Gopal and Sharanya Metro

Wow, Lucknow is excellent!

It makes all the difference in the world being around good people. :) Everyone at Satasang Bhavan and the India Organics farm are totally awesome! Huge thanks to Bharat and Bhavani for letting us stay here!

We’ve been spending a great deal of time with Hansa. She is totally excellent! And Dinesh, Raju, Raja, Vandita, and all the staff and at both the Farm and Satsang Bhavan rule!

The food here has been excellent. Raju (at the Farm), and Deepak (at Satsang Bhavan) are heaven sent. And Ganga Ram is totally nice!

Any morning we are at Satsang Bhavan we have Aarti with Raja! He is quite a happy and joyous person. I tend to smile a lot when he’s around. And he has led a couple of rounds of Bhajans with us. Good stuff! I’m almost definitely going to use some of these with All Things Are.

My body totally gave out while here. In the band they used to joke about how physically broken I get and our arrival in Lucknow heralded a whole new high. On our way in I had been quick sick – diarrhea for six days straight. So we get here and I go to the doctor and he gets us set up with some medicine. I finally ditch the Mefloquine (Lariam) cuz it’s making me totally crazy (thoughts leaning towards the homicidal and suicidal, not exactly conducive to a good time). Immediately after I develop a deep hacking cough. Then we get food poisoning. And now I’ve blown out my old bmx injury and my leg is all messed. So I go back to the doctor and he hooks me up with some supplements to help the muscle repair and a topical cream to ease the tension. Glad it all happened here and not in some crazy dive in some random Indian town. *grins*

So tonight we head for Haridwar. We’ll be arriving in the morning and we’ll be hanging out with Mikey who’ll be showing us around as he’s been there for a few weeks now. Then in the afternoon we’ll be heading to Rishikesh to stay at Sivananda Ashram. I am quite excited about that! Hoping to get some good theosophical discussion in, and maybe some more experiential clarity on the meanings of life. *grins* Anything can happen, you know?

Alright all, I’m out for now. Gonna go play some old school video games (think early Sierra! Kings Quest etc.)

Jai!

March already!!! Wow. We are loving being in Lucknow. We are at the Tulsi tea farm now staying for a few nights. We are so cared for and are enjoying the relaxation so much!!! It is totally amazing. Love it, love it. We will be sad to leave everyone and this wonderful place! Just a few more days and we are off to Rishikesh to stay at Swami Sivananda Ashram for about 10 days. This is for sure. We thought about making a stop over in Varanasi, but when Gopal got sick everyone and us as well thought it would be best to wait and than just travel to the Ashram. Than we will be in Delhi for two days than we are off. We hope to find more amazing stuff in our travels there. Well of course! HA!

Also I have the another crazy baby dream! What is up with that. *shrugs*

Random thought….  Wonders why she has this hair above her eyes? It’s strange and unsure how much I like it, lol! Also we need hair cuts (dreaming of getting a trim from Radha). Gopal broke down and bought a razor half way through out trip as well. I was afraid I’m glad your hair growth slows down after awhile. Afro armpits, HA!

Well I’m pooped, ha. Lots of love. ~S

Amazing news! We leave for Lucknow tonight! Our train leaves at 1 am.

The amazing news is that Lauren H.’s mother Bhavani is letting us stay at her place in Lucknow! WOW, how awesome is that! We are so excited! We will be there for over a week as well. I am so excited and feel so blessed!!!

This totally rocks, and being here has been so well, interesting.

Than we travel to Rishikesh (totally stoked about going there as well) where we will be basically be ending our journey than to Delhi for I believe two night before we leave.

Love, S

Where are we now! HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodh_Gaya

 It’s not bad here. The temple is beautiful of course! And there are many Beautiful Monastaries in this town as well. There is also a very large statue of Lord Buddha as well – http://www.great-buddha-statue.com/great_buddha_statue.jpg We have been here for a few days and will be leaving in two more.

We will be traveling to Varanasi next – http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7TSNA&ei=egWBS7C1IIi2rAf47vyoBw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CBoQBSgA&q=varanasi&spell=1

Check out our friend’s blog! http://adhvanalways.blogspot.com/

We had traveled with Mikey for a bit and will be catching up with him soon as we also journey through India.

There are great photo’s on his blog of our travels together as well.

Thanks! ~S

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiruvannaamalai

We were there for about 6 days. It was awesome. We stayed at a really nice place. I OD’d on Cheese and Bread and ended up getting sick for about 36 hours. Nothing to bad just couldn’t get out of bed. Light headed, neusea, my tummy was a wrecked! Eck! But I relaxed in the room and made it to the internet a couple times. There was an internet cafe in our hotel. Gopal was wonderful. We were here for Maha Shivaratri!!! I was ill and could not make it, but Gopal did this: Every full moon night, tens of thousands of pilgrims worship Shiva by circumambulating the Arunachala hill barefoot. The circumambulation covers a distance of about 14 km.^[3]. On the yearly Chitra Powrnami (full moon) night in the Tamil calendar year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across the world visit the town.

Once I was well the very next day we took a hike up the Hill to the caves were Swami Ramana Harshi found enlightment. It was an amazing hike! We took wonderful photo’s as well. The movement and the view was amazing! I wish I was doing it now!

It was a truly wonderful stay here.

We arrived here last night by bus. At the bus station we asked a man if he could recomend a hotel to us and he did. We got a rickshaw for 80rs (20rs less than the first few were asking for) and headed to the hotel. The man mentioned two hotels so we checked them both out, and went for the much nicer one that was actually just a few rupees cheaper. The room is Great, and very clean with a TV! OMG, tv! = ] We watch animal planet for like 2 hours! It was great. We convinced the hotel to give us a two twin bed room. They are so confused by this notion, lol. Since there is Gopal, myself and our friend Mikey. It is a bit cheaper to do it that way and a non-a/c room as well. Always ask about hot water and screened windows though. Your lucky if you get both. Ha. The bothroom did not even look like it had mold!!! We ended up sleeping very well till about 9am! It was nice. My throat was sore in the morning, but after we ate it got better. = ]

After breakfast we talked to reception at our hotel about getting a taxi to drive us to Swami Sivananda’s ashram and birth place (3 hours 600rs). Not bad. It was nice to relax and have the driver take us.

We arrive at the “ashram”, or small temple place. The energy was amazing! Our taxi driver was so helpful and went along with us, he was great. We met an elderly female swami and she opened all the gates for us. She than performed a small puja. She gave us prasad and holy ash as well. There were silver slippers in front of the altar that were worn by Swami Sivananda. She let us go up and take Darshan at Swamji’s slippers, beautiful! She took us around the small property which was very nice. After that she led us to Swamiji’s birth place (birth home). She also performed another small puja there as well. It was so wonderful! We were told that the 8th of each month is a special day and they perform the puja’s every morning of each month on the 8th because Swamiji was born on the 8th of September, 1887.  We were very blessed to be there today. Everything was totally amazing, that my eyes kept tearing up! 

Afterwards we went to Swami Sivananda Hospital. We met with the director who showed us around, and than took us to see a resident Swami in the male ward. I believe he was affilitated with the hospital I do not know. But we all sat together as he talked with us for about a half an hour. He was so cute and his words of hatha, japa, and bhakti yoga were so amazing. He also spoke to us about service and dedication. He was truly wonderful! He gave us prasad and asked us to eat lunch before we left. I am so happy we got to meet him.

Lunch was wonderful! Dal, Sambar, rice, veggies. Than we returned back to our hotel. Now I am here as we are trying to figure out our next adventure!

We were able to take photo’s of all of these events and will have them u hopefully by the end of the week. = ]

We MIGHT be traveling starting tonight, or tomorrow morning to Madurai, Tamil Nadu to visit the Meenakshi temple, but want to go to Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu to see the angry Hanuman temple as well. If we do both there is a chance we won’t make it to Chidambaram for Shiva Ratri in time. Trying to plan/book this ourselves now hasn’t been so easy and most travel agencies see us and try to charge us too much, but trying find those wonderful travel agents who won’t can be tricky. Going to Madurai is must and it is on the way to both places. We plan to stay there for one night and while we are there we will possibly be planning on going straight to Chidambaram. But we will know more later today. If we make it to Chidambaram we will try to arrive on the 11th for Shiva Ratri on the 12th. But are plans of travel are not yet mapped out.  After our plan of action is the head far north!

Much love to you all! 
Sharanya and Gopal

14/1/10

I was watching the news as Gopal took his first “shower” since we arrived yesterday. On the news they said that Delhi’s airport Radar stopped working (airport system failure). I’m glad it wasn’t us! We are in a new hotel and it is very nice. Everyone has been wonderful. We left Namaskar Hotel even though it was nice we got an up grade that the Travel agency we went through for our train tickets and 4 day tour with driver hooked us up with.
We plan to go to the train station tomorrow and find out if this company is legit or not. I am a bit worried and we are so burnt at this point that we want to run for the hills and come home. We were touted and landed at the travel agency jet lagged and tired as hell. I do not know if I’ll have want to come to India, or Delhi that is again! I am so very sad that it is even hard for us to believe, or want to help other people. I know we would, yes and at this time we are taking everyone’s word with a grain of salt.
We do believe, but we are wary. It would be cool to meet up with others like us. We had seen other backpackers. They were at the Namaskar Hotel too. Well it truly has been all good and pray that it continues to be so.

15/1/10

Today is a new day! Our tickets are good and we were able to change our tour. B/c he set it up to what he wanted us to do not what we really wanted to do. We even got back 3,000 RS (about 66 USD). We were glad to get a little back and get the hell out of Delhi!
We were able to get on our computer and finally email everyone. Still yet to post any blogs. Hoping we will get the chance to do that soon.
We saw the beautiful Lotus dedicated to the Baha’I faith on our way out of Delhi. I didn’t really know anything about it. It was really nice.
After the Lotus our driver took us to a Kashmir shop. The people took us to a back room, served us chai, and processed to unroll and flash us amazing and beautiful rugs. Truly for not that much USD, but not what we were interested in spending our money in. It was a fun and interesting experience. I wish they sold online. They said they did at one time but other stole their designs so they stopped. I looked at shawls they were over priced, but so very nice!
Well now we are heading to Vrindavan through the dense traffic and “smog”. The haze that impacts the land is so massive. I am not sure if it truly is smog, or a natural haze, but I am sure the smog has a large impact.
I am very excited about our new journey of ours with a driver for just a few days. I hope to see beautiful landscapes and greenery. I hope to see the beautiful Mother land that is INDIA!

15/1/10

Indian food is so, so. Craving Chinese, Ha! The sir here is thick and my throat hurts a bit. I’m sure that will pass. My tummy hurts a little. We just ate some food that was not so yummy, but fair. Charged too much as well! Our driver for some reason has a touristy state of mind and keeps taking us to these really touristy “pricey” places. Gopal and I will be talking to night to see it we can him to keep us away from the vultures! Oh, man there is a little rock moving down to my tummy, arrgg…But I am sure I’ll be all good. We’ll take our vitamins when we settle into our hotel. Now that we are away from Delhi it’s so nice not to hear a horn beeping every 5 seconds and it usually didn’t end until 10am – 10pm.

They make a lot of brick outside of Delhi. It is a huge industry here. It’s dark now. P.s. Don’t look at the dancing monkey.

16/1/10

Things I wish we brought so far:
1. A mat to do Hatha on
2. Eye mask for sleepin
3. Sleeping bag for the North b/c it’s was very cold!

Things I am Glad we brought with us:
1. Fleece blanket sleeping bag
2. Travel pillows and pillow cases
3. Clothes line
4. Guides books: Rough Guide & Lonely Planet
(Having both is a great idea.)
5. Hoodies
6. Vitamins – PROBIATICS, multi-vitamin, D, Calcium, Ginseng…
7. Tissues for toilet paper and baby wipes (great for when you are not
At a hotel/lodging)
8. Alcohol wipes
9. Hand Sanitizer
10. Essential Oil for facial cleansing/make-up remover
11. Travel towels
12. Shampoo and conditioner
13. Toothpaste and toothbrush (just bring what you have from home
B/c it may take you a day or two to get your head straight)
14. Zipper lock bags for storage (which if you are travel for a long
Time actual thick plastic travel bags are Awesome b/c it makes things are easier to store your things)
15. Mesquite net (a must)
16. UV water filter
17. Cargo pants with zipper pockets and buttons to make them Capri’s
18. Day sling pack
19. Bike locks
20. Mini locks
21. Snack bars
22. Emergen-C
23. Laptop and Camera
24. Electronic wall converters
25. Bug replant  (40 deet or higher)
26. Eye glass lens cloth (to clean  my dust filled glasses)
27. Waist pouch to wear under clothes to put passport, lock keys, little             pouch for money nice to keep separate and keeping other money in zipper lock baggy in envelope. You don’t want all your money just hanging out. It’s good to keep some of it away and some money ready for just the everyday.
28. GOPAL! <3
29. Sunglasses (went to the dollar store and picked-up nice ones for             only $1.50)
30. Hair clips
31. Capstick (Bert’s Bees)
32. Note pads & Pens (you can pick up more hear in the cities both             should only run you about 50rs depending on what you get)
33. Aluminum water bottles
34. Of course our packs
35. Cotton sports bras

16/1/10

Vrindavan… We arrived late. Our driver is out looking for a place for us to stay as my stomach starts to feel like it is going to explode. False alarm, YAY! We are very content were we are now. Tour, what tour? We wondered on our own a bit. Miscommunication I believe with our driver, but it is nice to be out and about on our own for a moment. We are at a Hari Krishna Temple which is so great and totally amazing. Everyone here at the temple is so very nice. They have a restaurant that we went to and ate breakfast which was so incredibly yummy! I had a veg. patty and idli so, so very great and filling. We went for a walk after which was very nice. I started to look at shawls and they were giving me prices at 200/175rs not an amount I am looking to spend but in USD that is quite amazing, but who knows what I’ll do yet. We arrive back at the hotel and the gift shop is open. I felt so naked without a shawl and they had really common ones there. I got a peachy colored one for only 75rs. Pretty great. Later we also had another amazing meal for only 200rs with tip! We are very satisfied here. Gopal is lying down now I believe I’ll do the same. Naps are so very nice here!

We arrive in Kanniyakumari late and ended up staying at this nasty, filthy hotel for 400rs totally not worth it, but we just went for it. I had trouble falling asleep on the board of a bed we were on. Finally as the buzzing of the fan finally put me to sleep I was out.

But it seems my dreams took me some where I’ve never had a dream like this before, but man did it freak me out. HA. I can not remember how it started, but I can remember out it ended.

I remember running, running for my life. All around me were babies and toddlers yelling “I want my Mommy” as they were walking and crawling towards me. That is when I started to run. I saw this small gym like building, the kind you would see in a housing complex. That’s when I decided to go for it, I pushing the door open and ran in. As I tried closing the door behind me, but it was too late. Little hands and fingers pushing, and prying the door open towards me.  For some reason It was hard for me to close the door to lock it, there was nothing I could do.  All I remember next is screaming, and screaming!!!

Gopal woke to the muffled, whimpering screams. He woke me up.  I was so freaked out and startled by this dream.  So curious about why the heck I even had a dream like this. Weird and disturbing, but very very funny!

Love, ~S

Check us out here -
http://picasaweb.google.com/gopal.metro

So it seems that using this method has been much easier for storing, shrinking, & tagging  for both photo’s and video. It has been saving us a lot of time which it’s something we don’t always seems to have a lot of  *grins*. So please visit here for blogging and check out all video and photo’s on Piaca.

Love,
~S