yangshuo day 1

we set out on our journey again after a very pleasant and restful  stay with the serios. we left on an hour long bus ride to a larger station and then got on a sleeper bus for 8 hours. it was our first time on a sleeper bus and zoe absolutely loved it, though she slept through most of it.

we are definitely enjoying china, possibly more than india, although they are impossible to compare. i still cannot wait to go back to india some day.

the ominous egg mountains loom in the distance, but i will get some close-ups soon.

the "gringo culture" has destroyed this place, but the true locals are still very chinese. lots of "mexicali blues" type of clothing shops are here, much like dharamsala. not to mention tons of touts, scams, guiding companies, western restaurants, and other things that come with heavy tourism. over all, i love it, especially when i run into stuff like this:

i love that you can tell if the money is real here by rubbing mao's collar.

on our walk:

damn, ronald is plotting.

happy easter from china!

i have missed out on many holidays this year being away. it was espeacially difficult to explain thanksgiving without sounding morbid. we woke up this morning having planned nothing for this holiday and the easter bunny had come by our door!

best easter sieve ever.

thank you serios! we feel right at home in a place as far away from home as you can get.

still can't find those jelly beans though, guess my personal family traditions are on hold.

the beginning of china

i still have a lot to put up from india, but since i am so far behind i am going to start posting things from china. yes, i am now in china! but first we flew to hong kong and hung out for 4 days while we waited on a visa.

our china adventure actually began in new delhi. at the airport we made the greatest of discoveries. who would not gorge themselves here?

we found out our flight was 45 minutes delayed to 11:55pm because the prime minister of india was flying with us! unfortunately we never saw him. he was probably tucked way up in first class. we had a two-hour wait for our flight, so we took a nap.

the flight was uneventful and we got in close to on time in hong kong. hong kong is not quite a separate country from china but it is basically a separate government. we were given 90 days in hong kong but had to apply for a another visa to get into china. after two trains we made it to our hotel and checked in. unlike the last hotel we stayed in, which was in new delhi, there were no cockroaches in our beds.

may i introduce you to the most beautiful thing? after 3 months in india with extremely sweet milky coffee, yes please! i know it is kind of sad but i cannot tell you how happy this made me.

we stayed in a place called kowloon. hong kong consists of multiple islands, kowloon being one of them, though i think it is part of the mainland. behind zoë in the picture below is hong kong island.

walking around town was so much fun. basically, the entire city is a giant mall. there are tons of restaurants, but we only found 2 vegetarian places in the 4 days we were there.

towards the end of our stay we finally got a 30 day visa for $200 US each, ouch! as soon as we got it we got on a ferry to shenzhen and guess who we stayed with?

mr. serio and his family!

the bird hospital

while in new delhi, zoë and i went to a jain temple. it was a very mellow time of day for the temple, so there were few visitors, and i even managed to sneak some pictures of the shines. like most temples, you have to enter barefoot, and the floor was covered in rice and other offerings like flowers, an interesting sensation for your feet on the marble floor.

next to the jain temple was what really attracted zoë and me to the area: a bird hospital. people from all over new delhi, and i am guessing especially those who attend this temple, bring birds of all kinds to this hospital for treatment. they also accept rabbits. there was a mural in the hospital of all the ways birds are injured including kites, fans, cats, and dogs.






it was hard to take happy photos here.

on the border of pakistan

when i read about it in lonely planet i didn't believe it. as you may know, india shares the border with pakistan, and from my small understanding of india i know that the two countries do not like each other at all. during the cricket game between the two countries i swear india just stopped because everyone was watching. i was told that if pakistan lost, which they did, the team could not return to their country, and also that some of the team members and the coach of india got a raise from the government.

during our stay in amritsar we were roughly a half hour from pakistan, and for 100 rupees (you should pay about 80,) you can go see the border. but this is unlike most of the border, which contains mostly barbed wire and i bet land mines. here at this spot near amritsar, there is a stadium looming over the line.

when our van arrived, we walked about 300 yards down a road and got patted down by the military, and i was personally asked a few questions. then we ventured another 100 yards or so to the stadium where we were patted down a second time in a line just for foreigners. we got a awesome kulfi there too.

we climbed into the stadium with 2000 or so indians who were already going crazy. the military began playing music, and people (all women except for one 12 year old boy!) jumped out of the stadium into the road that leads to pakistan.

across the road here in the white stands are the pakistani people. they were not nearly as many and they certianly did not seem as enthusiastic as the indians.

suddenly they threw the gate open on either side:

then there was a lot of yelling, marching, cheering, and music. on either side of the border they did a similar show of aggressive marching and yelling. as it progressed they became sycronized.

 

basically about six guards on either side marched and almost danced as aggressively as possible. i will post a video of it later. then finally, at the very end, they lowered the flags, there was a hand shake, and they threw the gates shut.

last day in dharamsala

tomorrow zoe and i will leave at 3:30 in the morning. we will climb the hill with our bags and catch a rickshaw down the mountain to catch a 5-o-clock bus to amritsar. we are both very excited to go as we have stayed in dharamsala for a little over 5 weeks.

i ask: what has dharamsala given me? the answer is a deeper understanding of buddhism, myself, grammar, leprosy, tibet, china, suffering, poverty, compassion, openness, emptiness, craziness, time, responsibility, money, the dalai lama, being nice, giving, replica western food, manual car transmissions, being possessed by evil spirits, zombies, tibetan art, bodhisattvas, hinduism, tibetan food, meditation, and tibetan medicine. there is a lot more but it is escaping me at the moment but if you put chai in twice between each of those words you will have a relative idea of how i spent my time here.

zoe has learned even more, add a whole new language to the list above plus north indian cooking. she is really great at hindi and she plans on pursuing it in college to an even greater level. academically speaking we have also acquired a ton of books from places like the picture bellow. we managed to let go of two of the books. half the weight of my bag is books and broken electronics, seriously.

i am also going to miss the dogs, i named a ton of them. we really adopted zipper (in the foreground) who comes running whenever she sees us. not to mention dorjee, my basic english student who progressed so much in the few weeks we taught him and our monk friend who has better grammar than myself.

i have a feeling there are going to be no or few monkeys in china, especially hong kong. as much as they can be a nuisance they were an exotic highlight of our day most of the time. they really like candy too, i saw a man tossing out rupee candy and they would go nuts for it. the babies are very cute too with their strange body proportions, like their giant feet!

good by dharamsala, but for now, i am so happy to go. next: the golden temple

my future van

of all places we see a vehicle like this in dharamsala india?!?!?!

i was sitting in a cafe taking comfort in staring at this vehicle for about 5 minutes before i realized how strange it was. zoe ran outside and got a photo of it just before it left.

dharamsala coming to a close

my stay in dharamsala is coming to a close with only 4 days left --since we leave early in the morning of the 12th. i finally got some photos onto my flickr which took a little too long. i was too lazy to blog earlier today but since i had some time open up i thought why not. so i went to the nearest internet place after a massive coffee and sat down next to a monk watching youtube.

we have been hanging out with our monk friend which has been very enjoyable. we discuss the 16-20 types of emptiness, zombies, tibetan culture, pretty much everything.

he has us over for breakfast almost everyday! we are very grateful and it is the best way to start a day! one day we had tsampa, a popular traditional food. it is simply butter tea and roasted barley flower with dried yak cheese. the taste is a cross between play-dough and cheerios. it is served like the image below. first you blow on the tea to push back the layer of oil then you sip the tea.

next you mix it together to get that play-dough look, mine was a bit dry because i drank too much of the tea:

our monk friend said tibetans never feel full after breakfast unless they have tsampa. also from another source i heard that monks often have a ball of tsampa up the sleeve of their robe, no magic here!

my poor crashed mac! it is a big question mark. i hope i can get it fixed. no matter the combination of keys i press when i start it up i always get the image below. it is so silly to bring a mac to india! most of the indians have never seen a mac before and they are hard to fix. i should have some luck at the apple store in hong kong or new delhi, till then i will have fairly staggered post.

so where is ms. zoe high? she is taking a 2 day, 10 recipe, north indian cooking class. i cannot wait till she tries some of the recipes on here own, our monk friend cannot wait either as he lets us borrow his kitchen. we did try a little bit of indian cooking last night, we tried out making kitcheri which turned out well. our monk friend had his cousin over and we all enjoyed the food!

also every night when we walk back we pass this insect (about two or three inches long) with two green glowing eyes.... sometimes i get caught in cobwebs and once i felt a spider run across my head, i swear it is only scary when you can't see anything. also the spiders are big here, tea saucer size, sometimes larger.

we are also trying to take chinese but it is proving to be difficult. we tried to take a class at the lha center but it was in tibetan (of coarse!). we had a friend who taught us for a day, but then he left. we are also waiting to hear back from one person. for now we are on our own. believe it or not chinese, minus the tones, is easier to learn than english. so, it is chapter one, making friends, watch out china!

one day we went with mel and jay to norbalinka, a monestary about 30 minutes from us. what a beautiful place! they had a giant temple and water running through the many gutters and streams. they make beautiful tibetan crafts, such as buddha figures and clothes. one small buddha figure can take a 3 months to make. some buddha figures easily go for $3500 or more. i wanted to get an incense box but they started at $25 so i got a nice one in dharmasala for $3!

about a week or two ago we finally did the path that encircles the dalai lamas temple/house. it is a really great walk with endless prayer wheels, prayer flags, shrines, and meditation areas. in lhasa in tibet there is a simalar path around the potala palace although it is several miles, while this path is less than 1.

and last the amazing zoe.

almost incest, earth sucks but it's a good place to be, and pancakes

i am listening to derezzed while writing about buddhism, it's a little crazy. i am in a cafe that charges 20 rupees an hour. loud trucks rumble up the hill making it difficult to hear. cows pass too.

i got some time because zoe is in hindi class, which today takes place in lower dharamsala as shopping. as much as i love shopping i did not go, also there is nothing else to do in that town.

this morning we went over to our (monk) friend's place and we made him pancakes. they took a while to cook all the way through, but they were completely worth it. he liked the pancakes a lot, especially with some maine maple syrup!

it is so much fun talking to him about tibetan traditions. for example: say there are three brothers in one family. the oldest gets married first, but the wife is shared/sleeps between all three of the brothers. when the eldest brother makes enough money, he moves out and his wife goes with him. from the time he moves out his wife just sleeps with him, there is nothing more with the two younger brothers. then the next oldest brother gets married, and again, until he moves out he shares his wife with his younger brother. then he moves out and so on.... weird right? he also mentioned that cousins never get married which is unlike the chinese.


kind of shocking? it is still practiced today in tibet.

hungry for some tibetan buddhist philosophy?

tibetan buddhism explains the beginning of our existence does not existent. in other words there's no beginning. easy to say but try to completely wrap your mind around that. when western scientist approached the dalai lama with the theory of the big-bang, the dalai lama completely agreed, however, he said it was simple not the first one. buddhism suggest that life has existed forever in many forms

currently, our time is a low point for all life as we have sunk to become humans and experience so much suffering. for a long time such as maybe before the big bang life existed but without the need for a physical existence or body. one explanation for evil people is that since we are at a low point it is easier to get a human body for rebirth even if had terrible karma in the previous life.

there is good news about being at a low point. it is easier to practice. when beings are at a high state tibetan buddhism suggest that these beings become ignorant and too proud of themselves, or too much bliss. so when your stuck in the muck here on earth in a human body that gets sick and old, don't worry! it is much easier to accend to a higher state of being from this middle realm, between animals and "light beings" or gods if you are into that. remember even light beings and gods can fall. buddhas (who are seperate) are the only ones who stay in the same realm or who can choose their realms.

fun? ask me questions about it, it's a lot of info and i only touched the surface.

how to get cold

last night we had our monk friend over for tea. he told us some tibetan buddhist philosophy. he also told us about the course in tibet and nepal where one meditates for 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days. he said you are not allowed to lie down during the entire time, the monks sleep sitting. they are not allowed to leave the building and can only have one robe.

at the end of the course they preform a sort of stunt. all the locals gather to watch the monks come out. it is the middle over winter and the ground is covered in snow and ice. there are 5 buckets of water, one at the gate, and one on each of the four corners of the temple. the monks take off their robe and dunk it into the water and then put it back on. then they walk to the next bucket through the freezing cold. as they walk slowly their robe steams and by the time the reach the corner their robe is dry. then they dunk the robe in again and walk to the next corner and so on until they circle the monastery.

he added that not all the monks stay warm doing this, some get very cold. he said laughing that maybe the meditation retreat did not work for them!

broken stuff

i seriously now have a bag full of electronics unwilling to work. a nokia cell phone that refuses to reconfigure to the indian network, and now a laptop that crashed, and all the bits and pieces that go with a laptop.

it really sucks. having a laptop actually saves me a lot of money because i don't have to pay to use a computer. enough complaining for now.

i am becoming really good friends with a monk. we chat for up to 4 hours everyday. he also has us over for breakfast every morning and we are teaching him how to cook a bit. the whole trade is fun.

also we are beginning to slowly unravel dorjee's story. he has met the dalai lama 3 times. when he crossed from tibet to nepal he said his face turned black from frost bite. the whole trip took 15 days and everybody in his group made it.

zoe is well. next week will be taking a chinese class for 30 rupees an hour, awesome!

anyways, we will continue to try to get my laptop fixed but I probably will not blog as often for a while. if it proves the laptop is hopeless we will get a new on in hong kong. have i mentioned we are going to china yet?

oh yeah, this morning we both played cards with our monk friend before breakfast. i got a picture of it, awesome! may be a while until i get pictures on flickr too, damn. we're making pancakes tomorrow.