One-Year Reflections

There are many things that have surfaced in the past few months that I want to write about here and share with you all. I know you’re all sitting at the edge of your seats waiting to hear about the rest of India, Nepal and the new adventures in Thailand…jk, I hope you’re not waiting because knowing me that day might never come! What I really feel like sharing right now are some of the reflections I’ve had in the past month-ish, marking a full year of travel.

A lot of this blog was set-up with intentions and from a certain perspective I held over a year ago: a perspective largely marked by other people’s opinions about what I was choosing to do. In some words, I seemed to feel a need to justify this year to people. Traveling just to “travel” doesn’t make sense to some people, although now I know I can explain and acknowledge what I always knew- that traveling is a way of growing and experiencing and learning so so much more than when you stay rooted in the same environment. Somehow as the year has progressed and my perspective has shifted, I’ve developed some unease around Kaleidoscoping and the intentions I set out. What to do? A blog makeover!

Some intentions are good- I probably wouldn’t have ended up at Panya or Sadhana or on this huge personal discovery of natural living and sustainability if I hadn’t had that seed already planted when I started. Or maybe I would have. But the experiences I have had in the last year have certainly cemented a passion for sustainable and natural living.

Other things–solidarity with women? Seems a sillier intention to me now- at least a silly one to map out so clearly. I can understand the fear that generated that intention- it honestly was the most common thing I heard before I started traveling. (“really? you’re going alone…as a women?? is it safe?? surely not” bahah!) It is true that traveling as a woman comes with another set of worries, and it is also true that women around the world are up against horrible difficulties. From the Westerner traveling standpoint- I’ve met many many women traveling solo, or only with other women. For my part I’ve hardly been traveling alone; most of the Middle East I was with two guys, and for half of India I was with one girl and the other half of India and Nepal I found myself with dudes again. And so it goes. As far as the state of Women’s Rights and health and education and..and …and…in countries I’ve been to, well, I’ve met a lot of amazing men and women who are working for equality on many different levels. As for the donation of my time and energy to any projects focused in those sectors- well, I just found more of a passion in permaculture and farming, which is where my energies have justly focused.

Living at Panya was a good place to mull some thoughts over, look inside and see what’s been going on. If you haven’t lived in a planned community before, I’ll try to give you a quick overview: you live with, care for and work with a small group of people 24 hours a day, often times doing manual labor in the heat, sharing chores and cooking for and cleaning up after people. In one word, it’s intense. And when you’re dealing with intense, tiring situations, sometimes with intense, tiring personalities, you often have the opportunity to explore the worst sides of your own self. People become mirrors, and you have the opportunity to look at what you are putting out there and see if it’s something you can work with, change or live with. Or you can run away into the woods. I stayed out of the woods, and here are some of the random musings that came about.

-I’ve realized how much more comfortable I’ve become being with myself in my own space, especially in my own head space. I remember how nervous I felt first writing in a journal- this trip is the first time I’ve ever consistently written, about anything, let alone exploring my own thoughts! It will be interesting to go home and read some of that first journal from last August…

-Along the comfort-line, I’ve also finally really let go of my hold on conventional thinking and feel I’m beginning to embrace all of the unlearning I’ve experienced this year. Mmm unlearning…maybe more on that later.

- I realized recently that my “trip” is not an isolated vacation, and that my journey is going to continue likely for years even though I plan to return home for a bit in December.  Some upcoming plans could involve WWOFing in Italy for the Spring, travel home for weddings! in the summer and hopefully a road trip or two thrown in- on bikes or via car!  The Peace Corps is still a very real possibility, looking at a potential departure next fall…

spirituality was definitely something I didn’t set out looking for, but have found it in some capacity (or it has found me.)  My time in Nepal was beyond stunning, and I’ve been incorporating Buddhist teachings and meditations (or at least trying to) into daily life…I do promise sometime to write a reflection on my experience at Kopan Monastery…soon!

-That I still have a lot, a lot to learn, about everything and that’s super exciting in itself.

And with that…expect some more refurbishments on the site soon, de-emphasizing what is no longer a focus to me and hopefully (finally) with some new links and resources up here.

And now I have to run as always, catching an overnight bus to the border with Laos where I plan to board a slow boat for a 2-day journey down the Mekong!

xo&peace!

Natural Living

Oh hello! So, as it turns out life at Panya is wonderful and exciting and educational and…busy.  The satellite Internet is unreliable and there isn’t a communal computer at the moment.  All these factors don’t add up to good blogging conditions!  (I know, excuses excuses.)  Right now I’m in Chiang Mai, the closest city to Panya and the cultural hub of the north.  We have all of Monday andhalf of Tuesday off for our “weekend”, and I came into town yesterday to try to sort out visa things and find some yummy chocolate and try to not be covered in mud and dirt for more than 24 hours.  So far, successful on all accounts! 

Just wanted to give a quick overview of what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks, and will be for the next two or so before heading to Laos.  I’m at Panya technically for a Natural building internship, in which we learn about natural building techniques and are working to rebuild the main communal building, the Sala, using mudbrick techniques.  Other projects this month could include hooking up a solar panel, making natural paints, building a solar oven (yay!) amongst any other projects that pop up.  In addition, there are a handful of long-term volunteers who have been at the site for a few months and are working on converting the former mango orchard into a food forest.  A new nursery is in the works, along with new veggie gardens, a very active wine-making operation and general land-work/planting/maintenance.  Needless to say, the “farm” is a busy place!  There are about 14 of us up there now, and in addition to all of the longer-term projects our days include general chores which we tackle in four different groups.  The chores are divided as follows: 1. cooking three meals a day for the community, 2. taking out the compost, rotating the pile if needed and harvesting the fruit, 3. cleaning the sala, kitchen and serving area, 4. washing the black pots and putting away dishes after meals.  (we cook on open fires, and the “black pots” are the charcoal-covered cooking dishes that are washed in a separate sink.)  A general day at the farm looks something like this:

6:00 a.m.: start cooking breakfast (luckily only once every four days!)

7:00a.m.: breakfast served

7:30 a.m.: general chores

8:00 a.m.: first work begins- at the moment usually involves building: hauling bricks, making a mud pit for plaster, plastering, building, etc etc!

11:00 a.m.: either cooking lunch or break

12:00 p.m: lunch is served

12:30 p.m.: more chores, then siesta until 2:00 p.m.

2:00 p.m.: 2nd work- more building

5:00 p.m.- cooking dinner or free time- often a trip to swim in the reservoir, or a nice outdoor shower to get all the mud off from the day of building.

6:00 p.m.- dinner is served

7:00 p.m.- possibly more chores, or films, meetings, discussions, dance parties! etc

I’m usually in bed by 10:00 p.m., exhausted and ready for a good book and sleep.

Have to run to catch the truck back up to the farm…ciao!

xo&peace!

Photos, Chiang Mai, etc

I’m on a pretang ty shitty computer in Chiang Mai that won’t let me upload photos…(but the price is right, only 20 bht per hour!)  So hopefully in the next few days I’ll go back through the posts to add photos. 

I’ve been in Thailand for a few days now and have been loving the change of pace from Nepal and India.  I am still adjusting to the prices- everything is quite a bit more expensive here, but I guess it is a trade off- no hassling on the streets, finally freed from the famed “Indian stare”, the streets are clean, transportation good and the food is a nice switch from standard Dal Bhat. 

I’m trying to catch up on the posts, however tomorrow I’m headed to the Panya Project, a permaculture farm about 2 hours from Chaing Mai where I’ll be spending the next month working on natural building, in the food forest and playing in the rain!  I’m not sure what the internet situation is like out there or what my schedule will be, but hopefully I’ll find the time to finish the blog updates!  Still so much to write about- the past few months have been jam packed!

Until then..

xo&peace

The Manali-Leh Road

Ladakh was on my list of “must-see” places in India before I set foot off the plane last February.  It’s a Buddhist region squeezed between Tibet, China and Pakistan, and politically is part of the Jammu & Kashmir region of India.  There is one road that loops through the region with two access points: from the West up through Jammu and Kashmir, and from the East from Manali.  The only other option to reach the Leh valley is to fly from Delhi, which is the only way to get there when the road is buried in snow most of the year.  Trying to uphold my no-unnecessary-flights policy (which I’ll shamefully smash to pieces this second half of the year), I counted on taking the 48-hour road journey and was looking forward to at least a month up in the region before my visa ended in June.  What I didn’t count on, however, was that the road might not be open.  You see, the road from Manali to Leh passes through numerous high mountain passes, including the second highest in the world (!), as it winds it’s way up through the valleys on the Western Himalaya. 

When I arrived in Manali, a backpacker hotspot in Himichal Pradesh and the jumping off point for trips up to Ladakh and to Spiti Valley,  in early May, I planned on a few days there before heading North.  Much to my dismay the road was not only closed, but very, very closed.  As in not predicted date of opening.  As in buried under feet of snow. (I’m still amazed that they find the damn thing every spring!)  As in…you have to wait.   And wait I did, but I found myself in quite a predicament.  With 48 hours of travel in each direction, plus another 15 or so hours to get back to Delhi and a mandatory scheduled detour to Agra to ogle at the Taj, I was running out of time.  My visa was going to expire, and I had to play the time-weighing game to figure out if I could even go to Ladakh.  Not only did I have to weigh the travel time up to Leh, but if the road was taking too long and I had to make other plans, I had to factor in travel time to the new destination, too.  Manali is located up at the top of the Kullu valley, with nowhere else to go from there but down.  So, with each passing day stuck in Manali and 24 hours cut off my potential time frame for Ladakh, the trip was looking less and less likely. 

Finally, with only 4 weeks before I had to be across the border in Nepal or find myself in an Indian jail, I gave it one more day.  “If the road opens tomorrow, I’m going.  If not, it’s backtracking to lower, accessible (and less exciting) valleys.”  I wasn’t the only one in this predicament; most of the people hanging around the Apple View were waiting for the same thing.  A lovely Frenchman Tony, who divides his time between Himichal Pradesh and France and calls Apple View his home when in India, took a great interest in our plight and everyday gathered as much information as he could about the road opening.  He would go up to the roof with his binoculars and look at Rhotang La (La means pass), the first big obstacle in the journey, to see if any vehicles were coming through.  The morning I announced my ultimatum, he came downstairs with good news: jeeps were coming through the pass!

The rest of the day was spent finding a driver to take us up, organizing a group to cut jeep costs and purchasing warm weather gear as we were going to be passing through snow.  A big change in weather from the Indian plains!  The next morning bright and early we were off, said goodbye to our friends at Apple view and started on the two-day journey with our driver Ashok.  We planned to split the driving into two days:  pass through Rhotang La the first day and sleep in Keylong for acclimatization (at about 3,000m).  The first half on the drive was actually one big traffic jam:  Indians on holiday take a jeep tour up to the mountain pass and rent hideous snowsuits along the way to take a roll in the snow, something completely foreign to the rest of the country.  After the pass, however, the traffic dwindles considerably- mostly just to herds of sheep, and we passed through a desolate river valley to get to Keylong. 

In Keylong we were hoping to find another jeep, or even a minibus, running the rest of the road at a cheaper rate.  What we found, however, was a hard-backed taxi union that wouldn’t take us for anything resembling a bargain.  After a day of huffing and puffing around the town (I was, at least- I was the only one really affected by the altitude) speaking to nearly every taxi driver in town, I ended up ringing Ashok and asking him to take us the rest of the way.  We were familiar with his driving, and figured it would be better than taking a gamble with a new driver.  Driving the road that time of year is considered a great risk: avalanches, road flooding and potential freak snowstorms and ice make for treacherous conditions, which is why the pricetag is high and the adventure-aspect pumped up.  And we were excited; the first leg between Manali and Keylong was just a warm-up for the 16 hour day to follow.

The next morning we were up even earlier and on the road by 5:30 a.m.  We had picked up three new tourists for the adventure, which meant cheaper per individual but less space in the jeep.  Really only photos can do the trip justice…

By the time we stopped for lunch I really wasn’t feeling well.  After sitting in the back of the jeep for hours, the bumpy, bumpy roads and high altitude I felt drained and dehydrated, no appetite and got puffed out very quickly when walking.  It was still a long way to Leh from there, including the climb up the second -highest pass in the world, but it was the most desolate, gripping landscape I have ever seen in my life.

Finally after 16 hours, we arrived in the Leh valley.  Surrounded by darkness (really, complete darkness- Leh hardly has any streetlamps!) we stumbled around the town and crashed at the first guesthouse we found.  Since the journey had been my main focus for the past week or so, I was excited to wake up finally IN Ladakh and see what it was all about!

xo&peace

India, revisited.

As most of you know by now, I love India.  Love love love it.  After the one month stay at Sadhana, I traveled with a girl from London for two months through the South up to Mumbai.  Words can’t really explain what a perfect travel partner she was.  Really.  We got along well and it made such a difference to travel with someone who had similar interests and concerns (i.e. no plastic bottles, eating Vegetarian, good taste in music, etc.)  These things become important when it’s over 100 degrees farenheit, you’re in the second most populated country in the world and you literally spend 24 hours a day together, 7 days a week.  And it really is like a full 24 hours as you sleep in the same room, often same bed, and spend most of the night in some tortured state between hallucinating and waking, sweating at least 2 liters and trying to keep the mosquitoes at bay.  In these conditions it is easy to become irrationally irritable and sink into the worst version of yourself.  Susanna was ever patient, kind and always, always good company, and I am sure that I was the more difficult person to deal with 100% of the time.  Needless to say, the two months flew by and soon enough we found ourselves on opposite platforms in Victoria Terminus, one train headed back South to Chennai and the other into unknown territory:  The much anticipated  North.  Maybe it was the late hour, the crowds and the stress of traveling solo again, but the parting was much more emotional than I anticipated, and after a very tearful goodbye she boarded her train and I retreated to my side of the platform to await my midnight train.  Luckily the public tears kept most curious Indians at bay and I was able to recompose in relative peace and let my mind finally wander to speculations on the next destination: Varanasi.

After two nights and a full, unbearably hot day on the train I finally arrived in Varanasi and was overcome with exhaustion for the first 24 hours.  Even curiosity about India’s quintessential city couldn’t rouse me to explore in the heat, and I was to be honest quite thrown-off to be on my own again and was feeling a bit directionless.  I didn’t realize that Varanasi was a jumping-off point for entry into Nepal, and I bumped into two girls from the Ashram in Kerala who were headed that way and offered for me to join them.  I also had an offer to join three Americans heading out of the heat up into Darjeeling, and another to join someone trekking in the Himalayas.  In my confusion I ended up booking a train ticket with the Americans to Darjeeling, departing the next day before I had even seen the outside of the hotel.  That evening I finally ventured out to see a bit of India’s most holy city with a boy from Israel who had suffered through the same train ride from Mumbai.  As we walked around the narrow medieval streets confronted with Hindu spirituality in full effect I realized that I wasn’t ready to leave India yet for Nepal, and also admitted to myself that escaping up to the hills of Darjeeling was just a cop-out.  On returning to the hotel I canceled my train ticket (at the cost of 50% of the fare, ouch) and decided that in the morning I would find a room I liked in a central part of the city and give it a chance.

Chance- it’s funny how little decisions can change the course of events so much.  I ended up spending a week in Varanasi, exploring the riverside ghats in the morning to return to my (very) blue room in the afternoon to repose from the heat.  I found a routine again, and ate most of my meals in the guest house cafe’ across the street where I bumped into two people from Sadhana.  In India and Nepal, by the way, I have run into someone from Sadhana in nearly every place I have traveled to.  And if I don’t meet someone who I actually volunteered with, then I always seem to meet people who are on their way there to volunteer….such an amazing network.  Anyway…one of the people I bumped into was Hila, who was going to Rishikesh from Varanasi.  Rishikesh was going to be my next stop as well, after a swoop through Agra to see the Taj Mahal.  The offer to travel with someone familiar, who also happens to speak Hindi and has been to Rishikesh before was enough for me to push the trip to Agra to the back burner.  Varanasi was boiling hot and Rishikesh promised cooler air at the foot of the Himalaya, and within a day we were off on another long train journey through the sweltering plains.

Rishikesh happens to be probably the second most holy city in India, also located on the Ganga (only quite cleaner water than downriver in Varanasi).  May is Hindu pilgrimage season, and apparently the foot of the Himalayas isn’t cool at all that time of year- you have to actually retreat into the mountains.  Go figure.  After a few more days of uncomfortable heat and even more uncomfortable crowds, I decided it was time to get out.  My plan was to head to Dharamsala, the seat of the Dalai Lama in exile, however getting there involved a complicated combination of jeep, train, bus and taxi over the course of the night.  The other option was to join Markus(who I met on the train from Varanasi) to Manali, which was a more simple, although still not appealing, single 16 hour bus-ride on a crowded local bus.  Option number two prevailed, and after a very long, very uncomfortable night that left a lingering cold I finally found the cool air and space I had been longing up in Manali.  Manali was, and still is, one of my favorite places, probably in part because of the Apple View Guesthouse.  It was the cleanest place I ever stayed in, and the best value with the most friendly family ever.  If anyone is headed that way, I would highly recommend it!  Unfortunately half the time I spent in Manali I was nursing a bad headcold, and the other half was spent preoccupied with the challenge of finding a way to get to Ladakh, the Northernmost part of India surrounded by Pakistan, China and Tibet.  Luckily it was not in vain, as we did eventually journey north to Ladakh, and quite a journey it was…

Rabbit Rabbit August!

How I am both surprised and pleased that this month is upon us!  Surprised because in my mind I’m still back somewhere between March and April, and pleased because the first week of this month marks a few anniversaries for me.  On the 7th it is the one year anniversary of when I first left the states and flew across the Atlantic.  The 7th also happens to be my 6 month anniversary of officially eating Vegetarian (I don’t get too many points for that- India and Nepal are probably the two easiest countries in the world to carry that out!).  This week also marks the close of the last half year I’ve spent on the Indian subcontinent, and on Monday I fly to Thailand to begin a new chapter.

So, in honor of all of these time markers I’m going to (finally) update Kaleidoscoping a bit- get some posts up with a summary of the last few months and rework the rest of the site a bit.  I was thinking of switching servers from WordPress to something else; the internet in all of Nepal pretty much sucks and more complicated websites tend to have some trouble.  So I’m looking at moving over to blogspot which is a bit more simple…we’ll see.  Anywho, bear with the updates, and Happy August!

xo&peace

Nepal, etc. etc. etc. …

Hola! So the past month has been a whirlwind….so much to update on but unfortunately can’t now because I’m off in a few minutes to Kopan Monastery, a few km outside of Kathmandu, for a ten day “Introduction to Buddhism” meditation course. Should be…interesting? Internet is alright in Kathmandu so when I return, hopefully enlightened, I can enlighten you all as to what I’ve been up to!
Cheers!
xo&peace

Adventuring into Ladakh

Just wanted to write a quick note that I’m headed up to Keylong tomorrow, and hopefully on to Leh in Ladakh the following morning and I’m not sure how much access I’ll have to internet over the next two weeks. We’ve been waiting in Manali in Himachal Pradesh for the Mountain passes to open to the regions to the East and North, and it looks like we finally got our opportunity today! Word was sent down the mountains that the passes are open, so we’re off in a rugged jeep at 6 a.m. to take the first mountain pass- at over 3000 m! The highest passes on the road from Manali to Leh are over 5000m and the journey can take up to two days. We’re planning a night in Keylong, at over 3000 m to have an adjustment to the altitude and make sure that the onward passes are open and not too dangerous. the weather can change within the minute, though, as we see here in Manali anyway. It looks like it was snowing up in the higher passes today and has been downright chilly- bought wool socks, a woolen blanket, hat and gloves today!

Wish us luck!

xo&peace!

Dharavi: the Heart of Mumbai

Thanks to Slumdog Millionaire, we all pretty much know that there are slums in Mumbai (and that Jai Ho is the best song ever written and Dev Patel is amaze.)  So I may be a bit bias…

What I didn’t know is that there are over 2,000 different slums in the city and that over 40% of the population lives in a slum neighborhood.  So, to see how nearly half the city lives, we took a tour of Dharavi slum in Central Mumbai.  “Touring” a slum sounds a bit odd, and I admit I had my reservations about the whole deal.  Realtiy Tours & Travel, a company started by one Indian guy and an English guy based out of Colaba, came highly recommended from a few other travelers.  After visiting the office and finding out that 80% of the tour profits after taxes go back into the NGO’s set up within Dharavi, we decided to give it a go and figured at the very least that our 400 rs ( 8USD) might help out a bit.

They call Dharavi the heart of Mumbai.  Geographically Dharavi’s Southern point begins where the Western Railroad and Central Railroad cross as the Dadar station, spreading in a V shape to the North where it is cut-off at the top by a main West-East running road.  If looked at on a map, the land shape almost forms a heart right in the center of sprawling Mumbai.  2.5 million people call Dharavi home, and as one of the friendliest areas I experienced in the city I think the nickname is quite fitting.

Narrow street, photo compliments of Reality Tours

Dharavi used to be a garbage dump site on a swampy strip of land in central Mumbai.  People were too lazy to bring their waste to the designated areas on the outskirts of the city, and instead preferred to dump rubbish into the unused swamp.  Over time the swamp was infilled, people came, built homes, and over the coure of 170 years has grown into the largest slum in all of Asia.

After our guide gave us a quick de-briefing (no cameras, tour route, basic history) we turned off the main street, bustling with fruit vendors and cows and playing children just like any street in India, and headed into the small lanes.  The pavement vanished and ground swelled beneath my feet, giving with an unfamiliar softness.  The lane was narrow so that we walked single file so to make room for two-way foot traffic.  The first thing I noticed was the sounds; the further in we went the aggressive noise from the outside streets slowly vanished and we replaced by human sounds- babies crying, people laughing, soft footsteps along the dirt path.

We first visited the industry area.  Dharavi is the only slum in Mumbai with effective industries.  Industries of what, you may ask?  Everything!  From machine-making to recycling to clothing manufacturing to food exports, Dharavi is a thriving hive of industrious work.  For all my interest in sustainability and recycling, I have never actually seen the recycling process.  We saw oil cans being cleaned and sealed for reuse and plastic melted down and re-dyed to be reformed into various products.(really the whole thing reconfirmed my beliefs that recycling is just a ‘band-aid’ in the world of sustainability, not a solution.) But anyway… In Dharavi, it seems anything is possible.  The people are thriving, smiling, happy, which is the first thing that takes me by surprise.  I think I was expecting Dharavi to be comparable to some of the Palestinian refugee camps I visited in the West Bank, and I was mentally preparing for that kind of environment.  In the West Bank it seemed that there was no hope which was the hardest part to stomach.  While the people were overly friendly and kind, they were trapped, stuck and frustrated.  There was no industry; I seem to remember that there was a 60-70% unemployment rate.  In contrast, life in Dharavi is a gateway to some employment and is a step up for many.  Most of the people living there are from other parts of India, and many people who have migrated from Tamil Nadu and villages in the North headed to Mumbai in search of work.  And the life there in Dharavi is better, so much better than other places.  The wadges are modest; people make 100-150 rs per day as hired labor.  The best jobs are in clothing production where a tailor can make up to 400 rs /day.  Leather production is the most profitable industry coming out of the slum with over four bustling factories.  I was  shocked to learn that companies such as Gucci, D&G and Versace order products made in the slum…to then resell at astronomical prices.  I’m ashamed by these Italian companies…something to think about the next time you by designer wallets!

Although people have work, the work conditions are bad.  Worse than bad.  Forget about safety precautions, ventilation, proper equipment or even shoes and rubber gloves.  It reminds me of a TV special I saw once about the groundhole covers in New York City. They’re manufactured in India, in these welding factories in some remote village in India where NYC paid pennies to have people risk their health to make these fancy sewage hole covers…

Another surprising thing was learning about the schools in Dharavi.  For some reason I assumed that there were no schools set up within the slum…however in Dharavi there are schools!  Of course!  The  government is beginning to instate initiatives to increase enrollment (somewhere I’ve actually seen or heard of government involvement in India!)  Recently the government instated a300 rs initiative to get girls to go to school( a national program) where families are paid 300 rs per month to send their daughter to school.  For many families, letting a child spend time away from home at school is loosing a valuable set of working hands and the money is an incentive to offset the labour lost.  in rural areas some bike initiatives have been set up as well, where students are given bicycles to get to and from school.  also 1 rs/day and 1 meal/day initiatives started at one school we visited in the slum.  At present, 82% of kids in Dharavi are enrolled in school, sand they’re hoping the numbers will continue to climb with these new programs.

All in all, the tour was fascinating and one of my favorite experiences in Mumbai.  I would highly recommend taking a tour with Reality Tours & Travel the next time you find yourself in Mumbai!

x0&peace!

Reluctant Goans

at first reluctant...got into the Goan swing pretty quickly.

We almost didn’t even go to Goa. In fact, it took a lot of coaxing from various acquaintances to get us to even consider passing through the state on our way up the coast to Mumbai. Goa is one of those words that slides between your lips leaving heavy traces of romantic entrancement and over-packaged party squalor, in equal measure. Considering the extreme reputation in our thoroughly chilled-out travel mode, we just weren’t feeling it. Looking back now, I see the massive error in our initial judgment, and there could not possibly be anything more chilled out than a week on a quiet beach. Lucky for us, due to railway geography and busy summer scheduling, in the end we did book ourselves a week in Goa and hoped that we wouldn’t get too bored/partied out. After a very long and very hot 9 hour train journey from Hampi, we took a taxi and three buses to reach the Northernmost developed beach, Arambol.  Despite the long travel and crowded(no, not crowded, suffocating) bus, as we rolled along from Mapusa up to Arambol I felt a great sense of peace and calm.   The sticky sweet smell of overripe jackfruit drifting in the windows, the sky slyly shifting to a peach-pink glow in the evening light and I was headed back to the ocean.  I was through and through content.

pure tranquility

Just like Hampi, we were traveling in the wake of the main tourist wave and most of the beach accommodation had cleared out leaving us with our pick of huts.  Although weary, we lugged our packs around to look at a few before settling on a simple hut with just a bed, mosquito net, small coffee table and two plastic chairs .  The toilet was shared, but we seemed to be the only people staying there, and the cost of only 100 rs ($2, split between two people)  a night was too good to pass up.

We dropped our bags and walked barefoot out on the beach to have dinner at the ocean’s edge, a routine that would be repeated for the rest of the week.  Our days pretty much followed the same pattern:

Wake up around 8:30-9:00, walk the 50 m to the water’s edge and do sun salutations before a morning dip.  Then breakfast at any one of the cafes lining the beach, followed by a short Internet session and either some shopping or lounging in the sand.  The afternoon would be spent alternating between reading in beach chairs and splashing in the water.  In the evening we’d pick a restaurant again, and most of the time end up at one restaurant showing movies to zone out in front of the screen.  Would return to our lovely hut and have the best,  deepest sleep, drifting off to the sounds of the ocean to wake up to the same meditative melody and do it all again.

We did mix it up a little and have some excitement when we ventured out to the famous Wednesday flea-market in Anjuna, a few beaches and a few bus rides south of Arambol.  I was feeling a little too shanti shanti, and ended up leaving   on one of the buses, left in a state of shock at the crossing not even knowing which way the bus had continued.  Luckily Susanna was a little more on top of it than I was, and within minutes we were in a taxi screaming along the winding streets in a high-speed bus-chase.  We caught the bus a few km down the road, and after paying the taxi driver an exorbitant amount of rupees (the cost of my absentee mind), we had him drop us at the flea market aka shopping hell.  A few hours of what I call”forced and invasive browsing” we were pining for our bubble of heaven and went straight back to our beach heaven, where we stayed in blissful relaxation for the next two days.

That hut in Goa is one of the only places in the world besides 148 Sea Rd. where  I was able to sleep without ear plugs or an eye mask.  In fact I think it might be the only place ever- even at Trinity, Sher&Cort’s, 346 E. 13th st. and even Sadhana I slept with either eye mask, ear plugs or both.  So that’s definitely saying something about how shanti shanti this place is, and our week of relaxation and cheap living was perfect preparation for the big city life…Mumbai!

xo&peace