India 2006 7th February

I awake at 4am in the morning - ready for my day's exploits. It is a cold morning and it is a little hard to get out of bed. Thankfully there is a reliable hot water system and I wait a little while for the water to warm up - then it's a refreshing and very welcome hot shower. Given India's unreliable electricity and water supplies, I savour this experience for it might be the last one I have!

I get out, get changed - 3 layers of clothing for this cold, chilly morning and then I wait for Hari to come and get me. This morning I am heading to the ISKCON temple in New Delhi. I remember reading in the Back to Godhead magazine about 6 years ago that they were building this temple, complete with an animatronics exhibition on the Bhagavad Gita, which would have been a major accomplishment, especially for something in India. Since then, it's been on my to-do list to visit this beautiful, and well engineered structure. It combines both traditional Indian architecture and modern design to create something that is unique in New Delhi and my first sight of it is breathtaking. The three towers stand tall amongst the shorter apartment buildings and shops around Delhi. There is a winding walkway that leads up to the main temple - while smaller shops and food distribution stalls surround the lower levels of the temple. This temple also boasts a guesthouse which is fairly quiet for this time of the morning.

I enter the temple and am a little disappointed to see that I have just missed seeing the Deities, the curtains have closed and the temple priests are busy giving the Deities Their bath, dressing Them and basically doing the morning service. So there is tulasi puja - worship of Srimati Tulasi devi and then morning chanting. It's quite a peaceful atmosphere and I sit and chant with the rest of the devotees present. A tape is also playing at the same time of chanting of the founder of the Krishna Consciousness movement A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. It is soothing. After about an hour and a half of more concentrated chanting - I realise it's time for me to meet up with Hari das and head outside the temple to wait for him. So I miss out on a chance for darshan of Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi - maybe that's an indication of the path I'm about to take. I don't know. Being outside is tough, the air is cold and very smoggy. There is a construction crew working on the roadside in the cold and in simple clothing, I have no idea how they manage it!! I hold my hands up to my mouth and breath on them to warm them, it's freezing!!

I don't have to wait too long for Hari das and we head back to my apartment to collect my gear and after about half an hour's wait we headed out to Vrindavan.

What a drive!! It took just over 3 hours to head to Vraja - with lots of crazy traffic and interesting buildings by the roadside. Lots of hotels and new developments which was cool. Lots of ads for 'Hutch' too which is a big mobile phone provider in India. Surprisingly Indians, like the rest of Asia, have a crazy passion for mobile phones as I soon find out.

I arrive in Vrindavan and the experience of entering the town is amazing. There are heaps of buildings and temples and my jaw drops when I finally see Krishna Balaram temple. It is made of pure white marble and looks beautiful.There are monkeys everywhere and I've been warned to hold on to my glasses as these monkeys have figured out that anyone's possessions is fair game ESPECIALLY because it means that those humans will have to swap it for food!!

My first introduction to Vrindavan is complete!

India 2006 6th February Part 2

My driver was waiting outside all this while of panicked roaming in the airport. I make my way outside into the cool night air and meet Hari - my driver for the next 2 days. He is a pleasant young man who speaks excellent English and we make small talk as I wait for him to load the car. Soon we're on our way into the heart of Delhi!

The traffic is crazy, we wend our way through extremely congested streets at 8:30pm - Hari assures me this is normal peak hour traffic - and I gasp in disbelief... Traffic in India follows no rules except for the rule of the horn. The louder one manages to get the thing, the more room you get on the road! The drive takes a while and halfway into the journey I start worrying that Hari might turn out to be an evil murderer who's going to get me into a lonely deserted street in Delhi ( don't think that's possible with the amount of people around!) and kill me. I have read too many new reports of backpackers, especially single females, getting taken away to somewhere quiet and murdered. My hand closes around my little tiny swiss army knife, you know, those that fit on a keychain, and I feel just a bit safer. ;)

We pull into an alleyway, then another, then another and my fear grows. Finally Hari stops the car and points to his right. There is a small little walkway and he says - your accommodation is THAT way. I look. Hmmmm... oh well, it's India and I'm knackered, I'll go anyway. My "Deluxe" room turns out to be a little room with a little table and a MASSIVE 4-poster carved wooden bed with a thin mattress. It is an amazing room - something I didn't expect to see in that little apartment in a little suburb somewhere in the middle of Delhi!! Hari shows me all the facilities - hot water, AWESOME! and then gives me the key to lock myself into my room and leaves me. WE make an arrangement to leave early in the morning about 4am to go to the ISKCON New Delhi temple for a visit.

So I am left to revel in my majestic looking four poster bed, take lots of pictures and then write in my diary until sleep claims me.

India 2006 6th January Part 1

The first day of my trip to India. I'm anxious, excited, nervous and extremely eager. This is my second trip to India - the first was to Jagganath Puri in the East. Now I'm going to New Delhi for the night, then Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh and RadhaKund - one of Vaishnava India's most sacred spots.

The trip starts in the wee hours of the morning. Alicia and Andrew bid me goodbye at the airport and I assume they head home to enjoy a sleep in. I am left with a relatively heavy backpack to drag to check in- which moves fairly smoothly. I head into the departure lounge to relax before boarding a Malaysian airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur. The only problem is that I find out in the middle of the flight that this plane stops in Kuching as well. So it turns out to be a longer trip than expected but it was not unbearable.

Kuching is a tremendously green and mountainous country. It was amazing. Mother Nature is still in charge here. There is no truly developed metropolises or big cities, most of the buildings and developments that I see are in small townships. I don't think Kuching will develop as quickly as much of South East Asia but the potential is there if that should ever happen.

The plane takes off again after an hour's wait and we finally arrive in Kuala Lumpur after another 3 hours. This is the first time I've been to KLIA and it truly is an impressive airport. It is HUGE!! There are two massive terminals, one domestic and international and both are very new still. The facilities there are great too even though I didn't get to enjoy them as much as my transit time was only an hour. So I sat, and sat, and sat.

Finally, I boarded the plane for New Delhi and waited with bated breath for my arrival in New Delhi. Enjoyed a lovely Hindi movie about a chef who goes to London and finds love. Typical Bollywood masala story but funny and charming.

All I see of New Delhi is a sprinkling of lights - some flickering on and some off. It's obvious that there are periodic power outages as patches of light go off and come back on again. I am excited, but praying that New Delhi's airport will not be the same feral experience as it was in Kolkata.

It wasn't. The walk through to customs wasn't not the hurried rush of bodies that I was expecting and I breezed through customs fairly quickly. My luggage doesn't arrive as quickly as is expected and the waiting area is quickly filled with restless Indians on mobile phones. The terminal is warm, even though the last time I checked, it was supposed to be about 2 degrees in Delhi. At least the airport has got regular electricity!! Finally I collect my luggage and leave the terminal, only to be greeted by a sea of faces on the other end of the door. I walk through but don't see my driver anywhere... I wait around for a while but to no avail. So I wrangled together some cash and went to make a phonecall - Indian style - in a booth with signs proclaiming ISD/STD/PCO with someone who sits opposite you and dials your number. Service with a smile.

The stories of my life,
Here I go publishing them - to share them with the world, my own little online secret diary.

Enjoy.