A Birthday Party for Lord Krishna (or dancing with strangers)

“Do you like to play dance?” Asked the police officer next to me, before nudging me forward, forward, and then forward again, right into the outstretched arms of a cross-dressing makeup’ed man.

Sometimes I find myself in the weirdest situations.

“Dance! Dance!” Agreed the smiling, painted faces of men and women.

“No no no…”

But they grabbed my arms all the same, clapping and spinning. Not knowing what else to do, I danced, flinging my arms and skipping my feet. Grinding club style didn’t quite fit the situation. So I hopped and spun and looked absolutely insane. It was all part of the six day party leading up to Lord Krishna’s birthday.

On Saturday, I made my way to Shimla, a hillside town known as the summer capital of India. I just happened to stumble upon a massive parade and festival celebrating Krishna’s birthday. School children and marching bands paraded through Shimla’s lower streets, winding around in no specific order, circling back and forth, up and down, making every inch one big party.

The festival had every sort of entertainment. Singing troops of older men and women would edge forward, carrying what looked like a gramophone taped on a rusted bicycle. Men stood on each others shoulders, balancing and reaching to break a clay pot dangling from above, showering milk down their chests. Girls waved gold bands. Lights flashed. Neon machines blared past. Drummers drums and horns blared and red powder was flung through the air, right alongside rose petals.

Vendors shoved food into my hands as I walked by: a sweet pancake, rice and dahl, apples, wafer cookies. It was like trick-or-treat on Halloween except everyone was playing. One old woman circled back around to get herself another pancake.

“I’ve seen you already!” Scolded the food-giver.

I kept trying to escape the crowd but never really succeeded. Every now and then someone would ask to take a picture with me, because I’m pasty and blue-eyed and tall. It makes me a bit of a novelty. (“What do you use on your skin?” Two women have asked me, because Indian females have all sorts of creams to make themselves paler. “It’s called hiding in the library,” I want to explain.)

The festival was hectic and fascinating. I can’t wait for September 2nd, which is Krishna’s actual birthday. Now in Rishikesh, known as the ‘yoga capital of the world,’ the birthday promises to be interesting.

Hot Springs and Hyper Monkeys

Sometimes you just have to jump.

Tattapani, place with hot springs

Tomorrow, I’m jumping. I have been at the monastery now for an endless amount of time. My days blur between teaching (which I love), interacting with monks (also enjoyable), eating, and flopping about. I need to do something. Anything. I have just polished off books four, five and six of Harry Potter. Any more and I will be running around by broomstick.

I need to go.

Enter Shimla, and Tattapani. Shimla, a hillside town known for its quaint British ways, is somewhere up on the map. I am leaving for Shimla at 10 (or 11. The bus never really comes at a certain time) tomorrow.

“It has monkeys. Very big, large monkeys,” warned a Russian model who is visiting Menri when I told her of my plans.

Hotsprings. Ok.

“Seriously,” she scolded at my laugh. “Large monkeys.”

I have been advised to carry a stick and treats. This way the  monkeys that attack me will be hyper and furious.

I knew I should have gotten that rabies shot.

Pretty, aren't they?

After Shimla, I’m off to Tattapani, a city known for its hot springs.

I’m not quite sure how I’m going to get to these places… not quite sure where I’ll stay, or what I’ll do when I get there. I just know I’m going.

I’m jumping. Let the adventure continue.

Ten Things I Bet You Didn’t Know About Monks

So I’ve been teaching classes every day, which has allowed me the joy of learning fun facts about Menri Monks (+ two nuns). Here are my favorite ten so far:

1. Monks like early mornings. When asked to list their favorite time of day, 75% said ‘Around 5 a.m.’ I tried to explain how the average Cambridge student sleeps in until 10 a.m. Disbelief all around.
2. Singing songs, Lady Gaga, Akon, and wrestling are favorite methods of entertainment.
3. So are long walks. Each evening, a lot of the monks stroll and stroll and stroll again.
4. Debates occur in pairs as part of learning. One monk sits, another stands. The standing monk rattles off arguments about philosophy and such. They don’t shout, but it certainly isn’t peaceful.
5. This debate also involves a lot of hand hitting and stomping. The left arm swings over and BAM! Smacks into the right palm, while the right foot stomps. Think superheroes sending fireballs. That’s what it looks like. It’s to stimulate energy, or such.
6. Monks have ID cards.
7. Rice and dahl is listed as a favorite food. Unsurprisingly enough, pizza is not so popular.
8. Sleeping is a preferred free day activity. Feeling dangerous, some monks may rest until 10… which of course means missing breakfast, occurring at 7am.
9. They drink warm or hot water, never cold.
10. After 13 years of study, Bon monks can obtain a Geshe degree. Not to be confused with Geisha, Geshe is similar to our PhD.

Life at Menri continues. I have been trying meditation and when that fails, I just go and drink sweet tea. There is a lot of sweet tea.

My Life at the Monastery

I don’t know how much time I’ll have to write this post, as internet is sparse here and the monkeys vicious.

I made it to Menri Monastery. Nine hours from Delhi, one from Solan, Menri is perched in the middle of green mountains that spread out and down in all directions. The nearest town is an hour away. Within Menri there are around 800 people, including monks, nuns, children, staff, and others.

I wake to the sound of cows down in the valley, the monastery’s cows. They use the milk to make fresh chai tea and to give to the children. Breakfast is bread and jam. Lunch, a more lavish affair, involves vegetables, soup and rice. Dinner doesn’t exist, not really. It’s usually broth and steamed Tibetan bread.

My shower is a bucket. My bed is covered by a mosquito net, which is alright because at night I can look through it, out the window and up at the stars. There are unlimited stars here. Sometimes I think I see the Milky Way.

There are some things I haven’t quite figured out, like how to use the toilets. They don’t have loo paper. They don’t even have bidets. They just have a faucet, and a toilet, and sometimes a cup.

I am not sure what the cup is for. I purchased napkins.

The monks are amazing. I had my first class yesterday, where we worked on introductions and pronunciations. It was in a room with wooden desks, wooden chairs, and curtains of burgundy fluttering in the cool breeze.

“Should we call you Madam?” Teased one of my ‘students,’ laughing because that’s what children call their school teachers. Now when they see me, it’s always ‘hello, madam. Hello! Cool!’

I met His Holiness the other day, the man who is the head Geshe of Bon faith. I gave him a white scarf and a book from Cambridge. He draped the scarf back around my neck. “This is our welcome. It means you’re welcome here,” he said.

As for the book from Cambridge, he took it with a smile. “Nice basket. And look, babies.”

So that is my life at the monastery. It is peaceful and quiet. I am reading a lot and running just as often. I’ve started doing yoga again twice a day.

As soon as I make it to the postman’s house (as there is no post office in Dolanji) I will send out letters to some of you. I have been writing, but like me, these letters just keep traveling along.

Suffice to say I miss people. The monkeys are pretty, but really not very good company. Actually, they’re awful company. They attack dogs and things with sparkle.

I’m off now to go have tea with sugar and to sit on the balcony overlooking the mountains. Hopefully this will post before the internet kills over.

x

Getting Monk’ed in India

“Denny. Denny is easy to say. It’s the name of a Bollywood star. But Danae?” The monk sitting behind me shakes his head, smiling and tsking a bit. “Different.”

We’re riding along one of Delhi’s rushed roads, where cars and bikes, rickshaws and three-wheelers, jostle one another for minimal space. Horns blare – as they should, considering the number of “Horns, Please!” signs on the back of bumpers. A couple lorries roll past, stacked with bags of grain and casually reclining dark skinned men.

In the car with me are two men, Geshes (a high level monk) at the Menri Monastery where I’ll be heading tomorrow. They wear orange shirts and plum red skirts, shaved heads, smiles.

“Deeeeny.” Muses the quieter Geshe, Soonum, with a wrinkle of his brow. “Dennny?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a weird name even in English.”

So began my trip to Delhi. I’m staying with the Geshes at the Majnu Ka Tille Tibetan refugee center, perched in the northern edge of the city amid flies and old buildings.

My  room has air conditioning, provided by a noisy box blowing cold air through the window (“Good for keeping away mosquitos,” Geshe Samdup told me, prompting my non-Malaria-vaccinated self to deliberately freeze the entire night); and a shower consisting of a bucket. It works.

Leaving early this morning, I braved Delhi by traveling down to the Red Fort. The Red Fort, unfortunately, was closed. So I did the next best thing: I got lost.

This involved wandering through the city, past markets and street vendors. The flies are everywhere. Small booths offer crushed limes with ice, others dates, others still bits of meat covered in thin sheets of plastic and black flickering bugs. Every step brings a new smell: cumin, spice, sweet, dirt, garbage, rot. The heat pushes down oppressively, and bodies bumble past, always framed by the loud chaos of honking horns.

A young boy sprinted by on my left. Running beside him, about equal height, was a goat. He reached out and patted the goat’s neck as they hurried forward, quickly lost in the crowd. Then there are chickens in cages, their wings like bits of straw; and baby chicks, fluffy and yellow. Food, sounds, noise. Chaos.

“Hello, ma’am. Good day ma’am.” Mixing in with the sounds of horns and bartering were the charming calls of would-be suitors.

“Namaste, ma’am.”

Now, after barely a few hours, I have returned to the much quieter corner of Delhi that is the Tibetan refugee center. I will drink tea and probably eat dinner again with the Geshes (who help me pick from plates with foreign names, ordering steamed bread and spicy dishes of noodles and sauce).

Tomorrow we make the eight hour drive up to Menri. There is flooding in the Northern part of India right now, but hopefully all will go well.

Until then, I’m going to go enjoy the chaos of this big city – or at least the chai tea it has to offer.

Passage to India

Today I go to India.

Today, at 8:45, I hop on a plane and fly far, far away. A monk will be meeting me at the airport. I am to wander around mumbling his name and Geshe, his title, accosting every robed figure I meet.

“Where will you be?” Friends keep asking.

“Not sure. It doesn’t really exist on maps, per say. The town.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t exist on maps?”

“You try to find it. I can’t.”

But I will be near Shimla, above Solan, in Himachal Pradesh. I’m not sure what to expect. There will be monks, old and young, and nuns because the foundation opened a nunnery recently. The faith is Bon, similar to but older than Buddhism. For around five weeks I will be living there, teaching English.

“Why do they need to learn English?” Demanded  a friend.

“Why not? They want to.”

So away I go. Did I mention I’m taking only one rucksack? One small, single, normal sized, going to class rucksack/backpack/term it as you may. I have two shirts, two trousers, twenty packets of porridge. I’m taking instant coffee and an umbrella.

Wish me luck.

A Succinct Review of Several Insane Adventures

I just received an email from a monk: “Mostly there are very hard to see monks at airport. So please whoever is Tibetan monk please come directly and ask. One will be me.”

So before I fly to Delhi to accost monks in an airport, I figured I better write a summary of my previous travels.

World Cup Newspapers

My summer started with a dip into the madness that is Barcelona. Filled with Spanish flair and sweaty tourists, Barcelona is one of those cities that pulses with life (while sucking the life from your wallet). I visited amazing buildings by Gaudi, ate more melon than a person ever should, and stood in a plaza with thousands of screaming youth during the World Cup finale.

Market in La Rambla

I also went to the beach regularly, hiding my money in the sand lest someone steal it. Probably not the best life choice…

Then came Trieste, Italy. Perched on the edge of the sea, Trieste was probably one of my more preferred cities. It’s quiet and beautiful. Boats line the harbor, while the entire city faces forward towards the ocean. I lounged the entire day with two Oxford Students.

Trieste. Every sunset should be like this.

I then became further corrupted by meeting up with three more Oxford kids on a bus leading to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ljubljana started a trend that would last for the next couple of days: the inability to pronounce a single word.

“Let’s call it Lulu!” Suggested Oxford Student 1.

“Makes much more sense.” I concurred.

“Travels around Lulu. Where are we in Lulu? Lulu…”

In Lulu we saw pretty buildings and snuck melons into beds. I recommend visiting Lake Bled, which was a surreally beautiful place with a floating church in the middle of a lake, and a castle overlooking crystal clear waters.

Lake Bled

If you don’t go to Bled for the beauty, you can go for the opportunity to walk around like vampire stating “Lake bleeeeed. Lake bleeeeeed.”

…This is why people don’t take me places.

More trains, more transport, and bam, more students.

Oxford kids lookin friendly

To make friends and not war, we danced the night (and days) away at the Soundwave Music Festival, located in Croatia.

I played in the water.

My favorite spot in Croatia was definitely Hvar, an island located off the edge of Split. Perched in the Adriatic Ocean, Hvar is inlaid with lavender fields and pine trees. It’s surrounded by sparkling water and rock beaches.

It’s also surrounded by young people on yachts wanting to dance by the light of the moon.

Perching atop a hill in Hvar

Being more of an old people, I climbed mountains and swam in the ocean early in the morning.

Hvar, Croatia

Dubrovnik was the last place on my little travel list. I met up again with a friend and we cooked together, explored together, and went to a beautiful island together.

That’s my kind of friendship.

Overall the trip was amazing. I ate a lot of melon and delicious bread. I explored new beaches (sometimes with horrible results). Most of all, I made new friends and new memories.

Thank you, Don.

When Ten Oxbridge Kids Get Lost for Six Hours

I could tell you all sorts of things about my trip. I could ramble about the beautiful beaches in Croatia, the islands of Hvar and Loupod, the sun and red melon glinting in the sea. I could go on about Barcelona, discussing tourists, markets, the World Cup. I could tell of lavender fields and pine trees pushing towards the ocean, and of swimming with fish, with salt. But there is too much there, too many little details.

So instead, I’ll focus on some of the highlights… starting with Hell Night, or The-Night-of-Agony-and-Poor-Decisions.

Hell Night was preceded by a lovely day in Petrcane, Croatia. Nine Oxbridge students and I danced on a boat in the afternoon.

The DJ kept emphasizing the boat. “You’re on a boat!” He exclaimed. “You’re on a (expletive) boat!” It was helpful.

Then we danced our way through Soundwave Music Festival. “You’re at the sea!” DJs chanted. “You’re at the (expletive) sea!”

By 1 a.m., we were flush with our geographical knowledge. “We were on a boat! We’re on the sea! Let’s walk home!” One Oxbridge student suggested.

“Right-o!” Agreed another.  ”We’ll save money and be environmentally friendly!”

Off we marched, guided only by moonlight and our own lack of foresight. The rocky ocean path was boarded on one side by the sea, on the other side by dense forest. We quickly lost traces of all civilization.

“Don’t worry,” said a friend after an hour of walking. “I see a sign.” The sign was in Foreign, but we knew what it meant: Go ahead, young souls. Carry on.

So on we went. “It’s like a horror movie,” I murred to a fellow American. “Ten scantily clad Oxbridge students, alone near the Adriatic by night. Danger. Crazies.”

“Who will be killed first?” He asked.

“The Italian. I will live the longest because I am in a swim suit. They always keep the nekkid ladies.”

Stories gave way to grunts of pain, as the semi-stable beach became sharp, jagged rocks. They cut and tore into our feet. My shoe broke, requiring hair ties to hold it on.

“Maybe you should tie some fabric around your foot,” offered American.

“I have no fabric.”

“Don’t worry!” Cried someone in the front. “I see lights up ahead! I see lights just around that corner. I see li-oh wait. That’s just a sign.”

We had walked now for nearly three hours. Exhausted, we huddled around the sign. “There is barbed wire up ahead. Perhaps we should just scoot around it.

“The sign says it is a military base. It says keep off. But let’s try!”

“You do not scoot around barbed wire.” I noted as I sat, pulling out a bag of dry oatmeal and offering it to my disheartened companions.

My suggestion was to call the Croatian police, which was perhaps (as the others argued) a bit extreme. “I have no shoe.” I lamented, eating porridge.

We were not so happy on Hell Night

We tried the police. “Stupid tourist?” Someone explained into the phone. “Come get us? Stupid tourists?” The police didn’t speak enough English.

“We could sleep here for the night! Now -that- would be an adventure.” Suggested one British girl, who was shot down on account of us being outside a military base, and on hard, ceramic rocks.

Resigned, we walked an hour back to where we last saw a road. The moon hovered red on the horizon.

Along the way we started to sing. “Oops, I did it again,” and a bit of NSYNC filled the air, interspaced with hisses and grunts of pain as one of us stabbed or stumbled.

Again, happier than I was that night

Finally, finally we made it back to some semblance of an actual street (but not before passing by a cemetery. Seriously.) We sat on the side of the road, the sun already up, our shoulders slumped and dusty.

A taxi drove by and we flagged it down, going in shifts back to the campsite. We arrived around 7 a.m.

Sometimes, Oxbridge students don’t make the best choices… but at least they make good stories.