Our last week in India has begun - and so has the scramble to see places we haven't been to yet, and looking for presents to take home. Not to be missed is a climb up the 1000 steps of Chamundi Hill. Here we go!

CHAMUNDI HILL

Chamundi Hill hosts the main temple in India for the goddess Chamundi.  Chamundi is a version of the warrior goddess Durga, and Chamundi received her name after she killed the two demons, Chanda and Munda.  Oh and she has three eyes, eight arms, and carries a trident, mace, arrow, disk, conch shell, shield and a rope.  And she rides a tiger.  Sometimes it’s a lion.  It can also be a buffalo.  I guess the animal she rides depends on the mood she is in at that present time.  All I am trying to say is, she is badass.  There is one thousand steps leading up to the top of Chamundi Hill, and at around seven hundred there is a Swami devoted to Shiva, the god of destruction.  Swamis are holy men, and mum knew this particular Swami.  He also has a giant bull statue outside the cave he lives in. 

Anyway, to our story.  After a hair raising scooter ride through town, we arrived at the bottom of the thousand steps.  There was a vast array of indian wildlife down there.  Monkeys, cows and turkeys all over the place.  The start of the steps had a big arch over it with statues of gods and all that holy Indian stuff.  It was really cool, and the crafting skill in the carving was exquisite.  We began our ascent, and then stopped again after about ten steps, because mum paid her respects to a Ganesh shrine.  We began our ascent once again.  On the corner of every step was a mixture of coloured powder, as some people, as they walk up, put a bit of powder on every step.  The view of the city just got better as we went up.  It was very different to Australian views, because there was a smog covering the entire of Mysore, making everything look a bit dull.  The view was spectacular nonetheless.  We arrived at the Bull statue and the Swami’s cave, took of our shoes, and did the ritual of walking around the bull three times thinking to yourself ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ which is a prayer to Shiva, as the statue was Shiva’s steed, a bull.  Also this being a giant bull, it had giant testicles.  Mum told Ariel and I that, according to legend, if you touch the bull’s balls, it increases your fertility.  So touch the balls we did.  Mum also got a photo of us touching the gargantuan testicles, happy day.  After the testicular experience we headed to the Swami’s cave.  We popped inside his cave, which was very tiny.  It had been pretty pimped out though.  Tiled floor, padded roof, painted, and he had a very packed shrine.  I found out later that this wasn’t the cave he lived in.  He had a bigger one around the back.  It had a lot of statues and incense.  And his offerings tray had quite a lot of money.  The Swami himself was a short little man, with the traditional orange clothes and long hair and beard.  He was very nice.  Him and mum had a short conversation, then we paid our respects by touching his feet then touching our hands to our heart.  We left a bit of money and he also gave us a handful of sugar each.  We walked out of the cave, ate our sugar, put on our shoes, and continued up the hill. 

We passed A LOT of chipmunks on the way up.  They are everywhere in Mysore, but there was double the usual amount up here.  Chipmunks are funny little creatures.  They constantly live in a sustained state of mild panic.  Like little birds.  They never look relaxed.  And when they run it’s a stiff legged half-hop, and their tails stick straight up in the air.  The amount of Chipmunk brown-eyes I’ve had is too many to count.  We arrived to the top of the hill, and it was bustling with life.  Cows, monkeys, goats, and more monkeys.  There is a whole village at the top of Chamundi hill, and of course, the temple.  The temple was a tall structure, covered with statues of gods and exquisite carvings.  There was a vast array of different shops surrounding the temple, mostly food.  We decided not to go into the temple, we just looked from the outside.  We walked around the temple, which was pretty much a lap of the whole village.  We got about one quarter around, and this young cow, not full grown, came galloping out and ran quite quickly down the street, where there was three small Indian children walking along.  They screamed and ran out of the way.  The cow however, was not heading for them.  It merely ran past them and into the buildings on the other side of the street.  Mum, Ariel and I watched this unfold with much amusement.  We continued to walk around the temple, and when we were about one third around the cow appeared again.  It let out a big, sad sounding MOO and ran across the street.  I don’t know what vexed this cow, but it was pissed off.  It continued up the street opposite our trio, at around the same pace as us, until it ran into a cat walking along the fence line.  It seemed very interested in this cat and it started to follow it.  This seemed to calm the cow down.  We finished our lap of the temple, climbed up on a wall, and enjoyed the view of Mysore for a good ten minutes.  After that, we got a drink each and walked back down.  We got to the bottom, worn out but pleased, paid the guy you watched our scooters, said goodbye to the turkeys who were getting a bit close for comfort, and left.

After a little over three weeks in India, Felix shares his thoughts on the positives and negatives...

INDIA GOODS AND BADS

GOOD

1. Food.  This is plain obvious.  Indian food rocks!
2. Liveliness.  The whole place is just buzzing with activity the whole time.  People and animals milling together, all going about their business.
3. Monkeys.  When they aren’t busy attacking you, monkeys are probably the funniest creatures on earth.  They climb so well it makes me jealous, they are greedy, and the babies are adorable.
4. Cows.  Why can’t we have cows just roaming the streets in Australia?  They just add to the place.  Helps build character
5. Yoga.  Duh.  Why did I come here if not to do yoga.
6. Scooter.  Mum has started letting me drive it.  There is not much more fun than hooning down and Indian side street on a scooter.  Believe me.
7. Smells.  Especially where we are staying.  The Indian family that owns the place are always cooking, therefore the house is always full of delicious smells.
8. Meeting new people.  I have made a few new friends on this trip, closest of which is Ariel, a 17 year old from Costa Rica.  We have been having a great time.
9. Coconuts.  Nothing is better than a cold coconut after a hot practice.  I found out that coconuts greatly restore energy.  One time the coconut man wasn’t there after practiced.  I hardly made it home.  I felt betrayed, and my trust in this coconut man has lowered considerably.
10. Hampi!  Of course!  It was such a great experience, seeing and climbing this vast landscape of boulders.  Except when the monkey attacked me.  That wasn’t so fun.

BAD

1. Locals who stare at me.  Every second guy you pass in the street just full on stares at you.  After a while I got fed up, so every guy who stared at me, I stared at them right back.
2. Various animal turds.  They are everywhere!  You have to keep a subconscious crap detector whenever you go outside!  But you can never escape the smell.
3. Monkeys who attack me.  If you read the past blog, you know the full story.  Enough said.  It’s not like I wanted to keep the pants I was wearing that day anyway.
4. Cows who attack me.  I was just walking down the street minding my own business, when a cow decides to ram its horn into my belly and slobber all over me.  Bloody cows.
5. Led class.  Nothing is more tiring than a yoga teacher who holds you in those really uncomfortable poses forever.  And keeping up.  I’m not too good at that.
6. Traffic.  There are no proper rules! Mum and I came up with rules of our own.
   1 don’t go near buses
   2 beep your horn
   3 don’t go near buses
7. Buses.  They are horrible to be in and around.  It is quite terrifying when you are on a small scooter, and then you hear an ear-splitting horn blast, and there’s a bus right behind you.  They are also very horrible to be in for eleven hours straight.  They are hot, smelly, and the bus driver beeps the bloody horn every two minutes.  The horns on the bus are eardrum piercingly loud.  Bus drivers don’t like letting people sleep.
8. Bus stations.  Like the buses, they are smelly, dirty and loud.
9. The toilets.  There is no toilet paper.   Just a bucket and a tap.  Maybe If your lucky you get a hose.  I will let you imagine the rest.
10. Eh, nine is enough.  India is not bad enough to deserve a tenth.

Felix goes to Hampi

HAMPI

Day #1: an early start.  A really early start.  Groggy and tired we got our stuff and waited for Ariel and Mariela to pick us up in their rickshaw.  We drove to the bus station and got on our bus.  The bus ride, a 9 hour long adventure, was boring as all hell, but we did get to see A LOT of India.  The countryside changed dramatically from forest to a dry and arid landscape.  When we FINALLY got off the bus, in Hospet, we had a few minutes to, no wait here we go again, we caught ANOTHER bus, this time only a half hour trip, to finally get to Hampi.  We got off the bus, and asked a Rickshaw driver to take us to the place we had booked, The Goan Corner.  He informed us that we had to cross the river that parted the main bustling bit of Hampi to the less populated side.  We got to the river and had a long discussion on whether to stay on the side we were on and find a new place, or cross the river and go to The Goan Corner.  We decided to head BACK into town and find a place there.  Ariel and I stayed in the rickshaw whilst the mothers went looking from place to place.  It turned out that they were all crap, and we decided to drive back to the river and cross it.  We did just that, taking the local “ferry” (a small dingy) across.  We walked up the hill on the other side of the river, through the small town, across a few rice paddies, and we finally arrived.  The Goan Corner was a very lovely place, surrounded on two sides by rice paddies, and a very nice view of the MILLIONS of rocky hills.  Ariel, being a climber, and Me, being a rockhopper, were delighted.  We sorted out our rooms, unpacked our stuff, and Ariel and I went exploring.  We climbed up, met people, checked out the bouldering spots, and enjoyed the view.  When we headed down, we had a well needed dinner, then we went back up on the rocks, this time with the mothers, to watch the Full Moon rise.  It was red/orange, and very beautiful.  When it was all over, we headed down to the soft beds and had some well-needed sleep.

Day #2:

The Lake: Before we set out to go to the lake, we had been told multiple times that we shouldn’t walk.  But Mum and Mariela decided to walk anyway.  “Oh its only 3 kilometres” they said.  We walked for about ten minutes when a rickshaw drove up to us, stopped, and asked us if we wanted to get in.  After some discussion, we hopped in the rickshaw and drove to the lake.

It wasn’t three kilometres. -.-

When we arrived there, we took a look at the lake.  It was an enormous mass of water, kilometres wide and long, surrounded by rocks and shrubbery.  On a lot of the rocks was written ‘no swimming crocodile inside.’  Well we didn’t see that one lonely crocodile.  There was a few groups of Indian guys in boats on the lake, and we saw a group of Indians/Westerners nearby jumping off a rock into the lake, and there was a nice little beach next to the rock.  We changed, and jumped into the cold, refreshing water.  After a few minutes, Mum and Mariela got out and sat on the rocks to dry.  Ariel and I went and sat with them when the  group of men that were in their boat came and sat on the surrounding rocks and simply stared at our two mothers.  After a few minutes, Mum decided she’d had enough of being stared at, so she told them to stop staring and piss off.  A few minutes later we left.  We caught the same Rickshaw to the Monkey Temple.

The Hanuman Temple: There was a long winding flight of steps leading up the side of the mountain.  We encountered lots of monkeys up the steps, and the view of the rocky landscape of Hampi and its surroundings extended with each step we took up.  When we finally arrived at the top, we kicked off our shoes, and went to have a look around.  There was the main temple building, a small structure that was locked, and not really that extravagant, and then the rest of the mountaintop was a concrete courtyard.  The view was fantastic.  Miles and miles of big rocky outcrops, rice paddies and coconut trees.  It felt like we were sitting on top of the world.  And you could see why it was nicknamed ‘The Monkey Temple,’ There was monkeys all over the place. Monkeys eating, sleeping, rooting, just doing all the monkeyish things imaginable.  Except flinging turds.  There were no airborne piles of faeces around thank god.  When we were done enjoying the view and the monkeys, we headed down again.  Halfway down the steps, we found a little path leading off from the main one.  We headed along, and found a little shrine.  Near the shrine was a group of Langurs.  I went forward to have a closer look, and after about thirty seconds, a little monkey detached from the group and starting screeching and baring its teeth at me, pacing back and forth between the main group and I.  After this monkey had been going off its nut for about two minutes, a much larger came out, and charged me, with its sharp little teeth and long legs and arms ready to pounce.  I kicked at it multiple times, trying to keep it at bay, while also concentrating on not crapping my pants.  This monkey looked bigger close up, okay. Then a little Indian boy ran out of the shrine and started yelling “Run Away! Run Away!”  So run away I did.  Very Quickly.  It turns out that as soon as I spun and ran, so did the monkey.  I made my way down the rest of the mountain a little shaken, and with one more story to tell.

The day after this, we made our way home. And the bus trip, this time 11 hours, didn't bear writing about. :)

Mysore 2014 - Indian yoga adventures with Felix

Two weeks after arriving in Mysore, we have worked out how to "drive" this blog site again. For this trip, we have decided that Felix would be the voice. Here are two things he wrote within the first few days of getting here.

Well, so far, this trip to India has been quite interesting.  We arrived at Gokulam, Mysore, at about 2am, unpacked our stuff, and went to sleep.  Well, maybe not sleep.  See, when we arrived, our bodies thought it was time to wake up.  So we dozed till about 7am local time, then got dressed and went down the road for our first cup of Chai in India.  Mum saw some yoga friends and we sat on the step of some building sipping away at our Chai.  When we left there we went straight to another Café were we had breakfast.  After a well-needed meal we came back to the house and rested till around midday when we left to go to lunch.  On the way down the street we encountered one of the common cows that roam the city.  I was expecting it to just let me pass, as I intended, but obviously this cow was having a bad day, and decided to take its anger out on me.  I copped a cow horn in the belly and a nice serving of cow slobber all over the left side of my body.  I didn’t know I could move as quickly as I did when I got out of the cows way.  I now have a fear of cows and won’t go in a ten metre radius of one.  After that unexpected turn of events we arrived at the restaurant where we were planning on having lunch, but it was shut.  Luckily, two of mums friends came past in a Rickshaw (kinda like a taxi) and told us they were going to lunch at a place just up the road so we went with them and had a nice lunch.  When that was finished we caught a rickshaw to the Shala (yoga place) and waited till we got in.  Sharath then spoke about breathing and yoga for an hour, then mum and I registered for classes then we went home, chilled, and went to bed.

And soon we were registered to practice yoga at our respective shalas (me with Sharath, Felix with Saraswati). Felix on practice:

PRACTICE #1

The original plan was that two of mum's friends would walk me to the Shala I was practising at.   When they didn’t show up, mum asked the gatekeeper of the main Shala to take me.  He said yes so I jumped on the back of his scooter and he drove me there, at a frighteningly fast speed.  So fast that I lost track of the way and had no idea how to get home.  I arrived at the shala, kicked my thongs off and went inside and waited for a spot.  When Saraswati called me in, I set up my mat and got to practice.  Saraswati and her assistant managed to push me into all the poses I have never been able to do properly, which left me sore the next day.  It didn’t really feel that different to me to be in a space with lots of other people as I was mainly just focused on myself.  After practice, I got myself a coconut and asked a fellow yogi if he knew the way back.  He showed me a faster route and I made a friend in the process.