Prayers and Printers

I scramble onto the  local bus heading from the mountain town of Leh to the small monastery of Phyang 20km away.  The bus is already packed with locals.  Today is one of the few summer festivals in the region.  While the oracle of Phyang sits in deep meditation and won't make his appearance till the snow covered winter celebration, today's festivities will include 8hr of brightly colored masked dances performed by the monks.

The bus bumps along and tall snow capped mountains pass outside my window...The high altitude and crisp air makes everything in Ladakh appear to be in HD....It's as if the crystal blue sky with its bleach white clouds has more pixels than the ordinary sky back home.

I slowly become aware of  a low hum, which I first attribute to the creaky bus engine...then I listen closer and realize it's chanting....The old Tibetan women, prayer wheels in hand, have already began to pray.

The small monastery tops a rocky outcrop surrounded by green fields...The courtyard is packed with tourists (cameras at the ready) and Ladakhi families (prayer wheels in hand). The drums and chanting begin.  Small "baby" monks run around in their maroon and saffron robes, obviously giddy with excitement.  Demons and Gods in elaborate embroidered robes and brightly colored masks begin to slowly twirl and leap around the dusty courtyard....I'm mezmorized

Slowly after a few hours the dancing fades into the background and I notice the audience.  I can't stop looking at the older generation of women.  In their brown wool dresses with turquoise jewelry and long dark braids, some topped with bright green and red wool caps,  they sit and chat while their fingers nimbly work over prayer beads.  One old Tibetan women with a weathered face and toothless smile nimbly works her prayer beads and mumbles chants under her breath as she watches the monks transform into gods.

I want to  snap a million photos of those wrinkled smiling faces, yet I notice how they demure as some tourists blatantly snap pictures, many uncomfortably close.  Then I pull out my new toy: The Travel Photo Printer!   After 5 minutes I am surrounded by prayer wheel weilding, braid adjusting women who are pairing up with  friends and patiently waiting as I print out their portrait.  I snap a pic of a Ladakhi women in a traditional satin top hat and her best friend.  A picture of a mother and her child.  The woman with her prayer wheel who poses, smiles, but never stops spinning her prayers.

My printing studio

The women respectfully watch as my small machine prints out their image perched on the dusty ground.  They gently accept the gift and examine it closely as friends point out details and smile at me.  With a kind "Joolay"  they nod and gingerly wrap the picture into their cloth bags.  Hours later i look over to see some groups still examining the photos.

Six hours into the festival and while the monks seem to have all the endurance of the gods and demons they portray I'm exhausted and begin to slump.  I feel a tap on my shoulder and a kindly grandmother I previously photographed ushers me over to her group of friends.  She opens her bag and tears me off a hunk of home baked Ladakhi bread.  Another women then magically pulls a juice box from the folds of her dress.  They hand them to me wordlessly...I munch and we all watch as the gods and demons continue their eternal dance...I send up my own wordless prayer of thanks...All in the small town of Phyang.

Ladakh Vacation

I've just returned from a 10 day vacation up to Ladakh, one of the northern most regions of India.  It was like stepping into a completely different world after a month in Rajasthan. 

Ladakh is so high up in the mountains that the town of Leh is usually only accessible for 3 months in the summer time.  Even when I was there roads were constantly closed due to avalanches. 

 

Pangong Lake stretches across the boarder of India and Tibet....That's Tibet in the distance...you can almost see the chinese military post making sure I don't row across.

 

The Ladakhi people are primarily budhist and have much more in common with Tibetans than Indians.  The town in covered in Tibetan prayer flags and the restaurants, which serve delicious Tibetan momos and noodle soup, always have  a framed picture of His Holiness the Dali Lama.  It was a wonderful vacation and as always I had some wonderful encounters, but first  here are some pics of the region to get you in the mood. 

 

I rented a Royal Enfield (The motorcycle Shantaram rides) to visit the different monestaries in the region.

Baby monks in training at a Gompa                                                 30 ft statue of Buddha in Thiksey

Roadside Encounters

While in Pushkar I took to waking up early and going for a morning ride along the country roads.  Since Rajasthani women are fairly forward, and I was quite the novelty as a women on a motorcycle, I got constantly waved down and invited to tea.  Just wanted to share a few of my favorite encounters. 

Chai with women after they finished harvesting Jamoon fruit.  Here I'm pretending to understand whatever she's explaining in Rajasthani.

One woman found it so amusing that I was driving a motorcycle she insisted on trying on the helmet.

10km outside the city I passed a beautiful rose garden.  The sweet fragrance was so strong I could smell it from the road.  A mother and son were picking the flowers into large cotton sacks and invited me into the garden. 

Turns out they sell the roses to be processed into Gulkand a sugary rose chutney...I had some as soon as I got back to my hotel.  Delicious in a cold glass of milk!

Near the end of my drive, further into the desert, I was invited for a cup of chai in a shanty town out on the sand dunes. 

To make up for having no money for milk, they added lime to the tea.  As always the kids were fantastic.

Jaipur to Pushkar

150km.  Jaipur to Pushkar.  Just me, my bike, and the open road.  After 30min I begin to relax as I learn to share the highway with the overloaded trucks, speeding cars and the occasional sputtering rickshaw.  After 1 hour my bum is completely numb and I decide to stop at a roadside stand to refuel on chai.

A couple hours into the trip and I've found a sort of rhythm and begin to take in my surroundings.  The scenery is expansive and dry.  I see sheep herders in their  red rajasthani turbans guiding their flocks.  I pass a stretch where every kilometer has a dead, mummifying ox on the side of the highway.  Their corpses twisted in the heat.  Then a sleek black SUV speeds past and I glimpse a sadhu with his bare chest and bright orange robes, hair matted and caked with mud, sitting in the front seat one arm casually hanging out the window. I imagine him singing along to a Beach Boys tape.

Another chai break and then more highway, more desert, more sun... Suddenly a mango is jostled loose from the back of a truck that appears to be bursting at its seams.  The mango flies through the air bounces once and then shatters into bright orange shards in the middle of the highway a hundred meters in front of me.  I have plenty of time to swerve and swear I can smell a hint of its sweat juicy pulp as I speed past.

I turn off the highway onto the Pushkar road, small, winding and empty except for a few sheep.  I have a  flashback to 15 years ago when I last visited Pushkar, most likely driving down this same road.  I was 13 and it was my first trip to India with my family.   Now I'm back...with a bike.  150km from Jaipur to Pushkar.