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Diary - 2008 November (India)

2008-11-25 to 2008-12-03

The easy life

The night I spend with a beer on the beach, hoping to find a good place to stay for the next month - one whole month! Wow! - tomorrow.

Early next morning I check the map and know, where about I wanna start looking - I give myself three days to find a place I like. Super motivated I drive north to Calangute and Baga - happy me, I don't check them again in the Lonely Planet. I decide to go for Calangute first as my first choice and I stop my car on the sidewalk to check out the area and prices of guesthouses.

Walking by a posh one I think it would be a good idea just to know, how much they want for a room and so I walk in. The nice couple show me a room which I like instantly and after 2 minutes of bargaining we settle for 500 Rps and I take it for the next three weeks! In no dream I thought that would be so fast!

The guesthouse is about 100m away from the beach, across the street is Jerry's place, where I have my breakfast each day (as I eat everyday the same, I don't have to order anymore and everybody knows me already - what a life! :-).

My dream comes true and my discipline comes back so I do sport every second day: one hour fitness, half an hour running on the beach - after the fours day on the beach, people there know me as well and stop asking me if I don't like to rent a water scooter, parasailing, pumping, the usual... - life just started and I am feeling better again - I have to get rid of my potbelly!!

Food is good and cheap, I have enough good books with me, I installed my espresso set on the balcony and the landy is cleaned and I sorted out a lot of things. In front of me is one month holiday! :-)

2008-11-25

Flying back to Goa! :-)

As Karen didn't want to stick to the plan there is no reason for me to go down to Kerala on my own. I am tired from travelling anyway, so it's good to go back to Goa and look for a nice place to stay and do some sports and reading. My potbelly needs it anyway - 7 months just sitting in the car, sightseeing, eating, drinking and sleeping is not good for a mans body! :-)

I thought I will take the train down, which I booked and just jump out, when I am around Goa, but verifying my couchette I realize, that my place is not confirmed and so I can't take the train anyway! Good for me! It takes me a second to grab plan B, take a rickshaw and drive to the airport and buy a ticket - some people are obliged to stick to the ground - I am not! :-) Four hours waiting, three sudokus and a burger later I board my plane and know where to go out for dinner! The easy life starts now! One month earlier than I thought! I can live with that! :-)

2008-11-19 to 2008-11-25

Back in Delhi

It's good to come back to a city you already know. You know, where to find a place to stay, you know the prices, especially of the rickshaw-driver-scam and you are not obliged to do sightseeing. You can see the city like you would live there and your eyes are ready to see thing a tourist wouldn't.

Happy me I was invited by Micha so I have a schedule for every day. Well the schedule is meeting him between 5 and 9 pm at the German Chamber of Commerce and get free food and wine, as there are some special days. First day minister of foreign affairs Franz Walter Steinmeier should come - well he didn't, he had more important things to do - maybe to reject another Korans to get released of a prison, who knows. Aside a fashion show we get really good food and free wine and beer which brings us in the perfect mood to go out for a dance. We join a lot of friends and colleagues of him for going to a club and see the posh people of Delhi how to make party - just the posh, because a drink on the bar costs about Euro 5! Good that I am fully loaded and just need one beer the whole night! :-)

Next night and the third are pretty much the same! Again good food - this time German food including sausages (how good was that after 7 months not getting pork), Sauerkraut and German potato salad - life's good to me! :-) After warming up and killing several bottles of wine we're again ready for partying - there are really quite some nice clubs in town! The third day I have no clue how I got home - must have been a good one! :-)

Besides all the partying I do manage to send my x-mass presents to my nieces and apply for my transit visa for the Union of Myanmar (formerly Burma).

After the change of spirit in the emails of Karen I can already feel that there is a slight chance, that she does not want to go to Kerala with me - quite good for me, as I am a little bit out burned and just wanna relax...

Happy me - late but not too late - she sends me an email the night before our train leaves, that she has to go home to the states and sort out her life. Honestly as I am I tell her that it is ok - well, I didn't tell her that that is all I wanted! :-)

2008-11-15 to 2008-11-17

Goa

After four exhausting days of driving non stop I finally saw the coastline of Goa - the famous beaches!

In Arambol - the former Hippy centre - I got my first shock: It was very gross! Dirt everywhere, houses totally old and fucked up, old pseudo hippies, a dirty beach! This was not the Goa I dreamt off and definitely not the place I wanted to stay at!
So I drove further south and found a place, where at least the beach was ok - the huts where I could have staid were nothing special - and therefore to expansive.
Nonetheless I wanted to jump into the sea. As I didn't want to leave my belongings alone I asked a girl at the beach, if she can look at them... After four days driving without being able to take a shower, there was nothing better but jumping into the sea! As I was quite stinky, the girls offered me to take a shower at their place. This was when I met Marlene and Majorine from Holland. In return for the shower I offered them a beer which lead to a very nice evening. Unfortunately the girls had to leave the next morning.

Next day I did a spin to check out the area and still got shocked by the dirt and the not existing beauty - I already thought, Goa as we think about it, does not exist anymore!
I heard that the south of Goa is much nicer, so I drove down further south - still shocked because I had to organize a nice room for Timo and me for New Years Eve and I couldn't think of finding one. As I had to go to the Holiday Inn to pick up my screws anyway, I drove down to Cavalossim. The hotel was nice and I met a German couple who showed me, where they booked it and that it was much cheaper, when you book it in Germany. I decided to ask Nick - a friend of mine who owns a travel agency in Munich (The Reisegallerie) - what he could offer me. I spent the rest of the day in the Holiday Inn, where I had a very good dinner and a nice evening on the beach. I decided for me, that the beauty of Goa is gone, this is the most beautiful place and I have to book the hotel for us! The worst thing of the day was, that the stupid hotel did not find my package with my screws and therefore - as everybody does in these situations - blamed me for choosing their hotel as an address for my package. It was quite a fight to make them believe they received it and make them go looking again for it - after three days I had the screws in my hand - to realize, they were the wrong ones! :-)

Nick did a very good job - as always - booking the hotel for a much cheaper price than the hotel itself had offered.

When Micha and I split up in Nepal we decided I have to come to Delhi to meet him again and make some party. I wanted to go back there to go to the embassy of the Union of Myanmar anyway for applying for a transit visa, so I booked a flight and two hours later I was back in the capital.

2008-11-12 to 2008-11-15

4 days, 6 nights

Driving from Bodh Gaya to Goa was a nightmare - especially as I was under time pressure, because I wanted to find a nice place to stay for New Years Eve when Timo comes down, then I wanted to fly to Delhi and then I had to go down to Kerala, because I agreed so with Karen a month ago.

The first day was quite easy and I was driving more than I thought. For getting money to be able to buy petrol, I had to leave the highway and enter a city, which is always a nightmare, because of the traffic, because, it's hard to find an ATM that works and it's always hard to find out the city again.
I was very lucky this time and everything turned out to be quite easy and after one hour I was back on the street. There I met a Korean guy who was quite frustrated because on his bicycle he had his third puncture this day and so he couldn't go as far as he wanted and there was no place to stay and he got robbed the night before. So I took him with me and it turned out, that he wants to go to the same target Kajaraho - where the Kama sutra temples are - as me. It took us quite a while, but late in the evening we arrived at the temples, had a good, easy meal on the street and later on when we found a place for the night had a nice chat with an Indian guy working at one of the hotels - I think he was one of the first Indians I met, who did not beg for money! :-)
My plan for that day was sleeping in my car somewhere on the road - what I told the Korean, so he ask me, if he could sleep in the front, because he was to much in fear of sleeping anywhere alone. Nonetheless we managed to reach our target and so there was no need therefore anymore, the plan was built already in his head so much that he asked me, if he still could stay overnight in my car - sure he could! :-)

The next day we did a sightseeing tour, which kept quite a while that I hit the road at noon. But it was worth to invest the time - the temples are too good to miss them!

This day the problem of finding a sleeping place started! Nowhere I could find side roads or a field or any place I liked and where I felt save. So long after dark I got so tired, that I had to drive to the side of the highway and park the car. It took me about two seconds to find sleep. But just for about two hours, because then the police woke me up and told in a rough tone, I could not stay here. The question 'why' in these situations seems for them absolutely new, so of course I got no answer...
So I had to drive on and look again for a place to stay. Some hours later, somewhere in the fields I got lucky and found some sleep.
As I had quite a bit to drive - about 2000 km in four days (which is more or less impossible in India and everybody whom I told thought I am insane :-) - I woke up early and started driving. Finding a place to stop for lunch without wasting too much time is also a trouble. Expectations are going down very quickly in these situations so a had a very simple meal.

After 14 hours driving it was again time to look for a place to stay. I thought I was very lucky finding a field where no one could see me from the street. But - as normal - it took the next Indian just about three seconds to spot me and try to have a chat. But these chats a so boring and all the time just end up with asking for money that my motivation for a talk was very tiny. Next to it I had to do something on my computer, which I didn't want to show him and I wanted to sleep. To think of taking a shower now was completely out of mind.
Finally the guy vanished and I could sleep. But not for long again - after about four hours, so around midnight I felt, that somebody climbed my car and was doing something on my roof. Burglars, what else. I was quite scared, because, I didn't know how many people were out there and after hitting from the inside of my car to make them aware, that this was not an abandoned car, they didn't leave. Looking out a door I imagined getting beaten down immediately so I took my knife, which I always have next to me in my mouth - I thought Rambo would do the same - and prepared myself for a kick-start to make the motherfuckers on my roof fall off and just run. Happily I knew my car starts always within a split second. So I was climbing into the front and did like planed. But nobody fell off and I could feel, that they are still on the roof. So I made the movements with I car, which I have seen so many times in the movies before but nobody fell of again. Outside it was pitch black and nobody was on the streets. So I couldn't stop, because then I would have the same situation as before - the second I look out, they could hit me. When I passed by a restaurant I was to slow to react to drive in there and break where people see me. So I drove on hoping for another restaurant. Happy me I found one after some minutes drive - I felt like hours by this time. I heavily broke next to the chairs of the restaurant, jumped out of my car and screamed with my knife in my hand these mother fuckers had to come down. I just wanted to make as much noise as possible, that all the people in the restaurant would look. I realized very fast, that my English vocabulary for this situation is very small, so I just repeated myself - get the fuck down you motherfucker! After some seconds I realized it's just one person up there and he was not moving down. So I went up the roof - still my knife in my hand - and was thinking how to attack him, when finally people from the restaurant came to my car and told me I should come down and they will do this. Good for me! They made the man jump down and the second he landed on the street he started running off - fine with me! The people told me, he was insane. Well, for me he was not to insane to climb my roof in the middle of the night - and so many Indians lied to me before, so I can not believe in anything they tell me anyway.

But these Indians were very nice - I had a chat with them to come down and the paid my tea because they were sorry, that this happened to me in their country.
My adrenalin level was still too high to sleep so I decided to go on driving for some time. After two hours I became tired and I stopped at a toll point where I had a very good and peaceful sleep.
When I was doing a routine check of my engine in the morning a man stopped and asked me if I need help. I didn't but we were chatting a bit and he told me about a shortcut to drive to Goa. The rest of the way down to Goa was a highway with up to 6 lanes from time to time, so I could do all the rest of the way easily and arrive in Goa at about 3 o' clock in the afternoon.

In-between I had another incident with the police. At a traffic jam I wanted to overtake on the left side, which is a normal manoeuvre in India. But this traffic jam was not a real one, it was just a police check point, which I nearly didn't see and I had to break quite hard. So - of course - the police saw a chance to bribe me. Everybody left and suddenly I was alone with an older, rough police man who was very unfriendly and screamed at me I have to pay a fine and was already looking with his hand in my car. I tried to push his arm out, but this man was so strong that he resisted and stayed and became even angrier. Although I never bribe anybody for principle I started thinking of giving this mad man money. But in this second another, younger police man came and told him to let me go and that gave me the strength to resist paying and finally I could go. India was turning out not to be a very friendly and save place.

Of course I tried again to take a shower on the last bit of the way down, but the second I left the highway to park in a small field way I rickshaw was coming behind me with four Indians who just wanted to know what I do here. They wouldn't leave until I would, so again no chance to clean myself! :-)

2008-11-01 to 2008-11-12

Vipassana Meditation

10 days of hard core meditation - that's what it was all about! I thought! I have to admit that I always thought meditation is just a training of focusing the mind. But as I learnt it is also a way of living and quite a religious one! But I have to investigate in that field a little bit more...

The course started one day late - or I was too stupid to read the course itinery - who knows. During the course, to omit disturbing the other people, it is not only forbidden to speak to the others but also to look at them or communicate via letters. Just once a day during half an hour it is allowed to speak to the master in case there are questions relating to the meditation technique!

As I always wanted to join the army life in the camp is good for me! Getting up at 4 in the morning, two hours meditation, then breakfast, three hours meditation, lunch break (perfect Dalh Bath (rice, lentils, vegetables) - quality of the food was really amazing!!), four hours of meditation, dinner break (some nuts and a tea), one hour meditation and then a discourse on a DVD and at 10 p.m. it was time to go to bed!

It was a hard life but I liked it - the first 5 days! Training was hard, but I managed to sit still in one position for two hours - a fact I had feared the most in the beginning, because normally my legs get limp after 10 mins. Somehow the technique tells you to concentrate just on your breathing and to ignore all the rest and so I could control my pain - which indeed vanished after day two in the evening, don't ask me how - and managed to concentrate my mind just on my breathing and later on very tiny sensations on the skin on my body.

That was all fine with me. But then the whole thing changed. The whole course was swinging into some kind of religion with the heading to a life in poverty and ... - ...and anti-partying. First I was shocked because I didn't know, that it was not just pure meditation - or what I thought meditation is. And I have a long trained anti-passion for all kind of religion. And so I felt a well known reaction in myself. Barrier. I don't want to give up my beliefs. I don't want to give up my own thoughts about prosperity and friends.

As I am not very good in seeing the grey between the black and white I rejected totally for the next two days to train. Day 8 I restarted training - but a training I defined myself. It's good I thought to train focusing the mind. But I wouldn't give up my material aims in my life and I am absolutely not ready for a life below a tree praying!

Day 10 in the evening we were allowed to speak again! It was so good, because although without speaking you got so much in touch with all your mates around you, that in the end you could define anyone on his way to move on the sound of his walking and the way he placed the plate at lunch break - and you knew how long everybody around you can sit still or when he will show up for meditation. The people around me - and that was true for everybody - became my friends without speaking to them! That was really amazing! We had long chats about the meditation, about our problems and our doubts - it was real good - everybody was happy to speak about all the thoughts of the last ten days.

When I was lying in bed at 10 in the evening as usual the whole atmosphere was like on a Christmas eve at home when I was a child! And telling this to others the next day they affirmed the feeling!

Believing in this art of living or not - the course was a new and extraordinary experience in my life! A good one!


	Start: 2008-04-10					Oli on his way from Munich to Hong Kong				End: 2010-05-12