~ wander.essence ~

anticipation & preparation: china

wanderessence1025 September 28, 2018

I felt like I’d been preparing for China since I was a young girl. Between my ill-fated attempts to dig to China, numerous books such as Wild Swans, and movies such as The Painted Veil, China had seeped its way into my imagination. Enamored of Buddhist temples in South Korea, I knew I wanted to see China’s colorful temples. Having seen the karsts in Halong Bay, Vietnam, I wanted to see China’s karsts in Yangshuo and Guilin. As I’d seen one of China’s extravaganzas in Beijing – its amazing acrobatic and dance shows – I wanted to see at least one more.

Buddhist temple in South Korea

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Karsts in Halong Bay

I knew I wanted to see Hong Kong and the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian. I wanted to see junks and elaborate Chinese gardens and ancient villages. I wanted to experience life with over one billion people.

ancient village of Fenghuang

the Li River in Yangshuo

karst landscape and the Li River between Yangshuo and Guilin

Junk in Hong Kong

temple in Hong Kong

Garden in Xian

pavilion in Xian

The Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian

Acrobatic & Dance show in Xian

Shanghai skyline

teahouse in Yu Yuan Garden in Shanghai

Once I got a job offer from Sino-Canadian International College (SCIC) in early 2014, I started preparing in earnest by reading more books.

I read the following books starting in January of 2014:

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie ****
Waiting by Ha Jin *****
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan ****
The Binding Chair or, A Visit From the Foot Emancipation Society by Kathryn Harrison ****
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan ****

My favorite book of this bunch was Ha Jin’s Waiting, a captivating story. Here is my review from Goodreads:

Winner of the National Book Award, Waiting tells the story of Lin Kong, a doctor in the Chinese army, who returns to his village each year to divorce his peasant wife, the loyal but unattractive Shuyu. Their marriage is an arranged and loveless marriage, and Lin has lived apart from Shuyu for almost every year since his marriage. However, whenever he returns home, he feels a comfort he can’t really explain, although he and Shuyu have no intimate relationship. Every year for 18 years, he is unsuccessful in his attempts at divorce and must return to the city to tell his lover, the educated modern nurse Manna Wu, that their wedding must be postponed again.

Lin Kong is an educated bookworm, passionless in almost every way. He doesn’t feel strongly about divorcing his wife, who embarrasses him with her bound feet and her peasant looks. Neither does he feel a strong passion for Manna, although he does find her attractive and feels he must love her because he feels very comfortable, and not embarrassed, with her. In all the years of waiting for this divorce that never materializes, there is not a shred of impropriety between he and Manna. Lin Kong is an indecisive man who questions his feelings on everything, and thus is paralyzed by indecision.

Though the story is a very quiet one, full of everyday life and mundane details, I couldn’t put it down. I too found myself waiting, and waiting, for something to happen which would give some resolution to Lin Kong’s life. When after 18 years, he’s legally allowed to divorce his wife without her consent, he does so and promptly marries Manna. Manna wants to get pregnant right away, which Lin Kong doesn’t want. He immediately begins to feel burdened by the twins Manna has and by married life. By the time they marry, Manna has aged and Lin wonders if he was ever really in love with her. He still visits his wife and daughter, who move to the city to be nearby, and he feels comfortable with them. He finally gets what he wants, yet he is still waiting. For what, I don’t know. He doesn’t see the people around him who love him dearly; he keeps thinking there should be something more. He even considers planning an escape with his last bit of savings, abandoning all his family.

It was strange while reading this: it slowly dawned on me that Lin will always be waiting. In the last chapters, I began to see myself, and everyone. It seems we all live our lives in a kind of restlessness, waiting and waiting for something to happen, but not having any idea what it is we’re waiting for. We wait, as life moves forward around us, unnoticed and unappreciated.

I also read Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement.

I so enjoyed this epic tale of Violet Minturn, who grew up in the courtesan houses of Shanghai during the early 1900s. Violet encountered one horrible experience after another during times of upheaval in China, and I wondered how anything could ever come out well for her. She is the beloved daughter of Lulu, her American mother who runs a high-class courtesan house. When her mother leaves Shanghai, Violet gets left behind due to an act of chicanery by her mother’s friend, Fairweather; she has no choice but to become a virgin courtesan. Violet finds she is half-Chinese, and her mother’s affair with the Chinese painter Lu Shing is an integral part of the story. Later, after her beloved husband Edward dies and her daughter Flora is taken from her, she ends up back in a courtesan house. When Violet looks to escape the courtesan life by marrying a “poet,” she finds once again she’s been duped and ends up a prisoner in a remote part of China, 300 miles from Shanghai, in the Valley of Amazement, the place depicted in a painting done by her father. Though the book is long, I really enjoyed reading it and imagining life in Shanghai at the turn of the 20th century.

The books that I didn’t have time to read before leaving, I took along to read while in China:

The Crazed by Ha Jin ***
Red Azalea by Anchee Min ****
China Dog: And Other Tales from a Chinese Laundry by Judy Fong Bates ****
China Dolls by Lisa See **
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtzee by Peter Hessler

I didn’t bother trying to learn Chinese except for a few words; I knew it would be hopeless as I’m terrible with languages in general, and I knew I’d never get Mandarin’s tonal ranges.

I took a journal, but I hardly wrote anything in it; I usually just wrote directly on my blog. I added a couple more journals while I was there, to take with me on my travels; those I did use a little.

Journals I used in China

I would be in China for nearly a year, through all kinds of weather, so packing was a major ordeal. I got my equipment in order, taking my Olympus camera. As I did every time I went abroad to work, I had to work out a new phone or new SIM card upon arrival, along with bank accounts and apartment utilities accounts. And of course I had to register with the authorities for a long-term stay.

On August 30, 2014, I was off to the People’s Republic on Air China. I arrived in Beijing after a grueling 13 hour and 40 minute non-stop flight. When I landed at 6:40 p.m. on Sunday, August 31, I spent the night in a hotel at the airline’s expense. In the morning, I caught a flight to Nanning City, Guangxi Province, People’s Republic of China, arriving at 10:40 a.m. on Monday, September 1. One of the students from Guangxi University met me at the airport and helped me to get settled in. I was assigned an apartment on the campus, and basic necessities were supplied for the teachers. After a couple of weeks, I was given a bicycle to use.

Though this was the third time I’d gone abroad to work, I was still nervous. At the same time, I was equally excited. I was excited to be back in Asia again. It is such a different world than what I’m used to, I imagined each day I’d be immersed in exotic and interesting experiences.

So, I said 再見 = zai jian (goodbye) to my home in the USA and 你好 = Nǐ hǎo (hello) to China.

*August 30, 2014*

~ china diaries | catbird’s wanderings through the people’s republic ~

************************

“ANTICIPATION & PREPARATION” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about anticipation & preparation for a particular destination (not journeys in general). If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you write an
“anticipation and preparation” piece, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

My next post about anticipation and preparation will be on Friday, October 26.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the 4th Friday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂 If you’d like to read more about the topic, see: journeys: anticipation & preparation.

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any additional links.

Sheetal, of sheetalbravon, wrote about her anticipation of and preparation for her daughter leaving to go off to college and her own journey to the empty nest.
- Anticipation and Preparation: To be or not to be, a helicopter parent!
Pauline, of Living in Paradise…, wrote about her anticipation and preparation for a visit to the outback icon of Broken Hill, which has been given heritage status.
- Anticipation and Preparation: Broken Hill…
Jo, of Restless Jo, wrote a piece about how she finally decided on Portugal as her dream home, and how she’s anticipating her return there in September.
- Anticipation…

Thanks to all of you who wrote posts about anticipation and preparation. 🙂

the call to place: china

wanderessence1025 September 27, 2018

When I was about 10 years old, my father was building a fence around our backyard. He used a tool called a post-hole-digger that grabbed the earth out of the ground, like a two-sided shovel, and made holes for the fence posts. I decided this tool would be useful for going to China. I asked him if I could dig my way through the earth to this exotic & colorful land that I somehow held in my mind.

He laughed and said, sure, if you’d like to dig your way to China, feel free. So I took that post-hole-digger and I started digging in the backyard. In one afternoon, I may have dug about 2 feet. That night I went to sleep and dreamed of what I’d find when I got to China.

The next day, I went back to work. Within a half-hour or so, I hit water. It gushed uninvited into my hole. What was happening? Did I hit the Pacific Ocean? I showed my Dad and he said, oh, you must have hit the water table.

me at age 10 – working in the backyard 🙂

I was never to get to China by way of digging, of course. It was a small girl’s dream of a big endeavor. But when I lived in Korea, one of the advantages of living there was that I could travel to places in Asia. China was right next door; it was no longer on the other side of the earth.

I ventured to China on September 21-25, 2010, while working in Korea. Koreans have a Thanksgiving holiday in September, called Chuseok, during which there is a mass exodus of Koreans returning to their hometowns to pay respects to the spirits of one’s ancestors. I also made an exodus. To China. Having no ancestors to visit in Korea, I explored this next-door neighbor to Korea, though I only visited a tiny dot on its expansive landscape.. I went only for 5 days and I saw Beijing and The Great Wall. China was not a repeat of Korea. It was more exotic, more chaotic, more full of character. It transported me to centuries past and to new experiences. It knocked me off my feet, surprised me in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

the Temple of Heaven

acrobatic show at the Chaoyang Theatre

The Great Wall

The Summer Palace

Marble Boat at the Summer Palace

Dragon boat

me at Tiananmen Square

Forbidden City

the Imperial Gardens and a pavilion

going through hutongs

communist dolls for sale near Houhai Lake

Houhai Lake

man and dog in odd vehicle at Houhai Lake

Houhai Lake

music at Houhai Lake

me near Houhai Lake

later imaginings & enticements

THE ARTS

For a while, in one of my past incarnations, I was a quilter. What I loved about quilting was designing them, buying the different fabrics and putting them together into a beautiful whole. I really hated the sewing. But I designed and made a number of small quilts, art pieces really. At the time, Asian fabrics were in vogue, fabrics with lotus flowers, peonies, all of distinctly Asian design. I loved these designs. They made me dream of China.

MOVIES

Numerous films piqued my interest in this exotic country throughout my life. There was the artistically done, fantastical 2000 Chinese martial arts movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 卧虎藏龙. This film transported me to a fantasy world where people could fly, sail, fight impossible battles, and fall passionately in love.

The well-done 2001 movie, Beijing Bicycle, portrayed a hopeless city of modern times. Guei arrived from the country and got a job as a messenger. The company issued him a bike, which he had to pay for out of his wages. When it was stolen, Guei hunted for it and found that a student, Jian, had it; for him, it was the key to teen society – with his pals and with Xiao, a girl he fancied.

Guei found the bike and stubbornly tried to reclaim it in the face of great odds. But for Jian to lose the bike would mean humiliation. The two young men – and the people around them – were swept up in the youths’ desperation. This is an amazing movie that shadows my imaginings of Beijing.

Another movie that touched my heart was the 1999 The Road Home. The story told of a young man who returned to his native village after the death of his father, the village’s schoolteacher, who died while trying to raise money for a new schoolhouse. His body was in a neighboring town; the young man’s mother insisted that it be brought back on foot, in case his spirit could not find his way home. From this starting point, the young man recounted the tale of his parents’ courtship, which involved a red banner, mushroom dumplings, a colorful barrette, and a broken bowl. It was a quiet and moving story that I adored.

In the 2006 movie The Painted Veil, Edward Norton played a British medical doctor treating a cholera outbreak in a Chinese village, while trapped in a loveless marriage to a faithless wife, Naomi Watts. The panorama of the karsts in southern China that permeate scenes in the movie were breathtaking and gorgeous. Karsts are limestone protrusions that jut up in the midst of rice paddies, rivers & farms, especially near the Li River in China.

BOOKS

Books fueled my imagination, informing me about this country so different from my own. I read Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, a book about 3 generations of Chinese women. An autobiographical family history by Chinese writer Jung Chang, it was published in 1991 and won two awards, the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year. It tells the story of the author’s concubine grandmother, her mother who was in the Communist Party, and the experience of being part of the Cultural Revolution. I learned more about China from this book than anything else I have ever read. It’s truly amazing.

I read Amy’s Tan’s books: The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. The Joy Luck Club was written in 1989 and focuses on Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club called the “Joy Luck Club,” playing the Chinese game of Mahjong while eating their native foods. The Kitchen God’s Wife deals with the American-born daughter of a Chinese mother and a Chinese-American father. Though these books don’t deal with life in China, they reflect the Chinese immigrant experience and the difficulties of merging two cultures.

I read a book by Lisa See, Peony in Love. Set in 17th-century China, the novel is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history. As Peony, the 15-year-old daughter of the wealthy Chen family, approaches an arranged marriage, she commits an unthinkable breach of etiquette when she accidentally comes upon a man who has entered the family garden. I also read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, another novel by Lisa See.

I love it that Chinese books so often have flowers in the titles. They sound so romantic, so secret garden-like.

Before going to Turkey, I finished reading a novel by Janice Y.K. Lee called The Piano Teacher that took place in Hong Kong during WWII and 10 years after. This book really made me want to visit Hong Kong, which I was sure, because of its British colonial past, had a different feel than mainland China.

*August, 2010*

~ the call to return to China ~

While I was in Oman in 2013, a woman contacted me through my blog, a nomad in the land of nizwa, to inquire about working for the University of Nizwa. After our correspondence, she ended up taking a job in China. In 2014, I wrote to ask about possible jobs at her university and she told me they had just instituted a mandatory retirement age of 60. As I started looking at jobs in China, I saw many with an age limit of 60. I figured since I only had one more year to work in China, I would focus my job search there.

In all, I applied for 70 jobs, beginning my job search when I returned from California at the end of January 2014 and ending on June 13, when I got a job offer from a Chinese college. I had applied for jobs at a rate of 3 jobs a week over 21 weeks. Though I had tried at the same time to get a job in the U.S., I didn’t get any responses to my applications. I came to believe my days of trying to find a job in the U.S. were over.

I’d always wanted to teach in China for a couple of reasons: 1) Asian students in general are hard-working and 2) there are a lot of amazing things to see in China. I focused my job search there and in one week I had four interviews and I got three offers. I accepted an offer to teach at SCIC (Sino-Canadian International Colleges), Guangxi University in Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It was not far from Vietnam and was about a 3 1/2 hour bus ride from Guilin, where the movie The Painted Veil was filmed.

In a way, I felt relieved to be going abroad again. Taking a job in the U.S. probably wouldn’t have allowed me to travel. Besides, starting a new job in a corporation or a non-profit at this point would mean starting with only 2-3 weeks of vacation per year. Teaching abroad allowed me to have both the cultural immersion I craved and to have extensive time off to travel in the region where I would be based. Overall, it was a great solution to my dilemmas. As I only had about 9 more years to work before I retired, and I still had my health, I figured I should take advantage of teaching abroad. Besides, my kids were nowhere close to settling down, getting married or having kids; by the time they were, I would be back in the U.S., ready to settle down and enjoy the extended family. And best of all, they were supportive of me having my adventures while I was still young enough to have them!

After being at home for a year, I missed a number of things about being abroad, especially the expats and foreigners one meets when thrown into a foreign country. Everyone is an adventurer of some sort. Being in the U.S., I was tired of having people’s eyes glaze over when I shared my experiences living abroad. I loved the fellow nomads that tended to gravitate to each other in foreign lands. In addition, I met wonderful natives of the country. We shared a common experience no one else could ever understand.

Once I got the job offer, I was excited to venture again to China. I was due to arrive in Nanning on September 1, 2014.

*Friday, August 29, 2014*

********************

“THE CALL TO PLACE” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about what enticed you to choose a particular destination. If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments. If your destination is a place you love and keep returning to, feel free to write about that. If you want to see the original post about the subject, you can check it out here: imaginings: the call to place.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you write a “call to place” piece, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

My next post on call to place will be on Thursday, October 25.

If you’d like, you can use the hashtag #wanderessence.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the fourth Thursday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any additional links.

Suzanne, of Being in Nature, wrote about her call to Spain and the light and shadows she encountered there.
- Dark and Light Spain
Pauline, of Living in Paradise…, writes about the pleasures of her routine life, punctuated by the urge to explore a corner of her world: Broken Hill, where “the summers are almost unbearably hot. The dust swirls in red clouds coating everything and the winters are bitterly cold.”
- Lens-artists photo challenge: Everyday moments
Ann-Christine, of Leya: To See a World in a Grain of Sand, wrote about her visit to Astorga, Spain where she first felt the pull to do the Camino de Santiago one day.
- El Camino — maybe some day…

Thanks to all of you who wrote about the call to place. 🙂

rishikesh, india: of snake charmers & gurus

wanderessence1025 September 25, 2018

This is a part 3 of the story of our challenging time traveling from Varanasi to Rishikesh, started in the posts:

part 1: varanasi, india: of ghats & gurus
part 2: on journey: chandigarh >> to delhi (???) >> to rishikesh….14 grueling hours

We went to feel the spiritual pulse of India. Our quest took us through the frenzied streets and ghats of Varanasi, over dangerously chaotic Indian roads, and finally, sweet relief, to Rishikesh, the land of serenity and ohm. Never could we have imagined how different two of India’s most spiritual places could be. And never could we have imagined the future of our lives, as told to us by gurus at either end.

Wednesday: The Ganges River in Rishikesh is hemmed in by mountains and is utopian-lovely. A cool breeze rinsed over us as we ventured out into the peaceful town.

We walked down Lakshman Jhula Road for quite a distance, then crossed the Ganges on a pedestrian-only bridge called Ram Jhula (suspension bridge). Somehow no one else seemed to know it was pedestrian-only as numerous motorcycles roared by, nearly knocking us over. On the east side of the bridge was Swarg Ashram, the traffic-free “spiritual center” of Rishikesh, where we encountered cows on the street (surprise!), a man pushing a cart of red carrots which didn’t seem to be carrots at all but some unidentified vegetable, and guys selling glittery gold jewelry from their motorcycles.

We walked along an asphalt path along inviting sandy beaches, closed gates overgrown with weeds and dilapidated ashrams. Cute shops offered up colorful textiles and beautiful jewelry. We came across a large temple on the riverbank that looked like a 13-story orange-iced wedding cake, Shri Trayanbakshwar Temple.

Back across the bridge, we stopped for a cappuccino and an apple lassi at the Devraj Coffee Corner, perched high above the bridge and looking back at the wedding cake temple. This was a German bakery (ubiquitous in India) serving breakfast, fresh breads and cheeses, apple strudel and croissants, as well as the usual luncheon fare of soups, pizzas and enchiladas.

On the steps outside the coffee shop sat a bearded and turbaned fellow playing some kind of colorful bulbous musical instrument and charming a snake.

After our break, we happened upon the Divine Ayurvedic Therapy Centre & Massage School. Since it was a school, we got cheap 45-minute foot and leg massages which felt amazing after being cramped in the car all day yesterday.

Feeling relaxed, we stumbled another guru’s shop, the Ganga Astrology and Palmistry Centre. We wanted to check out the Varanasi guru’s prediction against that of another guru, a kind of check and balance. We wandered in and watched the guy, Astrologer (ex-Scientist) B.P. Uniyal, in action with another group. He asked his customers all kinds of probing questions and entered the information on his computer. He asked us to come back in an hour. We liked what we heard and decided we’d wander around and return to get another, possibly truer, reading.

Wandering into temples, we saw relief sculptures of elephants dancing and Indian dancers with red dots on their foreheads. As always, little shrines sat happily in their nooks, overflowing with brightly colored paintings of octopus-armed gods, flowers, leis, masks, feathers, ceramic tiger-lions, pitchforks, 6-handed goddesses, swatches of jewel-colored textiles and colorful baubles.

Back at the guru’s office, we gave Mr. Uniyal the requested information. He fed all the information into a computer program and then printed out a multiple-paged document, after which he proceeded to read my future… as well as my palm.

This guru told me: I will live until I’m about 85. He didn’t say how I will die. I will have a lover after July, and he will be someone I know. I had problems when I was 52, and that was about right because I think that was the worst year of my life. I will be okay as far as property and I will own my own house. I will work two jobs, one in education and the other a creative endeavor, possibly writing. I will have a peaceful later life and good health, except for a little trouble with my eyes in 2021 and again in 2032. After 2023, I will have some trouble with my blood pressure. I’ll experience some nervousness, but he doesn’t say when. My financial position will be good (he didn’t say when). My children are supportive to me and they will do well in business or service. I will live a long life.

He continues to say I will have a friend in life from June onwards (Hmm, is this the same person as the lover I will have after July, whom I already know?). I will do some side business after 2017, related to writing or teaching. I will be active in my work until 2028! Long awaited work will come in 2020 and 2028 related to children and other purposes. I will have a few downhill periods in 2030, 2032 and 2037 and will be governed by old age factors after 2041 (At this time I will be 86. Of course I will already be dead by then as he said I will die at 85). I will have a period of strong spiritual growth from 2028 onwards to 2037.

While in the guru’s office, a dreadlocked man covered in caked dust and wearing a loincloth wandered in and touched Jayne on her head. Jayne cringed and backed off, telling the guru, “Tell him not to touch me!!” I found myself trying not to look at him in the hope that I’d remain incognito. He carried all kinds of paraphernalia, none of which was remotely identifiable.

The guru told us the strange fellow was an Aghori ascetic, a type of sadhu. Sadhu is a common term for a mystic, or ascetic, a practitioner of yoga and/or a wandering monk. He usually wears ochre-colored clothing to symbolize renunciation.

Since sadhus in India are common attractions, we weren’t sure if the guy was a poser, a guy looking to make a buck by posing for pictures with tourists. The guru said something to this effect, but I wasn’t sure I understood him properly.

We left clutching our computer printouts and notes. Now that we had our future in our pockets, we headed for lunch at the Buddha German Bakery, where Bob Marley sang “Buffalo Soldier” over the sound system:

Dreadie, woy yoy yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy,
Woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy!

We ate Tibetan spinach cheese momos, ricotta cheese and spinach filled dumplings served with spiced sesame seed sauce. A breeze whispered through the restaurant as we lazily watched rafters negotiate the rapids on the river. I felt peaceful in India for the first time.

Meanwhile, Singh arranged a new hotel for tonight, the Narayana Palace Hotel, so we could stay in Rishikesh an additional night. He was trying to make it up to us for yesterday, and we couldn’t help but soften toward him, as he was so contrite and apologetic. Our room, in British Colonial style, had a parquet floor and paneled ceiling, beautiful woodwork, sage green curtains, and ample space. The pool nestled in a lush tropical setting with a backdrop of coral-colored buildings and ruffled mountains. We moved our stuff into the room and then lay out by the pool for an hour or two, napping and reading and chilling.

It has been Jayne’s wish to do yoga in Rishikesh, so we arranged a yoga session with Rajkumari Chauhan, a serene Indian lady. In a common room at the hotel, she gave us mats and we stretched and chanted, jumped up and down yelping. She chanted more and we relaxed into our poses. “It’s all about breathing and peaceful mind,” she said.

After yoga, we ventured to the Ganga Beach Cafe & Restaurant, with a riverside location, a spacious terrace, and a cushioned chill-out area. Mellow hippie music, stuff of acoustic guitars and mandolins and sitars, permeated the cafe. That interspersed with classic rock and roll. We sat on cushions at low wooden tables and ordered pomegranate juice, mint raita, vegetable biryani and vegetable Jhal frezi, accompanied by butter naan. Around us sat dreadlocked Westerners with scarves wrapped jauntily around their necks and wearing colorful Himalayan patchwork jackets. Like every restaurant in Rishikesh, it was all vegetarian and no alcohol was served. The mood was chill and even otherworldly, and the food burst with Indian flavors of coriander and cumin. This spot was a sliver of heaven, offering hard-earned serenity after the chaotic experience of Varanasi and the Indian roads. We wished we could have stayed in this peaceful place until our guru-predicted ages of 85.

at the Divine Hotel

pedestrian bridge over the Ganges

glitter for sale on a motorcycle

carrots?

bull?

Buddha German Bakery

Buddha Cafe

Rishikesh

building in Rishikesh

Rishikesh

saris in Rishikesh

Jayne and me with Indian women

Shri Trayanbakshwar Temple

the Ganges in Rishikesh

Devraj Coffee Corner

Jayne & me at Devraj Coffee Corner

snake charmer

Relief sculpture in Rishikesh

figure in Rishikesh

Guru B.P. Uniyal of the Ganga Astrology and Palmistry Centre:

me with Guru B.P. Uniyal of the Ganga Astrology and Palmistry Centre

momos at the Buddha German Bakery

our room at the Narayana Palace Hotel

poolside at the hotel

Narayana Palace Hotel

*Wednesday, March 9, 2011*

**********************

“PROSE” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about a recently visited particular destination (not journeys in general). Concentrate on any intention you set for your prose.

In this case, my intention was to capture my trip through India using my five senses, and to try to capture as vividly as possible my experience there.

It doesn’t matter whether you write fiction or non-fiction for this invitation. You can either set your own writing intentions, or use one of the prompts I’ve listed on this page: writing prompts: prose & poetry. (This page is a work in process.) You can also include photos, of course.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you write a prose piece, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

My next scheduled prose post will be on Tuesday, October 9.

This will be an ongoing invitation. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any links. 🙂

Thanks to all of you who wrote prosaic posts following intentions you set for yourself. 🙂

the sandal trail through navajo national monument

wanderessence1025 September 23, 2018

Named for the people who now occupy this region, Navajo National Monument in Arizona protects three well-preserved dwellings built hundreds of years ago by the ancient people of the Four Corners region, called Ancestral Puebloans. The dwellings are Betatakin, Keet Steel, and Inscription House, dating from 1250-1300. In the cliff faces and terraces of the Tsegi Canyon system, modern Diné (Navajo) life carries on today, hand in hand with the distant past. The Diné are sometimes called Anasazi, or “ancient ones,” or “ancestors of the aliens,” however the preferred term is Ancestral Puebloans.

Around 2,000 years ago, a distinct culture of farmers emerged, and by 1200 the land surrounding the National Monument was dotted with farms of the Ancestral Puebloans. Rainfall was as scarce as it is now, but usually they adapted their lives and crops to the drought conditions. Harder times prompted the people to move their farms and villages, sometimes into the cliffs. After flourishing here for five decades, the people began to move away. Theories for their departure include: drought, erosion, social pressures, religious dictates, or other unknown influences.

The Ancestral Puebloans were great traders. They made ceramic pottery for trade. Rocks from elsewhere were used for grinding stones, tools or arrowheads. They traded for turquoise, shell, parrots, and macaws.

Visits to Betatakin and Keet Steel must done on a ranger-guided hike. Inscription House is closed to the public. The hike to Betatakin is a strenuous 5-mile round trip hike that takes 3-5 hours. The Keet Steel hike is a strenuous 17-mile round trip hike, wading at times through water.

Since we didn’t make reservations, and we didn’t have time to do the ranger-led tours, we opted for the three shorter trails in the park, starting with the Sandal Trail. This paved trail from the visitor center leads to an overlook with a stunning cross-canyon view of the ancient village of Betatakin, framed in its sandstone arch.

South of Sandal Trail, we enjoyed a magnificent view of Fir Canyon, filled with lush vegetation. The deeper and narrower the canyon, the less sunshine reaches into its depths, meaning less evaporation of rainwater. Because of this, plant life flourishes.

Fir Canyon

It is said that the climate of Fir Canyon is like an inverted mountain; the bottom is cooler and more humid and thus encourages plant growth and animal life. Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and aspen flourish in Fir Canyon.

Fir Canyon

atop the Sandal Trail with Betatakin Canyon to the north

The Navajo Indians created the sturdy fork-stick hogan, made up of three poles with their forked ends interlocked at the top, as their desert dwelling.

The miniature fork-sticked hogan without a smoke hole is an effective bath, an ancient solution to keeping clean in a place where water is scarce. In the sweathouse, stones are heated in a fire, then rolled in, or carried in on a wooden fork. The bathers undress outside then crawl inside. A blanket is hung over the opening. Radiant heat then does its work; people relaxed their muscles and sang sweathouse songs. The bathers then emerged to rinse off with water, if any was available, or to rub dry with the soft, absorbent sand of Navajo country.

Hogan & Sweathouse

Both Navajos and Hopis used sagebrush to make medicine for stomach aches. The Navajos used it to cure colds and headaches.

The roundleaf buffaloberry was used as a salve to treat irritation in sheep’s eyes. As the first domestic sheep were brought to the Southwest in the 16th century, it wasn’t used until white men came to the area.

Roundleaf Buffaloberry

pinyon pine

juniper

The fruit of the Grizzlybear Pricklypear cactus was widely eaten, fresh or dried, by Southwestern Indians.

Grizzlybear Pricklypear

Juniper on Sandal Trail

As with the narrowleaf yucca, native people ate the fruit of the broadleaf yucca, and shredded and twisted the leaves into cord and rope. Soap came from the crushed roots and was used as a shampoo in Navajo and Hopi ceremonies.

Broadleaf Yucca

Mormon Tea, when made into a brew, was medicine for stomach trouble, kidney afflictions, venereal disease, and coughs.

The Utah Juniper had many uses. Many roof beams in Betatakin were juniper. Fires were started with juniper: the shredded bark was used for tinder and the wood was used for fuel. The shredded bark also served as diaper pads, was braided into rope, and was coiled into rings to support pottery jars. A brew from the leaves was used by the Hopis as a laxative, and when people were hungry, the berries were eaten.

Mormon Tea

Pinyon Pine

Utah Juniper

Finally, we arrived at the Betatakin Overlook. We could see the south-facing alcove, which provided winter and summer shade, shelter from the elements, and springwater for drinking and cooking. At its height, 100-125 people lived here in clan or family groups. They didn’t spend much time indoors; most activities took place in open courtyards or agricultural fields. Archeologists have documented 135 rooms, some now destroyed by rockfall. Rooms were used for food storage, living, and ceremonies. The people used sandstone, soil, wood, bark, reeds and grasses either alone or in combination. Smoke residue indicates fires for cooking, warming or ceremonies.

Betatakin

The Puebloans grew cotton, using dry-land and irrigated farming techniques.

Betatakin

Betatakin, a Diné word for “House on a Ledge,” is also known as Talastima, which means “Place of the Blue Corn Tassels.” Today, this place is surrounded by the Navajo Nation, as it has been for hundreds of years.

Betatakin Canyon

Betatakin

Tree-ring dating shows that a 20-year drought ended about 1300. The farmers who had a close relationship with the land took this as a message that it was time to move on to find the spiritual center of the world. Hopi oral history says this sacred site is not abandoned; the builders are still here with us.

Sandal Trail

Pinyon Pine

The Sandal Trail is said to be 1.3 miles round trip, but somehow we mapped three miles. Of course, I got my National Park passport sticker and stamp! 🙂

Navajo National Monument

*Saturday, May 12, 2018*

***********************

On Sundays, I plan to post various walks that I took on our Four Corners trip as well as hikes I take locally while training for the Camino de Santiago; I may also post on other unrelated subjects. I will use these posts to participate in Jo’s Monday Walks or any other challenges that catch my fancy.

This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walk.

sunset at arches national park

wanderessence1025 September 20, 2018

After eating dinner our second night in Moab at Arches Thai, we decided to make a mad dash back up to Arches National Park to catch the sunset. Our goal was to get to “The Windows Section,” since we’d missed it earlier in our visit. However, we misjudged the time it would take to get from Moab up the endless switchbacks to Arches, so we just caught the tail end of sunset. Sadly, we didn’t get any windows or arches in our views at all. 🙂

However, it still was quite pretty.

Sunset at Arches

Sunset at Arches

sunset at Arches

Sunset at Arches

Sunset at Arches

Sunset at Balanced Rock

blue light at Balanced Rock

*Wednesday, May 9, 2018*

*********************

“PHOTOGRAPHY” INVITATION: I invite you to create a photography intention and then create a blog post for a place you have visited. Alternately, you can post a thematic post about a place, photos of whatever you discovered that set your heart afire. You can also do a thematic post of something you have found throughout all your travels: churches, doors, people reading, people hiking, mountains, patterns, all black & white, whatever!

You probably have your own ideas about this, but in case you’d like some ideas, you can visit my page: photography inspiration.

I challenge you to post no more than 20 photos (fewer is better) and to write less than 350-400 words about any travel-related photography intention you set for yourself.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you have a photography post you’d like to share, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

My next scheduled photography post will be on October 4, 2018.

This will be an ongoing invitation. Feel free to jump in at any time.

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any links.

Thanks to all of you who wrote photography posts following intentions you set for yourself.

on journey: chandigarh > to delhi (???) > to rishikesh…14 grueling hours

wanderessence1025 September 19, 2018

This is a continuation of the story of our challenging time traveling from Varanasi to Rishikesh, started in the post: varanasi, india: of ghats & gurus.

Monday: Sanjay, our driver in Varanasi, picks us up at our hotel at around noon to take us to the airport. He drives like a maniac, jamming his wrist onto the horn at every opportunity, shattering the otherwise quiet drive for no good reason. At one point we ask him to please slow down as the car he has brought today has no seat belts. He grudgingly slows down just a wisp. Surprisingly, we arrive in one piece at the airport, where we catch our 1:40 flight back to Delhi. It’s obvious that Sanjay is happy to be rid of us, as we are of him!

me with Sanjay in Varanasi, looking like we might be friends

We spend most of our day in transit, flying from Varanasi to Delhi, waiting quite a long time between flights, and arriving in Chandigarh at 6:30 p.m.

Our new driver, Singh, is a little late meeting us at the Chandigarh airport. He lumbers up to us, looking more than a little disheveled, as we walk out of the airport hauling our suitcases behind us. Singh is an older heavyset man with streaks of red dye in his dark hair and an earring in one ear. His hair is standing on end. He wears a sweater vest over an untucked shirt and a pair of frayed pants.

When Singh tells us he just arrived from Delhi, after a 5-hour drive, Jayne and I look at each other. We just spent our whole day in transit, and could have met him in Delhi. This is our first inkling that something is amiss, but we don’t realize the full error of our ways until Tuesday, which turns out to be the most harrowing day of our 3-week trip through India.

Our plan had been to fly to Chandigarh via Delhi, where it seemed on the map that the distance was short to our ultimate destination of Rishikesh. Rishikesh has no airport of its own.

Tuesday: Our day began with a sprinkle of promise. We cruised along in the back seat of Singh’s car with the windows open and dust flying into our faces. The air-conditioner in Singh’s car had two speeds, either full-blast freezing or off. We alternated between the two.

About 95 km outside of Chandigarh, suddenly the engine of our Maruti Suzuki Esteem LX started hissing and spitting out steam. Singh pulled the car over and opened the hood, poking into the engine. We sat alongside the two-lane road as trucks, tractors, donkey carts, auto-rickshaws, cars, bicycles, and motorbikes whizzed past. Singh took our water bottles and emptied them into the radiator.

Singh and his broken-down car

the view from our unexpected roadside stop

traffic on the road

tuk-tuk

Two filthy but very sweet boys ride up on one shared bicycle, and Singh gives them our now-empty water bottles to take somewhere to fill up. They zip off and return back quickly, although it seems we are out in the middle of nowhere, and I give them a 100 rupee note for their troubles.

The boys who helped us out

An auto-rickshaw driver pulled over to help. There was apparently nothing to be done with the car on the side of this far-flung road, so the driver pulled out a frayed rope and he and Singh tied the bumpers of the two vehicles together. We started down the road, Jayne and I in the auto-rickshaw and Singh driving the car, only to have the rope come untied after a short distance. They re-tied the rope and we were off again.

tying up the car

goddess on the front of the rickshaw

Jayne in the rickshaw

the boys say goodbye

Finally, after what seemed like 10 miles but was probably less than 5, we stopped at an auto repair shop in some small town. The auto-repair guys brought Jayne and me two plastic chairs and we sat out on the red dirt and waited for them to resolve the problem. Two hours later, we had a new radiator and were on our way.

traffic around us

the rickshaw

the garage

a not-very-happy camper

We were finally cruising along again, if you can call driving in India cruising. The potholed and decrepit roads in India are choked with every kind of vehicle and animal imaginable. On this particular route, there were all two-lane roads, and since a myriad of slower vehicles were always blocking the road, constant passing was required.

views as we’re being pulled along

fellow traveler

Years ago, I would have been terrified by this road trip, since every minute we are passing someone, and hurling head-on toward other vehicles. I kept reminding myself that the guru in Varanasi told me I would live till 87 or 88 and die a quiet death in my bed. Even though I was skeptical of the guru’s predictions, his words soothed my fears on this torturous day.

We entered a road blocked off by gates. We seemed to have no trouble getting through the gate, but a little way down the road, a guy alongside the road waved us down. He didn’t look like anyone official, just some random-looking guy. But Singh pulled over, pulled some papers out of his glove compartment, and got out of the car to talk to the guy.

After a half-hour, Singh returned, frowning, saying he didn’t have the proper permit to take this road, so we’d have to turn around and take an alternate route to Rishikesh. For the second time today, he made myriad excuses about how this wasn’t his car, how his car had all the proper permits, how it wasn’t his fault that this car wasn’t properly documented! We argued that he should have known what permits were required, and he should have checked this car before he brought it from Delhi. He was unabashedly unapologetic, and just kept making excuses as we turned around and got on another overcrowded road going in some other unknown direction.

At this point, we were under the impression that we were taking some parallel road toward Rishikesh, and we figured it could take at most 4 more hours. After quite a long time, I pulled out my India map and asked Singh what town we were in. He told me Karnal. I said, “What??? You’ve got to be kidding! We’re heading toward Delhi!” He explained that we were heading to Panipat, another 34 miles south, where some people would bring his car and we would exchange vehicles. Another argument ensued where we expressed our disbelief that we were heading back toward Delhi!! He continued to make excuses and to say, again, it wasn’t his fault because this wasn’t his car and he didn’t know it didn’t have the proper permits. We made our way slowly to Panipat, over an hour to travel the 34 miles.

As we finally got to Panipat, which was 85 miles north of Delhi, Singh told us it was better for us to go all the way to Delhi to meet his friends with the car because if we stopped in Panipat, we’d have to wait 2 hours for them to meet us!!

We plod along another 3 hours or so to go the 85 miles to Delhi. My blood is boiling, but there is no solution to the problem other than to sit and take it. We are hot and uncomfortable in this small car. Our legs are cramped, our backs are hurting. There is nowhere to stretch out. Pure misery.

Finally, in Delhi, Singh’s friends come with his car and we move our luggage and ourselves to Singh’s car. It turns out that his car only has one seat belt in the backseat, so Jayne and I alternate wearing this seat belt in hopes we can reduce our odds of getting killed in a head-on collision. We get on the road toward Rishikesh, which means we head southeast (we’re supposed to be going north!) to Ghaziabad, then we head north to Meerut. Once we are northbound at least I begin to feel some relief that we are finally heading in the right direction.

a common sight on India’s roads

We crawl along the long route, passing through Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, Hadiwar, then to Rishikesh. This trip from Delhi to Rishikesh takes another 5 hours. In every town, we’re caught up in a thick mixture of people who squish their faces against our window, gesturing from hand to mouth, signaling they want money for food. When we arrive at 10 p.m. in Rishikesh, to the Divine Hotel, the place seems truly divine to us despite its notably un-divine appearance. We are irritated beyond what any words can describe because we have just spent 14 hours in a cramped car traveling a route that should have taken no more than 3 hours. Our relationship with Singh has started out very badly and we have 6 more days to spend with him! The tension between all of us is thick and sticky and uncomfortable. It’s as if we’re all stuck in a huge spider web made of taut metal threads. It’s safe to say we all want to kill each other.

*Monday & Tuesday, March 7-8, 2011*

The story of our time in Rishikesh will follow on Tuesday, September 25.

***********************

“ON JOURNEY” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about the journey itself for a recently visited specific destination. If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you write a post about a journey you’d like to share, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

My next scheduled “on journey” post will be on October 17, 2018.

This will be an ongoing invitation. Feel free to jump in at any time.

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in comments for any additional links.

Suzanne, of Being in Nature, wrote a short but thought-provoking post about how we lose parts of ourselves as we journey through life.
- Lost in Transit

Thanks to all of you who wrote “on journey” posts following intentions you set for yourself.

a hike in hovenweep national monument

wanderessence1025 September 16, 2018

After leaving Natural Bridges National Monument, we headed east to Hovenweep National Monument. It was quite a long drive through a barren landscape, but it was well worth the visit. We got a far-away glimpse of Bears Ears National Monument along the way. Several Native American groups, including the Navajos, Utes and Pueblos, consider this area sacred and include it in their oral traditions. Our President has directed that it be reduced substantially in size.

Bears Ears National Monument from a distance

The landscape as we drove through the Navajo Nation was arid, all tans and browns with barely a speck of green. Donkeys grazed on open range and rather skeletal-looking horses kept their heads down. A strong wind bandied about swirls of red dust. Derelict trailers squatted on acres of dirt. A wooden sign for Church of God flapped from a signpost in the wind, while a white steeple perched atop a brown weathered barn like an afterthought. Small oil rigs bobbed up and down amidst sagebrush. It was a desolate drive.

horse on the way to Hovenweep

When we arrived at the Visitor’s Center, of course I had to get my passport sticker and cancellation stamp (see below). We saw a young lady collecting stamps for the Junior Ranger program. Wearing a straw hat, she brought to mind Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island; her companion reminded us of the Professor. Later Mike said she probably had a hell of a time hanging on to that hat in the heady wind.

Hovenweep National Monument

Hovenweep, which is Ute/Paiute for “deserted valley,” was once home to resourceful ancestors of today’s Pueblo Indian tribes. It was once a sizeable network of prehistoric villages. Many Pueblo people built their dwellings on canyon rims, often near springs and seeps near canyon heads. Some locations suggest the people were protecting something, if not themselves then perhaps the water – essential to desert-dwellers. By the 1200s, the population had grown dramatically.

Despite marginal growing conditions, ancestral Pueblo people raised corn, beans, squash and other crops in small fields and terraces, often using check dams for irrigation. They used solar calendars and astronomy to calculate growing seasons. They also created pottery, jewelry and clothing to improve and add color to their lives. They were creative in building these rock, wood and mud mortar dwellings of various geometric shapes.

Perhaps drought, depleted resources, or internal strife accounted for the people’s sudden departure in the late 1200s. Today, the Hopi, Zuni and Rio Grande Pueblo tribes are considered the modern-day descendants of the people who created Hovenweep’s structures.

We set out to do the 2-mile Little Ruin Trail. First we found the Stronghold House, named for its fortress-like appearance. This is actually the upper story of a large pueblo built on the slope below. People entered the house by way of hand-and-toe holds chipped into the rock, or possibly by a wooden ladder.

Stronghold house

As the trail is a loop, we had to go down 80 feet into the Little Ruin Canyon, which was quite warm. Around us, we found big basin sagebrush (in the sunflower family), Green Ephedra (Mormon Tea), Utah juniper and cliffrose.

the path through the canyon

broom in the canyon

From the canyon bottom, we could see the ruins of Hovenweep Castle on the ridge at the far end.

the canyon

On the other side of the canyon, we found the Twin Towers. Together they had 16 rooms. The two buildings, one oval and one horseshoe-shaped, rose from the bedrock, their walls almost touching.

Twin Towers

Twin Towers

Square Tower

The Rimrock House lacks any room divisions, so it appears no one lived here. Rectangular in shape, it stands two stories high. Small openings placed at unusual angles may have served as peepholes, observation ports for sun tracking, or ventilation.

Rim Rock House

Twin Towers

In the canyon, we saw the remains of Round Tower. It was almost perfectly circular and was likely two stories tall.

Round Tower

Hovenweep Castle stands at the end of the canyon. It consists of two D-shaped towers perched on the rim of Little Ruin Canyon. Logs in this ruin were cut in the year 1277 CE. This was a residence, but not for royalty; rather, it housed farmers.

Hovenweep Castle

Hovenweep House was the center of one of the largest Pueblo villages in the Square Tower group. The masons took great pains with the stonework.

Hovenweep House

From the canyon rim, we could see Tower Point at the end. Here, people stored crops such as corn, beans and squash. A surplus harvest was essential for the Puebloans to get through years when crops failed. These granaries had to be tight and secure against rodents and seeping water.

Tower Point

Tower Point

the Little Ruin Trail

Hovenweep Castle

The two-story-tall Square Tower stands down in the canyon. A kiva was excavated beside Square Tower. Beside the tower are large hackberry trees that tell of the seep that trickles under the alcove. This precious permanent water source held the Square Tower settlement together.

Square Tower

Hovenweep Castle

the canyon

Tower Point

A line of rocks spanning a small streambed was a checkdam, built by the original early inhabitants. Hovenweep farmers built a series of checkdams all over the mesa, used to slow water in flash floods, back up rich pockets of soil, or enhance the flow of springs below. Others may have prevented washouts of crops planted in the canyon bottoms.

A great deal of the mesa top land was devoted to agriculture. Pueblo farmers had to plan for bad years by locating fields in favorable places, staggering plant times, and employing various water collection methods.

Checkdam

Hovenweep Castle

Hovenweep Castle

The most striking thing about Tower Point was its commanding view up and down Little Ruin Canyon.

Tower Point

Tower Point

Tower Point

We made our way back to the Visitor’s Center, passing a Unit Type House. This was a basic building plan found throughout the southwest, usually containing a few living and storage areas and one kiva. It likely served as home to a family or clan.

Unit Type House

Eroded Boulder House incorporated the huge rock under which it sat as part of its roof and walls.

Eroded Boulder House

We finished the two-mile hike at 5:30. It was a great hike, down into and up out of the canyon, then a mostly level loop around the rim over slickrock.

Here is my National Monument sticker and stamp for Hovenweep. As I’d already filled in all the spaces for the Rocky Mountain Region in my first passport, I had to buy a second passport. I wonder how many I’ll need when all is said and done!

Hovenweep National Monument sticker and stamp

After leaving Hovenweep, we drove to Bluff, Utah, where we spent the night. All in all, we walked 14,602 steps today, or 6.18 miles.

*Friday, May 11, 2018*

***********************

This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walks.

varanasi, india: of ghats & gurus

wanderessence1025 September 11, 2018

Sunday: Before sunrise in Varanasi, my friend Jayne and I felt our way in the dark down the maze of alleys called galis to the ghats, the long expanse of steps leading into the water on the western bank of the Ganges.

We met our English-speaking boat guide Ajay at lively Dasaswamedh Ghat, with its jumble of boats overlooked by jaunty Hindu gods painted on pink towers. A boy maneuvered our rickety rowboat out of the tangle, with Ajay standing at the helm. In the glowing pre-dawn light, Indians bathed in the Ganges. Boats of orange-robed monks, photo-snapping Asian tourists, and fellow nomads floated past. On the ghats, sacred rituals abounded: pilgrims offered puja, offerings or prayers, to the rising sun and washed clothes in the Ganges. Students struck yoga poses and meditated on the steps, while women darted about selling flowers. Ajay pointed out a group of students facing their teacher on the ghats and said they were studying Sanskrit.

Hindu pilgrims flock to Varanasi’s eighty ghats, named after maharajahs, to either wash away their sins in the sacred Ganges or to cremate their dead. Varanasi is considered a holy and favorable place to die and thus is the center of the Hindu universe.

People are cremated along the river, either by traditional burning on piles of expensive sandalwood, or cheaper mango wood. If people can’t afford sandalwood, they buy packets of sandalwood dust to sprinkle on the fire. In recent years, oven-like crematoriums offer electronic burning, which reduces the amount of wood used. Ajay told us that every Hindu is cremated at death except for: (1) children under the age of 15; (2) pregnant women; (3) people with leprosy; (4) people who die from snake bites; and (5) priests. These deceased are thrown directly into the River Ganges.

Ajay gave us little candles set on a flower petal bed, telling us to light the candle and place it into the river. I cupped my hands around the candle to shield the flame from the breeze, lit it and made a wish. We watched as our candle-wishes floated away on the current, diminishing on the horizon to nothingness.

Ajay casually mentioned his friend, a famous guru who told the fortune of a famous actress named “Goal Lyan.” Baffled, we guessed different names, until Ajay called his brother, who revealed that the mystery actress was Goldie Hawn. He told us if we’d like to have our stars read and our futures told, this guru was the one to see. We must have looked like a couple of suckers to Ajay, and in fact we turned out to be just such!

Our boat pulls up after an hour to Manikarnika Ghat, the main burning ghat. Day and night, hundreds of pyres are tended by the Dom, the untouchable caste, which has handled cremation for centuries. The pyres are lit with an eternal flame believed to have emanated from Lord Shiva, the patron deity of Varanasi. We see smoking ashes and burning pieces of wood, but we don’t see any huge piles of firewood burning a dead body. All the bodies left here have already turned to ash and have been swept into the river. Everywhere, we’re overwhelmed by the stench of cows and general garbage and debris, but luckily, I don’t smell burning flesh.

We pick our way through the black ash, huge piles of wood, wandering cows, mangy dogs, and goats. An old man squats, shaving the eldest in a deceased person’s family with a straightedge to prepare him for the cremation ceremony. We must walk through this area quietly and respectfully and are forbidden to take pictures. Ajay does allow us to take one picture of the eternal flame, which has been burning, apparently, eternally.

Walking down the narrow alleys, we encounter a queue of cows bullying their way through; we have to push ourselves up against the wall to avoid getting underfoot or gored. Down another alley, cows are lounging on steps. Vendors sell bags of sandalwood and spices and textiles. Flies swarm everywhere around piles of cow dung.

Ajay asks if we’d like to meet the “famous” guru and we are curious about him so we go to Guruji Ashram. This guru, after showing us photographs of some blond girl who vaguely looks like Goldie Hawn, tells us he can do several different tiers of fortune-telling, from $25-$80. He asks for our date, time and place of birth and then tells us to come back at 2:00.

We head out into the onslaught of Varanasi. On narrow two-lane dirt roads, cows roam and munch lazily on plastic bags. They leave their mark all over the place, adding to the generally all-encompassing piles of debris. Mangy skin-diseased dogs, small armies of pigs pushing up dirt with their snouts, goats, and more cows only add to the armies of creatures on the streets.

People’s clothes and faces and arms are covered in dirt and they mingle with the cows and other animals, stepping over their piles of dung, accepting, even embracing, it as a permanent part of the landscape. Women in saris sit on piles of rubble hand-mixing the profusion of dung with hay and forming it into little patties, which they then form into larger igloo or beehive shapes to use as cooking fuel later. Horns honk and screech and play goofy little ditties, a cacophony of loud abrasive noise. Whole families burst at the seams of auto-rickshaws, hanging on for dear life and smiling as if they are having the happiest moments of their lives. Between the bicycles, cycle rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, the cows, the animals, and the people, there is not a space to breathe. Everyone and everything is in constant motion, and you must go along with the flow or you’ll be swallowed whole.

While we wait to go back to our guru, we visit the Mother India Temple, which has on its floor a huge relief map of India and the Tibetan plateau, carved out of marble in three dimensions. The map is said to be perfectly to scale both vertically and horizontally with mountains, rivers, plains and oceans and the holy pilgrimage centers all clearly visible. We visit the small Durga Temple, better known as the “monkey temple,” where monkeys add to the overall pungency with their droppings.

Finally, we head back into Varanasi proper and sit in the car at an old movie theater, waiting for Ajay to escort us to the guru. Suddenly, a snake in a basket is thrust into our window by an Indian in a yellow turban. “Five rupees to touch my snake!” I say, “No, thanks! You’d have to pay ME to touch that snake!” He won’t take no for an answer, but continues to harass us until we finally roll up the windows and ignore him.

Back at the guru’s ashram, I climb steep narrow stairs into a warm windowless room, where he invites me to sit on the floor. He tells me the following: I will live until 87 or 88, at which time I will die a natural and easy death in my sleep. I basically will have a good life with no problems. I’ll have my own property by the time I retire. I’ll have good health, although I might have some problems with gastric pain. He asks me if I currently have these kinds of problems, and I say no, I don’t. He tells me I’ve had four pregnancies. I protest and say I’ve only had 3, but he insists I must have lost one. He says I’m independent and don’t rely on anyone and I’m very strong and controlling in my family. He also says I have a mind like a child. He doesn’t mention anything about love, so I ask and he says I will have problems between life and love; I will have a man, but no fixed man. Men will come into my life and go. I ask if there’s anything I can do about that, and he says I can buy a talisman from him for 2,300 rupees (~$37). Ha!

ghats at Varanasi

on the river Ganges

Jayne and me

Varanasi

bathing in the Ganges

sunrise on the Ganges

me lighting my candle

Jayne and me

sunrise on the Ganges

Varanasi

wood for the pyres

sandalwood dust

shaving before a family cremation ceremony

relief map of India

vendor in Varanasi

me in Varanasi

our Varanasi guru

the guru’s abode

*Sunday, March 6, 2011*

This is the first part of a three-part series. The journey from Varanasi to Rishikesh will post on Wednesday, September 19 and the second part, in Rishikesh, will post on September 25. 🙂

**********************

“PROSE” INVITATION: I invite you to write a 1,000-1,500-word post on your own blog about a recently visited particular destination (not journeys in general). Concentrate on any intention you set for your prose.

In this case, my intention was to capture my trip through India using my five senses, and to try to capture as vividly as possible my experience there.

My next scheduled prose post will be on Tuesday, September 25.

This will be an ongoing invitation. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any links. 🙂

Thanks to all of you who wrote prosaic posts following intentions you set for yourself. 🙂

the owachomo bridge trail at natural bridges national monument

wanderessence1025 September 9, 2018

After leaving Moab, we headed to one of our favorite parks we encountered on the trip, Natural Bridges National Monument. It sits in a high desert environment, with elevations of 5,500-6,500 feet and average yearly precipitation of 13 inches. As the park is somewhat off-the-beaten-track, we only had time to visit this one and Hovenweep National Monument today, ending up in Bluff, Utah.

We drove the 9-mile paved one-way loop road around Bridge View Drive, which leads to overlooks and trailheads for all three natural bridges and the Horse Collar Ruin archeological site. As we were limited in time today, we sadly only had time for one hike. I would love to have done more. I will share photos of the overlooks to the other bridges and the ruins in another post.

Declared a National Monument in 1908, the bridges are named Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo in honor of the Native Americans that once made this area their home. All three bridges have gone through name changes over the years.

We took the Owachomo Bridge hike through pinyon-juniper forest, grasses, shrubs, hanging gardens, willows, cottonwood, Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine trees. Owachomo was once named Congressman; as the shortest in height at 106 feet, with a 180-foot span, it took the less powerful name, after President (Sipapu) and Senator (Kachina). Later explorers renamed the bridge Edwin. When the park was enlarged in 1909 to protect nearby Puebloan structures, the General Land Office affixed the Hopi names to the bridges.

looking down on Owachomo Bridge

Owachomo means “rock mound,” a feature atop the bridge’s east abutment.

looking down on Owachomo Bridge

approaching Owachomo Bridge

Mike at Owachomo Bridge

Owachomo Bridge

We went through the bridge to Armstrong Canyon on the other side. Here, Mike went one way and I went another. I think he missed out because I got the best views!

crossing through to the other side

cacti

stream through Armstrong Canyon

The rock here at Natural Bridges National Monument is sandstone first formed by windblown sand. White and Armstrong Canyons and their three bridges are results of water’s relentless action against the crossbedded sandstone. Episodes of great heads of water and sand scouring the desert stream set the conditions for forming the natural bridges. Owachomo, straddling no stream now, apparently was cut by two streams.

Owachomo Bridge

A natural bridge is temporary. Blocks fall from its underside, and its surfaces weather, wear, and weaken. The span of Owachomo, the oldest, has now worn thin.

Owachomo Bridge

Armstrong Canyon

Owachomo Bridge

Armstrong Canyon

Owachomo Bridge

in Armstrong Canyon

Owachomo Bridge

Towards the end of the hike, I changed to my wide angle lens to capture as much of the bridge as possible.

Owachomo Bridge with wide angle

Armstrong Canyon with wide angle

Armstrong Canyon with wide angle

Owachomo Bridge with wide angle

Owachomo Bridge with wide angle

Of course, I got my sticker and cancellation stamp for my National Parks passport. 🙂

My passport sticker and cancellation stamp 🙂

This hike wasn’t that long, only 1.18 miles, but we lingered a while here, so the entire hike took 50:12 minutes. This was most beautiful hike we took today! 🙂

*Friday, May 11, 2018*

***********************

On Sundays, I plan to post various walks that I took on our Four Corners trip as well as hikes I took locally while training for the Camino de Santiago; I may also post on other unrelated subjects. I will use these posts to participate in Jo’s Monday Walks or any other challenges that catch my fancy.

This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walk: A Tale of three Castles – 1. Warkworth.

poetic journeys: C O L O R A D O

wanderessence1025 September 7, 2018

“COLORFUL COLORADO,” says the state’s welcome sign, promising a chameleon landscape of high plains, snow-topped peaks, mesas, and sand dunes. Thus enticed,

Overcurious young pioneers load their earthly belongings, all akimbo, into rickety vehicles and

Light out to the land of Ponderosa pines, aspens and continental divides. They can readily find “Rocky Mountain highs” in

Omnipresent cannabis dispensaries with names like Tokin’ Tipi, Tumbleweed, Still Smokin’, the Green Joint, and NuVue. These

Restless folks might long to pitch their tents on sprawling ranches named Bojack or Saddleback. Possibly they’d be content to settle into

Adobe solar-powered homes, Chinook Cabins, Retro Inns, Motel Tomahawks, or even yurts. Perhaps their

Desires are for freedom, or adventures in zip-lining, white-water rafting, bicycling, hiking, or snow skiing.

Or they might hold faith in the handwritten road sign, lit in the alpenglow of the Sangre de Cristos, that “This is the Cosmic Highway.”

mesa of Colorado National Monument

Buttes in Grand Valley

Aspens along the San Juan Million Dollar Highway

San Juan Million Dollar Highway

Retro Inn in Cortez, CO

Mancos Valley Overlook at Mesa Verde

Bojack Ranch near Pagosa Springs, CO

Great Sand Dunes National Park and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Great Sand Dunes

yurt in Crestone, CO

Alpenglow over the Sangre de Cristos

*************************

“POETRY” Invitation: I invite you to write a poem of any poetic form on your own blog about a particular travel destination. Or you can write about travel in general. Concentrate on any intention you set for your poetry. In this case, I wrote an acrostic poem about COLORADO.

“The basic acrostic is a poem in which the first letters of the lines, read downwards, form a word, phrase, or sentence. Some acrostics have the vertical word at the end of the line, or in the middle. The double acrostic has two such vertical arrangements (either first and middle letters or first and last letters), while a triple acrostic has all three (first letters, middle, and last)” (from The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms).

Some examples of acrostics can be found in Seasonal Sonnets (Acrostic) by Mark A. Doherty.

You can either set your own poetic intentions, or use one of the prompts I’ve listed on this page: writing prompts: poetry. (This page is a work in process). You can also include photos, of course.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you write a poetic piece, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the first Friday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired!

Jude, of Travel Words, wrote a wonderful poem about the “tat” that people sell at a flea market in Plainpalais.
- Plainpalais Flea Market
Pam, of Roughtwighting, wrote a villanelle that captured the rhythm of the waves on the beach.
- The Moon, The Sun, The Surf

Thanks to all of you who wrote poetic posts. 🙂

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: