The Bowel Movements Conversation

Honestly, I'm getting pretty sick of India. It seems, a lot of the people I meet here feel the same - apart from all the hippy nuts and berries religion tourists that is.
Seriously, what is up with these people?
They come from all over the affluent parts of the globe, Europe, Australia, the US or wherever, and their itinerary will always include 'finding' themselves.
At home they wander around in suits, or jeans, or skirts, or what ever happens to be 'in'. At home they probably have no real interest in religion - Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism or any other ism you care to mention, but drop them in India and everything changes.

They do things like locking themselves in yogic retreats for 11 day stretches, places where you are not allowed to speak, listen to music, smoke, drink anything but water, or eat anything but dahl, rice and curd. They live in Ashrams for a week or two, a kind of one stop spiritual enema shop. They buy crystals, man. They wear Indian sadu clothing, or maybe novice monk robes. They may even shave their head.

They spout such bollocks as:
"Yeah man, its so spiritual, you know, you really get to know yourself. My chakras are glowing man, can you feel the energy? No? Hold this crystal, it will channel the energy to you man."
FlashPacker Translation:
"I paid a fortune to do something I could have easily done at home. In fact I could have done it anywhere! No special equipment required, all I have to do is do the world a favour and shut the f%$k up for 11 days and sit on my arse. I really am a dumb wanker, please kick me repeatedly in the head"

And:
"Yeah man, I'm so centered now. I've dealt with all this stuff. Thing is I didn't even know that it was bothering me until I went, but now man, I'm just so centered"
FlashPacker Translation:
"I got stung by a business baba, a money guru, a rupee sadu. He drew me in with a line like, 'I can feel from your aura that you have had a lot of hardship in your past, let me help you heal yourself. I feel that maybe you have had some unhappiness in your family'. Of course I've had hardships in your past - everyone has, but at least I don't have the hardship of carrying a heavy wallet around with me now."

And my favourite (this only comes from the females):
"Like wow, like, you know, my guru says that I am really in touch with my self. He says, like, I'm already a level 3, which is like amazing, because, like all the men starting were only level 1. He says that with a little personal tuition I could reach a level 4, or maybe even a level 5! He says that the quickest path to enlightenment is via tantra. We start a week long intensive tantra course tomorrow"
FlashPacker Translation:
"My guru says that he really wants to touch me, and I'm so vacuous that I buy into all his crap. This is what is known as being Royally F$#ked, as not only with I leave with a much lighter wallet, buy I might even get a few freebies. I hear that Ghonorea and Warts are on special this month. I might even win the grand prize - A Brand New Baby."


I say to you all: if you like it so much, why don't you give up your previous nationality? Marry an Indian? Stay forever?....... What's that? Oh, you'd miss your Playstation too much? Oh what a shame. You never know though, maybe Sony will release a "Yogic retreat: the mega crystal tantra odyssey" game, then you'll be set.

No please, I'm serious, stay forever. We don't want you and your patchuli stench around us.

And for anyone who hasn't been to India, I'm dead serious. People like this really do exist. They exist in droves.


Anyway, back to the title of this post. The Bowl Movements Conversation. Whenever travelers meet in India they inevitably get round to this conversation sooner or later: "Have you been sick much?" or something similar. This is because pretty much everyone gets sick at some point, or more likely at multiple points (unless of course, you're hippy nuts and berries patuli wearing chakra kid - then your crystal will protect you, and if you do get the squirts, this is just your crystal expunging your bad energy).
Why do all the travelers always get sick in India?
Well in a word, its because India is filthy, and understand me here, I don't mean just your run of the mill filthy, I mean FILTHY. There is more concentrated filth here than in New Scotland Yard. I honestly think it is the most filthy place in the world, if not the entire universe.
I saw a bin here the other day. I almost had a heart attack. It was empty though. I think the locals must have thought it was some wired new fangled art installation or something.
If you catch a train anywhere, you will notice that there aren't many bins on board. Indians prefer to just throw all their rubbish out of the window. The few bins that exist (one per carriage), are bottomless! The bottom of the bin is open. You put rubbish in the top, and it pushes the rubbish out of the bottom and onto the tracks.
The toilets on the train are pretty much the same as the bins. Straight onto the tracks. Amusingly, there is a sign in the toilet reading "Please try to not use at stations". Not "Do not, under any circumstances, use at stations". But then again why should it. It is perfectly acceptable to just drop your pants and take a crap pretty much anywhere you feel like here.

this is why people get sick when they visit India. You are touching, inhaling and ingesting concentrated human filth every second of the day, so if you do come, make sure you bring some crystals with you.

Sikh and Ye Shall Find

Or: How Traci came to inflict her singing on and old Indian man, whilst on a crowded bus from Pathankot to Amritsar.
(Answer: he asked me)

Who could refuse a request from such a sweet old man with smiling eyes to "sing a song from your country"? I succumbed to the moment, and agreed to do something that would usually send me quivering into a corner with fear and shame.
The first song that came to my cowards' mind was the Australian national anthem (at least I knew the words), but when I started to sing, he stopped me abruptly by saying, "No, no... something with a tune. Sing something with a tune."
Embarrassed, I said to him that actually there is a tune to the national anthem, it's just that I have a terrible voice. Those of you who have been inflicted with my singing will know this to be true. But, he just smiled encouragingly at me, and waited, presumably thinking that I actually had it in me to sing some kind of aria that would invoke the beauty of my country and tell a story of it's victories and hardships in a range of melodic tones.
Unfortunately, the only other song that came to mind was Rolf Harris', 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' which I lamely sang two lines of. This of course convinced the old man that in fact I was tone deaf, and he didn't burden either of us again by asking me to sing another one.


It was a combination of having sat on buses for about 8 hours that day, and the hoard of rickshaw wallahs frothing at the mouth at the site of fresh blood, that made me want to walk the 2 ks to our hotel from the bus station.
Hotel Grace is recommended by the LP guide, and it's very close to the sole attraction of Amritsar, the Golden Temple, so we decided to hole up there. Hole being the appropriate word.
Our attached shower literally sent out three individual and ineffectual pin pricks of water when turned on at full bore, and there was also a disconcerting hole in one of the walls (facing the car park) that had been covered by a sheet of red felt into which someone had kindly poked some holes. Other than that, it was actually a very spacious room and it did have a TV, a large double bed and a working western style toilet. It would do for a couple of nights.


Next morning I was woken up to the sound of pigeons cooing on our window ledge, which has never happened to me before, and I'm sure I'll always associate it with Amritsar. More importantly however, today was the day when we would visit the Golden Temple, the most holiest of Sikh temples.

The Golden Temple.

Before entering the huge complex (which is surrounded by a high white marble wall and, oddly, looks more like a shopping complex with it's many permanent stalls than a holy site), you must take of your shoes and wash your feet and hands and cover your head. The Sikhs were prostrating at the temple entrance, and it was difficult not to be humbled by the sight of it all.

The Golden Temple is not only surrounded by high marble walls, but it's set in the middle of an immense square lake which you walk around in a clockwise direction to reach the temples' entrance. At the opposite end of the lake to the temple, we watch hundreds of people bathing in the holy waters, and as we continued walking around, we saw many more hundreds of people either praying or meditating in this peaceful environment. There was also a constant sound of Sikh Sufi music that emanated from a microphoned quintet inside the temple itself. It created a beautiful atmosphere for prayer or just to admire the amazing temple.

The Golden Temple situated on the man made lake and surrounded by high marble walls.

Despite this beautiful temple being the focus of prayer and beauty, we had no fewer than five photos taken of us in as many minutes, by some men who were presumably Hindus. I allowed four photos, until I realised that they were all taking turns to have their photo taken while standing next to me (so they can pretend that I was their girlfriend and brag about it to their mates later), so only Tim appeared in the last photo. Could they have picked a more inappropriate place to act like such disrespectful, immature wankers??

Anyway, once we finally reached the temple walkway (it's a looong walk around the lake), we joined the throng of people in reasonably orderly queues to wait for our turn to enter the Golden temple. The walkway was covered by a long marquee, and had several fans cooling us from above. To my eyes, it looked very much like an expensive and beautiful wedding marquee.
Once we finally reached the temple, we couldn't help but be awestruck by the lavish interior complete with a massive crystal chandelier. There was a fenced off section on the ground level where the Sufi band was playing, and where another Sikh man accepting the gifts from the never ending succession of worshipers.

The covered entrance to the Golden Temple.

We walked through the temple and up to the first floor and then we walked around the temple (in a clockwise directions of course). At the back of the temple, we paused at a sign that said, "please take a step back to drink the holy water". I was initially puzzled by the sign, until I saw all the people kneeling down to drink the water from the lake - the sign was merely asking them to make room for others whilst they drink the brown water. This is the same holy water that the people had been bathing in on the opposite side of the lake.
It's official then: cleanliness really isn't next to godliness.

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

After our Spitian trip, we felt we deserved to relax for a week or so. In this time we literally did nothing apart from play cards and eat lots of "western" food.

Eventually, we summoned the energy, and the will, to pry our bums off of the comfortable floor seating in our Old Manali guest house (and away from the ever cool-under-pressure, Pratha) and head to McCleod Ganj for a change of scenery.

This is highly ironic, as we really just moved from one lazy environment to a very similar one in Bhagsu (near McCleod Ganj). Our guest house restaurant even has floor cushions and a similarly helpful and friendly waiter as the one at Veer guest house in Manali. This one is a Pratha reincarnate called Ravi.

Days flew past. Did I mention that there's also an internet cafe AND a shop stocking all manner of goodies on site?

Then, out of the drizzly skies came salvation: a silversmith course! And it too is in the same complex as our guest house!

However, what started as a worthy distraction for a minimum of three days became a test of ones' spirit and determination, as the ability to file a precious metal and be able to tell the difference between 70, 90 and 96% silver became important.
We persisted, and have come up trumps with some lovely rings and a silver bangle for our trouble. Ben and Ellie got well stuck into it, and even went so far as to buy lots of different semi-precious stones to incorporate into their pieces.

Here are some action shots of the class:

Tim squished behind one of the working tables.

Completely absorbed in filing a ring.

Ben getting frustrated in the corner.

Our guru, Ravi, who has the patience of a saint and fixes your mistakes, but only once you've
adequately proved (i.e. after the third attempt) that you're really really bad at it.