Indian Summer

SALLU VS SRK

2011-01-10T20:37:00.001-08:00

Brooklyn, USA

I simply cannot get enough of these men.

Dabangg star Salmaan Khan & MNIK's Shah Rukh Khan continue to bicker like bitches: http://bollywood.celebden.com/2011/01/will-salman-khan-forgive-shahrukh-khan/

Literature and lingerie

2010-01-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

New York, USA

Jane Birkin: When you've got nothing left, all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading Proust.

Luxe Vagabondery

2010-01-04T20:33:00.001-08:00

New York, USA

Tough, luxe travel gear cannot be underrated. For those who equate long-term travel with polyester quick-dry trousers or torn backpacker wear, I beg you expand your vision to include the (slightly) luxe vagabond. Several brilliant travel bloggers, like Matt Kepnes and Tim Patterson, have offered backpack essentials on other sites - however, I've yet to see a list a) written by a woman, or b) written by a woman who finds it interesting to look chic with 11 kilos on her back.

Inspired by my empty backpack, whose yellow straps sprawl from beneath my bed and beckon me home, I once again begin to pack - virtually, mentally. I offer this list of essentials to remind the universe that one does not have to dress like a backpacker to be a traveler. More so, one can look beautiful with a smallish and vague amount of effort, considering everything one needs fits into a small pack. The life of the effortlessly luxe vagabond starts here.

50 L / 3100 CC PACK A small pack is completely sexy, and the most important building block of travel gear that won't make you swear. I've cursed larger packs in too many circumstances to not warrant a downsize - running for a train in Paris; being turned down while hitching the Atlas Mountains because of two big packs; balancing on the back of a motorcycle in Benares; searching for a public toilet in Elat; wandering the streets for an inexpensive hostel in San Cristobal de las Casas. Packs come in hip colors now, but darker colors don't show the dirt as much (or whatever else was oozing on the floor under that bus). Using a smaller pack simplifies one's travel gear - only the essential makes it into your tiny, sexy pack. Simplification is key. A smaller pack means one can function as independently as possible, unassisted and unburdened. Forty five liters is my ultimate goal, but shoes ruin me every time, as I always bring more than I need.

FABULOUS SHOES This is really, really difficult: choose wisely. Two pairs will suffice. Something smart and urban that won't give you blisters; and something else a little rough to climbs sequoias, hike to Andalusia, etc. Also consider investing in make-for-elderly-people gel insoles at your local pharmacy - no one can see them, and they make your smart kicks as city-friendly as possible. A pair of rubber thongs cost and weigh next to nothing - toss them in as well.

DR BRONNER'S CASTILLE SOAP The flower child speaks: take advantage of anything that works double-time for you. Dr Bronner was a loon, but he was clever. This liquid soap can also be used as shampoo, laundry detergent, dish soap (and contraceptive, says Dr Bronner, but I wouldn't trust him on that one). Dr Bronner lists a hundred and one uses for castille soap on the packaging - it's fair-trade, organic, comes in clean scents like citrus, lavender, rose and peppermint, and the bottles are refillable in some health food shops. Bring along a length of string and a few plastic clothespins in your everything kit (see below) for citrus-scented laundry service.

SARONGS & SHAWLS I travel with three or four sarongs, minimum, and use them for absolutely everything - on the beach; as a skirt, towel, scarf or wrap; on plane, train or bus journeys as a sheet or blanket; as a pillow cover in questionable guesthouses. An artfully draped shawl changes an outfit, and can help you forget that you've worn the same dress for four months. Pack a mix of sarongs in different fabrics and textures for variety and color - cashmere, cotton, jersey, silk.

AN EVERYTHING KIT Mine fits in a leather pencil case, and includes a tiny sewing kit (with embroidery floss, fishing line and large needles); a universal plug adaptor; safety pins; a glue stick (for pasting mementos into my journal); a lighter; my Swiss Army knife; string; a few clothespins; a 2G flash drive; two Pilot ballpoint pens and a permanent marker.

SILK SLEEP SAC Silk is a beautiful insulator, feels lovely whilst naked inside of it, and gets softer each time it's washed. A silk sac can be used inside of a sleeping bag as an additional layer, or on its own wherever and whenever, to customize your stranger's bed (because who knows what has happened on those sheets, really?) I always use my own sleep sac, and cover my pillows with a clean sarong.

LAPTOP Get real. How can one write/watch Fellini in bed/video chat without one?

PLACE-SPECIFIC READING I gave this advice recently to a friend of mine, and she asked: "But what do you read in India when you want to escape India?" I think that's a rubbish sentiment. I don't want to escape anything. Quite the opposite. I want to live, and fully. Deliberately.

Santorini: The Magus. Delhi: White Tiger, or City of Djinns. Tel Aviv: A Tale of Love and Darkness. Greece: Colossus of Maroussi. Paris: Afternoons in Clichy. Read it, then trade it for another.

PERFUME It changes the way one carries oneself, and there is something delicious about a signature scent. But, since space in your pack is very tight - bring the body milk version of your perfume. Double-duty, kid.

SOMETHING YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT This is highly personal, and will be different for every traveler. After a third of my life on the road, I've come to accept that I need to make room for something fabulous - no matter how much room it takes up, and no matter how impractical it is. My dream pack would include a pair of bespoke Puma hightops. In gold and silver. Puma's new custom line, Mongolian Barbeque, lets you to create your own kicks from the bottom up, and sends them to you in two months. They would look brilliant with a silk tank dress and striped scarf, or on top of a mountain in long underwear. If only I had an address.

FIVE DESTINATIONS

2010-01-02T20:03:00.000-08:00

New York, USA

On or off the road, I am always dreaming of my next adventure. My current five obsessions, in no particular order.

BERLIN Road Junky Travel Film Festival, 28-30 May 2010. A weekend of travel writing, storytelling; photography and videography; gypsy music; brass bands and travel forums, all in the artistic hub of Europe. The heat and rush of early summer, the Bauhaus aesthetic, and the air of international artistry and vagabondery.

REYKJAVIK Only a five hour flight from New York. A long weekend soaking in geothermal pools, with a face-full of Icelandic mud. A few evenings of pickled fishes and honey mead. Rent a car for a day and drive in a big beautiful circle.

BOMBAY Just left, can't wait to return. Bombay is a steaming hothouse of art and energy. Next time, I'll stay somewhere overlooking the Arabian Sea, develop an architectural walking tour company, finally visit Elephanta Island even though it smells like guano, and star in a Bollywood film with Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salmaan Khan or John Abraham.

VENICE Carnival, 6-16 February 2010. If only it weren't so cold in northern Italy in February. An afternoon in the Guggenheim and the other museum that I recently read about and have forgotten the name of but is curated by a 35 year old and I thought I could do that, a Bellini at Harry's and a few wrong turns up and over a canal, I'd slip on a black lace mask and wander the streets during Carnival in a trench coat and my imaginary bespoke hightops. If Venice doesn't work out, then I'll take Colombia.

BARANQUILLA Colombia: my ancestral homeland; the second largest Carnival party outside of Rio de Janeiro; and a short drive to gorgeous Cartagena. The Carnival in Baranquilla was brilliantly dubbed one of the "Masterpieces of the Oral Intangible Heritage of Humanity" - the meaning of which both totally eludes and totally delights me.

Bombay: Marine Drive at Night

2009-12-30T11:56:00.001-08:00

Bombay, INDIA

Bombay Electric

2009-12-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

Bombay, INDIA

Walking through Colaba, in the shadow of the Gateway of India, I realize how much I love the sea. How deeply the sea is part of me. Something shifts in my gait, my bearing, when I smell the salt air, when the humidity sinks under my skin and explodes my curls. I become softened, sensual. The warm breeze from the Arabian Sea in the early evening and the play of lights on the harbour are visceral experiences for me.

And I realize that my favorite cities in the world are port cities: Tel Aviv, Barcelona, New York, Bombay. There is magic in the combination of urban environments ripe with sea salt. The kind of magic which makes one want to jump ship and swim ashore.

In port cities, the energy is electric and palpable. Alive. One can swear like a sailor, dress like a bombshell, eat fried fish in the sand, and be surrounded by art at every step.

And people. People everywhere.

Ten reasons to love India

2009-10-12T06:48:00.001-07:00

1. Persimmon Lassis

Sweet Jesus, could anything be more delicious than a persimmon lassi? Do persimmons even grow in India? Who knows? And who cares? All I know is that Dokebi Korean Restaurant in McLeod Ganj serves them fresh, in front of a roaring fire. Yum.

2. The Mumbai art scene

Mumbai is absolutely fucking fabulous. One can spend days wandering the new and established modern art galleries of Kala Ghoda, and balmy nights in Colaba antiquing or trying on Rs 25,000 dresses in restored lofted Raj-era buildings. Or at least, that's what I'm doing these days.

3. Kai's street photography

4. Indian Mithai: Kaju Burfi

To me, fresh homemade Indian sweets (mithai) are the most delicious sweets in the world. My colleague Shivani's mother-in-law, Prem-ji, taught me this recipe. It is a traditional mithai, often exchanged during Diwali, the Festival of Lights.

You can substitute pistachio or almond instead of cashew. Both require being soaked overnight and peeled the following morning, before beginning the process, and are equally as delicious. Burfi can also be enhanced with with subtle, aromatic masala, such as cardamom, saffron or a few drops of rosewater.

Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews
3/4 cup sugar, to taste
1/4 cup water

Finely grind the cashews to a powder, using a coffee grinder.
Mix the sugar and water in a wide saucepan.
Heat until small bubbles begin to appear on the surface.
Stir gently and let it come to a rolling boil.
Pour in the cashew powder and stir well to avoid lumps.
Keep stirring for a few minutes and you should notice the mixture getting a little thicker.
Put a drop on a chilled plate and test to see if it hardens slightly. You should be able to roll it into a loose ball.
If it does, switch off the heat and move the pan away from the hot surface.
Let it cool slightly and transfer mixture to countertop.
Knead well with your hands to make it smooth and glossy.
Roll out with a rolling pin into 1/4 inch thick sheet and cut into diamond shaped pieces.
Gather all the end bits and knead again and repeat the process.
Let cool and pack between sheets of waxed paper.
Optional: Garnish with grated pistachio and a dash of saffron water.

5. Big sky, big mountains.

6. Because Diwali in Jaipur is like Chanukah in Jerusalem.

7. Shah Rukh Khan.

8. Curious children.

9. Spontaneous dancing. India: all music, all the time.

10. Riding in auto rickshaws: how else to navigate the streets of India?

Searching for Inspiration

2009-07-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

New York, USA

Ljubljana

2008-09-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

Ljubjana, SLOVENIA

There is something wonderful about being anonymous in a foreign city, passing endless signboards and adverts that promise endless things in an unknown language. I feel like a secret as I wonder what "Do kdaj zabrisanih prohodnosti?" could possibly mean. But then again, I don't really care. I walk along the canal on bank of the River Ljubljanice and smile to myself.

"Ljubljana," says my friend Jani, as we cross the triple bridge in Prešeren Square, "is a shy and quiet kind of city." A statue of Prešeren, the famous Slovene poet, dominates the square. Jani points out the bust of a woman between two windows on the adjoining street, in the direct gaze of the bronze Prešeren. Julia was the woman with whom he was hopelessly in love, and he has been immortalized as such. Somehow his wistful gaze summarizes the city for me.

Bordered on the north by Austria; in the east, Hungary, Croatia in the south; and Italy and the Adriatic Sea in the west, Slovenia is called the pocket country for its diminuitive size. It is filled with brilliant legends, heartbreaking music, and forests full of castles and witches who eat children. The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, and dragon lore colors the city's ancient past. After stealing the Golden Fleece from Colchis, Jason and his band of Argonauts sailed down the Danube searching for a route home. Diverted to the Ljubljanice, they pulled their boat ashore to carry the boat to the Adriatic and sail around the Balkans back to Greece. From the bowels of the river emerged a dragon, and Jason promptly chopped off his head. He then presumably continued dragging the boat ashore, unaware of the fate that bitch Medea had in store him.

The Salamander and the Bobcat. Or the Goose and the Calf.

2008-03-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

Sikkim, INDIA

Yesterday was a day of birth and death. Or, more specifically, four murders and a newborn calf.

When we awoke, the corpses of two grey geese and bobcat lay helplessly on the lawn below our terrace. We went down to inspect them, and Bhuti Aapa, already digging their graves, told us the story. In the middle of the night, he heard the geese calling and the dogs barking. He ran ouside and saw that a bobcat had gotten into the goose pen and mauled two geese, while the furious dogs had managed to chase him up a small banana tree. Bhuti Aapa knocked down the bobcat and let the dogs crush his skull, and went back to sleep.

At that moment I came down with some sort of magnificent allergic reaction to the laundry soap, of all things. My palms started itching like mad and I was swollen and covered in hives. I stripped and brought my freshly washed clothes into the bathroom, to hose them down with soap, and promptly squashed the little salamander that had inhabitated our loo for the past few days. The poor bastard. He was a little thing. Was. Until I stepped on him. That brought the death toll up to four that day, and it was only noon.

My allergic reaction quickly got worse, and bright red I washed down a few Benadryl and lay down as the drugs slowly numbed me. I was lying there in a semi-stupor for about an hour when Chumla burst in announcing the milk cow's labour-time had come. I had never seen a cow give birth, so I threw on a rain jacket and stumbled down to the cowshed.

I was quite unprepared for what I saw. The cow's tail was erect, and two little wiggling forehoofs and quite a lot of bodily fluid were oozing out of what an hour earlier I would have assumed was her butt. I now know that was not her butt, but her cow vagina. It was a sight to behold.

I stood there transfixed. Bhuti, Tashi and Bikas, three of Chumla's young helpers, were there to assist in the labour. The three other cows were bellowing loudly, but the pregnant mother seemed strangely placid. She would occassionally stop pushing, stand up, and munch a little grass.

As I watched her push, all of my own pelvic muscles contracted sympathetically. Steam came out of her nose, and her eyes rolled back slightly. She was having difficulty breaching the head. I watched in amazement as the snout and tongue of the calf became visible, poking through the ruptured amniotic sac. I wasn't sure if it was the tongue, to be honest, or some part of the cow's anatomy. I almost vomited.

I kept asking Bhuti if we shouldn't start pulling on the forehoofs, because of the perforated sac. I didn't want the calfling to suffocate. My colleague Germaine appeared suddenly, as the calf head was crowning. She began to record with her camera. The video cut out as the battery died, about 5 seconds before the head crowned and the calf came sliding out with astonishing speed.

It was a boy.

Ganesh Pure Veg

2008-03-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

Sikkim, INDIA

Back in dreary Gangtok, I slide into my favorite thali dive. Adam and I found it two years ago, hidden in an alley off of MG Marg. This time around, my colleague Germaine and I sought it out once again: it was even more hidden than I remembered, and even more delicious.

It is a Bengali pure veg restaurant, as the sign reads - which means that not even eggs are served. It has a constant stream of people, mostly Bengalis on holiday and a few locals. I have yet to see another traveler in there, save for the few friends I have brought. One can imagine the silent commotion that ensues when a white girl wanders in smiling, speaking Sanskrit in lieu of Nepali or Hindi.

Thali is a magical dish, for several reasons: for its simplicity; its malleability; its substantiality; and, above all, its aesthetic. In Ganesh Pure Veg, there is no menu - only thali. The thali changes daily, so theoretically one might never grow tired of the same old thali. And theoretically, I ate dinner there last night, and will eat lunch and dinner there again tonight, licking my chops.

The baba in front is such a delightful person, and so genuinely perplexed every time I walk through the door that he throws his hands together and shouts Namaskaar Please Come In! Once you have seated yourself at a small plastic table, the dance begins, and the thali assembly commences in the backroom with a clattering of pots and aluminium. A pressed tin plate is placed in front of each diner, perfectly arranged as such: four small tin bowls line the rim in a semi-circle; followed by the three omnipresents - green or red deri piro achaar, a slice of lime and a slice of red onion. The contents of the four bowls changes, but the basic equation is the same - yellow lentil dal; some saucy vegetable like aloo gobi (potato cauliflower); a thick creamy stew with fenugreek that drives me wild; and the fourth - a wild card. Last week it was plain curd, but last night, a magnificent kir - hot cardamom rice pudding.

But this is hardly the beginning. As soon as your plate hits the table, a man emerges with sabji - sauteed vegetables, okra yestrday. Next comes the man with fresh chapati - what would happen if pita and tortilla had a child - straight from the oven. As there is no cutlery used, the chapati is the main vehicle for delivering all this deliciousness into your mouth (save for the kir, which I would lick off the wall if that were the custom). The thali is topped off with a papad, an oversized chickpea crisp. Finally, all the elements in place, you can begin. All the servers watch in amazement as the honkies proceed to eat with their hands, Indian style.

You are only three mouthfuls in when the men reappear, hovering and waiting for you to take another bite so that they can refill your plate. The chapati start rolling out of the oven so fast that there are always half eaten stragglers buried under a bed of steaming fresh chapati. The sabji and aloo gobi and fenugreek stew and yellow dal start flowing like champagne at a wedding. Someone else appears with a pitcher of boiled water and pours it for you in a small aluminium cup, which will cool off by the end of the meal. But the end is not yet in sight, as the food keeps coming.

The brilliance of thali is the simultaneous stimulation of all of one's tastebuds: the saltiness of the dal and papad; the acidity of the lime; the bitterness of the okra; the spiciness of the achaar; the earthiness of the aloo and chapati; and the terrible sweetness of kir. An endless plate of thali, replete with impeccable service: 40 rupees.

A birthday (goat) in Israel

2007-11-20T03:16:00.000-08:00

The Road to Tamtatouchte

2007-11-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

22 October 2007
Ouzoud, Morocco

We arrived in Todra Gorge via the goat market in Rissani, a shitty lunch in Erfoud, and an unfortunate overnight in Tinerihr. We set out the following day to have a walk through the gorge, perhaps to visit the little villages along the way on the road to Tamtatouchte. After walking four or five kilometers, we flagged down a lorry to catch a lift to the next village for some mint tea. Moroccans stop if they have room in the car. People with few means are often always friendly, and always generous.

So we climbed into the back of the lorry, which was filled with cinder blocks. We sat right behind the cab, perched on the concrete, and banged on the roof to signal that we were ready. We held onto a metal bar to secure ourselves, and the lorry sped off down the gorge and into the valley ahead. The landscape is absolutely spectacular, the middle Atlas mountains spread out alongside the river valley, treeless because it is so arid.

We reached Tamtatouchte after a short while, but we were enjoying ourselves so much up there that we asked to go wherever they were going. About 30km further, they replied, to drop off the cinder blocks. And then back to Tinerihr. So we barreled on further, and there is no better ride through such a beautiful place than perched high on a lorry with nothing but the sky overhead. We stopped in a small village to unload, Adam and I bought peanuts in a little store and some cookies for the ubiquitous children who milled about and held our hands and showed off doing bicycle tricks. No hands, look!

We asked if there was a place for tea, and a man on the street offered to take us to his house in as there was no restaurant. As we walked along the road to his house, our two friends in the lorry drove up behind us to fetch us on their way back to Tinerihr. We climbed back on the truck, but the leftover cinder blew in our faces so we climbed into the cab instead, me on Adam's lap. A lot of the road had been washed away as it ran along the river bed. When the river swells, as it does every few years, it takes part of the road with it, leaving huge holes of exposed reinforced concrete clinging to the gorge walls, forcing the lorries and 4x4s to drive through the river and back onto the broken road. Really only safe for lorries, though. Walking along the road we saw a Dutch caravan get stuck in the water, subsequently soaking its engine and probably rendering it useless. They had three small children with them, all little blonde ones under the age of eight. Later we saw them being towed away by more Dutchies in a caravan.

We had had such good luck hitching that day we decided to fetch our bags from Todra and hitch to Imilchil, halfway to the Cascade d'Ouzoud. We left the next morning later than planned, as usual; waited for an hour with no luck and then got two rides at once. Adam flagged down a 4x4 witha German couple and two Moroccans, and I flagged down a piece of shit minibus full of people bound for Imilchil. We debated for a few minutes, finally deciding to take the bus and meet with the Germans later for a ride to Marrakech.

We asked the bus driver if we could ride on the roof, which everyone does not only in Morocco but all across the developing world. He said yes long enough to fix our packs to the roof, and then promptly changed his mind. Furious, we climbed into the bus, seating twelve, with no empty seats and a few extra heads. Adam squeezed into a four seater, now six with him, and I stood leaning against him with his knee supporting the rest of me. It was hot outside, but in the bus all the windows were closed and the people not smelling so fine. There are moments in life when I don't smell so good either, so I don't mean to be judgmental - but this particular smell was really intolerable. We went about 5km like this before I lost my mind and Adam told the driver to either let us up on the roof or let us off the bus and lose our fare. He let us onto the roof.

The minibus was flat-roofed, with a sort of topless cage affixed on top where all of the luggage is stowed, all held down by a net made of rope which is drawn tightly front to back, side to side. To ride on top, you climb up the ladder and squeeze your tusik between two bags. Then you wrap your legs through the net rope and find something stable to hold on to with your hands. Through the little mountain roads, one never goes very fast, so it is not as easy as it sounds to fall off. All things considered, it really is quite safe, unless the bus goes off the cliff. We did almost get a low-hanging electric wire in the mouth passing through Tamtatouchte, but missed it just in time. So other than that, it is pretty safe on the roof.

For the first two hours, winding through places called Tamzijn and Agoudal, we had an extraordinary time. The bus drove slowly and we waved at all the children we passed. We passed villages made of red mud, forts, minarets, all made of red earth. I smiled at Adam and counted my blessings, thinking how few people in the world would come to Morocco with me and ride on top of buses. He is the best travel partner, and he is always helping me. Not that I need help. He said to me the other day that I am one of the most capable people he knows. But I get tired of being capable. It means one is always working something - bargaining, haggling for a room, a taxi ride, a discount, directions, bus times, train schedules. Always something. But Adam and I share everything, including responsibility for each other. It has evolved that way between us.

And I think that he is always concerned for me here, in a Muslim country, with my head uncovered. He secretly thinks that I am going to be abducted and sold into sex slavery in Abu Dhabi. He lost me in the souk in Rissani the other day when I wandered off to look at leather pencil cases while he was tasting dates. As I walked past the stalls, every merchant came out and said "You're husband is looking for you!". When I caught up with him he grabbed me and hugged me and asked me never to wander off again. But I'm always wandering off. I'm still used to following my own rules. And Adam knows I never do what anyone tells me to do anyway.

After two hours on the roof, I shouted down to a child on the road asking how much further to Imilchil. Cinquante kilometres! he replied. Only half-way! One does get a bit windburned on the roof, especially once you cross the Atlas and descend into the opposite valley, straight away, with the wind whipping in your face at 70kph. Cold, too, even when the sun is shining. And the bag under your back begins to feel painful. I became totally exhausted after only three hours, so I held on more tightly and put my head down and tried to rest.

After four hours we arrived in Imilchil, crawled into a cafe with our long curls standing on end ordering two coffees a piece and scrambled eggs, which they served in the frying pan and which we would have eaten as well had they not cleared the table. To make a very long story short, we underestimated the distance between Todra Gorge and the Cascade d'Ouzoud. By a hell of a lot. And we chose to do the bulk of it off-piste, over the Atlas Mountains. It took us two days of constant travel to get to Ouzoud - from Todra to Imilchil, onto Aghbalal, stopping at El Ksiba, Beni Mellal, Azilal and finally Ouzoud.

We found an isolated little guest house on the opposite side of the cascade, which entails climbing down the mountain with your pack, crossing the river by a little hand-pulled boat, and climbing partway up the other side to a clearing with a beautiful piece of land. The shower is very clean and has a lot of hot water, and there is a Western loo and a Turkish loo from which to choose. We are staying in a bamboo hut with no electricity to bother with, and monkeys dance on our roof at night. Adam is off hiking, and I have stayed behind at a little table with grapevines on a trellis overhead, the cascade in front of me. It is beautiful to hear the waterfall at night, under the light of the full moon.

A Cure for the Common Cold

2007-11-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

Adam caught a cold in Fes, which I managed to avoid until the stress of our abduction caused my immune system to fail long enough to get genuinely and truly sick myself.

Just a common cold, although today I have been feeling really miserable. We've decided to stay on in the Sahara until I get better, as our next move is some trekking through the Atlas Mountains. Today I moped around the courtyard of the beautiful Nassar Palace attempting to invite as much sympathy as possible. I look as terrible as I feel, so it hasn't been too difficult. Right now, Adam is out with the Berbers at the little shop by the camel pen, the Berbers instructing him to buy milk, Halls lozenges and cinnamon. Apparently they are going to boil it all together and put me to bed with it in order to sleep it off and sweat it out.

Already I've tried sniffing salt water, to no avail. An American from Montana gave me some decongestants, which did absolutely nothing. The problem is that I have a runny nose that simply will not stop running. If I don't wipe it every minute or so, it will simply run all over the table. Terrible, really.

Then Hassan came out and asked if I wanted to try a Berber remedy. Why not? And then he headed out in the direction of the camel pen and returned with a tuft of camel wool and a towel. He told me to put my head under the towel, set the camel wool on fire and breathe the smoke. I didn't want to offend him - he has been a good friend to us. So I ducked under and began burning the wool, at which point the little tuft began sizzling and pouring out thick camel smoke.

Camels smell bad. Burning camel fur smells worse.

I began coughing so hard that I thought my ribs would break. Adam and Hassan were laughing but Hassan swore to me as I choked that this is what his mother has him do whenever he is sick. After a few more minutes of coughing and spluttering I asked for a kettle of hot water and put in some Burmese Tiger Balm and slid back underneath my towel to inhale the steam. I emerged again 20 minutes later after simultaneously burning the tip of my nose and spilling boiling water on my leg. By this time the entire hotel staff and most of the guests were coming by to see if any treatments had made improvements, and everyone was disappointed. Time for milk boiled with cough drops! they yelled. Hassan went off to the kitchen.

The Berbers are beautiful men. Haven't sen much of the women, but they have tattooed foreheads and chins and wear necklaces made of coins. The Berbers are genuine desert people, a mixture of native Moroccan, Algerian, Mauritanian, Malian, Spanish, Arab. As a result they all look different, even from each other. Some are mulatto looking, like Hassan, tall with grey eyes and white teeth. He has a beautiful shy smile. Some are small and dark, black black lashes and startling blue green eyes. Some are very Semitic looking, Mediterranean, sharp featured. The men working here are mostly my age, and they all speak Berber and French and Spanish fluently, and can make themselves understood in English, German, Italian, Japanese. All from tourists. We spoke Spanish together. When we first arrived as a group of six, we were the only guests and we sat with the mend and they played the drums and we smoked together under the stars late into the night. Yet although they speak European languages and spend most of their time with the many travelers passing through, it seems that their hearts are here in the desert.

Hassan has visited Barcelona, and he speaks of it as if it were Delhi or Shanghai. The desert is so quiet, he says. And we have to agree. We planned to stay here only two days, and now it is already double that. It is quite, life is slow. The men here, in our guesthouse, but blue jeans but djellabas on top band the customary half turban is bright blue or orange against their brown skin. And they no longer want to follow the old Berber customs, but they are also not willing to leave the desert. I am a camel man, Hassan says.

We asked about Berber marriage. The women are kept hidden away and are not allowed to make contact with the young men, not even allowed to see them. The fathers of the girl are the ones to arrange the marriage, ensuring that the daughter is a virgin. They can ensure this because the girl has always been under the watchful eye of someone or other. When the match is made, the couple has still not met, not until their wedding. At some point during the wedding, the marriage is consummated and the bed cloth is then paraded around to prove the virginity of the girl to all present. She is usually fifteen or sixteen years old. Hassan and Ahmed want nothing to do with the tradition, telling their fathers that they will never marry a girl they haven't met. Then do however, go husband scouting for their sisters.

The boiled milk arrives, and it tastes more like chai than lozenge. Within seconds my body temperature rises, and Adam tucks me in to sweat it out. I feel better in the morning.

Kidnapped in the Sahara

2007-11-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

From the city of Fes it is an eleven hour bus ride south into the Sahara Desert. We ventured out with vague ideas of of camel treks to oases, of sandboarding the dunes of Erg Chebbi.

We arrived in Rissani, the end of the highway, after a sleepless night bus, at about 6.00 in the morning. On the bus, a man started going up and down the aisles shaking the few tourists on board from their tentative sleepy deliriums and asking if we wanted a shared taxi into Merzouga, 10 dirhams, which we did. We had been advised that the touts were very intense, but most of us en route to the desert on the Algerian border fancied ourselves savvy enough travelers to escape the pressure, or at least ignore it.

Six of us were plucked from the bus and followed this man down the street, expecting a taxi. Instead he directed us to a cafe to have a cup of tea, which none of us wanted. On to Merzouga! Instead we sat around, dumbly smoking cigarettes and waiting for the water to boil. Then we were ushered back down the stairs and into a 4x4, our packs stowed on the roof. I have guesthouse, said the man in the front. You come see it first. Hm, we all thought. Before even leaving Rissani we stopped about four times - for the driver to buy bread, tobacco - all desert provisions - on our time. We were getting restless. Every so often, every traveler gets screwed somehow, and the terrible realization dawns when one recognizes what is happening and has no choice but to go through with it.

Looking at the map, we surveyed Merzouga. Perhaps a 25km stretch of guesthouses running along the grand dunes, separated into three small areas. Our man in front was going on about his beautiful guesthouse, and if we wanted to see others we could simply walk over to them to check them out. Heading down the one lane road from Rissani we abruptly turned off the road and onto the desert piste, heading in the general direction of the dunes but also in the general direction of absolutely nothing else. We were officially in the middle of no where, off piste, and now our man was forcing us all to go to his guesthouse, to 'see for ourselves'.

Is it nearby other guesthouses? we asked. Yes, many, he said. As we got within sight of his place, we all groaned to see some other guesthouses in the distance, at least a kilometer away - which in the desert mid-morning is not a pleasant idea to slog through with 15 kilos on your back. It was officially an abduction. We all started complaining - you told us this was a taxi to Merzouga! We all want to be dropped off in centre ville! He yelled back: this is a taxi! And we are in Merzouga! The weaselly bastard.

Arriving at the guesthouse in the middle of nowhere, we discovered that we were approximately 17km away from our destination. As we piled out of the jeep, we found a Spanish couple eating breakfast, so we clambered over to ask them about the place. They had been coerced to come there as well - apparently this guesthouse was the last in a chain of 25km of guesthouses and they needed the business. Enough to kidnap people off buses at 5am by offering 'taxi service'. We went to see the rooms, which were nice enough, but we were all exhausted and hungry and hot and feeling like we had been fucked over. When we told our man that we wanted to go elsewhere, his previous rage exploded over and he started shouting at us: You don't like my guesthouse? Then you can walk to the others!

Shouting in our faces. We were all shocked and angry because the character of the typical Moroccan is warm and gentle - Morocco is famous for its hospitality. I will not bring you to the other places that you want to go, it is too far for me! he yelled. I was furious and walking in circles mumbling curses and hexes and New York niceties under my breath as Adam was pacing behind me attempting to give me a lecture about how I have no idea how to deal with Arabs blah blah and not to go about giving lip to the locals. As if all of his dealings with Palestinians in the IDF had made him a diplomat.

There was no way to get away save for the 4x4 we arrived in, unless we commandeered a camel, so we set about convincing the driver to take us somewhere else. He was it seems a friend of the guesthouse owner, who was yelling at him not to let us leave. His starting price was $5 a person, which is the same price as a room for two for one night in the desert. Hours had passed since we had gotten off the bus, the heat was increasing, and we still had guesthouses to visit before choosing the one we wanted. We got him down to 30 dirhams a person and sped off, our man still fuming in the sand.

By this point we had bonded with our traveling companions, two Belgian girls and a Catalunyian couple. We were all independently looking for a guesthouse with a little character and a few other travelers around. But suddenly as six, we could show up anywhere, bargain for three rooms at a good price, and together we were an instant party. So we decided to stick together. We didn't fully trust our driver, who we believed was scheming to take us to expensive places to screw us over after the previous debacle. The first place we stopped was called Nassar Palace. Traveling on the budget that we do, Adam and I never stay at places called palaces. But again, with six people in low season, we had bargaining power. We sent the two boys in as emissaries. Muslims like to deal with men. Adam and Gerard returned with reports of a beautiful sandcastle courtyard with a swimming pool in the middle. But too expensive, they said.

So we agreed to move on to the next place, the driver licking his chops in anticipation of charging us more and bringing us to another expensive place in retribution for his asshole friend. No! shouted the Nassar Palace man, a Berber in bright blue. We make you good price!

So we started bargaining for the hell of it. In the end, it was at $10 a night more than we usually pay but the place was so beautiful and the company so good and the owner wasn't a fucker and the swimming pool looked delicious in the desert sun and six people can bargain a camel trek down much better than two. So we jumped out of the car, told the driver to go fuck himself in English while saying thank you in Arabic, and moved into the Nassar Palace.

c'est la vie

2007-10-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

demain, insha'allah

2007-10-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

Fès, MOROCCO

This afternoon I felt heavy more than I have in a long long while. I imagined living again in New York, trying to imagine my life like that again. I wanted to step away from the Ferris wheel of constant travel. It is often magical but certainly not always easy.

In Nouvelle Fès the atmosphere was thick, dense with the Moroccan sun. My insides felt dull, my mind oppressed. It took the energy out of my day, the entirety of the afternoon feeling groundless and indecisive. I didn't want to eat another tagine.

Last night I ate a camel stew with a Berber family. A man called Mouhammed brought us home through the winding souks of Fès and introduced us to his mother as Ali Baba and Fatima.

But indecisive. Wanting to move on and not sure where to go or how to get there. Wandering through the mellah, the Jewish quarter, Adam photographing me next to the mikvah. Feeling empty.

Some wind in the sails after a dinner of Morocca, white beans and vegetable cous cous and Adam and I walked over to the Ramadan carnival through the blue mosaic gate. Three nights ago, when we arrived in Fès, we discovered the carnival and immediately rode the giant Ferris wheel. It went wonderfully fast and one gets a wonderful view of the city under the stars, the carnival lights aglow and loud music blaring below and men selling mille feuille and macaroons and cigarettes from little wooden boxes with a string around their necks.

Tonight we went back for another ride, one that has little swings that fly around in circles higher and higher. We took videos of ourselves and the revolving Fès skyline on Adam's camera, and when we were done we went again on the Ferris wheel, which I love the most.

And this is traveling, being on the road. Hot dusty days questioning myself and longing for a flat in Park Slope and autumn in New York. And evenings at the Ramadan carnival in Fès reminding me to take risks, to continue to explore.

We were the only foreigners at the carnival.

The Blue City

2007-10-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

Chefchaoeun, MOROCCO

But oh the endless streets and houses painted blue. Not quite blue but tchelet - the sky blue of the flag of Israel - and whitewash, and sand coloured exposed brick, and deeply terracotta roof tiles. Several things add to the beauty of Chefchaoeun: the narrow cobblestone streets, the absence of cars and motorbikes within the city walls, the excessive use of vowels, the Rif Mountain panorama, the spice markets, the gentle October sun.

Three more days until the conclusion of Ramadan. The energy here during this time is quite unique, I imagine. The fasts ends each evening at six, and the hour before that a tremendous rush and vibrancy and urgency sweeps the city, people running at full speed to get their cous cous on. You being to smell the onions simmering, bread baking, eggs boiling, harira stewing - people on the streets filling their bags with Ramadan sweets; baklava, shebekiah, date cookies, dusted with sesame seeds and drenched in Berber honey. Until six, until the call of the muezzin reverberates and silences the city, no one eats or drinks. All is subdued; men sit in cafés.

People continue to serve food to the travelers although we don't feel comfortable with this. So we secret away to the roof for private breakfasts of the that we managed to gather the night before - roasted pistachios and noisettes, fresh chevre, marinated olives, figs and Medjool dates that taste like honey, Moroccan brown bread, pomegranates and bananas.

Moroccan culture I find sensuous, rich, gentle; warm. People are kind. More than once we have been stopped in the street when the muezzin wails the six o'clock break fast as people usher us into their homes to eat fried fish and milk and shebekiah. We had such an invitation the other evening in Chaoeun. Anwar, who runs the Pension Castellana, invited us to eat cous cous with him. A few days ago, we offered him some shebekiah, a Ramadan sweet like Indian djellabi, and he jumped out of his seat and ran off, returning with cornbread and an apple banana milkshake to offer in return. We sat and ate together. The next night, he came onto the roof and asked us if we wanted to drink mint tea. We went down into the courtyard, and he poured hot water over fresh mint leaves and offered us a sugar mixture of cocoa and crushed nuts. Next morning as we left for walk, he timidly asked if we would like to join him for cous cous for dinner. His sister makes it, he added.

The cous cous arrived, a huge plate of it which four of us ate off of communally, as in Moroccan homes. The cous cous is handmade, and it is served with a piece of slow cooked meat in the center, usually lamb or chicken; and it is surrounded by vegetables - carrots, potatoes, green beans. On top are chickpeas and raisins covered in heaps of sweet onions, sauteed in sugar and cinnamon and saffron.

We sat together speaking in French, the lingua franca of Morocco. It is nice not always to default to English. Adam doesn't speak French, so I did my best to translate between the two. We began to ask questions the history of Jews in Morocco, present here for at least ten centuries until they were all expelled in 1967 after the Six Day War. We asked about the old Jewish quarter, the mellah, in Chaoeun; about the relationship between the Muslims and the Jews. Anwar explained that he had no feelings of animosity toward the Jewish people.

"We are all brothers. With the Jews, I have no problem. We honor all of the prophets," Anwar said. "But the Spanish, now they are really a bunch of fuckers."

Chefchaoen, Morocco

2007-10-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Ramadan in Morocco. I'm fucking starving.

Màlaga, and the Costa del Sol

2007-10-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

The bus from Madrid about 7 1/2 hours south into the city of Màlaga, the birthplace of Picasso and also the cultural capital of Europe in the near future of 2017. Ten more years to go and already the scaffolding is out, renovating an already beautiful city. The Costa del Sol. Dark grainy sands but perfect Mediterranean breezes. We arrived in the evening and locked up our packs at the station, walked out to find a hostel.

For my taste Spanish cuisine leaves much to be desired - however it is the joyful quality of the endless tapas bars that satisfy me completely. The food and wine cheap and delicious, all served on wooden barrels in the street. Cold rosé and calamari, jamon de serrano, potato and egg tortes, roasted green peppers and stew like pista with white bread. Costs you less than 10E and you sit at the little barrels late into the night, admiring the shrimp pancakes the fellow next to you just ordered and asking sweetly for a light.

The port city of Màlaga is lined with the obvious harbour and a tropical park at the mouth of the harbour. Hibiscus flowers and date palms. I tasted my first fresh date, yellow and hard and strangely sweet. Adam put a flower in my hair.

Walking through the marbled pedestrian area a gypsy sang and played the accordion. We found our way to the Picasso museum, our second, a collection of his earliest work. The museum was built atop an old archaeological site which had been excavated and which lay preserved with mysteriously modern stairwells wrapping around it. Fourth century cisterns and city walls. What amazed me is how many layers of old cities we build on top of - the old Màlaga lay at least ten meters below street level.

A bus ride in the afternoon down the Costa del Sol, past the drudgery of Marbella and the soulless developed coastline, long past its prime, obscuring the sea. The Rock of Gibraltar stands high and proud, jutting out along the southern edge. Adam fumbled for his camera.

And finally to the port of Algeciras, with ferries pointed toward Morocco.

Xocolate y Xurros

2007-10-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

Lurking round the winding passageways in the city of Barcelona is Picasso's ghost. Here, setting up an easel at the Cathedral de St Someone. Here, painting the turreted rooftops, or the view from the window of his lover. At the playa in Barceloneta.

I have only visited the Basque country, and this is my first visit to Catalunya. Spanish energy is for me completely new, young, fresh; vital - unexpected. Alive. Casual, extraordinary. Absolutely nothing like Paris. The gentleness of a Mediterranean city and the style of thousands of young people. Roman ruins. Gaudi architecture, xocolate and xurros. It feels very old and very young at the same time.

It is a city for living, but so crowded with the internationals that often there is little room to breathe. There is a distinct pulse coming from the underbelly, the Roman aqueducts I imagine underneath the cobblestone streets. It draws me in - the joy of old cities without urban planning - getting lost as I choose a winding alley to wander, to look in the windows of antique shops and xocolaterias and medieval bars.

Espying fisherman's sandals in a size 35, chasing them through the alleys. Searching for Picasso, for the ancient Cataluynian heartbeat. The old stones which built Barcelona, trod on by Roman warriors, kings and princes, that witnessed revolutions, Franco, women in espadrillos and stilettos, the wetness of the sea and the giant puppets of the Festa de Mercé - all is reflected back at me, bouncing off the stained glass, the mirrored façades, the smiles of the buskers and in the street performers maquillage, the musicians and the municipal workers, the gleams of metal as the tiendas close at midday and the Spanish retreat for the afternoon.

All You Sentient Beings

2007-09-09T23:47:00.000-07:00

Creatures. Little animals. Legs. Hairy ones.

Like Golde says in Fiddler on the Roof: May the czar [insert instead: horrible insects and hairy rodents] live a long life [insert instead: lives] and stay they hell away from us! Ugh.

One might think, that with all of the time I spend in developing countries, I might get used to the minions of such places: her little four-plus-legged friends. But I simply cannot. Cannot!

Adam will meet me here in a few days, and for his arrival I organized a little cabin on the land of Dechen Choling into which to welcome him. I spent an afternoon hoovering, washing the windows, clean sheets straight from the line smelling like the French countryside, picking little flowers and placing them in mason jars on the windowsill, next to the bed. I pilfered small speakers from the office and connected my iPod, hung a sachet of fresh rosemary from the doorframe ...

And then I noticed them. Cobwebs. Assorted sized and shapes, tucked into nooks and behind the beautiful exposed ceiling beams, behind the armoire, feathering in the wind around my bloody rosemary, still dripping with dew. A few daddy longlegs, which I know are harmless. And then a few of the monstrous arachnids common to this region, and to slightly damp cabins with high ceilings. I spent the rest of the afternoon removing them, carefully, not wanting to kill them. On the end of the broomstick, or by gently covering them in a glass and sliding a specially cut spider-removing piece of cardboard under the glass and placing them outside somewhere in the grass.

I returned a few hours later, with the subtle feeling of spiders crawling all over me, the usual feeling when one emerges from spider removal detail - and there were just as many new spiders lurking once again in the familiar corners. How could it be? I wondered, as I had just spent so much time and energy not murdering their siblings, how could more have come? Then I realized, to my great horror, that they must be lurking in unforeseen places. Like in the meager carpet, or under the bed. There must be a goddamned army of them somewhere, somewhere I couldn't see or find.

Daddy longlegs are one thing. I don't think they bite, althought I'm sure they spend a good part of their evenings crawling through the hair of strange humans in their midst and laying eggs in their underwear baskets only a few feet away. I can live with the Daddy longlegs. It's their cousins, the horrible hairy monsters, that concern me.

They range in size, but they are horrible all around. They have a substantial weight and bulk, and their little legs are so heavy that when the iPod turns off and quiet descends, I can hear their legs making a taptaptaptap across the walls as they run about, no doubt planning to nest in my ears or build a fortress to their fallen comrades in my shoes in the corner.

The first night I thought to myself: be brave, young Indiana Jones. You've faced worse before. Shrews, mice, cockroaches the size of baseball cards. And yet. And yet ... I couldn't quite find that restful place. I imagined the spiders either a] malicious, or b] oblivious. Whichever way you choose, that still means that they couldn't give a damn about me or my requirement of personal space.

Somehow I managed to fall asleep, my blankets wrapped around me like a death shroud, waiting. I awoke in the morning, immediately looked to the ceiling and the exposed beams. Nothing. To my left, to my right, nothing. I sighed an exhale of relief. Then I saw him. A big monster, staring at me from under the leaves of the flower jar on the table next to the bed. Only half a meter from my delicate sleeping face, watching, no doubt planning some sort of attack. I jumped up, with the now familiar feeling of thousands of them crawling all over me, and reached for my glass. In my rush to cup him and slide the cardboard underneath, I accidently crushed him.

It was an accident! Spider gods, accept my lamentions! Accident! Accident!

And he gushed some sort of miserable spider blood, thick and black like ink, all over the table. Something that required cleaning solvent and not just water to remove. It was awful.

The rest of the day I spent cowering in the chateau and shrine room, away from the scene of the crime I had just committed. What if he were some sort of chief, or the high priest of the community, or worse, a pregnant mother or wizened old queen? I slunk in late that night, and no spiders awaited my arrival. They must be waiting in ambush, I thought.

I tried for an unsuccessful fifteen minutes to sleep. Though all was silent, I thought I could hear a little warcry from somewhere under the bed. Attack! Kill the two-legged beast! they screamed. Or so I thought.

That was quite enough for me. I grabbed my blankets and made a flying leap from the bed straight into my fliflops near the door, and ran away into the night to seek a safe place, safe and far away from the murderous mutiny about to explode in my honor. On my way, fumbling in the dark with my little flashlight, I almost squashed a hedgehog who was making his nightly rounds through the grassy path.

Once my heart started beating again, I made it into the chateau and fell exhausted on a couch in the Marpa Room. I shook out my duvet, waiting for the little devils to emerge. They didn't, and I could finally rest, away from the Spider Shack.

I moved out the next day, and into a caravan like the little criminal gypsy that I am.

The Night Market

2007-08-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

Four years I have been waiting for the night markets of the Haute Vienne. A friend of mind, a sassy British lady called Maggie, took me to my first night market once upon a time, promptly turning me from a delicate vegetarian into a genuinely carnivorous young thing.

Arriving at Dechen Choling Tuesday evening, Maggie immediately whisked me off to her house for a drink and the sunset. She lives in a beautiful house down the road in Ste Marie de Vaux, which I covet and adore. I am a committed gypsy at the moment, but if I had the means I would buy her house and settle down and live here forever. As we pulled into the drive, Maggie noticed that one of the chickens of her neighbor Marcel had jumped the fence into his potager. Within minutes, as Maggie predicted, Marcel appeared, furious, and began chasing the chicken with a big stick. She told me that Marcel always punishes the chickens who behave badly - last spring, apparently, he hung a stone around a naughty hen's neck for weeks. Vive la France!

Over a cold beer Maggie announced the Thursday night market, the mere existence of which makes me the Francophile that I am. These markets move around each week from town hall to town hall in perhaps a 20km radius, and all of the locals come out to eat. Only local vendors are allowed, and the requirement is that each vendor must grow or make everything from their own animals or garden. There are about fifteen vendors - the cheesemakers, with fresh chevre and gouda; the sausage makers - duck, pork, who knows what else; the butchers with their lamb brochettes, fowl, the famous Limousin beef; the tarte lady with blackberry clafoutis and tartin d'abricot; the bread bakers, the local vintners, etc. One buys their meat and takes it to David the Dutch grill master, who grabs it in his hand and throws it on the grill as you watch and tell him how you like it cooked. Then he tells you how it ought to be cooked, and does it his way.

This all takes place in the parking lot of the town hall. Rows of tables are set up, and everyone brings a few bottles of wine, salads, vegetables from the garden, little place settings ... and everyone sits together at shared tables and talks to the people next to them, passing wine and salad and making you taste their summer tomatoes or fois gras or gallette du pepin. It is the most delightfully civilized event on earth. That Thursday I purposefully ate very little for lunch in order to bring a good appetite with me. Ah bon.

As Maggie and I arrived, we noticed a few friends that I hadn't seen in years, the perfect reunion. A few other staff members from Dechen Choling were also there, scattered about, and as I walked around to greet people I ate a little from every table. Then off for a round of the vendors to choose dinner - lamb brochettes, sausage from the neighbors, a bottle of white, a little French gouda. Maggie's friend Laurent, who works for the Limoges newspaper Le Populaire, stopped by and remembered me right away. I think he gets a kick out of my French accent - he calls it "charmante". Two days later, an article appeared in the paper about the night markets, and there was a big photo of Maggie and I accompanying it, which Marcel must have taken in secret. Ha!

Searching for Shangri-la

2007-07-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

The weather changes dramatically here when the sun is not shining. The sun here so remarkably intense. Burning. Penetrating. 12,000 feet above sea level worth of the Tibetan sun. I think at night of the summer monsoons in northern India, the constant rain on tin roofs in Sikkim. And sometimes, here as well, the cold rain of Lhasa.

Tibet has changed in seven years, since my last adventure here. As a Chinese territory, Tibet has constant development disease. Scaffolding everywhere. Sawdust. Municipal workers in bright orange and blue smocks. Small stores teeming with building supplies. And somehow the old Lhasa lying dormant, prostrate, silent underneath. No sawdust can hide the Potala, although the Chinese have turned it into a museum.

The old Lhasa. The old Tibet. It no longer exists, certainly not in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The villages outlying the cities also have constant development disease. Small concrete building line the roads, replacing the mud & brick Tibetan structures, painted white with black trapezoidal windows and roofs lined with drying yak dung, fuel for a treeless windswept plateau. Dust and debris now hang loosely and sigh under the summer sun. Where no trees or flowers have been cultivated, the earth remains grey, fallow. Asleep.

Caught in a rainstorm last week I found a little book called "Searching for Shangri-la", written by an American businessman based in mainland China who cashed in his chips and decided to follow the wild Tibetan ponies of his reoccuring dreams. He begins hitchhiking through Qinghai province and the Tibetan plateau, searching for the Lost Kingdom - only to discover that Shangri-la is a state of mind and not a geographical destination.

So many come to this place searching, searching for something that is not here. This disillusionment is something I must facilitate in my line of work, and it is an interesting position in which to find myself. For what is it that I myself search for here?

Although I speak the language of this country, I do not feel a part of it. Tibet itself is not quite like Himalayan India or Nepal, places in which I move with ease. Perhaps because Tibet is now China, and China is quite unlike anything else in the world.

Finding a Shangri-la inside of oneself transcends the physical, the cultural, the discrepancies, the similarities. Finding a Shangri-la inside oneself is the heart of the Buddhist teachings. And it is perhaps the journey, the search itself for an external Shangri-la that yields the most powerful result: the human heart is also subject to constant development disease - but it is what lies dormant underneath which no layer of sawdust can ever fully cover over.

Onwards - Summer 2007

2007-05-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

Upwards, onwards.

Master's degree now under my belt and traveling wings securely fastened once again. I will be leaving for Asia once again, this time back to the snowy mountains of Tibet. Working for progressive travel company "Where There Be Dragons", co-leading a tour for young people learning how to rock and roll in the communist magnet of the Himalayas.

I will be writing sporadically, whenever I find myself near a reliable internet source. Come and find me: http://www.wheretherebedragons.com/leaders/leaders.htm

In the Market

2006-09-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

(photo: still from the film "Milarepa". The man farthest to the right is a friend of mine).

Wandering through the open markets in Leh, I dicovered that all of the vendors of these markets were Tibetans (as opposed to Ladakhi). Most of them had a settled home somewhere, usually in Bir or McLeod Ganj - but spent each year as traveling merchants: the rainy months away from the monsoon in Ladakh, the winters on the beach in Goa, and the spring in Dharamsala.

I spent an afternoon looking at jewelry in one of these outdoor markets, and once I began bargaining in Tibetan, I became an instant source of curiousity. I was very glad to find people speaking Lhasa dialect and exile Tibetan, as I had been struggling at times to make myself understood in Ladakhi. A husband and wife invited me to join them for ubiquitous butter tea (whispered conversation, overheard: "Don't serve her butter tea! Westerners don't like it." and then "She speaks Tibetan, of course she must like it").

The three of us began a very animated conversation. They wanted to know how, where and why I learned Tibetan, if I had visited Tibet, what my impression was of the current political situation. Had I met the Dalai Lama? Visited Himachal Pradesh? I wanted to know their birthplace, where they were from, when they escaped Tibet. He had escaped Tibet as a boy, and his family home was now in Bir, forty kilometers east of Dharamsala. After a few endless cups of tea, the husband started to cry in front of me. He was an older man, with a beautiful weatherworn face and an outrageous mustache. It is very unusual for Tibetan men to have cultivated facial hair, and I felt a great affection for this mustache.

He took my hand, wiped his tears, and told me how happy he was to see a foreigner speaking his language. His generation is among the last born in a free Tibet, and the first to be exiled to India. He was so inspired, he said, to meet a young person making an effort to preserve the language and the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of a dying Tibet.

In many ways, it has felt to me that my studies have been so selfish, so completely oriented around my own goals, my own need for adventure, for spiritual contact. And for one moment, while sitting there with him, I felt that the scope of what I do actually benefits other people, as well as myself. It is a beautiful feeling.

The story of this afternoon came to mind a few days ago, at the premiere of a new film by Neten Chokling Rinpoche on the lifestory of Milarepa (www.milarepamovie.com). Milarepa is Tibet's most beloved saint and poet, and his legacy is preserved in the thousands of spiritual poems he composed in the eleventh century. This film, the first of two, recreates the childhood experiences of Milarepa. It was filmed in Spiti Valley, which is the eastern Himalayan range of Himachal Pradesh. The monastery of Neten Chokling is in Bir, and most of the actors and the crew were ordinary people harvested from the monastery and surrounding town.

In the film, when the birth of the boy Milarepa is announced, his father emerges from a tent to receive the news. Milarepa's father was no other than the man I had met one afternoon in the market in Ladakh - no one else in the world could have that mustache. This time, it was I who cried.

Give me the Goddamned Camera

2006-09-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

(left: a statue of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, in the Manjushri Hlakhang at Alchi Gompa)

9 August 2006

Adam, Maya and I left Leh for a few days and headed out by early morning bus to visit some monasteries in Western Ladakh. We wandered before dawn through the Muslim quarter of town, through the polo grounds and over to where the local bus was supposed to be ... no bus. This is often how adventures begin.

We made our way quickly to the bus stand outside of Leh, and managed to bribe the driver to let us sit in the front of the bus, which is a small cordoned-off glassed-in compartment where the driver and his lackeys (always two or three) smoke endless cigarettes and listen to Bollywood soundtracks. Room for three more, and off we go.

We arrive at Lamayuru four hours later, after a quiet drive through the mountain desert of Ladakh. It is a sleepy little place, quite desolate save for a guesthouse or two, an outdoor cafe that served ramen noodles and omelets. As we walked down the lone street, we were approached by a Ladakhi woman who prepared dinner each night for guests. She invited us to her home, and we made plans to join her for dinner.

Dropping our packs off in the little guesthouse with chickens on the roof, we made our way up the steep cliff and into the vast complex of Lamayuru Gompa (monastery). We wew ushered into the main temple, and I began asking the monks about the history of the buildings, the monastic site. Sometime in the early 10th Century, the famous yogi Naropa (after whom my university is named) came to do solitary retreat in a small Ladakhi cave. Eventually, a small building was built around the cave to accomodate his practice, and much later, a temple around the cave site. Over the following hundred years, this evolved and continues to evolve - there are now quite a few other external buildings, a retreat center on top of the surrounding mountain, halls for study and for housing the many monks who reside there. We walked into an outdoor Sanskrit class for the young monks, who were more interested in learning addition in English. Two plus two is five! they yelled.

We climbed to the highest peak to take photographs and survey the valley in which Lamayuru is situated. A green swatch of earth cuts through the little town, which runs increasing more desolate the higher the mountains stretch into the horizon.

Over tea and tuna fish in the late afternoon, I met a yogi-monk in the outdoor cafe and invted him to join us. He didn't speak a word of English, so I translated as we all introduced ourselves. I was immediately intrigued by his appearance, his long hair plaited and wrapped around his head - it is the sign of a long-term meditation practitioner. I asked him his story, and he told us that he lived most of the year in retreat in the retreat center above the gompa. He invited us up to visit the place.

Adam and I climbed slowly back up the mountain, the dry grey-brown desert earth giving way beneath our feet. The sun was beautifully warm as it emerged from behind the clouds, but as we climbed higher, the mountain winds begin to whip about and bring with them the cold cold thrusts from the highest snowy peaks.

The monk, Sonam Gyurme, brought us to a small cluster of about nineteen buildings, in each of which lived a retreatant. He told us that there was one Austrian nun who had been there for a long time, and also a young Russian who was trying to learn Tibetan. He ushered us into his one little room - which functioned as a shrine room, bedroom and living room - and made us each a cup of strong black tea. We stayed on together for about an hour, discussing our lineage and lineage histories, our teachers, the fate of the Karmapa, and, of course, why I wasn't yet married.

Adam and I exchanged looks as the tea was being poured - how unique and outrageous to have found this quiet yogi on a mountaintop. We said goodbye, and made our way to dinner.

10 August 2006

The next morning over roadside chai, omelets and chapati, we waited for the daily bus from Kashmir to come rolling through Lamayuru, to hitch a ride to Alchi Gompa. On the bus, while I sat with a nine year old Ladakhi girl on my lap, Adam managed to fall asleep sitting upright. It is a brilliant thing to watch. He swayed with each frequent lurch of the bus, and would have been thrown from his seat several times if I didn't wrap my one free arm around his shoulders and try my damnest to keep him in place. He had the whole front of the bus laughing as this continued ... and when we finally awoke he said - "you didn't have to do that, you know, darling. I was awake the whole time". Sure, baby.

I had been hoping to see Alchi Gompa for many years. I first studied the artwork of Alchi in an art history class in my undergraduate years, and I have been somewhat obsessed with seeing it one day. The gompa was built in the 10th Century, just as Lamayuru. In the 14th Century, the Mughal Invasion swept through India, bringing with it the rise of Islam and the destruction of Buddhist monasteries and artwork. That was the beginning of the end of Buddhism in India. After almost two thousand years in its native country, Buddhism was then bound to be an exile tradition, surviving only in lands in which it had been imported.

Tenth century Buddhist artwork was rather unique and exceptional, for several reasons. Firstly, because of the international creative, artistic and soteriological influences that were a product of the Silk Route. The Silk Route, during its time, ran from the Mediterreanean coastal cities through the Middle East, down through the northwest passage from Afganistan through modern-day Pakistan and into India. Ladakh's proximity to Kashmir and the Silk Route brought a wave of cross-cultural artistic traditions, and in each of the different temples of Alchi, you could pick out the different individual elements. Some of the artwork looked Egyptian, some of it a fantastical Persian animal menagerie. The second reason this particular gompa is so important is because it survived the period of monastic destruction during the time of the Mughals, thus preserving in its entirety a lost period of artwork, an indigenous Buddhist art from the time in which Buddhism was still an Indian phenomenon.

Alchi Gompa is in a small valley, and is famous for the apricot orchards in which it is built. As we walked through the walled complex, we walked under heavy boughs pregnant with fruit and filled our mouths and pockets. It is a small wonderland.

Within the complex, we were three of perhaps ten wandering foreigners. Each small temple was unlocked by the complex caretaker. a strange young monk with a perpetual glass of coca cola and a hawkeye. Because of the age and significance of the artwork, photography is strictly forbidden and natural light not allowed to penetrate the inner sanctums. We spent hours in the temples, shouting to each other when we found another example of foreign artwork. The last temple to visit was a temple to the deity Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom and learning. In the center of the temple were four Manjushri statues facing the four directions, in the four corresponding colors. The blue Manjushri was astounding - he looked exactly like the modern Indian representations of Krishna, the Hindu avatar of Vishnu. As I am most familiar with Buddhism in its cultural trappings outside of India, and because India Buddhist art has been almost completely destroyed in its homeland, I have never actually seem a late-period Buddhist representation in which the artform so clearly paralleled the Hindu artistic tradition.

I needed to photograph the statue. I couldn't leave without a photo. We were due catch a bus back to Leh in ten minutes, so I said to Adam and Maya that I was going to pull a foolish stunt, take a photo, and then we would all leave as quickly as possible to avoid trouble, hop on the bus, and make our way back to Leh.

I tried in vain to distract the caretaker, trying to pull him into a corner and explain some iconography with his back turned from Adam, who was attempting the shot. Not working. I took the camara, turned on the flash, bit my tongue and apologized to any pigment that I wad destroying, and snapped the picture. The caretaker went into a frenzy.

We went outside and immediately started tying on our boots. The caretaker followed, and he began yelling at me for taking a picture. I began playing dumb in Tibetan, and telling him that I couldn't understand him. As he didn't speak any English, and I had spent the last two hours talking with him in Tibetan, this made him even more furious. "Give me the camera!" he shouted. "I'm sorry - I don't understand," I replied, "do you know how to say that in English? What is a camera?". It wasn't very slick, but I didn't know what else to do. He wasn't posing a threat particularly, but I wasn't interested in causing a scene. But that is exactly what happened.

The three of us started walking quickly out of the gompa, being followed with the monk yelling ahead of us - "Don't let them leave with that camera!". At that point, we ran out of the complex, and through the winding streets to the bus stand, laughing and slightly terrified that we might be in more trouble than we realized. We found and empty jeep, bargained with the driver, and sped off back to Leh.

Manali to Leh

2006-08-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

It has been two months now since I left India, and I am back in the United States once again, living the life of a graduate student. I was unable to update my website in Ladakh due to slow internet connection and general lack of interest in sitting in internet cafes, however, there are still a few stories left in me. These stories, I think, will not progress in a linear fashion but rather unfold as I recall them ...

Any tale about Ladakh, however, must begin with the ridiculous journey one must make to get there. From the mountain town of Manali, Leh (the capital of Ladakh) is only about 436km as the crow flies. The highway speed in Quebec, for example, is 110kph - so it is very possible that on a paved road in a faraway land, one might be able to traverse such a distance in about four hours. For example.

The road between Manali and Leh is not the worst road in the world. I know this because I traveled this highway with an Israeli girl who actually has been on the worst road in the world (true), which apparently is somewhere in Bolivia. It has some outrageous name, like "Avenida del Muerte" or something like that. Regardless, I would posit this road, which runs directly through (and over) (and around) the northwestern Himalayan range, as one of the ten worst in the world, although I haven't been to Bolivia.

The road is only open about three and a half months each year, somewhere between June and September, as the snow-covered passes are only motorable when the snow clears during the warm summer months. Warm at 21,000 feet is of course freezing cold, but that is another matter entirely.

Depending on the weather, the 436km journey takes roughly 24 hours via local bus, spread out over two days. Although the road is a disaster, apparently the scenery is breathtaking. I wouldn't know, however, as I choose to take a jeep into Leh, which does the whole go in one run with one driver. Nineteen hours in an old Landrover, with eleven other people. I spent nineteen hours trying unsuccessfully to get slightly less uncomfortable, to no avail. But, moving too far ahead.

The jeep adventure begins at 2am, when the Landrover is due to set out. I was staying at a guesthouse in Vaishist on top of a hill, which had a set of uneven stone steps carved into the earth leading to up to it from the hot springs. As I was packing at 1.30am, I realized a friend had accidently left with my flashlight, and instead a second bottle of sunblock appeared in my bag. It was raining, and very dark outside, and I am blind as a bat, so I was quite unnerved to take the steps in the dark with the full weight of my rucksack. Not too many other options, though, at 2am, so down I went. On the third step, of course, I stumbled over a broken stone. My ankle buckled under the extra 20 kilos of my pack, and was gashed open against the rock. At first it was quite numb, and too dark to see the blood. I was so glad simply to find myself upright and not tumbling down the hill like a schmuck that I didn't feel any pain at first. Somehow I managed to bump into two Enlgish girls on the road at 2am, who not only happened to be medical students but also carried iodine and bandages in their pockets. They surveyed my gash and cleaned me up.

At the bottom of the hill, the Landrover lumbered up the road, full save for myself. There are three rows of seats in the jeep: the front, which has two passengers and the driver; and the middle and back rows, which both seat four passengers. If you line up four normal-sized adults shoulder to shoulder, the cumulative width is greater than the width of the car. The sardine situation is less than ideal, but this is simply how it is. More people, higher profit yield, I suppose. As the driver climbed to the roof to secure my rucksack, slight havoc broke out among the passengers in the jeep.

An Israeli woman and a French man began a very animated and terribly abusive argument in broken English over the seat arrangement in the middle row: apparently, they had both been sold the same seat through different agencies, and they were both freaking out over who had the right to the window. Maya: Why like this? I only bought the jeep ticket because they told me I had the windowseat! I cannot spend twenty hours in the middle! Take me back to my guesthouse ... ! Frederic: Zees is not my pwoblem - it is a pwoblem avec votre agence! Mon pied is tres mal, I cannot sit in zee middle! I will not! Not my pwoblem!

To my great chagrin, I was seated in between the two of them. I had one hour of sleep in me, my foot was beginning to throb, I had the prospect of endless hours in a jeep with no shocks ahead of me, and these two were ready to exchange blows. I lost my temper, and went completely New York on them: All right, you two - you need to figure this out right now and then fermez les bouches, because you are irritating the hell out of me. If you keep it up, you are going to have three pissed off people in this jeep instead of two - so what can we do to solve this?

As I sat there ranting, under the light of the streetlamp I realized that I knew the Israeli woman from Bhagsu - we had eaten breakfast at the same restaurant for weeks. We laughed as we recongized each other, and the two other Frenchies in the front seat started to console Frederic. We set off nearing 3am, and we were all too exhausted to continue arguing. Maya stayed in the middle, Frederic kept the window, and I fell asleep on his shoulder.

Driving in India is often quite civilized, if you discount the means of transportation, the lack of toilets, and the conditions of the roads. By civilized, I mean that one stops for chai about every three to four hours, if only for fifteen minutes. At every chai dhaba, there would inevitably be a few more tourist jeeps, and we would mingle together and grumble sympathetically. At the first chai stop, I found that I could put almost no pressure at all on my ankle without doubling over in intense pain. By the second chai stop, I became convinced that my ankle was broken. Not a good thing. I started asking around at other jeeps if there were any physicians among the travelers, looking for a diagnosis of sorts. My anxiety increased - but I thought, at the very least, I'll have an entire day of barely walking because of the drive, so perhaps it will be better in the morning ...

On a nineteen hour car ride, there is not much to do but review one's thoughts and listen to the four Indian men behind me belt out a constant stream of Hindi pop. One of them was actually a falsetto, and sang the women's line the entire time. I began to review my maladies. At that moment I had: a semi-debilitating case of giardia, a kidney infection, a cold, and now, a fractured left ankle and an increasingly sore right quad, worn out by compensating for the ankle. I considered jumping off a cliff. Then I realized that that would require standing up and exerting myself, and even that idea became too much of a chore. Better to just wait it out.

Toward midday, the mood in the jeep lightened as Frederic discovered I spoke some French and proceeded to jabber on for five or six hours. I didn't really listen, but nodded enthusiastically and added a few pertinent mais ouis and ah bons to pass the time. Fourteen hours into the trip, I asked a Ladakhi woman on the road how much further to Leh. Five more hours, she replied. I closed my eyes, hung my head, and hoped to God that the Ladakhi word for one was five.

The Man in the Moon

2006-08-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

Leh, Ladakh.

We were staying in a beautiful guesthouse in a small village called Changspa just outside of Leh. It was just off the road, encircled by apricot trees and a beautiful garden. Adam and I would creep around the garden inspecting the new vegetables, and decided that we would make a dinner for our friends that night. We got permission to share the kitchen with the Ladakhi family that owned the guesthouse, and set off to the market to bargain endlessly for whatever vegetables we couldn't find in the garden.

Adam was our chef, and I kept him company in the kitchen and translated as the Ladakhi family prepared their own dinner. The family kept me laught with a running commentary through the evening: on my clothes (What are you wearing? Don't you have a chuba to keep you warm?), my marital status (you really should marry a nice Tibetan man), and our dinner plans (what the hell is custard? & don't you people eat rice?). While I was stirring the pumpkin-mango soup, Momo-la (grandmother) burst into the kitchen shouting something about the Dalai Lama. Ladakhi is a Tibetan dialect, but many of the words are unfamiliar to me, and often I could not understand more than the gist of someone's conversation if they were not committed to feigning a Lhasa dialect to communicate with me. I had no idea where Momo-la wanted to take me, and while she was pulling me out the door, Adam was left standing over the pot yelling "What about the Dalai Lama? Is he here? Outside?" I told him to follow us, and ran along to catch up with Momo-la.

She ran around to the side of the house, climbed up a huge mound of earth like a mountain goat and proceeded to yank me up there with her. We stood under the light of a gorgeous full moon, and she said to me, "Look - you can see the face of His Holiness in the moon. Can you see it?" This time I understood her. And with that, she pressed her wizened hands into prayer position over her heart, and began to recite the long-life supplication for the Dalai Lama. I looked up and realized that people in the neighboring house were leaning out there windows and standing on their roofs, all doing the same.

Adam came running out, anxious and expecting His Holiness to be standing in our garden patch, there in the middle of nowhere. I explained to him what was happening, and we stood quietly together and laughed under the Himalayan stars.

Vaishist

2006-07-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

A few extra days at the hot springs to recover my health, and leaving tonight on a 2am jeep to Leh, the capital of Ladakh.

I've been asking around about the history of these hot springs in this little village. What I received was a story from the Ramayana, the great Hindu epic which I am studying and translating in my Sanskrit classes. This is one story that I have not yet heard.

Rama, middle in the photo, was the eldest of four sons of noble King Dasharatha of Ayodhya, a divine prince whose destiny brought him on the rather Herculean adventures which comprise the Ramayana. His constant companion, also his brother, called Laksmana is shown on Rama's right side. Sita, Rama's wife

and daughter of King Janaka of Mithila, is on Rama's left.

Rama at one point in his life was looking for a guru to relate with, and with whom to learn and study meditation. Himachal Pradesh has long been a region famous for its mountain retreats, and thus has always attracted spiritual teachers and seekers. Laksmana came to Himachal to help in Rama's quest when he met Guru Vaishist.

During this meeting, Laksmana decided that Vaishist would be a suitable guru - however, as Vaishist had been meditating and living in caves for many years, he was quite dirty and covered in dried mud. Laksmana suggested that before meeting with Rama, Vaishist might fancy a bath. Upon hearing those words, Guru Vaishist touched the ground, and with his divine power opened up the hot springs through a rock in this little village.

This is the origin of the springs, which are the heart centre of this holy village. Apparently, scientists have come to this region and done some tests to determine the source of the springs, to no avail. Yet the question is already answered in the minds of the local people: the source is none other than the guru from whom the village derives its name.

To Ladakh

2006-07-29T02:19:00.000-07:00

In the last two weeks or so now of my travels in India. I will be leaving for Ladakh in a few days time, and out of computer contact until I return to Europe - or perhaps Delhi.

Ladakh extends north of India, bordering the Tibetan Himalaya and sharing a similar culture and landscape. Tibetan Buddhism is the religion of the region, and Ladakhi is a Tibetan dialect, similar to the language I speak. Leh, the capital - a small village, really - is two twelve hour bus rides away from Manali, where I am now for a few days, north through Himachal Pradesh and into Jammu-Kashmir. Above the treeline, and sharing a mountainous desert landscape similar only to the Tibetan plateau - or perhaps, the moon.

After five weeks in the Dharamsala region, I came east yesterday to the small town of Vaishist to join a friend. Vaishist is well-known locally for its natural hot springs which run through the center of the village. The springs are harnessed into a small outdoor bath, and the water is drained and refilled each night at midnight, when the foreigners lurk out of the cafes and fill the baths. The water is sulfuric, hot and gorgeous. The Israelis bring cardamom coffee.

In the early afternoon, we follow a small sign to a waterfall. Glacial water pierces the cliffs and rages down into the river valley, forming small pools set amid glacial boulders. When water is involved, regardless of the country I am traveling in, I lose absolutely all sense of cultural modesty and propriety if there is the smallest semblance of privacy. Within a few minutes we were diving off boulders into the waterfall pools of frozen mountain water. And after midnight, into the hot springs.

My health is returning, I am eating properly again, and there are fresh river trout in town. Ah.

Amritsar: the Golden Temple

2006-07-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

photo: The border closing ceremony at Wagah, on the Indian-Pakistani border.

photo: within the temple complex in Amritsar

Not sure sometimes how I get myself into these situations. I had to go to Pakistan the other day to have a cigarette. But I get ahead of myself ...

I've been in the Dharamsala area for the last four or five weeks. Himachal Pradesh is far and away my favorite state in India - perhaps in some ways because it is not quite India. A friend and I had been talking for days about making a day trip to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, southwest into the Punjab. We left on Friday at half-three in the morning under the light of the mountain stars, to catch the 5am bus out of Himachal.

Amritsar is a small city, about six hours distance from here, but it is home to more than one million people. It is the capital of the Sikh world, teeming with pilgrims, universities and Punjabi administrative buildings. Amritsar (Amrita Sarovar) means Pool of Ambrosia in the Punjab dialect. The Golden Temple is in the middle of a small manmade, koi-filled lake - the holiest site of the Sikh people. More than 30,000 pilgrims are said to visit the Golden Temple each day, even in the hot season, as it is now.

The heat in the plains is surreal. It was easily between 105 and 115F (40 - 43C) degrees from sunrise to sunset, without shade. I slept for about three hours the night we left, then a six hour busride before arriving in the city in the heat of the day. Never in my life have I felt such incredible heat. I actually changed into a different person in that heat. Movement, any movement at all, becomes extraordinarily slowed. Eating is a challenge. Manuevering between the 30,000 other sweating people is not so simple. The sun glares off of the blue pool of ambrosia, and the Golden Temple is so brilliant in the sunlight that it is difficult to look directly at it. Easier to look at the reflection in the water.

Everyone who enters the gates of the Golden Temple (men, women and foreigners alike) must cover their heads with a headscarf within the gates, and enter barefoot. The inner courtyard which circumambulates the temple is built entirely out of white marble, which simply scorches in the heat. Jute mats are laid out to protect the feet of pilgrims, a small salvation.

A narrow path leads into the Golden Temple itself, which is gilded in more than 750 kg of pure gold. The inside is quite crowded with a constant flow of people, and musicians inside play tabla music which is broadcast through large speakers throughout the temple complex. Always music in India, and always loud.

Food and accomodation at the Golden Temple is free to all, as service to others is a central tenet of Sikh philosophy. There are enormous buildings which house pilgrims and visitors, and within that, a small dormitory for foreigners. The door to the foreigners dorm is guarded by three Sikh with spears. Javelins. I don't imagine that they ever have a good reason for using them, but I suppose it was comforting. I've never been guarded by spear before. Quite an honour, really.

There is a row of about 25 beds in the foreigners dormitory, lined up together and pushed to form one long bed in which to sleep. Outside there are public fountains and loos for the thousands, creating a small community within the city. People from all over Punjab, all over India, and all over the world come together and share the facilities, everyone somehow leveled by the heat, sharing in the same experience.

There is a community dining hall within the temple complex, which feeds the tens of thousands who come through in a bizarre dance. First, one enters through the gates and is handed one of thousands, simply thousands, of stamped aluminium plates, a spoon, and a small bowl for water. Utensils in hand, one follows the crowd into an enormous hall in which hundreds of people sit in endless jute-lined tumeric-stained rows, at all hours of the days. It is an uninterrupted ritual, with food constantly being served: chapati, black daal, something greenish, and some sort of sweet potato with raisins and sugar. Quite good, despite the heat and giardia.

People eat quickly, and once the meal is over, one files out with the others and returns the plates at the huge outdoor dish-washing station. Anyone can join in the dishwashing, and to my great despair, the two Dutch and English women I was with decided to gain some spiritual merit by joining in. I joined in blindly and quite timorously, but we washed dishes with thousands of others for a short while before entering the temple.

In the dormitory, the only respite from the heat with a few ceiling fans, we met several people headed to the Pakistani border in the evening for the daily border closing ceremony. In the early afternoon, the heat still blazing overhead, we took an hourlong taxi ride to Wagah to watch the one of the most outrageous rituals. This is an excerpt that I've read about the ceremony:

"The stage for the performance is the Joint Check-Post at Wagah, 25 kilometers east of Pakistan's most ancient city Lahore and west of the Indian city of Amritsar. A long white line, borne of the 1947 partition of Britain's Indian empire, defines the border between the hostile neighbours and two heavy gates, about two meters (yards) apart, lie across either side.

On the Indian side, some 2,000 spectators take their seats behind the border post after being let in through a path running alongside the border for 50 meters under the curled moustaches of the Pakistani Rangers. Opposite, around 1,000 Pakistanis take their seats on either side of the Baab-e-Azadi (Gate of Freedom).

The gate was built in August 2001 by Pakistani authorities in homage to the thousands of Muslims killed during the mass migration to their new land in 1947. Cries of "Pakistan Zindabad" (Long live Pakistan) alternate with shouts of "Jai Hind" (Long live India). The Indians play war music, the Pakistanis play religious music. The Indians sing and dance. Pakistanis stay in their seats, men on one side and women on the other."

Theoretically, the daily ceremony would seem to be a solemn affair, but is has turned into an absolute spectacle. Indian tourists come by the thousands to the border, which is a no man's land between the two countries. Pakistanis also come in droves to their border to witness the show, and the combined energy creates a havoc and a frenzy of religious and nationalistic fervor. The armies of both countries lead a simultaneous colour guard ceremony on either side of the Baab-e-Azadi.

Before the 6.30pm colour guard, nationalistic Indian music is played at full blast in the fullsun and 110 degree heat, and the Indian men go wild and dance in the road like drunkards at a monsoon wedding. An awful thing to say, but true: the Indian colour guard looks exactly, but exactly, like the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks. Its outrageousness is the main draw to the ceremony, as well as the license to go completely insane. Indian flags are waved, and the ceremony begins.

The colour guards of both countries approach the Gate of Freedom: "Pounding the ground with long strides, a Ranger goose-steps hurriedly towards the gate for a brusque exchange of mimicked threats with his Indian colleague. A second joins them, then a third in a bizarre ballet punctuated by glowering glares and warrior moustaches. The gates open. Two officers approach each other and after briefly coming face-to-face shake hands. Both soldiers can then start to lower the Pakistani and Indian flags fixed high on poles planted at the foot of the gates. Silence falls. Both officers return to the white border line. A final handshake. The gates are slammed shut and on both sides, a trumpet announces the end of the spectacle."

Then back to Amritsar. One cannot smoke a cigarette within a 200m radius of the Golden Temple, which covers a tremendous distance when the heat is so intense. Fortunately smoking was permitted on the border of Pakistan, and cigarettes sold freely. But once back within the city of Amritsar, heads covered again and shoes off, one again joins the ranks of the thousands of pilgrims. A strange adventure.

The Dreaded Oonga Boonga

2006-07-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

(photo left: giardia intestinalis)

I have giardia. And I am currently sponsoring a genocide within my body. The poor bastards.

There are various stages to being sick in India. First is the physical illness, which manifests slowly and stealthily. Rumblings in the stomach that wake you up nights, a growing inability to keep down what you take in, and then the inability to eat altogether. The process takes a few days usually, from the infant-prophetic stage of realizing that you will soon be ill, to being fully and genuinely ill. Then a mixture of stoicism and lethargy sets in: this will pass in a day or so ... I'll just eat rice and bananas and sleep it off. But I've been sleeping for the better part of three days, and I can't bear the thought of another banana.

In the next stage, one turns to one's fellow travelers for a group diagnosis and general complaint session. Being unwell is so common that all travelers have the experience, the ability and the utter frankness to discuss the most intimate details of one's intestinal happenings. I had such a pow wow this morning, and the diagnosis: get thee to a doctor.

From the village of Bhagsu, it is a ten minute hike downhill, a five minute rikshaw into McLeod Ganj, and another twenty minutes via rikshaw down to the Dharamsala clinic. And the traffic. Not quite traffic in the traditional sense. Traffic here involves roads that were not built wide enough for two large cars to pass each other safely. When an impasse occurs, the beta vehicle is forced to back up (as are all vehicles behind the beta as well) until there is room enough for the alpha vehicle to squeeze by, outer wheels offroad and spraying mud and stones. The situation is compounded by the fact that this town is built on a hill, and the roads by nature snake around the hills curves in hairpin turns.

Sometimes the rikshaw merely idles while two cars decide by horn honking who is the alpha vehicle and who is the beta. Idling in the back of a rikshaw spewing unfiltered diesel smoke usually isn't pleasant under any circumstance, let alone when one's stomach is already turned inside out and spontaneous vomiting is a distinct possibility. It takes a while to make the decision to go the clinic because going to the clinic is a pain in the ass.

Finally, of course, one arrives at the clinic and registers at the desk. About forty other people in various states of physical distress line the benches - sneezing everywhere, looking faint, mothers clutching crying chilldren, monks clutching x-rays, foreigners green and weak as myself with the familiar exhaustion of dystentery and dehydration in their eyes, Indians wrapped in layers of fabric as is their wont, carefully hiding whatever sickness they suffer. And the grim knowledge that I am number 42, and they are still calling the twenties. I hear that if your number is not called before noon and your tests not submitted, you must wait until the following day for your diagnosis and prescription - which involves making the same trip from cozy bed and clean loo to endless rikshaw and clinic once again.

Pharmaceuticals in India are all over the counter, so I seriously consider finding someone with my same symptoms and simply purchasing a matching course of antibiotica on my own. In the end, however, I decide to leave it to the professionals, just in case I have actually managed to catch oonga boonga disease, or Japanese encephylitis, alien invasion, cholera or some other such miserable thing.

After two hours my number is called, and I crawl into the office and deliver my symptoms. I was given the world's tinest vial in which to produce a sample of my wares (with a toothpick as well - what the hell was I supposed to do with that?) and ushered away with a warning that the laboratory (or labratory, as the sign read) would close in five minutes. There were two western interns in the office, and they said to me: try to avoid mangoes, tea and coffees, soups and salads. I could tell they hadn't been in India very long. Their advice is akin to telling someone in Paris to avoid baguettes and brie, espresso, cigarettes and melons and pastries.

Two hours later I return to the clinic for the verdict: giardia. Solution: genocide. Feeling: better, actually.

Constantly Risking Absurdity

2006-07-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

The mountaintop plateau of Triund.

The caves are above the small guesthouse and to the right. Half a view through the prayerflags, from a cave at Triund.

Three hours hike uphill from Bhagsu begins the entrance into the Dhauladhar mountain range at Triund (2975m), stretching north through Himachal Pradesh into Jammu-Kashmir, and into the mountain desert of Ladakh. The path is steep and rocky, a goat path really, slowly winding up the hills.

Constantly risking absurdity - the beginning of a poem by Ferlinghetti, and quite an apt beginning to any adventure during the Indian monsoon. Constantly risking absurdity, and landslides, and the possibility of being stranded somewhere - anywhere - for hours as the rains wash away the paths and slippery up the stones. Ran into two friends late the other night, and they were planning to leave for Triund the following morning. Barring wet weather, of course.

Constantly risking absurdity. It could pour at any moment once we begin the ascent, and there are no places to stop along the way save for two chai dhabas. And once we reach Triund? It could rain all day. The mists could hide the Dhauladhar range, the clouds could swallow the eagles, the green parrots, the caves. Very little to do on a clouded mountaintop in monsoon season.

And yet in India, one must constantly risk absurdity, and landslides, and the possibility of being stranded somewhere. Anywhere. Because the possibilities of adventure are much more potent and more vibrant, and always mixed with absurdity nonetheless.

We left later than planned, three hours later than planned. The idea was to get up early and reach Triund before noon, before the rain usually falls. As we hiked, a few drops fell, and disappeared as quickly. We made it to the top in the early afternoon, three hours exactly. A cold breeze blew as we had our mountaintop chai, and slowly, slowly, the sun emerged. During the monsoon. The sun emerged, the clouds dispersed. Blue, blue sky, the mountains coming into view with their glaciers, their waterfalls, their snowtopped peaks, their loose shale, their open-mouthed passes leading into the Tibetan Himalaya.

There are exactly five small buildings on the plateau at Triund: three chai shacks (with three walls apiece, and Hindi music blaring despite the lack of electricity), and two little huts in which to sleep. Above the huts, straight up the mountains, are strewn huge glacial boulders. In between the boulders are a few caves, some quite protected, and others little more than a craggy overhang. From the huts we hired sleeping bags and blankets, and then spent the afternoons checking out the caves and making our nests. We wandered all across Triund, through herds of cows and sheep, and tried to imagine the animals that emerged only under cover of darkness. I had never slept in a cave before.

The sunny, rainless day gave way to a moonless evening. Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj glowed like stars in the distance. Our eyes adjusted easily to the night, and soon we could detect the slightest movements in the trees, along the rocks. Monkeys? Flying squirrels? A long, lean body and a big, bushy tail. Enormous green eyes. And then the most magnificent jump from tree to tree. I wished to myself that I was not sleeping in his cave, whatever it was. The last thing I'd like to wake up next to.

Up at dawn the following morning. The sky stays clear, brilliantly clear, and I sat in the sun for the first time since my arrival in India seven weeks ago. And a Himalayan sunburn is quite something, let me tell you.

McLeod Ganj, HP

2006-07-10T05:43:00.000-07:00

Above, a view of McLeod Ganj.
The Tsuglakhang, the main temple of HH the Dalai Lama

It is quiet now in McLeod Ganj, after the celebration of the birthdays of both HH Dalai Lama and HH Karmapa within a week of each other. I have moved out of the main town, and into a small mountain village called Bhagsunag. It is only a short walk into McLeod, but where I stay I

am above the roads, the cars, the people. It is a twenty minute climb with your pack up the

pebble-strewn footpath, north from the small road that runs into Lower Bhagsu. Quiet and rainy.

The monsoon has started in Himachal Pradesh. The rain descends in torrents, and often quite unexpectedly. There is a lull, and a cloud settles in the town. If the windows and doors are open in the cafes, the clouds will pour through them, like smoke, damp and fresh. Sometimes it will clear for an hour, or three, and I try to dash up the mountainside to catch a proper view of the Kangra Valley, of snowy Triund, of the waterfalls and shale cliffs that surround the valley. It is a strange thing, in Dharamsala just as Darjeeling, to be in the midst of such raw natural beauty, and to be unable to access it because of the mist and rain. Such is the nature of traveling in hill stations, I suppose.

It is a wonderful thing, to be back in a Tibetan-speaking area. Here, one needs to go out to the outlying villages to find India once again. I have been invited by an Indian masseuse to visit her home this weekend, about 15km outside of McLeod. Back to India.

HH Karmapa and the Shambhala Delegation

2006-07-05T05:49:00.000-07:00

From left: Katrin and Frank Stetzel, Peter Volz, HH Karmapa XVII, Penpa Warren, myself, and Clarke Warren.

Cafe del Mundo

2006-07-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

The wild and ridiculous realm of travelers in India is perhaps one of the most wonderful aspects of traveling. With the slightest pluck, one invariably ends up sharing dinners with people from all over the world, in the blink of an eye.

I stayed in Rumtek with an Australian and an Israeli, and on one rainy afternoon I realized that the distance between our three countries could perhaps divide the world evenly into thirds. Yet a shared language, and a shared desire for adventure brought us together like wild dogs. And it is often like that.

Dinner last night in a crowded restaurant, and suddenly an old Englishman, a poet by the look of him, stood up and announced an open music night.

A Quebecois jumped onto a chair and played the spoons brilliantly, and sang a wonderful and raucous song that I could tell was quite dirty despite my poor French. A shy Brazilian woman sang Portuguese bossa nova - or rather whispered it, the way bossa nova is meant to be sung. An Argentine man played the accordian, and made half of us cry. I never knew an accordian could be so beautiful. Several Tibetans sang folk songs in the quiet, high-pitched tradition; a blond man from Manchester played wild rowdy banjo bluegrass; a group of Israelis sang in Hebrew; two Irishmen named Barry (true) sang the blues in harmony; a Persian sang sadly in Arabic. An English girl, a song of Lancelot and Guinevere; a German, the classical guitar; and a Frenchman ended the night with Dylan. Dylan - of course. And there in that room, people from all over the world knew the words, and sang together.

Happy and Healthy

2006-07-02T02:56:00.000-07:00

Deja Vu

2006-06-29T04:51:00.000-07:00

Six and a half years since I have last been in Dharamsala, and seemingly, a small lifetime. It is a strange thing, to return to a place that was never quite familiar to begin with. Memories come back to me in flashes, moments, with passing scents. I look through the curtained window of a small cafe ... and I have been there before. But with whom? What did we talk about, so many years ago? It is as if I encounter myself in a memory, in a dream. I was so young then, so fully vital and so alive.

I am by myself now, and still quite young. In the early afternoon I walk out of McLeod Ganj along the Bagsu road. I remember a waterfall somewhere, and I want to find it again. Along the deserted road there is a small cafe with stone steps leading down to a small house. I remember that house, suddenly. It was the temporary house of a man called Gary, a crazy American who eventually left India to become an astronaut. Gary was a man of wild and ridiculous theories, and if he saw you from a restaurant walking down the street, he would run out shouting to you about his lastest idea.

One thing he always complained about was the intrusion of artificial light in the night sky of the Himalayas. He argued that all artifical outdoor lighting should be replaced with red light bulbs, as it wasn't perceptible from space and didn't give the sky a purplish haze. Red light also has the added benefit, he said, of turning people on. So in addition to quelling the problem of light pollution, people would also become more sexually inclined in general. And how much violent conflict in the world might be averted, argued Gary, if people spent their nights making love and not war?

He used to travel with this enormous telescope. He was a friend of my flatmate in Kathmandu, who told me he might be stopping by one day. The first time I met him, he was standing alone in my flat, all six and a half feet of him, wearing nothing but a sarong, looking into people's windows with his telescope in the middle of the afternoon. It's to see the stupa better, he reasoned, after introducing himself. I was in love with his best friend, and together we all had a few adventures in Nepal and northern India. I wonder what has become of him.

I climb a shale path up through Bagsu and I eventually find the waterfall cafe - just a tin shack with a tarpaulin roof serving chai, in the middle of nowhere. I come upon a bend in the road, and a wilted rhododendron tree, and my mind flashes back again.

There was a field of yellow mustard flowers, once upon a time, very near to here. On the roof of Gary's house I met two Swedish girls who taught me how to knit. One sunny day, I took my yarn out to this mustard field, when the rhododendron trees were in full bloom. There was in Indian woman there, picking rhododendron blooms and gathering them in her enormous shawl. She smiled at me, laughed at my knitting and sat next to me to pluck the blooms and collect the petals. She spoke to me in Hindi, and I tried my best to communicate in broken Nepali. Chutney, she said, I am making chutney. In response to my disbelief, she shoved a handful of flowers into her mouth, and gestured for me to do the same. Which I did. So we sat there together, plucking petals and eating them.

She invited me back to her home for dal bhaat, and after lunch she began sewing and gestured for me to continue my knitting as I sat there on the dirt floor. I said goodbye after an hour or so, and as I left she gave me her beaded necklace. These are the things I remember.

The Second Sex

2006-06-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

Walking through the narrow streets here, I enter unconsciously into the mandala of Indian gender paradigms. My awareness of my sex and my skin colour becomes heightened, acute.

Traveling alone as a woman in India - or anywhere, for that matter - is not so simple. In Indian culture, it is not at all common for a woman to be independent - it is rather an anomaly, a reason for suspicion, an outward curiosity. She is always connected to a man, whether her father, brother, husband or son. The only women outside of this are orphans, prostitutes and widows. To be a westernized woman alone in India is to inhabit a sterotype: moneyed, capricious, loose and sexualized - and, above all, powerful.

The discrepancy between the sociocultural standing of the Indian female, and the iconographical and religious symbolism of the divine female within Indian culture is vast and multivalent. It is, of course, the main topic of feminist criticism in Asian Religions 101 in universities across the world - and yet, it does necessitate a certain criticism. Particularly when one is both subject and object of the discussion.

Within the Hindu pantheon, much like the Greek and Roman pantheon, a male deity is incomplete without his female counterpart, his shakti. Shakti is a word with a remarkable semantic range - it means something like vitality, empowerment, revitalization. It represents the balancing of male-female energy, and also of the cosmic and natural order. On the mundane level, Indian breakfast cereals advertise that their product has added shakti - strength, vitamins, caloric power, nourishment in the deepest sense of the word. In the Hindu esoteric tradition, this quality of nourishment and balance is the quintessential aspect of the divine female.

Which is not to say that the role of the goddess is relegated merely to masculine empowerment. The Hindu goddess runs the complete emotional spectrum, just as her male counterpart: from peaceful and maternal, to wrathful and destructive. Sita, Radha, Tara and Saraswati are each invoked every day in Hindu culture for their symbolic relationships to art, music, poetry, harmony, life-giving, erotic love and mothering qualities. They represent the Great Mother, the dual principle of the two Marys in the Catholic tradition - mother and lover, virgin and courtesan.

The wrathful goddesses - Kali, Durga, Vajrayogini - are revered and propagated for the raw female power that they wield and possess. Iconographically, they are depicted naked, hair loose and flowing, tongue extended, menstruating openly, bearing weapons and riding feral animals. She is the woman of Dionysian orgies, only she is in complete control of her faculties and her shakti.

Hindu esoteric philosophy is somewhat Manichaean in its invocation of the union of opposites to create balance and harmony in the natural world and cosmos. The two most primary symbols of diametric opposition throughout the Hindu world are the lingam and the yoni - the divine phallus and its sacred vaginal inversion. The yoni statues are often enclosed and protected within public sanctuaries, but the ancient phalluses are everywhere. I have actually bumped into them while walking through crowded streets in the old city in Kathmandu - this is how commonplace and prevalent they are.

And yet, the power of the Indian woman has been secreted away, despite the blatant paradox. In the midst of however many thousands of years of history, this paradox is intensified by the arrival and presence of the westernized woman. In South India, I feel forced to conform - I won't touch men in public or make eye contact, I wear loose clothing and long shawls, and tie back my unruly curls. The men are much more aggresive, particularly in cities. The aggression takes a peculiar form - it is not sexual aggression, such as in Parisian parks (where it is the worst I have ever experienced, anywhere in the world), but rather some sort of perverse need to devalue westernized women as symbols of power. This is done not through violence, but through a sort of victimization. A casual brush of the ass or the breast, standing too close, leering. The only way to subvert this paradigm of power, for the Indian man who engages in this, is to demean the woman through psychological cruelty and physical intimidation.

In the north, however, it is much more liberal, and I am more comfortable here. The Tibetans are remarkably hip and unfettered by Indian conservativism, so it is quite easily to inhabit one's skin. I slide into my perfectly cut designer jeans, I wear my hair loose, I show my shoulders and my curves unapologetically. The Kashmiri men, with their black curls, strong Aryan features and startling green eyes nod approvingly - which, I must admit, is devilishly flattering in a world where sexuality is suspect and woman the culprit.

Darjeeling to Dharamsala: the unabridged version

2006-06-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

(photo from left: HH Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje XVII and Tsurphu Labrang General Secretary Ven. Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche)

I don't think that a day has ever been as beautiful as this day in McLeod Ganj. But, I move too far ahead.

FRIDAY

Friday morning I left a rainy Darjeeling far behind me. I was longing for fresh air, for the rain to let up, to feel the sun on my shoulders. A friend needed to go down to Siliguri, in the direction of the airport, so we took a shared jeep together down the mountain and into the plains of Bengal. It is a semi-tropical region once out of the mist and hills, and my friend and I looked at each other and shared the same thought: just like southen Thailand, except rather than durian forests and banana trees, tea estates lined the narrow dirt roads.

At Siliguri, Carine and I said goodbye, and I piled my things into an auto rickshaw - my favourite transport in Asia - and we trundled out to Bagdogra airport to catch my flight into New Delhi.

Delhi is hot in June. My general rule is: nowhere south of Delhi after March - period. And yet, the passage to Himachal Pradesh runs through Delhi, and I needed to connect with the Shambhala delegation. Uneventful enough. I watched the World Cup and drank salted lime soda in our air conditioned suite, and woke before dawn for the bus to Dharamsala.

SATURDAY

The trip from Majnu ka Tilla to Dharamsala, although only 436 km, takes about 12 hours if the going is easy. Yet in India, the going is rarely easy. Rather, extraordinarily complicated would be an adjective that comes to mind.

Yet I was quite impressed with the highway in Uttar Pradesh. I have done the journey before, six years ago - once by night train and codeine, and back again by night bus and quite in love. Neither time could I describe the roads, or the journey.

Four hours after leaving Majnu ka Tilla (the Tibetan section of northern Delhi), still in UP, traffic on all four lanes of the highway came to a complete stop. Completely. Fortunately, our bus was air-conditioned, but the 108 degree heat crept in through the door nonetheless. Two hours passed at an utter standstill before news drifted in that some villagers ahead were staging a protest because the electric in their village had been cut. Something like that. Eventually, the protests was quelled and we started onwards once again.

Although the speed limit on the highways is 65 kph, I would say that the average speed is more like 30 kph, at a good clip. The buses compete for lane space with motorcycles, small cars, burro-drawn carts, bicycles, auto rickshaws, and these brilliant vehicles I am at a loss to explain: the front looks something like a rickety tractor or an extended sitting lawn mower, while the back is a flatbed truck of sorts. The ridiculous bit is that what the Indians pile onto these flatbeds - namely, the largest sacks of grass or grain that have ever existed on the face of the earth. The size and depth of a small swimming pool, covered in burlap and twine. The engines pour blackest diesel smoke into the air, four or five Indians pile onto the two-seat open hood, and it moves along the highway at about 5 kph. Brilliant.

India is a land of superlatives. I have smelled here the most beautiful and sensuous smells in the world - nightblooming jasmine in hot summer valleys; the spice, perfume and incense markets in the gullies of Varanasi - and also the most miserable, putrid and rank smells in the world. Sights that make one cry tears of gorgeousness - the sunrise over the Ganges River, the first glimpse of the Himalayas in their snowyheaded immensity - and others that can make a strong man sick to his stomach in two seconds flat. These, I will not recount. Not today.

India is a land of paradoxes. The beautiful and the wretched, the righteous and the insane, the beggar and the businessman, the modern and the ancient all pass before ones eyes at every corner, at every moment. Everything coexists here, one way or another ...

But, back to the open road.

Uttar Pradesh stretches north from Delhi, up through the plains of the Punjab. Crossing over state lines, one begins to understand the nature of boundaries. There are natural and obvious boundaries in the world, such as crossing from the Green Mountains of Northern Vermont into the flatlands of Quebec - and there are manmade and imposed boundaries, such as between Limousin and Le Dordogne. But the boundaries between Indian states are often subtle. The landscape begins to change slowly, and people's clothing, religion and ethnic identity change with it. In the Punjab, palm trees emerge from the dry soil, not yet wetted by the monsoon. Punjabi men in their brightly coloured turbans line the roads, fill the shops, ride on motorbikes. I wonder if the different colours represent anything, or if they are as capricious as I felt then, despite the stifling heat.

I listen to music as I travel. During that stretch of highway, I listened to Israeli music that reminds me of a friend, and I tried to imagine the meaning of the words through the melodies and the emotions in the voices of the singers. I think that they are mostly about women, about being in love. Love and loss, men and women, and the moments in between. Such is the nature of the human spirit. What else to sing about?

Entering Himachal Pradesh, the landscape changes dramatically. The highway ends, and the county roads wind their way through the smaller mountains, giving way to the larger mountains ahead. Night begins to fall, the speed drops to perhaps 20 kph to hug the mountain curves. At this point, after twelve hours, with five more to go, I fall asleep. At midnight we have arrived, far behind schedule. The Kangra Valley stretches out in its vastness under the Himalayan stars.

SUNDAY

I wake up disoriented, and Peter Volz is knocking on my door.

"Are you awake?" he shouts. "They're picking us up in forty-five minutes, and breakfast is being served downstairs."

I jump up and acknowledge him somehow, and drag myself into the shower. I forget to ask where we are going, who is picking us up, and why. In India, one often learns to surrender these things.

Over toast and coffee, I am told that we have an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama - an audience for the foreign representatives of the Karma Kagyu lineage who have come to celebrate the 21st birthday of His Holiness the Karmapa. We pile into a jeep, perfumed and dressed, and drive into McLeod Ganj to the Tsuglakhang, the temple and residence of the Dalai Lama. Inside the courtyard, there are Taiwanese by the hundreds. Easy enough then, to spot my delegation in their suits and Vajradhatu pins.

The audience takes place in an open hall, about 300 of us seated quietly on floor cushions waiting for the arrival of HHDL. When he does, he gives us his smile beatific, and actually sits on the floor with us, rather than assume his seat on the customary raised dais. He spoke for 35 minutes, and at first there was only a Chinese language intepreter. It was difficult for me to hear, even though we were seated only 5 or 6 metres away, as he was not using a microphone and was facing the interpreter. When I could hear him, he spoke about the importance of developing wisdom and certainty in the Buddhist philosophical system, rather than relying upon faith. The Buddha is not a god, he said, and merely believing in him is not enough to travel this path. Rather, a practitioner must dedicate himself to studying and understanding the Buddhist teachings, and then implement the insight gained into one's daily life.

We returned to our guesthouse in Lower Dharamsala, to rest for the evening. From my balcony, I was surrounded on one side by green mountains shooting into Himalayan blue, grey jagged cliffs with snow covered tops emerging from behind. The rice paddies and terraced red earth of the Kangra spread out in an arc across the valley, blurring into the horizon. We were exhausted.

At 8 o'clock that evening, however, we receive a frenzied call from Drupon Rinpoche, General Secretary of the Tsurphu Labrang, and brother to Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, who had being trying to reach us all afternoon - he wanted to receive us that evening at Gyuto Monastery for dinner. Gyuto Tantric College is a Geluk monastery, and has served as the seat of the Karmapa in exile since his escape from Tibet in January 2000.

At Gyuto, the preparations for the birthday celebration was still underway, late into the evening. We were ushered into a sitting room, and Drupon Rinpoche joined us. We were anticipating some sort of debrief, but it seems it was only a welcoming meeting, to honour our arrival and lineage connection. The Tsurphu Labrang sponsored our entire stay and travel in Dharamsala, and has shown us immense respect. It has been tremendously moving.

MONDAY

We arrive at Gyuto early on the day of HH Karmapa's birthday celebration. There were at least 2000 people there, from all over the world. As guests of the Labrang, we joined the smaller group of foreign delegates inside the main hall, while four times as many were scattered outside of the building, down the steps, and out into the courtyard.

The ceremony opened with a long recitation of the Buddhist Sutra 'Phags pa dKun mChog gSum rJes su Pa'i mDo, which I was able to join in. His Holiness Karmapa entered, radiant and serious as the sun. The sutra paused, and a long series of speeches began in honor of HH. Peter spoke on behalf of the Sakyong and the Shambhala International sangha. I was so proud in that moment, to be there, to represent the Vidyadhara and Mipham Rinpoche.

The ceremony concluded in the early afternoon. Tenga Rinpoche was in attendance, and our small group crowded into a stairwell for an audience with him. I translated as he spoke, and although quite elderly and obviously in poor health, Rinpoche glowed with enthusiasm. He told us how happy he was to meet again with member of the Shambhala sangha. Tenga Rinpoche has played a huge role in our community, giving the first Chakrasamvara abhisheka, oral transmission and practice instructions at the request of VCTR in the early 1970's. He has also been completely instrumental in the construction of the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, and is one of the last great living ritual masters in the Tibetan Buddhist world. He brought tears to my eyes.

TUESDAY

We arrive early once again at Gyuto, this time in anticipation of a private audience with His Holiness Karmapa. After waiting for several hours, the Taiwanese milling about ten people deep, Drupon Rinpoche brought us up about nine hundred flights of steps into HH's receiving room. And suddenly, we were ushered into a small sunlit room, and the Karmapa stood there in front of us, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He smiled, and we sat down together.

Our audience was brief, and Peter took his seat as the Foreign Minister of Shambhala. Christoph Klonk was there as HH's intepreter, and so I remained quiet as Peter passed on our international invitation for him to join us in the West as soon as he was able.

And somehow, I was unable to speak. Physically unable. After the audience, one of HH's attendants came up to me and asked me why I didn't speak to him. Of course I know now what I would have said, but the expanse was too vast in those few moments. I am going to return this week, and every week after, to see if I can't try again.

En Route

2006-06-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I fly from Darjeeling to Delhi to connect with the Shambhala Delegation. We will leave Delhi early Saturday morning en route to McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala ...

Sangha Announce

2006-06-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

A copy of the SNS announcement that was sent to the Shambhala Community this week. My first PR as an interpreter ...

20 Jun 2006 - Shambhala delegation to attend birthday celebration for 17th Gyalwang Karmapa

A Shambhala delegation will visit Dharamsala, India, to join celebrations marking the twenty-first birthday of His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Thinley Orgyen Tinley Dorje. The birthday celebrations will take place 26 and 27 June.

The Shambhala delegation, being sent with the blessings of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, is headed by Mr Peter Volz, head of the Shambhala Office of International Affairs. The delegation includes Derek Kolleeny of the Shambhala Office of International Affairs; Clarke Warren, director of Naropa University's study abroad program in Sikkim and his Tibetan wife, Penpa; Frank Stelzel, of the Shambhala Office of International Affairs in Europe and his wife Kathrin Stelzel, of the Upaya program in Europe; and Jacqueline Dennis, a Shambhala member who will serve as the delegation's interpreter.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche led a Shambhala delegation to meet His Holiness in September 2004. At that time Rinpoche presented gifts to the Karmapa that included a bone relic from the cremation of his father, the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Musing at the Bazaar: Alone in India (updated)

2006-06-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

India fascinates me. I begin to realize how little of this country I have actually penetrated. On my previous trip, most of my time was spent between Tibetan settlements. At this point, having the comfort of the language, it is quite easy for me to live among the Tibetans. I know the food, I have a basic idea of cultural faux pas - if not the culture itself, I understand the religious tradition and the cultural history. I am accepted, by and large, because I speak the language and have sense of humour. I move through these enclaves with ease.

And yet, for me, India is not like this. I have to struggle with English, and even the most simple Hindi eludes me. I think that from today, however, I will try.

Travelers to this crazy place often speak of feeling immediately at home in this environment, in the wildness that comprises this country - alternating between chaos and natural order. I'm not quite sure if I feel at home here, but it is for me infinitely simple to adapt to this way of life once again. To wander the streets alone, to stare vividly and without regret, to wrap my shawl around my shoulders, to smile at the women and avoid the men, to buy mangoes at little stalls and chai on the streets. I'm not sure if I feel at home anywhere anymore, to be quite honest. I've been moving around for too long. I have many little homes in many places, but they are all fleeting.

I spent this afternoon in fabric shops, looking for the perfect fabric to have a few dresses made for the festivities in Himalchal Pradesh. The fabric stores are brilliant in design. Long and narrow, one side of it is comprised of a wide, low bed, upon which several barefoot Indian men sit. Behind them are stacked endless tightly rolled bundles of every colour and fabric imaginable. You enter, you tell them what you need, and they proceed to bring out bolts by the hundreds. The unravel them and throw the fabric over your shoulder. Good colour, madame! they yell. Best colour! Pure cotton! I yell in reply.

I end up with four and a half metres of something called swiss cotton, which doesn't particularly feel like cotton at all. It is quite beautiful, the colour of the lips of a seashell. And now to find the tailor. I asked a friend a few days ago to suggest a Tibetan tailor, and the directions she gave were somewhat like this: head down market, and when you pass the albino with the stall on the left, there is a little shortcut that bends around to the right. Go down the stairs, and the tailor is in an unmarked building on the left somewhere. Just ask.

Which is what I did. The gift of language works miracles. Heading down market, I asked a Tibetan woman if she knew of a tailor that lived nearby. She grabbed a little boy by the back of the neck who was going in that direction, and told him to bring me there. He swung around a building and took me around the side, through an alley and into someone's courtyard. Another Tibetan woman, the dressmaker, appeared, and ushered me into her workshop. Within five minutes, my measurements were taken, the fabric scrutinized, and myself sent off back up the hill with a promise to return within a week. Quite simple.

A Weekend in Sikkim

2006-06-13T04:12:00.000-07:00

We left Thursday afternoon for Pelling, a small town in Sikkim. The plan was to spend a few days faraway from the city before heading to Rumtek Monastery for the Buddhist holiday of Vesak, the commemoration of the birth, death and enlightenment of the historical Buddha.

I was told that it was a simple process to obtain a Sikkimese visa on the border, rather than spending an afternoon running around Darjeeling to do the same. Only on the road to Pelling did I remember that we would cross a different border due to our route. But what could possibly happen, I thought. Surely they couldn't stop the jeep, refuse us entry, and send us back to Bengal.

Which of course, they did. The border guard was slightly evil, and could not be convinced in the least to allow us through. He even laughed at us. Before we were done arguing, I noticed the driver unloading our bags and leaving them in the dirt. He went onto Pelling without us, and we were left to wait on the border for another jeep with empty seats heading back to Darjeeling.

The weather changed dramatically between the city and the Sikkimese border. Immediately it was hot and humid, and the bastard border patrol didn't even offer us tea. We waited perhaps an hour, watching several jeeps come barreling past, filled to the brim with Indians. Finally, we were able to catch a ride several hours back through the mountains into rainy Darjeeling, and started all over again the following day. Such is Indian bureacracy. The ridiculous bit is that the Sikkimese visa is free - however, foreigners are only allowed to stay a fortnight in the state, thus the headache registry.

On Friday morning we left again for Sikkim, this time on the road to Gangtok. It is a five hour jeep ride down through the mountains of Bengal, winding through the Teesta River Valley, and up again into the hills. It is quite beautiful. Sikkim is a lush, jungly sort of place. Orchids grow wild amid the lowhanging branches, although we missed the season by a few weeks. There were still a few gorgeous survivors, however, varieties I had never seen before.

One night in Gangtok before heading to Rumtek. Gangtok is a dreary place, although we had a fantastic south Indian dinner and a television in our room to catch the opening game of the World Cup and few hours of Fashion TV. This region is quite literally the rainiest in the world, and yet it is simutaneously plagued with dreadful and crippling water shortages. Although it was raining when we arrived, there was no water in the guesthouse. I was happy to leave the next morning for Rumtek.

Twenty-six kilometers and an hour by jeep winding through to Rumtek. Out of the city completely, covered in bamboo and rhodedendron. Nothing but a few homes along the hill leading up to the monastery, a guesthouse or two, and a few restaurants down below. Perfect.

Rumtek Monastery is the seat of the Karmapa in exile, and was built as an exact replica of Tsurphu, the Tibetan seat of the Karmapa. For political reasons, the current Karmapa is unable to visit Rumtek, and remains in Dharamsala. Rumtek is a magnificent structure, stretching out amid the hills in many large buildings. This is where HH Karmapa XVI was cremated and enshrined in a reliquary, as per tradition, in 1981. I was very touched to pay my respects there. The cremation ceremony was attended by VCTR and a handful of Shambhala sangha members, and I was proud to visit with such a strong lineage connection behind me. Everyone I met asked after my lineage, and was very happy to welcome a student of VCTR and Mipham Rinpoche.

Apparently, the big celebration for Vesak was down in Gangtok on the Sunday we anticipated quite a show at Rumtek, but I was all too glad to stay out of the city and to wander around the monastery. We sat in on protector chants, joined a Vajrakilaya tsok, and watched the end of the reading of the entire Kanjur, in celebration of Vesak. We even got a few leeches in the surrounding hills. Mine didn't stick, but my friend was bleeding for hours. Nasty creatures, they are.

An Invitation to Dharamsala

2006-06-03T05:24:00.000-07:00

I received an email from a friend this morning with an invitation to join the Shambhala Delegation in Dharamsala for the birthday celebration of His Holiness the Karmapa Lama (see photo, center), as the delegation interpreter. Needless to say, I am tremendously honoured and excited.

I will travel to Delhi at the end of the month to join the delegation, and from there we will travel together to McLeod Ganj, the Tibetan settlement above Dharamsala. Dharamsala is quite an extraordinary place. It is the seat of the Tibetan Exile Government, and home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is located in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, one of the northernmost states in India. It was a British hill station during the time of the Raj, a place where the British colonials would spend the rainy months out of the heat of the plains. Kipling spent time there, and wrote stories about it. The land was then given to the Tibetans by Nehru in 1959, during the Communist Invasion of Tibet. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama into exile, and many moved to Dharamsala to be close to His Holiness.

I met Gyalwang Karmapa in February of 2000, upon my arrival in Dharamsala. At the age of fifteen, he made his dangerous escape out of Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet, where he was a virtual prisoner, and arrived in India only two weeks before I did. By some twist of fate, I was part of the first group of foreigners to receive an audience with him. Here is the link to his own description of his escape: http://www.kagyuoffice.org/karmapa.india.escape.html It is quite a story, if you are interested ...

That first audience with HH Karmapa, six and a half years ago in northern India, was the first moment that I knew in my heart that I would become a Buddhist and a Tibetan translator. Only a few months later, I returned to the US and became affiliated with the Shambhala Buddhist community at Karme Choling. The Shambhala connection was made for me when I learned that the founder of the Shambhala lineage was closely connected with the Karmapa's predecessor. Only one year ago, my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (www.mipham.org) met for the first time with HH Karmapa, reinitiating the historic bond between our communities.

Returning to Dharamsala as an interpreter and a representative of the Shambhala community continues a journey begun years ago, and under quite different circumstances. I am again reminded why I do what I do: for these moments precisely.

Lonely, madame?

2006-06-01T00:21:00.000-07:00

Last night I was wrapped in my towel and chapals, about to step into the shower. There was a knock at the door - which quite suprised me, as I have yet to have any visitors.

"Yes?" I asked, tentatively. "Who is it?"

A small, heavily-accented voice whispered through the closed door. "Lonely, madame?"

"Pardon me?" I gasped. Was my guesthouse running a bloody male call service? Utter shock.

And again: "Lonely, madame?"

"No ... no, I'm not lonely, thank you ... " I replied, rather stoically.

And then I understood the accent. "Laundry, madame? Do you need anything washing? Laundry?"

Darjeeling: West Bengal

2006-05-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

Darjeeling is a city in a cloud. Truly. It is a small hill station high in the mountains, and perpetually shrouded in fog. This is the rainy season, and the weather is notoriously crumby: rain, followed by heavy mist and low-hanging fog, and of course followed by more rain and mist. Apparently there is an amazing view of Kachenjunga from here, but I have yet to see a thing beyond the haze.

It is the school holiday for Bengali school children, and every citizen of Calcutta it seems has come here to celebrate. Who knew Darjeeling was such an it little city?

The streets are simply thronged with people - Bengalis, Nepalis, Tibetans and foreigners. Darjeeling has a wild and violent cultural history, as it has passed through the hands of Nepal and India, and of course the British, for whom this was a playground and place of respite from the heat and plains of colonial India. As a result, there is quite a mixed population here - mostly Nepali, but also Bengali, Gurung and Tibetan.

I woke up at dawn, and I had absolutely no idea where I was. This happens to me a fair amount, as I rove around like a gypsy more often than not - however, this was different. It was a confusion that came from very deep within my body - where in the hell am I? My next thought: Ah yes, I'm in Tibet. Next: (hearing Nepali spoken outside) No, I'm in Kathmandu. And then: Not quite right either. I'm in a Tibetan guesthouse in a Nepali-speaking city in India. Of course. Where else?

Painted Lorries and Jasmine Flowers: my arrival in Delhi

2006-05-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

26 May 2006
Delhi, India

It has been seven years since I was last in India. It has been difficult to imagine my return, as India never quite becomes a familiar place. I left a rainy, cold Amsterdfam yesterday morning, and arrived in Delhi around midnight. It was 95 degrees (34C), and the night was calm and the air quite still. I opened the windows in my taxi, and the heat forces one's body to relax completely.

India is, above all, a complete sensory experience. The scents are so vivid you taste them; the sights so overwhelming that your head spins; the culture so different that wearing your white skin becomes an inescapable ornament.

As it was night during my arrival, my olfactory senses became my eyes. The first scent heavy in the night air was that of white jasmine. The perfume so intense and the night so black, one can only imagine passing through an utter forest of jasmine. The flower grows wild throughout India and Nepal, and when it is in bloom, it dominates the senses. But speeding through the night, the smells change quickly. Dust and diesel smoke. Yeast. The unmistakable scent of water buffalo. Bay rum. Rotting vegetables and dank earth of monsoon. I am back in India.