Audrey's Blog

Uruguay At Last!

2009-02-03T18:54:00.006+05:30

I don’t cry for Argentina
with its Torres de Paines,
its profitable Mendoza vineyards,
its Ushuaia at the end of the world launching ships to Antarctica
its thoroughbred supremacy at the race track;
its polo superstars - handsome men, model prospects,
its carpincho (pig) fashions and art galleries,
its Sunday flea markets
its great trout fishing in Bariloche
its balsa animal masks tossed after one use in pagan ceremony
its Evitas continuing to splash political pages
its Suzannas molding bodies into endless youth under unnatural long blonde (dyed) hair, straight, please, no curls.
Give me, let me cry for, Uruguay any day
the streets of Salto pebbled with precious rocks;
Artigas amethyst set in underground coves transform into exotic balls of stone in the hand of my friend Maria Sara;
Rock free beaches on which you can walk forever border the entire city of Montevideo where the Rio Plata enters into the Atlantic..
Amazing dog walkers of Pocitos corral a group of up to 20 dogs on a single strong leash.
Montevideo’s El Puerto barbecue pits and bars where media media is a must-try entry into a saborous world houses also the best apple pancake in the world is tossed in an old iron skillet.
Mercedes tannat wine marches quickly into vineyard fame;
Pasayandu cattle and sheep is exported around the world;
Sturgeon bred for caviar is boxed in its lakes and rivers;
A large port stacked with containers being moved like giant legos by enormous metal monsters greets enormous cruise ships.
Uruguay-born thoroughbreds race a Triple Crown series and 6 de Enero marks the best as the year opens up for a run. Races in Marones are every Saturday and Sunday.
It’s the first country in Latin America to import the antique horse breed - Akah-teke - for endurance racing and dressage thanks to my friend Willie.
Here birth champions of bicycle races, swimmers, tennis professionals, soccer maestros, and poets. Memphis gets Steven Segal. Uruguay gets Robert Duvall.
Architects exploit summer wealth sneaking across borders for a respite from Argentine and Brazilian politics and weather. And instant gardens appear in Punta del Este homes from the tools of my friend Gabriela Verdier who knows how to turn a rose. There are more than 45 garden clubs in Uruguay.
The international jet set hogs waves in Punta each summer, and now the pure beaches of Rocha about to be exploited.
Minas and Mercedes are famous for their meringue cakes and confiterias
and there is nothing like home made fresh semi-hard cheese and dulce y leche that most farms produce and you can eat on the spot when you visit. Lapateria outside Punta produces the best dulce y leche and summer nights of jazz and blues. It’s owned by a Princess.
Give me media lunas for breakfast (a solid croissant that doesn’t crumble with just the right amount of cheese, ham and butter) and coffee, well Uruguayan coffee whether it is glaciada or not, is hard to beat - as are the pastries and cakes of Oro del Rhin and Lion de Or.
And tea sandwiches - I’m nuts for Tienda Inglesa’s tri-color (a layer of pimiento cheese, a layer of greens mixed with mayo, a layer of pureed chicken mixed with cream cheese and all on fresh thin bread. Olympicas too make me feel healthy (eggs, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, tuna) and at the Belmont House hotel (the best in South America for me) try the Omelette Surprise (a scoop of chocolate ice cream completely covered with toasted meringue.)
Most people sing praises of the naturally fed beef. It’s a meat nation. Asados fill the bellies of the nation added to a "traigo" of Whiskey or a sip of mate.
Uruguay produced Carlos Gadel, the most famous of tango singers, and a reporter who was the face of CNN Espanol from earliest times. It produced Torres Garcia, Figari and Ignacio Iturria - all big time artist who have influenced generations in all parts of the world. There is a jazz group called Memphis and once the Harlem Gospel Choir preformed here and afterwards partied and sang in my home on the Rambla. Madonna chose the more populus Maradona’s homeland for her concerts last fall (Argentina.)
Morning beach walks are often jolted by macumbra y umbama offerings to the sea, curses, blessings, red or sky blue, seemingly placed on the sand by ghosts.
Carnival in Uruguay has started and lasts the month of February - the parades are called "llamadas" and mimic anything Rio has to offer without such extravagant outlays of money. A hip sambaing dance is a hip sambaing dance no matter what place you are in. It’s awesome.
The murgas preform in Teatro de Verano singing original acapella political scripts, competitive propaganda for monetary prizes.
Soccer lasts all year and if Penarol (yellow and black) doesn’t reinvent itself it’ll be on the same road as the Memphis Grizzlies. Soccer’s the exit mechanism for so many young players and Uruguay products have incorporated in the best teams of Europe. Tennis has a big spread in Montevideo and sends players to the international circuit.
And theater thrives here too. My Teatro Experimental Audrey Taylor continues in the prisons of Uruguay, usually attempting plays by Uruguayan playwrites.
Uruguay (population about 3 million) has no industry but milks the tourists in Punta and in Colonia, the most preserved antiquated pueblo in Uruguay that rests along the Rio Plata. The hot springs of Salto run through everybody’s pipes and a bathe in that water is supposed to heal sore muscles while you drink fresh squeezed Salto orange juice.
There is a delicacy in Uruguay called respect. Friend or enemy, known or unknown, when a person greets you, he/she really greets you and asks about your family, friends, and a number of graces before getting down to the question or the business at hand. There is gracefulness here and yet there is a growing violence among the youngsters who have addicted themselves to a deadly drug called pasto baso made from the residue of cocaine. It eats a lung in three months and wastes the person forever.
I tried to escape the pull of Uruguay, having lived here 18 years married to an Uruguayan and having anchored my soul in ministry on the streets, in hospitals and in prisons of Uruguay in the nineties and up til 2002. I left abruptly and with pain in my heart. It hasn’t changed much, only there is more violence coming out of the young people, as in Memphis. Guns are in the fingers of young "wachos". Drug markets are brutal. But the people and the place grab your shoulders and heart once you give them a chance. One cheek kissing is still the greeting. And you can always come back having not missed much in the interim but café cortado y sandwich caliente and that crunchy pancake.

Nashville Tennessean

2008-07-27T02:44:00.003+05:30

Harding first graders make prayer flags for Mount Everest base camp

Student's grandmother hangs flags that spread messages of love, peace, kindness

Seven-year-old Megan Murphy described her creation quite simply.

"Well, it had a giraffe and an ocean and some grass. It was pretty. It was a blue flag. It had some peace signs and hearts," she said. "And that's about it."

But the flag she designed and made in her first-grade Harding Academy class last spring must be pretty special, as it, along with her classmates' creations, is hanging at 17,040 feet in a base camp of Mount Everest.

Megan's grandmother, Audrey Gonzalez, hung the international prayer flags during her two-month pilgrimage to Nepal and Tibet. Gonzalez was 68 years old and had just undergone a breast cancer operation at the time.

Wyoming Memories

2008-07-09T20:10:00.005+05:30

In Jackson Hole, this early July, the hills are alive with the silence of snow. Wild flowers, goats beards and foxtail weeds rage in a rant across the sage-choked plains and the moose and elk are scarce, having suffered from too deep snow for too long a time. Winter is just creeping away. Sleeping Indian still has specks of white on the nose. And yet, some adventuresome folk with a climbing foot are head for the top of still icy Grand Teton with cleats on their souls. (Not me.)

At my friend Louise’s home in a rich green valley where geese and elk pass through to loll in the meadows tall with grass and the pond’s filled with algae, ducks and geese, pink reigns: rich smelling pink lilac dripping from shrubs, pink petunias overflowing from giant ceramic pots, shocking pink peonies opening under homemade birdhouses; pink quilts and pillows on company beds, and pink and green sofas inviting a guest to stretch out on the porch and watch the sun paint the sky over Glory mountain. At nigh the elk squeal like babies and wolves howl followed by a bark. But as yet, this trip, I have not seen a wild beast!

It seems each year, Jackson knits a new sweater - now the political issue is about building two or three story buildings around the town square (where famous arches of stacked elk horns are beginning to wilt and need repair) to make room for more condos and apartments, particularly for town workers who cannot afford the multi-million dollars estates that Jackson thrives on. (Workers must pass over a treacherous pass to Idaho to find reasonable rentals.) Sadly, construction is moving in - although there is a building moratorium - animals are moving out - there’s no place to lay their head and motor machines turn them into road-kill. Here is one area in the USA which has not hit foreclosure crisis ( nor has the Vail and Aspen and KeyStone areas of Colorado). Prices are so high they burn the eye because they seem ridiculous to pay that much for a large log cabin with view to spend a couple months a year inhabiting. But it’s fact. And the town wants more accessibility on its two main drags crammed with cars and trucks passing through at a snail’s pace.

I lived here two years - found a sliver of my soul, but not enough to nourish it for life. There were no poor people,(only a few homeless cowboys on motorcycles); the Indian reservations which I had hoped might be a valuable ministry zone were too far for a single woman to commute to in winter, and the state prisons were even further away, although there were two programs that I would have cheered to be able to work in - one had prisoners weaving belts out of horse hair, and the other was pairing the most violent criminals with the wildest range horses - each to tame the other. (There are less residents in this entire state than there are in Shelby County, but probably more horses and cows). Sadly, the local clergy didn’t "trust" deacons, demanded I start from scratch, ignoring I had spent ten years of tough ministry in Uruguay, and were not actually involved with the Indians and prisoners. I was insulted, I admit, and backed off from involving with that kind of mind set.

After much agony - and having tackled the Grand and some neighboring mountains with Jim (my Everest guide) and receiving a D minus at climbing school five years ago (although I was growing addicted to rock climbing gyms) I, dragging my tail, returned to Memphis four years ago to see if I could survive where my roots dug deep. It was a devastating time for me. Jackson had not been a reenforcing place to live alone all year around. I did write a novel (or complete it) here, learned about E-Bay, realized that snow on the deck was yellow for a reason, and experimented with New Age territories I didn’t need to include in my soul - although walking through them I picked up pointers on how to have a surer faith. For a moment, I stepped shoulder deep into world astrology through a fascinating Yoga teacher who had me standing on my head (wow! - I didn’t even do that as a child); learned about past lives - I was a Venetian Renaissance artist’s muse and later a rebellious slave saving others on the underground escape route, -questioned if colored stones on my chakra spots really could heal my tears (so I collected rocks, and washed them when the moon was full to keep them vibrant); found the most extraordinary Thai masseuse I’ve ever been twisted and stretched by in my life; trudged through six feet of snow for a Native American Indian "sweat" - where hot stones fired to red hot were placed in a tent - wearing a bathing suit you sit cross legged (ouch) on the ground in a circle - to make you sweat out all your pain and sorrows - while praying to the Great Creator for better times and healing for yourself and others; and I tested every kind of healing touch, hovering hands for energy production, rolfing dig and oil infusion offered in this valley, including frequent Tarot card readings because I was intrigued by the artwork.

Best was getting fit: working out almost every day in a gym with personal trainers, who proverbially pushed me up boulders and paths toward the Grand Teton peak, (Augie and Gary), and I was photographed as an example of aged grit training in a gym for the weekly paper encouraging folks to get fit for summer. I had an encounter at the top of Glory mountain with an eagle; ran off a mountain side to catch the wind and soar like an eagle paragliding; sifted up a few thousand feet in a colorful hot air balloon right in front of the Grand, got drenched by the cold sprays of Snake River rapids taking my grandson on a white water rafting excursion; froze in a sunny ten-below zero day as my family visiting for the holidays tried dog sledding that led us to a hot springs pool. No I did not learn to ski. I tried cross-country but my feet went numb and I hated that. I became a regular at Pearl Street Bagels (their Wild Tribe shake is addictive), at Nikai sushi restaurant, at Amagani’s spa (seaweed scrub in a steam I recommend), and my home was featured in two fancy Western magazines. I loved having wooden decks I could exit to from every room in the house and Sunday biscuits in teepees at Dornans down in Moose (yes, that’s the town’s name.)at the beginnings of the Teton National Park. When snow covered the Direct TV dish on my deck rail, I sloshed out on the deck with my broom and brushed it off to regenerate reception. It was also in lonely Jackson that I found my guard dog Brandy - a giant size mixed yellow lab and Husky - rescuing him from the local pound.( Pounds of dog from the pound.) He never budged when the earthquakes passed through making my log house shiver like a breath too deep nor had a barking fit when we encountered moose on our morning hike, which I did in crampons when there was snow and ice and felt accomplished.

Yes, 2004 was a wretched time for me as I pulled away from twenty years of happiness and success in Uruguay and tried to return to this country and pick up a feisty, relevant ministry and family relations, which I have done mas o menos in Memphis, but still I’m not where I need to be. I’ve made many mistakes. Jackson was a transition point, I guess, and so I can come back and salute it now and then for opening up thought pores and hidden spiritual strength. At least in my small garden on Bar X Road, I was able to grow delphiniums in every shade from pale blue to dark purple as well as lupines (those wonderful mountain flowers) the colors of raspberry and blueberry sherbet. With June arrived shoulders of daffodils to greet me each morning with joyful faces. Yes, the moose dropped in now and then for a chew on my willow trees, elk crossed the short fence in the night leaving footprints to wonder by, coyotes sang me to sleep when stars and the moon were as bright as day, and once a wild cat humped up in a golden "n" when I made the daily trek up the butte behind my house to build leg muscles and to salute the Grand Teton resting across the way on the multi- million dollar side of the valley.

Photos: The Grand Tetons; Cowboy Bar, motorcycles, elk horn arches; Lilac shrubs in the valley; pink peony in Louise's garden; Cowboy boots hang with toes up; goat's beard among the fox tail weeds; colorful lupines.

Colorado High

2008-07-05T20:37:00.005+05:30

I’d do it again, zip-lining. It seems to be the newest craze. Take a long steel line, secure it between two points high over a canyon through which rapids rage. Hook up a connector on the wire and attach one human in harness and helmet securely to it. Then let her rip and gravity takes you for a ride. We did it six times, six levels of fear, south of Vail at Four Eagles Ranch. The first one, more a trainer, took my breath away as I tried to get the hang of controlling whether I go backwards or frontwards legs kicking the air. Sometimes the start meant running down hill, your toes hardly touching the ground, very similar to when I paraglided, and other times it was a jump off a wooden platform. The final run was 1000 meters not across a canyon but down it at breakneck speed, a rock in hand to try to hit a rusty barrel 30 feet below as I passed over, missed, and coming in with a stop chord to slow me down. Did I see the mule deer or the wrecked van? No. But I must say it was a blast, safe, and now I’m ready to seek out more. I’m told South America has the longest one.
We spent Fourth of July in Keystone, Col. watching Serena, Venus, Nadal, Federer on television, riding ski lifts up 11600 feet (and hiking up more height) and trying to deal with altitude adaptation; riding dude horses up a trail, and most excitingly, a white water raft trip down Clear Creek, which was a rough tumble through incessant waves, over rocks, and in a questionable yellow raft built for six. Wearing wet suits and wet shoes, we secured ourselves by sliding one foot in a covered slot and the other under the roll seat in front. For the six mile ride there was hardly a lull in "thrill" and paddling became the way Kelly, our sailor, kept us occupied, "two front," "one front," "now back" so that we would turn the raft wherever it needed to go to get over obstacles. We frequently had to duck under giant freeway overpasses built low and taking the mystery out of the scenery. But I could do this all day. The water was 45 degrees but a refreshing stomp when getting out of the yellow dinghy at the end.
At the huge tourist complex on Keystone ranch, which goes for miles and miles, loaded with condos and rooms filled in winter and spring with skiers since ski-lifts abound practically from room doors, blocks of lodges have names like River Run, Argentina, Arapahoe, Hidden River and they stretch out for miles along a feisty river called the Snake, although it’s no kin to Jackson Hole’s Snake River. I guess every mountain state has a snake to pour off melting snow. On the Fourth, decorations in red white and blue were given out to little children who had bicycles and plastic vehicles of various kiddie types, and then there was a parade. Wear your red star sunglasses, please, and the American flag wrist bands. We also went to the Activity Center and played putt-putt golf, kid’s bungie jumping, paddle boats, kayaks and stopped by the Colorado Chocolate Factory where a single dip of ice cream in a cup was just about four dollars. Daily I took Pilates classes and worked out on a Gyrotonic machine which rocked my muscles.
My family loved it here. I kept getting flashbacks visions of Annapurna and Everest, which are hard to forget. Next I’m off to Jackson Hole to renew my spirit, since there is where the mountain bug got into me, and to see old friends who helped me stay in shape mentally and physically when I lived there two years (2002-04) within view of the Grand Tetons and their side-kicks like Old Glory, my first major climb. I will also reunite with Jim and Sue who kept me kicking through the East Asia trip, which still swirls in my mind as I try to figure out what it meant to my soul. As in all travel, there is so much I’d like to replay.

Photos: Hanging on the Vail Zipline; going western; we are high; snow in shorts before the 10 peaks.

And The Beat Goes On. . .

2008-07-01T04:21:00.004+05:30

The hardest part about breaking the travel routine is returning to a city in such a tragic swamp it cannot lift its mudboots out of the slop. I hate to admit I live in a town of political virus and corruption, where each day someone is shot or wiped out by gang affiliates and each day the "city fathers" broadcast their salvation ideas in the media (God told me to.....), but shirk their responsibilities and collect their pay checks, evermore increasing.
Not only has the city government decided to slice in half the funds for city schools - which the state of Tennessee leaped upon and said, if you do that, then we won’t send the millions of dollars we fund for the city’s public schools either. But above that the Department of Children’s Service has cut all funding for the two prisons for juvenile delinquents that were filled to the brim in Memphis. Both were successful and useful enterprises. Thus now serious delinquents have to go to violent 201 Poplar, the disgraced city jail with a juvenile tank, or to Nashville’s state prisons for imprisonment, separating these children completely from their families. I found out the state girl’s prison offers only 34 beds - we had 24 occupied beds at our Memphis facility where I volunteered - remember the girls who made Christian prayer flags which I hung in the base camp zone of Mt. Everest? That’s them. Plus DCS is rapidly returning foster kids to trepedous situations by removing them from their foster homes (where they pay foster parents a monthly sum per kid) and tossing them back to incompetent or problem parents, which is why they were removed in the first place. As if that was not enough, our city mayor claims he is the victim and although he had promised to resign in July, assured us he could be reelected for a sixth term if it was on his mind to do so.
And the kids? Does anyone care about the kids? If things keep moving like this, teens won’t have a place to go to school nor a discipline facility when they break the law. Parents might even have to take responsibility for their children and help with their homework.
Maybe I should return to a simpler life where God surrounds you with hope and goodness and people care about and serve each other without labels or threats of racist mind-sets. I’m spoiled by the cultures I learned to respect in my foreign treks.
Meanwhile, I’ve taken a blog breather. I must shake off my political anger. My country is a mess. Gas is outrageous, tempers are high, everything is falling into an abyss that experts can no longer predict and the box is being tied shut with thick rope.
So cowardly as I must seem, although I had returned to a hefty exercise routine and volunteering at juvenile court, and had embraced my dearest friends, I flew away from the sweltering Memphis heat to mountainous Colorado with part of my family. We are hiking through sage and wildflowers - blue lupines, wild pink roses, wild columbines - a swell as sad pine forests deadened by an invasive beetle (they had this problem in Bhutan as well) and deep breathing cool cleaner air - although I must admit the mountains of Colorado have been scarred by construction, condos, and high living. The Snake River rushes in a hurry over our feet, and tourist crowd the streets of Brekenridge and I’m sure other hip towns like Aspen and Vail, to unload their hard earn vacation money in funky coffee shops, expensive restaurant (plan to pay one hundred dollars for four as a minimum for a sit down meal) and on lodgepole carved bears with smiles on their faces for you to put in front of your door. Real bears come down from the still present snow to raid garbage dumps, but it’s only hearsay. I haven’t seen one.
We are planning a horse trail ride (for which I have to buy a cowboy hat - again), a zip line ride, and a white water rafting ride interspersed with an occasional hike (alas, I forgot my poles.) and Pilates class. Oh, and one meal at The Dam Brewery in Dillon. (With a name like that, even when you don’t drink beer, it has drawing power. Breweries are major in these parts.) Snow plowed scenes are pretty, alright, but I have been to The Mountaintop (or close to it) and have the Himalayas and the Tetons in my soul. Everything else seems midget.
Just to note, there will be more blogs to come with overall re-thinking the incredible journeys I took between the end of May 07 and the first of June 08. Did I learn from these diverse adventures more about my soul, my struggles, and my fate? Does anyone care? Happy Independence Day.

Photos: The web woven gets tighter; a lot of praying going on; ooh mask found in a restroom in Colorado.

Following Faith: Part 2

2008-06-13T04:00:00.015+05:30

Outside the capital city of Thimpu, on a Bhutan mountainside, a project is underway to build the tallest sitting Buddha in the world. It will be painted gold. And yet, Buddha doesn’t ask for all of this. He is not a demanding god, but one who points the road down which Buddhist travel in order to reach purity, which is called enlightenment. To them, it goes beyond the physical concept of heaven and requires the cleansing within of all earthy desires and passions. Buddha proclaims "Don’t look at me but to the enlightened state." Although his image is everywhere in various forms, the legend is the first anthromorphic representation of him was drawn on canvas from rays of golden light emanating from his own body. Although there are various manifestations, there has never been a historically identifiable person. Buddha has not been conceived as a punisher, nor a law maker, but Buddha offers blessings for whomever or whatever enters in his temple (remember, sin shoes.) If you give a gift to a Lama, for instance, he immediately gives it to the Buddha image in his holy room. Buddha owns nothing, and gives away everything, as do his servants. He is a guide to freedom from cravings and desires, to acceptance of a being just being. It’s a difficult humbling in faith which rarely appeals to the Western materialistic society. Being around it in its purest form invited me to clean out my own soul and re-think what we have made of the greatest man ever to walk the earth, Jesus. Do we allow him to be the Light of the World? Even Buddha said, "Be a light unto yourself."
The idea of incarnations - so n so is the incarnation of a certain manifestation of Buddha or a previous Dalai Lama or Karmapa - chains Asian religious history. These incarnations are inheritances of lamas who lead the faith much as the Archbishop of Canterbury does Anglicans of the world, and the Pope does for Roman Catholics. They are all representatives of the bigger One God. Hindus, on the other hand, believe what you got is what you got and you can’t get much better or worse no matter what you do, although you should spend your life trying to do better and give to the poor, worship cows and snakes, and please don’t forget to take off your shoes at the Shiva temples. The Hindus worship all sorts of versions of Vishnu and other scarey mixtures of man and animal. And if they really want something, they tie red and gold strings around the holy Boda tree, which, incidentally, is where Buddha was supposed to have been born and snudge red and yellow powders on strolling cattle and monkeys. Markets are packed with now artificial powders, gold and red handkerchiefs for carrying offerings of rice or food, to the temples of their heros and leis of flowers made fresh each morning when the markets open. Non Hindus are not allowed to cross the threshold of sacred temples. Animals wait outside the gates to be the sacrificial "lambs" and of course dead Hindus are cremated on wood piles for all to see at crematoriums edging the muddy Ganges River. Mourners wear white for two weeks.
In India, it’s in the north where Buddhism is strongest, being on the border with Tibet, because there sits the Dalai Lama and his exiled Tibetan government as well as the young Karmapa representing another of the three Tantric sects. The third incarnated holy figure is the Panchen Lama who, once he was identified, was immediately imprisoned in China even though he was a small child at the time and no one has seen him since. The outcast Tibetans struggle to have back their respect and their territory in Tibet, to be able to return in safety to their historical base from which the Dalai Lama fled for his life during the Mao revolution in 1957 that destroyed so much of China..India gave him refuge in Dharmsala.
In Ladakh and in Dharmsala the presence of Buddhist monks from the youngest to the oldest charms daily life. They appear better off than, for instance, the young monks in Bangkok who early in the morning carry their metal bowls around the markets to be filled with food for the day. In Bhutan, especially, Buddhism thrives and monks integrate into the community. There is no obligation for a family to offer a son to be a monk, but the education at monasteries is often superior to public schools. Choosing to follow a monk’s path at an early age does not mean that life is over. Many young men change their mind when they end their teen years and it’s okay, in Bhutan. Monks cannot vote nor get involved with the operations of the state, nor can they express political opinion. But the monk who is the religious leader of all Bhutan has equal the amount of power as the divine King. Both are adored by the people because citizens are taken care of with such charisma. The 28 year old fifth King was preparing for his coronation, since his father the fourth King (this is how they are referred to) stepped down so his son could inherit the throne as the country evolved into a democratic parliamentary system. Bhutanese had never voted in history. (They evolved from being a warrior nation to being an absolute monarchy in 1907. Bhutan was never colonialized.) The chance to have a say in the running of their country was mesmerizing for voters. Now they worry about how to make democracy succeed. Faith and government may be separated but when the Queen wanted to honor her husband for amazing accomplishments, she built 108 large chortens at the top of a high pass which is also draped in thousands of prayer flags. It’s quite a site.
There is a positive spirit in Bhutan, a feeling that less than 700,000 people are happy and content. The king promotes what he calls Gross National Happiness. No more than 20,000 foreigners are allowed across Bhutan’s borders in a year. No cigarettes allowed, the sale of tobacco strictly prohibited, even though the fourth king loved Cuban cigars. In certain months, no one can buy anything that must be killed - pork, beef, yak, mutton - so it’s vegetarian time, but every dish is flavored with hot chillis. No outsider can buy land nor even start a business, although if there is a Bhutan partner in the business, that is a possibility. Even foreign artists are not allowed to perform in Bhutan, although fifty per cent of the people are under 25 years of age. Everyone adheres to the national dress code - men wearing knee length skirts, women long ones. The King lives in a modest wooden home in the hills of Thimbu, and he works in an elaborate palace called a Dzong to which various elegant temples are attached.
In Bangkok, religious architecture is extreme. I’ve never seen so many different styles of roof tops, mostly pointed spirals and peaks. Gold, silver, colored stone and glass, mosaics and glitter adorn every religious and palatial structure. The King and his Wife are honored and adored throughout the city on giant banners and billboards, on buildings and streets, spelled out in lights on boats traveling on the busy rivers, and in giant gold frames on divans of principle streets. On Mondays, citizens wear yellow shirts (usually with an embroidered picture of the King where a polo player might be) to honor the fact the King was born on a Monday. On Tuesday, the color is pink and on Thursday, in honor of the Queen’s birthday, it’s blue.
Also in Bangkok, Chinese Buddhist temples so ornate you don’t know what photo to take next add another decorative element to religion. There are huge chortens covered in mosaics and dog and monkey men. There are ornate temples housing the reclining gold Buddha (as long as City Hall) or the only standing Buddha in East Asia. There are Buddhas sitting on nagas or snakes, and Buddhas sitting on pillows. There is the elaborate emerald Buddha (really jade) whose seasonal gold clothing the King changes with certain ceremony.
What impressed me most was the presence of Spirit Houses in just about everybody’s yard, in entrances to restaurants, and even in the enormous gardens of the villa in which I stayed. Because the day I was there was a special day, a huge tray of homemade sweets, fruits, incense, candles, and jasmine, orchid and rose flowers was placed to appease evil spirits who hopefully roost in these spirit houses and stay out of residences of the faithful. I asked who eats the food. There was sort of a non-answer - so I mentioned birds? Maybe. Or did the evil spirits really reach out their doors and feast. Hmmm.

Photos: site for future tallest standing Buddha in the world; a Thangka of a Budda manifestation; prayer wheels at a Dzong; Non-Hindus not allowed to see the golden bull; holy cow; a Hindu holy man; Bhutan monks at the market; the queen's 108 stupas to honor her husband; Bhutan friend Sonam with sewing students in national dress; marketeers in national Bhutanese dress; honoring the Thai King; a spirit house; the villa spirit house with offerings; close-up of offerings - all sweets.

Assessing the Faith - Part I

2008-06-12T18:30:00.005+05:30

If there was a thread through two months of Asian pilgrimage, it was the foreign habit of religion. Did I want to pay tribute or to judge that my faith was better than the others? I discovered that we are all looking for the same things, worship one God, and that none of really know what is going to happen after death, but we have challenging theories. I was at the mercy of generous Buddhist most of my trip, and will ever be grateful. There were discouraging moments when I reached out for my faith, and usually found it in surprising places. Only in ex-British India did I even see a church, an Anglican church. At times I felt I was holding a candle in hurricane winds while being blistered by the sun. The Lord’s Prayer was surely my daily mantra. And I never doubted I was in the right place, in God’s place. So I took off my shoes, everywhere.

Unlike most Western faiths, displays of worship and prayer are not limited to a one day gathering on Sunday. It integrates every day, is common as boiling water for tea. It is like living beside Fatima or Lourdes full time. Everyone worships all the time in their gestures. Buddhist - and Hindus - rise in the morning with gifts in their hands - be it replenishing bowls of water, bowls of rice, fresh sculpted butter candles, wreaths and strings of marigolds, flowers, and offerings of every sort (including piles of candy bars, crackers, fresh made sweets and snacks). First thing to do is remember Buddha and his associates who can make or break a day. Truly, their highest power is God, but there is not the pandering, proselyting and preaching which can be so artificial or invasive in our lot trying to convince one to accept the Holy Spirit or to commit your life to Jesus - pass the offering plate - that goes on and on like a broken record player in America, especially across television screens. In Nepal, India, Bhutan, Old Tibet, you watch and admire how regular are actions of devotees of other faiths, whether it’s circling to the left the chortens and stupas or turning 108 metal prayer wheels installed in walls around important temples or putting red dot blessings on the foreheads of sacred cows, children and pilgrims wandering the streets of the cities. Hindus believe the most powerful offering before God is a flower in the hand.

In fact, Buddhism and Hinduism are mostly about giving and seeking peace, going through routines every day that express one’s faith whether anyone else is looking or not and without feeling one deserves credit for doing it. Each Buddhist home, for example, has a puja room or altar room where special visits by monks and lamas are made once a year to re-clean and re-bless and re-kindle the family spirit and home. In the early part of day before one goes off to work, streets are busy with those making wreathes and decorations from fresh flowers to place before altars whether of Vishnu or Buddha. Every town, burg, pueblo, or community is hung with prayer flags and provide a series of small to large chortens or stupas around which the faithful walk clockwise, often praying long strings of beads, whether on a steep trail or on a paved street. From the moment you leave the airport, there is no doubt you are in a Buddhist town because prayer flags drape bridges, flags flap on roof tops and in the trees are more prayer flags both horizontal and vertical looking like white and gray doves in flight. Temples stand out for their architecture and monasteries are identified by painted gold roofs.

There are monks everywhere, shaved heads, cranberry or mustard colored or orange robes, their feet in sandals, their possessions limited to the food given to them each day, ad maybe a cell phone. They hold their hands in prayer position and bow for a Namaste when they meet friends. Everyone copies that greeting. In Nepal and Tibet and India, Namaste is a given. In some parts of India the greeting is Jale. In Bhutan, the pose holds, but their greeting is in Bhutanese. In Thailand, everyone who serves bows in a Namaste position when they see you the first time or when you depart. It’s a thank you as well. But there is no particular word to say. Best is to smile, pose your hands in the prayer position, and bow joyously.

Lamas, who are approachable and are willing to preform ornate blessing ceremonies for a good trip or good luck, often have homes and families. Because they spend so much of their lives sitting in the Yoga position, they often have serious knee and leg problems and need help when walking to and from Temples. Yet, Buddhism, which is much cleaner and better organized to me than Hinduism, embraces all of East Asia, changing its ambience depending on which country you are in. In Bangkok was the first time Muslim mosques and covered women were noticed.
In Nepal, Buddhism is woven into community life, is communal in nature, and is comfortable for even the stranger. You are warmly welcomed or sent off with a neck full of silk kata scarves for good luck and good travel. Blessings abound no matter who you meet. Lamas and priest tie good luck strings around your neck as blessings and sometimes they make prayer packets for protection and those are tied around your neck as well. It’s all so simple and done with vigor and affection no matter who you are.

In the Khumbu where I trekked to the Everest base camp, there were endless chortens and stupas and giant boulders painted with the "Om" to be circle clockwise. In the middle of nowhere, there’d be an archway with a giant metal prayer wheel needing a turn. Even dinning areas were long wooden floors of red block tables painted with Buddhist symbols and protector gods and goddesses. Walls were lined with windows and benches padded with carpets. This is where exhausted trekkers fell for a rest, dumping their gear beside them as they sipped tea from giant thermoses. Walls were hung with copies of religious thangkas (like formula icons.). Sometimes mythological stories were painted directly onto the wall. There was so much simplicity and humility in the daily lives of the Nepal faithful, that the ornateness of the puja rooms and the temples give surprise: golden Buddhas, elaborate yak butter candles made to look like flowers, ancient texts stored in cubicles, all sorts of brocade and silk fabrics hanging from walls and ceilings. But the monks and lamas invite you in while they chant or eat, often revealing their senses of humor. Making offerings, hanging prayer flags, inhaling incense and drinking yak butter tea are as normal as a bow.

Of course in the big cities, like Bangkok, there is more wealth, more gauche display, more opportunity for pilgrims to chant their prayers before statues of their favorite Buddha forms. Worshipers can even buy sheets of gold to attach to already gold statues of Buddha. I was overwhelmed by the reclining Buddha, whose feet at one end were larger than a Mac truck. The entire long statue was in gold and on the passage way along his back side, 108 pots were lined against a wall. Pilgrims could purchase 108 coins and drop one coin in each pot. I tried, walking reverently, thanking my own God, slipping one little coin at a time from my fingers. But if I stopped to take a picture or notice something amazing about the huge statue, I lost count and somehow came out with about eight extras which I just dumped in the final pot. I noticed it had more coins than the others, so I wasn’t alone.

Photos: Sitting Buddha in Bangkok temple (photographs allowed here, but not in other countries.) A worshiper; a Hindu monster smudged; Thai monks; Lama Geshi blesses all of us with many katas; rocks and flags to acknowledge; a puja room; Reclining Buddha from his soles; a Buddha statue pasted with gold leaf offerings; dropping 108 coins in 108 pots.

Bangkok Smiles in the End

2008-06-03T06:54:00.014+05:30

Bangkok is the city of smiles, as it claims, of spirit houses, hanging helaconia 10 feet long, canals and rivers for public transport jammed with floating water hyacinth (weeds), extreme moist heat, shocking pink taxis and electrical three wheel ones, magnificent shopping malls where one floor alone the size of Wolfgate is dedicated to world famous jewelers and watch makers (like Cartier Piaget, etc.), theatrical elephants you can feed sugar cane, admired royal family with their images on skyscrapers and, on Mondays, yellow polo shirts fans wear each Monday in honor of the King’s birthday,(He was born on a Monday) and of all things Starbucks. Yea. I had my first frapaccino in two months and beside that, they took my Starbucks card.(they wouldn’t do that in Chile.) Heaven had descended on Bangkok.
To go with this are massive traffic jams on super fine highways and byways, barges at least three stories high and dinner boats with colorful lights blaring Long Live the King passing in front of my very Thai styled villa - if you can see through the hanging plants, orchids, lotus blossoms and vines - and a public transit system that includes besides taxis and buses, a sky way train, a subway train and of course a boat of every size and description, including a taxi boat you catch depending on the color flag it carries: watch out jumping up onto the dock. It’s in a hurry.
With all the orchids, the ginger flowers, the palms and holy Bodi trees wrapped in sashes and string, (Buddha was born under the Bodi tree - also from a lotus blossom, I’m confused), you are embracing a tropical paradise that’s a center of international business. There are skyscrapers for miles as the city spreads out in fingers surrounded by water. It is a Buddhist land, but completely different from the practices in Bhutan, India and Nepal. Here temples, and many houses have pointed tips on their roofs, looking like curved lightening rods and diving dragons, but they keep evil spirits from resting there. Monks wear orange and ochre and carry metal bowls as they stroll through markets and street fairs where they will be fed by merchants.
Here also is great adoration for the King and Queen, who have as many if not more offering places than Buddha. The Grand Palace and Temples with its Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha (really made of jade; the King personally changes Buddha’s gold attire each season) and the pure gold ship of state in another temple on the grounds is something you have to see to believe. We missed the crystal Buddha - areas were roped off for the deceased Queen Mother who has been lying in state almost a year. There are so many abutting towers and cantilevered roofs, so much extraordinary ceramic and mosaic work and colored glass and gold, gold gold in the temples and rooms guarded by giant monster dogs who stand as people, that you forget about how hot and sweaty you are and that you need to sit down, which you do at a simple table and eat street food cooked on the spot.
Even Chinese pagodas (red paper lamps, dragons all over the place, fu manchu type concrete statues, compete with other Buddhist stupas, chortens and displays of faith throughout the city. We stopped at one so I could light incense for my girls in prison, and take pictures, which they allowed. But then, the stupas to end all stupas are here like tall cones seen from miles around, highly embellished on the outside with repetitive marble and concrete figures colored in ceramic and glass mosaics. I climbed up steep stairs of the Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn) and took so many photos my battery died.
Temples of gold allure and red roofs are everywhere including your own back yard. Along the canals, almost every little poor man’s house has a spirit house, highly ornate, about the size of a doll house, with strings of flowers and other offerings placed on it everyday, and statues of Buddha and whoever one calls to keep the bad away. These little spirit houses are residences for evil spirits, so they are precious. Keep the evil spirits outside the house by giving them a house of their own. Hmmm. Not a bad idea.
Remember, Thailand is/was Siam. It is where the King of Siam or The King and I found roots. I keep looking for green faced monsters in gold attire with crowns with turrets, but nowadays, that is confined to cultural shows. Most Thai are hip as anyone in America, in fashion, in flipflops, and in sun glasses. The young people dance in hip hop competitions at malls, and dress in blue and white uniforms for school. No more costumes, so to speak. It’s a fashion and fabric free-for-all. Teak houses still grace the canals and inside, if you are able to go inside one, are usually rooms with rims you have to step over to get in and out, and incredible wooden wood carvings of heritage scenes from history, and on display swords and thangkas of a different style, and of course enormous tangled gardens of the best of the tropics. Thai thangkas are scenes of a Thai-type Buddha ( he wears the gold pointed hat rising from his skull cap) with more landscape and small figures than the large apparitions of his many manifestations and companions found in Bhutan and Nepal thangkas. You can still buy giant gold buddhas on the sidewalk, but the paintings depict other aspects of life than his companions and saints.
A stroll through the markets before the sun rises (the humidity turns you into a paper doll in a second) introduces me to strange fruits like mangostien (a purple fruit) and rambatan (red with green hairs all over it) and even stranger but yummy sweets which we buy from the hawkers. Some are sticky jello, others are sponge cakes in shocking colors, then little green blocks of marzipan, and a sweet gold colored pastry in syrup. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as we say. We stopped outside one temple for a typical Thai sweet served in a bowl: corn kernals, Thai black jelly pieces, huge tapioca, pink, green and yellow thin vermicelli condensed milk, coconut milk, then a pile of crushed ice, all mixed. (Gotta eat it fast or it melts.)
One of the most interesting outings was to a fish emporium, really a Las Vegas sized restaurant called "Sea Food: If it swims we have it." I’m surprised someone has not thought of this in America. You enter, are given a table with three or four servers, then you get a basket and stroll along a long long display of every kind of fish, fresh or frozen, and seafood known to man. Lobsters are bigger than my thighs. Fish are so fresh they are flipping in the air. There are also displays of Thai vegetables, fresh, and exotic fresh fruits like the Dragon fruit, guavas, you name it, it was on the rack.
Afterwards we took a dastardly taxi ride many miles to the other side of the city for the Siam Niramit, a stage production in an enormous entertainment center with a set claiming to be in the Guiness Book of World Records as the highest stage in the world. I don’t know about those details.It didn’t appear as high as Circus de Soliel stages. The production was elaborate and noisy and in the Thai language and it took viewers through Tai history with elaborate sets of boats floating on water, the Khmer stone castles, and Ayutthaya, once a capital city, There were war scenes, fiery hell scenes, mythological scenes in the Himapaan forest, and heavenly scenes with angels flying around on pulleys to reproduce Daow-wa-dueng, the second level of heaven where Indra, called the greatest diety of all, presides. It gave you a tip about the culture and heritage of the Thai people and their skill at theatrical production. But my favorite part was when the two elephant crossed in the aisle in front of me. Their trunks properly curled up in the air on cue. After the applause (it was not a full house), and we exited the enormous place, the elephants had been disrobed and I had the chance to feed one of them sugarcane chunks at 30 bhat for four sticks. The elephant was feeling my arm for more, more, but we had to give way to another. I have now bonded with elephants in Nepal, India and Thailand, where they are highly loved and respected. Sigh.

Photos: Temple of Dawn at night from villa; check the shocking pink taxis; various Stupa tops; a three wheeler; two monks admire motorcycles; lighting incense for the RA girls; Chinese pagoda entrance; a spirit house teak style; dog and monkey protectors on the Grand Palace walls; mangostien fruit; a plate of sweets; a lotus blossom; feeding a Bangkok elephant.

A Dzong Good Enough for Heaven

2008-05-31T15:55:00.013+05:30

In Punakha, Bhutan, there is another wonder of the world. It makes St. Peter’s of Rome seem dull.
The winter Dzong which houses the Lama who is overseer of all religion for the citizens of Bhutan - a position of equal power to that of the King who is master of government of the people- is one of the most extraordinary works of art and architecture I have ever seen. The ornate tall and multi-leveled white structure housing probably the most powerful temple and its administration headquarters in this country, sits where two large rivers converge (referred to as the male and the female rivers) and is approached by a cantilevered wooden bridge, equally decorated with the traditional wooden window and columnar decor of Buddhist architecture..
In the style of Bhutan homes, where the lower floors are used for storage of food supplies, animals, and equipment, this sample of glory rises up probably fifty feet to open roofs under which herbs and grasses are normally dried and birds dare to hide out.
But in this structure with its giant public squares where religious activities are held, the whopper experience is entering the temple where monks study, pray and sometimes eat. This room is held up by 40 gold plated columns embossed with dragons and on the north wall are statues of Buddha Sacamani (in his present form), Guru Rimpoche who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in 746, and Sheptrung, who unified Bhutan in 1600. Each figure, at least three stories high, is shrouded in gold brocade capes and is gilded gold. Buddha is accompanied by two favored disciples also painted gold and holding gear for blessings. Placed among this distinguished lot of Buddhist power is the statue of the future Buddha (he will come again in a different form) seated in a Western position - on a chair. Multi colored wind socks hang from the ceiling, and thongka paintings attached to silk and brocade fabrics rather than frames depict Buddhism’s protective and compassionate personnel, gods, goddesses and heros. Painted on the walls are Mandalas and more familiar figures or icons of Buddhist culture, the art work itself an amazing feat. The only thing not decorated are the wooden floors, for which you must, as usual, remove your shoes to walk upon, because you are in a holy place.
On another wall are many glass boxes containing statues of saints. One who made me laugh with his wicked smile was that of Tupoc Kuenlua, the Divine Madman who sits in the Lotus position and is credited with creating the national animal, called a Takin, which has the head of a goat with it’s very twisted horns, and the body of a cow. (It does exist. I went to the preserve to see a few caged in a green environment. No one really knows how this cross happened but the takin reminded me of a wildebeast.) Tupoc was also the instigator of the phallus decor on houses. (If someone compliments the house, owners fear evil will enter, and so they paint the ugly phallus on the wall to ward off negative approaches.)
As we wandered through the huge Dzong structure, we could hear what seemed off key chanting. Later we discovered young monks, virtual children, were studying "chant." as they read Buddhist scriptures. Their voices rang in the wind. Attached but in a separate structure (you cover a lot of steep steps as you tour these holy places) was another temple dedicated to the architect of the Dzong who had a vision in a dream of what his task would be and created it. His chapel, filled with elaborate butter sculptures, bowls of offerings (looks like a candy store), fruits, thongkas, katas, rupees and rice offerings is under the care of a very young student monk who was dusting the ornate flower carvings and towering sculpture honoring the visionary. He sweeps the floors, freshens the flowers (I thought the fake orange tree was a hoot) and tenderly refreshes water bowls, candles and other offerings to Buddha. Sadly, photographs were not allowed in any of the temples.
A few years ago, an enormous glacier high in the surrounding Himalayas broke from its location and dropped into the river, causing it to rise hundreds of feet and flood the entire valley and this architectural marvel. Much was saved, the town was moved higher off the river, the dzong restored and life goes on. But distant glacier fall out could do it again. It is an environmental concern in many areas of the world.
As we had set out this morning on the narrow winding road from Thimphu, the capital, we noticed the narrow newly-paved road was packed with children and citizens dressed in their national finery. We didn’t know what was up until a policemen told us to pull against the curb and wait. Today was the arrival of Tilku Jigmne Chhoda, the religious head or Jey Kempo of Bhutan,(similar in power to the Dalai Lama who was religious head of Tibet) with two to three hundred monks following. It was the annual migration or transfer of the monk community from the winter home to the summer home in Thimphu. Punakha, the winter site, is 2000 meters lower and much hotter for the cold months for monks who have no heat in their structures. During the summer, they occupy a similar Dzong in Thimpu.
The Jey Kempo with his entourage moved slowly down the road in red Prados, which are Toyota vehicles, reaching out of the car window with his baton and touching those who wished a blessing on the head, us included. Other monks ran ahead of the car parade handing out blessed strings in the colors of prayer flags and holding out red sacks if anyone would be so kind as to give an offering. On the roof top of a Thimpu Dzong a dozen musicians blew long thin curved horns and beat cymbals as the Jey Kempo approached. It was a surprise joy for us to be a part of this.
As we picked up the road again - we began at 9,000 feet (I don’t even feel altitude changes any longer) - rose to about 10500 feet and after the three hour slow and cautious drive, we arrived deep in the Punakha valley which is sub-tropical, hot, and at about 3000 feet above sea level. We wrangled with a number of colorful trucks with brightly painted Buddha figures over their windows (I call them Blow Horn trucks, having seen then in India and Nepal as well, because on their back is written Blow Horn, otherwise they won’t move out of the way), lazy cows and sleeping dogs occupying the middle of roads as we rounded exciting hairpin turns, and one area cut out of the fern and pine covered mountains, was decorated with 1000 tiny stupas (Barbie sized) a family had placed in the tiny cave as a tribute to a cremated family member. These tiny stupas resembled a thousand white, yellow and blue butterflies as we passed. (My driver told me one body supplies enough ashes mixed with cement for the 1000 tiny sculptures.)
As we crossed the Duchula Pass, , we were greeted by 108 large brick stupas (holy structures that look like impenetrable blocks) which the eldest queen had built to honor the praiseworthy way her husband the fourth King had solved a problem with encroaching Indians who had moved across the border and settled without permission. He went personally with a car full of oranges, handing out an orange to each foreign person, and this way he was able to take a census of how many must be repatriated back to India.. He gently nudged then back over the border and won the admiration again of his people and his five wives, apparently.
The policy in Bhutan is if you want to settle in Bhutan, you cannot do it as a refugee. You must complete immigration legally, learn Bhutanese, wear the national dress, pay taxes and become a part of the nation’s work force and supporter. No leeching, in other words, and no free entry. In this way, the King has been able to keep Bhutan pure and workable. Amen to him. Bhutan is paradise. Sadly we leave here and head for our final destination of Bangkok, Thailand.
Photos: The Winter Dzong; a child in school uniform who followed me into the Dzong; a detail of the high walls inside; A Thongka of the various elements of life; the young monk caretaker; The first car bearing relics and valueable images from the Winter Dzong to the Summer one; high level monks await the arrival of Jey Kempo; more monks a buzz; the roof top horn blowers; a blow horn truck with Buddha images; tiny stupas made of ashes and placed along roadside niches; the 108 stupas the Queen made to honor the fourth King for his good works.

Bhutan Blessings Never End

2008-05-31T15:37:00.010+05:30

Chartreuse flowered dogwood trees with green seeds in the middle of the four petals, blue poppies in remote ranges, exotic orchids by the hundreds hiding out in thick pine and cypress forests hanging with moss, there is a world of horticulture that Bhutan citizens augment by their own interest in roses and potted flowers.
I had never seen green dogwood flowers until visiting the private residence of one of Bhutan’s most favored Lamas, who has been declared the ninth re-incarnation of Datong Tulku, who was the incarnation of Bami Yeshi Yang, one of the seven monk disciples of Guru Rinpoche, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan. Incarnation is based on certain chosen people being able to remember and to identify objects and events in a previous life. It’s complicated, it’s cuious, but Lama Datong Tulku is just straight out a nice, cheerful man who gives a warm welcome to strangers. He is known as the "Laughing Buddha." Lama Tulku with his Bishop-like miter, does efface a smiling Buddha, with red stain on his teeth caused by chewing beetle tree leaves smudged with limestone, a common habit in Bhutan. (Beetle leaves and chili peppers are national favorites.)

We had been invited for a special cleansing from sins and evil spirits followed by a lengthy blessing for long life from this holy Buddha disciple. If it is a chance to learn more about world spiritual, I’ll give it a poke. Although I’ve gained much security in my own beliefs seeing other cultures on this trip, I find there are many similarities in all religions, such as the use of holy water for cleansing (in our baptism, in Jewish rights, and in Buddhist and Hindu traditions.) Rivers such as the Ganges in India and the Jordan in Israel and streams that pop out of mountains without mouths take on curative powers, be it their water or their mud. Maybe we should re-think the Mississippi.

After entering the Lama’s home, and greetings all around, we were led into the well lit, well decorated puja room with one wall a well-stocked altar. At the other end in front of huge windows and a carpet of dragons, sat Lama in the lotus position (I admire people who can sit that way, I cannot so I have to be careful I don’t point my feet at him) )with long thin pages of Buddhist scripture written in Dzonkha opened before him. These words were to be used in the ceremony, a script to follow as we Episcopalians look to the Book of Common Prayer for ceremonial regularity. On his elaborately painted desk was a metal vase with a peacock feather fan. The peacock is a bird who can eat poison and survive, the Lama explained, therefore the feathers symbolize the peacock taking away all poison that might be damaging a person’s heart and soul and body. Beside it was a bronze bowl of dried rice, often tossed during the ceremony along with seeds from jacaranda pods, and a yak butter candle sculpture, which was slowly melting, having been lit. All was ready for us.

We sat down on a thin mattress on the floor and I tried to cross my legs Yoga style, with no success. I asked the Lama how he can sit for hours with his legs flattened out in a cross underneath him and he said lamas and monks grow accustomed to that in childhood. I guess it’s like me sitting in a chair with my legs crossed.(Incidentally the future Buddha manifestation - yes, Buddhist believe Buddha will come again in another form recognizeable - sits Western style on a chair. Hmm.) There were two monks assisting and all three began to chant the Buddhist scriptures in a deep guttural hum. I sat beside the Lama on the floor since I was the principle character in this ceremony. My friend Sonam, an elegant Bhutan lady, instructed me on how to do things during the ceremony. Then when we were asked to repeat after the Lama certain words from the scripture asking for blessings I tried to repeat him just listening to sound. I knew nothing about what it meant, but trusted it fit in with my omnipotent God’s spirit. We frequently said "she she she" and that means "please please please."

Holy water from a sacred fresh water stream in the mountains, mixed with saffron so it was yellow, was poured on my white hair and then in my hands - "drink this and then wipe your hair with what’s left," Sonam said - and this was done a number of times during the cleansing phase. At one point we sipped a home-made sweet herbal wine - blood red - from a skull bowl and ate a long life herbal ball, the size of a large peppercorn, made by the Queen Mother of Bhutan and shared only with monks and lamas. There was drum thumping, and bell ringing, and chanting for a long while. The karma was good, the Lama said. He smiled as we finally came to the end and katas (the white scarves) were received, blessed, and given back, along with yellow and red string blessings tied around our necks. After the ceremony was completed and I’m around for a few more decades - if it worked - we moved to his living room and were served Masala tea (with milk) and homemade cookies. The Lama, who is in the process of restoring his monastery about three hours away from Thimpu, was off to meet the young fifth King of Bhutan to request a few logs from the forest to be used in the restoration project. I was told later he received the permit and felt like this day was a very special one.

Bhutan serves the chanting peace of the Buddhist mindset. Even buildings are trimmed in painted wooden frames, many depicting the four most powerful spiritual beasts - the tiger, the snow lion (mythical), the fire-breathing dragon, and a strange looking bird, also mythical. What you paint on the outside is to prevent evil and the unwanted to have a rein on your daily life. On the one hand, every single building resembles a Swiss chalet with wooden cathedral-like windows, , but on the other hand, the community decor gives more identification to a precious way of life and culture. I’m still impressed that 90 per cent of the people on the streets in city or rural land - and even sweeping streets or tilling the soil with oxen - adhere to the national dress custom, men in plaid knee length skirts, belted, with the top half very blouse-y and perfect for a carry-all; women wrapped up in ankle-length skirts of bright handwoven stripes and embroidered patterns, topped with colorful silk blouses with long cuffs that fold back over a silk or satin jacket in a contrasting color. The varieties are endless. Most women have the short bob haircut of 1920s flappers. (Their hair is only black). This habit of dress begins early in their lives, so there is no desire to not wear it when they are adults. It’s required in all official functions and in jobs. Sonam confessed that men become fashion plates and many have over 50 "gho"in their wardrobe. Our young guide said he has seven. The patterns range from a solid color like gray or navy, to the finely plaid tartan prints. At one point, men wore argyle socks with the dress, but now the favor is long black knee length socks.

We visited an arts and crafts school, sort of like Job Core for young artists, where they can chose between woodworking or doll making or Thangka painting or embroidery or weaving, among other crafts, and serve out a four to six year apprenticeship. The next step would be to work decorating houses and wood or in one of the textile enterprises where women sit on the floor, barefoot, and weave fabrics for national dress. A simple pattern would take about two days. A complicated colored pattern with an embroidered effect, takes over a month on back strap looms, is much more expensive, and the weaver can earn one fourth of the selling price. The faster the weaver, the more fabric she can turn out, the better her pay.

If nothing else, Bhutan never fails its faith. It is a country of prayer flags, stupas, chortens and Dzongs. Flags, new or faded, fly everywhere. Throughout the mountainous landscape you spot groups of tall poles of mostly white vertical prayer flags, 108 in a group, honoring the dead. Colorful prayer flags are draped at inopportune places (you wonder what fool crawled across open crevices and in giant trees to string them up) as well as at religious sites. When we arrived at a the Amanakora Punakha hotel, we were presented with prayer flags which we were asked to hang on the suspension bridge, the only way to cross the river to reach the small resort. As a gift there was a roll of prayer flags and incense on my pillow that night with this message: "Although there are only 700,000 Bhutanese millions of prayers and blessings are released into the world each day from the fluttering of the prayer flags each turning of prayer wheel and the silent mantras sent to the heavens on incense smoke. The horse at the center of your prayer flags is called the Lungta, the wind horse. It rides the winds of the world carrying blessings and protection to all those whom the wind touches." Long live horses and prayer. They’ve certainly been cornerstones for me.

Photos: green dogwood flower; Lama Tulku blesses me; altar at Lama Tulku's home; a snow lion trim on a house; a Thangka by a group of students; women weaving fabrics for the national dress; hanging prayer flags on the Arman resort bridge; A brilliant snow lion, a sacred mythological animal.

Land of the Thunder Dragon

2008-05-28T07:38:00.012+05:30

In Bhutan, men wear skirts.
Seriously. They have sort of a robe thing that goes over a white shirt and the thick white cuffs folded back up over the robe. It’s a doozy to wrap and arrange, although the women’s long dresses made of one piece of fabric are more complicated. Men cover their legs with long black stockings and wear leather shoes. Youngsters don’t wear long socks, and do wear basketball style shoe or the heavy punk kick-ems. I wonder if the basketball style reflects the well-known fact that the fourth King of Bhutan is a major basketball fan.

Bhutan, Bhutan. Land of the Thunder Dragon. Where have you been hiding. Here is as close to paradise as I’ll probably ever get. Nestled into 7000 feet of altitude with snow capped Himalayas towering on every side, Mount Jumolhari, home of the gods of the kingdom, fights off morning clouds as the sun comes over its ridge. Huge mountains of pine trees, water falls. No horrid traffic jams as in Kathmandu and India. No car horns and poverty and kids knocking on the car windows to get you to buy a magazine. Everyone is a farmer and so every piece of flat land is planted with potatoes (in flower now) or has been turned into rice paddies.

At the Armankora (the Sanskrit word for peace and the Dzonghka word to describe a sacred circular pilgrimage) Hotel, (a sister to Amangani in Jackson Hole) a haven of simplicity in wood and window and natural fiber one can get one’s mind together, and deep breathe the first fresh air (the smell of cedars and pines after a good rain) I’ve breathed since leaving Everest. Here birds can be heard, and there is no TV or extraneous noise. Only local dogs bark about normal things. Here in this Buddhist nation ruled by a democratic King is peace. No wonder people put this on their dream list.

At this moment, the 28 year old son of the fourth King, now called the fifth King of Bhutan, has been handed the throne. Thimphu, the capital, is being spruced up for the 100th year celebration of the monarchy (yea, constitutional monarchy now turned into a democratic system) and the coronation of the new King. A new two lane curving highway has been finished and buildings in the capital are hurrying up their completion to house tourists and curiosity seekers who will join in the festivities. The King, who is an absolute monarch with the power of life and death, emerged around the beginning of the 20th century from the tribes of warriors who had occupied Bhutan for centuries. In 1616 Shebdrung unified the country’s warlords into a dual system of government that paired with religion. The current King is the great-great-grandson of Trongsan, a great warlord, so he really does have the country’s history in his blood. The Kingship was actually set up by the British, who used Bhutan to set up trade with Tibet when Britain had India in its colonies.

Even getting to Bhutan was like the beginning of an exciting novel. After a freak squall in New Delhi this morning, stopping up traffic like a sewer, people running into people, pushing them off their lane like a polo player rides off another to get the ball, providing nervous tension for those of us pushing to get to the international airport in time for our flight on the Bhutan national airlines. The sky finally cleared although the streets of Delhi were flooded, and the Ganges overflowing, (this is freak weather for them), so we took off on time with a brief stop in Kathmandu. When we left Kathmandu, and flew high in thick white clouds, there peeking their peaks above the fray was the top sides of Mt. Everest, Mt. Lotse, and all the fellow mountains we had lived among during our trek, but this time we were looking at them from 30,000 feet. I wondered of Noam, one of our Sherpa friends guiding a 78 year old Japanese gent up the summit had made it, (it would be his sixth successful summit) since today was their day of reaching the peak of the highest mountain in the world. Everyone on the plane was on the left side gaping at the magnificence of the Himalayas and taking photos. I knew at that moment, things were finally going to change. And they did.

Men and women are called Ap or Aum. I am Aum Audrey, which sounds kinda lovely. Taktshang Gompa, (Tiger’s Nest) which hangs off the face of a cliff 3000 feet above the valley floor - legend Guru Rimpoche flew into Bhutan on a mythical tigress, meditated in a cave before bringing Buddhism to Bhutan, and thus Gompa was built around the cave. You can get there on foot or on a tiny pony with a saddle made from yak skin. I chose feet with a wooden stick. It was steep and I’ve gotten out of shape since our trekking time, so we made it at least up to the café where we had a splendid view of the gold-guilded monastery. It had burned to the ground (from faulty yak butter candles) a few years ago, and has since been rebuilt on the extremely steep uninviting rock cliffs. Getting there is following the prayer flags, which are strewn everywhere in their bright colors.

There are three kinds of prayer flags in Bhutan. The usual Wind Horse string of five colored ones representing the five elements: white for iron, green for wood, yellow for earth, blue for water, red for fire. There are the simple tall vertical flags - when someone dies 108 of them will be positioned somewhere on one of the mountains. And another flag on top of homes to ward of evil. On the brightly decorated three story homes (the roof floats and leaves an open space where farmers dry meat, crops, herbs, and laundry), one often sees a painted Phallus. This is to ward off bad news and evil presence. Bhutans believe if someone praises the home, that opens the door for something awful to happen, and so they paint a phallus on the front wall - and this covers any negative possibilities. Of course, I’m so entranced with these homes, I keep saying in my innocense, "Oh I love that one - with the tiger heads across the windows - sort of series of four or five cathedral windows in blocks of eight or ten. So I wasn’t helping the situation.

Also in Bhutan, where cheap labor comes from the Indians across the border, there are three kinds of chortens (the roadside monuments: the Tibetan with gold pointed tops, Nepalese which are round and white, and the Bhutan style, square with intricate painted wood patterns around it. (These are the spiritual thoughts around which you walk clockwise for luck.). In the mountains one comes across huge prayer wheels as well, constantly moving because they are powered by wonderful surging water from the waterfalls everywhere. What a cool idea. Prayer is constant.

We also visited the National Museum, (no photos allowed) which is Paro’s 340 year old watchtower, fortress and prison (the first king of Bhutan was imprisoned there) to view an enormous collection of Bhutan stamps and items of history. Bows and arrows were major weapons, and archery is still the national sport. At this time of year, yellow broom blooming everywhere gave it an enticing fragrance. Winding around seven round stories you find the philately collections to the wooden red hats, similar into style to the Pope’s, used by Dalai Lamas when riding horseback and my favorite, the Tshogzhing Chapel, which is a three dimensional Mandala, each of four sides elaborately carved with many figures and statues related to the Tantric Buddhism of Bhutan. It is like a huge tree in pyramid form with colorful monsters and Buddha forms and his consorts and manifestations and ugly protective multi limbed creatures. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the artistic stamps honoring world wide events and coveted by collectors, including three-dimensional ones, and some that change as you move them up and down. They also make little CDs to go with stamps and I’m told there is an Elvis one, which I couldn’t find at the museum.

Photos: Men in skirts, the national dress of Bhutan; school girls in uniforms; a monk and an assistant at Amankora Hotel in Paro; vertical prayer flags; view of Paro on landing; Mt. Everest from the plane; Tiger's Nest Monastery; colorful prayer flags on a hike; the phallus protection; a water turned prayer wheel in a typical Bhutan chorten; drying yarn.

City of Charms

2008-05-25T16:49:00.012+05:30

I wake up with a huge white dome posing outside French windows of my hotel, the only one that has a view of the Taj Mahal in Agra.
It’s like a white marble planet. Every side is equal, now some more than others as scaffolds have been rigged to facilitate restoration in process. On one side is a mosque on the other is its twin, but a guest house. Many Indians visit it during the off-tourist season. From a distance women wrapped in sarees look like jelly bellies poured down the white marble trails. Many are barefooted. Europeans/Americans are allowed to wear shoe covers, which knocks out the holy place concept and keeps the floors from being scratched.
This is the Taj Mahal, the seventh wonder of the world. I don’t know what counts to make it such a treat, other than the dramatic legends of love associated with it, and the fact twenty thousand artisans and cheap labor spent 22 years building it mid 17th century. One Emperor footed the bill. There are expensive books of nothing but the Taj Mahal in photographs but it’s not that the details are particularly earth-shaking. It’s how the sun or moon reflects on it. At night, the city of Agra does not light it up.
I suppose it’s the legend more than its architectural presence that gilds its personality. A tomb is a tomb, after all, and this is a Muslim one, which means decor is abstract and patterned. It looks as if it would rise up at any minute like a shuttle from Kennedy Space Center. You wonder if it would fly. Kites do, not to far away. And the usual bevy of pigeons pester exotic gardens in the humid sun. Water pools reflect the domes and Indian families huddle together for photographs.
I was invited a number of times to be in family photos. I have no idea why other than I wore my white Raj scarf with holy words on it that I don’t know how to translate. I have not seen a duplicate except in the textile museum of the maharajas under the category of block printed - and am embarrassed to say I brought it from America. The new friends were usually young Muslim women covered in black robes. It was really steamy hot, but the atmosphere was light and I made note that Muslim women and a Christian woman were shoulder to shoulder.
Mausoleums abound in India, some in white marble, others in pink stone or brick, others in yellow, but the Taj Mahal is the queen of them all. Women world wide wish they were loved by someone who’d spend his fortune on this kind of tribute of affection, rather than grieving at a golf course or some bar or in some medic’s palm. The story of Emperor Shah Jahan, grandson of Akar, the first champion of India, and CEO of India in the 17th century, and his love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, a descendent of Kubla Khan and Genghis Khan, is a tear-jerker. Jahan, who also built the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid in Delhi, squired and married her and by the time she had hit 36 years of age, she had given him 14 children. She died in childbirth but not before receiving the promise he would do three things: not marry again, build the most beautiful tomb in the world, and take care of the children. Many of the offspring died, as was natural in 17th century conditions, but the youngest son Aurangzeb, a greedy ambitionist, led a rebellion and gained power by killing off his brothers, and putting his father in prison for eight years. Mind you, the place prison was inlaid marble with major balconies overlooking the city of Agra and the famous Taj Mahal. The son, a fundamentalist Muslim, destroyed the Mongul empire and turned India into chaos, destroying the temples of the Hindus, until the 18th century when the British colonialists took control.
We had risen in time to catch the 6 o clock train from New Delhi to Agra - a two hour experience on India’s railways, where breakfast was served in the exact style of an airplane meal. Rats and sleeping bodies congest the station at dawn and human waste was all over the tracks. Crowds with tall porters carrying large bags of white people on their heads (everyone else carried his own) mixed with flies, pigeons, cell phones and products to become breakfast once loaded. In the first class car, seats had pink arms and tray tables.
Agra was another crowded city with elegant hotels behind large walls. But it was as touristy as Jaipur with the usual barrage of beggars, pickpockets, police armed with wooden sticks, and aggressive barkers trying to get you your veins. Water buffalo, humped brahma bulls, goats and javelina wander the littered streets planted with bougainvilla between street vendors with their artfully arranged trays of bananas, mangos, coconut slices, custard apples and fresh melons. Men on the street looked terribly junky, poorly dressed, with the only fashionable ones being doormen and waiters in sikh attire. After the walk through Taj Mahal, our guide insisted we experience how artisans inlaided the Taj Mahal’s precious stones (turquoise, lapis lazuli, cornelian, etc.) and of course I’ve gotten used to that by now. You go see beautiful products that you cannot resist. Once the salesmen so skilled in smooth talk have hooked you, and you purchase small tables inlaid with elephants and rabbits, they say, "now let me show you a special room." They do this as a carpet scam too. Everyone is selling carpets, for some reason. And pashminas. Bite the hook, and they drag you along at their speed. I just say, I have no carpets, I want no jewelry or souvenirs. Of course, they don’t believe you and keep hassle you just to the point you are out the door. I hate this part of shopping in India, or Tibet, or Jerusalem or almost anywhere outside the US.
But the creme de la creme for me this day was a visit to a dusty square to see a snake charmer. Yep, the old cobra trick. I couldn’t leave India without adding that to the bucket list. Although it was out of tourist season, my guide was able to arrange for two charmers to charm me with their bulbous flute and magic vibrations that kept cobras under control. These two cobras looked like they’d been in vaudeville for years, one was five, the other six, and they were not eager to rise from their baskets, puff out their necks, and sway to the rhythm of that piercing sound. But they were coddled and woken up and they did what they were supposed to do, delighting me.

Photos: Elephant welcome at Agra hotel; Sue and I with first view of Taj Mahal; Centering at the Taj Mahal; posing with Muslim youth; Two police security officers; Red Fort with view of Taj Mahal; prison of Shah Janan; artisans setting precious stones; inlaid tables; the charmers enticing two cobras; two cobras who had rather roll up in the basket and sleep.

The Pink City

2008-05-23T14:18:00.019+05:30

The peacocks are peowwwwing at dawn. The pigeons sneak sips in the enormous fountain of water in the middle of the patio at Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, India. Two Rajastha men wrapped in white pajamas (Punjab style) with bright red turbans twirled on their head carry large white flags and a stick. They roam the enormous patio-garden (called chowks) beating the flags periodically with the stick because it sounds like a shot-gun. Their job is to shoo away the pigeons over and over, those persistent birds only going up to another levered edge of the palace temporarily. This is pigeon city. Balconies, yards, streets are filled with them. At one sidewalk strip where vendors sell grain and corn, my driver points it out as the pigeon restaurant. Behind the open booths, thousands of pigeons partake of corn kernels scattered hopelessly across the ground.

The contrast of life in Jaipur - home of many castles, palaces and enormous forts built buy Rajasthan warriors and extremely wealthy Maharajas (where bankers, merchants and jewelers thrive) while the streets are overdosed with cheap hovels for shops, beggars and pickpockets - doesn’t lessen the impact of a city where almost all the buildings are pink - sort of a brick pink in most cases but with elaborate trim in a custard color and elaborate old buildings with balconies and fancy window treatment. Primarily, it is suffocatingly hot but women still go about in bright colored saris whether they are working in construction, doing marketing, or begging from tourists. You don’t see the regal class on the streets ever. You guess they are here by the appeal of their palaces - one floating in a huge lake - but no Rolls Royces plie the streets.

This is the most touristy city I’ve visited in India. For this reason, I’ve been told, terrorist select Jaipur or Agra (Taj Mahal) for their disruptive bombs. I asked to go to one of the bombing sights, which was on the way to Amir Fort, my destination this morning. The death site was at a major crossroads. An enormous distorted tree ,probably a Banyan tree, with roots wrapped around its trunk, gave a touch of shade to merchants and pigeons there. Shops were open. There were no markers, no pouring out of flowers and cards in tribute to the innocent who were killed on that spot. The sum of lives lost has been estimated at 70 from the multiple bombings. I remember the photographs of one merchant’s products, brightly colored bangles, being strewn across the street among the blood splatters. I’ve been buying bangles ever since. If there is a symbol of Jaipur, it is these inexpensive bright colored glass stone bracelets women wear up their arms to enhance beauty. Women do insist on adorning themselves like Ballywood stars (Ballywood is Bombay.)

This was another thrill day for me. At Amber Fort, which was built high on a mountain and is surrounded by what locals consider a Great Wall of China kind of wall that extends for miles, tourists can ride elephants. Sigh. I got the urge again but this time I wanted to find a painted elephant. No problem. All the elephants were decked out in royal robes (long saddle blankets) and pink metal boxes for riders. Their faces were made up with colorful flowers. They lethargically swung their trunks, not at all interested in this kind of tedious work and had to be shouted at to get them to get close to the mounting tower. Today their task was to carry customers down a paved road alongside a construction area in the fort. When strong dust storms approached, the elephant riding was over. I got my 20 minutes in and before we had done a turn around, my driver, who may have thought he was auditioning for Ballywood as he sang cheerful songs and waved to the workers on the road as we went, was quizzing me about a tip. Jaipur is the first city where tips were negotiated. And watch out for the photographers who charge five dollars a shot. They are printed out on pretty good paper and are pretty good photos, but lots in Jaipur is overpriced.

A visit to the palace in the fort area was at least healthy exercise, i.e. steps and inclines. In most palaces and on some street-side structures, the Maharajas were considerate of women, who were not allowed outside the palace confines. They built high, elaborate facades called Hawa Mahal with whimsical facades and one or three tiny windows that would expose nothing about the women, but where they could, mostly concealed, sit and watch the Maharaja or dignitaries arrive in to the city and any other celebration or bazaar activities going on below. This practice of keeping women hidden from all men except a husband was called Purdah. There were even chess boards for ladies but none of the pieces were of kings or queens or even horses. They were different sized little mushrooms, so it seemed. The 18th century was a major macho era, maybe still is. I can’t find any Maharanis or Maharajas in house, just pictures of them in coffee table books.

Returning to the city, there was a camel stand. Yes, here camels and elephants add noise and congestion to all the motorcycles, bicycles and rickshaws that hog the road. Camels, their tall lanky bodies standing up above the crowd, pull carts of wares. Elephants carry workers and often giant loads of grass. But at the camel stand, I yelled, Pull Over. I want to ride the camel. There were about a half dozen, gaily decorated with red and gold things hanging from their bridles, and blankets ranging from a printed one to one glittered with spangles. A little boy was the driver of the sweet faced camel I chose. The beast got on her knees and I easily mounted the saddle with stirrups which was hidden under a red throw. Hold on, the boy said. Then there was an extreme movement as the camel rose on her fore-feet and then her back feet, me trying to balance as she did, and we were off. What a pleasant gait this camel had. However, the kid was leading us wrong way down the busy highway, every kind of vehicle whizzing past us and beeping horns. Yikes. I yelled, couldn’t we walk on the side of the road and not the middle? The boy was oblivious, and very prideful because he had a customer. A man who said his name was Tony kept taking photographs and yelling I will bring them to your hotel. Heck, I wasn’t giving out the hotel name since is was the luxury palace. But my driver made arrangements so I could see the photos later. The camel ride was a hoot and I hated that it was over, but the dust and heat was excruciating, even though I had wrapped my head in a thin scarf Indian lady style. This impressed the photographer.

A trip to the City Palace which has a partial museum of Maharaja clothing and Diwali dresswas also fascinating. Most of the fabrics were embroidered with gold and silver threads, in thick brocades and one outfit for a 19th century male, white muslin, had three hundred and fifty pleats called kalis or pamels - for a man. But most interesting was the polo uniforms from the wardrobe of Maharaja Sawai Man Sing II, famous for his polo and billiards. Here I learned about the "fiery ball" or night polo when a candle was secured in a metal ball that looked very Muslim in design, called a ‘palas’ and somehow it was playable in the dark although you’d need one hard hitting polo mallet. This was a 16th century delight of the warrior Akbar whose polo mallets were decorated in gold and silver, and if one broke, and another player was able to pick up the pieces, it was finders keepers. Women, who were not allowed to show their faces in the daytime, often would play polo in the dark as well. The early uniforms were thick, heavily embroidered jackets and trousers, but later the jodphur was created for polo, and now even hotel employees wear them.

At the end of the day, another curiosity was answered. A young lady painted my hands with henna, a habit women in Jaipur are known for especially when they dress up for fiestas and balls. Of course I was just going to have dinner and Indian sweets in my room. But it was the know how I was after. It is a tedious job for the artist, who must have a patience beyond Job. Once the black henna dries on your hands - you cannot wash them for a couple of hours - you rub it off and what is left is a beautiful brownish design. I found some henna and hope to show my college-sorority granddaughter how to do it since she’s the artist in my family and it might make a fun fad at her university.

Photos: Pidgeon swatter at Ramburg Palace; Pink Palace at city gates with pigeons; At the hoteol, lux shade; Women in construction; a load on the road; the bomb site; a camel cart; Hawa Mahal, a pink hideout for females; Should we take this lady? Riding the camel India style, ie, with scarf on head; Hawa at City Palace - that's me up there; What I saw; New Henna being app-lied; Henna done - it's red.

Be Ready For Anything

2008-05-22T07:35:00.012+05:30

Be ready to take off your shoes when you travel to this part of the world. You never know when you are on holy ground, be it Buddhist, Hindu, Jain or Christian. Ironically, you don’t take off your shoes at airport security. But at some point, you’ve gotta join the barefooted contessas.

At Mother Theresa’s home, remove shoes before walking where she walked and kneeling before her tomb. It’s a hard habit to get used to so wear flipflops, sandals or something you don’t have to lean down to untie. Socks are good, and one German couple sluffed along in hospital shoe covers which they put over their socks. Sometimes the floors are ice cold stone, others boiling hot marble, sometimes disinfectant clean, others absolutely filthy. It’s hard not to wonder what we Americans might pick up with our weak immune systems. Someone is usually sweeping with a home-made broom of thin branches or grasses. But then, the other side is to have faith, that by doing the right thing in holy places, God protects.

It would also be good to bring ear plugs to India and Nepal. (My son-in-law sells earplug molds and I think I’ve discovered a whole new sales possibility.) Traffic is a free-for-all, with everyone laying on the horn for you or your vehicle to get out of the way, as if there was anywhere to move to. (To boot, you are totally confused about when to cross the street since everything is backwards in these ex-British conclaves.) For some reason, I never heard or saw an emergency vehicle trying to get through, but then, with a thousand horns at different pitches, it was hard to hear the driver of my own vehicle speak. At least there are no boom boxers. They’d be deadened here.
The worse horn blowers are the white tourist cars like mine. My Calcutta driver was awful and if someone refused to get out of his way, he’d literally run the guy (walking with a cane or on a skimpy bicycle) into the fence. I wanted to get out of the car in protest. The chauffeur in a white suit didn’t understand my English and I’d probably end up in the area where the next terrorist set off his bomb. But rickshaws have air horns, green and yellow taxis on three wheels called automatic rickshaws (how do they stay together?) abuse horns - hope you don’t slide out the doorless sides; yellow Ambassador taxis - millions of them -seem to think they own the road, like the buses loaded to the hilt with commuters. If there are fifty seats on the bus, there are one hundred passengers, mostly standing in a sweat in the middle. Trucks are allowed on many major streets and brush by at breath-neck speeds so you hope they don’t carry eggs. Military vehicles mastermind the single lane vias in border lands. I’ve never seen a police surveillance car or a traffic cop, except at one or two giant intersections programmed so it takes about 8 minutes for your side to be let loose to cross the road and continue. It’s a game of darts and strategy, who gets to that next free space first, who moves to the left first (drivers on the right side of the car) and who is a chicken. But until you have found refuge in your elaborate hotel, there is no silence in the cities, however large or small.

There are beggars and for a Christian, it’s a dilemma. If I had a box of sweets or a bag of rice, I’d feel good about patronizing the sad beggars. But money, no. For Hindus, handing a coin to a beggar means rewards elsewhere. So they make beggars insistent to tourists as well. Women holding armsful of children pick you out of a crowd and then follow you, right on your back or side mumbling something with a sad face, and when you get in the car they tap on the window to get your attention until finally, you are driven away. Obviously, I cannot solve the poverty programs in this nation, which is a lot different from the appearance of poverty in Nepal. Beggars don’t assault you in Nepal. Shop keepers do, practically grabbing you by the arm to come inside the store. The word “No” does not exist in Nepalese. So what do you do? A lot of back work. Don’t smile at the salesman in the street. I remember the same problem in Jerusalem a few years ago.

Greetings are constant when you enter hotels, restaurants, shops, museums. Last night, with a late arrival in Jaipur, I arrived at Rambagh Palace hotel (I have the maharani suite???? bigger than my house - it’s off season here) to be met with a cold face towel, a glass of fresh lechee juice, and a fabulous lei of jasmine that I slept with because it smelled so good. Namaste is a savior when you don’t know the language. Put the palms of your hand together, bend slightly, and utter Namaste. In some parts of India, Julee is also used not only for hello, but goodbye and thank you. There is a courtesy and a modesty in most Nepalese and Indians. For one thing, women don’t fly down sidewalks or enter buildings with most of their skin showing, maybe a glimpse of a midrift, but no legs or chest. Never shorts, unless hikers, never bra straps dropping and bellybuttons displayed, not usually unless it’s a teenager who is trying to break out into the modern world. Most women and girls are beautifully wrapped in saris and versions of that. They also wear the pajama style pants (harem-ish) covered by a long colorful silk, gauze, or cotton knee length shirt. It is extremely comfortable, and the public doesn’t see something they should not be seeing.

Beauty obsesses women in India. They see the most glamorous women on television and in Ballywood (which is in Bombay, a wild place) and they can probably imitate them, at least the young model-like women can. Only in Ladakh did women seem uninterested in elaborate dress. The Tibetans wore dark wool long dresses to keep warm, but spruced up the look with a colored scarf thrown across the shoulders, turquoise and coral adornments, and some odd looking silk hats. Most women in India and in Nepal, who crave gold ornaments on them, go out of their way to make sure they don’t have gray hair. In the mountains, women and their daughters pass a day searching for gray hairs, which they pull out, so that even a woman in her sixties is white free. But they also, I’m told, have a problem with baldness. There comes a point when the hair doesn’t replace itself with any color.

Men tend to dress more like men at leisure. In Calcutta, overweight men with street lives wrap cloth like towels around their waist, wearing, I guess, nothing underneath and nothing on top. It’s a bit gross. They might throw on a long shirt if trying to impress or while unloading rice bags from a tall truck.. But there is a huge contingent of the business suit types, and the Nehru styles, and the white robed Ghandi style. In this heat, you want to get by wearing only what is cooling and comfortable. In many public places there are signs not to wash clothing in the pond, waterfall or river passing through. At the disparaging botanic garden in Calcutta, government owned huge plot of land where the world’s largest Banyan tree (250 years old, 1.8 kilometers diameter - it’s in the Guiness Book of World Records) can be seen. But everything else is a disaster, weed filled, and overgrown. In the tiny cactus pavilion, the barefoot caretaker, dressed only in a waist-wrapped blue and white check cloth, hung a line across one display so he might hang his wet clothes - which he must have just washed in the pond where the rare water lilies bloom, in spite of instructions at the gate, do not wash your clothing or utensils in the waters. But when you live on the street, you do what you have to do. So much of Calcutta lives on the street. It’s shocking to me, but probably not to them.

I’ve already described a security check that one goes through at the airport. (At my hotel, each time you enter from the street in the car, a policemen passes the mirror thing under your car to make sure there is nothing untoward hanging there. India is never safe from terrorism. Too many issues on the table.) But on the other hand, you don’t have to take off your shoes, you don’t have to take out or announce you have a laptop, and you don’t have to dump the water bottle. You do have to wait. Few of my flights in India have departed on time. It’s impossible to understand the announcer who is speaking in English about your flight. Grab a coffee and some chocolate because that’s about all you’ll get and don’t forget to identify your bags after you pass through security.

As peacocks shriek outside the windows, I will now slip into my cotton slippers, laid out for me on a silver and white bedside mat decorated with elephants, taste an Indian sweet treat a waiter brought for me, and pretend.

Photos: Shoes removed at Hindu temple; a rich Jain Temple, prepare to remove shoes on hot marble stairs; the automatic rickshaws; three mean trucks; Beggars line up for Hindu merchants handouts; The Rambagh Palace; A brightly dressed woman in the market; Another woman flower seller; the world's largest banyan tree (only a slice of it); shoes for sleeping.

Day of Miracles

2008-05-21T07:11:00.022+05:30

Another debt paid and what a milestone. I hope my children will be proud.
For years, I’ve known in my heart I had to visit Calcutta, India. I was full of trepidation thinking the city of 14 million would be so deformed by poverty and dirt that I wouldn’t be able to look out the window. This is the place of Mother Theresa, in the process of sainthood since her death near the same date as the death of Princess Diana. It was that tiny bent Albanian woman who had the courage and heart to walk among the most destitute of Calcutta, Hindus mostly, and bring them hope. She founded the Missionaries of Charity group of women - known for their white saris with blue trim and wearing sandals in the coldest of conditions. They now cover the world. These amazing sisters continue Mother Theresa’s work in this city beside a bustling Hindu temple and market dedicated to the goddess - one of thousands in the Hindu faith - Kali.

Why this obligation to get here? Years ago when I was newly ordained, I had communicated with Mother Theresa in hopes of making a donation to her work. She wrote me a small note - which I put in one of my Bibles and haven’t been able to find again since Uruguay. But then occurred her untimely death and I didn’t know what to do. I felt unworthy of the title given me in Montevideo as the Mother Theresa of Uruguay. Not true. So for more than twelve years I’ve carried in my heart this pledge to her, sometimes waking in the night because I knew I had to follow through. Ironically, God has been the tour guide on this long trip to Asia. With the closing of the Tibet border by China, two weeks of my trip were suspended. I told Jim I would like to know India, and especially Calcutta. So this was arranged. Yesterday, I fulfilled my promise to Mother Theresa.

When I arrived in Calcutta I was surprised at its landscape. Oh it’s huge, but there are enormous open parks, trees on every street rich or poor, and not so unclean and piercing to observe as you drive through streets filled with more yellow Ambassador taxis than taxis in New York City. This ex-capital of the British India is a city of wide streets, well preserved colorful buildings of colonialist style held over from the old days which my guide eagerly pointed out until I told him I’m not into British architecture. I’m interested in the people. There are black bronze statues of freedom fighters, heros and leaders of India many of who were assassinated: Ghandi, Indira Ghandi, his daughter assassinated by her own body guards in her own residence, Suryja Sea who was hanged by the British, and the less tragic Nehru. They stand on tall marble podiums and make amazing silhouettes. There is Asia’s largest cricket stadium (holds 95,000 people, which was to be filled today for an important match with Jaipur’s reigning team) and restaurants with names as Oh, Calcutta. There is the Royal Turf Club - a giant race track where horse races take place in the winter - and remainders of polo fields, since this is where polo began in India. Colorful buses with Victorian trim and awful rickshaws pack the city which is known as the Silicon Valley of India because of the major computer and technical companies centered here in Bengali territory. Bose sound systems were created by a Bengali who now lives in the US.

Finally here are Anglican churches, the cathedral of which I visited and had the privilege of meeting charming Archbishop Raju at his headquarters where he was properly dressed in shorts and a cotton striped shirt. One adjusts one’s life to the heat in India. Believe you me.

But people sleep on the streets, children snuggled up to their mothers on tiny blankets in the middle of the market places where odd thin men with painted faces and Shiek turbans look for a handout. Men live in a piece of cloth draped around their waist but no shoes, no shirt, no hat. There are street dogs, street cattle, and street people who’ve made for themselves sleeping quarters out of blue tents, sticks, rocks, and cardboard. In the early morning, these homeless people open their little booths to sell the many flowers (strings of mini hibiscus, tuber roses, marigolds, and other common flowers)to Hindu temple worshipers. My guide told me that Hindus don’t regularly go to the 600 temples in Calcutta to make offerings like those in Northern India, although they tie red and yellow strings to the holy trees to ask for a wish to be fulfilled. If it is, they sacrifice a lamb. Hindus have so many many gods and goddesses to appease, but they believe flowers are the best medium to reach God quickly. If have flower in one hand you will be blessed by God. Hmmm. The Garden Clubs might like to know that.

After arriving at the old British style Oberoi Grand Hotel, where Gerbera daisies float in every size bowl of water and the fragrance is overwhelming of jasmine, my guide swished me away to the Hospital of the Destitute and Dying, which is one of the labors of Mother Theresa’s heirs. When I walked through the door from the teeming street of well over 100 degree heat, I entered a cool oasis - fans going and windows allowing in some breeze. Two sisters were busily going about their work (they never have moist sweaty faces like the rest of us) and hardly noticed a new visitor. There were many American students volunteering that afternoon. Everything was open space - the men’s wing which houses 55, the women’s wing, also has 55 beds, and the foyer where a electric bicycle stood unused for the moment. (Men volunteers carry the dying gentlemen and hold one on the machine and actually push his legs to make sure he pushes the wheel a certain number of times.) In the middle is a huge wash room, which means concrete floors with drain (nothing ceramic or fancy, just all practical) and large plastic bowls where a group of Korean youth were washing the metal lunch plates and cups. This is also where the shifts and shirts of the patients are scrubbed with hard brushes and cleaned, then hung up to dry outside on the second floor next to the chapel.

Immediately, as I walked through the room of the women, their heads shaved, their bodies thinner than bone itself, a few reached out to me and acknowledged Namaste greetings with a faint smile and a touch of my head. My heart sunk to the floor. I knew I had to be here and God had made it emphatic. It’s been a long time since I was able to touch people at death’s door. It was a blessing in Uruguay. Now here I could smile, and embrace, and encourage even though the women didn’t speak English, only Hindu or their Indian dialects. Mother Theresa knew once a servant had been in this place, he or she found a new kind of spiritual urgency in life. So I asked permission to spend my one full day in Calcutta as a volunteer. I was sent to the administrative offices on another street to meet Sister Lysa from India and Sister Prema of Germany. By now I am sopping wet from the heat in my black t-shirt and skirt, but ironically, I don’t miss air condition, since now and then I grab a cool piece of air. I guess I could survive.

At the administration home, the life of Mother Theresa is preserved. Her few possessions are in protective display cases. There is a small museum, much like that at Ghandi’s last stand, where the life and sayings of Mother Theresa have been blown up on cardboard placards with photos of her. But more important, there is her tomb, a simple marble rectangle with marigolds scattered on top with the words: "Come Be My Light." She is always with her sisters of charity. She is always the inspiration where she needs to be that inspiration. Many come there to pray, removing their shoes because it is holy ground.

The sisters at the administrative side were extremely friendly. I was able to give them the donation debt and clean out my soul. They gave me one of the Mother of Miracles medallions which Mother Theresa often handed out. They told me I must go a few blocks down the shady street to the orphanage to get permission from Sister Karina to volunteer the next day. So I did. And I took home with me one of Mother Theresa’s prayers: O Most Kind Father of Us all, let me save at least one soul, One you already know.

At 5 in the morning, my guide took me for a brief float in a country boat (very primitive) on the holy Ghanges River. I expected to see floating dead animals and garbage, but where we put in, it was just coffee brown much like the Mississippi. I collected some of the sacred water in a tiny bottle much as I had done in Israel from the Jordan. Then we went to the narrow alleys of the Hindu temple to Kali next door to Mother Theresa’s hospital and strolled through the bustling market at 7 a.m. selling conch shell bangles, cheap plastic ones of every color and glitter, images of Hindu gods needing pleasing, red and gold napkins to carry offerings in, white sweets to make as offerings, and of course the endless flowers. Non Hindus cannot enter their temples.>

At 7:30 I was at the door of Mother Theresa’s domed hospital. The sisters were still at breakfast. A girl from Alabama who had been volunteering three weeks knew the ropes. There was not really any order. No one really tells you what to do. You just keep asking. We went to the upstairs chapel for a while and prayed. Then, proudly, I was able to put on the pink apron with the Mother Theresa Hospital logo. The work began with energy, as more and more volunteers arrived, mostly Americans from the Mid-West. First it was feeding the men and women on their beds. Some could not eat for the pain. Others were in semi-comas and had to be roused. Others were hungry and reaching out their hands. The hard part is not knowing their language to be able to comfort them with words, so I just tried to touch their hand or shoulder and say Namaste, to which they respond.

After breakfast, it was into the steamy wash room to help dry the aluminum plates. And after that, armed with a small bottle of cream, I was told to give cream massages to the arms and legs of those who wanted it. Their dark skin was soft and not full of white dry lines, a result of their getting these massages daily. It’s a way of soothing them. The novices in green checked aprons did most of the medical work. It was easy to tell the volunteers who had long term commitments (like months) and they were resources for what should I do now.

For a while, I felt I was more in the way than not. I kept a smile on my face and remembered what I had read from Mother Theresa: "Within me everything is icy cold. It is only that blind faith that carries me through. The smile is a big cloak which covers a multitudes of pains." Then one young woman with shaved head , voiceless and weak in a yellow gown, kept beckoning to me, pointing to her hip. She seemed to be suffering the ravages of AIDS. I don’t know. No one knows. But I sat down on her low bed and she pushed my hand to massage her hip (she was laying on her side.) So I slowly began to massage the area, she moved my hand to the right spot, and I kept this up for about a half an hour. It was this moment when she was able to sleep. My arms got stiff from the position, but my heart was flexible with "carinos."

The volunteers receive a tea break on the second floor opened area. I filled up on cold water. We talked about our missions. I was the oldest. And then it was time to fold the many many cotton shifts that dress the women each day. A boy from Spain who had been here a few weeks, showed me the routine. There seem to be so many shifts to fold. He explained sometimes three or four a day might be used for one woman she has diarrhea. (These are the same ones scrubbed and stamped with feet in the wash room earlier.) Then it was back to serving lunch and drying more plates until life calmed down and it was time to wash the floors with disinfectant. This is when the volunteer shifts change. I was worn out but asadly took off my pink apron and walked through the spaces one more time.

Thank you God for bringing me here. I have known the darkness to the worst degree on this long trip and now I’ve leaped into the light. So I leave you with these words from her daily dialogue with Jesus: "To leave that which I love and expose myself to new labors and sufferings which will be great.....but the voice kept saying, ‘Wilt Thou Refuse?"

Photos: Mother Theresa's tomb; Ambassador taxi; Ghandi statue; Colonialists architecture; these are pews in the Anglican Cathedral; sleeping on the streets; flower seller; cuke man; Mother Theresa's room; a rickshaw man; Trip on the Ganges River; Red and yellow string to make a Hindu wish; offerings offered; In the pink apron of a volunteer; the women's wing at the Hospital of the Destitute and Dying where I volunteered; a pink shrub at the Archbishop's house.

A Bit of Patience in the Indus Valley

2008-05-18T19:45:00.017+05:30

You think American airport security is a hassle, count your blessings.

Travel to problem areas in India is the ultimate in security stamps, frisks, and more stamps. When I flew to Leh, capital of the most northern tip of India, an area called Ladakh, which is on the border of Pakistan and Kashmir, both disturbance areas, I had the security experience of my life, even considering that everyone in this Indus Valley was cordial.

At 4 a.m. in New Delhi, the airport was already packed. Why so early? There are only three flights a day to this very dry, very rocky, very high (12,000 ft) area and the slightest overcast is considered bad weather - a pilot has to have had a good nights sleep to weave through these steep razor sharp mountains, mostly packed with snow and ice and to land in a suggestion of an opening with one long tongue of black airstrip and do it safely. As one agent said, it depends on the vigor or courage of the pilot. Some won’t fly if there is anything "iffy." Once I saw the air strip on one side of an enormous razor mountain, and the pilot had to swing around to the other side and come in easy, I realized it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. But, the runway needs repaving. It’s the military border patrol which is in charge of roads, airports, and general security.
It’s the security issue that greets you at the airport. First you check in before you get to the check in counter. You flash the paper with your reservation at the military guard in brown. Then the baggage to be checked goes through an X-ray machine and you go through a personal station to be checked. There are the men’s side and the women’s side behind curtains. (That always gets me - a female guard is waiting to give you a good frisk.) Then you get to check in with the airlines - Jet Airways - and you receive your boarding pass and luggage ticket. Then when the flight is called, you stand in line to go through security. This is the real thing. Your carry on and/or purse must have a special tag attached, a bag tag. When it goes through the security X-ray, you get a stamp at the other side. You go again through another personal security check - women on the women’s side with curtains - and you too get a stamp on your boarding pass. Now if that isn’t enough, then you must go to a special door and identify your checked luggage, still sitting on the baggage cart that will haul it to the airplane. When you eye ID it, you get another stamp. (No luggage will be put on the plane if you haven’t identified it on the baggage carrier outside.) Then, the flight is called. You show your boarding card to the military guard. You go through another personal security check and receive another stamp before you load on the bus that will take you to the plane. But you must also be approved by the soldier who makes sure you have all your stamps not only on your boarding pass, but on each carry on piece. So you get on the bus. And it takes you to the plane. When you get off the bus, you once again have to show all your stamps and your boarding pass to start up the steps to the plane. That fellow tears off part of the boarding pass. Then you get to the top of the steps and they check that you are who you are and you have seat number such n such. Of course, this kind of detail calls for big staff of young people who tediously do their job.

Once you are on Jet Airways, you can smell the spicy flavors of an Indian breakfast about to be served. Masala Dosa, Keerai Wada, Kanjivarram Mini Idli was on my menu and that means an Indian style rice pancake filled with spicy potatoes and chutney, crisp deep fried lentel dumplings with spinach, savoy steamed rice cakes with cashew nuts, tumeric and fresh coconut. And that’s breakfast. (There’s yoghurt, cornflakes and rolls too.) So flying in these parts might be enough to scuff up your patience , but it’s interesting. Can you imagine this kind of service on American airlines? Americans wouldn’t stand for the inconvenience.

So this was my introduction to Leh. The airport is run and operated by tall thin very very dark brown soldiers, many in army green turbans. They live in barracks painted with bright colored camouflage and the roads are stacked with military trucks and jeeps. There are also gaily painted trucks hauling food and goods across this part of the world. On the backs in large letters is painted BLOW HORN. I thought it was a brand of truck, but soon realized it was instructions to blow the horn if you want to pass. Most drivers spend most of their time driving with their hands on the horn, especially around these dead turns.

With all these people in an area called Old Tibet because it once was a part of Tibet, and still mocks it geographically, spiritually and politically. Ladakh is one cold, dry, treeless, high place. Rocks poise on mountain sides just waiting for a reason to slide down. The one major road is paved, but it’s one car width and the dare of who moves off the pavement first is ghastly. There’s not much room between one side and the devastating cliff on the other. I screamed a lot as we took one 40 mile drive to visit a palace which hangs high on a mountain and a monastery with a 1000 year old temple and three foot high images of the future Buddha (they believe in a Buddha coming again much like we believe Christ will come again) in a model town called Aschi. But in all of this zone called Ladakh, there is a politeness and modesty and desire to please and the people smile a lot as they show off their sacks of apricots for sale (how many ways can you dry an apricot? From coffee brown apricots still filled with their nut to bright yellow chips so hard you can suck on one for a day. Maybe it’s the exotic spices that burns your lips when you eat Indian food. Everything is displayed in sacks at the markets.

When you walk through markets, along with monks in maroon robes, shawls, t-shirts, beanies, and ochre yellow undergarments, there is a joy of faith in the people, who divert their walk to turn prayer wheels placed here and there on the street, or to walk to the left side of a chortan. There are other giant white chortans that require a breath-taking hike up high - remember the altitude is higher here than the Grand Teton of Wyoming - but the brightly colored artwork on them is worth the dizziness.

At one art enterprise in town which specialized in antique Buddhist artifacts, thongkas, jewelry (green turquoise and coral make up elaborate headdresses and necklaces once used by the Tibetan women in festivals) funny satin and silk hats that look like upside down vases, and others like Mongolian warriors with huge fur rims, and of course the never ending pashmina scarves - some embroidered, some printed, some with silk, some pure cashmere - and giant blankets of spangles and glitter made from parts of celebratory clothes, like necks and yokes. But what I learned anew is there is a diamond in the rough in Ladakh. It’s a world of its own - the fascinating Giks stone, a black and white agate which is found buried under tree roots, but in certain Asian markets is the most sought after rock anywhere. One about a centimeter long with two eyes can cost about 5000 dollars. One not much bigger, depending on the white stripes and eyes in it, can run up to 20,000 dollars. These rare pieces have questionable origin, are valuable because they are really old, and somehow have something to do with the state of the health of those who wear them.

There is more wealth in Leh in the Indus Valley than appears but new hotels are being built with elaborate Buddhist decorations, made of stones and wooden windows, and inviting the ever growing tourist to trek through its mountains. Here one crosses the Ganges, the holy river which is the lifeblood of all of India. All rivers flow into the Ganges. Here in Ladakh, it’s in its pure form. But when one gets to Calcutta, the garbage, debris and dead things floating in it begins to lessen its beauty. I’ll be there tomorrow.

Photos: Future Buddha covered in Katas; View of Ladakh mountains from dirty plane window; another view; donkeys have it cool; clouds over Leh; military trucks in a row on a single lane road; woman with her personal prayer wheel; road chortans; almond man; climbing to a high chorten; monks in the market; valuable Giks stones; street ware including Tibetan hats; detail of a high chorten; an extreme palace, now pretty much abandoned.

An Unsuspected Pilgrimage

2008-05-18T17:41:00.009+05:30

I made a pilgrimage unawares and it left me in an agitated silence among the incense smells of Indian tourists curiouser than even this foreigner. On the first day in New Delhi, I was taken to the palatial Birla House on Albuquerque Road to touch the place where the great man of peace, Mahatma Ghandi, was assassinated. I was overwhelmed by the simplicity of this man who stirred up his people in the face of the colonialists to open the doors to independence. I had learned about him in my youth like many Americans through the Ben Kingsley interpretation in the movie Ghandi. Now I was here where he had been. It was a parallel emotion one has standing before that disruptive balcony at the Lorraine Motel to remember another great man lost too soon, too cruelly, to ridiculous bullets in another inexplicable act. Two pacifists both of whom sensed that their ends were imminent, their work done, although it was really the beginning of their struggles for freedom.
We pulled away from the luxuries of the Oberoi Hotel with its choice of bed pillow fillings into 104 degree heat of a morning to parade through the many giant dome shaped pink mausoleums - mini Taj Mahals - maharanis built to honor their maharajas and also to be their final resting places with large cells for everybody in the family. We struck up deep steps of Humayun’s tomb to see undecorated tomb rooms and walk through water flow strips and stand beside the holy Peepah tree. It was enough to work up a sweat. Throw the shawl over your exposed arms. The Peepah tree, according to our guide, is where Vishnu, Shiva and Brahman hang out, a trinity of generator, organizer and destroyer from which the rest of the Hindu gods were reincarnated.
This reincarnation idea is quite a handful. They look at the end as not being the end because you can come back in a better way - or a worse hell, depending on how you behaved in your most recent appearance on this planet. On the negative side, you’d come back an animal. On the positive, you might come back as an auxiliary god, or at least that’s what it seems to me. Everyone wants to be remembered by their Karma, the good deeds one manages to do in his time span of life. Hindus feel if you are born into poverty, it’s because of previous bad deeds or such deeds in a previous life. But regardless, just keep on working, give your best to the world, (I guess that means to accept your fate) and don’t think of the consequences because it won’t taint your love, rather it’ll come back to you good, like giving to the poor. Hindus are active coin droppers in the hands of beggars and lesser casts. Kids sell whatever between cars, banging on windows, trying to get your attention, and you don’t want to look because one might hold up an arm without a hand. But as I try to ignore, I cannot because I know Ghandi would have reached out his hand without a rubber glove to protect him from disease to give hope.
Ghandi was shot by a Hindu fanatic January 30, 1948. At Birla House, where he lived the last 144 days of his life in not wonderful health, a tourist or a pilgrim walks through the simple white and brown room where he once found peace and sleep. His wooden spinning machine sits at the end of the floor mattress where he slept, a giant barrel pillow still rests against the wall. A rectangle of brown weaving rests on the edge. Then on a table are his prayer beads, and the statues of three monkeys Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil. How odd. His walking stick and frail spectacles, his "chappals" or sandals, really his few possessions, are left as they were on the day of his death. His library of books was in another corner, but you can’t really stay there and absorb the grief, because Ghandi, like Martin Luther King Jr., was a man of his time and yet before his time. Throughout this small museum are giant placards on which photographs and descriptions of the last 24 hours of his life are detailed. It’s hard to stand and read them. They turn the intestine because you know what is coming. In another room are dolls in large glass boxes depicting the major moments in Ghandi’s life, including his meeting with British King at Buckingham Palace on English shores.
Ghandi gave no excuses, knowing he had maybe gone as far as he could go, he had stood on the mountain top like Rev. King had done, and knew it was to be vacated abruptly. Ghandi said: "My life has been an open book. I have no secrets and I encourage no secrets." On this last day, his two young nieces accompanied him, helping his rather fragile movements, as he met his meetings for that day, prayed with those needing prayer, and wrapped the white cloth around him as the afternoon breeze began to wear down the sun. "My goal is friendship with the world. I can combine the greatest opposition to wrong." As the day’s heat waned, he walked with the two young girls to an area where he would hold an afternoon prayer meeting - there are concrete footprints of his exact steps, and a marker where he saw the assassin raise the gun from his own underarm to shoot him. Ghandi’s last words were, "Hey Ram!" or "Oh God."
We tried to pick ourselves up with a stop at the Crafts Museum, an oasis of thatched huts and buildings to sample native crafts, but the heat is so invasive, there were few craftsmen peddling wares. I was fascinated by paintings on palm leaves with secret Kama Sutra flaps to lift up, extraordinary textiles to stir the most reluctant fiber artist and there was fine metalwork Calder style, and intricate Mogul woodwork in a jharokha - two story balcony like I had seen in Kathmandu. I couldn’t figure out, though, a giant black wooden structure on wheels - maybe three stories tall - looking like a suspect Trojan horse. I couldn’t find data in English. This museum had endless entertainment as you strolled from house to room to upstairs to patio and even then I missed a lot of it.
Photos: Sue and I wonder who'll make one of these for us; A Hindu woman of the mausoleum; the grass collector; Standing by the Peepah tree; Ghandi's last day things; the obelisk marking Ghandi's assassination; metal horses huddle at the crafts museum; Sue testing wooden tigers.

Religion to Maharajas

2008-05-15T09:44:00.009+05:30

From poverty of religion to the gold and silk jewels of maharajas, from an ambiance of Namaste bows, dahl, red and ochre robes, shaved heads, flat chapati, marigold leis and Tibetan protests, to the swift brush of international business men in steam heat, dragon fruit, and a choice of pillow stuffing so you sleep like a princess, from narrow roads curling worse than a frizzy permanent to wide, flat fingers leading to roundabouts and orderliness, from Dhamshala to New Delhi is a million miles, it seems. It’s pure culture shock, maybe a relief.
We are now well footed in India, home of Vishnu and red tikka powder, textiles and turbans of colors to identify casts, mosques and red forts, prayer wheels and taxi boats, Jaines who wear giant clown-like shoes so they won’t kill any ant or bug when they walk on the streets, natural gas in taxi tanks, mean monastery murals of ugly protectors, maharani palaces and polo fields, painted elephants, rock art architecture, holy cows, yellow mangos and Ballywood, and where houses of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian (always painted white) faith work side by side.
Our first morning back in New Delhi was enigmatic. The weather reported sunny and hot - 104 degrees for the day - but as we waited for our mourning tour in the exotic Oberoi Hotel, suddenly tornadic winds blew up with such insistence and fright that the frangipani trees blew flat while doormen in red turbans and white suits hustled people through the glass doors. From where did this come? Out of a polluted dark morning sky. All we could think of was Myramar’s cyclone, China’s earthquake, and the rushing rain squeezed under giant glass and bronze doors while the pool water rose up in a dance. Ironically, I had made the comment, jesting, of course, at least we have electricity in this hotel, one of the best in the world, according to travel journals. Seems that every hotel, lodge, rest house I’ve slept in these past six weeks had an electrical issue. There wasn’t energy to charge laptops, cameras, to read, or just to see by. Electricity was never a sure thing, even at the nice Yak and Yeti Hotel in Kathmandu where lights went off four or five times a day and you prayed you weren’t in the elevator. Surely, I had said with confidence, there was plenty of lectrecity here in high class New Delhi where major hotel’s stand high above flowering trees with sort of a Las Vegas vision. Well, the storm hit, the giant crystal chandeliers flickered and lo and behold, out went the lights - for a minute, until the back up system kicked in but enough to make me shiver. What is it about me and the lights? I’m just tired of darkness.
Our final day in Dharmshala gave an opportunity to meet, instead of the Dalai Lama, one of his highly respected advisor and spiritual minister of the exiled government of Tibet. He is a Rimpoche or teacher, 88 years old, who has the Dalai Lama’s ear and friendship. In 1959 they fled the Dalai Lama’s Potala (palace) in Lhasa (it looks like the setting for the old movie Shangri-la) together on horseback across the Himalayas, with CIA covertly accompanying them and US army helicopters hovering overhead for protection. Monks and holy men really have titles, but not personal names. In Tibet and Nepal, most people are named for the day of the week they are born, so repetition is a constant. But Buddhist monks and lamas toss aside their family ids. The Rimpoche, considered a god in Korea and Taiwan, lives on the down wind side of a small hotel patronized by white American hippie hangovers in sandals and dreadlocks butt-long. We climbed the many stairs to the balcony of his reception room overlooking another side of Dharmshala. Pelargonium and petunias were planted in pots along one side. We removed our shoes in the attitude of respect, and met a translator who would accompany us because the Rimpoche doesn’t speak English. We carried gold and white katas and a velvet bag with Episcopal prayer beads made by Suzanne Hensley of Memphis, which I had brought as a gift for the Dalai Lama.
Our guide explained the disappointments of our trip - the closing of the Tibetan border, the cancellation of the Dalai Lama’s audiences, and asked if he could become the bearer of this gift to the Dalai Lama, which he seemed to agree upon. When the rimpoche learned of my work with juvenile delinquents, he asked us to sit a while on the floor mats - one tries not let your feet point at anyone or anything holy - and he gave a teaching to me about broken families, kids on drugs and showing love. Our worlds are similar, even that of the great Buddhist teachers in a corner of life where the Dalai Lama’s holy tongue is worshiped. Every breath the Lama takes seems to be scripted into a book.
We had an extraordinary chance to watch monks making a sand mandala in the Lama’s temple. No photographs allowed, but they build a mandala about four foot square out of grains of sand, rubbing one grain at a time to get the right formation and color. After such complicated labor, the mandala might sit for a few days, if a wind doesn’t come along and blow it away, or someone mistakenly put their hands in it. We then visited the Tibetan Museum on the Dalai Lama’s property. It is a small place reeking with the story of injustice, of abuse and slaughter by the Chinese Revolutionaries during Mao’s days, how Tibetan culture and life was ripped from them, 600 art filled monasteries were destroyed, (the Chinese used them for toilets and for animal shelter), and have continue to make every effort to wipe out the Tibetan national identity which stays alive in a flicker of light, thanks to India, Nepal, and other centers for refuge for Tibetans. I immediately thought of our Civil Rights Museum, the struggle of our African American friends through slavery and as well the Holocaust museum inh Jerusalem which keeps lights aglo for the millions of Jews annihilated by Hitler in World War II. These tragedies shout some lesson about human nature that the non-persecuted ones need to take up to preserve and protect the innocent. And the rule of the roads in India, I learned, is "Good luck, Good Horn, and Good breaks."
We are currently back in cosmopolitan New Delhi and a Thai massage was on tap. The Thai lady crawled up my back on her knees and tore at my tired muscles as if they’d never been stretched before. Ow, ooh, ouch- but she did it was such calm and peace about her, saying softly, Is my pressure sufficient? What could I say.
We spent the delayed morning in the Lotus shop, four stories of fine carpets (everyone wants to seel you carpets), jewelry (colored stones from India are high on many lists), and a floor of saris and punjabs (pajama pants with tunic tops), every kind of pashmina scarf, and embroidered jacket one could imagine. It’s a woman’s world of grace and beauty, silk and spangles, beads and gentility, where we westerners look out of place and yet.....we have to try one on, wrap ourselves in six meters of fine silk of extraordinary color combinations and softness and wish – where in the world could I wear that in Memphis? Sigh. One has to learn about the underskirt that is hidden, and pleating and tucking in the acres of fabric so it fits elegantly and won’t pull out, and then the blouse is made to your size - there’s always extra fabric spangled and beaded as well just for the blouse - and you decide if you want your mid-life crisis roll to show or if it should cover to the waist. The comfort zone is that women wear flat sandals, likewise highly beaded
Today we hope to visit art museums, monuments, the eternal flame at the spot where Ghandi was assassinated, and try a Balinese oil massage. Tomorrow we are back to primitive living, taking off in a small plane for Leh in Laddoch, which is considered Old Tibet and is nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. No more guaranteed electricity or flushing toilets for a couple of days.
Photos: Dragon fruit; breakfast at the Oberoi; Rimpoche and a deacon; Oberoi flower arrangement; how's this for a lap pool? Sue tries a sari while Jim looks at price tag.

The Dalai Lama Downer

2008-05-13T18:57:00.009+05:30

When the Dalai Lama speaks, everyone listens.
In Dharmshala, India, where his exile government has existed for fifty years, his kingdom nestles in steep mountains covered in pines and oaks, monkeys, roaming cow, and white tourist vehicles. A horn beep accompanies you everywhere as you hold your breath on precarious turns. Simple buildings cling to the cliffs and a single narrow hairpin road leads from lower Dharmshala to upper Dharmshala better known as Mcloudgunge and it is at about 6000 feet high. Along the road are signs with such placards as "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," "Birds choke on polythene, save their lives", "Divinity is in nature", "Nature is not a place to visit, it is our home," "Protect our wildlife, they give us peace and love," and my favorite: " To see right and not to do is cowardice."
In the deepest pine woods, we pass the Church of St. John in the Wilderness, the only structure that was left standing after a serious earthquake in the 19th century. Here is a monument to Lord Elgin, British Viceroy of India in the mid 1800s, and to James Bruce who was a popular British ambassador in Asia. I stop in for a prayer and a stroll through something familiar though unkempt.
There is a 24-7 television channel into which one can tune to watch/receive the abundant blessings the Dalai Lama wishes for his people. His elaborate days of blessings packed with Tibetans, shaved headed monks and body guards, with a few Westerners observing, are full of color, musical notes, and chanting. So many gifts are brought to the Dalai Lama be it kata or yak butter candles or other personal donations from his people, that it takes hours to pass everything before him for his blessing. He is adored and worshiped. But these television records seem to be from better times. The Dalai Lama, who is in his seventies, is such a superstar in both the political and celebrity world, that he has of late withdrawn from so many public appearances. His life has been threatened and the fight to save Tibet for the Tibetans has taken its toll. When he moves down the mountains, he is followed by ten to twenty vehicles of guards and police. His private Deccan plane, bullet proofed, was donated by Germany and rests at the tiny airport. He is only in residency about 12 per cent of the year. Otherwise, for tourist and officials, here is only one commercial flight a day from New Delhi.
Our scheduled audience with the Dalai Lama, as well as that of an Indian minister ,who arrived in Dharmshala on the same plane as ours, were abruptly canceled. Although his web site said the Dalai Lama was to be in Dharmshala these two or three days, we were told that for safety sake, no one really knows where he is most of the time. He is leaving for Germany for talks about the China-Tibet situation. It was a great disappointment for me but then who am I but a minor American.
So we spent the day seeing exiled Tibetan holy life in Dharmshala. Over fifty years, the Tibetan monks have tried to re-create the ambiance of Lhasha, which was the headquarters of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, with his well known palace that spread across the mountains, his many temples and giant gold statues of Buddha, with Thankas (religious paintings), with wide holy seats or thrones for the Dalai Lama (on which he sits cross legged yoga style) which he uses for periodic teachings to his people, and with many many cells for monks in training at monasteries. At the monastery attached to the home of the Dalai Lama, the highest levels of study are pursued. Here Buddhist intellectuals are created. It takes 18 years to receive the master designation, and 21 years to become a Geshi Lama, as our friend from Pangboche, Nepal, had obtained. It is a major commitment for these young men to give their lives to such study and discipline. Some women shave their heads and become monks as well. (I was put off by the many Americans roaming the streets in Indian dress, dread locks hanging down their backs, and attempting to be Buddhists. None that I saw had attained the red and ochre costumes. But it looks like left-over hippie days. )
Currently there are 1100 student monks, four to a room, with more facilities being built as fast as possible at the Karmapa monastery. The Karmapa lama is suspect by many Tibetans because he was appointed by Chinese authorities, and so they believe he is a spy for the Chinese government. But his monastery is in demand for its teaching.
Another shining stars in this rather transient but busy area is an oasis of waterfalls, gardens, and creative arts called Norbulingka or Jewel Park. In an effort to prevent Tibetan culture from disappearing, this place preserves Tibetan heritage. It treasures and promotes the artistic traditions of sculpture in wood, gold or silver, thangka painting and even fashion designs, all of which can be purchased in a first class shop on the premises. There is a doll museum which displays the many styles of traditional dress of the Tibetans in scenes of daily life and dance. Prayer flags hang throughout this quiet place of stone steps and strange water runs. In high studios, thangka paintings are being produced with discipline. One artist had spent eight months on a holy thangka of the god of compassion who has a thousand arms and legs. He works with tiny paint brushes with one or two hairs to do his work.

Although I’m disappointed to have come so far and not been able to do the Mt. Kailash pilgrimage nor meet the Dalai Lama - and present him with a set of Episcopalian prayer beads - I have learned much about the pain of the Tibetan people. They are in constant protest to be set free from China's domination. Last night there was a candlelight vigil passing under my windows led by chanting monks. Tibetans who have settled in this Indian enclave can only have jobs making and merchandising their own traditional crafts. They cannot occupy other jobs that might rob Indians of their jobs. So the Tibetans set up stalls on the narrow streets to sell their blankets, beads, and cheap statuary.
There are three Tandric Buddhist sects in exile here, distinguishable by their holy hats during ceremony. The Dalai Lama is the supreme leader of the Gylupa sect, and wears the yellow hat. The oldest sect is Ningmapa, which is symbolized by a red hat; and the Kargu shows a black hat.
Posters at gates to temples blatantly show the bodies of Tibetans who have been tortured and killed by the Chinese in their homeland. Others protest the disappearance of the Pashan, a young holy child. I asked if Buddhists were cremated at death, and received the affirmative. But in Tibet, which is treeless, a giant dessert where the ground is frozen most of the year, there is no underground burial nor cremation since there is no wood. There exists sky burial. The body lies in state five to seven days. It is considered a vessel that has served its purpose. It is taken to a special site after being shrouded and bloodletted. Then it is cut up into parts and fed to the birds, frantically waiting for their next meal.
To tap off the day, we were taken to a sweet shop - it’s really just a display case in the middle of the bustling street. Indian sweets are elaborate, the best being those called "barfee". An odd name. The sweets are made by boiling milk, so they have a rather sour taste, and are only super sweet when soaked in syrup. They go well with the local valley tea, Kangra green tea.

Photos: Arrival at Dharmshala, India, home of the Dalai Lama; yellow protest flags on the entrance gates to the Dalai Lama compound; The Dalai Lama's kingdom in India; in the temple with the gold Buddha and the Dalai Lama's holy chair for teaching; monks listening to prayers at Karnapa Monastery; An artist works eight months on a thangka of the god of compassion; There always seems to be a protest march; barfee or sweets made from boiled milk.

Pardon Me, A Little Luxury

2008-05-11T09:57:00.004+05:30

At 6:30 in the morning in Kathmandu, Nima, his daughter, Jeeba the agent, Karen and Brad joined us for early papaya and roti at the Yak & Yeti Hotel to say goodbye. We were ringed with kata (scarves) and Nima presented me with too many gifts - lovely wool blankets, banners of Buddhist images, and a white kata. To leave the care of the Sherpa people is tough. For a deacon, it was the extraordinary part of the past month.
Kathmandu airport is still old style: get on a bus, rolling out to the plane, lug the carryons up wobbly stairs. But Jet Air, a private Indian airlines, is quite swift and clean, although we spent an hour sitting on a non-busy runway and we could smell an amazing breakfast waiting to be served. I had ordered semolina and a sandwich of lentils and cheese or something similar. What Jim pointed out to me was those red and green things were chilli, which I found out the hard way. And there went breakfast. He said, don’t forget where you are now. India is the land of spicy foods.
New Delhi is a surprise. I had visions of beggars and legless people on the sidewalks, but it is way beyond that. The people are extremely cosmopolitan. The streets are wide, paved, smooth, and without potholes. Three-wheeled green and yellow taxis stop for passengers lined up at stops, but we wove our way through gorgeous trees - flame tree and frangipanis - and then gardens around huge pink and yellow estates to this tall and exotic Taj Hotel. Finally, a place I can brush my teeth without using bottled water. Yea. It’s a very India type of hotel. Huge red and gold panels of embroidered fabric on the wall, marble decor in the Mongol style. Employees like rich icing on a party cake, with impeccable manners, desire to serve you. None of the rudeness and hands out for tip thing that we get in the USA. I immediately headed for an afternoon at the spa to get my body back. My skin was dry, my face a wrinkled canyon, and I needed rejuvenation. The Spa was in the low flower of this tall hotel, and as I laid there being pummeled by the Indian masseuse, I began to wonder what would happen if the lights went out. You remember in Kathmandu, the lights went out three or four times a day or there were no lights at all. The last night in Kathmandu, we had gone in the rain (finally pollution-clearing rain) to the home of Jeta, one of our Sherpa leaders, for dinner. We met his daughters who were young, giggly and spoke English. Then Jeta and Suka (his cousin) placed on the table an endless meal of French fries, grilled corn kernals (delicious - they are taken off of horse-corn, then grilled in oil), potato chips, spicy chicken chunks, the famous Dahl, and homemade rice beer. We had brought a fruit torte for dessert, But the lights went out about half way through the dinner, and quickly Jeta came up with battery lights so we could see. I’m telling you when it is dark in Kathmandu, it’s dark. There is nothing but blackness to look at. Once again we were covered in "katas" when we loaded into a taxi willing to take us back to the hotel. We bid farewell to a strong and generous people.
So how do I feel now that I’m out of Nepal? First, I must be honest. I admire Hillary Clinton’s staying power. It’s hard when people let you think you have no chance to accomplish your goal. During the long days of my painful struggle to get to Base Camp, even some of the Sherpas didn’t think I would make it pass Namche Bazaar. They told me yesterday. I had moments when I didn’t want to make it myself. Too much agony. But Jim, the principle guide and encourager, saw that in the morning I had new energy even though in the afternoons I was close to death - and so each day we set out to see what could be done. He is the one who reaches down into your spirit and pulls out what he thinks you want to have pulled out. He knew how important hanging those flags was to me. So we didn’t stop, turn around, back down, or give up. And look, we were winners. When things are looking their darkest, there is always some light to cling to.
Today must be Pentecost Sunday since next Sunday is Trinity Sunday in the Episcopal Church. Today is a red day, next Sunday back to green. I’ve been asked what I think about the Trinity after these head-knocks with Buddhism and Hinduism. I must admit, I’ve always curious who I'm supposed to pray to - God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. I think this is an interesting dilemma. Mostly I pray to God the Father because He Is. And if He is, He is not just ours but everybody’s and This I do believe. Whatever your faith, we are all seeking the Master, who is God, and some sort of heaven to which our souls/spirits transcend at death and some reason for having been here for a lifetime. After watching the Hindu cremations, I realized, although I already realized, how wasteful is the body and how powerful the spirit/soul. I love Jesus, wish I could be like Him, and believe that as deacons our calling is to do just that - Pass Jesus onto the poor, hungry, homeless, tragic, imprisoned, devastated people. We are to love those most difficult to love, even those who do not love us. We are the passer oners, Jesus being the light in our hearts and the hope of our souls. The Holy Spirit is in the Wind - thus I cottoned to the idea of prayer flags I so proudly hung from our Memphis folk. I know the Holy Spirit is our conscience and speaks to us.
It's odd how the charismatic version of Anglicanism-Episcopalian is so into the Holy Spirit - and the waving of hands and the getting slain in the spirit and falling out - all that rather dramatic stuff that turns me off. It was strong in my Uruguayan church, but not really brought up in the Memphis diocese. I love to stand in the wind and feel the Spirit blowing through. But neither Jesus nor the Holy Spirit stand alone because they are aspects of our God. It all works for me, the Trinity. It seems much more solid than the Buddhist waiting to find out who the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama is going to be, and there are lots of Lamas (teachers) one no more powerful than the other, as I understand, who sit crosslegged and wrap in maroon and golden robes and pray from their books and drink yak butter tea. It's fascinating. The blessings the Buddhist people share with us is amazing. You wouldn't believe all the gifts I was given - the "kata"s (the gold and white scarves - I must have 15 of them in my suitcase) for good luck and safe travel; the carpets given by the Lama, the blankets and yak tails and just anything that is of the Sherpa lifestyle. It was embarrassing to me, not a good one for receiving.
Hindus, I don't know. It's a lot wierder. After greeting everyone with Namaste in Nepal, here in Hinduist India, you don’t. It’s plain old English "hello". In some areas the word "jule" is used for hello, goodbye, thank you, etc. But that’s not particularly Hindu. All those strange figures with multi arms and multi legs, and bulls and elephants, and so forth aren’t very inviting. I don't mind the animals being smudged with red or yellow dots powders as are the people, and they do use prayer beads. I'm sure their Nirvana and Enlightenment (Buddhism) are on the same train as our hoping to get to Heaven. But I feel such comfort in our One Solid God and when I am exhausted and crying I just start in on the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary because they are on the tip of my tongue always. I don't have to remember anything but that and I pray and pray until I find a peace. When I was out there pushing the next foot up on the next scarey boulder, all I thought about was GOD. Please Help me, give me strength. Don’t let me let anyone down. And that was the same when I was in the radiation room fighting breast cancer, holding my prayer beads and feeling a strange peace around me.

Photos: 1) We're in India At Last. 2) Jeta's girls with the fruit torte. 3) Hindu holy bowls made of a kind of magnolia leaf.

Various Kinds of Dying

2008-05-09T16:51:00.007+05:30

We were booked on the first flight out of Lukla at 8 in the morning, but really we were about the 8th flight because once the clouds cracked open at dawn (and we breathed a sigh of relief that the fog had gone) the charter flights from Kathmandu began to arrive, unload, reload, and fly off again to Kathmandu for the second load. There were about six of those charter flights. We hoofed it up another incline just to get to the airport, mind you, with our porters still lugging our bags on their backs. Our boarding passes had a 2 stamped on them which meant we were on the second of the returning flights from Kathmandu, second shift. It’s the weirdest flight arrangement I’ve experienced. One has to shut the eyes, ears and seat belt and just pray that the 18 others crammed into jump seats with their body sized backpacks in their laps don’t burst into a frenzy. We are tightly packed and the door to the pilot’s seat (we had a female pilot) is always opened so you can see their arms pushing and pulling on the handles hanging from the roof. We crest the steep mountains and hills under our belly, flying at about 15,000 feet, which is lower than the high to which we had trekked a few days before. Trusting God, I realized as I smelled gasoline, was the best fuel to get one to the destination safely.
It was, amazingly, a relief to get back to Kathmandu. Our group posed with Jeema, the Nepali travel guy who meets us and takes care of the particulars, for photos as we all loaded into a huge van, one wider than most of the streets we would have to pass. One had to laugh at the cows laying down in the middle of the main drag. You have to go around them. They are holy. Bright violet jacaranda trees are in full bloom, and bougainvilla lazily crawls up and over just about anything in a city not very popular for trees.
This Thursday was one of piling up laundry, reviewing what was in the bags that had been stored at the Yak and Yeti Hotel, and doing some last minute shopping. We invited Nima Sherpa to bring his three children, who live in Kathmandu to get their education, and also another Sherpa friend with his wife and the girlfriend of another of Jim’s Sherpas who is currently waiting at base camp for the summit date for Everest, and Jeta and Suka for dinner at a place where we knew we could get ice cream. It was a Nepali dinner - which means be cautious because most everything, including potatoes, is overspiced and overhot. But we celebrated the end of the trek with black orange and butterscotch ice cream. This night was the first time in almost three weeks I have slept in real sheets and with CNN humming in the background. I didn’t want night to end but at 5:30 my personal alarm clock always rings, for some reason.
Today, Friday, I had one more site to see. Kathmandu is famous for it’s Hindu crematorium. When you arrive at the airport and enter the city you pass by the funnels of smoke emitted by dead bodies being cremated. Now this really was a trip out of my mind-set. Krishna, the older guide who had taken me around before, led the taxi driver (who had to hit the motor with a rock to get it started) to the most holy of Hindu Temples, resting all along a static river, called Parshu Pati Nats, which is another name for Shiva, also known as Gouri or Parvati. This place is the biggest in the kingdom and is a favorite of the caramel colored monkeys. The property is fenced in because in a small forest there are also deer. Primarily, among all the many temples honoring Shiva - the major one being centered around a giant golden bull looking like a Botero sculpture no tourist allowed so all we see is this giant gold rear end of the bull through ornate gates - is the site of Hindu cremation. Along this filthy river where flowers, food, monkeys, dead ashes and burned wood float, among other things, there are concrete platforms on which dead Hindu bodies are burned up on pyres. As I arrived, there was one such ceremony almost finished and another just beginning. The family brings the dead body wrapped in a bright yellow fabric - although you can see the feet - to the pyre, first walking around three times before setting it so the head is at the south end. The holy priest in a white shorts and top kind of outfit bustles around laying on wood and sticks, pouring holy oil over the face and then the family members do likewise, then finally putting a mixture of what Hindus consider five types of nectar in the dead mouth: honey, ghee, holy water from the Ganges, sugar and yoghurt. Then the eldest son lights the fire. Can you imagine? Women are to be left at home. They don’t participate, although there is a sort of sanctum further away where they might congregate, but burial is a man’s thing.
The immediate male members must shave their heads and the entire family must wear white for 13 days after the death until they are purified. If someone dies at 5 p.m. today, they are immediately taken to the crematorium and the ceremony begins. (There’s a hospice on the grounds to make the transfer more convenient.) There is also here a special area where family mourners must live for those thirteen days, then they can return to their office job. They cannot touch anyone during that period and eat only one vegetarian meal a day. Sometimes the immediate family will wear white one year - if you see someone with white shoes, white dress and white cap, they are in that process. This is only the intimate family, not relatives in general. In three or four hours, the body, yellow marigold strewn across the corpse and then covered with the hard wood, has burned. Then the shaven headed sons who stand around and wait for it to end are in charge of pushing with a wooden rake the remaining burned wood and ashes into the holy river below. Alas, it was hard to experience. It really speaks of how transient life is and how unimportant the body is. After all we Westerners do to get in shape, imagine being burned and pushed into a rather dirty river. The water does not flow.
The colorful sellers of holy items surround the temple area: strings to be blessed and tied around a wrist or neck, rosary beads galore, huge boxes of powdered colored rocks which are used for blessings, and the rare rudraksha prayer beads (honestly they look like walnuts), that can be quite expensive. There is a whole hierarchy of rudraksha beads that come from trees in Nepal and Tibet and are used in both Hindu and Buddhist religions. There are 21 types of rudraksha valued for the faces or facets in each, which can be one faceted to fourteen faceted, the rarest. The holy men say that each bead has a dark line or mukhi. If a person wishes to adopt one, they have to wash it with cow’s milk and gangajal while saying the mantra "Om Namah Shivay" on a Monday. There are rare ones joined together naturally containing the power of Lord Shiva and Parvati - it helps to improve financial problems, so it might come in handy for me at the end of this trip. A faceless one is the most powerful. Rudraksha come in sizes from a grain of wheat to that of a ping-pong ball, but the smaller is more powerful. Primarily these are the rosary beads of the Asian religions.

Photos: We are the champions, back in Kathmandu. 2) Nima, my Sherpa, and three of his children. 3) Hindu nuns. 4) Shiva's Temple from the bull butt view (non Hindus not allowed in.)
5) Burning Hindu. 6) It's done. 7) Holy men hanging out. 8) Powdered rock to smear on forehead or on statues.

Commercial Appeal Travel Blog

2008-05-08T02:58:00.002+05:30

A new post is up: "Our flags fly!"

Trekking Is High, Not a High for This Deacon

2008-05-07T20:48:00.012+05:30

The morning started with the pounding of drums, clashing of symbols and tooting of deep horns. A Puja blessing was in process in the very elegantly decorated puja room on the top floor of Lhakpa’s house. We had special invitation to watch and sample the yak butter tea served in silver containers and the fried sweet dough. The monks were not disturbed by our presence. It was a fitting farewell for our time at Namche Bazar. Lhakpa draped our necks with golden katas.

They said the trip from Namche Bazar, so far my favorite place, to Phakding is all descent. The claim is correct. I took a few Ibuprofens just in case so my knees would hold out. There is not much to stop you from rolling off a cliff as you come around a switchback full of loose dirt and gravel. And then whoever built these paths throw before you a couple dozen horrid stone steps that take a geologist to figure out which rock to step on and not lose balance. There were too many trekkers going both directions this day. The descent on tap was at least 7 hours and besides that, there were more and more of those swinging bridges which you had to muscle yourself across before the Yaks took over. All the while below raged the river carrying glacier melt down to the more populated areas of Nepal. Once you get close to the river, its roar follows you like tintinitus in the ear.

Of course, by noon time when we stop for the usual Snickers and Sprite snack, rain has started making everything slippery. We dig in the backpacks (this is why backpacks are invaluable) and put on the rain jacket over the fleece and whatever number of layers you are padded with, pull the hood around your head and leave the cap bill out for the rain to drip off of. I want to break down into hollow cries. I’m already burdened with bronchitis and now I’ve got to walk two more hours in this mess. The people traffic doesn’t wane a bit, and porters pull giant plastic hoods over themselves and their load. Life keeps on going without a blink. I keep on trying to get the right step and not lose breathe when I start the upward climbs, which are always there somewhere in order to give you a reason to scuttle back down again. We cross so many of those long shaking bridges - I really get out of breath on those - and a few doubtful wooden ones. I keep telling myself, everyone else made it across, why not me. Once the river had broken down the crossing bridge and our porters with Jeta and Suka, got in the water and lifted big stones and boulders to try to build a stepping stone exit not just for us but for everyone. There was a definite drama at the river.

This night, so much further down in altitude, I slept well for the first time, or else I was just exhausted. I was up early because at last we had reached the final day of this branch of my itinerary. Breakfast at this rather dumpy lodge was not good. The toast was like South African Hard Tack and they were out of butter. Remember we’ve had no juice or fruit in more than two weeks. I keep dreaming of papaya at the Yak and Yeti Hotel in Kathmandu.

Today, whatever day it is, is the final hike all the way back up to Lukla at about 9000 feet. That’s the airport village, where tiny planes take off going downhill on the runway. Below them at the end is only a deep gulch of a valley and giant mountains all around. These flights are only scheduled for the morning time when the sky normally is clear. I had walked hard and fast because I’m ready to call this trekking done with. I took only one rest stop to get a Sprite and Snickers, and then kept pushing with my two Sherpas at my elbows. It wasn’t that bad of a haul but took about three and a half hours. I sort of amazed myself that I my lungs worked pretty good. We arrived about lunchtime and the hotel is the most elegant yet with hot shower (sigh, plenty of hot water, that’s rare) and proper toilet and even a bit of heat in the room. Of course the toothpaste had come uncapped and squeezed all over my hairbrush, creams and emery board. Alas. At least there is hot water to clean it all up.

I began to think back about the things I’ll remember. The hills were higher than the sound of music. The stones were ankle twisting. Yak bells a mantra. (Move to the left and be still as they pass.) The wind risque. The red and gold prayer wheels tempting if they did any good or not; the hostel-like cells colder than ice in a bucket. The meals - well, you better like potatoes, eggs and rice. The stretched muscles never wimped a bit, never cramped, never sore, no blisters on my toes. Milk tea and hot lemon breaks on the trail, especially at the conclusion of the trek, the walking sticks thrown on the floor, the hats and gloves on the seat and Nima always bringing me thick blankets to wrap up in even in the dining area. Backpacks are indispensable for carrying rain gear, water, laptops and Kleenex. The overloaded porters, proper road hogs toting sides of beef, refrigerators, four half inch plywood sheets, or corrugated tin roof parts - (how I don’t envy them in their burden; they stopped as much as I did. But then they had reason.) The rhododendron trees in bloom, overzealous in the moment of beauty. The gold and white silk “katas” wrapped around my neck by friends and lamas for blessings, and also seen on bridges and poles in dining rooms; puja sounds - the horns, the symbols, the smell of incense and yak butter tea (delicious but heavy in fat and salt.); the restaurant dining rooms so long by length with special heavy tables painted in gold and with Buddhist art and symbols, in front of wall benches covered in rugs and with pillows for leaning back; the morning Buddhist rituals as a Sherpani singing the Om swings incense through the house. Sherpa women are charming, modest and generous. They take care of us in an abundant way that is embarrassing. They don’t use the word “no more” in their vocabulary.

In the Khumba the vista ever includes Everest and its fellow mountains; there are no fruits except an occasional apple (an apple growing project has begun near the airport area); cheese is from the nak (female yak) but is called yak cheese; potatoes are plenty as pennies in a piggy bank; eggs, fried yak meat and Dal Bhaat and extreme hot chilies are most popular. My favorite times were at the home of Geshi Lama getting all sorts of blessings, trying on Sherpa costumes with Lhakpa, and being pampered by Nima’s wife as they served an enormous meal. We met interesting people mostly doing documentaries and trying to get into base camp. And today, when I was so deep in despair because I missed my church, my home, my children, my friends, and I was asking God to give me a boost, I heard to guys talking behind me (you never look behind) in English about ministry. It was as if he had sent two angels. I turned around and said, Bless you. I miss my religion and all the symbols and service and purpose so much and for the first time in a month, I hear Christians talking beside me. There was a group of about ten Assembly of God missionaries hiking the trails beside me. We stopped and chatted and I felt one hundred per cent cured.

Silence is ear pounding. Blankets are thick protectors. Hot water is cold and apparently the only salesman to pass through these parts sells Mars, Mounds, Snickers, Toblerone, and Coca Cola products. My old favorite hiking shoes and thick socks served me as well as the fancy stuff, the sticks saved my life. No one cuts flowers for arrangements, but there are plenty of plastic ones stuck in pots of real greenery. The odor of smoke and yak dung burning bites the nose until it is continually running all day. I used more Kleenex substitute than I have in my life. Always runny nose. Always having to blow. That was distracting to the climbing task.

The stones are nothing to play with, although people dance up and down them without a breath. I had to lift my leg as high as the Rockettes to get up some of them. The white chortens and the boulders decorated with Oms and the prayer flag poles you pass on the left side and everywhere, literally everywhere are the red, green, white, yellow and blue Tibetan prayer flags, though you never see anyone changing them or hanging them up. They fly and prayers fly and the blessings of the world are on us all but I believe more than ever in the God I worship.

Photos: 1. Puja blessing in process on our final day at Namche Bazaar. 2. Every Buddhist house has a puja room, like a chapel. 3. Yak butter sculpture and other acoutrements of a puja. 4. Goat traffic. 5. would you believe a refrigerator? 6. Rocky made it. So did I - end of the trek. 7. A good dining room at Lukla. 8. Flags at Lukla and airplane taking off downhill.

Personal summit

2008-05-06T12:12:00.004+05:30

The Heart and Soul of Trekking in the Himalayas

2008-05-06T11:20:00.008+05:30

You’ve never had anyone wait on you until you’ve been in the hands of the Sherpas. They are humanity’s servers. They can not do enough for you.

At first, being from the American South, and certainly oversensitive to anyone who might be considered a “servant,” I was disturbed by these people who walk dirt and rock paths carrying loads three times their size on their backs, some walking with Buddhist prayer beads in their hands, others with a portable radio strapped to the load listening to the latest in Nepali song. I wondered why they liked to take on such burdens being virtual trucks to get food and necessities to the rural villages of the Khumbu or to the Everest Base Camp. I’m told it’s what they chose to do.

As I sit in my roadside seat (which could be a pile of stones) I watch every kind of burden that any beast might haul appearing in giant baskets or just flat on the Sherpas back, whether it is aluminum roof panels or half a yak side or enormous gallons of kerosene or three or four heavy duffle bags belonging to climbing expeditions.. You make room for them, they don’t have to make room for you. So it becomes a war between the yaks and naks (female yaks) who are used for transporting goods and the Sherpa’s carrying the same, if not bigger kind of load. You watch yaks their heads low to the ground, their backs a pleasing hump, loaded with mountaineering and climbers gear slowly carrying it up to various camps. The Sherpas do the same. At one point there was a move to helicopter materials into the Khumbu, but the Sherpas so protested - because it is their livelihood, the idea was squelched. Only extremely large pieces might be helicoptered in to Namche Bazaar but rarely even to base camp.

If you ever become a friend to a Sherpa and are given the hospitality and care they offer because they really are hospitable and do care, you’ll never forget it. Since I have struggled on this long and tedious trek, Jim asked his friend Nima Tashi to come along. Nima is one of the most respected Sherpas in the Khumbu and is building a lodge that he and his wife will run. Nima has summited Everest more than ten times. Then last summer he fell off a roof and landed on two feet. Now the fused foot is bothering him. So he is not doing a summit this year. I guess I’m his task. He walks beside me in the difficult ascents and descents and grabs my arm when I have to climb up slippery or oversized rocks. And since I got the chest congestion, he makes sure I’ve plenty of warmth, replenishing the hot water bottles now and then.

At Pamboche’s final night we went to his home for dinner. Nima came to help me get down the road to his house since I was pretty weak from the congestion. We walked upstairs to his family room which is lighted and there are the usual benches along all the walls with cushions, and rugs placed on them to make the sitting comfortable. His wife, who speaks no English, but is so anxious to make things comfortable, brought a cup of hot lemon tea and a huge plate of popcorn. Jim had told me that you cannot deny their generosity. She and Nima had found two huge velvet blankets that must have weighed twenty pounds to wrap me in, then put pillows behind my head and then watched while I downed the popcorn. They never eat while their guest are eating, which is embarrassing to me as well. But I dug in and in no time I was so warm and comfortable I fell asleep. They just watched. When I awoke from the doze, Nima’s wife showed me how she spins yak wool into yarn with a spindle. She then offered me two skeins she had spun before preparing the dinner.

When Jim, Karen, and Brad arrived, they were cold and wet from the all afternoon rain. The meal was huge. Potato pancakes, fried potatoes with vegetables, pot stickers, a huge rice dish, and all the whiskey in the house. They fixed hamburgers from yak steaks, and then for me a tomato and cheese pizza which was honest as pizza can get. Then dinner was topped off with apple pie and rice pudding made with yak milk. This is the kind of dinners served in Sherpa homes. And they don’t stop serving until it’s all gone. Then came the presenting of blessing katas or scarves - the golden on white silk ones which are wrapped around your neck with a holy blessing. By the time everyone finished - Nima, his wife, his wife’s brother - our necks were loaded with the silk scarves and we were feeling well, full and blessed. When it was time to walk back to the lodge, Nima grabbed my arm and his headlamp to make sure I got back safely, then made sure I had two hot water bottles, and water to drink, and was covered fully with two huge velvet bedspreads. Since he wears a hearing aide, he often doesn’t understand what I say. But he smiles all the time, and either Nima or Jeta, our other head guide, are the first to knock on the door in the morning with a cup of hot lemon tea and a menu to select what I want for breakfast.

The clue to successful trekking is drinking plenty of water, eating plenty of energy food, and having a good Sherpa. While you struggle to move up or down to incredibly steep hills, they make sure you don’t fall and that you drink liters of water all the time. Nima and Jeta carry backpacks with the necessities for me. And when I cannot go another inch, they have the water bottle ready and a sack of cookies or a slice of cheese. Now we are on our return route, I didn’t realize how hard it had been. We are going down what last week we went up. We are also going much longer distances since we are supposed to be better fit and the lowering of altitude should make us more comfortable whether we are ascending or descending. It’s all still hard for me but today en route back to Namche Bazaar, thousands of rhododendron trees were in fresh bloom - from yellow, to white, to dark red and pink. Miniature blue tiger iris grew wild straight from the soil.

It wasn’t as dusty as usual because there had been a whole afternoon of rain the day previous, but clouds did hide the face of Everest and the other awesome mountains of the Himalayas. It was seven hour hard trek from Pangbouche to Namche Bazaar, and that included a stop at the bakery again in Tengbouche for a slice of lemon meringue pie. When we finally puffed into Namche Bazaar, there was Lapka waiting with her smile and welcome. (We had spent three nights here on the uproad. During a warm and super meal, she asked Karen and I to come to her special quarters (her bedroom with a view over the lighted city) and dressed us in Sherpa dresses. The fabrics are embroidered silk and colors are mixed. We received lots of applause from our Sherpas and porters.

As we get closer to the end of this trek, we realize we have not seen a motor vehicle, not seen a church, nor heard a television news broadcast, nor do we know what is happening in the rest of the world. We are more worried about bathroom fixtures and how to stay warm and dry and whether we are getting enough fuel to fire up our engines so we can complete this amazing adventure. Only two more trekking days remain for the Nepal segments.

Photos: 1. the royal treatment Sherpa style. 2. A view of some of this day's destinations. See red roofed buildings? Lunch destination. 3. The famous lemon pie of Tengbouche. 4. Crossing bridges again. 5. Yaks and rhododendron on our trails. 6. White rhododendron