Back in London

We're back on western soil. Delilah is doing remarkably well considering she's been 3 weeks in unfamiliar lands. However she awoke at 5 last night (11 am India time) with a frog in her throat. We're keeping her warm. We'll see what that means for our hopes and aspirations for the day.

A note about the plane ride: they are not what they used to be. Virgin has this in-flight entertainment system with more than 60 choices on it. So Miles and I both watched 2-3 movies on the flight. Delilah was GLUED to the kids' channel. To walk up and down the aisles is to see 80-90% of the full flight with their own private TV's on. Whatever happened to reading?

Speaking of reading, Miles did photograph and will comment on bookstores. Perhaps more interesting than bowels...

What can I write about now? The experience of Varanansi was intense. It seemed so chaotic after being in `ladakh for a while, and being at the Taj Palace Hotel. From the airport we drove through rural roads, then into the city, and were dropped at a bank, a landmark. Someone met us and carried our bag (singular, at that point, we'd checked most of our luggage in Delhi) through the narrow "streets". Yes, they were sometimes 4 or 5 feet wide, yes, with garbage, yes, with cow patties, yes with bikes and motorcycles. After the winding and smelly lanes I began to see sun, and imagined we were getting close to the Ganges, and finally the view spilled open to the Ganges. I was so relieved to get out into the open I couldn't imagine at the time going back through the narrowness until we really needed to, upon our return to the airport.

Varanasi (where the Varuna and Asi Rivers flow into the Ganges) has a series of steps, or ghats into the water upon which Hindu devotees bathe themselves daily. Generally it's possible to walk the entire length of the city on the ghats, however, since we arrived just after monsoon, the water was very high. The ghats instead were discreet sets of stairs, and one could go from one to the other by boat, though we saw some young boys doing brave rock-climbing traverses on the vertical walls of buildings, sill to sill. Ornament to ornament.

Our first boat ride negotiations were lame, I was having a hard time trusting the natives. We paid more for the guest room that the internet advertised. We were having trouble trusting.

I was often tempted to make comparisons between regions, or between peoples we met. I'm uncomfortable with this; they verged on stereotypes. For instance, when we spilled into Ladakh, the land of the stupas, I felt more calm. I saw less instances of poverty, less garbage. Where we got back to more heavily Hindu population, life felt more chaotic and not as attractive (though all these areas had muslim population as well, we came into less contact with Muslims, I think). This was a little confusing and painful to me, since I practice yoga and feel affinity with some vedic teachings. I felt like: what, if anything, do `i have in contact with this? By the 2nd day in Varanasi I felt much more comfortable. We began to connect with people, we learned how to get around. By the end of a second day, we were chanting at the puja sites, and by the third day `i was making an offering (marigold blossoms strung together) to the Ganges.