Hello f & f :)  Anyone who is still reading–thank you.  Welcome to almost the final installment of this amazing trip I’ve been on.  I’ve been in Bali now for the past 3 weeks and I am just realizing how overwhelming this all is to continually shift, change, to float in a new culture, sleep somewhere new every other night….and to do it without my favorite people around, my family and friends….travelling alone is both amazing and tiring!!  As I told Mom, I realize that I have only made one single phone call on this whole trip.  Most travellers have cell phones and are talking to their friends every day!  For me, though, I think it’s been better to have the intensity of processing everything in my own mind.  Anyway, so here I am in Bali.  Let’s get to it.  I spent the first 2 nights in utter Bali Hell, Kuta Beach.  It was like LA meets Bali.  Overdeveloped beach central, with a zillion cheap souvenir shops packed door-to-door the entire length of the beach and the whole place filled with clubs and 20-year-olds here to party and surf.  NO thanks!!  The people at my hotel were rude, the “included” breakfast sucked and on the second day I woke up with about 20, maybe 40, bedbug bites all around my torso.  I immediately ditched the beach scene and headed up into the green hills to Ubud, Bali’s new-age spiritual center.  A few minutes after getting off the bus, I was wandering down the street with my backpack on and this cool, kind of hippie New Zealander woman pulls up on her scooter, “Hey are you looking for a place to stay?  Hop on!”  She took me to a nice family place with a few bungalows, got me a great price, then took me to her guy who rented me a scooter, meanwhile pointing out all the great organic vegetarian places to eat in town!  Yeah!  I knew I had found my people.

delicious comfort at the kafe

After 9 months of eating rice and noodles, I found the most incredibly delicious veggie food at the new-age social central, the Kafe.  I got completely sucked in by the uber-healthy deliciousness and stayed in Ubud for 10 days, every day going to the Kafe, sometimes twice a day!  Had many chats with very interesting people there, including meeting an amazing Australian surfer in his 50s, who did a little soul alignment on me.  Yup, he read my chakras and then gave them a spin.  Not joking.  Was both a great experience, and also a funny story (for later).  He also talked casually about surfing Ulu Watu, Bali’s biggest wave, at 3-4 times overhead.  (It would be like saying he went out on the biggest day at Mavericks.) (I googled him and found his bio in the Surfline who’s who.)  Most of the time at the Kafe, I thought I might’ve been in Marin, except then I’d go back to my bungalow and see the mom making all these little palm leaf ornaments, to put in their family temple, for offerings to the gods.  She showed me how and I practiced making them with her and her granddaughter.  Yup, Bali, not Marin.

making offerings

It turns out that I was just in time for a major holiday in Bali, Gulangan Day, which is kind of like their Christmas (but without the tree, presents and snow).  More of a spiritual thing.  So, my days in Ubud were filled with riding the scooter around the country roads, walking through the lush, green rice fields (could not get the photo straight, please look sideways), and exploring the local temples.

riding the scooter in my sarong

barong parade

I went to one big Balinese temple, called Tirta Empul.  At this temple, you do a bathing ritual, in your sarong, where you dunk yourself under a whole row of 12 fountains.  You have to go from one and then get in line for the next to get blessed under each fountain.  So I decided to join in and get some blessings, make some prayers for the future of our children and the planet.  It was late late afternoon and the water was *cold*.  My lips were blue when I got out. But my family made me a big pot of tea when I got home :)

gettting holy at tirta empul

Finally, I tore myself away from the comfort of Ubud and the delicious fresh vegetables and coffee.  I got on the scooter and decided to explore Bali!  My first day, I rode a couple hours, all uphill, to the base of one of Bali’s three big volcanos, Gunung Batur.  After I got my room, I ran into a supernice Indian guy that I had met in Ubud, who was in the room next to mine!  Nice.  Well, the big deal on Gunung Batur is to get a guided trek up to the top for sunrise.  I read in the Lonely Planet that some people said they did it easily without guides, but during the day….it’s just through the trees, then open volcanic ridge, only two hours up.  Well, being the wilderness survivalist that I am, I decided, no, I did not need to pay $25-$30 to have someone show me how to hike up some trail!!  (Plus I got in late in the day, a bit too late to plan.)  My friend Samir, had already booked and paid.  We scoped out the trail in the evening, but weren’t totally sure which one…..so knowing that the groups all start at 4:00, I got up at 3:30, got my flashlight and bottle of water, and stealthily walked to where we thought the trail started, near the guide shop….and I quietly waited in the dark.  Just when I thought that maybe I was too late, I saw a line of 4 flashlights, bobbing along in the darkness.  I started following them up the trail, keeping my distance, most of the time hiking in the dark, using my flashlight only when totally necessary and then covering it with my shirt to dim its light.  When they stopped to rest, I stopped a bit behind and would duck down to make sure they didn’t see me with their flashlights.  I started totally getting into my role and completely laughing about me being…who?  some kind of James Bond, Mission Impossible girl….Well, as we got higher and out onto the ridge, all you could hear was the faroff sounds of dogs barking and roosters crowing in the village below, with the stars in full bloom overhead.  The sunrise was totally incredible.  In the photo below, the big shadow in the sunlight on the left is from another volcano on the nearby island of Lombok, and what looks like a shadow behind the mountain is really a second, even bigger mountain.  And that’s a big beautiful lake in the photo too!

at the top!

After that amazing hike, Samir and I rode our scooters together on a long day ride over to the east coast of Bali.   On the way, we stopped off at the biggest temple in Bali, Pura Besakih, where he wore a manly sarong, required temple wear for both men and women.  We rode through rain, then dark, lost each other on the road for a while!, but finally made it down to the small town of Amed.  Amed is known for it’s diving and snorkeling, so I was excited to commune with the underwater world, but not Samir, after a day, he headed off.  There are no waves in Amed, just flat blue-green clear water over coral reefs and I have to say, on those days, I felt that I liked snorkeling even MORE than surfing.  I’m sure you guys have snorkeled, but all I can say is what a TRIP.  It’s like where the ocean meets the air is this dividing line of the two biggest worlds on the planet.  And that other world is CRAZY!!!  I thought I was in a Star Trek episode most of the time, looking at all the shapes and colors of the lifeforms underwater.  Some of those fish are just INCREDIBLE!!!!!  The graceful wispy-ness of the white, yellow and black angel fish, who are scooting about in pairs, with their pals….the aloofness of the longlong skinny snouted loner fish who seemed to constantly be scoping me out….the big schools of fish, me wondering how do they even know who to swim with?….they don’t have mirrors under there?  Hard to verbalize how incredible it all seemed to me.  This was totally a highlight of my trip.  No underwater photos though.

Another aspect of this trip, the beautiful kids…..the kids in Indonesia are, as children around the world are, adorable.  Sweet and sassy.  I spent a few hours with these girls, who lived next door to the little bungalow I was staying in.  They were selling necklaces that they made from beads and sequins, for 5000 rupiah each, 50 cents.  I shopped, admired the merchandise and bought one from each.  We had fun with the English-Indonesian dictionary, looking up words, them teaching me some things.  Boy: anak laki-laki.  Girl: anak perempuan.  (Wow, Indonesian is complicated I thought!)  I drew up a checker board on a napkin and we found red and black lava rocks and I taught them how to play checkers.  We replaced the tiny rocks with big ones for the queens.  They look so serious in the photo, but very giggly in real life.  I learned the word for “silly” in Indonesian and this has actually come in handy several times now.  Lucu.

me & cute cute girls

Funny how things happen when you are alone….In the afternoon, after snorkeling, I was riding around the backroads of Amed, and pulled over on this tiny road to take a photo of the rice fields.  Immediately two local guys pull over to talk to me.  The usual.  Where you from?  How long you stay Bali?  Where you stay?  You alone?  You have boyfriend, married?  Me, yes I have boyfriend, he is back at hotel.  One of the guys told me that there was a big ceremony in the temple at their village that night, further up the road, and he invited me to come.  Well, I couldn’t turn that down, so later I showered, put on my templewear, sarong and sash and rode my scooter up to the village.  Well, it was totally great.  It was very awkward being there, as it felt like being at a big family reunion where you’re the only one who’s not part of the family and everyone’s just wondering who invited you.  People were not unfriendly, but didn’t go out of their way to talk to me, well, except for a few young guys (of course.  where you from, how long you stay bali, you alone? etc etc).  (actually sometimes i wanted to tell them “i could be your MOTHER!”)  Anyway, I could hardly take photos, as it seemed totally rude and out of place.  I managed a few, but you’ll have to wait for the slideshow.  They also played a lot of gamelan music, which was totally beautiful and ethereal, and I did get some video of it!  Then I ran into the guy who invited me and he was like “Oh, you are alone?”  Me, “Um, oh yes!!  Boyfriend at hotel, not feel good…sick, yes, sick.”  I actually saw that same guy the next day, a third time, and he was like, you are alone?  Me, again, OHhhhh Yeah!!  Boyfriend stilllll sick….Most of the time, actually I have always just said Yes, I am alone, when people ask, because I want them to know, yes, it’s okay, women travel alone and I am happy and fine!  Funny, that when most women say, Oh you alone?  no husband?  And I say No, no husband, they all say, with this knowing look, Oh!  Better!!  Just funny.

Well, after Amed, I rode my scooter around the outer east coast road, Bali’s Highway 1.  It was pretty amazing, twisty and turny and some long steep downhills that made me pray that the brakes would not suddenly stop working!  The road wound all through small villages, people living a rough life in the dry, arid, volcanic landscape that is east Bali.  Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries for the ride!  Plus, a bit hard to ride and shoot photos.  Lots of kids yelling hello! out to me, women walking on the side of the road with big bundles balanced on their heads…chickens, baby pigs  and goats running across the road!

Finally made it to my next stop on the coast, Candidasa, but was back into expensive Bali tourist world.  So after one night, I headed down the road to Padangbai, a more laidback port town, for another day of snorkeling.  One more night later, and I thought, hmmm, time to find some surf on this trip.  Back on the scooter and went for a LONG ride, where I concentrated harder than ever, trying to hang in the Indonesian driving scene, where a zillion motorbikes and cars are vying for position to pass slow-moving trucks on narrow roads, while avoiding all the motorbikes passing from the other direction.  I was thinking about how flimsy our skin is as a protectant.  Then I’d watch grandma whiz by me by with two kids casually hanging on behind her.

Finally I’ve found a spot to hang and surf for a few days.  I’m now staying at a little shack right on the white sand beach of Balangan.  It’s 4 curvy, fun miles off the main road, so pretty laid back scene out there.  Big cliff, more blue green clear water over reef, some fun waves, buff surfer bodies and blazing sun.  Banana pancakes and big juicy fruit salad for breakfast every morning!  Sleeping with the sound of waves crashing.  Am going to spend my last days in Bali here.  Then one last night in Ubud, where I left most of my stuff.  Then, everyone, I’m heading on to my next major destination!  The United States.  I heard it’s cool.

Love and more love,  Allison

SO!  i’m in bangkok now, after 30 full days in myanmar!  and the contrast between thailand and myanmar is just incredible.  talk about isolation, that country is definitely in it’s own little world over there.  and a fascinating, beautiful and tragic world it is.  oh how to express what i saw?!

well, first of all, i decided before i went, that i would stay a while to try to do some more meditation.  myanmar is an intensely buddhist country, with over 50,000 monasteries, they’re everywhere!  buddhism is completely woven into the fabric of people’s lives.  almost all boys go to stay in a monastery for at least a few weeks – first as a novice, then later in their 20′s as a monk.  and myanmar is quite famous (but not in a people magazine kind of way) for its meditation masters and their techniques.  so i went for my 3rd meditation retreat, trying to hang with the burmese nuns,….but you know, they’re a tough bunch, those nuns.  felt like i was trying out for a Survivor show, the challenge this time: a Burmese monastery!  made it only 6 days before the hard wooden bed and the “no fans allowed” policy wrestled my soft, sweating, lethargic, american self to the mat.  the 3:20 wakeup and no eating after noon had nothing to do with it though.  every morning i just woke up exhausted and felt that i got less and less rest on that damn bed, which, yes, was a wooden plank.  when i first got there, the quiet, young nun who was showing me my room, and who lent me a bowl, spoon and cup for eating…she was about to leave and then said, “oh…..did you want a pillow?”  um, YESSS i want a PILLOW!!!  she came back, it was tiny.

so there i sat, a bit intimidated, in the last row of the enormous meditation hall, behind about 120 shaved-headed nuns all in brown robes, with my eyes closed, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the drops of sweat that were jumping off my chin to join their friends in the little river that was running down my chest.  plus, i had some sweet, smiling ingratiating teenage girl passing me notes everyday in the meditation hall–please give me american daw-lar.  (she wasn’t a nun, but a local girl, there with her mother for a few days.)  the first couple days, she left little trinkets for me next to my meditation pillow, a couple hard candies, then a hair tie, then a bottle of soymilk.  so i slipped her a quarter, thinking that she just wanted a little souvenir.  her next note asked me how much a quarter was worth.  when i wrote that it was worth 300 kyat, her next note was, please dear sister, give me daw-lar, give me tonight, 300,000 kyats please (a mere $300 she wanted from me).  then she moved her seat next to mine.  sweet turned highly annoying very quickly.  so after 6 days, and sleeping through more than a few meditation sessions, i realized i couldn’t salvage my attitude,  i decided to cut my losses and i said goodbye to the nuns.  enlightenment was not to be for me in myanmar!

so i headed up towards the north of myanmar, to inle lake, mandalay and bagan.  i stayed for another 6 days at a little town called nyaung shwe, near the beautiful inle lake.  it was very laid-back and relaxed, with dirt roads and big trees, surrounded by mountains, the truckee of myanmar!  and i was just in time for their biggest festival of the year!  there’s a big pagoda on the lake where four very revered buddha statues live.  every year, the buddhas go on a little vacation…..the locals take them out of their pagoda and they travel around the lake, village to the village for five days.  every morning there’s an enormous, elaborate procession of boats as they move to a new village.  the buddhas themselves travel in the fanciest golden barge, preceded by many, many long teak canoes, rowed by hundreds of local men in their traditional costumes, in their traditional leg-rowing style–standing up with one leg wrapped around the oar.  then there’s a big party at the monastery :)  and on the fifth day these buddhas come to nyaung shwe, the main town on the lake and they stay for three days.  a big section of town got built up into stalls and booths for food, drink, shopping and local handicrafts.  they even had this ancient ferris wheel, but there was no motor–a couple guys actually ran inside the wheel to keep it going around!  so people from all the surrounding villages came down from the hills, or from across the lake, into town to sell or shop, to eat, drink, socialize and put some gold leaf on the buddhas.  in fact, these buddhas have been so covered with gold leaf, that two of them are now just big round balls of gold.  it’s a little weird to see people praying in front of the big blobs of gold, but i guess they know buddha’s in there!

while i stayed in this relaxed little town, i also went on two different treks, each just for the day, but super interesting to check out the village life.  each time it was just me, another friend, and a local guide who spoke english and knew a lot of people in the villages, as well as spoke the village languages, which were different from burmese.  i got to see a lot of totally fascinating processes, women making these rice cakes to sell at the festival, men preparing these big flat leaves they harvested for cigar-rolling, drying out the sunflower seeds, preparing the corn to sell to candy-makers.  everything still done by hand.  these farmers have almost no machines, they all use oxen to plow their fields, and ox-carts for transport.  on my second trek, i talked to a farmer involved in a UN microcredit program.  he borrowed 50,000 kyats ($50) for the year to get supplies to grow wheat, corn and vegetables, which he sells at the local markets.  since they live in the hills with no roads, his family treks sometimes miles away to the market, with the produce in a big basket on their back, and a strap on their forehead.  every month, the farmer has to pay 3% interest, about $1.50.  if he pays back the 50,000 at the end of the year, the next day he is able to borrow double, 100,000 kyats, for the next year.  he said that it was going well, and so far he was able to pay and felt that he’d be able to pay the 50,000 kyats back.  this was all through my guide translating though, so couldn’t really ask many detailed questions.  just good to know it’s working!!  i came up to this village with my mexican friend and our supernice guide and instantly, there were about 12 adorable, barefoot kids, all just plain dirty, standing outside the fence of this farmer’s house, just silently staring at us.  they were really interested and actually seemed a bit afraid!  until i started making silly faces, at which they all laughed, but then ran away.  maybe i got too scary.

cuties!

what else can i say about myanmar….well, one reason i wanted to go, which i started to explain in my last post, was because i got to experience a bit of life in mae la refugee camp, where thousands of people have fled their lives in myanmar to cross the border for the total uncertainty of life in a refugee camp in thailand.  and i wondered about this place, myanmar, where life could be so bad that you would trade it for this:  living packed in with 50,000 other people, no possiblity for travel outside the camp, no real work, little possibility for learning, or developing, or expressing your human potential.  people are just existing there, making the best of it, waiting for years for someone to come help them, for their number to come up on the UN repatriation program they signed up for years ago……some of the stories i heard in the camp were harsh and made me realize of course, why people would leave–many young men have left because they can be conscripted into the army, or worse, they can be conscripted from the small villages into forced labor.  and many young women have left their families and small villages, because if the military comes and there is fighting, the women are often raped by the soldiers.  so this safer refugee camp life of waiting is better than this.

okay, so i knew i would not see this version of myanmar, as anywhere with any possibly active resistance to the government is off limits for tourists, which is really a lot of the country.  i knew i would get a narrow, “pretty picture” version of the country, as only the sanitized tourist attractions are open for travelers.  i still wanted to see where my mae la friends came from, what was this life under a “military junta”?  throughout my travels, i was able to have quite a few conversations with people about the government, although they were usually short and very hush hush.  they only happened when we were unable to be overheard, in the kitchen of my guesthouse, riding on a motorbike, on my treks in the hills, away from everyone else in some public area….and everyone said, yes, they would be arrested if they were overheard.  and everyone said, yes, they all hated their government and were desperate for change.  one burmese man in his 50′s approached me at a big pagoda on a hill with a beautiful view in mandalay and we started talking.  he told me that he walks up there when he can’t take it anymore, and he likes to talk to foreigners so that he can let it out and express himself.  he said he feels sad, that his generation is growing gray, waiting for change.  and that one of the only things that makes him feel a bit better is to know that when they die, the people of myanmar will be going to heaven, and the generals will be going down, to hell.

myanmar is really very geographically beautiful, the people are so sweet and smiling, but there is definitely an invisible heaviness over the place….behind everyone’s smiles is this quiet voice of desperation for change….another older man told me that the only way they could tolerate it is because they’re buddhists…..you just feel this kind of slow suffocation because most of their infrastructure, their roads, their buildings, their vehicles, seem so old and broken, as if most of the country has been left to decay….and people are just struggling to make do with what is left.  most of the cars in myanmar are at least 20 years old, and there really are very few cars around….outside the cities, most people get around with these ancient bicycles and trishaws or by horsecart.  i asked one taxi driver how much his little truck cost him.  (it was a crappy old little truck, 1980′s, that we would have easily junked in the u.s.).  he said he bought it 10 years ago for $2,000, but now, he could easily sell it for over $10,000!  crazy.  hardly anyone has a cell phone, as a sim card costs: $1,500!!! yes, for real.

i had another amazing, totally great experience….my first day in yangon, i was walking around the local pagoda, and this monk came up and started talking to me.  his english was okay, and he said he liked to talk to foreigners to practice, he was totally nice, in his 30s, (and really, kind of cute, but he’s a monk).  well, you all know i like to talk too!  so, after chatting together for about 45 minutes, he asked if i would come visit his english-speaking class the next day!  i was like, well, mayyyyybe……where is it?  oh, only a 40-minute bus ride away, huh?  in this new city where i can’t read a speck of myanmar language…..so he wrote out the address in burmese, and the next day, i just showed my piece of paper to people at the bus stop and the bus conductors and eventually got myself over there.  (adventure number one! i felt pretty brave just to do that!)  well,  it was totally fun, there were at least 100 students there and i talked to all his young student friends for hours at the adjoining teashop and was also grandly introduced to their very respected teacher.  then my monk friend took me on another bus (monks ride for free, he told me as we got on the bus, but not only that, people give up their seats for them!  not me though, i stood, he sat) and we went to his monastery.  i was introduced to the president and another senior monk, and we talked over tea about countries, cultures and change for another 3 hours, with my friend translating for the two others.  finally, i said i was worried that it was getting late, at which they all just smiled and said very calmly, no, nothing to worry about.  and they invited me to come back at the end of my trip, and we made a date.  well, at the end of my trip, i did go back to visit them.  during the conversation, they told me that after my first visit, the government came the very next morning to question them about who i was, was i a journalist, why did i visit,  and why did i stay there for so long?  i was like, wow, how did they know i was here?  and my monk friend just said very matter of factly, “spies….we are afraid of our government”.  but they assured me that everything was fine, that they told them i was just a tourist, coming to give a donation.  which i promptly did.

tea at the monastery

that evening, my monk friend showed me around the most amazing temple of all in yangon, shwedagon pagoda.  it was really quite a magical place and much of the temple is covered in layers of real gold.  the photos attached are from the evening we wandered around there.  (i’ve only got photos right now from the last day i was there–you’ll have to wait for the slideshow for the rest)

magical gold

i have so much more i could talk about, but this post is so long already….so all i can say now, is that my appreciation of free speech has grown in leaps and bounds.  my appreciation of the concept of democracy is a lot greater than it ever was.   my appreciation of buddhist thought and it’s influence on society, also greatly enhanced.  myanmar feels more deeply spiritual than the u.s. ever has to me.  but the best thing that i will take away from myanmar are the smiles from all the people.  this may sound cheesy, but it is true.  all the myanmar people immediately smile at you or smile right back!  maybe it’s just because i’m a foreigner, which is still a rarity, but still.  now that i’m back in thailand, i get blank stares.  in san francisco, blank stares.  myanmar, big smiles.

Then a couple more days later, I was further north, in Mae Hong Son, and met this Irish guy who’d been living in SF for past 15 years, staying at my guesthouse…..so we reminisced about our favorite coffee shops and bars.  The next day, we rented motorbokes and rode out 25 kilometers through the rice fields and forests to a tribal village and got completely soaked in a rainstorm, barely made it there as the last 2k were crazy, rutted, slippery muddy roads and we ended up staying overnight with a family.  Another totally interesting experience, but will have to save the best part for later……They are a hilltribe from Burma also, and in refugee status as well. 

During my Thailand travels also, I have twice gotten day visas to cross the border into Myanmar for a few hours.  This was mostly to renew my Thai visa, but both times, it was also really interesting–kind of like the difference between being in suburban San Diego and then crossing into downtown Tijuana, where you’re like, whooooaaa, not in the U.S. anymorrrre…….

SO, I decided Myanmar/Burma–my next stop–to see what it’s all about.  Not that I think I will learn much in 30 days, but we’ll see.  The Myanmar embassy at Bangkok was pretty damn freaky itself, totally dark grey concrete, not a single window, and covered in barbed wire.  Almost a caricature of itself.  Preparation is a bit intense too, as there are no ATMS in Myanmar, and they do not accept credit cards, nor traveller’s checks–so you have to bring ALL cash for your entire trip, plus emergencies!  And it has to be in perfectly new, crisp U.S. bills.  Also, there’s I read that there’s almost no internet, except for Rangoon,  and all email is read/censored, and you can’t access yahoo or hotmail because they are somehow blocked by the government censors.  Well, so I have opened a gmail account and if you want to send me an email (*ALWAYS greatly appreciated*)  I opened a gmail account:

allisonjs2002@gmail.com

just as boring and inane as my yahoo one, but easy.

Well, gotta run now!  I really hope everyone is well, healthy, happy and enjoying life.  xx’s and OO’s!!!  I miss you!!!

Hello again, my fans, my family,…whoever is still reading ;)

Well, presto change-o, I am on an island in Thailand now, Koh Phangan.  I left the world where women are swaddled in yards of beautiful fabric and entered one where they are wearing a few fabric scraps stitched together!  I think this has been more culture shock, going back from conservative, covered up, to openly sexy, than going from the US to India in the first place.  I still feel naked in public without a scarf to float over my cleavage and the first few days in Bangkok, inside I was screaming “Oh my god!  Put some clothes on, girls!!”  But, as you can see from above, I did get used to living in a bikini on the beach again :)

So I came down to this island to do another 10-day silent meditation retreat.  It was called the Revelation of the Spiritual Heart and very different from the Buddhist vipassana experience.  Equally amazing, if not more so, although it took me awhile to get into the experience.  I rented a little bungalow down this kind of deserted beach from the meditation/yoga center and walked there every morning and home at night.  I was so not into it at all on my first day.  I felt like the group was a bunch of 30-year-old skinny shakti yoga girls who all knew each other and were all dressed as sexy as possible, in tiny tank tops, even though the rules specifically said, “Please dress very modestly” (remember my Indian mindset now).  There were guys there too, but they were on the other side of the room.  I didn’t meet anyone before the first day, and then we were all in silence and not even supposed to look at each other.  Man, I felt really alienated….I picked a spot to sit all the way in the back of the hall, and I was really struggling with my own ego, feeling that there was so much ego flying around in this place where we were supposed to be working on GIVING UP the ego!! 

The next few days were up and down.  I was feeling resistant to the scene and not totally committed, and then getting frustrated, couldn’t meditate sometimes, felt like I was just wasting my own time.  Grrrr!!  We meditated for 6 hours a day, 1-2 hours of yoga and then our retreat leader talked to us for about 2 1/2 horus a day – but that part I loved!  The guy who led the retreat was really an amazing man…he’s spent 20-25 years teaching yoga, and has done years of his own solitary meditation retreats in caves.  He was constantly quoting from masters of all different spiritual traditions, integrating their ideas together, and weaving poetry into it all.  He would barely look at his notes as he talked all about existence, life, death, love, the universe, eternity and infinity, what is the self, what is god.  I felt like he was truly an evolved human being.  His presence was rock solid - integrity, openness and love. 

And me, while I was really into listening to him, I wasn’t feeling much in the meditations.  So I wrote a question to the retreat leader on the 7th day about maybe this wasn’t a path for me because I wasn’t getting anywhere.  He responded so straight and firm, saying that this IS the path, but transformation is not easy!  And won’t happen for everyone, you have to have determination!  So I realized he was right, I needed to really commit myself.  And then, wow, the last 2 days!  Totally amazing!!!  It will be hard to explain here my meditation experiences, but they felt like I experienced, during them, a shift in consciousness and perspective, from my rational mind to a greater awareness of the eternity of life, centered in my heart.  It was definitely worth it to come to Thailand.  And it was just amazing to spend this concentrated time thinking, and not-thinking, on these larger questions…. they’re the foundational questions of life, but I feel like we pass them over a lot in our busy everyday lives. 

Lest anyone think that I have left my rational self behind, not true.  At the same time, before and after the retreat, I read Stephen Hawkings’ A Brief History of Time, to find out what physicists are saying about the nature of the universe.  An incredible book.  So interesting that while we do know a lot of things about the universe and our existence, it’s still a Big Mystery.  Hawkings himself says that while physicists can keep theorizing, they are only answering the How? of the universe, not the Why?

After the retreat ended, I stayed for a couple more days, rented a scooter, which is how everyone gets around, and scooted around the island.  Pretty, palm trees, jungle and blue water, but a bit boring for me, kind of a honeymooners and package tourists scene, an endless strip of bungalow resorts and a few cheezy beach bars with neon lights and loud pop.  My highlight: taking an herbal sauna at Wat Pho – only 50 baht donation, $1.50.  It was out in the jungle, behind the temple, and I was the only one there in the middle of the day.  The nice attendant lady gives you a beautiful Thai sarong to wear and the sauna smells strong, sweet and grassy, and you sweat and sweat, then you come out and pour cold water over your head from the rain barrel!  Mmmm!

Next I went off to the other side of the island, to find this boat-in yoga/detox place called the Sanctuary.  I was hoping to find a very mellow place where I could just stay for a few days and work on continuing my meditation, as of course, this is the truly challenging thing, to do it yourself.  What I found was more like San Francisco dropped into Thailand, lounge music, cappucinos, chilled wine, expensive salads and a few laptop users connected to wi-fi.  A 3-day detox cost just under $300.  Holy cleansing, Detox Man!  That’s a LOT of baht for clay shakes and colonics.  I actually felt like it was time to tox up, so I had my first glass of wine in 6 months!  It cost more than my dorm bed, but it was delicious :) 

I did meditate most days, and I did meet a lovely group of people there, especially these two German women, around my age, a chef and pastry chef.  They had run a coffee shop together in Australia for the past 10 years.  They finally decided to sell and take time off, so they came to Thailand, they *meant* to go on to India, but they ended up staying at the Sanctuary for 5 months!  Well, they were so relaxed and open and fun when I met them, and they had such a nice group of people floating around them, I was lucky to share in their great energy. 

And I was *lucky* enough to be on the island just in time for the famous Koh Phangan Full Moon Party.  Which is the absolute opposite of what I was looking for.  I actually left the Sanctuary after a week there, on the morning after the party and my boat dropped me directly off on the party beach, which was covered with plastic and glass bottles, ruined plastic chairs and a few drunk bodies passed out in the sun.  There were about 100 people still barely moving to the shitty trance music blaring out of the speaker towers, and the entire place smelled like pee, totally disgusting.  The entire island was filled with 20 year-olds who came there just for the party.  One Dutch guy I talked to, on his way home at 10 am, said he spent 9,000 baht on “buckets” (a plastic pail with all kinds of alcohol dumped in) that night.  At 30 baht to the dollar, he spent $270!!  All I can say is I’m glad I’m mature enough to regulate my behavior at meaningful parties like BurningMan ;)

So as I write this, I’m in Bangkok, headed up to northern Thailand for a while, to see if I can truly chill out! 

So I want to leave you all with a poem that expresses my last experience….

“Charge of the Star Goddess”

I who am the beauty of the green earth

and the white moon among the stars

and the mysteries of the waters,

I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.

For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.

From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold–

all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.

Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion,

honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

And you who seek to know Me, know that your

seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless

you know the Mystery:

for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself,

you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning,

and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.

Hello again, everyone! Well, I just want to start by saying that I miss each and every one of you. I have been away now for 5 months. It’s been great. I’m not ready to come home. I AM ready to hang out with my friends again!!  I am more and more appreciating the connections that I have to people, to friends, the joy of sharing. My emotions really seem to be heightened on this trip. I have been staying in the same place, in Dharamsala, for the past 2 months now. What a change, not to be on a hot, rolling train or bouncing, crammed in, sweaty bus, careening into uncertainty….where will I stay tonight in this new place I’m on my way to? (For those that don’t know, this budget traveling life is not about making reservations.)

So, after my 2 weeks staying on the Tibetan side of Dharamsala, I decided to do a vipassana meditation retreat.  Vipassana is a style of meditation.  It’s how the Buddha got enlightened,…..so pretty good credentials. It’s a fairly rigorous plan, 10 days of meditating 10 hours a day.  Wake up gong at the retreat center was 4 AM, which made the Sivananda ashram seem posh with their 5:20 wakeup call.  The rules are strict, but the results are amazing.  The idea is that you are totally into your own process without distraction. No talking, including no communication by eye contact, no books, no writing, no phone, no camera, nothing.  Sparse accomodation, hard beds, no dinner. Just you and your mind, together on the mental wrestling mat.  The schedule is 2 hours of meditation after wake up,  breakfast, 3 hours of meditation, lunch and rest, 4 hours of meditation, then chai and fruit, one more hour of meditation and one hour of watching a video of meditation instructions from the main teacher of this method, then bed. Our lights were always out 15 minutes early, by 9:15, because every minute of sleep counts in that gap between 9:30 and 4 am!!  And as many of you know, I generally have my hours of sleep somewhere between 1 or 2 and 9, so this was quite a change for me, BUT:  I loved it. 

Really I loved the whole thing.  The vipassana center was up in the middle of these beautiful super tall pine trees, with filtered mountain views, blooming periwinkle hyacinths and a roving band of monkeys providing us silent people with brief moments of entertainment, when we came out of the meditation hall to stretch our aching legs, as they were swinging from the trees, roving on the paths sometimes just right next to us, adolescent monkeys constantly playing and scampering and chasing each other from tree to rooftop to tree, mothers with babies clinging to their bellies, big, old grandpa monkeys….But back to the meditation, it really was amazing, I don’t know if I can do the concept justice here, but it was all about heightening your awareness of your physical sensations as your guide to reality.  And coming to realize that all sensations come and go, it’s the mental creation of attachment to the pleasurable ones and our aversion of the painful ones that create our problems in life.  So if we can detach ourselves from the pleasure or pain association, we can realize that our selves, our bodies, our minds, all of life, is constantly in motion, constantly changing…. (now I’m envisioning one big, throbbing planet).  But it’s true, it’s a big swirling…..swirling swirl.  A big impermanent swirl.  Experienced vipassana meditators please feel free to comment here.  Anyway, it was just lovely to come out of the meditation hall for a stretch at 5:30, just at dawn and listen to the birds chirping away in the trees, feeling so calm.  AND, the food was delicious – healthy, Indian veggie, yum. Craving.

So, after my wonderful meditation time, I went to go stay in the next little valley over, beautiful and green, more of a western hippie hangout.  No roads.  Little paths all over, rock stairs, a bit of concrete path here and there with a “streetlight” for nighttime, that lead by all the houses that are scattered up the valley.  I shared a room with my sweet Korean friend, Chae-Yun, from vipassana, in a little family guesthouse with 4 rooms.  The whole family lived there:  a young couple and their baby, grandma and grandpa, their 14-yr-old neice, Meenu, and their 10-yr-old nephew, Rahul, who loved to come up to me and breathlessly spell out my name, “A, double-L, I, S, ….U? O! N!!!!”  He was proud of his accomplishment in English.  Every morning we would get some fresh milk from their cow for our coffee. No fridge, so in two days our extra milk would be yogurt.  There were three other super nice guys staying there with us, two Austrians, and an Italian.  We had a community kitchen there, so every morning we’d get up and make chai and coffee for each other, run to the local baker 4 houses away and buy a big fresh loaf of bread or some cinnamon rolls and hang out and talk about life on the veranda.  We started to be like a nice little family, everyone sharing their dinner cooking with each other……after a while, none of us wanted to leave, and everyone stayed together for almost a month!  We had a big flat roof, and quite a few warm nights, we threw the blanket out with a candle and all just layed out watching the stars and tripping out about the nature of the universe.  Was good.  So I bought some books and a tiny watercolor set for 16 rupees (32 cents) and relaxed for a few weeks :)  I went to a kundalini yoga class every morning and also got two very interesting Tibetan massages.  One guy at the end of his massage put a blanket over my body, then put something like warm hackey sacks under the soles of my feet, in my palms, under my neck, and on my temples and throat.  Then he placed about five Tibetan singing bowls on my body, all different tones, and gonged them.  Wow, it was really nice. 

But, I realized that even though life was lovely, turns out I am not an Indian resident and India was about to kick me out–my visa was up in a few days.  So I tore myself away from my beautiful friends who had become family, and got on yet another creaking Indian bus for a 7-hour journey to the tiny holy town of Rewalsar.  Built around a lake, it’s a town that is holy for Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs and each one of them has a big temple around the lake.  I stayed with the Buddhist monks in a monastery and relaxed again for another two days.   —  would love to finish this story, but I have only one minute left on this internet so, will publish this for now, and get back to you soon!  LOVE!!!  A

Hello again, my friends (all family included in the friends category :)

A quick note on the photos: All my photos are still on my camera and I don’t have a connector. So these are taken off the internet, but they are almost exactly what I have seen, just a different moment in time.

Well, I have been on many more adventures since the poo story! I’ve made it further up into the foothills of the Himalayas, and have now been staying in Dharamsala for the past month or so. It’s the current home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many many Tibetans refugees. It’s also the temporary home of many India travelers, the hippie backpackers, like me (sort of, except for the dreads and tatts). I traveled over here with Carolyn, my Australian partner-in-poo-crime and on our way, we stopped at Amritsar, a big city in the state of Punjab, to visit the very famous Golden Temple. We heard that you could actually stay for free (well, donation optional) at the temple, so, being the adventurous and free-loving travelers that we are, we decided that was definitely the experience to have. And we were right!

The temple is a major pilgrimage site for Sikhs and it is full-swing at all hours of the day and night with *thousands* of people flowing in and out. The Sikhs looked so different to us that just to sit down in the temple and watch people go by was stimulation overload. Picture being in a huge courtyard, bright white, filled with an enormous square flat pool of water, and floating in the middle of the water is a gleaming gold ornate square temple…..your bare feet (no shoes in the temple) are walking on the smooth, clean white marble walkways, white buildings on every side, white and clean…..everyone, men and women, must cover their head, so we had our sarongs draped over our heads and then wrapped over our shoulder, old lady-style…..all the Sikh boys wear little nylon stretchy caps, with a big knot on the front top of their heads. When they get married, they switch to the turban. And any color turban is good! So lots of maroon, electric blue, purple, gold, orange turbans….the men all look quite hairy and macho as the Sikhs don’t believe in cutting any hair, so they’ve all got long bushy beards and BIIIIG mustaches, some with the big upswing on the curl (hair gel?) Many men also wear a knife, in a sheath, held by a sling across their chest. Not quite sure the significance, but the Sikhs’ history is quite bloody. Which is interesting considering it was a religion started based on the belief in human equality, a rebellion against the caste system. Equality seems like one of humanity’s most difficult concepts to implement.

One of the Sikhs’ main religious practices at the temple is for *everyone*, regardless of caste, (or nationality) to eat together from a community kitchen. So of course, we had to experience that! They said their canteen serves about 40,000 people A DAY! For free! Man, it was a noisy fast moving scene–constant clinking of the steel plates being used, washed, and re-used within minutes. Get in line, pick up your steel plate and spoon, file in quickly and sit in your place in the rows of long skinny straw mats on the floor. Serving men walk by bent over, carrying big steel buckets and ladling out the salty black dal and sweet yellow sticky coconut rice onto each plate. Then someone came by with a basket of chapati, which I almost did *not* get served to me. I put my single hand out palm up to receive my humble chapati, the way I saw others doing. The chapati man stopped in front of me, staring at my hand, then moved on to the next person. But I didn’t get it. So when I watched and realized “Shit, TWO hands cupped together for the chapati!” and put them out properly, he leaned back, put one in my hands and was gone. Phew. I wondered if I seemed somewhat blasphemous with my single hand, not beseeching enough of the generosity of a free meal. But quickly enough, we had to eat and get out, as there was a man driving a big floor sweeper, like a mini-version of the ice-rink machine that smoothes the ice…this one was to catch the rice, and he almost ran us slow-eating westerners over. Time’s up.

Our place to sleep was a dorm, with hard wooden beds all lined up in a row, where they put all the western travelers together. It’s in a huge building also built with a big courtyard, that offers free lodging to many, many Sikh travelers. At night, it was still hot and our dorm was exceedingly stuffy. I walked into the courtyard and it seemed like a scene out of a movie…..there were at least a hundred people sleeping all over, on the ground, on thin mattresses, just curled up in their raggedy clothes, and I had to walk through and around all the mats to get to the bathroom….very surreal….I didn’t know if it was because their rooms were so hot, or the accomodation was full, it couldn’t be because they couldn’t pay, it was free?! But the communal bathroom was spotless! (Bathroom ambience has become more important than ever, as you can see by the focus of many of my posts).

So after a sweaty night of tossing and turning on the hard beds, and a quick morning of shopping for camel leather shoes at $3 a pair, Carolyn and I got on the bus to Dharamsala, a mere 7-hour ride away. Through the dusty flat plains with isolated square concrete structures in various states of newness and decay, where I wondered what anyone would be doing in that building, the bus went on, leaving my question in the plains, we motored loudly up into the hills and out of the heat. (Wow, I kind of feel like “a writer”).

And so, we arrived in the mountains, after befriending a New Zealander guy on the bus, who knew where to stay, as his Singaporean friend from yoga school had already been there for a month and had scoped the scene and was staying in the best guesthouse. So great! Let’s go! We tagged along. How it works in the traveling life! The guesthouse was great, in a quiet spot, 2 minutes away from town up in the pine trees, clean, new rooms for only $3 a night. Yup, between Carolyn and I, that’s $1.50 each. Carolyn and I stayed together for the first two weeks, spending our days wandering around the tight little windy streets of Dharamsala, wandering amidst the monks with their shaved heads and maroon robes, looking at all the Tibetan singing bowls and wool knit socks and turquoise jewelry for sale, and eating veggie momos, and looking at all the flyers advertising tons of classes and workshops, mostly geared toward the spiritually seeking travelers. Every afternoon, I went to a social work organization helping Tibetan refugees, and volunteered my skills in English conversation (I’ve been practicing for a while, so I’m pretty good now). It was super interesting and fun. I’d go into a room filled with groups of young Tibetans, all sitting on the floor on little cushions, and they would say “oh teacher, here!” and point to a little cushion near them. And then I’d try to engage three or four young men, sometimes a few young girls, in a conversation where they could each talk for a little bit or ask me questions. I asked many of them how long they had been here, how they came here, whether they could go back to Tibet or not….their stories were pretty amazing, of long walks for days over the mountains with groups of people, hiking only at night to avoid the Chinese soldiers, sleeping in their sleeping bags in the snow, being scared, and no, almost none of them can go back now. Very sad, as most of them have totally left their families back in Tibet and haven’t seen them in years, including several sweet 15 and 17-year-old girls, whose parents sent them here when they were 11 to get a better education. That’s a long time away from home–I’ve only been away 4 months and I totally miss everyone!! They all seem so sweet and friendly, still smilling even though this is their story…..and their connection to the Dalai Lama is quite strong. He is truly a living hero for the Tibetans. So Carolyn and I spent many nights watching movies about Tibet, while eating dinner, lounging in our favorite restaurant, the one that made real “filter coffee” and delicious croissants and was staffed by the cute, hip Tibetan guys with their high cheekbones and ready smiles. We also went one night to a talk given by a Tibetan man who was imprisoned for almost ten years by the Chinese–when he was 19 years old, he and a few friends staged a demonstration in a public square, where he held a banner with a pro-Tibet message. He said the demonstration lasted about 5 minutes before he was arrested. And sent to prison for ten years. Incredible. He told some hard stories about watching his friends die in prison without medical care, being beaten many times, and said that the Chinese soldiers used the prisoners to practice their war games on. The situation in Tibet seems a deeper tragedy than I ever imagined.

The same social work organization also offered classes for foreigners in Tibetan language and at $2 a class, I was tempted to just go and learn….anything. I’ve always been fascinated by Chinese and Japanese, by the concept of using characters to express and not alphabets. The Tibetan script is quite beautiful and, although it’s still an alphabet, it was foreign enough looking for me! So I took three classes, one-on-one with my teacher Ngawang, and learned the Tibetan alphabet, wrote the script a few times and practiced ka kha ga, tsa tzha sa, all barely discernibly different sounds. Three classes, but what I learned was beyond saying “tashi delek!” (Tibetan greeting). I got another experience of “Wow, that IS possible.” Semi-subconsciously, I always thought it would be too difficult to ever *actually* learn a character-language, too complex, years of study, etc. But after just three lessons, the Tibetan on the fliers around town was no longer a complete stranger! I could look at it already with a bit of intimacy and recognize the individual letters, “hey, there’s kha and nya….and zha”! Also, very funny, after the first 40 minutes of my first class, I asked my teacher, a young, very educated Tibetan man who spent many years studying Buddhist philosophy, “Um, so, is it hard to learn Tibetan?” He was standing at the chalkboard, he stopped, turned and stared at me, a bit incredulous, and then said, forcefully, “WHAT in life is easy?” And left it, the foolishness of my question hanging in the air. So I realized that in fact, it might BE hard, and take years of study, BUT, *I could do it*. If I wanted to ;)

Well, I have totally enjoyed writing this. It’s taken me 3 hours, it’s now 8:30 and I’ve been here at the internet place since 5:00 pm. It’s dark and I have to walk the 10-minute rocky path back to my guesthouse, but I have a flashlight. Love you all, and love to you, A

But the road here from Delhi…..well, after enjoying the comforts of my friends’ home in Delhi–a driver to navigate the maze of Delhi roads and take me sightseeing and a maid to make beds and dinner–I got on just one more overnight train to head up to Rishikesh, a town just in the foothills of the Himalayas. Rishikesh is a holy town on the Ganges, and is known as the birthplace of yoga. Since it had been about five weeks since I’d done any yoga, I was excited to get back into it and learn something new. But, as sometimes happens, from day one I didn’t like the vibe. For me it was another example of TOD, Tourism Overdevelopment Syndrome, a process of local entrepreneurial explosion that leads to diluting the original magic so far down that you can’t see it anymore. Maybe there was a yogic diamond in that rough, but amongst all the weather-worn fliers plastered on every open concrete space, from small-time operators offering “Bliss Kundalini Power Astanga Hatha Yoga! We are the Reel Yoga! see Swami Krishnadanandadya at the Yogi Palace behind Ganges View guesthouse, turn left at the cow!”….well, it was too much work for me to find it.

But, I managed to have some fun still! I ran into some American guys I hung out with on the eco-farm, and they had other friends with them and we immediately planned an allday rafting trip. It was just like a rafting trip should be: great scenery, cute guide, cliff jumping, waterfall hike, delicious lunch and one very exciting class 4 rapid, with a swirling, gaping hole and a 15-foot wall of churling water that we attempted to go over sideways, which led to everyone’s baptism in the Ganges. As a mountain girl, I felt like that was the holiest thing I did in Rishikesh!

I was also really happy to reconnect with my Australian friend, Carolyn, my delinquent dormmate from the Sivananda ashram, and we met up in a cafe overlooking the Ganges and talked over our mutual disappointment in the yoga scene over mango lassis, while longing for a glass of expensive, chilled white wine. So Carolyn and I decided to pack up and get on the next overnight train!

The train station is in Hardiwar, an even holier city than Rishikesh, as it is said to be the meeting point where the Ganges flows out of the mountains and into the plains. The city is teeming with Indians who come on pilgrimage to experience the karmic cleansing benefits of bathing in the Ganges. We decided to spend the afternoon in Haridwar to see the amazing evening puja, where thousands gather every evening on the ghats, the long steps that lead into the river, for a holy ritual of fire and music. I, however, was not feeling so wonderful, and had just eaten a tasty, greasy samosa, wrapped in a scrap of newspaper from my favorite old man street vendor, that seemed to tip me over the edge of my digestive capacities….but we left our packs at the train station, climbed onto the hard seat of a cycle rickshaw, as I was too queasy to walk, and started being cycled down toward the center of town. The main street was packed with people walking, and shopping, buzzing rickshaws, weaving motorcycles, slow cycleshaws, honking cars, and hundreds of tiny shops all crammed in side by side with their wares displayed and bursting out onto the streets. By the time we got to the ghats, we were in the middle of the biggest, most chaotic scene, with hundreds of people around, getting ready for the big puja. I was feeling more and more nauseous, and the noise and pollution and chaos were pressing in hard on all my senses, having a multiplier effect on my body. There we were, milling around in the crowds, and suddenly I was cold, sweating feverishly, felt about to pass out, and my body had to cleanse itself of some kind of toxin–immediately and I mean *now*. Finding a toilet in this chaos within the next 60 seconds did not seem to be even a remote possibility. I looked toward the river and saw these Indian women who were bathing topless, a bit away from others. Being the un-modest surfer girl that I am, used to stripping down under my towel at the beach, and being desperate, I asked Carolyn if I could use her scarf. I wrapped the gauzy, narrow strip of material around my waist, stripped off my pants, and waded down the steps into the strong rushing Ganges, held onto this metal chain used to prevent drowning while bathing and released my sins! I looked up from my squat to see more than a few men staring over at the halfnaked white girl, and to see that Carolyn was sensible enough to take a photo. The epilogue: after the puja, we walked about a hundred yards down the ghats and looked up to see an enormous *billboard* (not just a sign, a *billboard*) over a nice building, that said, with the triangle-skirted human icon, LADIES TOILET. Oh, the humor of India.

Sorry if you were looking for my newly found grasp of Hindu philosophy or some deep insights into the mysteries of life, but you’ll have to draw your own conclusions…..

There’s more, but for now, I’m about to go meet up with a teacher to take a class in Tibetan language, then going to conversation class to talk in English about life with the Tibetans, but first have to get some steamed veggie momos! They’re like dumplings. Four momos with a bit of chili sauce for 10 rupees, 20 cents. Lots of love!!! Allison