Joachim's Travel Blog
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Today Verena and I took a walk to the beach. I got a shave on the way, and then we had some poori for breakfast. Then we took a leisurely stroll for three kilometers down to Chandrabagh on the water. The ocean was beautiful and relaxing, although the breakers were coming in with some force. We sat and watched for a while and then started walking down the beach towards the fishing boats.
When we got to the boats, a fisherman came out and began speaking to us. After a little time he invited us back to sit in the shade. The fishermen were fixing their nets under a sail. We sat and spoke with him and he offered us some chai. Contrary to recommendations from home I have been drinking a lot of chai. It's really good. Well anyway we had some and talked some more and eventually were invited back to the village.
These guys are Telegus, not Orissans. They come from Andhra Pradesh. I don't know how they got up here but they're here fishing. It sounds like they migrate between Orissa and Goa depending on the season. More interesting yet, they're Christians! Our buddy, Tatia, said about two thirds of the 10,000 people in town are Christians and the rest are Hindus. Apparently the government doesn't like this because they tore down their church. Now they have to worship in a small homemade chapel.
We ate a little rice, dal and fish at Tatia's house, and met the family (and every child in the village). Everyone seemed very curious and a crowd gathered in front of the house. I was surprised because there seem to be a fair number of tourists around. I guess none of them go into the villages, though. We were lucky, too, that Tatia spoke a little English.
We ate a little something, met the dog and new puppies, and proceeded to the church, where the pastor was cristening a baby. I stayed for a while to watch and then left Verena there and went with Tatia to try some paan, the Indian version of chewing tobacco, made from betel nut. It was pretty good. I may turn into one of those disgusting red-spitting paan chewers.
So we stayed for a few hours and then came back to town. On the way we stopped at the town internet cafe, from which I am writing my blog. Tomorrow we plan to go back to the village. I think Verena wants to spend the night (we were invited). I'm not sure I want to but I'll see how things go. In either case I'm really glad to have had this chance to meet with some Indians off the beaten path and see what their lives are like.
After a mad late-night dash to Gaya by taxi, I arrived at the station just in time to catch my train. Lucky the trains are always late here - otherwise I would have been in trouble! I spent the day in Bubaneswar (in Orissa) and met Verena at the train station late at night. I think her train came in around two. That was all Tuesday.
Wednesday we packed up our stuff and headed for the bus station. The bus from Bubaneswar to Kunark is officially the World's Most Crowded Bus. They had about sixty people crammed into a bus with seats for thirty. We stood for about half the 1.5 hour trip but got to sit down for the second 15 kilometers.
Kunark is really a nice break from all these big, ugly Indian cities. It's very quiet and peaceful here. The town itself is tiny (apparently less than 15,000 people). There are a couple of roads and little shop stalls on either side for a kilometer or so. There are also the Sun Temple, and an auditorium where the Dance Festival takes place.
The Dance Festival is a five day affair which as far as I can tell mostly consists of a show every night for five nights. We caught night three last night. It was really great! This may be the first Indian experience that I'm wholeheartedly positive about.
There were three styles of dance, of which I enjoyed two. The first dance was Indian classical dance - I don't know whether that comes from a specific region or what, but it's what most people think of when they think Indian dance. The troupe was composed of seven women and they danced either alone or in groups, depending on the piece. I've seen this kind of stuff on television but this was the first time I've seen it live, and I was really impressed. The sublety of the movements (head, hands or feet) was remarkable. Also the dancers would rapidly switch from a period of relatively little movement to grand sweeping gestures. This gave those parts of the dance a great deal of impact.
The second kind of dance was Orissan. I guess the right word is Oriya. Anyway it was very similar to the regular Indian stuff but when you see them back to back you pick up on a lot of the differences. The Oriya stuff seemed less refined but also more emotional and energetic. Furthermore, both men and women danced. The men's dance style was the same as the women's, and therefore quite effeminate. Their makeup and costume accentuated this. But when they did a dance of Shiva and Parvati, the male dancer did a phenomenal job of conveying the nature of the Lord of the Universe. With perfect fluidity, he alternated between the most delicate and sublime gestures, ones one would expect from a being far removed from worldly concerns and attuned to the most infinitesimal forces and activites in the world, and the kind of powerful, wrathful gestures that could only come from a being representing the destructive side of nature. It was amazing.
The third dance was a folk dance and frankly sucked. But who cares, the other two were fantastic!
Monday, December 01, 2003
Oh I forgot to mention I've gotten in touch with Verena! I booked a train ticket to Bubaneshwar, where I knew she was going, in hopes of catching up with her there, but I didn't expect it to work. Now we've gotten in touch and it turns out we're arriving only about twelve hours apart. Also we simultaneously booked each other rooms in the same hotel, which I take as a good sign. So with luck in my next blog I will be travelling with folks from home.
Well, so it turns out there isn't much to do in Bodh Gaya. I guess Andrew has fond memories but now that he looks back on his time here ten years ago, he realizes he can't remember ever actually doing any particular thing. Not to worry for me, though - the food is relatively edible (some places are good, actually but stray too far onto the beaten path and you get bland crap specially made for tourists) and it's quite quiet by Indian standards.
Yesterday after emailing, we toured some of the local temples. This being the biggest Buddhist pilgrimage site in the world and all, one might expect them to have erected some pretty fabulous temples. And they have. They come one per nationality, more or less, so there's a Tibetan temple, a Burmese one and one each from Thailand and Japan. The big one in the middle of town is called the Mahabodhi temple and it's got an impressively large tower surrounded by peaceful and pretty gardens. Here and there are signs that describe events which took place during the Buddha's seven week stint here as he was enlightened.
I walked around the temple yesterday and again today. It's very pleasant. There are a lot of Buddhist monks worshipping (I didn't know they did that!) and some pilgrims, mostly from China I guess. As for the rest of the temples, they're pretty but not terribly interesting. It's not much different from Sarnath. I got some pictures, in particular of the Burmese temple, the inside of which is covered with these painted wooden reliefs. It's pretty neat.
Anyway, other than that there isn't much here. I got lost yesterday by walking into the local-people bazaar, and I ended up walking back into town through some villages and fields. That was really neat. The villages were tiny, just clusters of twenty mud buildings, and the fields were, I think, wheat fields, but built like rice patties with raised areas separating them. I got a lot of really strange looks and some clouds of laughing children but overall no one seemed too bothered by my intrusion into their private lives.
