Itinerary
Bus from Bangalore to Chennai
Train from Chennai to Delhi
Meet with Aileen take local train then local bus outside of Delhi to Vipassana Center
Vipassana Meditation Retreat http://www.sota.dhamma.org/ December 16th - 26th
Bus, Rickshaw, local train back to Delhi
Kathmandu, Nepal
-Stayed with a host family for a week
-Volunteered at a local school
-Then went to the touristy area called Thamel
-Traveled to a farm that practiced permaculture, called Hasera farm
I went to Vipassana not knowing I was in the year 2067…in Nepal. I only lived 2 weeks in that year (most of which was spent sick) but it’s ok because I will get another chance as a 75-year-old woman after years of living and decaying in the same body, 2067 will come around with my second chance…
This is an excerpt from a diary entry that I wrote in the beginning of my trip:
I walked fast out of the bus saying goodbye to Dia from Finland who I met at the bus stop and ended up sharing seats with. She was surprised by how small my backpack was. I was worried that I would miss my train so I sped walked through the crowd of people. A driver came up to me and asked where I was going, he quickened his pace making sure I was behind him as we talked price. I was basically running after this man as he took me to his rickshaw. When we got to the rick I began to have doubts about my hasty choice of drivers, he had trouble getting the car started. Then when I asked how much it was to the train station he said 250rps! I knew this was too much. So when the car started and we were still arguing the price I almost got out. But stayed in because I could tell he realized how serious I was. We ended up spending the first half of the ride-arguing price: me, threatening to get out and get another rickshaw and him, driving while not looking at the road. The thing I could agree with in the situation was that wherever he was taking me, he was going there fast. He used a different tactic and switched to speaking to me half in English and half the local language so that I couldn’t understand his argument. He even resorted to singing his price to me. We got settled after a while and he introduced himself, Ganesh was his name, and he asked what my good name was and where I am from. He acted so hyper I was almost positive he was high on something but, as we talked more, and I didn’t see any glaze in his eyes I concluded that it was just him, his character. I was able to relax a bit after this and I asked him jokingly if the big hotel that we passed on the way was where he lived or if he owned it because it was called, “Hotel Ganesh”. He liked the idea and then started calling the city, “Phoebe city” (or however he pronounced my name). We talked more about things like how he smokes cigarettes but doesn’t drink and I made up a story that I had a husband but no kids yet. He drove like we were in a video game and when he asked me if he should slow down I said that I just didn’t want to die. When we reached the station I realized how early I was and how far we had gone. So I gave Ganesh 200 rupees because I liked him mostly but also I didn’t have exact change for the 150 I had worked so hard to bargain before. I didn’t feel like arguing more over the $1. I got out of the rickshaw waving to Ganesh and his 3 front toothed smile as a boy walking by tried to cop a feel and only smiled back at my frowning at him.
December 14th, 2010 Train to Delhi
There’s nothing like the train experience in India. You get visited by everyone; Uniks, (men dressed as women who everyone fears will put a curse on if they don’t give them money), missing limbed people who crawl along the aisles and ask for money and of course the creepers, men who think you will have sex with them in the train bathroom. Sitting in the open doorway, pee from the toilet next door (which is basically just a hole in the floor of the train) splashes my feet a little. Trashed tracks below and pure speed and wind make me feel freer then I have in a long time. No school, now one else I am traveling with and unknown land. I could get off this train whenever I wanted to. The only limits are the speed of the train and this body of mine.
After Vipassana…
It’s hard to talk and even write about. Probably because the whole time I wasn’t allowed to do those things during it. Now that I think about it, I cannot believe I went all that time without music (besides that one day I sang those two songs aloud while taking my bucket shower) reading, art, tv, processed sugar, CHOCOLATE, a cell phone, electrical machines (besides lights that only worked a couple hours a day). I spent those 10 days meditating, sleeping, and eating and that’s pretty much it. I had probably 4 hours out of the day that was not meditation. In the quiet times I went from fretting horribly about my future to digging, then trudging around in my past. Memories of things that had happened that I hadn’t thought about since the moment they happened. Like all those hours my dad would sit and do homework with me (especially the math). How impatient I was and how his seemed endless. I remembered a show my sister and I used to watch on ABC family about this group of boys who did dumb stuff with their skateboards in their backyard or how we used to share a bed when we were younger. I even thought about my old dog, Tilly, the way it felt when I pet her in my favorite spot on top of her head in the curve of her skull and on her snout right before her wet nose. I remember how she started farting more when she got really old.
CHRISTMAS
I woke up the morning after my friend and I had discovered the little presents Vipassana had given us in our heads but especially in our hair and wrote a note. The note said:
Merry Christmas!
This year I got lice and a little bit of enlightenment.
<3 Phoebe
I placed the note in my friends shoe outside her door before I left for 4am meditation. The whole day I assumed I would have trouble meditating because I would be thinking about missing Christmas at home, but I was happily surprised when I did not. I didn’t really think about it at all. The next day was the 10th day, the day we could break our silence and talk! In our morning meditation all I could do was think about what my friends and family were doing because it would have been their Christmas night. I have for the past, I don’t know, maybe 6 or 7 years gone to my friends house for a party. I started to cry sitting there in that room full of silent, closed-eyed people. I figured it had just taken a while to hit me. When we all walked out and met in a group that’s when the silence broke. Women started crying and hugging, all with smiles on their faces because it had ended. A girl who had seemed like a grumpy person said to my friend and I, “Merry Christmas”. I stopped and had to rethink. I realized later when I got my cell phone back that I had mixed up the date of Christmas and that’s why I wasn’t upset the day I thought that it had been.
Letter to a friend January 21st, 2011
I went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. 10 days of no talking, writing, reading, music, TV, Internet, computer…just meditating… I think I described it to myself in the first couple of days as a prison camp inside my mind. Spending day after inside my mind I worked through a lot. I felt like I went from childhood to present in memories. I learned how much in life I am taught to look outside for things, when really I should be looking in. I already knew but couldn’t really put why I knew religion was not for me. Now I know, it is because I don’t feel comfortable looking to anything else for guidance. Coming out of meditation I felt like, “I am god”, that I had infinite compassion for everyone and such peace I have never known. Jealously and forgiveness were two big things I worked on and I’m still not done. But what did come up was you and I realized that I was still holding onto whatever irrelevant things happened in the past with us. So in hopes of moving on I am writing in “The Book” (lol) which I found while switching rooms with my roommate for the rest of my time here in India. So much has happened since I left last summer, I am sure we both have plenty to catch up on! When I get back to Portland I plan on chilling there for a little but longer then last time so I am looking forward to Powell’s, parks, and party excursions with you!
Wishing you infinite LOVE
Phoebe
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| Kathmandu |
When I made the decision to take the “deluxe” bus from Delhi to Kathmandu I will admit it, I had expectations. And right there, that was my mistake. Getting to the bus that morning I was happy because everything went pretty smoothly- unlike anything about the actually ride I had on that bus. The morning of, I talked to my family on skype, ate a chocolate banana dosa (!), bought socks and pomegranates and got a ride from the travel agents uncles’ bike to the bus. All the seats from the front of the bus were packed so I happily went to the vacated back so I could spread out. I was hoping I could spend the next 32 hours to Kathmandu reading and writing. In the beginning I thought to myself, this will be great, I can see the countryside, read, and have some quiet time. I was so proud at how adaptable I had become while also pondering a question I came out of my Vipassana with: Why do I out myself in uncomfortable situations (like 10 days of silence or 32 hours bus rides) and somehow find such pleasure and comfort in it? Goenkaji, the guy who we would listen to over the tv screen give nightly discourses called talked about misery a lot. So for those 32 hours on that bus I was probably not uncomfortable for about 2 of them. After only getting a couple hours sleep the first night on the bus, I started to get car sick, altitude sick, some kind of sick. With every bump my migraine pulsated and the nausea threatened the seat that I had been hitting my head on while trying to sleep the night before in front of me. It didn’t help that the group of men who talked to each other in some language I didn’t know but could tell when they discussed where they thought I was from were also smokers. The real complications started when my phone battery was left to one bar. Then I realized that my Indian cell phone, which I was told would work in Nepal, was actually not working. So I wouldn’t be able to locate Aileen and worse I had only one contact number of someone who I had never met or talked to, in a country I had never been in or taken time to read about. When I reached Nepal after driving over mountains, passing turned over buses, it was later then they said it would arrive in Kathmandu.
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| Nepali Mountains [photo taken on a hike to a Buddhist temple from Hasera Farm] |
I asked to barrow someone’s phone to call the contact I had and talked to him briefly saying he would pick me up at the bus stop and that I should call him when I get there. My fever was at its peak and I was sure I would throw up. I ended up falling asleep for a little bit and got woken up by the security guy’s flashlight at the checkpoint. We reached the first bus stop and I realized I didn’t know which stop to even get off at. So I tried to call the contact number again but the phone said something in Nepali and when I asked the stinky smokers they said that the phone was turned off. So bus stops went by and I decided to go ask the driver. My trusted driver and crew smelt horribly of liquor but he let me use his phone and didn’t seem like he was going to put me in any more trouble then the intoxicated driving he was already doing. We called the number probably 50 times and before the last stop one Indian guy who I had friendly talked to about Germany tried to convince me to go to a hotel with him that night. So I stayed on the bus ending up in their parking lot discussing what I should do with the bus driver. He said no hotels were opened in the area but that I could take an overpriced taxi to an overpriced hotel or sleep on his bus. The driver gave me blankets and left for his house, I had decided feverishly to sleep on the bus for the night.
NEW YEARS
Sick.
In bed.
Asleep before midnight.
Next day called my dad telling him that I wanted to quit Global College and come home.
Went to the emergency room, doctor told me I had one of the three things: a urine infection, food poisoning or an STD!!
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| Host Family |
