Me, Julien Deckx, going on a meditation course? That sounds a bit like the pope going to a school of rock, you may say. How did I get this crazy idea? A French guy I met in India - the same guy who had told me to go to Tribeni Ghat - had done it. He told me how "his mind had escaped his body" at some point. I'm a bit too skeptical to accept that kind of statement just like that, but I thought I should be open-minded enough to at least find out for myself. Adding to that my growing interest for Buddhism and the vague resolution to "work on my body and mind" during my trip, it sounded like a perfect plan.
Vipassana meditation is "a method of mental purification which allows one to face life's tensions and problems in a calm, balanced way". During the ten-day course, you spend ten hours a day meditating. The rules are very strict: no talking or other forms of communication with other students (a.k.a. noble silence), complete separation of men and women, no music, no reading, no writing - even physical exercise and religious rituals are forbidden. The students must also observe Five Precepts: no killing any living being (yep, that includes the mozzies), no stealing, no sexual activities, no telling lies (pretty hard to lie when you're not allowed to communicate), no intoxicants. Also, there is no dinner; there's a tea break at 5 p.m., where new students do get cereals and an apple. Here's the full timetable of a day in what I like to call "concentration camp":
4:00 a.m. Morning wake-up bell
4:30 - 6:30 a.m. Meditate in the hall
6:30 - 8:00 a.m. Breakfast break
8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Group meditation in the hall
9:00 - 11:00 a.m. Meditate in the hall
11:00 - noon Lunch break
12:00 -1:00 p.m. Rest
1:00 - 2:30 p.m. Meditate in the hall
2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Group meditation in the hall
3:30 - 5:00 p.m. Meditate in the hall
5:00 - 6:00 p.m. Tea break
6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Group meditation in the hall
7:00 - 8:15 p.m. Teacher's discourse in the hall
8:15 - 9:00 p.m. Group meditation in the hall
9:00 - 9:30 p.m. Question time in the hall
9:30 p.m. Retire to your room; lights out
At the center where I went, Vipassana is taught by S.N. Goenka. Since there are hundreds of such centers all over the world, the teacher is only present virtually, on CD's and DVD's. He is also represented by an assistant teacher. Just like the rest of the staff, the teacher works as a volunteer. The course is completely free of charge, but students are encouraged to give a donation.
On the first of September, the first day of school for children in Belgium, I took a couple of buses and hiked up to the Vipassana center at Begnas lake, close to Pokhara. I felt a bit like on a first schoolday - the same mix of excitement, curiosity and fear. How will the teacher be? Will my classmates be nice? When I arrived, other students were filling in some papers. Whispering, I asked if I was still allowed to talk. Yes, was the answer; the noble silence would start after the first evening session. After going through the necessary paperwork, we had the afternoon free. So I spent a couple of hours chatting with the people I would live with, but not say a word to, for ten days. After tea, we got an introduction, where they repeated the rules and modalities of the course. And then, to the meditation hall! The teacher (the real one) gave a short introduction, after which he switched on the CD player. The teacher (the virtual one) then explained what we were to do the first three days. We had to breathe through our nose, and observe our respiration, as well as any sensation - tickling, pressure, pain, etc.- in the triangular area formed by the nose and the base of the upper lip. That's it? That's it. For ten hours a day. I was looking forward to it.
At 4 o'clock the next morning, the gong signaled the start of day 1. There's a wake-up gong 4, and a second signal at 4.30, when meditation starts. That first morning, I found it very pleasant to be woken up by a gong. For the first and last time, I enthusiastically got up with the first signal to freshen up and brush my teeth. I really enjoyed my first morning meditation. While we all sat there, perfectly quiet, the day slowly awoke and the first rays of the sun appeared through the windows. The last half hour of every morning session, the teacher (the real one) puts on a CD of chanting by the teacher (the virtual one). Meditating there, with the rising sun and the (not so melodious, but still special) voice of the teacher in the background: I was loving it.
Day one was fairly easy. Of course, I had a hard time keeping my attention on my breath. My thoughts were wandering, but I tried my best to bring them back to my respiration. I was a bit worried about my position. I knew that at some point we wouldn't be allowed to change position during meditation anymore. So I started experimenting with how to put my legs - with little success. Lotus position? Impossible. Half lotus position? Extremely painful. Cross-legged with right foot under left leg? Foot falls asleep and hurts a lot after a while. Left foot under right leg? Ouch, no! Whichever position I tried, I had to give up after less than half an hour because the pain got too intense.
On the second day, I had the first case of what I call "mental mutiny". I got angry, and started questioning the whole meditation course. What am I doing here? I have a bad concentration, I don't really believe in Buddhist theories, and I'm too stiff to sit cross-legged for a long time. Besides, I'm perfectly happy; I don't need this. I got over my anger and carried on patiently, but it came back the second day, twice. I just got sick and tired of constantly concentrating on the same thing. This set the tone for the rest of the course. Every day had its ups and downs. There wasn't a single day that I didn't feel hopeless or fed up at least once; but every day I managed to win a couple of small personal victories.
My biggest enemy, I soon understood, was time. I knew the principle all too well from my boring summer jobs as a student: the more you want time to pass, the less it does. So you try to make the best of the situation - in this case, to explore the wonders of your own respiration. Not easy, with a concentration span like mine: "Okay, concentrate on your breath. All the air seems to go through my right nostril. Interesting. Yeah... I feel a bit thirsty. I could definitely go for a Belgian beer right now. Possibly a Duvel. Hmm, Duvel... I wonder what kind of weather they're having in Belgium. And if we have a government yet...probably not. Oh shit, that's right, I'm meditating. Were was I? Oh yeah, so, right nostril...amazing..."
On day 4, we started the actual Vipassana meditation. We now had to focus our attention on our entire body, as the teacher (the virtual one) repeated endlessly: "part by part, piece by piece". The purpose was to understand the changing nature of our body: nothing stays forever (or to say it in terms of western classical philosophy: panta rhei - everything flows). Unfortunately, by the time I would get to my left small toe I would have forgotten the itch I had felt on top of my head and the strange pressure on my right cheek.
After the 4th day, the three one-hour group sessions we had every day would be "hours of strong determination". This meant we had to try not to move at all during one hour. I knew this was the start of some serious suffering.
In the meantime, I started to get into the daily routine at the meditation center. I got used to getting up, eating and going to sleep at the same times every day, and developed my own little rituals. Having no-one to talk to, I entertained myself with jokes and comments, smiling on my own. I looked forward to the teacher's discourses in the end of the evening, showed on DVD - the one time in the day I did something else than meditating, eating, sleeping or just sitting around. The teacher (the virtual one) is an extremely good speaker, who uses a lot of humor and anecdotes in his discourses. Every night, he would tell something more about the theory of Vipassana meditation and Buddhist ideas in general. However, as the days passed, I disagreed more and more with him. He talked about how everything is made up of basic particles consisting of earth, water, air and fire and then he claimed that the theory matches the modern ideas of quantum physics - a bit hard for me to stomach.
During the breaks, there's nothing else to do than taking a nap or just sitting outside. It was raining quite a lot those days, but when it didn't, most of us would hang around in the garden in front. We would admire the magnificent view on the lake, and observe the shadows that the clouds painted on the green terraced hills. The prohibition to communicate - which, by the way, is not at all hard to observe - made it pretty special; not often do people spend long moments just enjoying a view together without saying a word. I knew that, when the sky was clear, there was a magnificent view on the snow-capped Annapurnas. I secretly hoped that the last days, the rains would stop, and I would be able to admire the mountains - an excellent transition to the trek I had planned to do after the course. We caught our first glimpses of snow and rocks on day 6. On day 7, we occasionally had good views on some of the peaks. The morning of day 8 was beautiful and clear, and most of the mountains, with their unlikely jagged forms, were visible. We all stared, awe-struck, at the beauty that surrounded us. Those unmovable white giants, which had been standing there the whole time, were finally revealed to us. My euphoria was bad for my concentration: monsoon is over! Let's go trekking! Unfortunately, it was too good to be true; the rains came back in the next days.
The rainy season is a great time for insects. Many a times I had to dodge because I was on the trajectory of some flying invertebrate madman - quite often huge flying cockroaches. It was impossible to observe the precept of not killing any beings. On one of the first days, I rescued ants who were helplessly drowning in my shower. I later decided that my vow didn't compel me to actually save lives. I must have (half-)unintentionally squashed dozens of ants. I don't think I killed any mosquitoes; fortunately, I had brought large quantities of insect repellent cream. But there weren't only cockroaches, ants and mosquitoes. Our meditation sessions were always accompanied by vuvuzela concerts of grasshoppers and crickets. I also saw a couple of real masters of camouflage - insects looking extraordinarily accurately like a leaf or a twig. And one time we stared with open mouth at a huge caterpillar, I estimate about 20 cm long and and 3 cm in diameter. The Nepalis quickly caught it with a branch and threw it away, because it might be dangerous.
After the freshness of concentrating on something else than just my respiration, I got bored with the Vipassana technique pretty quickly. I was still fighting my battle with time - in fact, it seemed to go slower and slower. I forced myself not to think about it, and never to look at the big clock that was hanging behind us. Another temptation was to analyze the movements of the others, and to compare. "See, this guy is fed up too, it's normal", I would think, or, "that guy seems to be so concentrated all the time. How does he do it?". By far the most interesting moments for me were the group sessions. Sitting cross-legged for one hour straight is a real torture. After half an hour, the pain starts. Initially, it's pretty easy to ignore- but after a while, it just becomes too intense. That's when you start negotiating with yourself. You started the hour determined not to budge. So there's a part of you that really wants you to succeed. But there's another part of you, one that's screaming louder and louder, that wants you to stop the madness. It's very much like the little demon and angel on the shoulders. As a child, I used to play a game with my grandmother. She had a mirror with two sides, one of which was magnifying. My reflection on this side was "big Julien", a mature and reasonable boy, and the other side was "small Julien", a capricious child. On those moments of agony, small Julien is angry with big Julien: "Why are you doing this? It hurts!" He starts inventing excuses: "You're too stiff for this, you won't succeed anyway. Besides, it's only the third time you're trying it. Nobody expects you to do the full hour that quickly. Look, the guy next to you gave up already." The first few times, that's how I usually failed; I would come up with an excuse that seemed acceptable. So after a while, I started thinking of all the possible excuses beforehand and making up counter-arguments. That worked well - big Julien became intransigent. After running out of excuses, I would start begging myself, mentally dropping to my knees, but the determined part of me was just stronger. So I managed to make it through the hour, one or two times a day, but the suffering was still intense. I had to find a way to make the last fifteen minutes more bearable. At first, I tried just to ignore the pain, and to stay positive. I had to disconnect emotionally from the sharp impulses my body was sending to my brain. After a while, I became pretty good at it. Interestingly, rather than trying to ignore the pain, it seemed better to focus on it and analyze it - sometimes, it would even fade away. I had moments in which I could look at my body objectively and observe that I was in a lot of pain, without reacting to it. My mind disconnected from my body; in that sense, I think I came to understand pretty well what my French friend meant. It was even a bit frightening sometimes, and a couple of times the feeling lasted even after the meditation was over. One time, as I was concentrating on particularly intense pain in my leg, I had a very special feeling, as if my whole body was being sucked upward. One step closer to levitation, I guess.
As the end of the course drew nearer, I started really losing my patience. On day 9, during the lunch break, I burst into hysterical laughter at the thought of some funny event. I just couldn't contain myself - probably a result of the long days of forced self-restraint. That afternoon, I realized I was really tired of observing my body over and over again. I didn't agree with the theory behind it, and I had completely lost my motivation. But I saw it as a challenge to make it until the last day, and the hours of strong determination I still found interesting, so I stayed. I started taking more breaks, but still tried to concentrate and make the best of it, as it was the only way to cope with it.
On the morning of day 10, Vipassana meditation was over. We were allowed to talk again, and only the three remaining group sittings would still be held. I had thought I would come out of ten days of silence and meditation (almost 100 hours in total!) calm and detached. More the contrary, I was bursting with energy and full of plans. I wasn't the only one; everybody was beaming with joy. We chattered and chattered and chattered - I have never been as talkative as in the next few days. It's amazing how you can become attached to people you don't communicate with. For nine days, we hadn't said a word to each other, but we had lived together, eaten and slept together, gone through the same difficulties - that really creates a bond.
On the morning of day 11, after breakfast, we were free to go. Back to the real world. I evaluated the previous week. Was it worthwhile? The answer is definitely yes. The ultimate purpose of the technique is to learn how to suppress negative emotions like anger and craving. I don't believe in the theory behind the technique, which is based on Buddhist principles. Although the teacher insists that the technique is universal and not based on any religion, he talks about things like reincarnation as if they were completely accepted by everyone. In spite of that, I don't completely rule out the possibility that it could somehow be beneficial. When you're angry, you get a very strong impulse to react. Similarly, during the hour of strong determination, the pain gives rise to a very strong impulse that urges you to change position. It may be that by learning to observe pain objectively without reacting to it, you learn how to do the same with anger. In theory, you should meditate for two hours every day to make the technique effective - not very realistic, if you ask me. Apart from that, I think by meditating you learn how to be patient. Patience seems to be the ability to make the best of a moment, regardless of past and future. When you meditate, you are sitting there, and you'll be sitting there one more hour, so you might as well explore your body for sensations. And in fact, it's pretty surprising how detailed the sensations are that you start identifying after a while. I had the feeling that my mind was sharper altogether, although that's not something that I can determine objectively. Spending a lot of time with few external impulses, I also came to many insights and ideas - unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to write them down during the course. In spite of all these benefits, it was very hard, and I was extremely bored at times, especially towards the end. In conclusion: I'm glad I did it, but I won't do it again.
On the last day, we were shown a documentary about how the Vipassana technique was (allegedly successfully) taught to inmates of the biggest prison in India. You can find it, in 11 parts, on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtbBYzrYnAs). To be honest, I don't really know what to make of it.
October 13, 2010
October 11, 2010
From India to Nepal
When I got back to Manali from Leh, I had about two weeks left before my Indian visa expired. I wanted to go to Nepal, but there was one thing I wanted to do before: to visit my Indian friend, at whose house I had celebrated the Holi festival in March. His hometown, Roorkee, was right on the way from Manali to where I wanted to cross the border. And right on the way fro Manali to Roorkee is Chandigarh, the capital of the state of Punjab.
Chandigarh is a special place, as it was built from scratch in the early fifties, and designed by Le Corbusier, the famous architect. I spent only one (extremely rainy) day there, but I'm glad I saw it. It's a bit to surreal to see broad, empty avenues with roundabouts in India. The highlight for me, though, was Nek Chand's Rock Garden, a park filled with hundreds of statues and decorations made from recycled materials like bangles and plug sockets.
That same night, I took the train to Roorkee. I spent a couple of days with my friend and his family. I was treated like a brother and a son, in good Indian tradition. I felt at home, which was a relief after all that traveling around.
I had come to Roorkee at the right time. There was a Hindu festival, where pilgrims walk to nearby Haridwar to fetch water from the holy Ganga and bring it back to their homes. They dress in orange and carry a pole with two pots, one on each end, for the holy water. An endless procession of pilgrims was passing through the town, day and night. People were sleeping everywhere and anywhere: on the sidewalk, in gas stations, banks, etc. One day we drove to Haridwar where, needless to say, the atmosphere was pretty special. Thousands of people were bathing in the holy river and going to temples, some of them crawling bare-chested on the dirty floor.
It was with a heavy heart that I said goodbye to my friend and his family, leaving the peace and quiet of Roorkee for my last chaotic journey through India. The way to the border crossing was pretty long, so I spent one night in Lucknow, the capital of Utthar Pradesh. Lucknow is a typically hot, chaotic, polluted Indian city, but there are a couple of monuments I found worth seeing.
And then the moment had come: I was leaving India. I was leaving this enormous, overcrowded, ugly and beautiful, irritating and fascinating, shocking and touching continent of a country, so rich and yet so poor, the country of the caste system and of Mahatma Gandhi, of beggars and maharajahs, of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and others. I had become half Indian by then: I wobbled my head more than is considered healthy in my culture; I ate with my hands just as skilfully as the poorest farmer; I consumed an average of ten milk teas a day; I could hum along with most of the recent Bollywood songs; I found food without hot spices tasteless; I spat and burped and snorted regardless of where I was, and had gotten used to people loudly clearing their throats; I crossed raging highways without blinking an eye; I found it perfectly normal to jump into moving trains and buses; I didn't even think of buying anything without bargaining; I had stopped noticing the smell of animals, open sewers, public urinals, rotting meat and my own sweat. And so I left India, and I went to Nepal, where... people wobble their heads, eat spicy food, drink milk tea, watch Bollywood music, spit and snort, etc. Even the Nepali language is really close to Hindi, and the script is the same. All of this I didn't really know yet, but still, I didn't feel like I was really leaving India. After all, Nepal could easily be just another Indian state.
On the 8th of August, I crossed the Nepali border. On my first bus ride, I was surprised by the number of police checkposts and military along the way. I shouldn't have been; after all, this country has been terrorized by Maoist insurgencies until merely 5 years ago. Democracy, established in 1990 after a popular uprising, is still young here, and is struggling to survive. To make a very long story short: after another popular uprising, the monarchy was ultimately abolished and Nepal became a republic in 2008. During my stay, Nepal was in a political deadlock. For months, the political parties were trying to reach a consensus about a constitutional assembly. But hey, as a Belgian, I don't feel like I'm in a good position to say anything.
My first destination in Nepal was Pokhara, where I would meet my Spanish friends. Pokhara is situated at the beautiful Fewa lake, surrounded by green hills and with stunning views of the Annapurna mountains when the weather is clear (which wasn't the case at that time). It's one of the biggest tourist places in Nepal - much too touristy for my taste, actually. But I found a nice guest house and had a good time with my friends. One day, we rented motorbikes. We drove to a nearby lake called Begnas Tal, which I actually find even more beautiful than Fewa lake. We drove up to a meditation center that I wanted to visit. Since the monsoon wasn't going to stop until sometime in September and I wanted to go trekking when it would get dryer, I had decided to follow a ten day meditation course in the meantime. I had registered to start the course a couple of days later in a center in Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, very close to the Indian border. But when I saw the center at Begnas lake, I immediately fell in love with the place and ultimately changed my plans. The center is really isolated, with breath-taking views on the lake. If I was going to suffer for ten days, I thought, I might as well do it somewhere beautiful. The only problem was that the course there didn't start until two weeks later. I decided it was worth waiting for, and I was sure I would find plenty of things to do in the meantime.
I decided to go to Kathmandu, stopping in some villages in between. In one of those typical cases of travelers' luck, some nice people I had met at my guest house were planning to do the same thing on the same day. Together, we took a bus to a town called Gorkha. Underway, we had to stop fore more than an hour because a vehicle was being pulled out of the valley. Gorkha used to be a kingdom, from where king Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered nearby kingdoms and unified Nepal in the 18th century. The small but beautiful palace, perched on top of a hill, was well worth visiting. Most buildings in the region are made in the Newari style, of which I'm a big fan: red bricks and beautifully carved woodwork, with tiered, pyramid-shaped roofs covered with baked clay tiles, often with metal decorations underneath.
After spending two nights in Gorkha, I took the bus to Kathmandu. Again we stopped at some point; this time a truck had fallen of a bridge. There's thirty times more probability of dying in a traffic accident in Nepal than in developed countries, and it's easy to see why.
I spent a couple of days in Kathmandu, visiting the city and surroundings, buying gear for the trek I would do later, and informing for my upcoming trip to Tibet. For the third time, I met up with the Spanish couple, who had become extremely nice friends.
There used to be three kingdoms in the Kathmandu valley: Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. Each have a central square called Durbar square, with temples and a royal palace. I kind of like Kathmandu, and Durbar square is the main reason for this. Traffic is limited, which makes it a comparatively quiet place. I really enjoy sitting on one of the beautiful Newari style temples, just watching people pass by. That's what I missed in Indian cities, where the center of the city is invariably the most congested place. Other than that, Kathmandu is an extremely busy city, and the narrow streets of the center are absolutely not adapted to the many motorbikes and rickshaws. I got stuck in traffic jams several times - as a pedestrian. Just, it seems, like any city in South-Asia, Kathmandu is at its best in the early morning, when the streets are quiets, the people go perform their morning rituals in the many small temples, and the charm of small, colorful street markets is not yet spoiled by noise and pollution. The young people in Kathmandu are modern, well-dressed, boasting high-tech smartphones and mp3 players. It makes you forget that Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Patan and Bhaktapur are more quiet and laid-back than Kathmandu, and each have a magnificent Durbar Square and other temples and houses in Newari style.
The third biggest tourist attraction in Nepal, after Kathmandu and Pokhara, is Chitwan National Park. I actually wanted to go to the much more distant and less touristy Bardia park, but since Chitwan was more or less on the way there, I thought I might as well stop there. After a beautiful bus drive, where the misty green hills with rice terraces reminded me of the image I have of the north of Vietnam I arrived at the park in the pouring rain. Together with two Polish guys I had met in the bus, I arranged a canoe trip and an elephant safari for the next day. The next morning, it was still raining heavily, and the boatman hesitated about going on the river, as it was flowing fast and he was afraid of flooding. I didn't really believe him, but didn't feel like arguing; the prospect of spending a couple of hours in a boat under the showering rain didn't particularly appeal to me. We decided to wait for a couple of hours and see how the situation evolved. When we went back to the river after taking some rest, we found that it had become much broader, and that some bars at the riverside were half submerged - the boatman hadn't lied about the risk of flooding. The locals didn't seem much affected; they were smiling and joking, and people seemed to come from nearby villages to look at the phenomenon. We learned that this happens every year, usually without dramatic consequences. A couple of years ago, though, there was a major flood, which affected the whole village, and the inhabitants were evacuated. This was the period where major floods terrorized Pakistan and the south of China. When we read in the newspaper that four people had been killed in floods in Nepal the day before, we started to feel a bit unsafe. The locals tried to reassure us, telling us that we wouldn't die; in the worst case, we would be evacuated by helicopter. Fantastic prospects. We had booked an elephant safari of one and a half hours for one hour later; after much debating, we decided we would stay at least for the safari. The elephant safari is the biggest attraction in Chitwan, and the only thing I was really interested in. I'm happy we chose to stay. I can't imagine a better way to explore a jungle than on the back of an elephant. We went steadily through the forest, from clearing to clearing. At a few of these clearing we saw rhinos, the symbol of Chitwan. The animals didn't seem to mind the presents of the elephants - in fact, they completely ignored them. I was really impressed by these mastodons. With their thick, armor-like carapace and their majestic one horn, they looked like dinosaurs to me; I felt like I was in Jurassic park. We saw some deers as well, but they were, of course, much shyer. We didn't have the luck to come across any wild elephants or monkeys, let alone tigers, but it was still more than worthwhile. I the end, we were pretty lucky with the weather: the rain diminished, and eventually stopped. The flood actually added an extra dimension to the safari, as we waded elephant-knee-deep through some parts of the forest. Since the weather had gotten better, our escaping plans had become obsolete, so we decided to stay another night. I also buried my plans for Bardia park; not only is it in the far west of Nepal, at a horrible 16 hours bus drive from there, but the Bardia district was also one of the most affected by floods.
The next morning, we went to Lumbini. Lumbini is, as I told you, the birthplace of Buddha, close to the Indian border, in the southern plains of the Terai. When we reached the Terai, we realized we had forgotten how hot it was down there. As I had been told many times, Lumbini is barely worth mentioning. We visited the temple that afternoon. The next morning we hired a bicycle and went around the many monasteries built in the area by countries from around the world. Many monasteries were still under construction, but a couple of them, like the Chinese and the Thai ones, were worth seeing. I'm glad I saw Lumbini, but one night in the hot and mosquito-infested town was definitely enough.
Chandigarh is a special place, as it was built from scratch in the early fifties, and designed by Le Corbusier, the famous architect. I spent only one (extremely rainy) day there, but I'm glad I saw it. It's a bit to surreal to see broad, empty avenues with roundabouts in India. The highlight for me, though, was Nek Chand's Rock Garden, a park filled with hundreds of statues and decorations made from recycled materials like bangles and plug sockets.
That same night, I took the train to Roorkee. I spent a couple of days with my friend and his family. I was treated like a brother and a son, in good Indian tradition. I felt at home, which was a relief after all that traveling around.
I had come to Roorkee at the right time. There was a Hindu festival, where pilgrims walk to nearby Haridwar to fetch water from the holy Ganga and bring it back to their homes. They dress in orange and carry a pole with two pots, one on each end, for the holy water. An endless procession of pilgrims was passing through the town, day and night. People were sleeping everywhere and anywhere: on the sidewalk, in gas stations, banks, etc. One day we drove to Haridwar where, needless to say, the atmosphere was pretty special. Thousands of people were bathing in the holy river and going to temples, some of them crawling bare-chested on the dirty floor.
It was with a heavy heart that I said goodbye to my friend and his family, leaving the peace and quiet of Roorkee for my last chaotic journey through India. The way to the border crossing was pretty long, so I spent one night in Lucknow, the capital of Utthar Pradesh. Lucknow is a typically hot, chaotic, polluted Indian city, but there are a couple of monuments I found worth seeing.
With my Indian family...
And then the moment had come: I was leaving India. I was leaving this enormous, overcrowded, ugly and beautiful, irritating and fascinating, shocking and touching continent of a country, so rich and yet so poor, the country of the caste system and of Mahatma Gandhi, of beggars and maharajahs, of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and others. I had become half Indian by then: I wobbled my head more than is considered healthy in my culture; I ate with my hands just as skilfully as the poorest farmer; I consumed an average of ten milk teas a day; I could hum along with most of the recent Bollywood songs; I found food without hot spices tasteless; I spat and burped and snorted regardless of where I was, and had gotten used to people loudly clearing their throats; I crossed raging highways without blinking an eye; I found it perfectly normal to jump into moving trains and buses; I didn't even think of buying anything without bargaining; I had stopped noticing the smell of animals, open sewers, public urinals, rotting meat and my own sweat. And so I left India, and I went to Nepal, where... people wobble their heads, eat spicy food, drink milk tea, watch Bollywood music, spit and snort, etc. Even the Nepali language is really close to Hindi, and the script is the same. All of this I didn't really know yet, but still, I didn't feel like I was really leaving India. After all, Nepal could easily be just another Indian state.
On the 8th of August, I crossed the Nepali border. On my first bus ride, I was surprised by the number of police checkposts and military along the way. I shouldn't have been; after all, this country has been terrorized by Maoist insurgencies until merely 5 years ago. Democracy, established in 1990 after a popular uprising, is still young here, and is struggling to survive. To make a very long story short: after another popular uprising, the monarchy was ultimately abolished and Nepal became a republic in 2008. During my stay, Nepal was in a political deadlock. For months, the political parties were trying to reach a consensus about a constitutional assembly. But hey, as a Belgian, I don't feel like I'm in a good position to say anything.
My first destination in Nepal was Pokhara, where I would meet my Spanish friends. Pokhara is situated at the beautiful Fewa lake, surrounded by green hills and with stunning views of the Annapurna mountains when the weather is clear (which wasn't the case at that time). It's one of the biggest tourist places in Nepal - much too touristy for my taste, actually. But I found a nice guest house and had a good time with my friends. One day, we rented motorbikes. We drove to a nearby lake called Begnas Tal, which I actually find even more beautiful than Fewa lake. We drove up to a meditation center that I wanted to visit. Since the monsoon wasn't going to stop until sometime in September and I wanted to go trekking when it would get dryer, I had decided to follow a ten day meditation course in the meantime. I had registered to start the course a couple of days later in a center in Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, very close to the Indian border. But when I saw the center at Begnas lake, I immediately fell in love with the place and ultimately changed my plans. The center is really isolated, with breath-taking views on the lake. If I was going to suffer for ten days, I thought, I might as well do it somewhere beautiful. The only problem was that the course there didn't start until two weeks later. I decided it was worth waiting for, and I was sure I would find plenty of things to do in the meantime.
Begnas lake
I decided to go to Kathmandu, stopping in some villages in between. In one of those typical cases of travelers' luck, some nice people I had met at my guest house were planning to do the same thing on the same day. Together, we took a bus to a town called Gorkha. Underway, we had to stop fore more than an hour because a vehicle was being pulled out of the valley. Gorkha used to be a kingdom, from where king Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered nearby kingdoms and unified Nepal in the 18th century. The small but beautiful palace, perched on top of a hill, was well worth visiting. Most buildings in the region are made in the Newari style, of which I'm a big fan: red bricks and beautifully carved woodwork, with tiered, pyramid-shaped roofs covered with baked clay tiles, often with metal decorations underneath.
After spending two nights in Gorkha, I took the bus to Kathmandu. Again we stopped at some point; this time a truck had fallen of a bridge. There's thirty times more probability of dying in a traffic accident in Nepal than in developed countries, and it's easy to see why.
I spent a couple of days in Kathmandu, visiting the city and surroundings, buying gear for the trek I would do later, and informing for my upcoming trip to Tibet. For the third time, I met up with the Spanish couple, who had become extremely nice friends.
There used to be three kingdoms in the Kathmandu valley: Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. Each have a central square called Durbar square, with temples and a royal palace. I kind of like Kathmandu, and Durbar square is the main reason for this. Traffic is limited, which makes it a comparatively quiet place. I really enjoy sitting on one of the beautiful Newari style temples, just watching people pass by. That's what I missed in Indian cities, where the center of the city is invariably the most congested place. Other than that, Kathmandu is an extremely busy city, and the narrow streets of the center are absolutely not adapted to the many motorbikes and rickshaws. I got stuck in traffic jams several times - as a pedestrian. Just, it seems, like any city in South-Asia, Kathmandu is at its best in the early morning, when the streets are quiets, the people go perform their morning rituals in the many small temples, and the charm of small, colorful street markets is not yet spoiled by noise and pollution. The young people in Kathmandu are modern, well-dressed, boasting high-tech smartphones and mp3 players. It makes you forget that Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Patan and Bhaktapur are more quiet and laid-back than Kathmandu, and each have a magnificent Durbar Square and other temples and houses in Newari style.
Durbar square in Patan
The third biggest tourist attraction in Nepal, after Kathmandu and Pokhara, is Chitwan National Park. I actually wanted to go to the much more distant and less touristy Bardia park, but since Chitwan was more or less on the way there, I thought I might as well stop there. After a beautiful bus drive, where the misty green hills with rice terraces reminded me of the image I have of the north of Vietnam I arrived at the park in the pouring rain. Together with two Polish guys I had met in the bus, I arranged a canoe trip and an elephant safari for the next day. The next morning, it was still raining heavily, and the boatman hesitated about going on the river, as it was flowing fast and he was afraid of flooding. I didn't really believe him, but didn't feel like arguing; the prospect of spending a couple of hours in a boat under the showering rain didn't particularly appeal to me. We decided to wait for a couple of hours and see how the situation evolved. When we went back to the river after taking some rest, we found that it had become much broader, and that some bars at the riverside were half submerged - the boatman hadn't lied about the risk of flooding. The locals didn't seem much affected; they were smiling and joking, and people seemed to come from nearby villages to look at the phenomenon. We learned that this happens every year, usually without dramatic consequences. A couple of years ago, though, there was a major flood, which affected the whole village, and the inhabitants were evacuated. This was the period where major floods terrorized Pakistan and the south of China. When we read in the newspaper that four people had been killed in floods in Nepal the day before, we started to feel a bit unsafe. The locals tried to reassure us, telling us that we wouldn't die; in the worst case, we would be evacuated by helicopter. Fantastic prospects. We had booked an elephant safari of one and a half hours for one hour later; after much debating, we decided we would stay at least for the safari. The elephant safari is the biggest attraction in Chitwan, and the only thing I was really interested in. I'm happy we chose to stay. I can't imagine a better way to explore a jungle than on the back of an elephant. We went steadily through the forest, from clearing to clearing. At a few of these clearing we saw rhinos, the symbol of Chitwan. The animals didn't seem to mind the presents of the elephants - in fact, they completely ignored them. I was really impressed by these mastodons. With their thick, armor-like carapace and their majestic one horn, they looked like dinosaurs to me; I felt like I was in Jurassic park. We saw some deers as well, but they were, of course, much shyer. We didn't have the luck to come across any wild elephants or monkeys, let alone tigers, but it was still more than worthwhile. I the end, we were pretty lucky with the weather: the rain diminished, and eventually stopped. The flood actually added an extra dimension to the safari, as we waded elephant-knee-deep through some parts of the forest. Since the weather had gotten better, our escaping plans had become obsolete, so we decided to stay another night. I also buried my plans for Bardia park; not only is it in the far west of Nepal, at a horrible 16 hours bus drive from there, but the Bardia district was also one of the most affected by floods.
Rhinos!
The next morning, we went to Lumbini. Lumbini is, as I told you, the birthplace of Buddha, close to the Indian border, in the southern plains of the Terai. When we reached the Terai, we realized we had forgotten how hot it was down there. As I had been told many times, Lumbini is barely worth mentioning. We visited the temple that afternoon. The next morning we hired a bicycle and went around the many monasteries built in the area by countries from around the world. Many monasteries were still under construction, but a couple of them, like the Chinese and the Thai ones, were worth seeing. I'm glad I saw Lumbini, but one night in the hot and mosquito-infested town was definitely enough.
The day I left Lumbini, the weather was excellent. Since I had a couple of days left before the meditation course, I wanted to check out a tip I had received. I French guy I met in India had told me about a place called Tribeni Ghat, at the west of Chitwan National park, not too far from Lumbini, where there were no tourists at all. Since I felt like getting off the beaten track, I thought it would be perfect. I had to change buses twice to get there. The last bus drive was great: as the road got worse and worse, villages got smaller and the scenery more picturesque, with huts made out of straw and mud and people working in the fields and herding their buffaloes. The ride was much longer that I expected, and I was starting to worry a bit: had my friend said there was a hotel there? It seemed pretty unlikely. And would they have an ATM? I didn't have much cash left. As the bus approached the village, to my surprise I saw that they were burning corpses on the riverbank. I could have known: "ghat" refers to a place where there are stairs to access a holy river. On so-called "burning ghats", which I had also seen in India, the dead are burnt. As I found out later, Tribeni is a Hindu pilgrimage town. As a result, there were hotels - no ATM, though. When I arrived, a couple of children showed me the way to a lodge. The shabby room was highly overpriced, but it was getting dark and I wasn't sure if there were any other hotels, so I took it.
I went for a stroll in the village, and ended up at the riverside. Tribeni sits at the confluence of two rivers. Between the two streams lies Chitwan National Park. At the other side of the broad river lies India. On a pole in the water sits a statue of a Hindu god. I sat down there, looking around and absorbing the atmosphere. As the sun was setting, people were performing there evening rituals there, singing and saying prayers. Since I was probably the only foreign tourist there in months, people were very interested in me. So I found myself chattering about religion, travel and castes, with villagers of all ages. At some point, I told them about my money problem. With the price there were asking at the hotel, I wouldn't last one day. I asked a man where I could find dinner at a reasonable price, as for this too, the hotel was overcharging. He at once called the hotel owner and smilingly announced that I had to pay only almost half of what they had told me before.
After my delicious dinner in company of some curious but nice young men, a drunk man came to talk to me. Don't worry, he said in broken English, tomorrow, you'll sleep in my house, and have food there, no problem. He then urged me to come and meet his family. I got dragged to his "family's" house - later on I found out he didn't have a family - where he introduced me to everyone. I saw the distress on some of the family members' faces, but I didn't really had a choice but to play along. I repeatedly thanked them and insisted that I didn't want to be of any trouble. So the next morning I moved my stuff to their house. From that moment on, I was treated like a member of the family, or rather, like a king. The food they gave me was absolutely delicious. Nepali don't really have breakfast. They have some tea and biscuits in the morning, and a proper meal around 11 a.m. and at night. This proper meal is the same, twice a day, every day: rice with lentil soup (dal), vegetables and potatoes, a.k.a. dal bhat. They served me delicious dal bhat, sometimes with fish or meat, and as is customary with dal bhat (even in restaurants), they kept topping up until I would practically explode.
The first day, the weather was still good - that is, it didn't rain, but it was extremely hot and humid. My new friends showed me around their lovely village and took me to a couple of temples on the outskirts of the jungle. We talked a lot. About caste: they are Chhetri, the second highest Hindu caste. Apparently, they don't get a long very well with the members of the highest caste, the Brahmins. About development: they would like to make Tribeni more accessible, building a road through the jungle. Not surprisingly, the government is not too keen on that. Tribeni used to be a pretty important pilgrimage site, they told me, but as other places got more accessible, its popularity waned. As a result, there is very little money to be made in the village. Most of the men work abroad, either in the army or in the Middle East. They dream of making Tribeni into a tourist hub for Chitwan, so that they can earn a living while staying in their village. I tried to explain that they should not expect their village to remain as peaceful if tourists would come, but they didn't seem to agree or to understand. The word "development" is on everyone's lips in Nepal. As much as from a Western point of view we value authenticity, who are we to deny them things like proper access to good hospitals? I also met a "baba" my friend had told me about. A baba, also called sadhu, is an ascetic person who lives of alms. I usually don't have a very high opinion about sadhus, but this man was extremely well-read, and very eloquent in English. He lived a comfortable upper class youth in Calcutta, but one fine day he decided to renounce all worldly goods. When I met him, he was living in the jungle across the river. I had a very interesting talk with him.
I went for a stroll in the village, and ended up at the riverside. Tribeni sits at the confluence of two rivers. Between the two streams lies Chitwan National Park. At the other side of the broad river lies India. On a pole in the water sits a statue of a Hindu god. I sat down there, looking around and absorbing the atmosphere. As the sun was setting, people were performing there evening rituals there, singing and saying prayers. Since I was probably the only foreign tourist there in months, people were very interested in me. So I found myself chattering about religion, travel and castes, with villagers of all ages. At some point, I told them about my money problem. With the price there were asking at the hotel, I wouldn't last one day. I asked a man where I could find dinner at a reasonable price, as for this too, the hotel was overcharging. He at once called the hotel owner and smilingly announced that I had to pay only almost half of what they had told me before.
After my delicious dinner in company of some curious but nice young men, a drunk man came to talk to me. Don't worry, he said in broken English, tomorrow, you'll sleep in my house, and have food there, no problem. He then urged me to come and meet his family. I got dragged to his "family's" house - later on I found out he didn't have a family - where he introduced me to everyone. I saw the distress on some of the family members' faces, but I didn't really had a choice but to play along. I repeatedly thanked them and insisted that I didn't want to be of any trouble. So the next morning I moved my stuff to their house. From that moment on, I was treated like a member of the family, or rather, like a king. The food they gave me was absolutely delicious. Nepali don't really have breakfast. They have some tea and biscuits in the morning, and a proper meal around 11 a.m. and at night. This proper meal is the same, twice a day, every day: rice with lentil soup (dal), vegetables and potatoes, a.k.a. dal bhat. They served me delicious dal bhat, sometimes with fish or meat, and as is customary with dal bhat (even in restaurants), they kept topping up until I would practically explode.
The first day, the weather was still good - that is, it didn't rain, but it was extremely hot and humid. My new friends showed me around their lovely village and took me to a couple of temples on the outskirts of the jungle. We talked a lot. About caste: they are Chhetri, the second highest Hindu caste. Apparently, they don't get a long very well with the members of the highest caste, the Brahmins. About development: they would like to make Tribeni more accessible, building a road through the jungle. Not surprisingly, the government is not too keen on that. Tribeni used to be a pretty important pilgrimage site, they told me, but as other places got more accessible, its popularity waned. As a result, there is very little money to be made in the village. Most of the men work abroad, either in the army or in the Middle East. They dream of making Tribeni into a tourist hub for Chitwan, so that they can earn a living while staying in their village. I tried to explain that they should not expect their village to remain as peaceful if tourists would come, but they didn't seem to agree or to understand. The word "development" is on everyone's lips in Nepal. As much as from a Western point of view we value authenticity, who are we to deny them things like proper access to good hospitals? I also met a "baba" my friend had told me about. A baba, also called sadhu, is an ascetic person who lives of alms. I usually don't have a very high opinion about sadhus, but this man was extremely well-read, and very eloquent in English. He lived a comfortable upper class youth in Calcutta, but one fine day he decided to renounce all worldly goods. When I met him, he was living in the jungle across the river. I had a very interesting talk with him.
The second day, it was raining a lot all day. I insisted on joining my "brother" when he went out to fish some wood out of the river with some friends. The fast-flowing river carried a lot of trees and branches that were swept away by monsoon floods. When they see a big piece of timber floating not to far from the riverside, one of the young men jumps in and chases the potential treasure, dragging it to the side, where they attach it with pieces of cloth. They then saw and chop it into logs, which can be carried away and chopped into smaller pieces. Depending on the quality of the wood, they can sell it as firewood or, more lucratively, as timber to make furniture. They had secured a huge tree the day before, and wanted to cut it into pieces that day. That's how I ended up stripped down to my underwear, standing in a cold and fast-flowing river, heaving a big piece of wood with half a dozen of Nepali boys, while rain was pouring down. At some point I realized that less than 100m from there (upstream!), a body was being burned, the ashes being carried away by the river. Some time later, when the guys saw another tree arriving in the distance, they shamelessly ran past the funeral, at only a few meters from the burning body. I followed, embarrassed, keeping my eyes to the ground. As I observed more then once before, there's not really such a thing as privacy in South-Asia.
Since the weather had gone bad again, and the river was too high to go on a canoe trip, I left the next morning. I made one more stop on my way to Pokhara, in the town of Tansen. It's a picturesque village, where I was lucky to witness both a wedding and a religious festival. I spent a relaxing afternoon there. The next morning I took a bus to Pokhara, where I would finally follow the long-anticipated meditation course.
Since the weather had gone bad again, and the river was too high to go on a canoe trip, I left the next morning. I made one more stop on my way to Pokhara, in the town of Tansen. It's a picturesque village, where I was lucky to witness both a wedding and a religious festival. I spent a relaxing afternoon there. The next morning I took a bus to Pokhara, where I would finally follow the long-anticipated meditation course.
Dusk in Tribeni
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