The Road to Badrinath

Somewhere in the Garhwal Hills, between Karnaprayag and Joshimath


Outskirts of Joshimath


The Road to Badrinath (this was the nearest we managed to get to our desired destination - blasted landslide blocked the way!)

Nightime at Gurgaon

Gurgaon, view from the office

India Update: Deep into the Jungle

Hi mates, nothing much’s changed lately here in Delhi. The weather is kinda oven hot now, the mosquitoes are still around, my waistline is still hovering around the 33” mark, I still can’t fit nicely into my 34” jeans (I could fit in actually, but because of my smaller than desirable bum, 34” pants / jeans don’t really look nice on me). I can no longer wear my entire range of 32” pants / jeans (the buckle / button can’t seem to meet). They DON’T sell 33” pants / jeans here. I am not exercising as much as I’d want to. My back has a slight chronic ache (which I don’t think is serious, probably caused by my 3 day ‘epic’ driving excursion into the hills). The movies on tv still get interrupted by tons of advertisements and frequent blackouts (the apartment I stay in has standby generators to take care of this fortunately. Unfortunately, the cable provider may not have such reliable generators). My colleagues from KL have been visiting more frequently (that explains why I’ve not been that frequent at updating this blog).

And my boss just told me a few hours ago to pack up my stuff to head deep into the jungles of North-East India (in Mizoram state wedged between Myanmar and Bangladesh) to help out with the workload, temporarily. Temporarily in my boss’s vocab may mean anything from a week to a few years. Of all times, now, when I’ve gotten kinda used to the absolute bliss and freedom of not having a boss around, far away from every other office. He said that I might have to stay till the monsoon season. That usually happens sometime around June, so hopefully I can think of an excuse to come back hehe. Flying off to Calcutta on Tue evening, then off to Mizoram on Wed morning (12 May).

I think the jungle does not have very good connections, internet-wise, heck even telephone-wise, so I guess the next post will have to wait for lil while. Till then, take care.

The Birthplace of the Ganges

Harki-Pauri, Haridwar (Gateway of the Gods)

Recently (on the Easter weekend which so happened to coincide with a major festival in India called Holi), I tried to visit one of the sources of the holy Ganges River. The Ganges begins its journey in the state of Uttaranchal (aka The Abode of the Gods). The state border is about 5 hours drive from Delhi. It has 4 holy sources, all in the same state: – 1. Badrinath (source of the Alaknanda River); 2. Kedarnath (source of the Mandakini River); 3. Gangotri (source of the Bhagirathi River aka Ganges after it joins with the Alaknanda); and 4. Yamnotri (source of the Yamuna River). All these rivers are formed from glaciers in the Himalayas (high mountains, …and snow, what more can you ask for huh?) My mission was Badrinath and a national park next to it named …Valley of Flowers, thrilling ain’t it? I decided to close the office and force my one and only colleague to accompany me on the trip.

(Note: In Hinduism (or the version I understand of it), the Ganges was supposed to spring forth from a toe (ya, you read correctly) of Vishnu (one of the Hindu Gods). It came down to cleanse the dirty earth of the ashes of the dead (at that time ashes had accumulated to such an extent that nothing could grow, ….and I thought ashes make great fertilizer…). It first had to flow through the hair (ya, you read correctly again) of Shiva (another Hindu God), who stayed (stays, who knows) in Mt Kailash (in the Himalayas), so that the torrent of the mighty Ganges would be weakened and not wash everything into the ocean (was there already an ocean at that time, …..who knows? Hindu friends, pls illuminate me if I’m wrong.))

Trip summary - list of accomplishments: -
- Did not reach Badrinath (it only opens in May! …besides a landslide blocked the road).
- Did not reach Valley of Flowers (same road as above, and park opens late April).
- Got a chronic backache from driving for 3 days from daybreak to dusk on bumpy roads (with occasional stops) (still having the backache, but I think it’s recovering slowly now). Colleague doesn’t drive and doesn’t read maps.
- Had two punctures in 3 days.
- Got ‘Holied’ (Holi is a major festival esp in North & East India where people throw coloured powder / water on others – I had yellow powder plastered on my forehead, luckily it was powder, not coloured slush).
- Stuck in a traffic jam for more than 2 hours at the state border crossing (the result of Indian driving habits – 6 lanes of cars / trucks/ tractors / bullock carts / buses / bikes etc, each side, having a face-off on a two lane provincial road – it was a wonder we could get thru in 2 hours. We finally decided to just park at the side (forming the 7th lane) to watch the buffalo man quarrelling with a car owner, border official quarrelling with everyone else, etc. The patch we parked our car so happened to be overgrown with ganja plants, …don’t need to go to the golden triangle in Thailand for this stuff, it grows everywhere in India, especially the hill states, nope, didn’t pick any)
- Got stuck in a queue for about an hour and half waiting for a cable car up to a temple (that you can walk up slowly in about 30 mins – we’ve bought the tickets before we realized how bloody long the queue was. We decided to walk down although the ticket was for both ways – took us at about …15mins with a stop to snap some photos)
- Got lost in New Delhi at 1am while returning home (told you my colleague doesn’t read maps)
- Played with Himalayan snow (after driving for 45mins on the bumpiest roads I’ve ever driven on – that’s one way, it’s another 45mins down the same road).
- Managed to get a room to stay at 10.30pm in the hills (where every place was about closed) because of the major public holiday and hill people like sleeping early.
- Was lucky enough that we had enough fuel to last one whole day of driving in the hills, thanks to the public holiday when every pump station was closed or out of fuel (…wonder why they still bother to open??)
- Was lucky enough to be able to reverse all the way out of the muck of a road where the landslide occurred.
- Was lucky to find a shop to fix the punctured tyre after the first incident, the puncture happened again later that day.
- Was lucky that the spare held good till we got home.
- Bathed in the Ganges at the point where the Alaknanda joined the Bhagirathi to officially form the Ganges – and in the process got ALL my sins absolved (isn’t this just wonderful?), and got blessings of long life for me, and my family (that was after parting with 100 rupees and after repeating word for word whatever the priest / guardian mumbled – the only thing I understood was "100 rupees or 200 rupees" after I asked how much, …was thinking of blurting out 50 rupees, but thought the better of it and just paid the cheaper of the 2 options, wonder what sort of blessings I’d get if I paid 200 rupees, blessings of eternal life maybe?)





Devaprayag, where the Bhagirathi River becomes the Ganges after meeting the Alaknanda River

Incredible India!

This is India!

A picnic in the park ....ing lot dumpsite, Haridwar
(See how at peace the cows, pigs and chicken are with each other...)

India, this is too, ....incredible huh?

Pipalkoti, Garhwal, North India

What happened to Shwedagon Paya

Shwedagon Paya, Yangon (Rangoon)

OK, here’s a pic of the famed Shwedagon in all it’s glory, ….bound by bamboo-scaffolding and getting cleaned and regilded. Not many people have the privilege of seeing it in this state since this happens only once every 4 years, so I should consider myself lucky right? If you wanna see it as it's shown in the tourist brochures etc, all gilded up in gold, you’d best wait for another 5 months or so.

...maybe by that time, my postcard would also have arrived.


A temple bell in Shwedagon Paya

If I'm not mistaken, this is supposed to be the 3rd largest uncracked bell in the world. Myanmar must have a thing with uncracked bells, they also have the largest and the 2nd largest. I have pics of all 3, but I figured that'll be a bell too many huh?

The God of Saturdays

A shrine in Shwedagon Paya, Yangon

Here’s a pic of devotees bathing their daily deity (I think this one’s for Saturday, since that statuette there looks like a Naga). Myanmese have a deity for each day of the week except Wednesdays. They have 2 for Wednesdays, one for the morning and one for the evening. Each deity is symbolized by a creature, mine’s a Garuda since I was born on a Sunday. What you have to do is to bathe your deity as many times as the years you were in existence (I didn’t do it coz I’d have to do it 35 times! And besides, I’m Christian hehehe), then you kneel and bow a few times and end it with some strikes to the temple bell. I guess it’s to improve your fortune, but don’t quote me.

Shadow-Walking

On the roof of Pahtothamya, Bagan

This picture was taken by a small boy on the roof of a temple in Bagan. Roaming around the roofs of temples in the afternoon in Bagan is quite fun. First, there’s hardly a soul around, second you learn the trick of shadow-walking i.e. walking on whatever shadows you find so that you don’t burn the bejesus outta the soles of your feet (notice how restless my feet are). The sun-baked roof had no effect on the boy’s feet so he was kinda taking his own sweet time to snap this pic, that little rascal!

More Temples of Bagan

More temples of Bagan, from the roof of Pahtothamya


Even more temples, Nyein Gon Paya, Bagan

The Biggest Pile of Brick Rubble on Earth

Ok here’re some more pics to let everyone know that I’ve not actually forgotten about this blog. It’s just that I’ve been somewhat busy (and terribly lazy). And as a picture speaks a thousand words, guess these pics will have to suffice for the time being, until I get my inspiration rolling again. Conducting interviews really ain’t very inspiring. Repeating the same bloody thing to each and every interviewee is not really that fun (especially when they’re all guys hehehe).


Mingun Paya, near Mandalay

Mingun is a small village about an hour’s ride on the boat along the Ayeyarwaddy River (Irrawaddy in British times) from Mandalay. Mingun Paya was supposed to be the base of the world’s largest stupa (if the king who wanted it built hadn’t died before it was completed). And it’s cracked on all sides due to earthquakes (Myanmar’s right smack in earthquake zone). So what you’ll get is a towering cube-shaped monolith with large menacing cracks on the walls and huge doorways like some doomed crumbling temple.

The above pic was my best effort at capturing it on film. Don’t think I did such a bad job huh? At least it still looks like a great big heap of bricks. The photo in Lonely Planet looks fabulous, a towering monstrosity of a crumbling temple with red-robed monks in the foreground framed by a deep blue sky. Another photo I saw had a red robed monk posing at the side of a monstrous crack on the wall. Now, if only I had red-robed monks (instead of 2 enthusiastic Czech traveling buddies) in my photo, if only the sky was of a deeper blue, if only the sun had shone where it was supposed to shine, if only I had Fuji film instead of Kodak, if only my camera was a better one, etc… I’m sure I could get a photo as good as the ones I saw...