Of Monkeys and Men

After one night in the very religious Haridwar, we are in Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a city on the banks of Ganga, where the Himalaya begins. The district of Lakshman Jhula, around the suspended bridge over the river, is a very pleasant place despite the regular invasions of hippies and monkeys. We spent almost a week here, during which we had some very long walks, we visited temple, we rested.

We were in Rishikesh for Diwali, the celebration of lights. This is a hindu celebration, to enlight the path of Rama returning from exile. And in the facts it is mostly about launching fireworks all the time during 5 days. Every shop sells their selection of fireworks and other explosive stuffs and people make them explode a bit everywhere in the streets.

During first weeks here, we got to hear religious music from all the variety of religion India offers : sufi qawwalis at Hazrat Nizam ud-Din in Delhi, sikh music in the Golden temple of Amritsar, tibetan buddhist chants in McLeod Ganj, hindu mantras at Har-ki-pairi in Haridwar... It was a very nice change to listen to music as a concert. It has been a long time we didn't attend to any cultural events (since we left Latvia...). The musicians were talented. Indian music is really intriguing. At first you feel like you follow the rythm, until you realize you were totally wrong. They start on 15/16, then add or take off one quaver, they suddenly go faster, etc. The most impressive were the improvisations and how they could follow each others.

Also one morning in Rishikesh we woke up at the music of something that first sounded like a kind of bagpipe, but wasn't. We went out of our room and down from our balcony an old beardy skiny man was playing in front of a basket where a cobra was raising its head out.

In Rishikesh we got close to the "common fauna of India". Beside holy cows, stray dogs, boars in garbage, we also saw one peacock climbing up the bushes. And too many monkeys. Monkeys everywhere. On roads, on bridges, on roofs, in trees...  On the first day we arrived, we met one on the terrasse of a café. After some minutes of observing people and posing for their cameras, the monkey jumped on our neighbour's table to steal a hanfull of pasta!

But now we are leaving India. Destination : Kathmandu.

Out of India

Or almost. McLeod Ganj is clean, quiet, small, bouddhist, tibetan, sells alcohol... and still in India! Here the Dalai-Lama is living, as well as tibetan government in exile. We also found a place to live, with tibetan monks! 

 

Three sentences, three times the word tibetan : it seems here everything is about Tibet. Well, yes it is. Tibetan food, tibetan music, tibetan schools, pro-Tibet NGO... Since China invaded Tibet, India offered tibetan government to exist in McLeod Ganj. Many Tibetans followed and settled in this city as well as in different others in India. But McLeod Ganj stands as a center of tibetan culture in India, with many events involving tibetan issues. During our stay here I went to give english conversation classes to tibetan refugees. It was like discussions around very open questions. I only had to speak a little bit and they were sharing so much about themselves.

And the mountain is the right place for resting after the cities. The road was harsh but the view was worth it. Much less crazy cars up there too. At night, only dogs were barking. And also a kind of cat, but bigger and creepier...

We didn't do much here. Mostly resting (and recovering from indian stomachache...). And we had walk in the nature. We reached a couple of other villages that way :

- Dharamkot, a village of israeli hippies. We had a great breakfast, with hummus and vegetables here, in a psychedelic café. Near the synagogue someone asked us "Are you jewish?" But walked away when he got the answer... Is "no" a rude word in hebrew?

- Nadi, very small countryside indian place. Not much to see beside the amazing view from up there, but very typical.

And in-between : the mountain, the buddhist flags, the monks, the monkeys, the cows, a school... Here are some pictures of our walk!

 

Seeking for the Sikhs

Laikam kāda piektā diena Indijā. Jūk dienas, datumi, tie vairs nav svarīgi. Svarīgi ir, kurā pilsētā atrodamies šodien un uz kuru dosimies rīt. Esam Punjab štata svētajā pilsētā Amritsar, nakšņojam sikhu templī. Pēc Deli kņadas un netīrības tās ir patīkamas pārmaiņas - cilvēki šeit ir viesmīlīgi, draudzīgi un runā ar mums aiz tīras intereses, ne lai izkrāptu naudu. Traucē vienīgi vīriešu nekaunīgie skatieni un izsaucieni uz ielām. Zelta templī beidzot sajūtos kā tajā "īstajā"  Indijā, par kuru sapņo un uz kuru sirdsmieru meklēt brauc nogurusī Eiropas jaunatne. Sikhi ir mierīgi, skaisti, templis ir bagāts un tīrs, skan mūzika, cilvēki lūdzas un dala prasādu. Pozitīvas emocijas virmo gaisā.

Cette fois nous nous sommes perdus pour de bon ! Nous nous étions levés de bonne heure, sans raison, et étions partis déambuler dans les bazars d'Amritsar. Mais après plusieurs heures de marche étourdissante dans les ruelles étroites : impossible de retrouver le chemin du temple ! Les commerçants qui vendent de tout, les touk-touks qui nous font signe, les écoliers en uniformes, les odeurs d'épices et de sueur, le bruit des mobilettes nous font perdre notre orientation. Une seule solution : cherchez les Sikhs ! Plus nous sommes proche du temple, plus la communauté Sikh est présente. Sur leurs motos les hommes sikhs ont des allures de ZZ Top en turban.

Au milieu du bazar des bazars se trouve le Temple d'Or, centre spirituel des Sikhs. C'est là que nous logeons. Les pèlerins sont accueillis dans le temple. On y dort gratuitement, mais il est possible de faire une donation. L'hospitalité est l'une des valeurs les plus chères aux Sikhs. Après Delhi, Amritsar est vraiment reposant. Les passants qui entamment la conversation avec nous ne sont plus des rabatteurs en quête de touristes à escroquer, mais des gens curieux et polis qui veulent bavarder un peu avec des étrangers. Un peu trop polis parfois. Et le Temple d'Or est simplement magnifique et appaisant. Au milieu d'un large bassin il semble flotter comme un bateau doré. Toute la journée les hypnotisants chants Sikhs résonnent dans les allées marbrées où se pressent les fidèles.

 

In the bazaar

 

 

Hippie garbage truck

 

 

Sikh man taking holy bath

Arrived in India

India. Our journey through Asia finally starts here. The arrival in Delhi was quite a shock after Iceland. Everything opposes India to Iceland : the crowd, the dirt, the ''pure water''... The gap between those two places is probably the widest you can find.

It needs some time to adapt to India, to the mass and to the mess. The first steps in Delhi are like a straight jump in cold water. Except here is boiling hot. We have seen too much in three days here to speak about everything. We had long walks through very different type of districts. Some that transpires misery and some more fancy, and they usually juxtapose to each others. In our district we saw different kind of animals, from the homeless dog to the peaceful cow, and also some small wild boars digging in the garbage. We got lost in the bazaars while monkeys were climbing the high shady walls. We went through the maze of a souk, until we arrived (after a thousand of hypnotic turns) to a beautiful hidden mosque where we attended to a sufi ceremony. Finally we escaped from the crowd by entering the beautiful historical places of Delhi (Qutub Minar, the Red Fort, and the sumptuous Tomb of Humayun).

But the real adventure is also in the nose. Every meter you walk, a new smell you discover. Some more pleasant than other. Spices, incense, fried anything, goat, and much worse things. But I can't write about the smell without speaking about the taste. From the street food to the proper restaurant everything we have tried in those three days have been just pure pleasure. Even if spicy food makes you sweat. My favorite one was hidden in a small yard in a bazaar of Old Delhi. You just have to take the seat they give you, pick something in the menu and enjoy!

Today we left Delhi. Not a bad thing, this city is heavily exhausting. We said goodbye to our very helpful host and we took the train to Amristar, in Punjab, seeking for the Sikhs...

Black sand

Holidays!

Before leaving Iceland for good, we would like to take a couple of days to travel a bit in this beautiful country we didn't almost see. We got a car and we took the road to the south, in direction of Vik where Tince's got a friend we'd like to visit. The road from Reykjavik to Vik is beautiful. We left the lava fields of our peninsula for new landscapes of mountains, glaciers and waterfalls.

Vik is a cute town of southern Iceland, stucked between the mountains and the ocean. A small church overlooks at the town from a small hill, while down there waves cursh on the black sand. Just like sand, but black. With the storm and the rain around us, and the cliffs hidden in the fog, the scenery was surreal.

The storm went on during the whole day. We tried to figure out where to go and what to see in this weather. We drove a lot in the wind at first, making circles aound hills on gravel roads, before to find a spot where to stop. We were having a ride around another misty mountains, when we found a high cave where to have a dry lunch. And the view from the cave was incredible. Facing the ocean, we wouldn't see the waters, but a violent, raw and surreal stormy melt of black sand and gray rain.

Later we drove inland on a country road. At first the view was rather pastoral, the sheeps surrounding us in a green valley with a few lonely farms on the hills. But the farest we would drive from the sea, the farest we would go from this first scenery. The country gravel road changed into a scaring mountain trail. The grass left for sharp rocks. The highest we got in the mountain, the windiest it got. In the end the roads were like roller coaster - or like those roads in Tusheti, Georgia - going up and down between the rocks, with the fog blinding the gaps around and the wind making the car shake. A true Hell-like vision!

And so we came back to Vik for a rest, in the swimming-pool. The swimming-pool is small, but is the oldest in Iceland. From the pool and the hot-tub we have a pretty view on the mountains around. They have a sauna too. I must say this was the best sauna we had in Iceland, the closest to the real pirtiņa, unlike those steamy smelly ones they usually have in Iceland. In the evening we drove to the direction of Gullfoss where we spent the night.

For our last day in Iceland we did the so-called Golden Circle. We woke up by the waterfalls of Gullfoss. With it's 32 meters high and 70 meters wide this was a loud one! But it was nice to be there in the early morning, when no tourist or almost have arrived yet. Later we drove the 10 kms to Geysir, a geothermal area that gave its name to the word geyser. The geyser there is very active, with an ejaculation every 5 minutes, unfortunatly we didn't succeeded to take any good picture of that moment. The landscape was nice this place, with beautiful autumn colors, and even some trees! They also have a lot of warm houses in this region. With the naturally hot ground and water they can grow tomatoes, and even bananas!

We eneded our trip in a better weather, in the national park of Þingvellir. There, in the rift between two continents (eurasian and american plates), used to be hold the Althing, the first Icelandic parliement and the very first parliement in the world. That is also in this place the first viking settlers were giving justice among eachothers.