Pictures from Mohammad's B-day

Mohamed's birthday

On the spur of the moment I decided to take an auto rickshaw tour of some of the more famous caves in and around Kanhangod. I have the time and money to spend and the caves sounded intriguing. I got picked up from the Annanda Ashram at 8:30 am.

An interesting side note: Lately I've been sleeping like I've been shot in the head. My alarm doesn't wake me up. The guy who brings tea and coffee to your room at 6 am and pounds on your door doesn't wake me up. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 7:30 am. Just barely in time for breakfast.

Anyways, as we were driving through the town of Kanhangod I noticed a lot of green streamers. My driver told me that it was in celebration of Mohammed's birthday. Like Christmas for Christians. I didn't think much of it at the time.

However, when we were stopped by a crowd of Muslim men, I began to think about it a little more. Images of Muslims firing guns off in celebration of 9/11 flashed through my mind. India has always seemed pretty safe to me. There is a bit of tension (Ok, a lot of tension) in the north, but down south everyone seems to just get along fairly well.

So, I was nervous. I almost asked my driver to just keep going and not stop for them. But you know maybe then they would have blown us up or something.

They surrounded the vehicle and...

… began forcing juice on us. Oh no. My worst nightmare. Too sweet, artificial juice. Please spare me. Over the course of the next two hours we were accosted three times. They almost threw juice and other treats upon us. They were stopping all the traffic. The mood was ecstatic and celebratory. These men (about my age) were the same age as the young men blowing themselves up in Iraq. Here, instead of blowing up vehicles, they were showering us, a Hindu and a white man, with prassad (holy gifts) from Mohamed.

It was pretty amazing. Later I watched a parade. Hundreds of immaculately dressed Muslim men marched through the streets singing and dancing. There were a lot of spectators, however, being the only white guy there I drew a lot of attention. A lot of good attention. They waved, signaled for me to take photos of them and asked my name. It was pretty amazing.

I've heard, from many different people, that Islam is fundamentally violent. That it truly does encourage killing in Allah's name. I refuse to believe that. It doesn't seem possible to me. There are a lot of killing going on in the name of Allah. But, there is a lot of killing going on in the name of capitalism.

And, at the same time that Muslims in south India were giving me juice, Muslims in Iraq were killing American soldiers. And, at the same time that I was taking photos of laughing Muslims in South India, American soldiers were shooting Muslims in Iraq.

What a crazy, flip flopping, thought provoking world.

More photos from the bike trip

Bike trip to the falls

Hey, so about a week ago I went on another bike trip. I went with a guy named Aaron and a woman named Jennifer. The trip was about a four hour drive there and back. We went up into this mountain range and found some waterfalls. Although there wasn't a ton of water there was enough to swim in. So that was really nice and refreshing. The landscape was really beutiful and clean. It felt and looked like somewhere in the United States! So that is what all these photos are about.

Kerala State

I left Tiruvenmali two days ago. I was glad I had spent so much time there but I was ready to leave. I was taking an overnight train to Kananghad, which is a town in the state of Kerala. The train left from Vellore (about two hours by bus from Tiruvenmali) at 10:45 pm. I was meeting a friend that I had met the previous month on the train. We would be traveling together for a couple of days.

Getting to Vellore was uneventful. The bus was easy to find and everything went smoothly. While on the bus I observed a verbal fight, that at times, looked like it might become a physical one. While the whole thing was carried out in Tamil I think I got the gist of it. An older man was mad at the bus conductor because he believed he was being overcharged. The conductor got angry. Both men were yelling at each other. Most of the passengers were on the conductors side. The old man was traveling with two women. As he got increasingly mad they got increasingly severe with him. Every time he tried to stand up the older of the two women would slap him. Finally the younger of the two sat next to him to force him to stay in his seat.

These women were dark and fierce looking. They had strong chins, and large muscular arms. They also seemed proud. They weren't going to let this man, whoever he was, behave in a shameful manner, at least not in their presence.

Eventually he settled down. The women didn't cut him any slack though, they stayed sitting next to him.

Once in Vellore I took a rickshaw to the train station. I was about thirty minutes early so I bought some coffee and some biscuits. When my train finally arrived I found my compartment.

I was traveling with a women named Emmanuel Martin. She is French but has been living in Chennai (Madras) for four years. She is studying traditional Indian music, known as Karnataka music. We had met about a month ago through the friends I had made in Tiruvenamali. She spends, on average, six hours a day singing. Her teacher (or Guru) is one of the most famous Karnataka singers in the world. She lives right next door to him and has very little free time. However, he was out of town for a week, so we decided to go to Kananghad together.

We are staying in an ashram that is outside of Kanaghad. It's called Annanda ashram and was founded by a man named Swami Papa Ramdas. He died almost 50 years ago, however, the ashram is still very alive.

Everything at the ashram is free. Although donations are encouraged it is totally up to you how much, or how little you give. They feed you three meals a day and tea and coffee. They also will wash your cloths and help you arrange transportation.

The ashram is in the state of Kerala. When I first came to India I came to Kerala. At the time I couldn't believe how dirty and chaotic it was. However, after spending a few months in other parts of India I can't believe how clean it is. Kerala is the richest Indian state. It has the highest level of literacy and the best social infrastructure. The streets are amazingly clean (especially after coming from Tamil Nadu). Kerala is also the only communist state in India. It's odd driving around and seeing the communist arm and hammer. I'm so used to associating that with bad cold war era things. However, in Kerala it seems to be working out OK.

Emmaunuel will leave tomorrow to go back to Chennai. I will stay at the ashram for a day or two longer and then go to a place called Gokarna. It's south of Goa and has beautiful beaches. I plan on spending the last couple of days there before I fly out of Mumbai on the 17th.

It's getting really hot here. Most days at least 90-95 degrees. I wake up in the morning feeling sticky and sweaty because of the humidity. It's going to be quite a shock going from this kind of weather to the rain and cold in Holland.

Ants

The hot season is fast approaching southern India. I've noticed changes just in the three months I've been here. When I first arrived night were slightly cool. You could sometimes even get away with wearing a light sweatshirt Now, that is a long lost memory.

As the weather gets hotter, more and more bugs begin to appear. They have begun to come into houses and rooms. This is because it's cooler inside than out, and therefor more desirable.

This didn't really bother me or even effect me until a couple of days ago. I was turning on my laptop to start writing something when I suddenly realized that there were ants crawling all over me. I brushed them off, only to discover, to my horror, that they were coming from inside my laptop. I'd been told this happens, but somehow I always imagined it happening to someone else.

What the ants do is start a nest inside computers. It's warm and safe inside the machines. Plus they have plenty of food to eat (in the form of rubber). This sounds kind of funny and like not such a big deal, but it is. Ants can completely destroy a computer within weeks.

Well, I didn't want my computer to be completely destroyed, so I took drastic action. First I tried to open the computer up and exterminate them by hand. This didn't go so well. My computer is sealed pretty tight.

Then I decided to put the computer in an airtight bag. The ants would suffocate. Even as I did this part of me was saying “This is stupid, ants are the toughest creatures on the planet, they won't suffocate any time soon”.

As I waited for the ants to suffocate, I began asking local people what they do when they have an ant problem. They told me buy a certain kind of chalk. It's meant to kill cockroaches, but works just fine on ants. What you do is draw a line of the chalk around you computer and just wait for the ants to die. I took this advice and sure enough, withing four hours I didn't see any more ants crawling around. To prevent any further infestations I've taken to keeping my computer in a ziploc bag.

But, that wasn't my last encounter with ants. For a couple nights I was sleeping on a futon in a friends office. The first night I slept great. The sheets were clean and there was a fan right above me. I woke up in the morning feeling refreshed etc. Until I realized I was covered in ants. I freaked out and took a shower. After showering them off I didn't think about it again. That night the same thing happened except I didn't sleep so well. All night I felt ants crawling over my body.

Well, when I woke up, I took a shower and promptly forgot about it. Finally, after three nights of poor sleep and ant covered mornings, I decided to do some investigation. So, I moved all my junk out of the way and lifted up the futon. Nothing. Then I decided to lift up the sheets. Sure enough there were hundreds of ants nesting in my sheets. I cleaned them out and slept well the rest of my time on the futon.

Sights from the hike

Hell Hike (but it was good)

As I've said (well actually written) before I'm back in Tiruvenamali. This town is the home of Mount Arunachalla. There is a whole story behind the mountain but I've already told it so I'm not going to waste time telling it again.

Anyways, the mountain is significant to Hindus and weird westerners alike. It's a big deal. It's also just plain old big. I didn't realize really how big it was until I began to climb it.

I'd been told that it's 800 meters, top to bottom. That is 2,640 feet.

My plan was to wake up early (5:30 am) and beat the heat. I'd been told it took about four hours to climb. This was and still is a great plan, however, it never developed past the plan stage and into the action phase.

So, instead of waking up when my alarm rang, I slept until 8:20 am. Once I showered I figured I might as well have breakfast. By the time that was all through it was 9:45 am. I was on the road.

When Indians make a pilgrimage up The Mountain they don't wear shoes. Indians are about 50 times tougher than most Westerners. They sleep on cement floors. They wipe their butt with their left hand. They don't eat beef etc. This fact has always bugged me. I like to think of myself as tough. I mean I once slept on a carpet. That is pretty bad ass, right?

Anyways, I saw an opportunity to prove my toughness. I decided I would climb up the mountain with bare feet. I have pretty tough feet and I like walking barefoot. So yeah!

Well the first hour or so wasn't all that bad. In fact it was nice. I was walking on a well maintained trail with plenty of flat stones to step on. It was in the shade and the heat wasn't so bad.

This was the mountains way of tricking me. She led me on. She got me to the point where there was no way I was gonna put my shoes on. I was gonna make it up because I'm tough.

Once I had reached that mental point of no return the mountain really began to kick my ass. First, she took away the well maintained path. Suddenly I was walking on little stones. The big rock slabs that were so nice to walk on before were few and far between.

Then, she increased the steepness. Now, instead of walking with a slight tilt forward I was practically leaning into the mountain, just to keep from becoming air born.

OK. No problem. I got this. And I did. It was fun. My legs were sore but felt strong. I was sweating, but that felt good. My feet were doing OK.

She saw this and decided to turn up the heat. Literally. The sun, which had been on the whole day, suddenly got going. The stones lost all vestiges of their night time chill and began to feel like frying pans. Soon my only way to continue was too dash from one spot of shade to another. And the spots of shade were getting harder and harder to find.

Many times I had to stick my feet into dark crevices created by rocks. There are lots of snakes in this part of India (I've seen two Cobras and a Viper!) and they love to hang out in dark crevices created by rocks. So, sticking my feet into the same dark crevice that might contain snakes was a risk. But in my mind it was either between having my feet catch fire, or maybe having them bitten by a possibly deadly snake. It was a gamble that paid off.

So I continued. I was drenched in sweat, my water bottle was almost empty, and it felt like I was holding my feet to an iron. Instead of walking I was scuttling. Using my hands and legs, just trying to dash to the next shade spot.

But I wasn't gonna give up. I didn't have a choice (actually I did, my shoes were in my bag, I'm just stubborn).

Well I made it. I finally stumbled the last little slope, and saw the giant rock that is the top of the mountain. I almost put my shoes on there, but then I realized I needed to be at the highest point to call it a success. So, I stumbled/crawled/dragged myself onto the final boulder. Which was covered in black oil. Oh my god. Suddenly it was even hotter. Black attracts heat or something like that. That rock was attracting heat and then passing it right on into my feet. I could hear them sizzling.

I put on my shoes.

The view was amazing. Really truly amazing. Breathtaking, tear jerking all of that crap. But it just couldn't compare to the feel of my sandals. I enjoyed the view, but I enjoyed my shoes just a bit more.

The descent took all of 45 minutes.

Pumpin' Iron

So, I'm back in Tiruvenamali living with some friends that I met here. One of the guys goes to the gym every other day or so. I asked if I could join him on his iron pumping visits. He said sure.

We jumped on his motorcycle and drove into the heart of Tiruvenamali. It's loud and very Indian. We parked in front of a dingy looking front of stores and walked inside. Once inside it opened up into a hallway of sorts. On either side there were shuttered shops (it was about 8:30 pm). We took a sharp right and climbed up a steep set of stairs. The walls were painted green, but the dirt on the walls made it more of a greyish green.

The stairs ended at a door. The door was open and on the other side you heard the sounds of music, grunting, talking and the banging of iron.

Yup, that is a gym.

My friend (his name is Volker) then took off his shoes. Wait. In the west you aren't even allowed in sight of a gym if you don't have shoes on. I had put on socks (the first time in 2.5 months) and put on my lace up shoes specifically for this visit. I followed his lead, regretfully untying the beautiful bow knots I had made.

And then we walked inside. It smelled terrible. Generally gyms do. But in America (at least in my experience) the smell is somewhat masked by some cheap air freshener. Not here. This was pure unadulterated man sweat. I smelled like my underwear after a long run in the sun.

The floor was green carpet. Like the walls in the stair well this green carpet was a long way from clean.

Volker signed in at the front desk. I signed up for a month long membership. This involved giving the dude behind the counter rs 150 (almost 3 dollars). He then had me write my name, age and address on a sheet of paper (it seems like everyone always wants to know your home country address, I have no idea what they are going to do with it, perhaps they will send me Christmas cards).

Then it was over. It's a far cry from signing up for a gym membership in America. Gyms in America are serious places. You have to have at least two forms of identification and they take your picture and put it on a card. Plus you have to wait seven days while they do background checks to make sure you don't do Yoga or anything sissy like that.

The gym itself was small. It was one room. The first day I went there it was packed full of Indian men. Volker and I were the only white guys there.

The machines were probably 20 years old. Or they were made out of scrap metal. They were dirty and dangerous. Using them I got grease on my hands and in my hair. At one point a fairly large metal bar almost hit me on the head (no fault of mine). Luckily for me about eight Indian guys warned me about the impending danger.

That is another thing. Everyone there wants to give you pointers. They all have a certain way of doing things and believe that you should do it the same way. Plus they all think you must be brain dead or something. They kept pointing out obvious things. I mean sure I almost drop a large metal bar on my head but hey everyone makes mistakes.

In terms of physical fitness most of the guys there were about my size or even a bit smaller. That was nice. In America when I walk into a gym I feel like a fifth grader. Massively beefy men populate American gyms. They grunt and yell and even scream sometimes. They get so pumped up on adrenaline or testosterone or whatever that sometimes I'm afraid a mass brawl is going to break out (I believe firmly in non-violence, so if a mass brawl did break out I would regrettably not be able to show these beefy men what a great fighter I am. Instead, simply to uphold my ideals, I would have to run away or hide in a locker or something).

In India it's different. Although there are some big guys they are quite a bit calmer than their American counterparts. They are also nicer and easier going. They introduce themselves and ask where you are from. They give you lots of advice and even sometimes save you from large falling bars.

Overall it was a great experience. I got to work out (something that I haven't done in 2.5 months). And I got to meet some Indian guys about my age. Although it's dirty, dingy and dangerous, I prefer it to my limited gym experiences in America.

Alcoholic

The driver that drove me from Chennai to Vellore was named K-7. Before we dropped off my mom at the airport he spoke little. My mom and I were in the backseat and he was upfront driving. After we dropped her off, though, I moved up front. We began to talk and he told me a bit about his life.

He is 25 and has been working as a driver since he was 19. The same age I am right now. He was a small guy. Probably only weighed 110 lbs. He seemed kind, although his eyes looked hard and unhappy.

He told me that he has two younger siblings. One brother and one sister. Both are in university studying computer science (can't get much more cliché than that). He was obviously very proud of them. I asked about his parents. He said his mom was a stay at home mom and his dad worked construction. But then he told me his dad hadn't worked in the last month. I, naively, asked why.

His dad is an alcoholic. In India this means he takes all the family money he can get his hands on and goes on a month long binge. Then he sobers up, goes back to work and earns enough money to do it again. Add some domestic violence and you've got the makings of a good old fashioned Indian alcoholic.

So, K-7 dropped out of school in 10th grade and started working to support his family. Now, his taxi driving job is putting both his siblings through university and supporting his mother and father. He makes rs 3,000 a month. That is about 60 U.S. Dollars. Split between five people.

K-7 said he doesn't drink. His only vice is smoking the occasional cigarette. He doesn't have a house or apartment. He sleeps in the car that he drives for his boss. He doesn't get a day off. If there is a job he takes it.