Cross Country

Manali was beautiful for us. It was the first time in 3 1/2 months that there air was clear enough to see a defined horizon or ridge line. We were some of the few tourists which meant that most restaurants and markets were closed but it was also very peaceful. It was sunny all day and then dropped below zero at night. We walked around the small little towns and got some good views of the mountains, and checked out a small nature reserve full of huge old trees. One day we were just wondering when we found a Tibetan monastery. We went inside and looked around at all of the art and statues of the gods. We bought some incense and prayer flags and one monk invited us into his kitchen for tea. So we went inside and had tea and some food. They put home made flour, chunks of butter and sugar into a bowl and made it into a gritty dough and served to us. They said that it helps with diabetes. It wasn't bad at all. We sat and talked about india and the effect that globalization has had on his religion. He was a very modern monk. He was wearing crocks and had a cell phone and a nice watch. He said that the biggest problem is money. He explained to us that if there was a very poor indian person in his kitchen he would have to leave if some rich people came in and could not join the conversation. We also talked with a man who was half indian and half Canadian. He was a dj who also owned a hotel in Manali. He told us all about how we should go to "upper" because that is "where the freaky people are, doing freaky things, its funny." I guess that is where all the drugs are, and raves, and there have been reports of gurus giving tourists too much LSD. We did not have time to explore upper. Besides, everywhere in Manali the marijuana plants grow like weeds anyway. It is in people's yards and lining all of the roads. People just ignore it.
We realized that we were running out of time and decided that we wanted to spend our last week in Darjeeling. It is better weather over there and we can go trekking without a guide and see mount Everest. So now we are just pushing our way across the country. We took a 15 hour bus from Manali to Deli. This was the scariest ride of my life. It was an over night bus and half of the drive is on a mountain side. This is a narrow road with a drop off on one side and and very tight curves and turns. Also at night the only things on the road are huge trucks and buses. All this, and they still drive like lunies. We were keeping in mind that they do this every night and they know the roads, but I still thought we might be done for a few times. Plus the buses are all painted on the front with bright colors, some have flashing lights, and the windows are always outlined. So it looked like huge metal clown faces flying at each other in the dark. When we got to delhi we were dropped of, with half open eyes, in the middle of no where it seemed, in the middle of a huge crowd of rickshaw and taxi drivers up in your face. We got a ride to the train station, waited a few hours and then got a train to agra. We were in agra for only 7 hours. We saw the taj mahal from a restaurant rooftop and that was good enough for us. Then we got on another train to varanasi. We arrived yesterday and got a room for a couple of nights. Varanasi does not seem as bad as people say it is. The river is dirty, but the area in general is the same as the rest of the country. We have walked along the ghats and there are many people doing laundry, bathing, washing dishes or just cooling off. The sun here will steal all of your motivation and energy if you let it. We also say a ghat where people bring their dead. They burn the bodies with wood and then send them down the river. There is a specific amount of each kind of wood that will burn a human body most efficiently, and different kinds of wood have different prices. Sandalwood is the most expensive. This is the best place in india for the dead to go because it is the town of Shiva. Some believe that if your body is sent down this river when you die you will be released from the wheel of samsara and will not be reborn. So everyday, all day, there are about ten bodies laid out on the steps burning, just down the street from our guest house. Tonight we get to go on a boat ride down the river at sunset and also tomorrow morning at sunrise. We will get to see all of the rituals that are done everyday. Then it will be back to the cool clean air of the mountains. And the toy train!