Bye bye india!

So i have said good bye to India, and i cant say i am sad to go!

Frida, Lucy and I left the meditation centre, Tushita, after the end of our two day meditation course on Sat. We stayed in McLeod Ganj for 2 more nights then Frida and I said goodbye to Lucy and headed to Amritsar in the Punjab to see the Golden Temple. We got the local bus there for the bargain price of 140rupees (less than 2 pounds) and it took about 6 hours. The moment we entered the Punjab we knew it! The roads were properly tarmacked and straight! More and more men wore turbans and many people are built like westerners ie. our height and not mega petite and skinny, some are even obese!

We arrived at about 11am and checked into a hotel just around the corner from the golden temple, dumped our stuff and headed straight there - and straight to the kitchen! All Sikh temples, Gurdwaras, have free accommodation and food for all who wish to visit and the golden temple feeds more than 50,000 a day!! It is a massive operation. Wait til i put up the photo with the size of the pots they use to cook the food - massive! There is continuously a line of people filling into and out of the dining room. As you go up the stairs you are handed a plate, a cup and a spoon, you enter the dining hall and sit on the mats on the floor which in rows about 30 people long. Then men walk up and down the lines of people ladelling out dahl, pickle, channa (chick peas) and chippattis. And there is no mindful eating here - everyone scoffs their food and is out the doors asap! Frida and i were the only ones left sitting in our row with some young Sikh boys staring at us in amazement! Of course they then asked for a snap! An Indians must have souvenir from any major tourist attraction - a picture of themselves, or their wife and child, with the silly looking westerners!

After being well fed and handing our dishes into the massive washing up area and about 50 people who are constantly busy we headed on through to see the golden temple... And it is beautiful! Much smaller than i imagined it to be but it is very picturesque, sitting in the middle of a large pool. It is totally gold and glimmers in the sunlight, set off against the beautiful white marble square of buildings around it. It was really lovely.

That evening we went to the other tourist attraction in Amritsar - the closing ceremony for the closing of the border gates between Pakistan and India. This ceremony is totally hyped up and totally ridiculous. Dad you would have been beside yourself with hysterics! There are big official gates between the two countries and on either side each country has built stadiums for the crowd to sit and jeer at each other! There we more Indians the day we went but the Pakistanis definitely made their voices heard! On the Indian side before the ceremony officially begins they pump Bollywood tunes through the load speaker and the women run down onto the road to dance! They were having a fab time! Then the man in charge takes the microphone and starts shouting Hindustan! and the crowd shout something in Hindi back and then he shouts and they all shout - and meantime on the Pakistani side exactly the same thing happens but they shout Pakistan! and then exactly the same thing as the Indians!! Then each side tries to cheer the other one out!! This happens a few times before the guy puts the mike in front of one of the soldiers mouth and he has to shout something for as long as his breath will let him and at the same time one of the Pakistani soldiers is doing the same - both sides with their crowds egging them on! Hilarious! But it gets better! Oh no you say! Oh yes it does. Then the soldiers who has big silly headdresses on, as if wearing a bit silly headdress wasn't enough, start to do a John Cleese ministry of silly walks walk along the road as fast as they can towards the gate, where one soldier from either side marches off against the other one! They look as though they are having a competition to see who can get their legs highest in the air! Then they closes the gates. I'm not sure what happens next because this competition happens a few times and the gates open again only to be shut again twice more.

The crowd seem to love it but Frida and I could not understand it at all! In no way do I mean my comments about the ceremony to be laughing at the ceremony - just that to an outsider it was pretty funny to be a part of!

We left Amritsar the next day, and i was happy to leave as it was a bit too hectic for me after the peace of the hills. And off we went to Chandigarh and I swear we left India! This is a planned city and it shows! It does not feel like an Indian city at all! It is only 50 years old and was built after the partition as the Punjab lost its capital, Lahore, to Pakistan. So, designers built the city on a grid system with lovely wide streets and lots of trees along the pavements and big green parks and gardens. It is so strange! We walked around with our jaws on the floor, everything is so organised! People drive on the correct side of the road, they stop at traffic lights, there are pavements, there are not stalls along the side of every street making the street so narrow cars can hardly pass each other! But, of course you pay for this organisation and everything in Chandigarh is twice the price of the same elsewhere in India.

The main attraction there is the rock garden, which was created by a man called Nek Chand, who, as i understand it, started collecting rubbish from the towns which were deserted to make room for building the new city. He took the rubbish back to his house and made sculptures and all sorts with it. When it was discovered the collection covered many acres and he was given support for his work and now has a team of artists working with him in the garden! And he is now 80 and still hard at work. The garden is pretty cool - a bit of Gaudi and Dali in there for sure. You have to go through little doorways into each new part of the garden and it's like stepping into a magic kingdom, or falling down the rabbit hole like Alice! We had great fun wandering round and I'll try and put pics on facebook soon...

The next day Frida and i parted ways, after being pretty much on the same track for a month... I headed back to Delhi and she has another 3 weeks to tour Rajastan.

So one last day in Delhi which i spent just reading my book and chilling out and then getting the plane to Bangkok! And I am so excited and happy to be here!

I am happy to leave India but also happy I was there. It has opened my eyes and heart and for that i am glad. But I will not miss the busy-ness, the constant noise, not being able to walk 3 steps without being bothered by someone! It is a unique place! It is like nowhere else I have been.

Bye bye India - at least for now! xx

Tushita

After 10 days of silence it is very strange to be in the internet cafe writing this and surrounded by noise and people!!

The retreat was fab - an eye-opening experience! The centre is in a clearing in the woods, and it is lovely and sunny during the day but quite cold at night. It is really nice to be in silence for 10days, surrounded by strangers who are all going through the same experience as you. And at the end of it we were all friends, even though we had never spoken, but we still felt that we knew so much about each other!

I still don't quite know how to describe everything i learnt and went through on the course but it has felt like an important journey and i am so glad i found this place.

At the end of the retreat I didn't want to have to leave and go into the town and be surrounded by all the noise so I volunteered with a couple of other girls to help out at the centre for a few days. And so they put us to work tidying and cleaning rooms for the next group of people who arrive on wed for a different retreat. We also helped clear out one of the Gompa's (meditation rooms) because it is having a new floor put down.

And now I'm going to stay on until Sat and do another 2 day meditation course! They'll never get rid of me!!