little Miss Hap

the camping at Hatwanakon National park was amazing, and full of challenges and Rewards. i'm christening this leg of the trip Little Miss Hap Goes to Hatwanakorn National Park, as the first week was full of crazy things like stepping on black ants whose bite was brutal - like glass being wrenched into a small area of one's foot, or being bitten by little tiny red ants and the itch and pain lasting and lasting, or going swimming in the beckoning beautiful vast ocean and running into the sting of jelly fish (and then RUNNING out of the water in shock, even though it is only a temporary pain, it is an awful image to think of diving in the waves and coming up with a jellyfish on your face). needless to say, there was trepidation about swimming... we were then introduced to silent and sneaky mosquitos (silent because my hearing was very poor due to wax build up which the sea has since drained) - just one critter in the tent at a time can chew up your whole night. so if all those bites weren't enough, i got a heat rash on my stomach and just felt red and itchy all over.

it didn't help that when we came back into town to get more supplies (read: delicious fruits and veg) to cart back to the park, i was experiencing (UPS) Urgent Pee Syndrome. on our way to see Durian Man, i stopped to relieve myself at a little resto-shop, and wearing my Art of Living baseball cap to protect me from the sun, i walked toward the squat toilet and BANG! walked right into the concrete slant of the staircase above. (baseball hats DO NOT protect from overhanging structures). being the brave gal that i am, i squatted to pee and, oh yes, you guessed it, started crying. ah, the relief. jimmy was shocked to see my red face as i opened the door, and was thus duly warned of the imminent threat of a headbang.

i say all this because weren't these my very fears about coming to the HOT of the tropics, rather than running to the cool of the mountains? i simply hadn't expected to run into all my dislikes in a few short days, and in such an idyllic setting. but there it is. the universe provided me with a veritable menu of icks and yucks and offered me the perfect balance with:

stunning sunrises and sunsets; a full moon performance that lasted 3 full nights; warm days of sun and wind with the cleanest air imaginable; green and lush forest and the longest of creamy sand beaches for walking; relief from the jellyfish after the full moon passed; nice nice nice people; privacy and quiet; long yoga sessions facing the sea with the breeze on my face; spontaneous singing before yoga, after yoga, with jimmy; a good friend and companion in jimmy; and so many discoveries of foods (pomelo, a sweet and huge grapefruit-type fruit; durian, a little out of season but creamy and rich like custard; fresh coconuts chopped by jimmy that yielded the sweetest water...)

with my lack of sleep due to hard ground (i hadn't anticipated a camping trip), humidity and itch took a bit of a toll, so i rented one of the seaside cottages for a few nights, for respite and then rented my own tent for the last 2 nights... it gave me room and rest. with jimmy and his tent right next door and his small tent for all our food supplies, we were like a little community a deux. and our trips to town were total adventures, making many friends at the market as we walked in with our 4 cardboard boxes to fill. there is Pomelo Girl, Durian Man, Our Favourite Veg Guy, Sapodilla Lady, and Annoying Man who is Very Helpful...

so little Miss Hap made it through her first tropical camping experience, and is anticipating her trip to Kota Bharu in Malaysia and the Jungle ride ... i am so grateful for all the Time i had just to be and to think, and to breath, and finally, in the last few days to play in the healing salt water waves with abandon (No Fear! No jellyFish)...


อฟืหหฟ
(vanessa in thai script)

magic yogi man

greetings from pondicherry!

once i decided not to go the vegan eco forest retreat, all my dreams came true! during all the meditations at art of living, i realized i wanted to focus on my mind AND body; that freedom35 starts inside and more than anything i want to feel really free and easy allround!

so ... of course ... the universe provided!

on sunday, i walked into this little place called Prana Health on canteen street where the sign outside said Yoga, Detox, cleansing ... and spoke to Martine, a frenchwoman who waiting for a massage. while she was raving about the couple who run the place, i was thinking "well of course, i will ask for the woman" and then ta da this beautiful man appears with the clearest eyes, lovely warm and fuzzy white beard, in his little massage outfit of lungi and tablier! my mind was made up! he was IT! I was IN!

he gave me the most unbelievable 2 hour massage with E-V-E-R-Y gland, orifice, surface and interior rubbed and scrubbed. i'm talking NOTHING was left untouched. he pulled every hair on my head (oiled and rubbed and then yanked and pulled), he slapped and tapped, and pushed and probed with THE most expert and loving hands. and when he did my stomach to get at my internal organs, it hurt but i knew it was for a higher good. energy and prana were moving, emotions and sensations came up and... yes, i just started crying and crying. and what did he do? he held my face close and said in his soft voice "relax, relax, relax" and then put his beautiful beard on my face and held me in such an indescribable way... that i could only think that this is the way he serves the world, healing one person at a time. and then when i started laughing, he gave me an eskimo kiss - he rubbed my nose with his nose! i'm serious!

so i've totally changed my plans. i have decided to stay in pondicherry until i go to bangkok on the 10th and today started a 3 day cleansing programme with Ganesh (that's his name Dr. Ganesha). today was totally wild. get this:

yoga
herbal mud pack on my stomach, then a special tea
hot bath (plunked in a little plastic tub like a kid), a black pepper tea
warm enema, lie down for 10 min, let it all out, another tea
full head and body massage (by his wife), tea
steam bath followed by sugar cane juice and then a fruit salad

ok, but the whole time i had no idea what i was in for, what was coming next, how long i would be there, (it turns out it was a half day), and i'm totally naked going from one thing to the next in what is basically their house, but fully equipped with stone slabs for lying down, showers...

so i finished the day with another yoga class with 2 danes and then a fruit salad and carrot salad. they sent me home with tea for tomorrow morning. i feel SO GOOD. and i have 2 more days of this!

so i sign off, feeling totally blessed and caressed!

i highly suggest coming to pondi for the 7 or 10 or 21 or 30 day cleanse with Dr. G-Love! a day with him was the same cost as one hour of ayurveda at the ashram. really - worth the price of a plane ticket.

prem, shantih shantih...

rampant honkaholism

so i had mused in my last email if the plans that had come so well together in my preparations would be just as clean and easy in delivery. and OF COURSE not! what would be the point of that!!!! it would leave out all the fun and spontaneity of a freedom 35 tour.

the perfect bus (big and air conditioned, my seat in the ladies section - seats 3 and 4 - up at the front looking through the wide window..) headed off to pondicherry from bangalore yesterday morning. and lo and behold, the bus driver turned out to be a honkaholic - one who honks excessively and obsessively, and even worse, can be characterized by a strong tendency to HONK ALONE (as in when there is absolutely no one in sight to need a honking of any sort).

the noise pollution only increased when the sai baba video (a well known guruji here) then turned into really bad indian film music videos played too loud and then progressed to murderous, extremely violent films played so loudly that for most of my trip in the comfy front seat, i was plugging my ears and averting my eyes.

we took a detour through villages (beautiful! green! lush! bustling!) and the driver didn't clue into all the looks he got from pedestrians and other drivers as he HOOOOONKED his way through main streets and tiny neighbourhoods. it was TOOO MUCH.

and then it started to rain.

so i arrived in pondicherry, rattled but smiling nevertheless at how a good thing can go so wrong, and in the pouring rain which is totally uncharacterstic here at this time of year proceeded to find a guest house. after the 3rd attempt, i decided to stay at the international guest house (part of an ashram, located in the bustle of the main part of town) in a big room, sparse, with a window that looks onto a wall, but a bathroom with hot water to warm myself.

it surprised me that an ashram residence would feel so lifeless, but even as i took a reservation for tonight at their other place near the ocean, i realized that that one struck me as even more lifeless. so i paid for both (150 rupees for one and 300 for the hot water - total maybe $12 for 2 rooms! i will stay in the first one for tonight and just take it one day at time. i actually quite like the contrast from ALL my other rooms thus far.

on the bus, i sat with jyanti, a 27 year old indian woman who works at IBM, unmarried, and on her first trip to pondicherry. as we talked, i realized it would be nice to have a local person in pondicherry to REALLY see the place.

so that is who i found today. as i was wandering, being a flaneuse (je m'baladais sur l'avenue), i found myself on a beautiful side street. a voice asked me in french if i was from the aurobindo ashram (just outside of town - a whole story in itself). i said no and a friendship was struck. i was a little wary at first, as it was indian man on a motorcycle (and those who recieved emails from my last stay in india know that this can be a single travellin' woman's nemesis!), but this man was different, he actually didn't seem to want anything from me, he just wanted to know if i knew about a performance at the ashram which would save him a trip out there - turns out he is French as in he was born and schooled in French in Pondicherry and has lived in France for the last 20 years. his name is Jean Michel Byron (!) and he speaks only french and tamil. no english! no hindi! so we spoke french. how wonderful!

we zipped off to see the aurobindo ashram on his motorcycle and checked out the sadhana forest where i had planned to go for the week (eco forest retreat that i keep mentioning - whoa it is NOT what i expected). it was a totally great day; among my favourite things are wandering a city and getting lost; being on the back of a motorcycle and seeing EVERYTHING; and sitting in a comfy place and watching the world go by. so i did ALL those things today!

with pondy being a french colony, there are many places here that serve french food (read: fresh salad! roquette/arugula!), but it also brings a certain european feel. the sea side of the city is referred to by locals as White town and is clean, colonial and there is pretty much NO ONE around, while the other side is called Black town and is wild, colourful, lively and chaotic and very indian with people sleeping on the street, peeing in the puddles - you just WOULD NOT see this in the former part of town. no way. interesting spatial analysis.

so my plans for the eco forest - the ONE thing i had planned so much around and the one thing that brought me to pondy - may have changed. my friends from nasik are no longer going to be there (injury and health reasons) and i didn't LOVE the vibe out there today. so i may have one week to do some other things, OR see about changing my ticket and heading to bangkok a bit earlier! only time will tell!

let's get lost

my last day in bangalore and everything went perfectly backwards, or opposite to what i had planned. isn't it?

i met renee, an melbournian, on my last night at the ashram, and we realized that we were both heading to bangalore so we took a taxi to town together having reserved hotels 5 min away from each other!

it was fabulous having a pal in the big city with whom to roam (and one who had an air conditioned room!). but more importantly, she is also a TAURUS! so we shopped and talked (and i painted my toenails), and went for a delicously decadent buffet at the hotel sheraton at windsor square. this is india - all extremes, contrasts and contractictions living side by side. like rohinton mistry's A Fine Balance between hope and despair, between opulence and poverty...

well, OM-y-god this hotel was just stunning. we sat in the atrium, all glass and high ceilings and wicker chairs, with lapel-ed waiters who put your napkin on your lap. we were facing a beautiful blue blue blue pool, fountain, lawn and chaises longues. the buffet was simply, how to say? OUT OF CONTROL. so many dishes, and for me, so much delicous green and raw foodS. plural. not just one, but many salads and lightly steamed BOK CHOY and veggies, and fruits and and beet halwa. it was pure bliss.

and even more importantly, renee and i talked and talked and de-briefed the intensity of the meditation/art of living/ashram experience. i had not talked to anyone about anything up til then, let alone talked!; i had only been experiencing. the course leaders had said, come out of the silence slowly, and i really did, but 6 days later i just talked and talked...

so debriefing was just wonderful. we were able to put our experiences in context - including the PATIENCE required to move gracefully through the crowds, line-ups, misunderstandings, heat, dust, did i mention the line ups of 100s of people (and line budders), and different cultural norms (i think in mongolia and russia it might ok to go to the front of the line to do one's thing, but north americans get really stressed and anxious about that).

we also put this in the context of some of the knowledge/values in which we were immersed at the ashram - accept people the way they are!; opposite values are complimentary! this was really fun, and we gleaned many insights into ourselves, the experience, Life, People, the Universe. it was one of those conversations like you have on a canoe trip, when you are so far away from everything, that time takes on an entirely new dimension and 5 hours talking is like knowing someone for 5 months or 5 years.... you just skip past all the social niceties and go deep.

so she left last night and today i had a solo day in bangalore. i had planned a smooth day of errands, but the universe DEFINITELY had other ideas for me. the first 5 rickshaw drivers had no idea what i was talking about so my day was actually the reverse of what i had thought it would be, and it was just perfect! and get this, the post office experience that i was just dreading (it took me 5 hours to mail 2 parcels in mumbai. I AM NOT KIDDING! 35 min line up at one post office, oh you can't send that from here, go to the other post office, lline up, oh you need to sew the package, line up, oh you can send that from this counter, but the books you have to go to another building...)

today it took no time at all! and there was so much help! i find once i send the goods, they are literally gone from my mind. they may or may not arrive, whatever. but the lead up to the sending is such a big deal.

yesterday's excursion to get my tickets for the next leg of the trip (vegan eco forest and pondicherry) and then thailand, was just wonderful! i took a rickshaw to an area called cambridge and after getting my tickets, i just walked around this neighbourhood and got intentionally lost. THIS is bangalore. cute streets, trees, people just doing their thing... i found an esoteric shop that sold little buddhas, crystals, books, insence... and then bought dried fruits at a supermarket-y place, and then some veg at a wonderful vendor. on the street, there were carts of oranges piled beautifully in massive and perfect pyramids, a mandir (temple) surrounded by flower and garland vendors, a jute shop, many little restos... it was a great hour.

and at the end of my day today i finally got to the first place i wanted to go to - called the Raintree where there is a shop called Anouki - an eco-friendly shop in an old mansion where other designers and artists showcase and sell their goods. they do vegetable dyeing and make beautiful clothes (a bit like sarah clothes) and it is just a beautiful place /oasis.

so i'm at Cafe coffee day, a hip internet cafe near MG road (there is a Mahatma Gandhi road in every major city), listening to beyonce singing (loud!) and sharing some space with urban hipsters. i've just eaten a huge guava from a street vendor (7 rupees, he cuts it up and puts spices on it which i had to wipe off b/c I LOVE GUAVAS the way mother nature made them!).

so i'll sign off and head back to my room to pack and then hop on an 8:30 am bus tomorrow... the getting losts and reversals have been highlights of the trip (expectations reduce joy!) and i'm finding there is an underlying flow that i just need to pay attention to, and i'll be taken care of!!