One Year of Sundays

Rishikesh, India. 7th April 2009

ben_ju — Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:15:00 GMT

Namaste, this is our last journal entry for our time in India! We have now been in India for eight months and have 5 more weeks left until we head for Turkey, Egypt & Israel. We can’t believe how fast the time is flying especially since all we’re doing is eating, breathing and sleeping yoga (loving every minute of it too). We’re healthy and strong and very much enjoy living a non-western lifestyle.

We’ve been in Rishikesh now for nine weeks and we love it as much as we did when we were here five years ago. It’s beautiful, green, full of animals, mountain air, crispy cold Ganga River, crazy all sorts of people and colourful ashrams. It’s a spiritual, vegetarian and a non-alcoholic town but rest assure some restaurants have alcohol and serve it to you in a teapot *wink *wink.

Evening walks are lovely as our path is illuminated by cool little glow bugs flying around. When we do grocery shopping it’s always vital to carry a rock or two to defend yourself against those hungry monkeys that chase you.

This time round we didn’t rent a house but we found a comfortable large room with a bathroom and balcony to live in. Watching monkeys go through our garbage bins is rather entertaining except when they open your door and come inside and freak you out. I (Ben) was bitten by one on a previous trip so squealed like a girl when it came in until Silvana came to the rescue.

On March the 11th we celebrated Holi, well we stayed indoors and watched everyone else celebrate. Basically groups of children and young men run around the streets throwing coloured powder and water balloons at each other. It’s common for young men to get drunk however and target westerners, especially women who get a free groping for their trouble as we watched many times.

We just finished a 10 day Yoga intensive which means we had classes twice a day instead of one and a few Anatomy lectures. It was very intense but so many great points and ideas we revealed to us. Practicing Yoga for these few months like this has been a wonderful experience. Practicing everyday allows you to really get to know your body and to begin to examine the poses deeper. I think if we keep it up for the rest of our lives we may just gain some insight into what Yoga actually is, or maybe we will have to come back for another go.

After the intensive we needed a few days off so we went to Delhi to change our plane ticket. We are now going to Israel for 10 days to hang out with some people we’ve been doing Yoga with and of course our new mate Ido that we’ve been doing yoga with for the past six months since Goa. While in Delhi we also squeezed in a trip the Taj Mahal. It really is such a beautiful building although the town it’s in (Agra) is definitely near the top of the list of the grossest towns in India.

Unfortunately I’ve (Ben) injured my right bicep tendon and has been told no Yoga for 2 – 4 weeks where the arm is involved..... That means pretty much everything. We don’t know what we are going to do as it’s not possible for me to carry my backpack around either so we will probably stay here and I will just do my own private practice while Silvana continues with daily classes. The injury is a bit of a mystery, I woke up on our return from Delhi and my arm was in pain and didn’t work. I didn’t fall, twist or do anything to it. That’s what you get for taking 4 days off yoga to go to Delhi and the Taj.

We have some plans to visit Daramasala and DheraDun in the next few weeks so that should be fun. We leave India via Mumbai (Bombay), we have a friend who lives there that will be taking us around.......never been and heard is a very unique place!

Ok...... this may be our last entry for India so bye bye for now and take care.

Lots of love Silvana and Ben xox

India to Nepal

ben_ju — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:17:00 GMT

16th January

Hello!

We now find ourselves in lovely warm Pokhara, Nepal surrounded by the snowy caped Annapurna mountain range set around a beautiful lake. It’s quiet, laid back and picture perfect, but first we must digress with an extended whinge.

On leaving Goa we headed to Delhi where we spent an uneventful Christmas day and jumped on a train to Varanasi which is a very holy, very old, and very very Indian city. We both promptly came down with the flu and a lovely stomach bacteria which produced projectiles from Silvana’s mouth and from my... you get the idea. We were basically room bound for 4 days or so which wouldn’t have been that bad except the smoke from the cremation Ghat was wafting straight up and in our window. We took some nasty antibiotics and recovered our strength to begin our trip to Nepal a few days later than planned. This was the beginning of a fateful trip. The train was 7 hours late so we arrived at a travel junction (shitty gross town that no one stays at) at 2am found a gross shitty cold room in which we slept a crappy 4hrs, then jumped on a bus to the Nepal boarder at 7am in the morning, passed immigration where we then jumped on a bus for Kathmandu at 11:30am thinking we were finally kicking ass in the good luck department. Unfortunately all the roads in Nepal are only two lanes and when there are accidents (a daily occurrence) there are delays. So our 7 hour trip turned into a 15 hour nightmare when the bus decided to take a 4WD track detour into Kathmandu to avoid an accident. About ½ hour into it a car somewhere in front, rolled, went off a cliff or got bogged (depending on who you talk too). End of the story is we spent 4-5 hours in the freezing wilderness waiting for the traffic to move. We arrived in Kathmandu at 2am which is unfortunate as everything shuts down at 10pm and by shut down we mean big gates padlocked so another ½ hour banging and calling out to get someone to let us in our hotel. To top it off I managed to lose my iPod. End whinge and by the way, we are flying back to India!

It was a real shame we were sick in Varanasi because there is no other place like it. It is centred on the Ganges and there is so much happening. You can just sit on the Ghats (stairs that lead to the river and stretch for a few Km’s) and watch for hours. Hindus believe bathing here washes away bad Karma and if you are cremated here you are released from the cycle of reincarnation. Unfortunately it is so polluted in this stretch that the water is anaerobic and it also has a faecal content 1000 times the recommended level but try to tell that to the thousands of people we saw bathing, brushing their teeth and washing their food in it (which an old man then kindly offered to us, see photos).

If only we could post video here we could show you one of the highlights of our trip so far. A Sadu (holy men that have renounced possessions and live a spiritual life off the charity of others) was among a large crowd that were yelling and shouting. We went over to look and saw he had a rope tied from his penis that went between his legs and was tied to the front of a car that he was pulling down the road toward us! There were TV cameras there and they interviewed him, people we going wild, it was amazing. Oh and there was a family in the car as well!!!

We spent a week in Kathmandu as that’s how long it takes to get an Indian visa. The Indians make it as painful as possible ensuring you need to be at the embassy by 6:30am if you want to be served as they close at noon and if you haven’t been served, come tomorrow. The beauty of it is you need to do this twice. Kathmandu was some relief after Delhi and Varanasi but it is so polluted and crowded and freezing this time of the year. In the space of 7 years the pollution has worsened to the point that I don’t think I will ever spend more than a few days in Kathmandu ever again. In a week Silvana had full blown asthma and I acquired a cough a 30 a day smoker would be proud of. Travelling this part of the world is definitely not good for the health. While in Kathmandu we took in a few sights like Swayambunath and Bodhinath which are both Buddhist stupas. The former is on a hill that overlooks Kathmandu valley which would be lovely if it wasn’t covered in smog. We also visited a friend who we were doing yoga with in Goa, who is studying at a Buddhist monastery. The art work and shrines were so intricate and views beautiful as we were outside the main part of the city. Terraced fields and greenery surrounded us, on one side at least. After that we went to the school where I volunteered in 2000. We found some of the projects I participated in had vanished or were in disrepair which was pretty sad but the grounds there are still so lush and green as there is a nature reserve behind the school that was once the Kings hunting ground.

That brings us to the present where we are doing stuff all for 10 days except eating, drinking and relaxing. There is one last problem we face though and it’s a pain in the ass. Being in a 3^rd world country you come to expect power cuts from time to time. Well at the moment there are power cuts for 16 hours a day!!! So that means there is power for 4 hours 2 times a day. Now if we knew when the power was on, as it changes every day, it would be a big help especially when it comes to having a hot shower.

We will be back in India in the last week of January and will head to Rishikesh as fast as possible for another 3 months of yoga.

Lots of love

Ben & Silvana

Goa, Goa, Goa...

ben_ju — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 12:23:00 GMT

3^{st December 2008}

Before I jet into the future I want everyone to know that we are fine, safe and healthy in relation to the Mumbai attacks that lasted for a few horrible days. Thankfully we were nowhere near the attacks and aren’t planning to go anywhere near there. It’s a sad thing to have happened and it will probably spark up some issues but the moment we see ourselves in any sort of danger we will leave so please don’t worry about us.

We’ve reached December with only 23 days to go until we leave Arambol, Goa and make our way to Nepal to renew our Indian Visas. We were going to go to Sri Lanka to renew them but since our Australian dollar keeps dive bombing we are holding onto all the coins we have. We get a plane to Delhi on the 24th December and stay for a day or two. I know.... Christmas Eve.... but it was the cheapest flight or else we would have had to pay triple any other day. Then the plan is to catch a train to the Holy city of Varanasi and hang for a few days, then make our way to Nepal where we’ll celebrate NYE, renew our visa and enjoy 3 weeks of dumplings and Himalayan views.

So what have we been up to? Yoga.....Yoga....Yoga! Surprised ahh... We’re learning a lot in yoga and for those who do Iyengar Yoga; it’s just such a privilege to be taught by a teacher who spent many years being directly taught by Iyengar himself, so many gold nuggets of information.

We wake at 5:30am every morning to go to yoga and finishing around 10:30am and our days consist of reading book after book, going for afternoon swims in the ocean, playing around with various programs on our laptop, eating, hanging with friends and on the last day of our 5 day yoga week we have live music, jams and musicians at the yoga hall in the evening followed by Chai (Indian tea) and snacks. It’s loads of fun.

We’re still feeding our Moo cow friend but we’re pretty sure he’s passed the message onto his fellow cow friends and now we get visits from others (check out the photos).

We had a dinner party last week and cooked the best pasta that’s ever been cooked in India! The pasta dish consisted of grilled eggplant and zucchini, real kalamta olives (the fringe benefits of being in tourist town) and organic Auroville Parmesan cheese. We invited our 2 best friends Arambol over for dinner, one is an Israeli music teacher/ audio engineer and the other an ex organic farmer from America who has now been studying Tibetan Buddhism for 5 years in Nepal. Both of them practice yoga with us and are awesome people and a lot fun to hang out with. Although the party didn’t erupt with any Bronco style bottle smashing over our heads, it was so much fun to entertain and serve them yummy food and talk about our experiences living in different countries. Next week with the help of our Israeli friend we’ll make humus and an Israeli desert called Saclab mmmmm. We have tried to make a few Indian curries but when you’re able to get the real thing (that melts in your mouth) for a $1.50 down the road what’s the point. Plus our attempts haven’t been the greatest!

As you can tell we don’t really have much to talk about besides food and yoga so we’ll leave it at that and let you look at the photos.

Our next entry will probably be from Nepal so hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and an awesome New Year!!! Take care of yourself.

Lots of love and hugs

Ben & Silvana xxoox

Goa

ben_ju — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:16:00 GMT

18/10/2008

So where were we….

Well we left Cochin with Ben feeling sick and arrived into Bangalore with Ben even sicker! We went back to the 4^{th block Inn where we left our big backpacks and stayed for a week. It was great to be back, felt like home and everyone (the workers) was overjoyed with our return. Knowing we only had one week left in Bangalore we ate loads of yummy food and sweets, sung, laughed and hung out a lot.}

We’re not even going to get into too much detail about our horrid 11 hour bus trip from Bangalore to Goa was which ended up being 17 painful hours. Picture this, a full bus, no toilet, no air con, an overnight trip on a dirt road full of potholes waking up every oh… lets say 5 to 10 mins to find yourself in mid air…. airborne!!

lets just say we did a lot of praying that night and had a good talk to ourselves and excepted the fact that if it was time to go… it was time to go!

Goa it is, a wee bit of history..

The Muslims arrived in the 1300’s but were not fans of the beach (Mohammad wasn’t a surfer!). The Portuguese arrived in 1510 wanting to control the spice route from the East. Mid 1500’s Jesuit missionaries led by St Francis Xavier (Goa’s Patron Saint) arrived and that’s why you’ll find the majority of Goans to be Roman Catholic. People of Goa have hung onto some Portuguese traditions, you still hear older folk conversing in Portuguese, traditional food is alive and kicking like pickled fish, salami, port wine is readily available and sweets we haven’t tried yet.

We’ve heard stories of the craziness that goes on here in Goa, 6 months a year foreigners flock to the beaches covering the coast for all reasons, lots of families, package deals, backpackers, hippies, freaks and Indian tourists.

Ben and I are in the very north of Goa in a small beach town called Arambol. It was popular back in the 60’s and was every hippies destination, now it’s full of gracefully aging hippies, freaks, randoms and underground rave party goers popular with Israelis, Russians, Germans, Geezers (aka pommies) and Italians or daggy nerds like Ben and I who came for yoga.

It’s like a tropical Byron Bay but Indian style.

We found a place to call home that we accidently stumbled across. It’s a 2 story house, we live on the ground floor, a family live on the first floor and the owners live on the roof 6 months a year when they’re not living in their Mumbai home. A lovely 2bdr, living area and a kitchen and fridge YAY! We finally found what we have been looking for 2 and half months.

The owners treat us like their children in the sense that they make sure we are happy by feeding us occasionally. We have big long chats, they give us cooking lessons and then we feast together and they make sure we don’t get ripped off by the locals.

Everyday starting around 6am to 6pm in the evening different salesmen riding past on their bicycles selling an assortment of foods and stuffs and they each have their unique way of letting you know they’ve arrived. The fresh bread man has a horn he honks in a certain way, the ice cream man has a normal bike bell, the bucket and doormat man yells and the egg man… nothing so if you happen to see him you’ll be eating eggs!! We’ve finally figured who’s who and can blend in with the local’s lifestyle.

Composting doesn’t exist here so we collect all our food scraps and go for daily walks sometimes just to our backyard and feed it to the passing cows. mmmmm fresh papaya skins mixed with onion and lime skins.

We stared yoga on Friday and we are both very impressed so far. The teacher is a German student of the Indian teacher (who will arrive in 2 weeks). He is really good but sounds like Arnie (Swarzenegger) so as we are both so mature we have to try really hard not to laugh when he says "juss feel za bodeeee".

The classes are 3 ½ to 4 hours long, a real challenge but very satisfying and there’s a good mix of people who have and haven’t done yoga. The class size is small now (10 or so) but we are not looking forward to the Season starting as its going to be packed.

There’s not much else to tell. We get up go to yoga. Eat lunch. Chill. Swim. Read. Eat dinner. Go to bed.

That’s pretty much the next 3 months so we will see you in January!!!!!!!

P.s. forgot to mention the ever increasingly disturbing older male beach fashion becoming more and more popular on the beach…… the dreaded G-string! lord!

‘till next time xox

from bad to worse to great... thanks Kerala

ben_ju — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:51:00 GMT

Sunday 21^{st September}

So if we had written this a week or so ago it would have been ‘India sux a thousand times’ (maybe throw a Screw Flanders in at the end….. Simpsons fans?)[Ben]

While we parked our butts in Pondicherry we both got sick with Ben copping it the worst. We managed to catch the Ganesh Chaturthi (Birthday of the Hindu elephant god who brings luck and prosperity) festival which we had enthusiastically been waiting for but had to stay close to toilet facilities. A few weeks before the festival people from all around prepare small to enormous clay statues of Ganesh and adorn them with gold leaf, flowers and paint. When the festival starts it lasts for around 5 days and every night just before sunset Hindus bring their household clay Ganesh to the shore line, sit it on the ground and light a small jiffy like ball and pray (this is called a Puja). Enterprising young boys will then take the clay Ganesh out to sea and throw them in for a few rupees or the tight asses will try and lob them over the rocks, many Ganesh hit the rocks that day my friends

Our next stop was Chidambaram, one of the many bad experiences to follow. The bus trip there was a nightmare, squashed (this includes Ben and I having pins and needles in various limbs), 35 degrees on a 3hr trip. We arrived in this dusty town and the people where rude and uninviting, we struggled, got ripped off, and shared a room with a village of mosquitoes and to top it off Ben found the air con unit dripping on his head at 4am in the morning! We left the next day!

Next was Tanjore, boy ‘o’ boy another shitty bus trip (same deal). While looking for accommodation we came across an A-hole manager in which Ben ended up having a fight with. The manager was trying to rip us off and his smartarse friends were making fun of Ben so Ben made himself heard and told the guys to F-off. There was a flying room key too! Hot, tired, hungry and pissed off we found a little room for the night but it was more like a hot wood fire oven with a door… this is where we started losing it! At least we got to see a World Heritage listed temple.

Next, Trichy and all I’ll say is that if it wasn’t for the delicious authentic food (at last we almost gave up hope for this State), friendly people, a flushing toilet, half decent accommodation and an amazing view from the Rock Temple we would have cut our trip to India very short?

but wait there’s more………

We then caught an overnight train to Cochin, Kerala with air con and sleeping bunks in hope for a good night’s rest and comfort (wealthier Indians use these carriages)…. what! Am I kidding! This is India! Never assume that things will go to plan. That night I lost all hope! It felt like we had joined a circus. Six bunks in each section with three tier bunks facing each other, me bottom bench and Ben above me.

So I mentioned a circus!! yeah well this is how it went…. The guy across from Ben had some sort of trumpet lodged in his nose and honked ALL night long, the guy up top placed his shoes near my head (good Lord, I have never smelt such a pungent stench, a cross between curry, cheese & turd) I had to fold my sheet a few time to filter the air. Oh yes this man sleeping on the top bench sneezed all night while Ben and I shielded ourselves with our blankets and to top it off the lady in front of me decided to get up and groom herself by brush her hair all over me at 3am in the morning! So evidently with no sleep and desperately tired eyes we entered a state of mind only Monks would be able to withstand.

Kerala saved us! Simply an amazing state that runs along the Arabian Sea and is known as Gods country and it’s luscious. Muslim, Christian and Hindus live next door to each other in harmony. Fort Cochin’s colonial past brought Chinese visitors, Portuguese traders, Jewish settlers, Syrian, Christians and Muslim merchants. Yes it’s a communist state but people here are friendly and this state somehow functions. Being a coastal fishing town there are plenty of cats everywhere but not the healthiest looking. We cruised the backwaters which are spindly networks of rivers, canals and lagoons, ate local fresh water muscles and drank fresh coconut juice. ahhhhhhhhh at last!

We also bought a bottle of fresh coconut flower juice which naturally ferments into an alcoholic drink called Toddy if left for six hours. It’s been well longer than that and I’ll (that’s Ben if you’re not sure) be downing it tonight with a local cigar that smells remarkably like shit.

Our photos will sum it up. Loads of tourists and stuff costs a bit more but it’s all worth it.

Last night Ben and I went to see a performance, a traditional art form of Kerala called Kathkali. Students strain physically and mentally to study this art form for 8-10yrs learning drums, singing, acting and makeup. It was so beautiful it gave me shivers. Tonight we see a Kalarippayat martial arts performance where there are many airborne acrobatic maneuvers and use of weapons.

At the moment we’re planning our next move………..

Silvana n Ben xox

. The fifth day is the BIG day where the temple and village Ganesh come to the ocean on the back of jeeps, rickshaws and trucks, one was so big it needed its own crane to pick it up and lower it down into a boat off the jetty so it could be taken out to sea. Unfortunately the food sucked here and did so for the next few stops.

Mamallapuram and Pondicherry

ben_ju — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 10:47:00 GMT

Tuesday 2^nd September 2008

We’ve gone from a life of grey and monotony to a life of colour and vibrancy.

So we finally left Bangalore and made our way to the state of Tamil Nadu (home of the Dosa & Idli). Mamallapuram was our first stop where we stayed for 3 days. Mix of sun, seafood, sand, ocean and seediness thrown in. Well how about I start with some pooh talk…. Ben and I went for a relaxing walk along the beach at the wee hour of 6am in the morning to catch a glimpse of the sunrise and to watch fishermen set off for the day. Of course for a minute there I forget I was in India and as I happen to look down there was a piece of turd stuck to the side of my little pinky toe… grrrr… I just took a deep breath in and charged for the salt water and exfoliating sand. I walked further down the beach to see locals doing their business in and out of the water, there and then I realized that what was on my foot wasn’t from a cute little doggie. To top it off on the way back down the beach coming home I discovered another piece of ‘you know what’ on my foot and of course I switched to an irrational, anxious and panicked state of mind but thank Vishnu Ben was there to help me realize I had to get over it because we’ve still got 8 more months to go… ah ah ah ah. At least I got to dip my foot in the Bay of Bengal!!

Anywhoo, Mamallapuram is famous for its ancient rock carvings & especially the Shore Temple (listed as a World Heritage site) and the Five Rathas. It’s also full of hammering and chiseling artisans chipping away at beautiful sculptures. We’ve put up some picture so check them out. So Ben and I had our first encounter with tourists here after being the only whities for a month, people keep thinking Ben and I are French or Dutch hmmmmmm

We saw lots of monkeys fight over banana skins, we saw to bulls lock horns and goats following us. We saw Pujas (auspicious rituals for new moon) including painting and smashing gourds and coconuts in front of homes or shop fronts.

Did I mention it’s 32 degrees almost every day!!! Now I don’t mind the cold bucket showers so much, mind you I start sweating as soon as I step out of the shower.

Yesterday morning we left Mamallapuram and took a two hour local bus ride (I made friend with a lovely lady next to me, even though we couldn’t understand each other we established that it could have been a great friendship eh eh) to where we find ourselves now, Pondicherry but I’ll let Ben tell you all about our exciting adventures on our first day here!

Sending all my love

Silvana xoxo

We’re famous baby!

Our first day out in Pondicherry and we have made our way onto Indian TV. The glitz and glamour of it all was just amazing as we were “discovered” on the ocean promenade. We were brilliant, one take only like true professionals. Although there was no pay we hope it may lead to other roles.

What was it for?

Keep Tamil Nadu (the State) clean. For some reason they thought if a couple of pale faces are shown on TV putting their rubbish in the bin the natives will follow. So we drank a juice looked for a bin, used it then picked up some chip packets off the ground and put them in the bin too! Hopefully we will be sent a copy and we will forward it on. It goes on TV next week.

Later that night we stumbled upon a marriage procession while wandering the streets. There were people with skull and demon masks dressed as animals leading the procession, with a band and people with offerings following. There were huge sky rockets let off at each intersection they passed through and a whole bunch of them let off when they arrived at their destination (yes we followed them pretty much joining the procession). I love this country. You go out for lunch and a walk, next thing you know you’re on TV and part of a marriage ceremony just by being in the right place at the right time.

The South is damn hot. Silvana may sweat after stepping out of the shower but I sweat before during and after, my blood is too thick for this damn heat. Pondicherry is where we are now which was a former French colony with remnants of their influence surviving to today in the form of architecture, European business hours, street names that are in French and restaurants that all seem to have ‘Le’ in them but which serve mostly Italian food (again I love this country).

The place where we are staying at is like a resort with, ocean views, palm trees and sweet ocean breezes. But as it’s owned by an ashram there’s no pool bar, cocktails or bikini clad women and there is not a spot of sand either. Just a break wall of jagged rocks with waves crashing on them, so although sanctuary from the heat is right in front of us all we can do is look as the nearest beach is 10km away, maybe tomorrow.

I think we may rest our butts here for a few days. We weren’t prepared for this heat and its taking its toll on us. Where to next, who knows but we are in temple town in this area so we will be stopping at a few of them.

As I always say, remember to use garbage bins provided and pick up rubbish if you see it on the ground.

Till next time

Ben

Gurus and Metal

ben_ju — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:53:00 GMT

27^th August 2008

Howdy!

Last week while lazing around at home, the manager (who’s now a good buddy) came running up stairs to tell us that there was a Guru procession passing our place so we threw on some shoes, grabbed the camera and followed it down the road and around the corner. I have no idea who this Guru is, I tried asking one of the devoted followers but couldn’t understand a word he was saying except ‘you are welcome to join us!’ so we did. There was a whole bunch of deafening firecrackers going off, colour powdered people, drumming & dancing. We got a few photos and filmed some of it too.

We also got to watch a few bands in town Saturday night which felt very surreal. It felt like such an unnatural thing to do in such a religiously cultured country but it was fun seeing all the Indian kids running around and looking awkward.

Second time lucky! We finally got to see a movie at the cinemas. The volume of the movie was so LOUD, I’m pretty sure the decibels blaring out of the speaker system was illegal so we stuffed bits of tissues in our ears. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the reason why the movie was so LOUD was because people in Bangalore are deaf, deaf from the incredibly loud never-ending honking traffic!

Going into central Bangalore last week reinforced the idea of us moving on and away from this city. It’s complete madness and the pollution is that thick I honestly feel like I’ve shortened my life by a few years so this Saturday Ben and I take off and head for the South East coast to cleaner air and a slower paced life. We’ll eventually end up In Goa on the West coast in mid October where we’ll hopefully settle for a few months. It’ll be nice to finally see some animals, wildlife parks, temples and forts.

I don’t know what the internet situation will be like on this trip but you’ll eventually hear from us.

Lots of Love

Silvana & Ben xox

Bangalore times.

ben_ju — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:25:00 GMT

18 August 2008

Namaste…. Three weeks later and still kicking on!

I’ve had to crack open and start using my asthma puffer and preventer every day due to all my coughing and shallow breathing from all the air pollution. Last time I used a preventer was about 4 years ago and as for my asthma puffer, around the time I was last in Varanasi, India about 4 yrs ago.

Besides the pollution, living in the city of Bangalore is just a little too expensive for our budget so Ben and I are on a mission and researching somewhere else down south where we can go to providing we find a decent yoga school or not. We’re looking at Goa at the moment to continue our yoga but schools there don’t open until October so we’re thinking of traveling for 4-5 weeks before hand. Possibly starting on the east coast in Pondicherry then working our way down to the tip of Rameswaram, then make our way to Kerala, Mysore then Goa. Something like that.

Yoga’s going great and our teacher Sri Arun likes to push us to the limit. His English speaking in the class gets less and less each day so I’m forever breaking my concentration to make sure I’m doing the right thing or else I hear a “SILVANA, LEFT LEG SILVANA, RIGHT ARM STRAIGHT SILVANA, HEAD UP SILVANA, BACK STRAIGHT SILVANA” then he’ll turn to the class and crack a joke making sure everyone knows that there isn’t a whole class of Silvanas but one… sometimes he calls me “professor tattoo on her leg from Sydney” and Ben gets “Professor Ben & Professor Ben-ja-min”.

Bangalore’s live music, pub and club scene is close to ‘0’. Almost every day since we’ve been here there have been articles in the paper about how all these venues are to be shut down completely or by 11:30pm every night, weekends inclusive. They say that women are not allowed to work or serve alcohol in these places as they think that these types of venues and alcohol mixed together lead to dancing and prostitution. My Lord!! It’s hard to swallow coming from such an open minded background. Ben and I dared to enter a pub called ‘Purple Haze’ where they blasted some scary cheesy Euro Metal music, it was seedy as, all the windows were darkly tinted and as usual full of men… no women.

On the 15^th of August, Independence day! Loads of celebrations and firecrackers!

Security is extremely tight around Bangalore due to Terrorism, bomb threats and actual bombs going off. Sometimes it’s a hassle going out to do simple things like going to the shops to buy some groceries or even to the cinemas to relax and enjoy a movie….. I’ll leave it up to Ben to tell you the cinema story!!

I’m still enjoying the food and am close to mastering eating with the right hand without the help of the left hand (which is used for un-savory actions.. thank Vishnu for toilet paper). My food has pretty much got grit in it every time I eat…. Crunch… but I’m learning to except it and not question how it got there.

So far on my list of ‘never take for granted & to be appreciated’ is my washing machine!! eh eh I better be getting some pectoral muscles from all this scrubbing!!

Ok ‘till next time…. I miss you all but love being here xo

Silvana

Yes we have settled into a nice routine here, but apart from the yoga there really isn’t anything on offer for us except for empty wallets and large amounts of carbon on the lungs.

September looks like the month of travelling around the South a bit. We hope to get to a National Park and a few temple towns as well but who knows where we will end up.

Last week we visited the Bangalore flower show (pics in the photo section) which has been much hyped since we arrived here. I don’t know if it was all the hype but I was a little let down by it all. The main attraction was a flower replica of a stone chariot which was pretty cool as well as the portraits carved out of pumpkins and melons of famous poets and writers. The rest was fairly half assed (which is pretty Indian). There was supposed to be a replica of a famous area called Hampi known for its amazing landscape of boulders and rocks. I didn’t see any rocks not even a pebble but there sure was an unexplained mountain of capsicums that were everywhere. Maybe it got lost in the translation.

We went to see Dark Knight on Thursday, which was a test of patience. After been given the wrong ticket and Silvana asserting her authorata to get the right ticket we walked through metal detectors and they wouldn’t let us in as she had her camera (not allowed because of the high security/terrorism/bombs) in her bag which we could check in at the front of the mall i.e. leave it with someone and collect when we were finished. We didn’t see the movie……The trip there was exciting though as the truck in front of us lost some foam sheeting which we ran over and got like “3 feet of air”. I thought we were going to tip over.

Speaking of rickshaws tipping over there was a crash out the front of our hotel last week. Still unsure as to what happened (depends on who you talk to) but the end result was a rickshaw on its side with a smashed windscreen. No one was hurt luckily.

In the news here:

India won their first ever individual gold medal (for shooting) and he is the ducks guts at the moment with various political parties tripping over each other to give him cash rewards and honorary titles. It’s a shame no institution in India ever helped him to achieve his medal. He has rich parents who built a private shooting range for him and sent him to Germany to train. His Dad is giving him a 5 star hotel which is still being built for winning the medal.

The police have caught the two masterminds behind the recent spate of bombings in India.

And the first 2 -3 pages of the paper seem to always be about which government official was caught in some bribery, laundering or embezzlement scam. It’s very funny though as the Department that does the investigating and the sting operations doesn’t have the power to arrest them only to confiscate items that they couldn’t possibly own on their salary. So it takes up to 8 years to charge them by that time everyone has forgotten and the person in question has been promoted several times and no one wants to charge him now. What a system!

That’s about it. Next installment may be from a new town which will hopefully give us something interesting to say…….

Ben

p.s. we won’t be getting a mobile phone either. Because of tight security and us having to hand over id/documents… it’s just too big of a pain in the butt… plus we don’t really need one.

Namaste from Jayanagar

ben_ju — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:14:00 GMT

Appologies for the delay there were some technical issues that have now been resloved.

6/8/2008

Namaste from Jayanagar (suburb in Bangalore)!

Ben and I had a great flight it wasn’t too painful, all thanks to the commodities and comforts of Singapore Airlines J yay!

Ben and I having an awesome time and things are slowly falling into place. We’ve found accommodation, a place to call home at a place called ‘4^Th Block Inn’, it’s well looked after, super clean (beyond my cleaning obsession), it’s close to yoga a 5min walk to Jayanagar’s shopping district which is complete madness!!! The owner and workers are so friendly that they’re helping us out with our first Kannada lessons (Kannada is the state language spoken in Bangalore which has English words randomly thrown into it).

It’s overwhelmingly polluted but there is plenty of greenery and many pockets of sanctuary getaways. Our place is in a quieter and richer (unbelievably rich) area and with less visual poverty. It’s a way different experience from last time. So far no monkeys, only a hand full of cows, one beggar and loads of noisy squirrels. The streets are cleaner and there’s heaps of café’s, bakeries (can you believe they have sourdough and spelt!) and jewellery shops. There’s a lot of money here that’s for sure. Another thing Ben and I came to realize it that Jayanagar is not a touristy area so it’s made it a lot more challenging (harder eh eh) for us to find things.

Yoga is going well, Ben, myself and a Colombian girl are the only westerners in the class along with lots of lovely Indian ladies in their traditional getup. The yoga teacher is the comedic type who bursts out in jokes at every chance he’s got. The classes are mostly in Kannada with about 10% of the class in English. He has a gentle touch (sarcasim intended) when adjusting people in their poses, like standing on them and pulling their arms and poor Ben experienced it!

The food is amazing, yummy South Indian cuisine… Tali, Dosa, Idli, roti and lots of sweets including Gulab Jamun… mmmmm but they don’t do latte’s very well eh eh who cares when there’s Chai!!

Anyway, it’s lunch time and I’m hanging for a Tali so I’ll pass you on to Ben.

Love you and miss you all.

Sil xox

p.s….. oh did I mention it’s monsoon season!!! It rains at least once a day around 4pm and it gets very steamy!!

So, the flight was good was it? Ahh but you didn’t have the flu did you.

It was a killer of flight for me and the first I’ve done without getting pissed which isn’t as interesting as it sounds. We arrived to news that 7 bombs had gone off in the city a few days earlier and a hotel room that smelt like a mix between mothballs and fresh turds. It was at this stage I was a little concerned about our stay in Bangalore and the whole yoga deal.

Thank Shiva we found the place we are in now as it pretty much saved this stage of the trip. We looked around for a new place to stay and as this is suburban India there is not much in the way of hotels, or restaurants, or internet cafes or any of the things that there are thousands of in tourist areas.

It has been a full on mission to explore our surroundings to find what is on offer, Lonely Planet never quite made it here, but its been fun. We now have our handful of food joints which aren’t really restaurants as its fast food Indian style and you eat standing, supermarkets, cafes but only one shitty internet that has about 5 serves of curry on every keyboards and goes back 3 pages (sometimes 2) when you click back. We found another one so if you are reading this we have had success! (ie technical difficulties!!!)

From a rocky start this place is starting to feel like home and I think we could easily stay here for a few months. The yoga is interesting the food is awesome and the people couldn’t give a shit about us (in a good way, 1 week here and no one has hassled us for anything!)

It’s kind of like an Indian themed amusement city. The craziness is there but cut back a few notches. Sure there are still people pissing in the street but it’s not like it’s on every street…….. photos to follow….

Ben