Email home #12

Hey Familia!

Howdy from Varanasi! These last few days have been full of travelling across the subcontinent by air, rail, bus, rickshaw and taxi. And of course there were also episodes of trekking on foot with all my earlthy belonging on my back and front. So here is where I've been these last several days. On Thursday, the group caught the 10am bus from Sravanabelagola to Bangalore. We spent the next day in Bangolore, living on MG road, which is a little piece of America. I ate Subway for dinner and McDonalds for lunch. And a chocolate donut for breakfast. I've decided that I perfer my rural India to mini-America. I missed seeing men in lounghis and being one of the only white people around. And I missed eating rice. But, it was a good little break and adventure all the same. I bought an illegit DVD from a man on the side of the road for rs 50. It has Harry Potter 1,2,3,4,&5. Well...It seems that it doesn't have the last half hour or so of the 5^th movie. Gosh! I pay a dollar twenty-five for 5 movies, and the one that isn't even out on video yet doesn't even work entirely. If you can't trust a random guy on the street to sell a good legit, ill-legit copy of unreleased movies, I don't know who you can trust. But such is life.

Anyway, the next afternoon we checked out of our hotel in Bangalore and caught a rickshaw to the airport and before too long were high in the air and on our way to Delhi. We got to Delhi a little after 11:00pm and took a pre-paidtaxi to the railway: our destination for the next day, and then walked a few blocks until we found some lodging. It is presently Diwali, the festival oflights, which is one of the major holidays of the Hindu religion. It's celebrations include stringing Christmas-esque lights on the buildings and setting off firecrackers and firework at all hours of th night. So there we were, seven weary travellers, with our big packs on our backs and our school backpacks on our fronts, walking the dusty streets Delhi, past the mournful looking dogs and cattles, as men nearby set off fizzing and popping firecrackers, as the occasional brillant fireworks display errupted overhead. It was lovely to find a hotel to meet our needs and get some rest.

The next day we slept in and at noon we checked out of our hotel and headed to the train station to catch the 4258 Kashi Express, a 16 hour train ride into the Benares Railway Station in Varanasi, the city of lights, home of the Ganges River, and one of the most holy pilgramage sites of Hinduism. We entertained ourselves reading, talking, sleeping, playing games, admiring the Diwali Christmas-lights, and eating prepackaged Indian food train meals. We arrived in Varanasi a little after 6:00 Sunday morning, took a taxi to a hotel we had read about in Lonely Planet, and continue to reside there and I am anxiously awaiting experiencing some of the adventures and cultural experience that this holy city has to offer.

Backtracking, I enjoyed my last days in Sravanabelagola. I really loved being there. It was so peaceful, I felt safe, and I learned quite a bit about Jainism, even though I hardly scratched the surface, I am sure. Each morning included a walk to the top of one of the two hills. My favorite spot was on top of a two-level temple. I touristed there once, observed the worship of varied visitors another day, and sat and read my scriptures and chatted with April another day. It had a gorgeous view and was very soothing.

Atop the other hill I met a neat pilgrim family from the other side of India, who had made the trek to Sravanabelagola every couple of year. They were kind enough to allow me to observe their worship (puja) and they walked me through the process and explained the symbolism of the 8 things that were offered and how and why. It was wonderful to be able to see beyond the outward expressions and better understand the internal motivations and faith behind seemingly foreign and strange rituals. The fielded questions as we walked down the hundreds of steps, and they visited our guest house that night. That was interesting, but not as positive an experience. The father, who is clearly a good and faithful man, was rather close-minded in presenting his views. I essentially was reminded of times of my mission when people would be very kind and invite us in to talk, but before long it was evident that they were on mission to save us and convince us of our foolishness and error. While it was frustrating in some ways, I must admit, I kind of enjoyed it. It was fun to be reminded of what it felt like to be a missionary, and it was refreshing to recognize that I had a perspective that helped me understand the good in these people as well as having a greater view of the whole elephant.

I'd better explain that one. Our muni friend, with whom we met several times, and was quite taken with us...oh story. Okay, the day I met the family with the kind but closed-minded father my fellow BYU-ers and I saw our muni friend at the top of the hill. As we were heading back, we stopped at the foot of a 1025 year old temple. As we walked toward it, an Indian man told us that the muni ("monk...naked" and he made a guesture connoting a big belly) wanted us to visit him that day at 1:30. As we stood at the foot of the stairs of the temple, another Indian came out of the temple,walked down, stood with perfect, upright posture and said in a clear voice, "Attention please." Our attention was his as we sought to surpress laughter. He had an open flip-book notebook in his hand, and proceeded to inform us of our invitation to join our muni friend yet again, and gave us anew his contact information.

Okay, so elephant story. On one of our visits with the muni he shared an analogy which I had formerly read in one of the world religion texts. It is the story of the seven blind men and the elephant. He told us of how seven men, all blind, were given the task of discovering and describing what an elephant is like. The first blind man was presented to the stomach, felt it, and projected that an elephant is like a wall. The next blind man felt the leg and described the elephant as a column. Another felt the tail and described the elephant as a rope. The muni went on to say that the blind men argued one with another, each knowing what they themselves had felt and had not felt. Then came the moral, all were right...in part. But not in full. The elephant is meant to represent truth. There are many who have had experiences with truth. But they are closed to any other understanding that deviates from their own. BUT, they all fit together and are valid, if only they could see, and could see the big picture. I liked that.

So anway, life is good. I am learning and having incredible experiences that I could never have imagined had I not experienced them. I am loving being with friends. My group is amazing and I love them all. I'm currently in a travel group with Nate, Ashley and Melanie, but so far we've been taking all the same flights and trains as the other group are now at the same hotel, so we all spend a good deal of time together and I like it.

If I had more time (which techinically I do, but my armpits are nasty and sweaty and I want to sprawl out somewhere and dry them out) I would write about the church services our group has together with just the seven of us. I really enjoy it. But I shall save that for another day or time. When next I write I'll be able to tell you more about Varanasi, Hinduism, potentially Sarnoth and Bhuddhism, and I may even be in Amritsar. On Saturday we have a 24 hour train ride of goodness from here to there. So good time.I hope that all is well. I love you all!

Al

P.S. I wrote this two days ago so it is horribly outdated, but I will catch you up next week on all my Varanasi adventures!