The beautiful skyline of Hong Kong at night! Come with us through the brightly lit, and empty of people, Business District and then over the river to Kowloon Bay to look back. The buildings all come to life with colours and lights embedded in their structure that forms a fantastic light show. Finally we visit the vibrant and busy center of town and see some of the amazing flashing neon screens and lights around the streets thronged with people.

Hong Kong is one of the cities that inspired the look of the film Blade Runner and so I have set the film to the score- hope you like it!

The Basho Special Editions are high definition re-renders of my prior work using some of the techniques and knowledge I have learned since first making them. This film is the last of that collection and the next will be a new slice of China.

Changes to the original:
Stablised some shots
Rotated some of the shots to true
Recoloured correctly using professional filters
Sound cleanup
1080p Render in YT friendly wmv (mp4 juddered)

Things I couldn’t fix:
I couldn’t get the slow mo to become any smoother without losing tons of detail.
There is a lot of noise due to the fog that night. My camera is a basic job and does its best to compensate, but lots remains.

Kind regards,

Basho

On the road, and neatly tucked into our bus seats, we were also well placed for scamming. A guy came up to Wendy and handed her a phone. She took it and the voice on the other end claimed to be from the “hotel” we just left. Apparently, she had departed without paying the final bill. The voice said that she should give the missing amount to the “agent” on the bus (the man with the phone).

All lies.

I had been there when all accounts were settled and I know that our friend had not “failed to pay”. She got very angry and the guy got insistent. This was his mistake, because our friend was a British GP (a doctor) and in my experience doctors don’t take shit from anyone. She shouted at him for a few moments and he shrugged and took his leave.

Worse was to come when we arrived into the desert.

The sun was very hot and of course the desert was as exposed as countryside can get. Over the endless heat waves we espied the fortified city of Jaisalmer. Cesca described it as,

“A giant sandcastle”

And indeed it looked the part, being raised high above the desert, and presumably dust winds, by what must be a huge pile of sand. It looked like it was sitting onto a dune. The only thing I have seen that comes close for the view was Uluru in Australia. It was striking in the extreme and exciting.

The bus entered the vicinity of this old city and stopped by the side of the road next to a swarm of touts. Immediately these started opening the bus storage doors and taking out our bags. I was up, out of my seat and off the bus in seconds. I pushed my way through the throng and grabbed my bag off the tout trying to make away with it.

“Put my bag down!” I screamed.

He did so. I was much bigger than him. I quickly took it and collected the girls’ bags too.

Another tout tried a different tact, producing a “licence” he claimed to be from the tourist board here to take us to our hotel. I put on my sunglasses and ignored him. I guarded the bags and they stood slightly back. That was until the girls got off.

Clearly white women getting off busses here make a “Ca’Ching” sound. Cesca and Wendy were instantly swamped with touts all pushing against each other to get the business. Pushing the girls too, who had their Lonely Planets out and were thumbing a map of the city. Upon seeing this, the touts as one craned their necks to see the page and “assist”. Arms were thrust onto the page and attempts to take the books to “show madam” aplenty.

As soon as I had seen all this start, I started counting to ten in my head. I reckoned that, what with the bus con fresh in their minds, the girls would explode after ten seconds.

9, 10…

Boom!

“Look!” shouted Wendy, “all of you just BACK OFF, RIGHT NOW!”

It was like kryptonite on these guys. Wendy was bigger than most of them to start with and she really shouted at the top of her not inconsiderate lungs.

This prompted a policeman to come over. He had a sub machine gun at his hip and it was loaded. The touts backed away and he very casually suggested that the tout that had spoken to me was actually “official”. Of course, this may be a clever bit of the play we were in, but it worked. I heaved all the bags into his tuk tuk and he sped us through the outskirts of the old city, just at the base of the sand mound it sits on, towards a hotel he swore blind was excellent.

When we got there, I defended the bags again and the girls went in. Immediately they came back out with the hotel owner, a 30 something Indian man with a professional manner. He handed the tuk tuk driver a note and he left. He then welcomed me to his hotel.

As it happens it was a brilliant hotel.

We got a quite expensive room (by our standards of the time, I probably spend more on coffee now) and met up on the roof top bar. All the hotels around this area had similar bar restaurants and we ordered some very nice food and drank out the night. Soon we had met others on their holidays and formed a little pride of travellers. There was an Asian lady from Canada on a life changing trip, a couple of very attractive Sweeds as well as a British couple who were good fun. We all decided to go on a Camel safari together.

The next morning, we set off early for the desert proper in jeeps. After a couple of hours of riding into the desert, putting us not too far from the border with Pakistan by my reckoning, we came to a small dusty village and met our camels.

I never thought I would like camels, they are shaggy with rough fur that catches dust and sand, their farts endlessly serenade the desert and their spitting is legendary in its ruthless laid back efficiency. However, one look at the smiling face of my mount for the next two days and I was in love. She was lovely.

Clambering aboard I immediately noticed that we were not riding in high Berber style on a mound of cushions – clearly the organisers were worried about us falling off (camels are very tall) – so instead we had to use horse style saddles only without stirrups.

About 5 or 6 seconds of the jerking, jolting, off-timed and frankly horrendous bouncing was enough for all of our crew to realise that is was not going to be pleasant experience. My inner thighs complained almost immediately.

We bounded off; each led by our camel tied to the one in front and headed into the desert. Soon the dunes swallowed the village behind us and the amazing spirit of emptiness started to pervade. The desert here is very quiet, only occasional tracks, desert roads and some power lines crossed our path which was otherwise endless scrub bushes and sand.

We plodded for about 10 miles or so, taking most of the day, and then our hosts announced we were stopping to make camp. Camp sat upon two very clean looking sand dunes that were empty apart from hundreds of 4 inch long dung beetles. I like beetles and these little scurriers skittered all around us as we setup the mats and the guides started a campfire.

They then taught us how to make chapatti, which we all had great fun doing before feasting upon the tiffin pots of food the guides had brought.

As we ate, talked and laughed together I sat back and wondered at the guides, for whom this was probably their primary business. By this point in our adventures Cesca and I had been on 20 or so “local tours” and I could recognise the signs of a well organised trip very quickly. This one, I decided, was definitely above average for, while we were missing a few home comforts out here, the guides were good and trying hard to please, the food was the pleasant Indian fare I had come to appreciate and the group atmosphere was friendly.

Then it rained.

In the desert.

Huge sheets of rain suddenly thundered down on us and we were all wet through. I couldn’t quite believe that so much water was available to fall in the desert, and neither could the guides. Gone was the chance to sleep outside and they scurried to the back of a camels for some small tents they had brought. Unfortunately there were not enough tents to go around and we would have to share, I quickly claimed a tent for Cesca and me and since we were the only married couple on the trip no one argued to join us. We all helped put up the tents and dived in. Listening to the rain, we huggled down and slept.

The next morning the rain had passed on and to look at the desert you would not know it had rained at all. To look at the group however… Several of the tents had flooded and eventually the poor junior guide had slept under a camel. Many people were seriously wet.

I stretched and walked up the dune to see the sunrise. There is definitely something primal and wonderful about the morning here. Soon Cesca joined with her camera and then the entire group rushed up to capture the moment on film. We all ate a hearty breakfast and then it was back on the camels.

Our route back took us via a couple of small villages, and had cleverly been designed to be shorter as the guides must have worked out that long camel rides play havoc with western soft legs. Soon, the vast majority of our group had abandoned camel and were walking alongside.

We arrived in our final village stop way after lunch and the camels all went for a drink. All around us the villagers came out and greeted our visit. An hour later I said goodbye to my mount as the jeeps arrived and we jumped on board for the trip back to the city.

On the way back we all discussed the rain we had experienced, surely a rare event in the desert? I should have realised that it was a portent of what was to come, but my thighs were burning too much to care.

On our arrival back we headed to the roof bar and drank our success in surviving the trip. I don’t remember going back to the room to sleep, but what happened next will always be in my mind.

I was awoken from a dream by a unique sound. I have thought long and hard about how to describe it, and I have settled on the following:

It was the sound of the entire Golden Horde, all 60 thousand horses; men and carts, galloping towards us over the desert.

The sound was loud at first, but soon it was huge and all around us. The walls shook, the paintings shook with them, the bed moved with the vibration. I heard screams outside and then the sound was with us in total and the entire world shook. Cesca and I jumped up in the bed,

“Earthquake!” I shouted.

“Oh my god! The city!” Cesca said, and we shared a vision of the city sand flowing down towards us burying us in a landslide of ancient walls, camels and palaces.

“Quick!” I shouted to her, “Get under the door frame!” I pointed to the entrance to the bathroom and we rushed under it and held each other.

Ten seconds later it passed on, but the screams outside continued. These were joined by the sounds of feet on the nearby stairs as screaming, jabbering tourists fled the building.

Seconds passed and no further roaring approached. The building remained standing. Clearly the city wasn’t going to engulf us in a landslide today.

“That was an earthquake!” Cesca exclaimed.

“Either that or war with Pakistan has started and we just got nuked!” I replied. “I’m going back to bed” I said.

“What!?” Cesca said, “Shouldn’t we go outside?”

“Out to panic? No thanks.” I jumped back in the bed and pulled up the covers.

Cesca made no move to follow me, “I’m heading outside”

“Baby” I called from the bed, “if it is Pakistan, try not to get any on you…”

She stuck out her tongue and went off.

Sure enough it had been a quake, measuring nearly 6 on the scale. The local area had suffered some damage, but we had been lucky. Quakes are on a logarithmic scale, so while a 6 is high, it’s not in the same league as a 7 and not even the same sport as an 8. All the same, it was one hell of a thing to be woken up by.

For the rest of the day the only chat was of the quake and I eventually logged onto the UN Quake watch web site to record my eye witness account in their database. No further incidents happened and the next day it was forgotten.

We use our final day in Jaisalmer to visit the old city. It was very beautiful.

The ancient buildings all have facia carved from stone and thin alleys wind all around the centre. The hotel owner took us on a tour to the tumble down palace and we spent a good few hours talking to the man whose job it is to rebuild it.

He was part of a family who had worked for the Rajput for generations and it had fallen to his generation to try and get the palace back in order. It was very old and open to the elements, and I remember thinking that he had one hell of a job on his hands.

As we shopped I considered buying a camel skin leather bag, which all looked wonderful (I am a sucker for bags) but didn’t. I regretted that for days until I read on the web that they are often not properly treated and consequently rot with a smell that is impossible to mask and will definitely get picked up when going through an airport.

That evening we all checked out together as one group. We took a bus to the nearest train station and had berths near each other. That night we all chatted and enjoyed each other’s company for one last time before Cesca and I left the train in the early morning and wended our way to our final stop in Rajasthan; Jaipur.

Kind regards,

Basho

The city is blue, blue of the Brahmin caste we were told, but I can’t help wondering if there is another reason for its popular -nay ubiquitous-shade. I heard one rumour that it was due to the blue paint putting off the mosquitos. However, I am more inclined to believe it is to challenge the other brightly-coloured-city it is most often confused with (Jaipur, which is bright pink!) I leaned back on the bed and spied out of the window at the huge cliff-wall behind the hotel, and then up, up and eventually to the turrets of the Mehrangarh Fort high above.

It towered over the entire city of a million people, ever watching like a sleeping dragon turned to stone by some mighty magic, frozen with one eye open and brooding over its faded dominance.

The city’s name? Where else but Jodhpur: the blue city of India set amongst the stark landscape of the Thar Desert.

Actually, as nice as post cuddle snoozes are, I could have murdered a beer and so I dressed and headed out to sit with her. I found her sitting on the roof with the owner and a clearly English woman of about our age. They greeted me and I joined them. The owner waved me up a beer from a passing staff member and continued telling us about the city.

“The city is known as the “Sun City” because of the fine weather,” he said, “It was the capital of the Marwar Kingdom founded by Rao Jodha. The wall goes all the way around.”

I remembered our arrival a few hours before, Jodhpur is indeed a walled city with a tight maze of very narrow streets full of wandering cows and tiny stores of all descriptions.

Travelling through it in a tuk tuk, one cannot help but feel that westerners stand out a little too much amongst the backdrop of a city whose sheer cramped size and ancient structure is hugely resistant to modernisation. Not that this is stopping the tuk tuk driver attempting to break the speed of light.

I turned to Cesca, the wind buffeting her hair, “If we travel any faster, we will go back in time!”

She grinned a response.

Eventually we made it to the large haveli or converted palace that you will find all over Rajasthan. It had enormous doors in a giant wall upon which we knocked mightily and were greeted by a staff member who directed us to the young owner. He was the same man holding court with us now and part of the family that had converted the old edifice of residence into the magnificent guesthouse before us.

Suddenly I realised that the reason he was paying us all such attention was that he fancied the English girl speaking with Cesca. At least I hoped it was she and not my baby as this was a very high roof from which to be flung…

Anyway, we espied the city and he told us of the sights to be had in its investigation. He then offered us himself as a guide. We agreed and he took us through the streets and temples showing us the sights. It was all quite excellent really.

That night we stayed up quite late, eating the great food prepared at a moment’s notice by our host, and chatting to the English girl. She was a Doctor by trade, on her travels and heading further into Rajasthan until reaching the desert city of Jaisilmere. We very quickly hit it off and decided we should all go together. Indeed, like all the incredible people we met, it was my darling wife they immediately took too – she just has a very impressive skill of putting people at their ease, which is formed of her intense innocence and classy way.

The next day we walked up to the castle-like Mehrangarh Fort and took a long look around.

Like the palace in Udaipur this was very impressively preserved and indeed still in use by the ruling family. We enjoyed another exquisite audio tour and visits to armouries, ballrooms and private antechamber of the Princes found in this part of India.

It never failed to impress. Outside I filmed the city and animals living on the walls and Cesca, dressed in her traditional and bright orange Indian clothing (bought way back in Mumbai), made friends with locals who were soon chatting to her in excited and animated conversation.

Later we realised that we wanted to stay a few more days here and so we made to find a cash machine. This required a long walk through the city until coming across only two working international choices. The first was out of money, which worried us mightily. Rushing to the other, we found that it was not working properly and took 20 minutes to count our money, but it eventually spat out enough funds to cover our adventures for the next few days.

Now we could go shopping!

The Handicrafts industry has in recent years eclipsed all other industries in the city. By some estimates, the furniture export segment is a $200 million industry, directly or indirectly employing as many as 200,000 people. Other items manufactured include textiles, metal utensils, bicycles, ink and sporting goods. A flourishing cottage industry exists for the manufacture of such items as glass bangles, cutlery, carpets and marble products.

WIKIPEDIA

We asked around for where to buy fine silks in the city (something that it is famous for) and were directed to a slightly tattered looking shop with enormous piles of silks of every conceivable type. There we spent the best part of half a day ordering up bed coverings as presents for our families.

This was an experience that was at one moment highly pleasurable; full of “ohh’s and ahh’s as they laid out the wares for us and claimed everyone from London boutiques to Richard Gere himself bought from this store; and the next moment was sheer pain; as we were pressured to make decisions (something Cesca hates doing) and agree a price. Eventually we bargained down to a fair price, but as always you know that you are being fleeced somewhere and somehow. Still the silks are lovely.

“How can I decide which goes to which person?” Cesca asked me.

“You can’t really baby, people will always like a different one than the one you picked out for them. Just let them do the fighting.”

Therefore, I paid the (massive) bill and the company posted the entire lot home. I remember at the time wondering if it would actually arrive back in the UK, but it did and quickly.

Then we went tea hunting. Jodhpur is also justly famous for its spices and high quality teas. We had a fantastic couple of hours trying all sorts of brews and listening to the happy proprietor explain their many health benefits.

We bought some spices (which I only got half way through after a year) and teas (which Cesca has never opened!).

This bounty, plus a few other gifts we posted back to the UK through the torturous Indian postal system, which requires you to wrap all you items in cloth and seal them with wax. Or rather it requires someone to do this, just not you. No, in another gouge, you must have someone trained in the required technique do it or your package will go missing.

It’s not the cost that prickles, but the time wasted trying to find a suitable merchant to do this for you.

After another fun night talking to Wendy, we decided to move onto the next town together. We found a suitable bus and headed out into the long road into the desert and the sand mountain that is Jaislemere.

Regards,

Basho

Those are the known unknown things that you decide to do only when faced with the opportunity. You know you might do them, but you perhaps only have the haziest plan about them. What this story highlights are the complete unknowns; those strange twists of fate and chance that dog everyone’s lives from one end to the other. Perhaps that is being unfair to them as they are the same class of occurrence that led to me meeting my wife, my friends and finding my job.

But, they can also lead to what is to follow…

My tale begins just before we travelled to the (now closing) park of Bandhavgar in India and starts with us trying to go the train station in Varanasi.

Leaving Varanasi is not something I am soon to forget.

Just getting to the station that night was one hell of challenge. I have written before about how Cesca and I played good cop, bad cop with the local Tuk-Tuk drivers to make sure that we were not gouged by excessive charges, facilitated by the driver and friends taking us for a “marks” or as we in the UK call them “mugs”. Our double act, of Cesca walking away in huff followed by myself after sharing an exasperated look with the offending driver, had wowed and convinced all over the east. Indeed, I remember thinking that it was so effective that it must be a simple part of the “play” or “act” of hiring a taxi, Tuk-Tuk or Songthaew anywhere else in the world apart from the bit I came from. I also remember remarking that it would always work…

Cesca and I stopped, our backs to the small group of Tuk-Tuk drivers, and we leaned into each other conspiratorially.

“How many steps have we gone?” I asked, and we both computed the answer in our heads.

“6” we agreed.

“Bugger,” said Cesca, “they’re not going to go for it are they?”

I sneaked a look around at the drivers, coolly watching us walk away. They looked uncaring and if it was acting, it was good acting.

“Thing is darling,” I said, “We don’t have long until our train… Is this time for humble pie?”

Ceca’s eyes met mine and I saw fire in them.

“Never!” She spun to face the group and strode towards them raising an indignant finger.

The trouble was simple. The Tuk-Tuk to the hotel from the train station had been one hell of a journey, but at least it had been a fixed fare set by the government rates system. However, trying to get back to the train station from the hotel was to pick a Tuk-Tuk off the street nearby and this was ungoverned… and five times the price. When the man had first suggested the fare we simply knew it had to be a haggler’s bluff. But, I was now forming the notion that the Tuk-Tuk drivers here are in some sort of price-fixing union or cartel (or mafia!) and won’t haggle at all- they want the foreign visitor to pay a high price!

Cesca took to arguing with the men. I don’t know how good their English was beyond how to simply perform their job, but I could tell that Cesca’s body language was translating perfectly; she was pissed off. I hung back. A big guy standing over her shoulder could illicit the wrong reaction.

After only a few minutes another man, leaning against a wall, detached himself and walked over and offered to take Cesca for the original price on the condition that she stopped shouting and also that he happened to live near the station anyway.

She grinned in triumph all the way to the station forecourt. What a girl!

As we were dropped off I took a look at the station forecourt in the darkness. Surrounding it were tall lampposts throwing out a dirty orangey light that illuminated the dusty ground in pools of colour crossed endlessly with the flashing of insects mistaking the bulbs for the moon.

We put on our backpacks and made our way towards the entrance. Walking under the lamps there was a buzzing of activity and I noticed from the corner of my eye a large moth break formation with the group and dive down to take a closer look. It was a wild winged creature of significant size and my first instinct upon seeing it, heading straight down at my face from the corner of my eye, was to flinch aside Bruce Lee’like.

Unfortunately, the moth also changed direction and I remember hearing its wings buzzing loudly like a dive-bombing Stuka.

Then nothing.

I looked around, but couldn’t see it and I thought to myself “where did that go?”

Then I realised the horrifying truth. In a million to one shot the massive Indian flying creature had managed to wedge itself right into my ear canal. I slapped my hand to my ear in shock and the moth responded by buzzing its wings, which inside my ear canal sounded like a recording of 400 cymbals falling down a flight of stairs played through a speaker turned up to 11.

I screamed in pain. Cesca flashed around and for a good few moments couldn’t work out what was wrong.

“Darling?” she asked.

“There’s a bloody great moth in my ear!” I cried. “Help!”

She ran over to help and took a look in my ear, to which the moth responded with the ending of The William Tell overture as heard from 2 inches away from the explosions.

I screamed some more.

“Get it out!”

Now it was at this moment, had this been a film, that the Benny Hill music would have started and everything would have been slightly sped up. We tore off our backpacks and flung everything out on the floor in increasingly desperate attempts to remove said insect from my ear. Each attempt, ear buds; wipes; sticks, was met with desperate struggles from the moth and more screaming from myself. It was wedged in there good and proper and (Cesca told me later) took up the entire ear.

By this time we had drawn the attention of a couple of policemen, who spoke no English and merely stood bemused at Cesca attempts to explain, so I decided that we should get on the train and deal with it there. Cesca told me later that this was the point at which she would have headed to an A&E.

In aural-agony I walked to the train, my hearing on both sides shot to bits and my heart racing as I tried to think of something that would get this bastard out of my ear.

On the train, we took up our little bed area and pulled the curtains across. Cesca then set about thinking hard. The increasingly desperate moth had been seriously battered by my attempts to dig it out with earbuds and my ear canal was now very sore, as was my eardrum against which the moth had been push and squashed. I realised, just as the train pulled out, that this was much worse than we thought.

Cesca hit upon an idea. Ear wax remover.

“Ear wax remover!?” I exclaimed, “You have carried ear wax remover all this way around the world?”

“Yes, for clearing my ears before diving” she said pulling out a small bag from which she took out the tiny dropper-topped bottle. We lay me on my side and she put in a couple of drops.

It smelt very menthol.

The moth, I am ashamed to say, drowned in this stuff and after a few exhausted buzzes that sounded like nuclear explosions passed away from its life. We turned me up the other way and the fluid drained onto a tissue.

But the moth, dead as it was, was still in my ear.

Cesca took a closer look with a torch and gasped slightly.

“What?” I asked, “Is it huge? Can you grab it?”

“Erm, no it’s not huge” she said.

She was clearly lying, the moth was enormous, and it must be to fill my ears. I always had to use the large rubber ear grommets on headphones, I am a big guy, and I have large ear canals. This beast invading my body, probably covered in all sorts of Indian crap, dust, mites, and shit, was the size of a bloody bus! I suddenly thought that I might get an infection if we weren’t careful and that made my skin go into a cold sweat and my brain beat with blood and worry.

Cesca tried to think of something. Then…

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I have tweezers somewhere, we should pull it out!”

“Tweezers too? What type?”

“They are tick ones, for pulling out ticks” she replied

“Aren’t they sharp at the ends?” I enquired

“A little, yes”

I motioned to the train carriage which was bouncing around us – Indian trains are anything but a smooth ride.

“Forget it!”

“Well what then?” she asked.

I racked my brain,

“Call your sister”.

I don’t know why calling a vet back in England was supposed to help, she would probably be more concerned for the moth than I, but I wanted to do something and get someone else thinking as well. Arabella tried her best over the line, but her only advice was to sleep on that side of my body and the moth would “pop out”.

“Oh yes,” she said to Cesca down the mobile line from the UK, “Sebastian had a moth in his ear, slipped over-night no problem…”

Cesca latched onto the good news and smiled to me but she wasn’t fooling me for a second. I knew from her face that there was no way this thing was simply going to “pop out” without the application of high explosive.

So I had no choice, I slept the 8 hour journey on my right-side awaiting the moth to extricate itself from my ear canal. I didn’t sleep a moment of that 8 hour journey, not one second.

Eventually we arrived at our stop in the middle of nowhere and then I really did start to worry. What if there were no doctors out here? We were visiting the deep wilds of India; perhaps they wouldn’t have the equipment needed for sorting out ears. You know that bendy thing like a clothes hanger with a camera on the end that doctors jam into children’s ears?

We got off the train and were met by a driver, booked to take us to the safari park we were staying at for the next four days.

“How long is the journey?” I asked.

“Oh quick sir,” he said smilingly, “only 2 hours or so”

I didn’t say anything, but my expression said simply, “!”

I went into that strange mode that people go into when they know their mission. A sort of calm and almost detached view of the world that speaks only in a gentile but swift voice answering all questions exactly and quickly with no elaboration whatsoever.

“I have a moth in my ear” I said to myself, “for at least two more hours,” I continued, “and then we shall remove it”.

Zen monks couldn’t have put it calmer.

We finally arrived at the park as the sun rose over the trees. It was beautiful in the extreme, but I wasn’t really watching it. We quickly checked in and got to our room. Bags were flung into the bed and I grabbed our extensive medical bag and strode purposely into the bathroom.

“Cesca,” I said smartly, handing her the bag, “in there is a syringe.” I bent over the sink. “Please use that with some water to flush this obstacle from my ear”.

Cesca tried, but it didn’t work. The moth was crushed against the ear and the water couldn’t get under it to lift it.

It was time for desperate measures.

“Ok,” I said, “go for the tweezers”

Cesca lifted the large chisel ended tweezers out of the medical kit and approached my ear. She reached out and in.

“Slower!” I said.

“I am going slowly” she protested.

“Then go slower, go glacially”.

The tweezers entering my ear disturbed the moth’s corpse and set off more endless cymbals in my head. I felt her grab hold of the end of the moth and that really hurt. She later told me that her greatest fear at this point was that the moth would come apart and have to be removed in bits.

“I have it,” she said, “ready?”

“Go,” I said.

She pulled and for a moment I too thought the moth wasn’t moving, then suddenly its entire bulk shifted and my hearing returned. It was off the ear drum! The pain stopped and then with the most satisfying, crashing, screaming, noise-filled moment of my life there was an audible, slimy pop and the moth came out.

Intact.

Cesca immediately flung it into the basin. I stood up and then we did that thing that always happens in the movies, we learned in to take a closer look and both, in unison, cried “urrrg!”

It was huge and slimy and crushed and all legs and wings and, well, “urrrg!”

We looked at each other and then I gave Cesca the biggest hug of her life, lifting her clean off her feet and against the wall.

“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!” I exclaimed over and over again, tears coming to my eyes.

The nightmare of the last 10 hours was over, my ear was sore but safe, and Cesca- she was as ever my hero.

So, there you have it. We went on in the next few days to see 9 tigers in their wild habitat and this certainly helped redress that painful journey. My ear did hurt all that time, but I didn’t care since we were having such a great time.
It’s often said that it is the bullet with your name on it that you don’t hear. Well, I went through a long journey to reach the moth with my name on it and I heard it all right. That was got me to flinch. It’s natural to do so, to protect the eyes, but very few people consider their ears!

I sure do now!

Since then I have come to realise that this story highlights perfectly the difference between Courage and Bravery. I had the moth in my ear; there was nothing I could do to get it out. Staying calm was brave. Cesca was in charge of a very sharp set of medical implements which she needed to put into my deepest ear canals. Staying steady at such moments takes courage.

Something she has in spades.

Regards,

Basho

Udaipur was the first stop for us into Rajasthan. We had heard so much about this part of India and were looking forwards to our visit with relish. The historic capital of the former kingdom of Mewar in Rajputana Agency, Udaipur’s fierce independence had successfully led it into the modern world almost untouched. This is in part due to its mountainous region being unsuitable for heavily armoured Mughal horses; Udaipur remained unmolested from Mughal influence in spite of much pressure.

We had already experienced a “preview” of what we could expect while in the colourful southern city of Mysore, with its grand palace covered in bulbs, culture revolving around the charismatic power base of the Raja’s and incredible local markets.

We arrived, as ever, by train. It remained the quintessential method of transport across India, but its routes into Rajasthan were not all going to where we wanted and so we were soon going to abandon the train for buses and other methods of transport. But, for now, we caught a tuk tuk to the “travellers” centre. The city is built up around lakes and almost everywhere we went overlooked them somewhat.

 For Indian cities, Udaipur is fairly well off and the buildings are all brightly painted and shining in the vast amount of sunlight. In the distance, over the almost endless roof-top gardens and restaurants, are the majestic rolling Aravali foothills.

The huge visible distance lends an ambiance to the city. However, when we arrived it was very early and still dark. We had called ahead and booked our room at Anjani hotel, an old royal Haveli Anjani Ji converted to hotel which is situated near to the Pichola-Lake. It’s bright White frontage and views over the lake made it a great choice and not too expensive. We walked up a steep alley to the hotel front and entered the foyer.

There was no-one in sight and the lights were all off. Cesca called out into the dim room and three men, obviously sleeping behind the counter rose and bid us welcome. They certainly went from sleeping to working quicker than I can manage, however they made the mistake of trying on a little room gouging with Cesca first thing in the morning. After twenty minutes she had not only got us the original rate back, but also double upgraded to an incredible suite overlooking the lake. It had a four-poster bed and was quite wonderful. We then went to the rooftop restaurant for breakfast.

The hotel floating in the center had originally been a palace for the local Rana of course, but now was a playground for the western rich. Those that don’t stay at the other great hotel locally: the Oberoi. That hotel was outside of town and hidden from view around the lake edge. It was even more exclusive. I wondered how much it cost to stay there.

We spent the next day exploring Udaipur and considering the purchase of silk bed covers as gifts for those back home. We also perused the local cafes and partook of the local foodstuffs, or at least the tourist versions of same. The best place we found was a German style bakery serving up all sorts of wonderful delicacies.

Then we decided to visit the great City Palace built in 1559 and overlooking the lake from atop a nearby hill. Walking up to the grand ‘Bara Pol’ (Great Gate) entrance was to experience the brilliant architecture of India.

We were learning that Rajasthan had not lost any of its classic beauty compared to the, obviously, war-torn southern cities. How could this be? The story goes that the invading Marathas tormented the Udaipur rulers for years until the British came to their rescue in exchange for becoming a British territory. A wise choice as the southern states that fought against the empire suffered greatly against the most formidable army of that time. Indeed it would only be the great peacemaker Gandhi (a hero of mine) who could break the British will, well that and WWII having bankrupted it. After independence, the “princes” here lost those rights in the change to democracy, but kept their palaces which are now run as trusts.

 Like all Maharanas palaces this one was a monument to pure familial power and a building to inspire a cultural influence. Gleaming white buildings with gigantic doors, designed to defend against elephant attack, protect the entrances to the palace proper. Clearly this was more of a castle than just palace. It had the winding corridors and courtyards, the guard rooms and barracks of a major civic administrative centre.

Interestingly the title of “Maharana” is that given to a military warrior ruler not a king (“raja”). Hence they are “princes” of their domains.

Inside the giant doors was the armoury and guard-room. This was a highlight for me and I stood amazed at the superlative inventiveness of the Indian’s methods of waging war. Swords and spears were only the beginning. Almost all the beautifully inlaid weapons also had a hidden pistol somewhere in the structure. I saw axes with pistols in the top, swords with pistols in the handles, even pens that could fire a bullet.

These were not even the most incredible weapons, for the Indian’s also used arms I had never seen before. Such as a very long sword built into a gauntlet so that the four-foot blade protruded from the fist like a giant punch dagger. It was stiff and with the gauntlet coming quite far down the arm meant that the warrior would not be able to use his wrist to “roll” or turn the blade and would have to swing his whole arm using his elbow as the main joint. It must take an amazing amount of training to use effectively not to mention a lot of space on the battlefield.

Once through the armoury we entered the maze of rooms, hidden gardens, jewelled chambers and throne rooms of the palace proper. These were all still intact and had not been looted. Stained glass and brightly coloured artworks adorned all the Walls. One motif I noticed regularly was the visage of a Rajasthani man, all round-faced and with the traditional moustache of the region.

I realised that the Ranas had built up quite a cult of personality here in their power base. This revolved around their ability to “protect” the local population from the assignations of invading hordes from the north. Much was made of the Ranas personal prowess in battle – not surprising if he had so many hidden pistols to fire – and how this leant itself to the divine right of warriors to rule.

 There is a lot of is sort of thing in all monarchies, but it is only when seeing it not directed at oneself that you can see it for what it really is: a method of keeping a family line in power. As the Patrician of Ankh Morpork says, “people mostly want tomorrow to be just like today”.

That is not to say I didn’t find it alluring and beautiful, quite to the contrary; I thought it magnificent and a stunning artistic marvel. I wondered how anything I would go on to see in Rajasthan could compete. Little did I know that this palace was the standard of this area of India, and each city-state had an equally or better edifice to the past.

One thing I do remember well was the very high quality audio tour that spoke at length about the legends and history of the building, something that would be difficult to discern without local assistance.

After a few hours we returned to our hotel and met the owner. She and Cesca got on very well and we were presently surprised when she offered Cesca a job renovating the hotel. We seriously considered it and I wonder now what would have become of us had we relented to the temptation.

That night we ate out in a roof top restaurant and spoke with the waiter who, as it turned out, used to work in the mysterious Oberoi.

“How much is a room for a night?” I asked.

“$2000 a night,” he said, “but it doesn’t really have rooms”.

“What do you mean?”

“The hotel is like nothing else. You get your own wing, your own cook, your own staff and your own pool. You basically get your own hotel”.

“Wow!” Cesca exclaimed.

The waiter smiled and filled our glasses.

We had a few days until the festival we had come to see, and I would like to say we spent it exploring the countryside and many temples, but the room was so nice and the heat so high that we mostly spent it exploring each other. Not to say I didn’t learn new things!

In the mornings Cesca would go and do some yoga at the local school, and then we would explore the cafe’s (of which there were many, usually filled with too-loud Americans yelling into their phones and sipping lattes). After that it would be some shopping and then back to the room.

It was great to relax and Udaipur was just the place.

Eventually the night arrived and we had the opportunity to see one of the strangest festivals in all of India. Down by the steps to the Gangaur Ghat a large crowd of very brightly dressed Indians all milled around as though waiting for something.

They were mostly middle-aged women and children. They didn’t have long to wait. Amidst much fanfare the first younger girl came into view. She was dressed in very fine and colourful garments and on her head was a large pointed puppet. There were two types, one male and one female.

They were made to look like they were dressed up for something as well. The girls’ numbers swelled to a dozen full casts for Punch and Judy. They all seemed happy, but ever so slightly embarrassed.

I learned that they were all unmarried women and that this ceremonial procession was to ask the Gods for aid in finding them a partner. Cesca and I decided that it was all very sweet really.

We spent a couple of hours paying with the hordes of local kids who had come for the colourful spectacle being played out by their sisters and aunts, but found the two Westerners an unexpected bonus.

We had quite a flock demanding money, photos and school-pens following us until the festival ended and we went for a drink.

As we sat on yet another rooftop bar, ruminating on the night’s brightly lit strangeness and the phenomenon of unmarried sisters; I noticed something on the hills in the distance:

They were on fire.

A large fire was burning over the brow of the hill. Judging by the distance to the glow it was a dangerous size and I briefly wondered about it coming down to threaten the city itself. Over the next hour i watched it out of the corner of my eye as it swept along the hill-side.

Eventually we turned in. The next day we booked a hire car to take us to Jodhpur and we left Udaipur behind. It had been a very relaxing and pleasant city area to visit with some incredible architecture and that amazing palace. I still remember it very fondly.

Our hire car drove us through the countryside towards the great city of Jodhpur and we watched the beauty pass us by in happy, if warm, contemplation.

About half way through our journey we stopped at the enormous Jain temple of Ranakpur, near Sadri town, in the Pali district of Rajasthan.

It is acclaimed world-wide for its intricate and architectural style and one of the five major pilgrimage sites for the Jain faith. 

The sign outside asked menstruating women to refrain from entering and so I went in alone. Inside, the temple’s complex chambers with carved pillars the interesting geometry threw me for a moment; it was incredible. I heard later that it was seriously considered as one of the new “wonders of the world”.

The Jain cult is not well known outside of India, but it is as ancient as Buddhism and not dissimilar. Certainly much ink has been spilt in claim and counter claim of who came first between them. Suffice to say, they are both of importance. Both are concerned with spiritual release through discovery of the nature of the “self” and the veneration of those who have achieved this release in the past. Given that Buddhism has splintered into such variant churches, the fact that Jainism remains almost unchanged after 2000 years is quite an achievement.

Then a smiling man in a robe approached and introduced himself as the High Priest and would I care to make a donation? I should have known what was coming next as I had been in umpteen Indian temples by this point: he was going to “spot” me.

In India, the spot of paint on the forehead means that one has attended temple that day. They come in all colours and guises, but Cesca and I had decided to avoid them. It seemed to me that it’s unfair to appropriate beliefs you don’t hold or to “fake” as such. For example I hate it when politicians claim affiliation to a cause they don’t actually support, such Tony Blair wearing a “Drop the Debt” wrist band at the G8; as if he really cared for that.

As I leant in to pass the note into the man’s proffered pot I suddenly felt the unmistakable strike of a fingertip just above my eyes. He had got me!

“Oh!” I said startled, “You got me!”

He just smiled the smile of the believer and moved on. His job done.

I took some photos and left to show Cesca, who informed me that the bright blue mark was very becoming while trying not to laugh out loud at my unimpressed expression!

We got back in the car and returned to the road.

“Are you not going to wipe that off?” Cesca asked.

“No,” I replied, “it was a very relaxing and impressive temple so I think that the priest earned a little blue spot from me today.”

We huggled up and as the car drove into a valley we watched as the countryside slew past and the sun started to dip over the horizon.

But then they are probably not trying to, instead they are after a unique chance of visiting the worlds greatest monument to romantic love ever constructed. For that is what this strange tomb is; one man’s attempt to express his love and loss. Seen in that sense, flying half way across the world just to see the sun rise here is perhaps not so crazy after all.

Cesca and I arrived a different way, a much more down to earth way; by train. Agra was one of the few places that we had phoned ahead and booked. This is because Agra has quite a different reputation amongst backpackers; a deadly reputation.

Surrounding the great tomb is, what some might call, a shanty town. In the past it probably was, just a place for the Mountebanks, snake charmers and con artists to live when they weren’t begging outside the tomb proper. Then came the era of international tourism and the arrival of backpackers. I can hardly imagine what courage it took to backpack India in those first days. I get some of the stories from fifteen years ago when my sister-in-law was in the north of India. Back then, the population was tiny compared to now and everyone much poorer. Staying in the area around the Taj, called the Ganj, was probably taking your life in your hands even just from the point of view of the water quality (drawn directly from the great river flowing behind the Taj and very polluted). You may consider this an exaggeration, but even in our more modern times there has been deaths here. The story I was told was that there was a con being played, which went like this:

Tourists would stay at a hostel and naturally enough ask at the desk for a food recommendation, the helpful staff would call up tuk tuk and direct them to a “quality” restaurant. At the end of the meal the tourists would start to feel ill and eventually collapse in pain. The tuk tuk would then take them to a doctors clinic who would check them in and claim that they had a well-known local infection that he could treat no problem. He would then give them medicine once they had called their insurance company. Over the next few days to weeks they would remain ill and eventually “respond” to the treatment. Thanking the doctor they would probably fly home none-the-wiser to what really happened to them. You see, the hotel, the tuk tuk driver, the restaurant and the “doctor” were all in on a nastily little scam. That the restaurant poisoned the tourists is obvious, but worse so did the doctor’s “treatments”. Why? Because western people are insured up the wassoo and all this money flowed directly into the doctors clinic where he would pay off the others. It worked pretty well for – I hear – a couple of years until two German tourists died from the treatment. After that the Indian government went though the Ganj area and forced out all the scammers. Or so we should hope.

Cesca and I were hearing this tale from a guy on our tiger safari whose face was covered with hundreds of painful looking bedbug bites – the result of a visit to a bad hostel in Agra. We were only slightly more concerned about the story than the painful looking bites, surely going to scar.

We later read up and found that the tale was true.

“What shall we do?” Cesca asked me, knowing that I was the more security conscious (read: paranoid) of the two of us.

I thought for a moment before the answer hit me, “we will stay with Muslims,” I announced. My hope was that the famous Muslim hospitality would prevent them from any such behaviour as it would be against one of the Pillars of Islam. So, we called ahead and booked into a hotel in the heart of the Ganj area owned and run by a Muslim family. It was very close to the Taj itself and the view out the back of the room was over the houses leading up to the great Tomb.

The view from our room / a local women takes in the street view.

We were just deciding to take a walk around the area when we met one of the most memorable people of all our travels. I stood outside in the dusty street out front of the hostel and perused my Lonely Planet. I was considering where we might find something to eat. Then suddenly, amongst the endless sounds of India; chatting in Hindu, Indian music, etc, came a vocal accent it was wonderful to hear; Scottish.

“Hey pal, may I borrow that from ye?”

I looked up to find a thin late thirties bald man standing over the frame of a road bike and indicating my Lonely Planet. He was dressed in cycling shorts and a sport top and his bike was ladened down with large specialist bags over each wheel. Clearly this was all his gear.

“Sure,” I said handing him the book, which he took without hesitation, “it’s nice to hear an accent from home.”

“Aye,” he said reading the book and not really listening. Cesca and I shared a smile. It really was nice to hear the Scottish brogue, it’s a reminder of my little island and my people who I often missed. It has occurred to me since that we spent a lot of time travelling in the company of Scottish and Irish people, I wonder if their voices had anything to do with it, or that the legendary gregariousness of these nations commutes to friendship all over the world? The man flicked through the book for a few more moments and then looked Cesca and I up and down, “Do you know where I may get a beer?” he asked.

“Not off the top of my head I’m afraid, we are new to the area, but there will be one in there I am sure,” I said.

He seemed to come to a conclusion, “Would you two like to come for a beer?”

“Why yes, we would”.

“Grand, I know a good place over there,” he gestured at a building 100 yards away.

“Basho,” I said holding out my hand to shake, “and this is my wife Cesca”.

He smiled a broad grin, “I’m Eric”.

And so we went to have a drink. We were fascinated to learn more about this strange fellow on his bike. The fact that it was early didn’t bother us at all; it was still very hot, ‘tis true, but more than that you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth when meeting people. Some of the greatest people are met in the most unlikely ways; sometimes thrown together by fate like Lenin and Bobbits in Laos, sometimes met through hardship like Gwenny in Kerala and sometimes unavoidable like Connor and Marie-Lou who we gratefully met over and over and over. Sometimes it’s just meeting someone who you just know you will enjoy the company of, like Eric.

We went to the rooftop bar/café and the owner greeted Eric like an old friend, we sat overlooking the Ganj and the Taj poking over the rooftops; all the pretence of needing a guide book was gone.

The Ganj viewed from the café.

Eric ordered us all beer from a little boy waiter,

“He has to go buy it,” he explained, “it’s illegal to serve beer, but he likes me so the lad goes and gets it. We must drink it under the table in cups, OK?”

“Sure,” said Cesca, “so tell us, what’s with the bike?”

He told us.

I’ve met quite a few courageous people in my life and Eric is right up there with the best of them. A postman in Scotland, Eric was struck down with ME; the strange and not understood exhaustion disease/syndrome that usually puts people into homes for the rest of their life.

“I recovered,” he said, “and I said to myself I wanted to do something different, so I became a Yoga instructor”.

“Of course, why not?” I said.

“Aye I did that for a while to earn enough money to leave on this journey.”

“Where did you get the bike?” I asked.

“No that’s what I mean, I left Scotland on the bike, I’m cycling across the world from Aberdeen to Adelaide in Australia.”

There was a silence as we took in the enormity of this challenge. Then my talent for saying stupid things at the wrong time came to my rescue,

“Adelaide is lovely,” I told him. You’ll love it there.”

He smiled, “I hope so”.

“You must be about half way through,” said Cesca.

“Aye, but I’m stopping here for a few days as I’m bloody exhausted from Pakistan.”

And he told us about his experiences cycling through Pakistan. They had not been very pleasant to say the least. The Pakistani government had given him a police escort through the country because they were worried that he might be murdered. This escort stopped traffic as he came to roundabouts and junctions and he felt very isolated from the people. They forced him to sleep in police stations at night and, as he tried to sleep, his “guards” ordered up prostitutes for themselves and eyed his gear.

“It was horrible,” he said, “eventually I decided to just power through it and so here I am trying to recover from the effort.”

“How long will you stay in this area?” Cesca asked.

“Oh, maybe just a few days,” he said.

Sometimes a husband and wife think as one. Perhaps it is a form of mental connection beyond cues, something psychic. Whatever it was we both knew right there and then that this guy wanted company, that he needed some help to right his mind and that this was exactly what we were going to give him.

We sat and ate and drank with Eric all that day. He talked a lot, like a man who had missed the sound of his own language. We listened and talked to and it seemed to me that we had a lot in common.

The next day we did the same. This time we met up with some other travellers (including a graffiti artist and his partner from my home city of London) and long, semi drunken conversations lilted off into the day and night on all sorts of subjects. Life, the Universe, travelling to name three of the topics. We all benefitted from the company and I guess we all needed it, but Eric most of all. Slowly I could tell he was coming right again.

In the distance the Taj still sat. Waiting. I watched it out of the window of our hotel, poking high above the buildings. It wasn’t going anywhere and I wanted to wait until we were ready.

So the next day, we agreed to meet up with Eric at dinner and went off to the Red Fort.

The fort is very large and impressive, if a little barren.

This being the part of India that fought against the British, the fort had long been looted, but still it was an incredible day with the sun high in the sky making the red bricks glow in the light. The fort had been the prison for the Khan who built the Taj for his beloved wife. Almost bankrupting the nation, his son usurped his rule and placed him here for the rest of his life. To add insult to injury the son built a special optical illusion from the prison cell that makes the distant Taj appear to grow closer as your eyes focus. I imagine the old king crying, to be so close to his love and yet unable to touch her, lost in memories.

You cant capture the optical illusion with a 2D camera, but it’s very eerie.

That night we dined with Eric and a nice American couple on the “tour” of India where you fly in and out in a few days. I don’t meet many people quite this rich in such circumstances and certainly not with the same outlook on life, and so it was interesting to spend some time in their company. However, their story of that day’s visit to the Taj was the last straw and Cesca and I determined to visit it the next day. As darkness fell the local people of Ganj had a festival and we went down into the crowd to see the procession. It was very colourful and bright, but I am not sure what it represented beyond the obvious gods.

The next morning we made for the Taj. There are a number of entrances, but only some are open early.

The early queue, with me right at the back…

I remember that tourists are charged a vastly inflated price in comparison to locals, but then; their disposable income is far less in relation. Once into the gateway, and through the very thorough search protocols, you are greeted with an outer courtyard of prodigious size which leads all the paths to the main entrance in to the famous park. Even though we were very early, the place was busy and I could tell that once the bus tours arrived it would get seriously packed in and not too much fun.

The main inner entrance.

Through the giant main entrance (where you have to leave your camcorder for some reason) you arrive in the garden proper. From here the building itself is breath-taking. Again using the optical effects seen in the Fort this is the best moment of the visit as you cannot fail but to be impressed.

In front of you is the spot that Lady Diana made famous and this is the start of the trouble because everyone wants the same shot.

It becomes an inelegant scrum very quickly. In this garden, supposed to be a private place, there is now unnumbered people climbing all over the top of each other and since these are the sorts of people up at this time in the morning they are the sort of people with “photographic agendas”.

I started to feel the magic of that first view drain away, so we approached the tomb. As you get closer you quickly realise that it is a lot smaller than it looks. The design is following some secret principle of making things look bigger, but only from particular angles. From others it shrinks.

Through the hundred meters of garden you arrive at steps and up up to the platform on which the tomb sits. As we drew closer we could see that the entire buildings façade is slight in need of repair with the fine inlaid stone being endlessly chipped off and stolen.

We walked around and spied the river running behind the structure. It is large and very dirty. We then entered inside the tomb, which was quite bare and amongst the throng of people there really wasn’t much to see. Soon we left the building and, avoiding the oncoming hordes, we went into the garden areas to the right. In these there were lots of plants and squirrels and we had some fun feeding the little blighters before deciding to leave the Taj.

Maybe the Taj can be seen in the way it was intended, maybe it is just me, but the large crowds meant that I got very little romance from the occasion and less from the ambience (which is one of busy frustration). If people visited the Taj with the quiet solemnity that one visits, say, Stone Henge then it would remain a magical experience. However, for me the Taj gave very little. What did surprise me was how nice the people of the Ganj area were and how good the food was! Surely this place has changed since the stories we had heard about.

That night we said our goodbyes to Eric. He was moving on to further adventures on his epic journey across the world. I later learned (from his blog) that he not only made it across the deserts of Australia to the wonderful city of Adelaide two months ahead of schedule, but decided to cycle back the other way! Returning to his native Scotland via New Zealand, America and Ireland. He is truly a lesson to us all, and one that was not lost on me.

Cesca and I held hands all the way to the station watching the Ganj area, and the wider roads of Agra, fly past our tuk tuk. Perhaps the Taj had some magical effect after all?

We boarded the train and took up our beds, still holding hands. Ahead was Rajasthan and the great lake city of Udaipur, with its pure quiet romance, huge forest fires and hordes of dancing virgins with giant puppets on their heads…truly.

Regards,

Basho.

It is that this point that the average Westerner or British’er should try to forget everything that they have ever been taught in school regarding Hinduism.

When I was at school, Hinduism was brought up in Religious Education classes. Unfortunately, these classes forced all religions into the structure of Christianity in order to compare them. So, where in Christianity you have God, you had Shiva and under that you had, in place of Jesus, Krishna, and so on and so forth through the angels (the Deva), the priests (the Brahmans), the Bible (the Vedas) and the Kingdom of Heaven (Rebirth). The one thing is that it is clear from such a muddle is that the people who wrote the RE syllabus had little-to-no idea of Hinduism either. Placed into this twisted context it all looks a little crazy and no wonder as the Hindu faith isn’t like Christianity in almost every way possible. It is a totally different beast. In the first instance it is vital to realise that “Hinduism” is an umbrella term for a whole host of beliefs all interlocked only by their founding geography – that is they all come from India. Then you must realise that when we discuss the Hindu Cosmology we are not talking about a Celestial Hierarchy in the same way that we do in Christianity at all. I.E. with God at the top and you near the bottom just above the animals.

No, in Hinduism you are God.

For the Christians reality is like clay. There is a very clear analogy of God being like a potter at his wheel, or perhaps a watchmaker at his table and we are his creation. In Hinduism the analogy that fits is that of a play, a performance, which you are a part of. You leave and re-join the stage, you may exchange masks or play many parts, but this reality is all “in character”. There is another “self”, a spiritual self, under all this baggage of flesh and bones that is the mask we all wear. This is the spark of the divine, which is exempt from the black and white duality of reality. What we call “reality” is only an illusion because in the true reality you are God – but you have forgotten that you are God. That divine spark is a part of God, part of Brahman.

A meditating man seated towards the morning sun.

But what of Shiva et all?  This is where it gets complex. Essentially, he is an aspect of the Godhead just like everyone else; just with a cosmic job to do. If you were to ask Lord Shiva, “How do you do all this creation and destruction?” he  would answer “I just do. How do you breath in and out?” These “Gods” are not like God in Christianity or Allah to the Muslims, they are like forms of a greater nature a connection with which we have lost.

Keep this in mind when you read about the Hindu’s. It explains another massive difference; the belief in self-improvement. The Hindu’s believe that you can improve your self, your awareness of the self – that is of reality – through training. Religious training that takes many forms. For some it is through Vedic ritual; passed down over countless generations; for others it is by denying the body; the mortification of the flesh; but in all cases it is about release. The release from the chains of your mind. This spirit pervades almost all of Indian inventions. Take their food, Thali, which is devised from the scriptures of Ayurvedic medicine and is all about maintaining the right balance in the body to promote mental clarity (which it sure does, I miss it every time I think of it). This release, this blowing out, is what the Buddhists call Nirvana and is to escape the cycle of birth and death to which we are all (apart from the Buddhas) trapped in. The escape of the self is the waking up and remembering who you really are and the enlightenment of the true self. This is why Buddhists and Hindu’s put their hands together and bow to each other and why their rituals are full of bowing, because they are bowing to the self in each other that is part of the divine.

A man prays  in the Ganges

This is the reason that Varanasi, the center of the Hindu universe, is so important. Because Lord Shiva said that anyone who bathed in the holy river Ganges that flows through the city and burned in its pyres would achieve the Moksha (the blowing out and escape) that all Hindus aspire to. Being there on that river is a very special honour not to be forgotten and something to be cherished.

I tried really hard to keep all this in mind as I regarded the Aghori seated on the steps with his human skull bowl. The Aghori are worshipers of Shiva and totally devoted to their ascetic doctrines. They maintain that all opposites are in fact an illusion and make it their business to – at all times – liberate themselves through the un-acceptance of the duality of life. What this means in real terms is that the Aghori cover themselves with cremation ash and perform the taboo breaking rituals of eating meat, residing in cremation grounds, enjoying tantric sex with menopausal women, sleeping on corpses and even eating the dead found floating in the river or not burned up in the Ghat pyres (which I am coming to).

I must admit that I found it a struggle to maintain the perspective needed to achieve this. It was, if you will forgive the pun, hard to digest.

The previous night, before tucking into bed, I had wandered down to the river. The old part of Varanasi is all based around the Ghats. These are the steps that lead down to the waters. Many are unique or special to just some groups. Some have washers cleaning clothes, others have cremation death ceremonies being performed, all revolve around the water.

Ours was full of boats, so I booked an exceedingly early boat ride from an excitable boatman and turned in.

Old parts of Varanasi contrasts marvellously with the new. New Varanasi has some of the best universities in the world, some of the most modern hospital facilities and lots of money to run it all. The old Varanasi on the other hand is for pilgrims and tourists and had a vibe almost beyond belief.

In the morning, far too early in the morning, we got up and made our way to the boat. The guide/boatman was waiting and we hopped in.

Our Boatman rows us out at the beginning of our day

I am seriously not a morning person, but even I soon was amazed by the view of the city from the water as the sun rose. The city wakes up slowly and as the sun rises and starts to illuminate the buildings, turning them into a golden glowing red and orange colour, the pilgrims and Ghat’folk come down to the river to wash and meditate.

We went passed people slamming washing on rocks, priests performing the morning prayers to the sun (the same priests that would feature in the evening ceremony described below), monkeys climbing the buildings and seated brightly coloured Hindus enjoying the morning sun.

The stunning Varanasi Ghats

It was quite magical and a vital ingredient in enjoying your visit here. Then we passed the “burning” Ghats and the cameras went away. The funeral pyres were already in progress. The bodies, lightly wrapped in muslin, had been laid on a precisely calculated amount of firewood and then set alight. Even though the practice of wives throwing themselves onto the pyre is now banned, I can understand that the fundamentalist Hindus (that “f” word being the key to almost all the world ills) still want their women to go through with it. The prospect looked horrifying to me. As we passed along further I saw people swimming in the river and drinking the water, which is surely an extremely bad idea as the Ganges is polluted almost beyond belief. Perhaps they are adjusted to it, I thought. I was careful not to get any in my mouth anyway. The entire experience was very peaceful and broken only by the ubiquitous Indian music coming from behind the shoreline.

I filmed everything I could and at the end of this post there is special edition of the film I made of the footage.

After about 3 hours we arrived back at the hotel’s Ghat and retired to a very good travellers shop/cafe/hostel to take it all in. We had lots of planning to do because we were arranging a Tiger Safari on our next stop. I sipped a coffee and Cesca and I slaved over our computers arranging everything. It was there that we learned that there had been a murder discovered along the Ghats that morning. A quick look through the camera footage and we realised that Cesca, quite by accident, had recorded the crime scene.  We look at each other and silently determined to remain cautious about Varanasi.

The poor dead man.  |  Feral dogs roam everywhere.

As night fell, we got back in the boat and were rowed towards the real show.

“Dashashwamedh Ghat is located close to “Vishwanath Temple”, and is
probably the most spectacular ghat. Two Hindu mythologies are
associated with it: According to one, Lord Brahma created it to
welcome Lord Shiva. According to another, Lord Brahma sacrificed ten
horses in a yajna here. A group of priests daily perform in the
evening at this ghat “Agni Pooja” (Worship to Fire) wherein a
dedication is made to Lord Shiva, River Ganga, Surya (Sun), Agni
(Fire), and the whole universe.”

The evening puja location at Dasaswamedh Ghat

Every evening the priests come down to the edge of the river to perform a special ceremony to worship fire.

This is incredible and, like all good ceremonies, goes on far too long entirely on purpose. Its colours and special ambience is on the film as well. This time we were amongst multiple boats that had come to see the event and I soon tired of the tourist horde and so had our boat drop us of on the bank to get a close look at the proceedings.

There was a large crowd involved in the ceremony who were all clapping away to the music as they watched the five priests play conch shells and burn offerings all while wielding increasingly and uncomfortably hot looking fire goblets. It was here that I saw one older women cutting up carrots and praying under her breath. I took some footage and a photo of her and it is one of my proudest shots.

I remember being mesmerised by the look on her face. Whatever she was doing it was a fundamental part of not only her belief, but of her self and her life. That was the first time I stopped and wondered at Hinduism, but it certainly wasn’t the last.

After the ceremony we walked out of the Ghat along with the crowd and caught a cyclo back to the hotel. The poor rider struggled to get us moving and I paid him a bonus for his efforts. I had a lot to think about regarding what we had seen that day. It was all to come to an unfortunate conclusion in the next post, when Cesca and I found ourselves in the maze of back alleys in the “old city” and at the mercy of the unscrupulous…

For now then, here is the Special Edition of my Varanasi film about that day:

Regards,

Basho

We arrived on the train from Bodh Gaya relaxed and ready for more adventure.

It was a dark night and, unlike the Buddhist Centre, the large city of Varanasi was busy even at this time of year, so we joined the hordes at the station exit trying to find transport. The Tuk Tuk drivers descended on us travellers like raptors and the experience soon became a walk amongst shouting voices all vying for our attention. Over the top of the throng I could make out a government taxi ticket booth. These large booths sell fixed price tickets to people wanting transport into the city proper and are the only way to avoid being totally fleeced by the touts. It was only when I approached the counter and saw two policemen armed with sub machineguns standing behind the ticket seller that I started to get a feeling that this might not be the safest place. Indeed in my time in Varanasi I was to see more armed policemen than in all the other cities put together and I don’t mean with pistols, I mean with large rifles, assault rifles and Stirling sub machineguns. We bought a fare to our hotel at the far end of the strip running along the Ganges. It was a good price, slightly higher than one would want, but fixed – and that is worth paying a premium for. We jumped in the first Tuk Tuk, which had two men in the front, one driving and another along for the ride, and handed him our ticket. He immediately pulled off onto the road and started pootling along.

“Where do you want to go?” He asked with a thick accent placing a heavy emphasis on the ‘o’ in ‘go’ so it sounded like ‘Gohhh’

To the “Anami Lodge please.”

He shook his head, “No sir, that not good hotel.”

“Just take us there please.”

“Yes sir, but please this not a good hotel, very bad. I can show you a better hotel. It’s on the way no problem. You need a guide to the city?”

“No, we’re fine thanks.”

“Sir, please let me tell you, I am a government sponsored guide, I can show you the whole city for a fixed price.”

“No thanks” I was starting to get a little tension creep into my voice and Cesca cut in.

“We just want to go to our hotel.” She insisted.

“Ok madam, sir. Sorry, I just wanted to show you the other hotel, very good rate with breakfast included, much better room. Please sir, look at this.”

He took a small book from the dashboard and passed it back. I took it from his and regarded it. I had seen them before. It was a small lined exercise book, the sort a schoolboy would have. In it was page after page of “recommendations” from happy tourists saying that this man was one of the very best guides in the whole of India and that we had really fallen on our feet by being in his Tuk Tuk. Surely, the book told me, we should take advantage of this great fortune and let this wise and friendly man be our guide to this big city. On almost every page was a photo pasted in. Sometimes just a Polaroid, sometimes smaller like a photo-booth shot. Each one had a happy smiling tourist, often girls, grinning and making peace signs or giving thumbs up. The names were all western and signed in different pens; I was greeted by “Lisa” and “Tiffany from Texas”.

All fake.

Over my time in multiple Tuk Tuks in the last month I had been handed many of these books. The names were all similar, the writing familiar and the photos just as jolly and happy. The clue is in the detail; not one of the photos had this man in the shot.

“But surely!” You might say, “he may have been the one taking the photos!”

Perhaps, but I think not. We had so bad experiences with drivers using these books to gouge and pray on us that I began to suspect that there is a company somewhere in India that makes these books, writes the names, copies the photos off the Internet and pastes them in. Why? Because of the Westerners fear of the unknown.

Psychology is an interesting science. Its central tenant is that human beings need filters. There is so much information, so much data, coming into our eyes and ears at any one time that the brain has trouble processing it all. Therefore it looks for patterns amongst that information that it can use to categorise the data into known types. So, a man can look at a forest and see the leopard in the tree. It is a way of making sure that he grabs the branch he leaps for, catches the fish he darts after and hits the target he shoots at. This skill has consequences for society as we actively look for these patterns and when we are worried, such as when we are in a new and very foreign place, we find comfort in them.

How can a Tuk Tuk driver be trusted? Surely by reputation above other indicators. We look for something, anything that gives us the ability to trust this man. Is it his English good? Is he well dressed? If we are female, do we find him rakishly handsome? These are all indicators, but should they fail then he pulls out the “big gun”; the Great Book of Recommendations that is full of such indicators, such known patterns, and they are an attempt to disarm us from listening to our senses. To invite our rational side to override our instinct.

It didn’t work on me.

“Thanks, but just take us where we want to go.”

He shared a look with the man hanging on the front of the Tuk Tuk and drove on in silence. Eventually we arrived at a busy looking road where he pulled into the pavement.

“Over there is the hotel I wanted to show you,” he said pointing over the road.

“And where is my hotel?” I asked.

“Down there.” He pointed to our left where there was a large and dark alley. “You will have to carry your bags down there”. The driver sighed, “Come I will show you.” He got out of the Tuk Tuk.

I eyed the darkness and turned to Cesca,

“Stay here, watch the bags, I will check it out.”

“Are you sure?” she asked looking worried; the alley was pitch-black.

“Yep. Just wait.”

The driver led me into the gloom. It was very dark in this long alley and my senses immediately went into overdrive. As we walked along I noticed shapes along the floor; people lying on the path and the unmistakable smell of human excrement. I realised that I may be about to get mugged. I have walked down dark alleys in many cities from Rio to Barcelona, but this one had a palpable air of danger. Like that part in a horror movie where the victim does something stupid and you find yourself screaming, “Don’t go down that alley! Are you nuts?” As the gloom enveloped me I reached into my trouser pocket and silently took out my folding knife and held it against my leg. The man led me down three or four winding and dark alleys and after another narrow alley full of cows I began to wonder if he knew where to go. Eventually I gave up trying to remember the route and then we came to what looked like the back end of a large building.

“There,” he said. “There is the hotel, up those stairs.”

I walked up the staircase, more a fire escape, and around a bend. At the top was a glass door and I knocked, very conscious of the silence. The door opened and a smartly dressed young man stood in the doorway.

“May I help you?” He said.

“I have a reservation.” I said.

“Mr Bell?”

I relaxed. “Yes?”

“Come in sir! We have been awaiting your arrival!” He said happily with an Indian head wiggle.

I entered and found myself in a very smartly converted large townhouse. It was home to an entire family running the hotel part as a business venture where they live on-site. I counted five members of the same family, three girls and two men, who all welcomed me in with genuine smiles. I had a vision of what I must look like to them; a tall strange white man looking like Jack Bauer having a rough day. I tried to lower the shields and relax.

“May I see the room?” I asked as politely as I could.

“Of course!” The man led me up a few flights of stairs and showed me our room. It was one of the best room I saw in the entirely of India; large and welcoming. It looked over the Ganges and had a small balcony set outside high windows.

“Brilliant” I said. “But, I must ask, why is it so hard to get here?”

“What do you mean?”

I explained how the Tuk Tuk driver had led me through all those dark alleys to this place. The man was shocked and shook his head.

“Why didn’t you just park outside?” He asked, pulling back the curtain and showing me the road right outside the front of the hotel. Clearly I had been led in the back way.

“Thank you, we will.”

He took me back down and I left to return to Cesca. At the bottom of the stairs was the driver. He looked up at me and I gave him 100% of “The Look”.

The Look is something you need to practice to be able to pull off. It doesn’t matter who you are, what size you are, or your age, The Look is almost magical. It is one of practiced pure malevolence.

It is The Man With No Name pissed off,

“You gonna draw those pistols or whistle Dixy?”

Kaiser Sosa being in a line up,

“Hand me the keys you f*cking cock sucker”

Butch being called “paunchy”,

“What did you just say?”

My wife knows it as “my killing look”

I gave him the look and he had the good graces to shudder slightly and bow his head in shame. In silence we walked back through the alleys to my, now worried, Cesca. She visibly sighed in relief when I came out of the shadows.

“You were gone ages! What is it like?” she asked.

“It’s excellent, and this bastard has been mucking us around. The road goes right there, right outside.”

“This other guy has been trying to talk me into the other hotel,” she said, “amongst other things…”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Jade Goody. He thinks she’s great.”

“An amazing women!” Exclaimed the man hanging on the side of the Tuk Tuk. This was the first time that I had heard of the late Jade Goody outside of the UK and I was a bit shocked. It wasn’t until much later that I learned about her “visit” to India in the wake of the “bullying” allegations on Big Brother. Whatever she did here, it worked. I now suspect that a lot of Indians never liked Shilpa Shetty anyway. I shook my head to clear out of the madness and maintain my righteous anger. I turned to the driver.

“Take us to the front of the hotel right now.”

“Cost extra” He answered sourly.

Cesca made to complain but I stopped her with a raised hand.

“Just do it!”

He started up the Tuk Tuk and we pulled back onto the road. About 25 meters ahead the road curved to the left and we wheeled around it towards the river. Another 25 meters and we pulled left again and there was the hotel on my left. It was right around the corner!

“You’re kidding!” Said Cesca flabbergasted.

“Now,” the driver said, “pay extra, parking here cost me money.”

“What?”

“To come down here I have to pay those guys over there.” He pointed at a group of men lounging at one end of the street.

I turned to Cesca, “Baby, lets pay these guys and forget about them.”

“But, we already paid! She protested.”

“Come on” I insisted. We got out of the Tuk Tuk and I extracted a small note and gave it to the driver. “Now go away” I told him.

He went without comment and we entered the hotel.

And that was my first hour in Varanasi. Not the most auspicious of beginnings and I wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake incoming here.

Our experience is not uncommon all over India and indeed all over Asia, but here there was something else, some sense of menace in the atmosphere, in the air of the driver. Something was pulling at my senses and demanding that I pay attention. It was saying to me to be on my guard, not rely on the pattern recognition response that could lead so easily astray and be manipulated.

I decided to listen, and in a strange way that is probably why Varanasi was to touch me so deeply. Because I was listening to my senses, paying attention to all that was around me; not simply matching it to a type and filing it away.

In Varanasi I was awake. I needed to be: I was to witness my first dead body the next morning.

Regards,

Basho

On one hand there are high-end coffee cafes that have prices that could only make sense to the gainfully employed. High-end coffee needs to be carefully metered out as it is too comforting and familiar a western experience to eat in such a cafe. Not only does it take you away from your local-encounters in this mighty country, but also takes a large amount of Indian coin from your purse and that directly affects how much you have to spend on the fun things.

On the other hand there are the types of restaurants that Indians eat in themselves. Entering one of these is the classic story of India – the locals stare at you, the menu is in Hindu script, you have no idea what the food is and your loud shouting for Poppadum’s doesn’t go over well. For these places, the average (read lowest common denominator) English person might make the classic mistake that acting like one would act in an Indian restaurant in one’s own country (where Indian immigrants are very supplicating to asshole western dinners) is perhaps not the best idea when there are a million people in the surrounding two miles all of the same culture. Basically, I wonder if the English causal racism played out abroad is not the cause of many of the poisonings you hear about (just wait until this blog gets to Agra for a story of tourist poisoning that will make your hair stand on end). However, treated with respect, and a little bit of savvy regarding the menu, these “true” Indian restaurants serve generally fine if basic fair.

No, the really bad places to eat – the places where one should just walk on – are the for-tourists cafes. This isn’t because they are all bad – some are great and should be cherished like diamonds in the rough – it’s because when they are bad… they try to kill you.

We walked around Bodh Gaya looking for somewhere to eat. Near our hotel was two tourist cafes; plastic chairs, tables and western menus. We sat at the first and was descended on by a platoon of flies. I’m not talking about the usual amount of flies in India. No, this was a shit ton of the buggers. This is normally your first clue to leave since flies are attracted to unclean “cafe-restaurants” with bad sanitation. Cesca and I had been travelling for long enough to take one look at each other, get up and move to the next door cafe. We sat down and perused the menu. It was identical to the first place and was all western fair: Omelettes, toasties, peanut butter and burgers. I took a look at the food being eaten by the other tables and then at the diners. They were all western. This is the second clue. We got up and left. I don’t mind dicing with death in ignorance, but I draw the line at ordering it in a restaurant simply because I am uncomfortable in eating real Indian food. We went back to the hotel and visited the empty restaurant in the basement. After talking to the waiter and surreptitiously checking out the kitchen through the doors, we ordered blindly some local fair and crossed our fingers. It arrived and was of course excellent. We ate there from that moment on. Even when we left the hotel for a new one we came back for the food. Better that than to exchange health for perceived comfort. I suggest to you that you do the same when you are India. After all, Thali is wonderfully tasty.

The delights of Bodh Gaya are more than can just be found at the Mahabodhi Temple.

The surrounding lands contain a large collection of Buddhist temples of all denominations. As this is considered the heart of religious Buddhism many sects want their presence felt in the area. A short walk leads you passed many beautiful temple grounds stacked full of priests. From the the calm and serene temples of the Japanese (I think Pure Land rather than Zen, but I am still not sure)

to the strange and amazing temples of the Tibetans arrayed with many colourful flags, which have since quite taken my fancy as an image; blowing in the wind with their prayers wafted to the skies.

I have a photo of those flags above my bed today.

The highlight of the temple complexes is an enormous Buddha statue that towers high above all the roofs and demands attention. I have walked around such giant symbols before, in Vietnam for example, but never a monster of this size and in this condition. It was beautiful. The sun was dipping in the sky and so we waited and took photos of the statue with the sun at its back. Very nice.

In the high season I expect that you can’t move for pilgrims in this town. At those times I suggest you pre book your visits or you may find it a very crowded and uncomfortable experience. That’s just a guess, but considering that seemingly half the world’s Buddhist schools and “Retreats” are in the area (which were all closed for the “winter” during our visit) and that the Dalai Lama often stays nearby, it is probably on the money.

The background to this place is all part of the Buddhist myth. I shall reiterate that to you now:

Siddhartha, the Indian mystic prince had renounced his birth rights and left to walk the Earth. He did this after seeing death, illness and old age for the first time and deciding it was his mission to find an answer to their suffering. During his travels he learned from Indian mountain mystics who used self-mortification (not eating) to enable them to seek oneness with the Universe and find the self within – the true part of you indivisible from your essence. Siddhartha learned the ways of these men, but eventually left them all and walked on. In a forest he meditated under a tree for months. During this time he hardly ate and became thinner and weaker than could be stomached by less determined men. This fast became notorious and various followers started fasting under trees nearby. Eventually Siddhartha realised that this wasn’t working and he painfully got to his feet and walked on. A few nights later he sat under another tree and mediated. In that night, various demons tried to tempt him and delay his Bodhi – his awakening, but in one night he finally managed it, he broke through the barriers that separate the reality from the conscious and through his mastering of meditation managed to see all realities. This awoke his mind and he became a Buddha – a perfect master with a mind aware in all multiverses and completely without any mental baggage. As he woke from his trance he touched the ground and called upon the Earth itself to witness the new Buddha’s birth.

I remember telling my mum that story and the face she pulled at me. When I was young she had encouraged my mind to wakefulness by discussing philosophy nightly with me. Her philosophy is profoundly sceptical, realist, revisionist and slightly anti-capitalist new age stuff. To spout religious myth to her, to tell her – she thought – that I was a “believer” and a sceptic no more was somewhat horrifying. In actual fact I didn’t become a “blind believer” in Buddhism during my trip and I see the above tale for what it is; a myth. That the man existed and was a Buddha I don’t doubt, but what that means in real and not mythical terms I am not sure. It is true that Buddhism considers him only a man, but he is worshipped like a god by some and his story repeated as if fact. This is not what he taught, he admonished that nothing should be taken on faith (see the Kalama Sutta), but rather one’s own experience was key. This is an issue present in many religious experiences, where the myth has taken over the true story underneath and the message is twisted around it and cannot be easily untwisted. Christianity for example. I told my mum that I saw the Buddha as an ideal to live towards, a state obtainable by anyone and that he was very much just a man; a remarkable man – probably the most remarkable – but not a “god” and not here to setup a celestial hierarchy.

Nevertheless, the myth continues:

After awakening he went for another walk. He came across a deer park and in that park he found the group of men that had been mortificating with him all those months before. They took one look at him and knew, simply knew, that here was the Buddha. They sat and he spoke to them, the first words of the new religious experience that would become Buddhism. He spoke of Four Noble Truths about life, of the impermanence of existence (Anicca), of the interconnectedness of the things in the Universe and of how true happiness (Nibb’na) comes from a Middle Path of eight vows know as the Dharma.

This deer park is in Sarnath.

We arrived by taxi and pulled up by a large white and immaculate temple. This was the Thai temple near the main park and we took a look. It was closed up, but the man guarding it let us in for a few moments. It was exceedingly well kept and had a large and interesting statue of the Buddha at one end. Cesca took a good few photos of that and then we moved on.

A few hundred meters down the road there is the main event; the deer park. Inside there are the remains of temples built by Asoka that were destroyed by the invading Muslims from the north and they remain like that today. All the treasures have been moved to the nearby museum (which I will come to) and the structures reminded me of discarded giant bricks of red stone. At one end of the park a couple of very large stupas sit, squat against the trees and surrounded by Buddhists of all types.

It is a lovely place to come and visit.

We walked around and came across the stone tablet depicting the laws of Asoka, which has been preserved in a cage in the middle of the park. In the distance the green goes on into trees and many deer roam with a wary eye on the tourists.

It was here that we saw some interesting priest chats. That is where a local priest shares his knowledge of the Dharma with the public. The priest had a large amount of listeners and it was quite soothing to watch (even though we didn’t understand the language).

After a couple of hours of chatting with the priests and watching the chats we strolled to the nearby Sarnath Archaeological Museum, which is one of the very best and most impressive museums I have ever visited. Chock full of vital Indian history and fascinating finds from the ancient Indian nations of the past. Inside was one of the highlights of our trip to India: The Lion Capital pillar of Asoka. This large carving of lion heads is the National Emblem of India and the national symbol on the flag. Seeing it in the flesh was a great sight.

Also interesting was the strong features on some of the ancient carvings.

I remember looking at them and wondering what it was that was pulling my attention. Then I realised that these were almost western looking and definitely influenced by the Greek style of caving. Then it struck me; these were carvings made by the Indians that were under the great Alexander! Obviously his Greek tribes influence on the defeated Indians had bled over into the artworks. It was a real meeting of the waters moment and I suddenly felt lucky to be here and seeing this.

After a day we returned to Bodh Gaya and walked around the community taking in the locals. As per usual children flocked to Cesca and before long we were being given the tour which, of course, eventually resulted in demands for school pens. These people were really poor and for once we relented and after being taken to the stationers we made our little contribution to the “learning” of these people.

In the morning we travelled to the train station for our journey onwards. We didn’t really want to leave as the entire experience had definitely moved us both. Soon we jumped on the train and made our way on, but I will never forget those few days in the heart of Buddhism and I definitely feel that I left a little bit of my heart behind.

“Dunno. King David, I guess, would be one.”

“Awesome answer,” I said impressed that he hadn’t picked a modern actor or, worse, a footballer.

“How about you?”

“My grandfather, Ghandi and the Buddha,” I said quickly.

“You’ve obviously thought about this!”

“Lots. My grandfather is easy; fighter-bomber pilot in the Second World War, boxing champion, and gentile but courageous Welshman. He died before I became old enough to truly know him, but I carry one of his service uniform buttons with me everywhere.”

“How about Ghandi? A bit pacifist for you?”

“Ghandi was anything but a pacifist. He was very strong and he used his strength, not of his body, but of his mind; his soul. His belief was in the Indian people and of leading by example. Not using violence was far more effective than using it.”

“And the Buddha?”

“I became a real fan of him when I visited Bodh Gaya and the ‘Tree of Enlightenment’…” I began.

India’s relationship with Buddhism is strange and unique. Although its home country, and a place deeply involved with religion in almost every aspect of life, India is not particularly Buddhist. Of course in a country of over a Billion people you are going to find large enclaves of almost any religious group imaginable. I had come across a few outlandish ones already, especially the Jains, who take the vows of poverty to the extreme and wander the world naked or the (literally) cannibalistic Aghori who eat the remains of bodies they fish out of the river and only drink from human skulls. For all that fervour Buddhism flounders unexpectedly. My first impression of Bodh Gaya was that the Indians were almost wondering what all the fuss is about. For they the reign of Buddhism is long since passed and all these for­eigners coming over to see a tree is a little like people visiting Eng­land only to see the round table of King Arthur in Canterbury.

We got off the train quite excited. I had long been a fan of Buddhism and Cesca was interested in it as well. We had spent many nights in New Zealand discussing it and this was a chance to experience one of Buddhism’s “special places” for the first time. Like a newly converted Christian on his first visit to the Vatican. The train stops a good hour by road from the temple complexes and it is necessary to hire transport to the site. I expect that in the summer people walk it over a few days as a sort of pilgrimage, but we weren’t about to do that and so off we went by tuk tuk. The sun was just rising over the far horizon as we pootled down the very dusty road that wound its way through crop fields and small collections of muddy houses.

The journey felt great. This was us back in the countryside of India after the horrifying municipal nightmare that was Kolkata.

As we drew closer Buddhist iconography became more evident. We started to see priests and monks along the road. This was off season by Bodh Gaya standards, but there were still a significant number of people. What it is like in the summer, when all the Buddhist retreats are open, is anyone’s guess. Bonkers I expect. We then passed a collection of closed cafes and restaurants that formed a sort of shanty town that lined the road for the last few miles in.

This obviously grew and shrunk along with the seasons and I for one was glad that our time here was going to be as un-commercial as this place ever gets. We pulled into town and the tuk tuk stopped at a roundabout that acts as a sort of general drop off point and town centre. To our right was a large and ancient looking temple surrounded with parkland for a hundred yards on each side and a high wall. In front and to our left was a collection of hotels and guest houses. Behind us the road bent right, but a path continued on into an enormous collection of various temple complexes. In the distance I could make out the head of a Giant Buddha poking over the many roofs.

We went looking for a hotel.

Trying to find one in off season was hard. The prices here were double of those of the rest of the country and our months spent paying very little for accommodation meant that we were reticent to pay a high surcharge. Eventually we bargained a deal off a hotel manager that took all the haggling skills Cesca and I had learned in our 8 months away. We got into our room and the last few days exertions caught up with us; we went to bed. The view from our room was of the main temple over the road and after we slept we looked out at it. We enjoyed ourselves so much in bed that we stayed in it for the next two days.

Eventually we decided to actually go take a look at this ‘Tree of Enlightenment’.

The very first thing in the morning, we woke and made our way to the front of the temple. Lining the pedestrian precinct that leads up to the gates there are a thousand street vendors selling all sort of Buddhist knick knacks.

Bracelets and bead necklaces were the most common item. All made from some locally growing nut. Others sold CDs of monks chanting or priests giving out sermons. Many were offering “guided tours” of the site and an explanation of all there was to see. We declined them all. Eventually a break in the wall formed into a gate that led into the temple complex proper, here we paid the rather high fee and went in. At first there is a sort of stone garden that leads up to a number of small grotto’s. In each of these sits a figure in the classic Buddhist pose of crossed legs, hand in one of the mudala positions and a vacant expression of its face. Each of these was guarded by a Brahman.

It was then that something occurred to me.

Only the other day I met a new guy at my workplace and he was clearly of Indian descent. On his wrists were string bracelets reminiscent of the one’s I had been given by Buddhist priest in Thailand.

“Are you a Buddhist?” I asked.

“No, I’m Hindu,” he said smiling.

“Oh,” I replied, “I saw the bracelets…”

It was then that one of my other work colleagues cut in with,

“He’s an Indian, Basho. He’s from India!”

“But the Buddha was Indian!” I pointed out.

I was not surprised that she hadn’t realised that fact, for the Indians have left Buddhism in the past. After the religion was formed, and the Buddha travelled, the world started to turn to his way of thinking. Buddhism spread far across India and eventually became the state religion under a great king known as Ashoka. It was he that built many of the Buddhist temples in India and formed the society that today calls itself Indian. In honour of this the symbol of India, which is on all its bank notes, is Ashoka’s national emblem of four lions back to back and looking at the cardinal points. Buddhism then moved on from India to conquer the East, but in its home country another faith was rising, an all encompassing faith that spoke to something deep within the Indian psyche. No so much like a religion in the west, something different: Hinduism. Against that power rising simple Buddhism – and it was only the simple form known as the lesser vehicle that existed then – was enveloped and sublimated. Hinduism simply appropriated Buddhism in the same way that Buddhism did back to Hinduism in Thailand and Cambodia. So the Buddha became a mere avatar of the God Vishnu, sent to Earth to have a word with us regarding Vegetarianism. I am underselling this “honour” of being an avatar, but it was clearly a way of pocketing Buddhism and taking it over. Something seen all over the world and in all religions. For example the presence of Jesus and angel Gabriel in Islamic teaching was such an attempt to sublimate, which wasn’t that successful, or the Christians nicking Easter off the Druids, Christmas off the Jews and the flood story from the Mesopotamians, which was. To the Indians the Buddha is only seen in terms of the Hindu understanding of his message. So it is here in Bodh Gaya, the closest that Buddhism can get to a holy site, the entire complex is actually run by Hindus.

Buddhism’s Indian decline aside the temple is a fantastic monument.

It is of mixed design and little remains from the original. Its shape is roughly a square with the ‘Tree of Enlightenment’ itself at the back almost against the wall. Like all great Buddhist sites, all sorts of “minor” legends exist and there are statues all over the area that commemorate the Buddha standing or walking by. Directly down the path is a small chamber with a large Buddha statue inside. This room was full of meditating and worshipping Buddhists.

One of the most interesting things about visiting this temple, if you are not Buddhist yourself, is the working out who everyone is. There are representatives of almost every type of Buddhist sect visiting here at any one time. I counted Thai’s, Burmese, Japanese, lots and lots of Sri lankans, Chinese and of course the rare Westerner. I found the chamber to be a little busy and so we walked around the temple to get to the main event. The walls of the temple are all elegantly carved and the entire structure glows faintly in the morning sun.

It is one of the most beautiful temples I have visited and this is mostly thanks to the British who, like in Cambodia, recognised the importance of the temple as a monument and restored it to its current state in the Victorian period. In the last few years the temple has also become a UNESCO World Heritage site, which can only be a good thing as the local management committee have been accused of supporting the Hindu Ultra-nationalists and even of selling off limbs of the great tree.

As we round the final corner we came across a stone laid courtyard with a large tree against the temple wall, which has grown over the stone barrier protecting it and reaches out over ones head, supported by some posts to assist its fight against gravity. Cesca and I exchanged looks. The walk around the wall had built a sense of excitement about seeing this and we were both feeling that this was a very special occasion, perhaps even an acid test of the mental journey we were feeling that we were on.

Around the courtyard sat many visiting priests and it was amongst these that I sat, pulled up my legs and meditated in Zazen.

In many ways the Buddhist realisation is an anti climax compared to what you expect. This is not surprising in retrospect as if it was easy then everyone would do it. For me sitting by ‘Tree of Enlightenment’, peaceful and quiet, surrounded by the monks and priests, I took a small footstep down that road. Cesca came up to me after about an hour.

“What do you think?” she asked.

I opened my eyes. Buddhism is not a spiritual experience like Christianity. That isn’t to say it isn’t a strong and earth moving experience, but it is not about something “other” something “outside” you. It is actually the exact opposite of that. I have explained it before by analogy of whitespace. Whitespace is the white part of the page in a painting, drawing or writing. It is the part of the page with nothing on it. To some that means it is not important; the drawing is what matters, what is important. However, speak to a graphic designer on this point and they will smile and shake their head. The space around something is vital they will explain. It is just as much an object as the drawing. It holds it, balances it, and contains it. Done incorrectly and it squashes it, oppresses it, or leaves it looking lost in a field of white. It is negative space. Buddhism’s first step is like that. Buddhism is not magic, it is reality, and it is suddenly becoming aware of the whitespace holding the world. Holding you. People often say that they have had a feeling of the infinity of the Universe, of the potential of mankind or perhaps of the connectedness of us in the great race that is humanity, that is life. It makes you suddenly realise that no god is your father, sheparding your soul and intervening in your pain and suffering. God helps those that help themselves is another way of simply saying “wake up” and stop expecting miracles for the miracle is actually in you. Once that step has been taken, and I took it willingly but was unable to prevent it – like sliding into a warm bath, you see the world a little differently. Your perspective has changed and you see the whitespace. You can’t go back to the old way.

Here is an analogy. There is a certain group of mountains and craters on the moon that from England looks like a face. All my childhood I didn’t realise this. I mean, I looked at it, but never applied my mind to it. So, I looked right at it and didn’t “see” it. Once someone has pointed it out to you, once you have “seen” it, you can then see it whenever you want and often when you don’t. The mind has made the connection; the memory has been formed by the creation of neural connections in the brain. Almost nothing can make those go away as the more you think of them, the stronger the connection gets.

“Well?” Cesca asked. She looked unsure of herself, like she was hoping that whatever I said would accord with what she thought. I considered what to say, how to let her in on what I was thinking, but in the end I didn’t want to say anything that wasn’t direct experience, wasn’t in accord with what I had thought and outlined above.

“It’s just a tree,” I said, “and I wonder what the Buddha would make of it all, I don’t think he would be that impressed with the worshiping.”

Cesca sighed, “I think the same. He wouldn’t need this, or want it.”

“I still feel this is a very special place to sit.”

“Yes,” she smiled, “budge up!”

I shuffled across and Cesca sat next to me, she took my right arm in a hug and leant against me. We sat like that for a while, enjoying the morning, the ‘Tree of Enlightenment’ and the people. It’s an amazing site and probably the best place in the world to just sit and pause. At least, at this time of year (when it is quiet) and at this time of day (when it is empty of tours and only the monks and Buddhists like us are here). I was not sure of what understanding of Buddhism I was destined to reach, but it would not be the sort that simply swallows the dogma and deifies the great man. His last words came to my mind, as they often do these days, and I think that all the truth of the “religion” of Buddhism is found in these words,

“Don’t believe because you are told to, don’t believe because I say so, find out for yourself, and look after your own salvation with diligence.”

After another while Cesca said, “Anyway, I got chatted up by a monk just then.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he was from Thailand and he was talking to me and I suddenly realised that he was flirting with me.”

“A monk was flirting with you?” I said

“Yep, then he asked me who I was with and I said my husband and then he just went.”

“Did you point me out?”

“No, he just basically ran off at the mention of a husband.”

“Probably he was not a real monk. He only comes here to pick up Buddhist chicks.”

Cesca laughed and we got up, walked around the temple the other way and then left.

Our time in Bodh Gaya continues in part two…

Regards,

Basho