This trip has been fantastic as I have been looking forward to go on this trip for years.
I was not sure how I got the seat on the airplane on 22nd Oct as my ticket is an mile-award ticket and it has the lowest priority. I called THAI office on 22nd Oct morning and was told that there are 21 seats overbooked. Some how they called me back later to tell me that I got a seat confirmed which was fantastic (this happened after I have been going to the airport and being on stand-by for 2 days without getting a seat).
I met my great uncle Gurmukh Singh on the way to board the air-plane and he was on his way to take care of matters at his charity clinic in New Delhi and he is in process of opening another charity clinic in Kushinagar (an ultra-generous being like a bodhisattva). So while in Delhi I did go visit his clinic there.
Agra Red fort and Taj Mahal (Oct 25th)
Took the early morning bus to Agra, made couple of friends on the bus including a guy from Delhi named Sumeet and a spiritual person from Malaysia. They were very cool. Had a good tour of Red Ford and then went to the Taj in the late afternoon. We found out that the Taj has been temporarily closed as some VIP guest of the government was visiting the Taj. People were lined up to wait for it to open, the line was probably about 300-500 meters long. The Taj opened again at 6:30pm in which Sumeet offered to squeeze to the front and get us our tickets then we had to squeeze in to get into the Taj. It’s extremely hard to describe the scene there during the pushing and pulling of the people (you would have to watch an Indian film with riot in it to get the picture). Fortunately the police officers were in control, they did not pull out their canes to organize the crowd. It was a dark foggy night which made taking the picture with flash extremely difficult. We went into the Taj and took a couple of photographs, enjoyed the atmosphere and got out. Later we found out that only our group from the whole bus got into the Taj. (It was not very nice as people came from all over India just to see the Taj Mahal and most of them didn’t get to go in). Then we took the bus back to New Delhi. The bus ride was not supposed to take more than 4 hours but it took 8 hours as there were labour-class protesters sleeping on the inter-state roads taking their rest as they were marching towards New Delhi to demand their rights. Well it was quite a big delay. Anyway, nothing unusal
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Dharamsala & McLeod Ganj (Oct 27th-November 5th)
From New Delhi, I took a train to Chakki Bank in Pathankote (Punjab) then took a bus from there to Dharamsala. I left on 26th evening and arrived in Dharamsala on 27th mid-day. On the bus I made some friends who were western volunteers working in New Delhi. Great people, they were Matt, Olivia, Camilla, Renate, and Yiling, so I tagged along their group. From Dharamsala I took a bus upto McLeod Ganj (or upper Dharamsala) while the rest of them hiked their way up. The place was very beautiful and people were extremely nice and friendly. I stayed the ’Green Hotel’ which costed me a Rs300 for a big room to myself with hot shower and a great balcony view. Got our rooms for the night, visited couple of temples and saw the town, which was fantastic. From there then we roamed up and down the town which was extremely calm and peaceful. The weather was a little cool, just right. Then we all had dinner together and went to bed. Next day we met up for breakfast and went around town again, this time to His Holiness Dalai Lama temple and then I hiked towards behind his temple which seems to be a long way but it came back to the temple itself (lol, made me feel quite dumb really). Then the girls left the place by bus to New Delhi in the evening. Only Mattew and Olivia stayed on. That evening we went to see a film about how Tibetan children crosses the Himalaya mountain to come to India and how their parents send them without knowing if they would make it alive or it. The producer of the documentary was there, the actual title of the documentary was ‘Escape over the Himalayas’. (Again, it made me realize how fortune I am and why I should cultivate the Bodhisattva path. On Monday Olivia and Matthew went for hiking on the hills but I didn’t go as I felt a little sick and I planned on attending teachings on the ‘Bardo’ by Chamtrul Rinpoche which is 2 hours a days for 5 days (which I did attend) and I started to feel ill as I did catch a cold. That night itself I met up with Jonathan while watching a football match. He is a British guy, a new writer, travelling and writing his first book. We got along really well.
For the next few days I ran up and down the hill in search of an Oracle which took me 2-3 days to find and I finally found her and asked her about how I should pursue my path and her reply was that I should ask His Holiness Dalai Lama. So I tried to request an audience with him for when he comes back but it was impossible as his schedule was extremely tight (extremely tight could even be an understatement). Apart from attending the teaching in the evening, I did have a chance to visit the Tibetan library, and also went to the Holloween party organized by Phil Void. Met up with bunch of ghosts there which was fun. In the nights, we would spend the
nights listening to live music performed by my friend Shambhu and Rohan at a restaurant called Carpe-Diem. Yes, it was totally relaxing.
After 5 days of class which ended on Friday, we found out that His Holiness Dalai Lama would be coming back to town on Saturday so Phil did organize a little band going to sing for His Holiness on his way back to town. So on Saturday there was a big reception for him as he have just recently received US Congressional gold medal from the USA government. People were waiting from way below town uptil his residence, people were waiting for him and looking forward to see him wave at them while we sang on the side of the road which he passed by. It was a fantastic experience. After that we just hung around and relax and Jonathan decided he would join me for the trip to Bodhgaya so we sorted our train tickets out. We left McLeod Ganj/Dharamsala on Monday and headed back to New Delhi on our way to Bodhgaya. So we took a bus on Monday 5th November to Pathankote. On the way, the bus tyre got punctured so there was little delay. When we were in Pathankote, we were 2 hours early for the train as per scheduled departure time. So we went to a local Punjabi road-side (Dhaba) restaurant and saw a snooker table inside, so we started playing with the local Punjabi guys. They were extremely friendly and nice so I played snooker with them for about 2 hours before me and Jonathan headed for the train station. Once we got to the train station we found out that the train was delayed for 2 hours so we waited and got on the train. The train arrived around noon in Delhi (scheduled to arrive at 7am or so), well nothing unusual for the almost 6 hours delay.
New Delhi (November 6th-7th)
In New Delhi, first thing we did was sorted our train tickets out for going to Gaya (near Bodhgaya), we both got first class tickets but on different trains of 10 minutes apart. Then I did manage to have dinner with Camilla, Renate, Matthew and Olivia in New Delhi, it was great that they could join us. Gagan (My cousin in New Delhi) also joined us later. Next day we headed for Bodhgaya. After boarding the train, I found out that one of our cabin-mate is an Member of Parliament (MP) from Bihar, he belongs to the communist party. So I made another 3 friends (4 people in the cabin) on the train, the MP, an NRI, and an Indian engineer.
Bodhgaya (Nov 8th-17th)
Arriving at Gaya was interesting. Yes, and it looked poorer than New Delhi. Anyway, after saying bye to the MP, Jonathan arrived about 10 minutes after me in Gaya. Then we decided to take the auto-rickshaw to Bodhgaya (The price was Rs100 but later we found out that it should have been Rs50). Arriving in Bodhgaya we shared a room and all were fine, we met up with a local boy named Manish and he showed us to Sujata cave and other nearby places. Then we met Joe (from Switzerland) at Om restaurant and we kinda hung out together most of the time. I went to visit The Karmapa at his temple (this is one recognized by Shamar Rinpoche) and exchanged a few words with him and he seems to be very nice person. We also visited several other temples in the area. For the next 5 days I attended the Kagyu Monlam (prayer). It was great experience. Joe joined me couple of times during the event. On the 3rd day of the event Jonathan fell sick and so did I. I started having a terrible cramp on my stomach. This happened in the night while all the clinics were closed. So the guest house owner took me to doctor’s home. He was very kind, I must send a ton of thanks to him. After taking some medication, I started throwing up, even the medicines came out. Somehow, I was fine in the morning. So for the next 2 days all I had was some cookies and electrolytes. Jonathan didn’t eat for 2-3 days and he became fine. On 16th November there was a grand opening event for a Vietnamese temple so monks from several temples of different traditions were invited. I attended the event, it was very nice as monks from almost all schools of Buddhism attended, prayed, blessed and had lunch together with monk of several traditions on the same table. Yes, it was magnificant. Then I went to the sculpture maker who supplies all the shops. His name was Birendra Kumar, a very simple man. After selecting a Buddha statue that he has made I paid him Rs200 and gave him Rs50 as tip to support him for the the is doing, and surprisingly in return he gave me a piece of wood with Buddha which he carved on it and he told me that that piece of wood which fell from the Bodhi Tree in the Mahabodhi temple and has been given to him by a Thai monk. Wow, this was really something to me!.. (what kind of karma did I create to receive this???? Thank you all for reading and sharing this joy)
Leaving Bodhgaya (Nov 17th)
Took auto rickshaw to airport and as I checked in at the check-in counter, the flight manager told me ‘I have been waiting for you’. Then he continued ‘we share the same last name’, his name was Vicky. He was an employee of THAI airways who travels often and that day he happened to be in Bodhgaya. After noting down his contact information I proceeded to the security check and met one military personnel who asked about my trip and started chatting with me, he mentioned that he was from Agra. As I told him that I plan to visit the Taj Mahal again he told me that I should let him know and perhaps he could take me around the next time I come
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He was very nice. Then I boarded the airplane and made my way back to Bangkok.
It was fantastic, fantastic, fantastic trip …. people are extremely nice and friendly and fortunately I managed to make friends with ‘a lot’ of people in which
I have just sent out maybe 20 emails out to check if they are alive
Wait wait, I did go back and count and I did send out emails to more than 30 people……
