New adventures

Yesterday, Thursday, I went to practice early. The shala was getting emptier every day. I did not expect anything from my practice, but it ended up being really good again... I bound Marichyasana D on my right side and I bound Supta Kurmasana again... so all in all I have had a great week of practice.
I think I have pushing Supta Kurmasana a little too hard because my lower back is being stretched forward to its limits and is a little tender.
The weather has been warming up the last few days and I have been perspiring more than my first week in Mysore, even though I was practicing earlier, around 6 am. In guruji's shala, the mornings are for westerners and the indians (there are very few) train in the afternoon, and they must be suffering...

After practice I had coconut jelly outside the shala where we normally all meet and chat for a little after practice. I thought I would just tell you a little about the coconuts here...
When you order a coconut, you have to tell the "coconut man" whether you want juice only or jelly. He then determines by the slight difference in sound the coconut makes when he taps it which one is only juice or if it is a little older and has started solidifying. He then chops off the end of the coconut and hands it to you with a straw to drink the juice out. If you ordered jelly, you hand him back the coconut and he chops off a sliver of the green outer layer, which you will use as a spoon and he chops the coconut in half, so you can scoop out the jelly and eat it.
Indians use the entire coconut tree... the leaves are used as plates and to make roofs, the trunk is building material and fire wood, and the young coconut fruit is juice and the shell is dried and used as fuel for fires. If the coconut is not used while still young it turns to jelly or the hard coconut, which is used in food and as garnishing food. Once the coconut is really old and completely hard, the inside is cold pressed and coconut oil is made from it. Also the hard brown shell is used to make spoons and lately arts and crafts too.

I then went to Tina's to say goodbye to everyone and Tina was packed some fenugreek roti's with tomato chutney for me to eat on the train... Leena was there as well and she had finished her panchakarma ayurvedic detoxification treatment. She has been quite down the last few days and yesterday she fainted twice and she think her nose is broken. Tina was saying that panchakarma should only be used as a last resort, but this doctor is prescribing it to every single Yogi who is coming to him...

I then had to return my mattress and scooter to Randy and pick up my yoga rug which I had embroidered... It was late because there was a power cut the day before... something you have to expect in India... I have even read in the newspaper that they want to shorten the business hours (go on until 21:30 or 22:00 and are closed around 12 to 4:30) in some cities to take the pressure off the electricity grids.

On the way to the railway station (if you ask for the train station they don't know what you mean) I picked up the pants I had tailored. I got to the train station half an hour early. I had bought a second class ticket on the Tippy express to Bangalore for Rs 70. At the airport I met Michael who was on the same flight (unbeknown to both of us until then) and he had come by taxi for Rs 1,500.
The train took about 3 hours to do the 135 km journey and the last few kilometres were excruciatingly slow considering I still had to go to the airport for my flight at 4pm. The train arrived at 14:15. As soon as I got off the platforms, I was harassed by taxi touts and offered rides to the airport for Rs 280 to 450. I really don't like tourists that pay without finding out what the locals pay because it is cheap in their currency and it is convenient. That is the cause of the harassment for others and the cause that tourists get ripped off. I went to the info booth and found out where I can get pre-paid taxi's and paid Rs 85. My rickshaw driver, Harish, was very nice and friendly and apologized on the way for having to get petrol as he knew I was in a rush. I got to the airport at 15:15 only to find out that the flight was delayed by 2 hours. Well that mean that I was not going to be able to get onto the bus to McLeod Ganj and I had to spend last night in Delhi.
Btw, my backpack was packed to the brim and weighed just under 20 kg and my daypack (hand luggage weighed another 10 kg. It contains the books I did not ship (package limit of 5 kg). When I left SA it all weighed around 12 kg.

While driving through Bangalore, I saw many signs advertising the coming of Amma to Bangalore on the 4th and 5th of March, just as I had seen in Mysore for the 1st and 2nd of March.

The flight with Jet Airways was very good again and the food delicious. I had the non-veg option again, chickpeas in gravy with potato patties. There was also a little packet named "After Eight", which I assumed would be chocolate, but this turned out to be a mixture of some seeds, but mainly aniseed, to freshen the mouth. It was good though.
Even though I had been sitting for most of the day, I was extremely exhausted and did not have the energy to get up to get my Lonely Planet guide and read up on Delhi, knowing that I would have to spend the night there. I was even thinking of spoiling myself and going to an expensive hotel in Delhi.

After the three hour flight, I found some energy and started informing myself of options. I phoned a few budget hotels in the Tibetan colony and was told that they were fully booked, or the telephone informed me that the number (from the lonely planet guide) did not exist. The number of the hotel that I finally got in the Paharganj area (described as a seedy area "due to its reputation for drugs and shady characters" in the lonely planet) worked on one phone, but when I phoned back on another phone it said the number did not exist, so I had to use the phone I originally got through on and it worked... very strange!!!

As I said in one of my first posts, on my first trip to India ten years ago, I had the worst culture shock I have ever experienced in all my travels and I got very stressed and aggressive. On that trip I only traveled through the north of India. On this trip I have been to the south so far and I have loved it so far. Now I was back in the north and people have been telling me that the north is far harder to travel in than the south, so I am expecting the worst.
I got a bus to the New Delhi train station for Rs 50 and then after having more attempts made at ripping me off by rickshaw drivers (like telling me that the hotel is already closed, so they can take me somewhere else and get commission) I decided to use my map and walk the last few hundred metres to the hotel using my map. A taxi would have been more convenient but a lot more expensive.

I finally got into my room around midnight. The room had a TV and cost Rs 250. I have not had a TV in 5 weeks... It is amazing how quickly we fall into old habits... I fell asleep with the TV on :-)
Delhi is a lot colder than the south of India was. The night was cold and required blankets. I also realized that I have strained my lower back, which was already saw from overstretching it, when I picked up my backpack to get onto the bus. I was considering finding a yoga shala for today but have decided to rest.

In the morning I went in search of food and walked around Paharganj... Vendors were starting to open their stores and I was in danger of buying more stuff!!! Delhi is extremely cheap. You can pick up a pair of shorts with pockets and beltloops etc for about five Rand or less if you bargain.
On the breakfast menu I could not find any idli's or dosas anymore... The south of India is the rice bowl of India and the north of India is the bread basket. Tina said that that is why the north has got all the big brawny indians and the south has got the intelligent indians :-)

I then went to the internet cafe and started writing this post, because I was not yet ready to tackle the nasty world out there. I had to rewrite this post 3 times because of the internet connection dropping, or computer rebooting unexpectedly... Other than this particular experience, my experience of the Indian broadband services has been excellent.

I then finally headed to the Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT) near the old Delhi railway station. I wanted to experience the life and vibe on the streets so I decided to walk instead of take a rickshaw. On the way I found the Metro , which I had read about. It only became operational a little over 2 years ago. It has 3 operational lines now and it uses a disk system. You can buy a card for Rs 170 of which Rs 100 is refunded for a day pass. Otherwise you have to pay for every trip. I paid Rs 8 to go 3 or 4 stations on the same line. It goes up to about Rs 30 I think. After you bought the disk, you enter by swiping the disk, then when you arrive at the destination, you have to swipe the disk again to get out and drop the disk into the system. The metro train was absolutely packed every time I used it and I never had to waid for longer than a minute for the next train... and the station was quite clean considering the amount of people going through it and compared to the streets!!!

At the Kashmere station, which is also the old Delhi railway station and the ISBT, there was a McDonalds serving Chicken Maharaja Mac, Paneer (cheese) Salsa Wrap, McAloo (Potato) Tikki Burger, and Veg Surprise Burgers. The meals were about Rs 62. I held back the urge to taste the veg surprise.

I bought myself a ticket on the Deluxe Air Conditioned Bus (there is also another deluxe bus without AC) for Rs 800 to McLeod Ganj, because I wanted the safest and best bus, which left at 8pm that evening.
I then walked back to the hotel through Old Delhi, past the red fort and Jama Masjid, places I had visited on my first trip to India. Here is a snippet of Chandni Chowk, one of the main streets through Old Delhi. In the background is the old fort. There are 3 churches on the right hand side of the road, a Jain temple, a Hindu temple and a Sikh temple. The streets are extremely noisy because the culture is hooting to let people know you are coming instead of relying on them to watch out for you.




Here is another link to the main bazaar road in the Paharganj area where my hotel is, and here is one of street side vendors making jalebi, which is very unhealthy too, but I liked it.

At 6pm I got my bags from the hotel and headed back to the ISBT, which was absolute chaos. I had to wait because I arrived early and there are lots and lots of food stalls around and I finally gave into my cravings and bought 4 packets of biscuits and chips. The chips were "Lays" and the flavour was "Magic Masala". Everything you buy in India is marked with either a green dot or a red dot, signifying vegetarian or not.
I then had to search for the bus, which was not near any platform, because there were so many buses. We finally left just after 8pm. I had moved seats because the women sitting next to me was sick and I did not want to catch her cold. Luckily there were extra seats in the bus. Most people in the bus were on the way to the McLeod Ganj for the teachings and there were quite a few monks on the bus. People were coming from all over the world. The lady who I mentioned just now came from Darjeeling.

I thought I would never get any sleep because of all the hooting by the bus driver, but luckily this died down to a more acceptable level as we got out of town and onto the highway. At around ten o'clock, we made a pit stop. It was a themed place called Haveli, meaning fortress in Punjab. I was feeling ill from all the biscuits I had eaten but decided to try to eat something. The food was not that great, but after the meal I got served, what we would consider mints. See the picture on the right. It is jaggery (raw sugar), misry (which looks like sugar, tastes sweet but is not sugar) and then aniseed.
I was lucky because the man who sat next to me got off sometime during the night and I had both seats to myself, and I got some sleep.