Happy new year, feliz año nuevo und an guatn Rutsch

My dear friends and family, I came back to Kolkata today and miss you all!!! New year is best spent with the beloved around... maybe next year ;)

Big hug and all the best to you all for 2011!!!

Kolkata - just one day in the city of contrasts

After an expectedly very fresh train ride I pumped into a Catalan couple at the platform… we decided to take the ferry to the other side of the Hoogly river in order to avoid the huge traffic jams warned from in the guide-book. As we did not find the ferry immediately we started walking, following our nose and a compass ;) I never thought I would actually walk the 3 or 4 km from the station to the famous backpacker street, but chatting and joking around my new friends and I kept walking, believing that we were about to arrive, which we did eventually after maybe one hour with our backs aching and our shoulders asleep ;)
Incredible enough, in this hour we walked together, we established such a natural and trusting connection, that we ended up sharing a room for the night and decided to go to the airport together the next day, as they had a plane heading south and I wanted to fly to Guwahati, Assam at the same time.
Armed with the rather rudimentary map of the "Lonley Planet" we went to conquer this 15 million city with an old tram system, metro, ferry and huge amounts of Embasador-taxis rushing through the boulevard-like streets near the famous "Victoria Memorial", probably the most impressive building remaining from the British colonial times. Of course we underestimated the distances completely and spent walking for a few hours before we decided to catch a taxi -- literally we had to catch one, as they were all occupied -- and find a place to have dinner. Kolkata has it all, a rather developed public transport system vs. the daily traffic jam, huge colonial buildings with promenades vs. small and dark roads full of people, rich people going to shopping malls and eating fast food vs. pour and mutilated people earring their daily survival pegging on the streets. Maria Theresa chose a good place to help the pour and her volunteer-foundation has become huge over the years. According to my information this organization is very respected in India, but many voices criticize the rather antiquated approach to birth control (somewhat like the pope´s) and a rather short term oriented help (giving meals instead of helping the people to learn to sustain themselves).
Kolkata definitely deserves a closer look. Maybe I will have the opportunity after the retreat ;)

Gaya - the ugly duck

Leaving behind Bodagya I left to take the night train form Gaya to Kolkatta …not without living a few adventures on the way. The tuck tuck drove the 13 km to Gaya racing against the sinking sun, as the province Bihar is famous for muggings and robberies on the intercontinental-streets. It was not easy for me to relax on this trip over speed-pumps without suspension, thinking of the crime-stories I was told by several persons and institutions. How ever the tuck tuck reached Gaya right after sunset and dropped me at the railway station.
As my train was scheduled to leave some 4 hours later I had plenty of time to pass, so I went to the only restaurant I could find near the station, feeling a bit sick and nauseas after the ride. To my surprise I found out, that I was only welcome to have a quick dinner, but not to read a book or rest at this place. The waiters of this almost empty restaurant must have had some experiences with tourists who came to pass time. Not too happy about the treatment received I thought I was much cleverer than them and did the following: I went back to avery trashy hostel I had seen before and pretended to be waiting for some travel maid at the "lobby" (you would not recognise it as such), as there was a toilet and a sink. I brushed my teeth, went to the toilet and even changed my clothes to be prepared for the rather cold train-trip. When I was about to leave, satisfied that I had beaten the Indians with their own weapons -- in order to get what they want from you many Indians are ready to tell you the most skilled and imaginative stories -- when a gorilla like guy (maybe the manager or the door-man) appeared in front of my accusing me of having caused a financial loss to this hostel by using the toilet (after having asked for permission). As I had lied before that I was waiting for a friend and think of staying over night at this hostel, I did my best to sustain my story and make this rather aggressive guy calm down. Lots of adrenalin rushed into my veins and I was thinking of dropping my backpack in order to be able to fight back in case it would come that far, when the colleague of the gorilla finally whistled him back and told me to leave in peace.
I admit, that I dissevered a little punishment after having crossed the line trying to play a game who´s rules don´t seem to apply to westerners. How ever, I came to the conclusion that Gaya is not going to become more for travellers that it is now: a place you have to pass through in order to reach Bodgaya, like in the fairy tale of the ugly duck…

Bodgaya - on the tracks of Buddha

Our guidebook and some people I met on the way recommended to visit Bodgaya and dive into the Buddhist and Tibetan culture. By pure coincidence we arrived right at the beginning of a big Buddhist festival called "Karmapa". The streets and of course the main temple with the "Body tree" --- the tree, under which Sidharta reached enlightenment and became Buddha -- were packed with monks and pilgrims. Patricia, Agus and I inhaled the special atmosphere of thousands of believing people praying and listening to the lectures held by big spiritual masters, the so called "Rimpoche". After two days of exploring temples of many different nationalities our journey together has come to an end. Pat and Agus moved on to Kolkatta, while I decided to stay some more days and dedicate my time to Yoga and meditation. I miss their company, but on the other hand now a new part of my trip has started and I am looking forward to other experiences.

Luckily I met an interesting guy at the Tibetan monastery -- he was from Graz, Austria, Buddhist for 25 years and just preparing for a 3 month retreat -- who recommended me an institution where meditation-classes are held twos a day. I would have to write a book trying to explain you what meditation is and what it isn´t, but I can tell you that it is very difficult to slow down the continuous stream of thoughts and manage to consciously live the present moment without the mind interrupting and fading away into the past or future…

It seems that the internal part of my trip has started... ;) From the 23rd of December to the 1st of January I will be on some kind of retreat, so I will disappear from the map during X-mas and Silvester which is kind of an appealing perspective for me as I ultimately tend to feel more stressed by these occasions than I am actually enjoying them ;) Of course I hope that I am one of the few persons feeling like this and that you enjoy X-mas and new year!!! All the best to you, big hug ;)

How many persons fit inside a tuck-tuck

Don´t believe anybody who tries to estimate the correct number of people fitting inside a tuck-tuck calculating the volume and interpolating, the empirical approach is the only valid one here ;)
The answer is 11, including myself. I am wandering how on earth the old cars of my family were only allowed for 9 persons having 3 rows of seats, if you can make fir more people in a tiny tuck tuck. How ever, tuck-tuck-sharing is very ecological (for indian terms), really cheap and very social. After a 5 minute ride closely attached to some initially strange person you end up becoming close friends -- as you are that close already you just skip the formalities -- and favorite photo-object together with some locals hugging you in order to tell everybody that they have this great friend in Spain ….emmmm, Austria, …. …ah yeah, Europe …right. The world is small after all ;)

Varanasi - Tasting the real India

Ok, I admit, this blog is not completely "live" / up to date, it usually runs behind 4 or 5 days, sometimes even more. So when I put the short notice, that all of us were fine after the bomb-blast at Varanasi, the blog said that we ware still at the other end of India ;) After all, things have to happen first, before I can write about them and I am trying to find the right balance between sharing (I hope) interesting and curious incidents and impressions with you and actually being out there, living, going through adventures and learning…

A dear friend of mine described Varanasi in the following way: "Varanasi impregnates you down to the most inner cell of your body". I could not agree more!
Having compared a few hostels we found a more or less decent place inside the labyrinthic and rather trashy old town and explored our path through the tiny and dark ways between the houses. Several times we touched passing by cows as the ways were that narrow -- In India I got a new understanding of space, every square millimetre here is being used by the traffic, passersby and animals -- Of course the locals still rushed through them with their motorbikes showing the pedestrians and what ever living beings crossing their way that they were the chiefs.
Patricia, Agus and I found a very nice and laid back restaurant / terrace with a nice view over the Ganges where we spent many mornings to have breakfast and recharge our energies before loosing ourselves between the crowds at the Ghats. We observed people bathing in the Ganges doing the ritual washings, others making offerings (Pujas), different kinds of monks and priests praying and chanting, and families burning their dead at the "Burning Ghats", spreading theirs ashes into the holy river. I got hypnotized by the naturalism and unalterable serenity (by the noise and frenetic life happening) all these things were happening so closely next to each other. Compared to these practices, the ways things are done in Europe seem very sterile and almost antiseptic.
We were watching a group of young monks celebrating a offering with oil-lamps, torches and candles, doing some kind of synchronized dance, chanting, when we heard the explosion and even felt the expansive wave of the blast. We all had the intuition that this was way to loud and heavy to be a fire-work and when people started coming in our direction -- away from where the blast came from-- we found out what had happened some 200 meters away from us. Two bombs were placed next to the Ghat, were people were watching the periodical evening-ceremony. One bomb went off killing a little girl and injuring 25 persons, the second one was diffused… A pakistani extremist group believed to be responsible for this act of violence. All of a sudden the atmosphere of the city changed completely, the police armed with hitting sticks and the army were present at every corner, closing down parts of the old town. We witnessed some other tourists desperately trying to book tickets to leave town and others panicking. We decide to trust that the worst already had happened and that there was no point in running away from the place we had been enjoying so much.
After a few days things went back to normal little by little and people continued their lives, rituals and ceremonies. We intended to avoid the masses and rented a boat several times in order to see and inhale the atmosphere form some distance. This city has left a strong finger print inside me and when we left we agreed, that we could have stayed there for some more days, weeks or even months.

Agra - How to visit the Taj Mahal allone

Happy to have reached a cheap hostel in Agra with great views safely and looking forward to continue our trips by train we enjoyed a rather foggy / smoggy sunset viewing the shapes of the Taj Mahal. We heard form some other travellers that the french premier minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni were in Agra as well and that in the afternoon all tourists had been kicked out of the mausoleum so that the VIPs could enjoy it without being disturbed. There were rumors that they might want to visit it again the next day, so we tried to figure out a plan how to see this monument anyways. As I was told by a girl who had spoken to the guards, that the Taj Mahal would be open in the early morning only and than maybe in the afternoon again, we decided to get up a 5am and be the first persons to buy our tickets at 6:15am. The clever part was, that we split, I waited at the actual entrance while Patricia and Agus waited at the ticket office and like this we managed to enter the mausoleum at 6:40 while behind us the cue was growing and growing by every minute. We actually ran inside, overtook a group of koreans and took our fist shots of the completely empty Taj Mahal. I have to admit that that there might be flowing some japanese blood through our veins, but it was definitely worth the struggle. We entered the tomb of :……………….. and ……………….. alone and felt the peace and atmosphere of this place. a few minutes later this harmonic and beautiful place converted into a noisy hall full of visitors pushing each other and (real/fake) guides trying to sell their services. By then we already had left the tomb and walked around the garden. When the sun came out, I took some more pictures, but by then it was already crowded everywhere.
Luckily this monument is built of marble and very resistant to all the feet walking over it. I am wandering sometimes, how much of the famous monuments would would be left if they lost a tiny bit of mass when ever being photographed ;)
After 2 hours I left to get some more sleep after this very short night, happy that we had accomplished the objective of our visit here. I know, this sounds a bit ambitious… In fact I don´t like visiting famous monuments very much, as they normally are overcrowded. It is a tricky thing not to visit one of the world wonders, being so close. You would have to give explanations to everybody…
How ever I am very grateful we had the chance to feel and enjoy this magical place for some moments alone. I hope you like the pictures...

Jaipur - Rushing through the pink city

Due to our a bit longer stays in Udaipur and Pushkar, we had just one day left to visit Jaipur, before we would finish our tour in Agra. Patricia, Agus and I have become a bit tired of the fast traveling rhythm, spending so many hours on the road -- inhaling vast amounts of pollution and being shaken through by the pumps and holes on the streets -- and sharing our time with a driver who sometimes did not obey our wishes and drove us to expensive places where he probably received commission.
We went to visit the Amber Fort, a huge and impressive complex outside the city and found it to our surprise with completely empty rooms, no old furniture, no jewels, no weapons, the only thing which obviously still was in use were the old latrines, as we could smell ;)
Back to the city we met a very sympathetic tuck tuck-driver (kind of an exception, as they normally are quite insupportable) and agreed to let him show us round some places. We were stunned to see the illuminated "Water palace" -- a palace which was built into a lake by back-holding the water with a dam and later flooding it -- at night. Of course this nice driver also drove us to some "handicraft factories" where we would have had the chance to buy textiles and other stuff for a special price -- more than the double than on the normal street markets. It might be true that all Europeans are rich in comparison to the local population, but sometimes it can get a bit tyring to be treated as a walking wallet ;) How ever, we enjoyed our short stay here before hitting the Indian road again... the last level of our personal Paris-Dakar Ralley ;)

Pushkar - beautiful spiritual village or cheater palace?

This small village welcomed us with it´s spiritual atmosphere, a wholly lake which is said to be created by the Hindu god Brahma -- he dropped a lotus flower on the ground and the lake appeared.
Patricia, Agus and I found a very homely hotel recommended by a nice couple we met in Udaipur and started to feel relaxed and comfortable here right from the beginning. After a short rest I went to find the only Brahma-temple in whole India, not without having read about the dangers of getting set under serious pressure by real or fake priests to spend rather high amounts of money for the good of the souls of the beloved. Of course I thought that this would only happen to very green-horned tourists and not to such a skilled and experienced traveler like me ;) 10 minutes later I found myself with color in my face and flowers in my hands next to the holy lake repeating a rather stupid text preached by this wannabe priest. The emotional blackmail was that tuff that I ended up paying something, but of course it is never enough. The good victims get a red band, I guess in order to be left in peace afterwards. As I did not spend enough to be a good victim and thus did not deserve this band, I got stalked in many occasions until putting on a more serious attitude towards them to make clear, that they went way to far and that I wouldn´t have had any problem with drowning one of them in the holy lake in case the did not get out of sight ;)

The sun had already disappeared behind the surrounding hills when I found a silent spot from where I could enjoy the view of the lake and observe locals doing there washing rituals. I imagine that this village must have been very spiritual before the touristic exploitation began and with it the cheating under the cover of spirituality. Now this place seems to consist of hotels and shops only and for every step you take someone wants to charge you. Even for sending postcards exists a service charge, I guess it is for licking the stamps ;)

Udaipur - Hang an loose in the white city

Also called the Venice of Rajasthan this town has a very romantic and fairy-tale touch. The prince and princes of "1001 nights" might have lived here. The huge 2 lakes are surrounded by palaces, temples and palace-like luxus-resorts. There exists even one Hotel which is built as an artificial Island in the middle of the sea and can only be visited for lunch, dinner, or to stay over night for 1000 Dollars. How ever we were told, that Tony Blair stayed in an other hotel which costed only 1500 Dollars per night ;)
As the 3 of us were a bit tired from traveling every day or at least 2 days, we decided to take a break here and relax. Luckily the guesthouse had WIFI, so I spent some time downloading photos form the camera and write what you are reading here.

By the way, who is actually reading this? I am especially wandering, if my spanish friends already gave up reading in English or if you are just speechless by this masterpiece of literature ;)))

Por favor poned me comentarios (en español) para que sepa que no estoy escribiendo un monologo ;))) Si le dais al botón "Follow" os llegará una notificación cuando publique un articulo nuevo.

An die deutschsprachigen, bitte hinterlasst mir den einen oder anderen Kommentar (auf deutsch oder in welcher Sprache auch immer ihr euch wohl fühlt). Ich würde mich echt darüber freuen und hätte so etwas mehr ein Gefühl dafür, ob ich da einen Monolog schreibe, oder ob es doch den einen oder anderen von euch interessiert ;) Wenn ihr auf den "Follow" klickt, dann bekommt ihr automatisch eine Nachricht, sobald ich was poste…

Jodhpur - On the run through the blue city

Having read a book borrowed from my friends Marlene and Wolfgang which mentions Jodhpur, I felt a strong desire to visit this place. Like Jaisamer, this town has an impressing fort, but in this case it is not habituated and serves touristic purposes only. We already had seen so many palaces with its weapons, jewels and old clothes that we decided no the enter the inside of the fort, but walk around the walls and explore secret passages into the fort. When looking down on Jodhpur we felt a bit disappointed by the rather small percentage of blue buildings and when we already had planned a new law the force the inhabitants to paint there houses in blue, we spotted a very old and authentic part of the city with many buildings in the most different tones of blue. Hypnotized by this stunning view we lay down on the fort-walls and waited for the sunset which turned out to be one of the most marvelous ones I have seen so far. Our stay in this place ended with a visit to the local baser and a rather ugly park, where we seemed to be the attraction rather than the poor vegetation -- the normal Indian does not make the minor effort to dissimulate that he is observing you, more over he tends to stare at you like a cow at a passing train. To make him wake up form this trance like state you can either stop and stare back, or shout hello (Namaskar) so that he knows that you know that he is staring at you ;)
Leaving behind Jodhpur we visited the "Jaswant Thada" temple. memorial of Maharadsha Jaswat Singh II built form the same white MARBLE as the "Taj Mahal".

Everything ok!!!

Hi everybody, just wanted to let you know that my friends an me are ok after a bomb blast in Varanasi 30 minutes ago. The explosion happened near the Main Ghat next to the Ganges while we were sitting at an other Ghat some hundred meters away. We went to a friends guest house in order to read the online news and let you know that we are fine. Big hug, Volker

Desert, Serengheti, or the middle of nowhere?

In our guidebook about India we found a place run by an Austrian guy with very good reputation, so we decided to check it out and book a camel-safari with them. Helmut, the Austrian owner of the tiny hotel takes care of several orfants and subvents the local music community with the objective to preserve the old songs and history of the Bedouin tribes.
We went by Jeep 20 km into the countryside and from their rided on camels to some sand dunes. Actually the desert was reduced on a few sand spots, all the rest was an arid landscape with a similar vegetation like the Serengeti in Africa, I kept my eyes open to see lions, gnus, zebras or hyenas, but the only animals we spotted were goats, cows and eagles. Nevertheless we enjoyed the peace out there, the balanced and patient temper of the camels and the sometimes authentical songs sang by our guides. In the evening we collected a lot of wood -- whole trees which already were dead -- and made a nice camp fire. I got so hypnotized by the flames that I almost forgot to look into the sky with the stars closer than ever. It is incredible how may stars you can see, when there is no light source near by on the earth. When the moon came out, many stars lost their power and stepped back, while the moon illuminated the landscape around us.
We talked until late with our Bedouin-guides about Europe and how different our world is. When they heard that there exist unmarried couples and homosexuality their eyes became bigger and bigger ;) When the fire was consumed we went to sleep under the open sky, covered with several blankets, hoping that no animal (snakes, scorpions, shackles) would come to make us company while we sleep ;)

Jaislamer - The golden city

After the rather trashy experience in Bikaner we were very happy to come to a tranquil and clean place with a great view and hot water. We dropped our stuff and went to see the still habituated Fort with it´s impressing walls, small streets and hidden places. This place reminded me on Dubrovnik, only that it is surrounded by the desert instead of the sea. Inside the walls we passed by one shop after the other with people trying to establish a communication with us in order to do sell their products. We tried to take things with humor and philosophy and after a short walk we found some hidden corners which seemed not to get a visit by tourists very often -- generally I don´t like tourists, too bad I am considered a tourist too ;)
We observed a family preparing dinner, the husband milked the cow, while the grammy prepared chapatis (a very simple pancake made of flavor, water and salt) and the little daughter was teasing her smaller brother until he cried and got rescued by his mother.
It was a strange feeling, sitting there and observing, because I did not want to appear indiscreet or disrespectful. We enjoyed the sunset at a very nice panorama-spot on the walls of the fort and imagined how it would be to have this view every day ;)

Bikaner - getting in touch

During the first days of our trip Patricia, Agus and I had a hard time to convince our driver, that we were not sheep who wanted to be guided by him and do the standard tourist program. When we told him, that we wanted to see the city first and search for a guest-house or hotel later, he got a bit nervous and started inventing arguments. The problem was that he did not know anything apart from the route he would do with all the tourists, so he wanted to drop us somewhere and meet us there -- not even he knew, where actually "there" was --- a few hours later. Luckily Agus asked a lady about one of the city gates and as she had to go there anyways, we took here with us by car. When "Dr. Sheila" , a retired physician got of the car she instead to invite us on a Chai in the evening. The 3 of us started then to explore the old town, walked through a textile baser and searched for a famous Hindu-temple. On the way a young boy started talking to us, asking, if we would mind talking to him so that he could practice his English and Spanish. He turned out to be a very humble, educated and nice guy, who leaded us to the temple and even invited us to his home. He lives with his parents, siblings and grandmother in a tiny flat without flowing water and just the very basic things they needed to live. We asked him, if he needed anything, but he was just fine with our company, which was a refreshing difference after having been asked for money by so many people on the streets. Many children asked us for a pen, so we are thinking of buying pens, as they should be of use for them at school.
In the evening we met our driver in front of the clinic where Dr. Sheila lived and were about to leave, when she came and pulled us into her house to have tea. It turned out that she lived alone there and was afraid of a psychopathic neighbor and thus appreciated a lot our company. She invited us to stay over night, so Patricia, Agus and I shared one big bed. Before we went to sleep, we went to have dinner outside and lived 2 unforgettable happenings. The first was what I would call a real, authentic bull-fight an the streets. I am not talking about the Spanish way, but about 2 bulls fighting against each other, causing a traffic-chaos and panic among the passersby. The next instant they disappeared and prepared the scene for the second adventure. We were near the rails and could already hear the hooting of a train coming nearer. People kept crossing the rails until the last instant while I was freezing by just watching them.

After dinner we went to Dr. Sheila´s place to get some sleep. Every now and then she shouted form the hallway asking, if we were comfortable. She continued doing so, even when we were already falling asleep and we ended up under a mountain of blankets because she was afraid we could be freezing ;) Like at the boy´s place, this huge flat did not have flowing water and everything was very simple and humble. Bikaner provided us a glimpse into people´s lives, which is much more special than visiting tourist sights. Unwashed, but happy we hit the road again...