Social Butterfly whose wings are melting....

Actually, I am very happy, which I am not sure that the title of the blog conveys, but it did get hot in Lucknow almost overnight (about a week ago). Now the daily high temperature is around 100. So I try to go and do fun things, and then I usually have to go home to lay under my fan in the afternoon and marvel at all the places I can sweat.

But despite the heat, I am having some very nice days. About a week ago, I went to my friends' home to have a late lunch and visit. It was a nice, long afternoon - my friends have two children and we played quite a bit. Below is a picture of their daughter (whose birthday is today) on her dad's motorcycle. We went to their home after she was finished with school, that is why she is wearing the uniform.

The following day, I went to "Amma's" home for dinner. She lives with her husband, her daughter (whose name is Goria), Goria's husband, and Goria's two children. In addition to being quite close with "Amma", Goria and I are also good friends, so we had a really fun time laughing and visiting. Below is a picture of Goria and Amma cooking dinner. In the background is Goria's daughter and a neighbor boy. The neighbor boy had all sorts of questions about America and he asked these questions very very quickly - so he had to repeat them a few times before I could understand them - but he was overjoyed to learn about a new place. t was a fun evening.

As you walk into the neighborhood where Goria lives, there is a mandir (or temple) dedicated to the god Shiva. It seems like many neighborhoods have a mandir or a mosque near the entryway (sometimes both). I put a picture of a part of the shrine near Goria's house and the man is responsible for its upkeep below.

At school, I am still learning how to cook and enjoying my time with the cooks. Below is a picture of me making chutney. Chutney means sauce in Hindustani, but usually refers to a spicy side item that you can eat with just about anything. Below, I am making an am (mango) chutney. The mango used is green, so it tastes bitter. To make the chutney, I grind the green am, some spicy peppers, onion, garlic, and mint. It is really delicious (I like it with vegetables, almost like a salad dressing), but it is hard work in the heat.....

A pleasant day

And yesterday, was one of the more special days in the city. Although nothing very different from usual happened, I had a really lovely time spending time with some of my favorite Lucknowis.

My day started like usual, biked to my yoga class, came home, ate breakfast (the fruit here is yummy), and went to school. Fridays are pretty easy days at school, so I often spend part of the time I am there with the school's cooks. I really like spending time with the cooks and I am learning to make some really delicious meals (everyone is welcome over for a dinner feast when I return to the US). Below is a picture of me and the cooks. Gita-ji is the lady in the lower left of the picture. She is the head cook and a really patient and nice woman. Her super awesome and funny assistant's name is Anita-ji. The three of us have spent many a morning laughing and laughing.


After a very delicious lunch of salad, choli (chickpeas), roti (bread), aloo-goobi (potato and cauliflower), and dal (lentils), I went to Gita-ji's house for an afternoon visit. I love visiting her house as her family is so friendly - although I often feel at a complete loss as to who is related and how they are related. Hindi/Urdu is really interesting in that each family relation has a special name. So your mom's sister is called something different than your dad's sister and that name is different than your dad's brother's wife. This is confusing at the aunt/uncle level and almost impossible for me at the cousin level - I just can't remember all the words. But it is fun to try to puzzle out. At Gita-ji's house, I we chatted and drank some chai (tea). It was lovely.


Later that evening, another good friend of mine in Lucknow stopped by my house for a nice chat. I call her "amma", which means mother, but her real name is Seela. Calling older people or people in relations of authority over oneself by family names is very common. For example, I call the cooks "aunti" and my yoga teachers "didi", which means older sister, even though I think they are younger than me. I've put a picture of amma and I below. We are at my house.

My trip to Nepal

Oh, my, this past week and a half has seemed super busy and I am hoping to wind it down soon..... Anyway, I really wanted to post about my trip to Nepal 2 weeks ago now (oh, how fast time goes!).

Like I said in an earlier blog, I spent over a day on buses getting to Kathmandu. A long trip, but well worth the time as I really think Kathmandu is one of my favorite cities I have visited. The day following my arrival, I wandered around the tourist area I was staying in. I bought a guide book and took the walking tour to Kathmandu's Durbar square (Durbar means royal court). It was a pleasant day and I really enjoyed walking around the city.

Because I liked walking around the city so much, the next day I decided to walk to an eastern suburb of the city to see the most important Hindu temple in Kathmandu, called Pashupatinath. After that, I walked northeast to Bodnath, a Buddhist stupa linked to Tibetan Buddhism. There, I had a nice lunch at a vegan cafe; I sat on the roof of the cafe and had a wonderful view of the stupa. (There is a picture of the stupa below.)

The following day, in the morning, I walked to another Buddhist stupa, Swayanbhunath. It was a lot closer than Bodnath, but a lot harder of a walk because the trip was all uphill from where I was staying and then once I arrived at the stupa, I had to climb 333 stairs to get to the top. There is a picture of this stupa below, if you look hard, you can see me in the lower right corner. As you can see, both of the stupas have eyes painted on them and prayer flags hanging from them. The eyes are symbolic of god's all-seeing perspective. There is no nose between the eyes but rather a representation of the number one in the Nepali alphabet, signifying that the single way to enlightenment is through the Buddhist path. Above each pair of eyes is another eye, the third eye, signifying the wisdom of looking within. No ears are shown because it is said the Buddha is not interested in hearing prayers in praise of him.


After returning to the area I was staying, I was feeling like I still wanted to explore Kathmandu more, so I walked south to Patan, the second biggest city in the Kathmandu valley. There I explored Patan's Durbar Square (see picture below) and wandered around the city. Perhaps the highlight of the trip was the steamed veggie momos (Tibetan dumplings) that I bought from a lady on the street, they were delicious....


As I was walking back to my hotel, I ran into these lovely girls. They were dressed for a school performance and agreed to let me take a picture of them. Aren't they lovely?


My last day in Kathmandu, I spent more time wandering around the city. Because there was a strike called that day (in protest of something regarding the government, but I am not really sure what....), the streets were empty of cars, which was very nice. However, no one had school or work, so many started celebrating Holi early. This meant that I spent a lot of my time dodging children's water balloons and I returned to my hotel thoroughly soaked.

One of the things that I really liked about Kathmandu was the way in which very ancient temples, statues, and monuments were incorporated into the city. The picture below shows how a clothing seller had set up his shop on the front steps of a very old Hindu temple and the temple was in the middle of newer apartment buildings. It was really quite pleasant, because more often than not, when I turned a corner, I was met with an elaborate mixture of the past and the present....

The next day I took the bus to Pokhara. The ride was about 7 hours and the trip was quite beautiful through some mountains. Pokhara is a beautiful small city located on a lake. A picture of me on the lake is below. I was hoping to do some walking through the hills, but unfortunately, it was quite rainy in Pokhara and this put a damper on how much walking was possible.


However, on my second day, it did not rain in the morning, so I walked into the hills to see some of the area. Below are two pictures from my hike. (I am in the second, with a lady I met from Holland. One of the really nice things about Nepal , in general, was that there were a lot of single travellers who had interesting stories and it was relatively easy to find someone to take a walk with or have dinner with.)


In the pictures above, you can see that the hills have a thick layer of clouds over them. In Pokhara, early in the morning, and before the clouds blow in, it is possible to see the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. Pictures of the Annapurna range are below. The mountains really took my breath away, they were so beautiful.



After Pokhara, I returned home to Lucknow in time for Holi celebrations (as I described in my last blog). My trip to Nepal was a super wonderful. I loved the people that I met in Nepal, found the country to be very pleasant and welcoming and I really hope that I get the chance to visit again (and maybe take a long trek in those snow-capped mountains!).

Happy Holi!

Well, I have so much to talk about here, so I think there may be a lot of typing today and tomorrow, as I really want to tell about my trip because it was so great. But I feel like I should work backwards, because today and yesterday are/were Holi and I wanted to talk about it.....

Holi is an annual Hindu spring festival and people celebrate by throwing colored powder at each other and spraying each other with water. On the night between the two days, people burn large fires on the streets. While technically the holiday began yesterday, walking around Kathmandu, I was hit by my fair share of water balloons, so it seems that celebrating begins early.....

Yesterday I took the bus from Pokhara to the Indian border and then another bus from the border to my train. Walking between buses, I saw many people celebrating and was even given quite a few tikkas (marks on my forehead - see the pictures below)



Then I arrived home this morning, after 25 hours of traveling. I was so proud not to be covered by dye. However, the girls of the house greeted me with a dye-fight and now I look like this:

My neighbors are also celebrating Holi (like everyone in India and Nepal) and have set up really really loud speakers on the street (outside my window) and they are playing two songs - "Happy Happy Holi" and some very loud techno song that only has the words "Where are you?" and what sounds like a chicken squawk- over and over again. I think I am going to give up on my original idea of a nap and go celebrate.....

and this is how I looked in the middle of the day. So much more celebrating left to do....