Dalat… with the sistahs.

April 27, 2007

The first time I went to Dalat I was in a van full of nuns. We started driving from their convent in Ho Chi Minh City early in the morning and filled every seat in that thing. With all our luggage and food for the trip we were packed pretty tightly. On the road we had a breakfast of soft cheese and baguettes. Parisian style bread is one of the nicer legacies from the French occupation and you can find it all over Ho Chi Minh City (the new name for Saigon). That, and clean ice, which is great considering the heat in southern Vietnam. Iced jasmine tea and incredibly delicious fruit shakes keep the body cool and the tongue happy. I have at least two a day. Every day. We made several stops along the way, mostly for more food. The sisters have several friends who operate farms and orchards and I had four different types of fruit that day that I had never seen. I don’t remember the names, except for one. Jack fruit. A jack fruit is a huge thing, about the size of a bloated football. It’s got a thick green skin with little points all over it and it grows in clusters, hanging like bizarre growths from the armpits of the jack fruit tree. Inside are chewy melon colored segments that are sort of like not very juicy mango. Tasty, if a little odd.

We were heading to Dalat to visit one of the five schools for blind children that the sisters operate. If you want to know love let a three year old blind kid who can’t speak English crawl into your lap and decide he wants to move in. This little one wanted to touch everything and when he found my camera hanging from my neck he wouldn’t let go of it, caressing and clutching every surface, “seeing” it with his fingers. Later in the day it took me quite a while to get all the grimy jack fruit out of all the nooks and crannies.

At one point in the drive the sisters started singing. Lovely, sweet, harmonious voices lilting through the rumbling vehicle. The singing turned into chanting which I surmised were prayers. Not understanding a word of Vietnamese I could still feel the devotion and the love they were expressing. I felt warm and accepted in their company. Completely comfortable and very well cared for. We stopped for lunch and feasted on tangy soup, grilled chicken, savory BBQ fish and piles of steaming rice. Before lunch arrived there were small bowls of Spanish peanuts, the kind with the red skin left on. The sisters would meticulously peel the skins off and let them fall to the floor, creating a swirling little forest of red.

My reason for being on that bus was an invitation I had received from Sister Thoa. She is a friend of a friend of mine at work and I had contacted her to see about visiting the school that’s located in HCMC. She was very happy to show me around and I spent an entire afternoon at the school that day. I got to see how blind kids learn to write in brail and heard them play music. I got a tour of some of the software they use on the computer that reads text for them and can also read commands and messages. The kids can become quite proficient on the computer because they perceive it differently from sighted people and are able to memorize commands and keystrokes much faster. Many of the kids are able to go to regular high school after a few years with Sister Thoa and the teachers there. Some are disabled in other ways but might still be able to learn a craft or skill. Some go on to massage school as blind masseurs are quite in demand. The ones with multiple disabilities will have to go to other schools or institutions when they reach a certain age.

The absolute highlight of my day there, and one of the highlights of the last few years of my life, was that I got to sit in on a music class. There were two girls playing the Koto, the Japanese stringed instrument where one hand does the plucking and the other bends the notes. One boy on keyboard and another girl on a beautiful instrument with one string, the name of which I could not understand but translated into something having to do with the moon. There was a wall with mandolins hanging all over it and when I mentioned that I played, that was all they needed to hear. I was in. The teacher sang the song to me and I eventually picked it up. A sweet Vietnamese melody that the kids had become quite good at. Playing in that little impromptu ensemble was sweeter than I can describe. To communicate musically with those blind children was as intimate as if I had touched their souls. It transcended everything; sight or no sight, Vietnamese or English, young or old… nothing mattered but that song. We made music and it felt like a moment of heaven on earth. We were all happy little musicians when we finally got it right.

The nuns and volunteers who run these schools are made of pure love. They give and give from a seemingly endless supply of kindness and patience. The schools are very modest and don’t get any support from the government or the church at large, instead relying on donations and income from selling the crafts the students make. The kids live onsite and the parents don’t have to pay for their children to attend the school.

When we arrived in Dalat we visited the second school of the day. I was invited to join them for dinner and again we feasted. This time it was a soup that was cooked on a small propane burner in the center of our table. A boiling pot of broth, fresh seafood, raw greens, all mixed on the spot and ladled out fresh and yummy over rice noodles.

I had neglected to read in my guidebook that Dalat is considerably cooler than Saigon. I had only sandals and thin pants with no jacket or hat. It was a tad uncomfortable. I stayed in a nice hotel and then next day took a walk to the lake in the center of town. As I was walking to the market before catching my bus back to Saigon a young man stopped on his motorbike and started talking to me. This has been a common occurrence throughout my trip. People are just that friendly. Often they want to sell you something, like a ride on the motorbike, but just as often they’re simply curious as to what a bald white man is doing in their town. Hinh was the young man’s name and we quickly started talking about the war. His father had worked for the Americans during the war and was upset when we left the country to be overtaken by the communists. He spent two years in prison and another two years in a “re-education” camp. Since he had been working for the Americans he was lucky to still be alive. He was still alive and is doing well.

Hinh belongs to a loose knit group of moto-guides called the Easy Riders. They are almost legendary as guides, taking folks for day trips or often for much longer journeys. Next Monday, Hinh will pick me up in Hoi An and we’ll head into the Central Highlands for a few days to see the Ho Chi Minh Trail and visit some small ethnic minority villages in the hills. He’ll then drop me at a beach town and I’ll make my way up north.

So, tonight is my last night in Saigon. I arrived here on the ninth of April and have totally fallen in love with this city. Vietnam is exploding. Since following the example of China and moving towards Capitalism, their potentially overheating economy is going nuts, projected to grow by nearly 8% this year. Blah blah… but what that means is that things are changing quickly and everyone is aware of it. Hinh mentioned to me in our brief talk that he’s very excited about Vietnam joining the World Trade Organization. I cautioned that this might have as much negative impact as positive.

This city buzzes with motorbikes and at rush hour they converge at intersections in teaming masses of chaos. You can see everything on a motorbike, from families of five to merchants transporting goods. If it’s not on a motorbike it’s on a bicycle, or a cart. If it’s not on wheels, it’s being carried by a woman on two baskets suspended by a pole on her shoulder. Yeah, like you’ve seen in the movies, complete with the conical straw hat. The piont is, everything is moving.

So much of life happens on the street here. Small stands or carts with all types of food being cooked on the sidewalk with a handful of plastic chairs setup for patrons. Folks do their work on the sidewalk, they cook dinner, raise their kids, eat, talk, laugh, argue, and if it’s hot enough, pull out a lounge chair and sleep on the sidewalk.

Things I’ve seen sold from bicycles, carts or carried by hand: stacks of books and videos that must weigh 35lbs., taller than the seller and held together with a strip of material; dried fish hanging from a rack on the back of a bicycle with a small platform and tiny coal oven for heating the sauce; old men with lottery tickets; cigarettes, sunglasses, lighters, toys, fingernail clippers and other items for personal grooming; kids with flowers, kids with packages of gum, mothers with babies selling sugar-free Dentyne; women with two small baskets, one with a small charcoal oven and the other with batter and molds for making fresh waffles; a man on a bike with a loudspeaker playing a recording of a woman’s voice saying the same thing over and over, apparently advertising the large box of baguettes on the back; and… get this… corn. CORN Y’ALL! Corn hanging from a small rack over a little table that contains a small charcoal grill on which to grill said corn, all on a bicycle!

Did you get that? Grilled corn. On a bike! Rolling right up to you with all it’s grilled yummy goodness. Can life get any better than that?!! I say no. No, it cannot.

I have been so warmly received here, especially when folks find out I’m American. I’m a bit surprised by that. Not one note of animosity or resentment. Not a sneer or frown or bad word coming my way. Just warm handshakes, big smiles and welcome to Vietnam. The Vietnamese people have seen so many foreigners invade their country that they’re very happy to have it back and fiercely intent on remaining independant. They don’t live in the past and they just want to get on with the business of living their lives and growing their country. The dynamism is infectious.

And it’s so easy to travel here. Surprisingly so. Vietnam is an easier country to travel in than the United States . Well, actually most countries are better suited for foreign travel than the US, so that’s not really saying much. Let me try again. Vietnam is as easy to travel in as any country I’ve ever visited. So… if you’re thinking of heading out of the country for a vacation, come to Vietnam. The people are awesome, the scenery is beautiful, and the food will leave you smiling and begging for more.

Oh… the second time I will visit Dalat? At the end of this motorbike trip.

This is my first post in a long time and there’s an awful lot I’ve left out; Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia. Some of the most intense experiences of my life. They’ll have to wait for later posts.

Smoke rising to heaven

I spent my last day in India in Varanasi, a city older than God. Varanasi bends around the Ganges, India’s holiest river. It’s a pilgrimage site for millions of Hindus who come to bathe in the water in the hopes that they can escape their Karmic cycling and move on. No more coming back and living another life as a cow or a fruit fly.

Varanasi was one of the most challenging places I visited in India, and one of the most peaceful. There is more poverty here than I have seen so far. Lots of folks living in tiny hovels, wearing little more than shreds. The touts from those selling everything from taxi rides to spiritual healing is nearly relentless. I did completely succumb, however, to the cutest little girl at one of the ghats. She was probably seven years old and approached me with total confidence, asking if I wanted to buy one of the little bowls she had laid out in the basket she was carrying. Each bowl was made of woven leaves and held rose petals and one small candle. I said “no” as politely as I could, several times, but she took my hand and led me down the stone steps to the river’s edge to show me how it’s done. She set down her basket and deftly struck a match. She lit the candle and told me to put it in the water. I asked her if she would do it for me and she did. I saw a wise sage in that little girl, worldly way beyond her years. Her soul could have spent a hundred trips through this life. She could have been the collected spirit of the entire city of Varanasi before it was plundered and burned by the Mughals. She held that moment in the palm of her hand and commanded my attention with the softest of little girl voices. In that moment, she owned me. She placed the bowl in the water and gave it a push. It moved out into the slow-moving Ganges to join the dozen or so other flickering lights.

There are over eighty ghats in Varanasi, all on the West side of the river as it makes a bend to the East. The asymmetry of the buildings only being on one side works perfectly for the purpose of pilgrimage. Some sixty thousand a day come to wash their souls, or their hair, or their cows. They approach the water with towering temples behind them, atop steep stairs of varying pitch and depth. Before them, their holiest of rivers. And on the other side, emptiness. Brown grass, blue sky, and a gentle breeze. There is on this river bank, literally and spiritually, this side and the other side. On the human side, suffering. On the other side, redemption. Heaven. Peace.

Indians also bring their dead to be cremated at two of the ghats. Outcasts from the lowest castes build funeral pyres with just the right amount of wood to cremate a person. There are about a dozen fires going at once.

My father was cremated less than two years ago. The last time we saw him was in his hospital bed. After we left the hospital, his body was removed, prepared, and cremated. We then took his ashes to Huntington to be sprinkled in the Ohio, our own holy river. At Varanasi, families prepare the body. They then drape it with layers of shimmering gold fabric and carry it down to the water’s edge. They give the body a quick dip, remove the layers of fabric and lay it on the pyre, wrapped only in a tight, gauzy white shroud. The fire is started with bundles of dry grass and the flames build quickly. Huge billows of smoke are illuminated by one large floodlight on top of the ghat. The smells of the river, cow dung, stale water and mud and the smoke from wood, fabric and flesh penetrate me.

This business is carried out twenty four hours a day, every day. It’s quite the enterprise, with a small market at the top of the ghat for purchasing the gold fabric, for paying the burning fee, purchasing the wood for burning and sandalwood powder that’s thrown in the fire, and a barber for the male members of the family to have their faces and heads shaved. The fire builders never stop working. Carrying and stacking large bundles of wood, tending to the fires, making sure the bodies are properly consumed, their labor both sacred and mundane. After about three hours the fire dies to a point where it can be dowsed with water. The ashes are then put into the river.

I spent about three hours at the burning ghats that night. I had a lot of apprehension about watching the ritual burning. I was afraid that it would be more difficult because of my own father’s cremation. I was surprised to find it quite peaceful. There seemed to be a connection that the families had to the process that perhaps I did not. So, that night I got to participate in some small way with freeing a soul. It’s amazing to think that this has been going on for thousands of years. I sat there on the concrete steps, feeling the warm air, smelling the smells, feeling so completely out of time and out of place and at the same time absolutely accepted. I was held in this ancient moment of transcendence where families send their loved one’s bodies back to the five elements of space, water, fire, wind and earth, and their spirits to God. Someone once said that human knowledge of our own death causes us to die just a little every day. We’re not long on this quick spin around the mortal coil and sitting watching the fires helped me just a little to let go of my own fear of dying.

The entire day was filled with the sacred and the profane, often in the same breath. I felt quite privileged to be on those ghats, at that river and to be alive.

I flew back to Delhi the next day, my third entrance to that blissful chaos. Today I left India and flew to Katmandu. Nepal is similar to India in some ways, but there is a bit more space here. Thinner air, more room, less garbage, no cow shit, horrible air pollution, and many more smiles. The Nepalese seem at first glance to be happier, lighter than their Indian neighbors. Perhaps Buddhism has cast a layer of calm over this Shangri-La. And there is a buzz here that is no doubt aided by the trekking industry. I’m not physically prepared for a serious trek through the Himalayas, but I bought a book and tomorrow I’ll investigate some low impact hikes that will get me closer to the mountains. Everest base camp will have to wait for another trip, but I do want to go smell that crisp mountain air.

I’ve decided to take a break from this blog. I have an obsessive-compulsive mind and I have noticed myself “spectatoring”, observing my experience as I’m in it and then narrating it in my head in preparation for writing it here. That’s not working for me and I want to drop down into a more immediate experience. This has been fun, but the only way I can see right now to dive deeper into this journey is to stop writing about it. I’m hoping I can find a way to be really present and still post from time to time, but right now I need to give it a rest.

Thanks for reading.

Peace.

Uttar Pradesh

Hello from Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and a couple top engineering universities.

It’s been quite a few days.

One thing that has become quite obvious is that I am trying to do too much. In the way that travel reveals much about my regular life, this element reminds me of how I cram too much into a day, trying to take in everything I possibly can. I’m doing that over here. There is so much to this life and I want to swallow every taste. I am way too attached to this experience of being alive but I don’t see it dampening any time soon.

The disilluionment I felt in Pushkar has melted and I’ve softened in areas I wasn’t aware were stiff. I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have your illusions broken down, but it’s not fun while it’s happening.

I am quite aware of a longing in me that drives much of my life. In India, it is quite pronounced. I just want to take this entire country into my mouth and savor it. Even things that bothered me so much early on have embedded themselves in my desires. A couple days ago I realized that I was finding the smell of a trash fire to be comforting, where for most of my time here I resisted the acrid smell of burning plastic and other garbage that burns morning and night. It’s amazing to see how something like that can become familiar and homey. I guess that’s how it happens that people take on practices that would drive crazy those unfamiliar.

I had a crazy experience two days ago. I had hired a car and driver for three days, a very common practice here, especially among Indians since few of them own cars. The driver had been annoying because he was fairly erratic, even for an Indian driver. After lunch on Friday, his driving became really bad, swerving from side to side and barely missing oncoming trucks. I tried to relax but it kept getting worse. The thought finally occured to me that he might be intoxicated. As the fear washed over me, I decided that, if it didn’t get better quickly, I was going to demand he let me out on the side of the road. We were halfway between Jaipur and Agra, with very little going on except scattered farms and occasional roadside stands, but I figured I would be much better off hitching a ride than staying with this guy. As the driving got worse, I began to yell at him to stay on our side of the road. Just as I was about to tell him to pull over, a large tour bus gradually pushed us off to the side of the road. The driver tried to back up to continue driving and I began to yell at him to stop the car. A second tour bus pulled over and blocked us in. At that point the driver of the first tour bus came over, grabbed the keys from the ignition of our car, and began screaming at the driver and slapping his face. I bolted out of the car, grabbed my bags and then tried to stop the one driver from slapping the other. A crowd had gathered and the slapping subsided but the yelling continued. I saw a tear flow from my drivers eye and felt sorry for him. But I was also angry, and terribly relieved to have been rescued.

I was then whisked into the tour bus, filled with surprised and sympathetic Dutch tourists. They could not have been nicer. I rode with them to their hotel, had some lunch, and then some folks from the hotel drove me the rest of the way into Agra.

I hesitated writing this because I didn’t want my mom to read it. She’s fairly anxious about this trip and I don’t want to add to her anxiety, but… well, mom. Shit happens. And, amazingly, sometimes the universe steps in and rescues us.

I’ve had a fantastic few days since then, my cancelled train to Varanasi last night notwithstanding. It seems that the best way to get there now is to take a train back to Delhi and then fly to Varanasi tomorrow.

Too many things. But, Varanasi is a must-do-hell-or-high-water for me.

I wish I had more time to write, about the warm encounters I had at the Taj Mahal with some teachers from Delhi, or the couple hours I just spent in a new shopping mall watching folks trying to navigate an escalator (many, apparantly for the first time) or the terribly sweet openings I felt at Vrindavan yesterday. Vrindavan is definitely a place I want to return to. It just tenderized me. I got to see the hundreds of widows chanting at one of the temples (look up “widows of Vrindavan” for more info.) I could have sat there listening for hours.

India has layed me open. It’s breaking my heart and I’m falling in love. I can see why people return here over and over again. There have been times when I have thought about spending my entire trip here.

There’s an autorickshaw waiting to take me to the train station. There, I’ll see if I can catch the Shitabdi Express to Delhi.

I’m having an amazing time and I also miss my family and friends. Be well, all of you.