Karmapa

A few days ago my friend Emma asked if I would like to go see a Lama and I responded, "Why would I want to see a llama?" Once we had cleared up that we would be seeing a Buddhist Lama and not the animal I was on board. The Lama we were to visit, along with a bunch of other Tushita people still hanging around, was His Holiness Karmapa who is the 17th reincarnation of the Karmapa Lama. Before leaving and even now I don't really know anything about him except that he is an extremely big deal in Tibetan Buddhism and that my 5 seconds in front of him were amazing.
We were led on our expedition by Ruth, an New Zealander, who randomly walked into a Tushita meditation a few years ago and stayed on for two and a half years. She had been in our Tushita course and she is just amazing to hang out with and tons of fun. She also has a huge New Zealand accent which I like to listen to. Anyway, we took a public bus way down the mountain. It was great to get out of Mcleod and see the actual Dharamshala and the surrounding countryside. The minute we started to descend the mountain the temperature must have risen 10 degrees. After two entertaining bus rides we arrived at the monastery where Karmapa lives when he is not traveling. It was questionable whether I would get to actually see him as I had not been told that I was supposed to bring my passport. Luckily I am very convincing and I have my passport number memorized so I was let in (it was fate). We sat in the beautiful and huge main hall along with hundreds of other devotees waiting to receive a blessing. Most people seemed far more informed that I am about Karmapa and I saw lots of T-shirts celebrating the 900th year of the Karmapa from 2010. I wasn't really expecting anything as I didn't really know who he was and was mostly just interested in getting to see somewhere new. He came in and the process started immediately. You would walk up to a monk who after receiving your white scarf (they have an official name that I don't know) would drape it over your head, then you would have your few seconds in front of His Holiness during which he gave you a red nylon string with a knot in it and you would accept it and bow. It looked like it would be over in mere seconds. First went monks from all over the world, then the men and then women. I was mostly worried that I would do something wrong and it did happen really fast. I tried to really look into his eyes but before I new it I was shuffling out the door. Despite being so brief I, along with everyone else who exited came out beaming with happiness. I just felt some kind of elation and couldn't stop smiling. The happiness was just all consuming and has remained until right this minute! I didn't really think I felt or saw anything when I looked into his eyes but something happened there that was wonderful.
Afterwards we made our way back up to Mcleod in a bus and a jeep this time and then all sat down for a quick tea which turned into a full meal (though mine was just steamed veggies). It has been so wonderful to spend time with other Tushita people. I'm sure everyone feels this way after their course but its just so nice to be able to connect with people and skip the same conversation about where we are from and where we've been and where we're going and actually talk to people about real things. The day was honestly the best that I have had in India and left me with the most wonderful feeling. It was a perfect end to the cleanse and perfect way to say goodbye to Emma and many of the other Tushita people who were leaving in a few days. My last couple of weeks here have just left me with a wonderful feeling and with such excitement for the rest of my travels on my own.

Cleansing

I am so happy with my decision to give up my plane ticket for Goa and spend two more weeks here doing the panchakarma cleanse. I found a super nice and very cheap guest house where my neighbor was an adorable baby cow and where at night I wasn't kept awake by the honking of horns and people talking. I am staying about 20 minutes straight up the hill from Mcleod in the little village of Dharmkot and there are still a good number of people from my Tushita group to spend time with. Its been a really nice way to ease into traveling on my own and figuring out what I want to do with my remaining months. I am doing all I can to resist my urge to plan everything in advance and haven't let myself make any concrete plans or book any tickets anywhere until I am completely done with my cleanse. So you are all probably dying to know the details of my 14 days of cleansing which will be completed tomorrow and will be celebrated with lots of delicious food.
So generally, Panchakarma is an ancient Ayurvadic treatment that is meant to cleanse the mind as well as the body. It is not a cleanse where you just sit around and drink lemon juice and syrup all day and lose a ton of weight. My routine consists of breakfast with whomever is at the restaurant in town, usually Emma or Shay the two girls from Tushita that were also doing the cleanse. For breakfast we could have porridge with honey which was my favorite meal of the day. Then if I had time before treatment I would go to Tushita for their drop in meditations every morning. Treatment was about 15 minutes down the hill (not fun walking back up) and lasted for three hours everyday. It would always start with an amazing full body ayurvadic oil message which was then followed by about 20 minutes in either the sauna or steam room. Once we were nice and relaxed the less pleasant part began. For five of the days the doctor targeted our marma points to unblock emotional and physical blockage. Most of the points were on our feet or legs and correspond to different organs where different emotions are stored. While he was doing this sometimes excruciating therapy we were told to meditate on release all the negative emotions and breathing in all the positive ones to whichever organ he was targeting. Some of these points would make you cry from a combination of pain and who knows what. Other treatments include vomiting in which I had to chug cups of licorice tea until I threw up and repeat four times. It reminded me of college. We also had purgation days which was a nice way of saying diarrhea days and last but not least no less then four herb enemas. While all of this may be quite unpleasant to read we became so comfortable discussing our progress that a chat over dinner about the diarrhea day and how many times each of us went (we had to keep track) was quite common- and quite strange for those not in the program. I have been super lucky in my treatment as everything seemed to go quite well- I attribute this not to my eating healthy and working out because I don't, but to the fabulous genes that I have inherited.
By far the best part about the cleanse, and the only thing that made the diet of super boring, easy to digest food bearable was this wonderful restaurant/guesthouse where we, and all the other panchakarma people would have dinner. The house was owned by a German woman and her Indian husband and there three beautiful trilingual daughters, two amazing dogs (one of which is pregnant) and cute kitty. Every night everyone would arrive for dinner of panchakarma soup, rice and chapatti which I would smother in ghee (our butter substitute). It was great to meet new, usually very interesting people, and not have to watch our other friends down pizza.
So far the concrete results that I have seen from the cleanse include super soft skin and hair and feeling about a million times healthier than I have since I last lived with the mother. It is so hard to be healthy when you are traveling and even though I am really excited to have more food options starting tomorrow it was amazing to not feel sickeningly full after meals or just plain sick. In terms of other developments I don't really know what to attribute them to- Tushita, panchakarma or just staying in one place for so long and giving myself time to just be. Whatever the cause, I am feeling so much more grounded and I have so much less anxiety about everything from traveling alone to getting home and finding a job. I just feel so much more secure and comfortable letting whatever happens happen and not trying to control everything. Wherever this is coming from it feels wonderful. I feel truly relaxed for the first time traveling and want to continue to spend longer amounts of time in the next places I go.
So since I finish my cleanse tomorrow I am going to move back down to Mcleod because I can't face walking up and down the mountain everyday and I am ready to eat some delicious food and be near a little more action. I will probably spend a few days in town getting myself together and then I am going to set out for Rishikesh for some yoga!

Don't Worry I Haven't Become a Buddhist

So Danielle and I completed a 10 day silent Introduction to Buddhism course in Dharamsala last Thursday. While some of you may be shocked that I was able to stay silent for 10 days it ended up being an incredibly wonderful and significant experience. I learned a huge amount about both Buddhism and mediation. Our meditation leader was particularly wonderful as was able to lead us through some very challenging subjects in such a way that the exercises were extremely beneficial. Ultimately it was a pretty intense experience and we all know that blogs are not the place for those so to hear more details you will just have to talk to me when I come home.
After leaving the course I found out that the friend that I was going to meet in Goa had a family emergency and had to fly back to England. This left me in a bit of a confusing position as I had a flight to Goa but didn't really know if thats where I should be going. I decided to cancel my flight and will be spending some time here. Danielle leaves tonight (very sad) and I will be moving up to the little town of Dharamkot which is much quieter and trying to figure out what my next move will be. While I am contemplating where I will head next I am going to join some of my friends in doing a Ayurvadic cleanse for 14 days. I met with the doctor today and it sounds like it will be quite the experience and will hopefully remove all of my physical and emotional blocks. It feels strange to be traveling alone and its the first time that I have really been challenged to think only about myself and actually figure out what I want from my time traveling, where I want to go, and when I want to come home. At this point I can't answer any of those questions but I am hoping that after some time I will know what the next step should be. Until that time I've started reading James Joyce's Ulysses so that should keep me well occupied (and confused).

I Cannot Emphasize Enough How Amazing Kashmir Is

Final place in Kashmir has been Leh in Ledakh and just like Srinigar it has been amazing. I honestly have never been anywhere this amazing in my entire life- and remember I am incredibly worldly and well traveled. Anyway, Leh is the first place in all of India where we have seen more than 3-4 whiteys ever. And now there are tons of them! Leh is a huge hub of outdoor activities like trekking, fishing, rafting as well as volunteering (lots of Tibetan refugees) as well as yoga and mediation. So pretty much its got it all and the people that are here are all interesting and not just looking for the next party (Thailand and all the 18 year olds). The town is nice and small with tons of awesome food and good shopping (too much good shopping). The altitude here is 3500 meters and thinking I was super tough and cool I did not expect it to effect me. Boy was I wrong as I spent the first two days here being dizzy and nauseous (I may have thrown up once). So our first two days were pretty mild as we got adjusted, mostly just cruising around town and eating delicious Tibetan food (see facebook for some photos of momos, Tibetan dumplings that were amazing). It is also way colder here than we expected so we had to buy some warm clothes- especially Danielle.
On our third day we were able to have an activity day! We didn't have enough time to do a full trek but instead we hired a jeep to take us up to the highest motorable pass in the WORLD! It was 34 km north of Leh and it took us about two and half hours to get up. The road was pretty much single lane with tons of crazy switchbacks. I have seen some pretty big mountains before but nothing compares to the mountains here. We went from a green valley, through desert mountains all the way to full on snowstorm! The last 10 km took us the longest as the road is pretty miserable but we got to get out a bunch and Danielle got to play (fall) in the snow. The top was at 18,380 feet and even being up there for only about an hour made me super dizzy. When we reached the top the weather was beautiful but about 15 min later a storm blew in and we were in a total white out snow storm! Luckily we had an excellent driver that didn't speak a word of English and we made it down nice and safely. Once we got below the storm the sun was beautiful and we had amazing views all around us. I have never seen such incredible scenery.
Today we had quite the shopping day as there is an amazing Tibetan Refugee market with lots of cool trinkets and whatnot. Tonight we get to hop in a jeep around midnight for a 22 hour drive through the mountains down to Manali. We are going to stock up on some delicious yak cheese to make the journey less painful. We will be passing through the Himalayas for the second time so that should be exciting.
So once again I have taken hours of my time and tons of rupees to upload some photos to facebook. Mother, may I suggest you visit your darling god daughter and have Elaine show them to you?

Longest Drive Ever

So travel in Kashmir only consists of jeeps or buses because the terrain is so crazy. Yesterday we took a jeep from Srinigar to Leh in Ledakh and it was both amazing and horrible. Pretty much there are seven people total in the jeep which is quite cozy, yesterday I was next to a man that was way too large for the car and kept squishing me. Anyway the entire drive has the most amazing scenery. First we drove through huge mountains all covered with snow and ice. In some parts the road was perfectly paved and in other places water would be washing away the gravel road form melting snow. We were driving along a rive that was just rushing with what looked like freezing water. I can imagine it would be quite exciting for someone to raft or kayak down. Not so much for me but it was exciting to look at. As we kept driving we left the crazy snow covered mountains behind and the mountains began to all be tan and just massive piles of rocks, it looked kinda like Colorado or somewhere out west? So pretty much the whole time you are driving you are just staring out the window looking at the most amazing scenery ever but also being bounced all around and super uncomfortable. Sleeping is pretty much impossible. Yesterdays trip was maybe about 400 km but it took us about 16 hours. It was pretty cool to drive through the tiny villages all along the road. In some places it was freezing cold and I can't even imagine how hard life would be there. While driving we would stop every couple of hours for a chai break which is always delicious and a good chance to stretch broken limbs. When we leave Leh in a few days the trip down to Manali will be a total of about 25 hours of driving...we will probably break that into two days if its not too expensive but it should be pretty intense.

Srinigar

After our wonderfully relaxing couple of days on our luxurious boat we were met by our Khajuraho connection who goes by Super Mario for the foreigners because he looks just like Super Mario. Anyway, he said that he would take us sightseeing and invited us to lunch at his house! He walked us around the old town of Srinigar and we got to see so much that we never would have on our own. I loved looking into the little shops and seeing people making food, smoking hookah or running their tiny shops. Unlike the rest of India people do not stare at you in Kashmir, we got lots of friendly smiles but no one stalking us with their camera or anything else gross. We happened to pass a Muslim wedding and everyone insisted that we go behind the tent and see the food being prepared. There must have been at least 50 men cooking tons of food in huge black cauldrons over big fires. There is tons of good meat in Kashmir and we were given a taste of everything. More of those lamb kebabs that we had had the night before and some other kind of lamb meatball that was amazing. All of the food was amazingly flavored and there was soooo much of it! All the men doing to the cooking were so nice and not at all creepy. The entire day I waited for someone to do something creepy or for Mario to start taking us to his friends shops but not once did I feel like anyone was trying to get something from us. When we got back to Mario's house we had to beg him to show us some of his rugs and scarves. His family has sold Kashmiri goods since like 1840 or something and we had seen his shop in Khajuraho and knew that if we were going to buy anything in Kashmir we wanted to buy it from him. The rugs were all handmade and absolutely beautiful. We looked at tons and each found a perfect one. After going through the rugs we went to a room filled with pashminas and I got a little carried away. They all were so beautiful I couldn't resist.
After all our shopping we were served a traditional Kashmiri lunch by one of his nieces (he lives with both his brothers and all their kids). First the girl came around with water and a dish for us to wash our right hand. She then served out rice, two dishes of lamb and one of chicken. We ate the meal with our right hands which for Danielle and I was definitely a new skill. The food was delicious and all the meat was really good. In the rest of India meat has been hard to find and the little bit of chicken we have had has not been good. We were totally stuffed after lunch and were then served like our fifth cup of kashmiri tea and then Mario insisted that we would stay with him and his family for the next two nights! His family was about to move into a new house out in the country and it was huge and amazing. All our meals were prepared and we were treated just like family. It was really amazing to experience such hospitality from someone that we had just met and to truly not feel like they wanted anything from us. We got to play with all the little kids and eat way too much amazing food.
Being in Srinigar, which is pretty much entirely Muslim, I wasn't sure how it would be different from the rest of India. Frankly I haven't spent any amount of time with Muslims and wasn't sure how I would be viewed or treated both as a woman and as an American. In Srinigar for the first time both Danielle and I felt totally comfortable talking with people. People seemed truly honest and it didn't feel like everyone was out to get money from you. While I was still bothered by the position of women in society- we barely got a chance to interact with the women in Mario's family as they were never invited to eat with us- but Danielle and I were treated wonderfully.
Staying with a family was a really amazing opportunity and I am so thankful that we were able to meet such generous and wonderful people in Srinigar.

On A Boat!

So after a huge amount of travel Danielle and I have made it to Kashmir! Our first stop was Srinigar and I absolutely loved it. I don't know if it was just being in a place where the temperature wasn't melting my insides or what but Srinigar was an amazing place. To get there we took a 9-10 hour jeep ride to go about 300 km which was insanely bumpy but had the most incredible scenery.
Anyway, first place we stayed in Srinigar was on a houseboat because thats what you do there. Most tourists stay on Dal Lake which is right in town but due to a super sweet hook up from some guys we met in Khajuraho we knew to stay on the much more peaceful and beautiful Nageen Lake. They set us up with a hosueboat that was wayyyyy too nice for us but because it turns out Kashmiris are the nicest people in the world we were allowed to name our price and it turned out to be such a fraction of the real price that I can't even write it out! The boat was beautiful, all carved pine wood and tons of carpets everywhere. We spent two nights there and it was like heaven. For the first time since being in India I really felt like I could relax. It was nice and warm during the day and cool at night so no more dying of the heat. There was a beautiful deck on the back of the boat and we would sit there, be served delicious tea and read. We also had a little canoe that we took out a couple of times, once for the sunset and once during the day. We were some of the only people out on the lake when we did and we watched huge Kingfisher birds flying all around and great herons. At night we would sit on top of the boat and there were amazing stars.
Meals were included on the boat and we were given the best food that I have had in India. First night was fresh brook trout that was just perfect along with veggies and rice and fruit. Next night we had the most amazing lamb kebab things where the lamb had been minced up with amazing spices and then cooked around a metal spike. It was amazing. Our time on the boat was a very needed break from the craziness of India. It was wonderful to just do nothing but read and look at beautiful scenery.