with garlic, salt and pepper, stuffed paratha and cheese naan.  That was my pouty, grumpy night.  Let me explain.

We had cashed in our business class voucher from Hong Kong to Mumbai and we rode in style with exceptional pampering.  I stayed awake for the majority of the seven hour flight to write the Hong Kong post.  When we landed in Mumbai, I was a kid-at-Christmas kind of excited – I have wanted to travel to India as long as I can remember.

Sushmaa and Suhaas picked us up and the pampering continued. We drank tea, ate snacks and stayed up until 4 a.m. engaged in riveting conversation with Sushmaa, my dear friend Richa’s mother.  Richia invited me to attend her brother Suhaas’ wedding (November 27) in Goa back in July, and that’s how this whole journey started.  By mid-August Dawn was on board.  By Labor Day we had our plane tickets.

We were up at 8 a.m. the following morning to the sounds of pigeons nesting in the windowsill, crows cawing in the palm trees outside the window, and locals heading to get milk from the cows being tended in the area behind Sushmaa’s apartment.  We had a tasty breakfast of flattened rice prepared with spices and tea before heading out to grocery shop, buy fabric, and go to the tailor to have measurements taken for the blouse I will wear with the sari I am borrowing from Sushmaa for the wedding.  Dawn is borrowing clothing as well, though not a sari.  

Then came our initiation to driving in India.  It was an hour plus non-air-conditioned ride bobbing and weaving through densely driven roads packed with auto-rickshaws, taxis, cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, motorcycles, buses, trucks, and the occasional cow – traffic lights optional – all moving in a fluid kind of organized chaos.  It’s a few days forward that I’m typing this post and there definitely seems to be a rhythm to it.  Dawn loves it.  Like my friend posted on Facebook – taxi drivers in India need a good horn, good brakes and good luck.  Passing two accidents from Cochin to Varkala the day before yesterday was unsettling, however.  Everyone rushes to attend to the injured.  Our taxi driver said that he passes 3 to 4 accidents every time he drives that road and I suggested that we not be one of them.  He saw to that with expert skills. 

During the drive from Sushmaa’s house to downtown Mumbai, our bags were on top of the taxi for the entire trek and thanks to all the indoctrination I had been given on how to safeguard your possessions and not to trust anyone, I spent a good chunk of that drive stressing about a heist.  We made it to our accommodations just fine, but I was in a mood, overwhelmed by the barrage to the senses, hot and tired.  And scared.  Resistance to the unfamiliar instigated a retreat into self and I wasn’t very good company.  Dawn graciously permitted me the space to work it out, and I did by waking up in the middle of the night to journal in an un-air-conditioned stairwell because the guys that serve as the bellman were scrunched up on loveseats in the common areas, sleeping where they work.

Back to Matunga.  The vendors buy their produce from wholesalers that truck it in.  What’s unique about Matunga is the care the vendors take to display their fruit and veg.  A host of recognizable produce was displayed with a variety of things I had never seen.  Gooseberries as big as plums, elephant foot (root), beetlenut fronds, and the raw nut itself (used in a digestive called pan that we had as a pallet cleanser after out pitstop for an udupi feast), parts of the banana tree that I didn’t know were edible (the flower and the stalk), green eggplants, a prickly veg that is super bitter and you need to peel it, salt it to bleach out the bitter and then serve it up with mint.  We also stopped in a well known silk sari shop with counters versus the sari shops we saw later along the way where women sit on mattresses on the floor while one sari more beautiful than the next is laid out in a dizzying array of choices.  And gold shops too.  Indians buy more gold than any other group of people, as noted by our knowledgeable lady guide.

Sandhya also pointed out the Muslim part of town on the way to the market as well as the variety of places of worship – mosques, synagogues, Christian churches, and Hindu temples.  On the way back at the end of our day, she said all your wishes could be granted in Mumbai by Lakshmi on Tuesdays, at St. Michael’s on a Wednesday (after 9 consecutive Wednesdays of doing novenas), and on Fridays at the mosque where a revered Muslim man worshipped along the outside shore of Mumbai.

There’s a considerable Muslim population in Mumbai.  The second evening we were in town, after a day of shopping for cotton clothing and stopping for refreshment and respites along the way, we went for a walk on Marine Drive.  Clearly at this point I have moved someplace beyond the gripping fear that plagued me days before.  There was a huge, well lit building a distance away and I suggested that we walk to it, assuming it was  hotel, have a beer and take a taxi back.  Sounded like a plan.  Except it turned out the mirage on the horizon turned out to be a Muslim hospital.  Going for a beer at a Muslim hospital, now that is funny.

We learned yesterday that the hospital was lit up because the benefactor of the hospital, a Muslim man, turned 100 earlier this year.

The city and my fearless travel companion are awake now, crows cawing, trucks rumbling, dogs barking, vehicles beeping.  Time to dissolve into another day.

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I’d like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
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I’d like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos

One night and two very full days in Hong Kong, spent. Hong Kong is a city built on a city, built on a city. To move through it is like being dropped into an M.C. Escher print, constant movement in all directions, originations and departures illogically mixed. The trompe l’oeil works, though. Like Alice through the looking glass, impossible things happen all the time. The landscape is a collage of densely layered crumbling concrete buildings in the foreground of 70s looking tenement buildings in the foreground of impossibly high modern sky-rises set against the mountainous background of the island.  At eye level is every plausible kind of commerce, and then some.

Another testament to the impossible made possible was our bus ride to the other side of HK island on day one. These buses are standard size, as in not small. Perched at the top of a double decker bus we had a clear view of the road ahead, at least until the next hairpin turn. These buses maneuver the roads and every kind of traffic that share them, be it pedestrian, truck, car or taxi, by some miraculous design. They also double as a pruning service for the lush limbs of foliage that line the roadway as you crest the peak and snake down the other side of HK island.  Descending towards the less populated seaside village feel of Stanley, it was a wonder why a Disneyland in HK is necessary when you can have this experience for pennies. 

Seriously, the remarkably efficient electronic system swiped the equivalent of about a dollar from our Octopus card for the ride each way. The Octopus card was a tip from Brian, our seat mate en route to HK who lives in Sebastopol and travels regularly to HK for business. The card functions like a MUNI pass, or a metro card, or a monthly subway pass. Its a ‘smart’ card offered by Mass Transit Railway (MTR). Fares are 5 to 10% cheaper than if you were to pay the exact fare with cash which is a nuisance in any city.

The bus ride and beach side vibe of the Village of Stanley were a perfect soft entrance after a 15 hour flight. Thank you, Andy, for that recommendation. We paused for a fruit smoothie under umbrellas sporting beer names such as Stella Artois before heading to the Tin Hau Temple, and the Quan Yin Temple perched a slight distance further on, both overseeing the port and what used to be a thriving fishing village. Tin Hau is the patroness to seafarers which makes a lot of sense on an island. The Temple in Stanley is still seaside, unlike the Tin Hau Temple in downtown HK which is now 2 miles inland due to the reclamation that has permitted development over and into the harbor in the name of progress. I couldn’t help but wonder what a major quake would do to that collage of layered facades and the steady, constant movement of humanity. 

We saw a sign with MTR’s slogan today, which is ‘caring for life’s journeys’, as we finally found our way out from the Harbor View complex of dwellings. This mega high-rise residential community must house a million people. We unintentionally ascended to the center of this designer micro-metropolis and were surrounded by towering dwellings that rise in some sort of futuristic dream-like way above the ground level, Kowloon MTR station and the Elements mall layers far below. 

It was straight out of a Terry Gilliam film. The whole city is except I don’t think there was any present danger of being lobotomized. Though finding our way out of the complex and the mall (which had sections named for the Chinese elements that govern their medicine – wood, air, water, and fire) felt a little like Hotel California, as in you can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave. The mall, grounds and complex were well lit and airy. Gorgeous modern-looking fountains to gaze upon and chunky wood carved and smoothed places to sit in between spending your money, but once you entered the bowels of the micro-metropolis the temperature steadily increased and the lighting grew dim, like we were almost at the boiler room.

Once we got out of Harbor View/Hotel California we were on Jordan Street. As we’d done several times in the approximately 33 hours we were in HK, we went the wrong way. And, as we’d done most of those times, we relied on the fleet of taxis that course the city constantly to save us. Just as the gentle guiding hands of a parent overseeing a game of pin the tail on the donkey help the disoriented child when they have been spun around one too many times, our taxi driver guided us to our desired location. Our destination this time was the jade market at Canton and Kansu in the neighborhood of Yau Ma Tei.

The booths at the jade market are laid out in two buildings separated by a street with corrugated steel roofs. The vendors display their wares in rows, largely relying on calculators to communicate with the foreign hawkers that pour over the old jade, new jade, raw pieces, pendants, objects, snuff bottles, chess sets and standard issue jewelry.  My new yellow jade necklace is lovely, and standard issue. Dawn, who wasn’t looking for anything, hawked quite some finds. Old jade and bone objects, a ring, a Buddha, a snuff bottle with delicate and shy-looking women, probably from a time when that would have been deemed quite naughty.

There was a gorgeous little rendering of Quan Yin in one of the more ramshackle booths, and every piece that vendor had looked old and riddled with stories and previous lives. He and his treasures could easily find a home in a fantasy novel.  Perhaps if I had bought and brought that handheld goddess home, some magical realism might have transported me to destinations unknown. Or, maybe once she had a place on my altar sharing prominence with a reclining Quan Yin, a photo of redwoods, and the framed postcard of Mary from the cathedral dedicated to the Madonna on the island of Murano, perhaps then she would be the elixir that unleashed the vapors of these other symbols of strength and compassion to guide me resolutely. 

Getting back to the taxis, as we did on a regular basis, the taxis rule the city. They move like jockeys edging out the horse ahead, coming right up to, but never touching everything in their path. Like animate objects with sensors, somehow they miraculously steer clear of contact. Accidents must happen. I know this because when another taxi had saved our dizzy with exhaustion lives the previous night from a more pedestrian route back to the hotel after a seafood dinner on Knutsford Terrace (an alley above the main street lined with restaurants), there was a sign above the entrance to the tunnel that connects HK and Kowloon under Victoria Harbor reporting that there were approximately 4,000 less accidents this year compared to this time last year. We remarked however that we’d hardly heard a siren.

There are seemingly few disruptions to impede the flow of traffic and commerce. Everything moves at a polite and ginger pace. The taxi drivers don’t flinch at traffic, and the thought of a certain finger gesticulating unkind sentiments is unthinkable. This no nose out of joint experience also manifested as hardly hearing a horn. The only time we heard drivers laying on horns was when a taxi lingered too long to allow passengers to unload on busy, narrow side-streets, such as the one where our hotel was situated. 

Battery life is getting low, flight time is dwindling, and your attention may also be on the brink of shut down, so I will close with a cappuccino at Life. An organic restaurant and bar on Shelley Street in SoHo (south of Hollywood) where the tip jar reads, if you are afraid of change, leave it here. 

We had stopped for ‘panty hose milk tea’ from a restaurant called Lan Fong Tuen said to have originated this strong , silky beverage further down the people movers termed the mid level escalators. The escalators climb up from the Central MTR station into residential areas and were put in, again, to contribute to the system that maintains an efficient flow of commuters and commerce. We got some baked buns (ham’n cheese, and red bean) from a bakery to accompany our tea and people watched while a little, disheveled rat watched us.

The rain was picking up its pace and Life looked charming.  Wood surfaces, low light, yummy looking food, a fantastic tasting cappuccino and a treasured friend at the beginning of a month long journey. Pure magic.  When we paid our bill and Dawn complimented the man at the register on our beverage, he responded, everything here has life.

Off to an interesting start.  We showed up on time this morning for our 12:50 pm flight and were offered the opportunity to take the flight 12 hours later.  For this inconvenience, Cathay Pacific would give us vouchers to upgrade to business class on a future flight and give us each $400 in cash.  Well, okay.  With no connections to make, this just means we get into Hong Kong at 6 am on 11/7, instead of 6 pm on 11/6. We are already dropping into the elasticity of time that accompanies this kind of journey.  

It is odd when an extra day is given to you.  It feels like a bonus round. We drove back through the rainy day to Dawn’s house and had some deliciously strong Capricorn coffee.  The unanticipated time bought me a wander over to Mission Pie to meet up with Joyce for a tasty wedge of pear raspberry pie and some conversation, and a climb back over the top of Bernal.  It felt good to walk knowing there was a 15 hour non-stop flight ahead. Meandering past the verdant, vibrant gardens atop Bernal Heights in the chill November air, observation mode setting in, slipping into  that quality of exploration and shift in perspective that travel invites.

The feeling of departure permeated everything these few past weeks.    Planning for the weeks ahead while simulatenously orchestrating details for the world left behind was a dizzying cocktail – one part disorientation, one part excitement, one dash of overwhelm.  Three to four yoga classes a week for the month leading up to departure day were integral  to staying grounded.

Burnt the candle on both ends for most nights during the last week’s  countdown to departure.  Extra hours at work, visiting with friends from afar, staying up late to put together the India playlist for the nano (somehow seemed so essential and yet I’ve listened to it once for less than an hour), making the annual calendar (it will already be December when we get back), and participating in my first ever Dia de los Muertos.  

It is embarrassing, bordering on stupid, that this was my first ever.  This holiday honoring the the dead was happening in my backyard for a number of years when I lived in the Mission in the early 90s.  Altars, a procession, and steady-paced live percussion merge to create a dreamlike experience where the veil between the two worlds feels paper thin.  Twine is strung between trees so that participants can write messages to the dead on slips of paper and tie them to the line.  I was grateful for the opportunity.

Next stop, Hong Kong.

A good song for a day like today.