India, land of possibility

Here I am!

Dharamsala is my new residence. My shop has now been set up for about a week. I arrived in Delhi late at night and was a bit hoodwinked into a more than cheap cab and a bit of a dive hotel. Luckily this was all very much expected although i was exhausted by the end of the day. Up early an adventure in a rickshaw ensued. These tiny little three wheeled coffins are the only way to get around town. Zooming through the city I coughed on exhaust, witnessed cows in center divides and throngs of Indian’s wandering seemingly aimlessly. Fortunately my driver was cool and advised me to stay away from the scalpers in front of the train station. I took his advice to heart and ended up in a special visitor ticket center. Surprisingly clean plus the all important highly coveted AC! Only problem was that my train was not until about 9 PM and I was there at about 8AM. After hours of hanging around the cool room I was kicked out by the head lady for loitering. hehehe. As the heat of the day advanced i moved with the quickness to Old Delhi train station and waited....Many people were waiting for a train that seemed never to come. Entire families with masses of miscellaneous stuff sprawled the entire length of the main platform. Men with special turbans filled their roles as porters for those who had the extra money. Action surrounded me completely: Babies crying, trains rumbling and horn blowing, people staring, dogs scrapping, beggars asking, and children wondering what (me) the white boy is doing at the station. Finally after a day of waiting the train was announced and I found my place on a double tiered top AC bunk. Apparently this was riding in style although i have my doubts. After a very hot uncomfortable 12 hours I treated myself to a 3 hour bus ride. This tough journey laded me in the beautiful and bustling city of McLeod Ganj (Dharamsala). No luck in a guest house so I caught a rickshaw with a girl from the bus to Bhagsu the next town over.

On a hunch we lugged our belongings up a steep hill to a guesthouse perched high above the little town. My room is awesome. The entire room is wooden and little pieces of art spruce up the place. There is even a curved rainbow above my elevated sleeping platform (BOYGBIV). As the low fading day light filtered into my room through two Star of David windows I took in the lovely scene of lush green mountain ranges and a beautiful snow capped peak in the distance. I took a deep breath; I was now officially in India.

My friends and personal guru's consist of 2 girls from England, 1 dude from the Ilse of Mann, and guy from Israel. Everyone gets on great and we are all after the same goal...to learn the yogic and meditative ways of India and seek a new state of awareness. So far i have been recovering from a little sickness, but tomorrow i will attend my first yoga class. Everything here is so simple and slow. Everyone on the staff at the guest house has a warm heart and inviting smiles.

India has greeted me with open arms...even kind enough to give me a case of the Delhi Belly yesterday :(. Up here the air is clean and crisp along with cold temps at night. burrr. Every morsel of food i have tasted offers a new experience for my taste buds. With such a diverse crowd of tourists every type of food is available and many restaurants cater to the large Israeli crowd.

People are quite open with their interesting lives and new people enter my life everyday. Never have I been in a place of such high consciousness. As of today I absolutely love this place!

Love and Peace to all!

Cambodia, i like it

After an hour in a minibus over unpaved mound littered potholes we crossed into Cambodia. With roads ready to be paved a sweet compacted rock road greeted the minibus with much more ease. 3 hours later we hoped on a ferry ate lunch hoped on another mini bus for 8 hours. Somehow the travel agent forgot to make arrangements for 6 of us on the bus so we had to continue another 3 hours out of our original way. Awe the joys of travelling. Phnom Phen was not really a place for me although i was only there for a night. Early the next morn it was back on yes you guessed it another bus backtracking a bit then west toward Siem Riep and Angkor wat. My friends had arranged a tuk tuk for me but did not know i was 3 or so hours late. Poor dude. They do something kinda funny there though the guest house you spend the night at before arriving there sells your name ahead so someone comes on the bus with a card claiming he has accommodation for that special person! Fortunately i new this before hand and slipped through the cracks arriving at my pre arranged guest house.

$20 will buy you a pass for a day of templing. They give you a little perk of enjoying the sunset from a hilltop temple the day before you embark. Slowly sinking like an orange i watched with those goatherd in amazement. From the opposite side Angkor Wat was in view and I was awe struck. Although nothing could prepare me for the day ahead.

5 am wake up straight into a tuk tuk that would remain with me for the rest of the day. Still no sight of the sun the driver made his way through the quiet streets and I arrived at the main gate of Angkor Wat. Massive shot like a firework from my mind. Blood, sweat, and tears are no doubt the creators of this amazing place. Once the bridge over the moat is crossed and the outer wall breached i took in the infamous three spires that are world renown. Ever so slowly an array of ever changing reds, yellow and oranges began to engulf the nights darkness. All in attendance began snapping photos wildly trying to capture this unrelateable experience. I was among those guilty. Although photos come close, there is no substitute for the eye and the mind working together in that solitary moment. My friend Vered and I moved closer and closer eventually reaching the base of the North tower. We scaled it and took in the still beautiful rays shooting out across light-years. Everything was peaceful and the sounds of the many tourists slipped into the distance and I found some quiet time away from everyone. Every wall is covered in intricate details and different carvings. Each telling a different story. We wondered for about to hours through passageways taking in the various sculptures that had been given to the temple such a long time ago. The scale of this place is so vast i cannot explain. Energy of a very spiritual nature leaked from every pore and crack of every stone that was placed here so intricately. Some stones appeared that a touch would send several sections tumbling. As i lit an incense stick and bowed to the Buddha 3 times i felt calm wash over my body. Here i was in this far away land getting my spiritual side on. Very cool!

With a ride through the woods and an entrance to another temple took form. I could feel the beginning to set in and i knew i could not last all day at this pace. A short walk through the woods lead me to the entrance of this temple. I like to call it the "Indiana Jones" temple. Yeah, its like that. Walls had crumbled to lush green floor some time ago and trees collectively decided to take this place over. Massive roots lay exposed wherever you look and some trees appeared to be growing out of the top of several walls that still stood. Huge curtains of roots slithered to the ground. How these trees got to be so ginormous i have no clue, but like Angkor this temple seemed to be surrounded in a magical air of spiritual energy. Only the trees knew it. Like finding a hidden treasure i excitedly moved through its entirety and was ready for our third.

Bayon temple knocked me even further on my butt as soon as i laid eyes on it down the paved street. I turned into an excited obsessive picture taker here and still i have no way of really conveying the awe that filled my body like an effervescent tablet. Maybe 30 or so spires jutted into the sky and each tip was adorned with a carved faces of the Buddha facing all four directions. Each with its own personality. This temple was very raw like the one before and the weathering of mother nature was quite apparent. Some faces had begun to erode away and others were cracked due to shifts in the foundation. I was surprised at the scale when i found myself standing next to one of these faces. So large and painstakingly precise each and every last one of them.

Lastly in the dead heat of the day i sort of deliriously walked the elephant carved wall and others adorned with time consuming carvings.

Each temple held something different for me which i will forever treasure and remember. If anyone that reads this gets the chance i would recommend seeing it!

The rest of my time in Cambodia was spent on the beach and on a cool quite island!!! With big palm trees and a large beach i was at home.

Trekking in a minibus from the south of Cambodia to Thailand is no light undertaking as the infrastructure is no where to be found. Well actually it is somewhere, and soon the south of Cambodia will be a hit tourist spot.

Somehow i got caught on a motorbike in the middle of Songkran trying to get from one side of Koh Chang to the other and upon my arrival i was soaked along with the rest of my baggage. Songkran is the Thai new year and everyone gets really wet and clean due to copious amounts of water and clothes wash powder.

Much love and Peace to everyone.

Next update: India!!!

Laos part Deux

Pakse seemed to be a bit of a ghost town the infrastructure was set up for huge amounts of tourists yet none were about. Just me and the rest of the crew minus a couple we are now only 6 strong. Arabica coffee is huge in this town and the surrounding villages and i was amazed at the many brand new Lexus SUV's running around town. In fact i distinctly remember thinking holy crap i cannot even here that car although it is in motion. hehehe. Thailand and Laos must truly be home to some of the loudest cars on the planet. It was like finding watching a thunderstorm with no sound.

Not much to do in the town except hop in for an hour tuk tuk ride out into the mountains and check out a couple waterfalls. All the way out to the destination fields of green coffee bean plants greeted me and my compadres. In several place large concrete expanses were strewn with coffee beans drying in the hot sun. I had such a surreal feeling on the entire ride out unsure of what to expect all the while being inundated by the fragrance of flowers, cute children, and the mountain like roar that was in fact our engine. It must have been the low season and no one i mean no one was at this first sight of beauty. The falls were maybe 25 ft wide and loomed commandingly into the air. Water was spilling over the falls at such a speed and high volume that 5 meters from the base you felt like you were in a stationary training pool. Mist was everywhere and the water seemed pure. After a quick dip and some snaps we were off to the tallest waterfall in all of Laos. Now this puppy was massive. 100 meters or something crazy like that. I could not get that close just a ridge view from the top of the other side of a massive gorge. Behind the falls the land continued almost perfectly flat as far as the eye could detect. Almost like a freshly mowed lawn the trees only grew to a seemingly predetermined height and then stopped creating a very awesome visual effect.

Nocturnal Octagon or the group from the slow boat re-united in 4,000 islands. Other than being crazily hot it was quite a network of these tiny little land masses strewn about different fingers of a river. No electricity except from 6 to 11 or so at night was neat. Only the river supplied relief from the heat. An early exit took the crew toward Siem Reap while Seth and I stayed behind got bikes and explored the island. Plus another attached by a bride. At the end of our heat filled journey was a longtail boat out to some rock in the middle of a joining body of water created by all the different rivers. You could say lake, but very small scale. Unfortunately it was big enough that our only sighting of freshwater PINK dolphins was done at a distance.