INDIA (again!)

Having the time constraint of getting to Poland for August means I've had to pick and choose which bits I will and won't cycle through...and this time India was a fly-by visit.
From the border I take a train to Delhi....and so does half of India...the people keep endlessly pouring into the carriage as it's Indian holiday season. With every conceivable space taken up by body, child or luggage, we all realise that our hopes of sleeping in our own berth for the night are long gone. Those with berths take in as many children and suitcases they can manage, whilst the rest of us resign to squatting on the floor...there's not even enough room for us to lay down properly. And in the middle of the night, surveying this sea of humanity, I feel a deep sense of pride at the dignity of Indian people. Beautiful women in delicately woven saris' squat in silent acceptance amidst the dirt and squalor of the train floor with their tiny babies huddled in close. Without a word of protest people accepted their fate and held their heads high. There is a great dignity to the way Indian people bear their suffering and manage in a system that is constantly on the verge of overload and break down. And so I sat there, watching these Indian queens, dignified even in squalor, silently crying tears for a people who endure such unnecessary everyday suffering and poverty, yet a people who still hold themselves with a quiet pride.

And from Delhi I return to Amritsar on the Indo-Pak border from where the cycling will really start uninterrupted. It seems right to bring the journey full circle and finish where I started. My first taste of Indian night air becomes my last.
And here I meet a fellow cyclist coming the other way-life brings the right people at the right time. He brings exactly the first-hand information I need for cycling in Pakistan, and an upbeat positivity to reassure any worries. And so off I toddle in over 40 degrees heat, back to the good lands of Pakistan. Back to the beautiful red bricks of Lahore's old streets and back to the hospitality of Islam.

Goodbye India, Hello Pakistan...

KATHMANDU TO THE BORDER

Note to self...never have a Lonely Planet three inch map as your only guide...that is the lesson of the first few days of cycling....

I ride out of Kathmandu with sunrise, cyling through the narrow cobbled old streets...Children heading to school giggle as I pass...surely I'm not the first foreign cyclist they've seen? But then I catch sight of my reflection in a shop window...and have a little giggle myself. My cycling attire is not quite the cutting edge of modern road gear- long blue dress for Muslim countries (that unfortunately looks like one of my grannie's less glamorous nighties), baggy blue silk trousers, white socks and trainers, sunhat and big sunglasses....I look like a female Mr. Motivator....and so the giggles follow me for the whole 120 KM of the day.

Nine sweaty hours later after alot of exhilirating downhills and a fair share of unforseen uphills, I finally glide into the small town of Mugling...thirty minutes before a sudden heavy hail storm-small miracles.


The next day is 40KM of disappearing tarmac followed by another Lonely Planet error of an apparent 88KM that turns out to be 120KM. Riding alongside the Chitral National Park I find myself alone on the road for long stretches in between tiny villages. I haven't seen anywhere for almost two hours and the sun is threatening to set. I make a quick decision that if I don't see anything over the next hill then I'll have to flag a bus down. But lo and behold, at the next hill I see a lone cyclist coming towards me...which means he must have come from somwhere! And within minutes I see a sign for some random village only 2 sweet KM away-small miracles again. The village is full of open friendly faces surprised to see a lone tourist and lots of people come to talk. I manage to barter my room in the lodge from 200 straight down to 100....and then we all laugh as the owners wife storms out of the kitchen to berate him good naturedly for forgetting about '150'!...I leave them a good tip.

Afterwards it's a smooth and flat road all the way to India. I pass endless streams of trucks waiting to cross the border, shading groups of overweight drivers in tops too tight, playing cards and drinking tea. Cycle rickshaws clatter up the sides of the streets...I meet a foreigner who's paid to ride the rickshaw himself with the driver sitting gleefully inside, waving excitedly to all his friends!

And so it's goodbye Nepal, Namaste India again....

INTRODUCING SAM...

Truely nothing is chance. The day after I decided to cycle home, I found Sam sitting outside a bike shop down one of Khatmandu's many alleyways, amidst a sea of average quality mountain bikes. Surely this must be one of the shop worker's precious possessions? Surely this can't be for sale? But he is. And he's half his normal price. Some angel of a Dutch man cycled here with him and then donated it to his Nepali friends who, luckily for me, decided to sell him instead! And so I cycle away a lucky lady with the best bike in town sailing smooth underneath.

So just who is this Sam that I'll be sharing the next six months of my life with?

Sam is a Gazelle touring bike all the way from the land of Dutch. Sam is wearing this season's popular Shimano brake and gear systems and he sports the flattering cut of the butterfly handle bars that compliment his shape. Sam's choice of atTIRE(!) is that summer sporty look of the Schwalbe Marathon.

And of course, this season's essential accessory just has to be the flag of one's own country. A sort of 'please return to if lost' signal to the world that, eventually, I'm heading home!

Twas the night before....

D-Day is here. No more 'manyana manyana' for me. This is it. Tomorrow is actually tomorrow and it's finally time to leave.
I watch my last sunset over the Khatmandu valley- apocalypse orange hellfire blazing through the smog. Crows perch on the skeleton scaffold of yet another house squeezed into the city's already clogged arteries. I watch the evening's band arrive at the lounge bar across the road from my favourite, peaceful cafe...and pray for a quick delivery of my food. Listening to yet another pre-pubescent Nepali trying to whine about the smell of his teen spirit is not how I want to spend my last night.
But friends arrive and laughter is shared over good food. A night of tourist bubble luxury before diving back into the heat, haze and craze of 'real' travelling. India looms in my mind not because it is over 200KM away, but because it is outside the safety net of my world of good coffees that I have lazed in for the past few weeks. Maybe I am worried it is not my legs that will stop from completing the journey, but the lack of a decent Cappuccino...

KOPAN MONASTERY

Ten days of meditation, felt more like ten months. Ten days of silence took me to places inside myself I'd forgotten I needed to go. Ten days of learning self-analysis, learning stillness, learning to be as quiet as possible and see what is really there once the storm of the self settles...

Rising before the sun and watching its' dramatic ascent over the Kathmandu hills each morning before the first meditation session. Life with a rhythm once again feels good after the directionless wanderings of seven months travelling.



Set back from the valley atop a hill, time slowly ceased to trouble our over stimulated minds. Prayer flags flowing from every tree, prayer wheels creaking their rhythmic rotations, sounds of deep chanting floating across the grounds from early morning to late evening. Stone Buddha's calmly meditate hidden in the garden grass whilst we make our daily pilgrimages round the Stoupas.


Everything in cycles, everything in rhythm, everything in repetition, everything settles, everything stills, everything calms, everything.....stops.....



At first the multi-headed deities and thousand armed gods were not quite something I could bring my mind to relate to. Tibetan Buddhism has a rather large amount of colourful deities and realms of ghosts and spirits that confused me considering it claimed to not be a religion. But in time, I slowly began to understand these images as catalysts, metaphors, symbols...the way I see my own faith. And in time, I began to really identify with Chenrezig-the image of the Buddha's compassion. White face symbolising the calm of moonlight, Chenrezig's thousand arms have a thousand eyes at the end to see the suffering of all the world. True compassion coming only from true understanding and insight into the suffering of the other...




By candle light burning we hold a 'meditation of light' service, filling the garden with the peaceful flicker of flame. I lie on the grass for a long while after, letting the silence settle deep inside and watch from afar as it slowly shifts and heals long years of self-conscious worries...all is at peace.

Kopan Monastery, www.kopan-monastery.com, was set up in 1971 by Tibetan refugee monk Lama Zopa Rinpoche and is now home to over 360 Nepali and Tibetan and Nepali monks and over 380 Nuns. From a young age the monastic training starts with a regular rhythm of education, meditation, prayer and debating. Early morning 'puja', prayer, starts at 5am each day. Rows of saffron robes rhythmically rocking in time with the deep chanting.


Trumpets blare in tuneless cacophony whilst cymbals clash the marked ending of a sutra, teaching of the Buddha. Salt tea and sweet rice brings the mornings only silence.

Sounds of clapping hands and increased passionate shouts mark the start of the morning's debating class. The art of debate is highly valued in Tibetan Buddhism, and bodies immerse themselves fully in the physical, fluid motions. Rock back, one leg off the ground, hands above the head for added momentum before a sudden forward slapping marking the point which one's opponent must respond to.

Each day our meditation and teachings were interspersed with the latest updates of the situation in Tibet. I spoke with one monk who had not heard from his family there for nearly two weeks. Wearing their black bands of mourning, each day the Tibetan monks would gather to demonstrate outside the United Nations office. And each day this peaceful demonstration of unarmed monks and nuns was greeted with police sticks and beatings....and the Nepali human rights groups continued to stay silent....

Feelings of helpless frustration where eased a little by an impromptu demonstration at the local Boudha Stoupa, one of Kathmandu's landmarks. The monks had been forbidden from going because of their previous protests, so over a hundred foreigners gathered to climb the stoupa and fly the Tibetan flag in solidarity.


We read texts of peace and light candles around the whole stoupa to the cheers and support of local Buddhists below.

It feels like such a small act. It feels like such a small cry against the global powers that be.

Yet the cheers of the crowds below when the whole stoupa is finally lit, reminds me that sometimes the best thing we can do is the keep the flame of hope alive by vowing not to forget or ignore those who suffer...