A perfect day in champagne.

Have you ever had a day that you knew, before it had even begun, would be a day that you would probably always remember? Maybe you could call it anticipatory nostalgia? It's a ''remember that time next week when we had the best day ever?'' kind of feeling. A few weeks ago, a beautiful sunny Sunday was one of those days for us, and as such must be shared, so here it is. A perfect day in Champagne with Tyson.

Tyson and his amazing wife Rachael (and their fantastic boys for that matter) are truly great friends of ours whom we love dearly and when Tyson said he would be in Europe at the same time as us we definitely wanted to arrange a rendezvous. At the end of our time in Spain all we were sure of was that we wanted to go to Germany, and as geography has it, France is right in the way. Sneaky Champagne catch up scheming began!

Two carpooling trips, a night couch-surfing with a Kenyan ex-Olympic athlete, 4 days with a raw-vegan including one nude day, a night in Paris at the festival of music in the city centre with a friend we made doing yoga in India, two early metros, a train and another car pool trip later (other stories for other times...) we arrived in Champagne!

Overwhelmed at the excitement of seeing someone we actually know, my mind raced with dozens of questions all at once and couldn't decide which to send to my lips so I filled my mouth with farm fresh raspberries Tyson had bought on the way instead. He told us he had intended to buy strawberries but, due in part to Mr strawberry-struck-Stelzer's visits in previous days, the farm had run out!

Not one to do anything by halves, Tyson hadn't just sketched out a rough idea of things to do for the afternoon and evening but had carefully scheduled a wonderful day down to the hour, designed to ensure we would have the quintessential champagne experience and have plenty of fun along the way and simultaneously appearing to be making it up as he went along and surprising us every step of the way!

We caught up over lunch, swapping stories from the last few months and enjoying seafood with our first bottle of champagne for the day. Tasting pink peppers for the first time though was the highlight of the meal. I didn't know pink had a flavour!

Following lunch, we didn't need to drive far from the centre of Reims to our next appointment – a private tour and tasting at the most prestigious Taittinger (www.taittinger.com). Each moment at this exemplary Champagne house was saturated with centuries of tradition.


As we (literally) went deeper and deeper into Taittinger, or rather under it,

we learned about the processes and methods of champagne making, took in the history of the region and were swept up in the romance and mystery of the crisp 13th century cellars and below them the 4th century Roman chalk caves. Hundred year old lover’s graffiti, initials in hearts and flowers, short stair cases with overhead step guides for the hands of monks moving through the tunnels in the dark and rough marks of ancient hammers told the stories of the caves over time.

In total contrast, a ride in the elevator to a grand room just two floors above exposed the corporate modernity of the large international exporter in the tiny plastic faces of the French and Brazilian foosball players in the custom made table and the holographic soccer ball/champagne bubble labels of the limited edition bottles for the 2014 World Cup (Taittinger is the official champagne partner). Our experience of Taittinger was made complete with a tasting of the house’s specialty in a private room with our guide, Mathieu, who poured generously. Back in the car, with a bottle each for later on, we drove past the majestic cathedral and continued our adventure.

From the heights of splendour and opulence in the Champagne region, we changed pace for a while and spent a leisurely drive taking in the provincial village streets and charming vineyards of the Montagne de Reims area. We arrived at what Daniel and I thought was going to be a stroll through the forest (and it was at first – with dappled light seeping through high branches down to mossy stones and birds crooning us as somewhere nearby thrill seekers could be heard sailing down flying foxes on the ropes course). Tyson surprised us again though with a booking at the perchingbar which, as the name suggests, is a tree house style champagne bar in the canopy of the forest overlooking the vineyards and small towns of the district. It was the perfect place to watch the fields soak up the bright afternoon sun. If you happen to be in the area, this is worth the visit.

Another enchanting drive brought us to our next surprise, and a truly special place. Tyson had told us about his visits here from previous trips so the reputation preceded it, and we definitely not disappointed by dinner at Anselme Selosse's Les Avises. I can’t even describe how incredible our time at this brilliant biodynamic organic champagne house/restaurant was. We loved everything about it! The champagne was seriously incredible, with different aspects revealed as it befriended and welcomed each of the first 4 courses or so of our meal. And the food! My goodness! The chef creates a new 4-5 course menu every day, as he has done since the restaurant opened. He only uses quality fresh seasonal produce and (I hear) has never repeated an item.

That’s creativity! Everyone who books for dinner eats the same meal so other than selecting your accompanying champagne, you just sit down and enjoy the ride. And what a ride! Though there were many divine flavour combinations that kept us audibly “mmmm”ing as the night went on, the roasted goats cheese stuffed dates stand out for me as a delight. We had shared our table with another party of three. As we all chatted together after dessert we learned that we were sitting with included Jean-Laurent Vacheron (another champagne maker) who was celebrating his birthday. Jean-Laurent invited us to join him and his friend for another bottle before we all left.

At 11.30pm, driving back to our B&B Tyson announced that he had one last surprise that he was very excited about and suspected that we would be too. We pulled up on a quiet residential street in Chouilly and Tyson handed us both bags. Then, with the last light still lingering on the horizon and with the enthusiasm and glee of children, I discarded my shoes and climbed trees as we all picked white cherries! Almost every tree on the footpath of the street was a white cherry tree so there was plenty to go around and no one was awake to catch us in our midnight thievery anyway. The spontaneity and fun of it kept me grinning for days afterwards.

 

Back at Les Barbotines at Paul Clouet in Bouzy, the most darling B&B I can imagine, our champagne had been cooled and the sitting room prepared for us with chocolates and flowers from the garden and we settled in until the wee small hours… And so, sitting in our bathrobes, glass of champagne in hand, handful of cherries in the other, the day ended how it began; with great chats between old friends over fresh fruit.

 Breakfast here deserves a mention. Do you know that seen from The Little Princess when she finds that someone has made a feast of so many wonderful different foods that she can’t even imagine and it’s just so full of joy? Well that’s what awaited us in the dining room; a banquet of freshly baked croissants, brioche, soft breads, seven different types of preserves including mango and passionfruit, champagne jelly (I don’t know if anyone else makes this but it is basically spreadable champagne – if you ever see it BUY IT!), flat white peaches and apricots, yoghurt with strawberry compote, omelettes, cured meats, cheeses, herbal teas, coffee. I honestly felt like it was Christmas.

We have so so so much gratitude to Tyson for what was one of the best days ever.

On Leaving Paris

I was beginning to wonder whether I'd enjoy European cities at all on this trip. I'm a different person from the happy go lucky young version of myself who traversed this continent 5 years ago, drinking beer, cycling and chasing God. I've closed some doors, and opened many more. Beer, for example, was an exciting proposition, a purpose even, in 2008. But the scene has exploded in Australia since then. We have so many options. I'm overstimulated and uninterested. This is an insight into my introversion. The Notre dam is entirely uninteresting to me. But the Sacre coure, up on the hill with its smooth domes and symmetry, its focus on a singular mural has me captivated. Less is more. Not so much has changed. I still find God in the quiet places of the forest of my mind. Even now I like to consume culture through my mouth. But I'm more particular. I know what I like and don't like. Europe is a portal to the past. The way of life is as fixed as those immortal Roman pillars that dominate those cities, carrying the heavy load of past struggle and success intertwined in the portraits. Old stories adorn the louvre, depicting hope and great struggle, centralised around the beautiful Jesus story which in this age of connectedness seems like a small piece of the puzzle which worked in a certain way for so long even when in many ways we missed the point of his mission to reveal oneness. The food traditions are so fixed here. Breakfast is a non-event. Coffee and cigarettes are consumed after meals. Lunch is between 12 and 1 with dinner much later, but of course, the food is cooked! Whilst indulging in our habit of seeking out specialty coffee in the morning, we were informed that France would become the number one specialty coffee nation within 5 years, because French people drink French coffee. Italians are harder to contribute to, because they "invented" espresso, the books are closed. We were told that Australians have a similar arrogance. Once you think you have it, you've lost it. It is the glorification of the past that traps us there. If something has always been a certain way, it is probably time to enter a new paradigm. There are too many stories of war and poverty in circulation, perpetually recreating. I dream of something new. I wonder what the art of the future will depict? Using war machines for agriculture, playing with wild animals, extra terrestrial communication, shamanic energetic connection to the divine. I hope so. When we are free from the idea of scarcity and separation, life will really begin. Perhaps the progressive Scandinavian countries will be a source of inspiration. But I did enjoy Paris. It is a large, old city, making no apologies for flamboyance, class and arrogance. The arrogance is something else. They don't need to prove anything. Its dirty, there are immigrants selling rubbish, its touristic and grey but it doesn't matter. Paris is Paris, they say. We had a kiss under the Eiffel tower before our anniversary and an Indian man presented us with a rose. This brilliantly fulfilled my habit of finding flowers for Lauren on the change of each season. If he was an adorable old French man with a beret, we would have had no hesitation in paying the 2 Euros he was asking. But the Indian accent was too fresh and we turned it down.

Switzerland

The Switzer in Switzerland translates to gold, diamonds, watches, banking and the highest minimum wage for the natives, but for the average traveller it means swimming naked in icy but unbelievably vibrantly coloured magical water from glaciers below behemoth snow caps, collecting pollen and mushrooms and eating nachos in the Interlaken hostel because you can't afford a real meal. Switzerland was like a dream with the sound muted. A vast contrast to "Incredible India". The air was without odour and when our eyes were closed we couldn't tell that our train was even moving. Its a Utopia. That truly sums up our brief visit to the land of cowbells. *insert video

from the snow peas

Working on an organic farm in France, you never know what your daily activities will be. Maybe you'll be planting tiny seedlings for something the French call courgette (which features far too frequently in our dinner menu if you ask me), maybe you'll be putting the new honey into jars for the shop, maybe you'll be planting sunflowers in spirals with a guy who is in the midst a midlife reawakening who just wants to "be in the soil", maybe you will sit with friends cleaning and trimming the spring onions, or sitting on the back of a tractor with an alcoholic schizophrenic who is rarely seen without a joint (I think he is trying to get so high that the voices can't reach up to him) planting potatoes and discussing why it is that we call them 'French' fries, or you might be picking buckets of crisp, snappy snow peas. Every day is different.

Three things are almost guaranteed though.

You will have slightly strange and awkward conversations in a hybrid English/French/Spanish that has developed with everyone using a lot of their own language and a little of everyone else's and almost everyone will understand almost everything.

You will be filthy; maybe only your knees, or only three fingers on your right hand because apparently that's all you use to pull out weeds? but somewhere, definitely, and it is impossible to be clean before dinner, if indeed ever again.

And finally, weather permitting - but sometimes even when it is not - you will spend a few hours weeding the carrots while having philosophical discussions.

I love picking the snow peas. It's slow and tedious, yes, but it's quiet and it's lovely and warm in the greenhouse even on miserably cold and wet days. There is plenty of quiet time to think. Also, my hands are totally clean after picking snow peas which really just means that I can get straight into eating when I'm done without spending half an hour scrubbing my hands into a more palatable layer of soil and mud.

Snow peas grow on vines.

The first time you look at the vine and take all the snow peas you can see you'll think you have found them all and that you are ready to move along to the next section. You will, however, be mistaken. Such a conclusion is actually a sign that you have missed about two thirds of them and you should look again. There are always more snow peas to be found. Sometimes they are so low you can't see them at first or they are hiding behind other parts of the vine. Sometimes they are right in front of your face but camouflaged. So you look a second time. This time you pull back the little tendrils of the vine and peer around to find a few more, previously hidden from view. You get down really low and find the sneaky ones that were hiding underneath. You give the branches a little shake so that the snow peas which move more vigorously than the leaves are exposed and you take them as well.

The second time you think you have got them all, you are much more confident and you move along the vine a little to the next section. Once you are comfortably arranged kneeling next to your bucket all ready to start again, you glance back at the previous section with a sense of accomplishment only to discover to your surprise that there are more snow peas hanging there, waiting for you. Some things can only be found when looking back. 

After grabbing the few remaining snow peas from the previous section of the vine and returning to the messy tangled greenery in front of you, you work happily for a few minutes. Then Maeva or Willy or Sandra walks towards you, passing along the vine you have just stripped of all its fruit and instead of praising you for your attentive work and bounty of greens, they reach down and pick even more snow peas from the area you thought you had cleared 3 times already. Sometimes we need the perspective of another to see or gain more.  

Like I said, there is plenty of time to think while you are picking snow peas, and I found myself thinking about how what is true in the green house is true in life generally.

There are always lessons to learn, and beautiful moments to experience if you are looking for them. Sometimes life is incredibly tangled and messy and complicated and you are sure there is nothing good left in it. Look again. And if you can't find anything right at the time, wait a little while, move along a little and look back. Maybe your shift in perspective will help you to see. Life is humbling. Sometimes if you invite someone else over, show them the mess you are in, and you let them sit with you they can help you to see what you couldn't on your own.

So this is what I learned one humid morning on a happy French farm. And I wish you all happy snappy snow pea picking, in whatever way makes sense to you. 

I shat my pants...

TLDR; I ate train food. I went to monkey temple in 48 degree heat. I shoved some men on a motorbike. I cried. I held a man's hand. I saw spiderman. I shat my pants. I went to hospital. They hooked me up to a drip. They took my temperature. They gave me medicine. They took my blood. They took my urine. They said he I was sodium/potassium deficient. They prescribed a coconut. They sold me chai. They gave me chai. They sold me chai. They gave me chai. They made me eat dhal. I felt grateful, I felt love. I felt judgemental. I felt one/many.

The combination that lead to my downfall in Jaipur is a complex one. I won't bore you with the details of my physical demise, but rather I will reflect on my spiritual Dark Night of the Soul. I came to India with the naive belief that I was capable of loving every being on this planet. This may be possible, but I experienced a lot of negative vibration toward my brothers and sisters of Indian culture, and I've become comfortable with the term hate. This is shocking to me.

My ego received a massive assault. I was faced with the apparent reality that nobody "got" me, and I really didn't want to accept that Indian people were how I perceived them.  After 6 weeks of travel in India and Nepal, I had grown beyond weary of fending off merchants, beggars and tuktuk drivers, staring down those sleazy boys who stared at Lauren, talking about Maxwell and Bailey who apparently play some perverted form of cricket, and turning down guides. Deep down I wanted to trust everyone and connect respectfully with real people without feeling like they are taking something from me.

After back to back long-haul train rides, the tickets for which we had to fight hard for, I was destroyed. When the mercury hit 48, I obliterated my breaking point. Lauren and I were foolishly taking our hosts advice of seeing the sights of Jaipur by Tuktuk. We would get 15 steps in to a temple, be confronted by young men who wanted "only talking, no money", and a large climb to get to the point of apparent interest. We had no interest. I started to snap. Some boys blocked our path, 3 of them on a motorbike to ask Lauren got a photo. Lauren yelled at them and they laughed. I gave one of them a hefty shove, almost tipping their bike over. They were younger boys seemingly taunting these tourists at their wits edge. I hurled the rest of my Sprite bottle off the cliff into the graveyard for plastic, known as any natural space in India. I despised this mess, but I felt helpless and infuriated. India had made me this. I was drinking soft-drink as I felt I needed sugar and couldn't trust that the fresh fruit juice would be clean. I trusted it would be anything but. This lashing out was foolish in that there were two of us, and potentially 1 billion Indians with phones who may be waiting at the entrance to the monkey temple.

Fortunately we made it back to the TukTuk in one piece, to find monkeys riding pigs and ramming our vehicle. That's India. We woke our driver and demanded that he take us to the cinema, where we could at least take respite in air conditioning. No temples. Please. I was feeling outrageously heat-struck and nauseous. I needed a release and I began to ball my eyes out, crying deep from within every fibre of my being. During this time of self-pity, I experienced a moment of unity, of empathy for the beings who were out on the street every day, covered in flies and faeces, diseased, disfigured and disempowered. I am them. Yet I receive mercy. They approach me with an open hand, and I turn away with disdain. I am wretched. A beggar. Yet I can escape. They cannot. The Injustice! I felt it, in a real way. It propelled me into mourning. I asked Lauren to pay the driver 100 more than his asking price, rather than the 100 less that we agreed upon. I was allowed to go in to the temple, aka the ritzy cinema, to collapse in a heap of sweat, tears and misery, sobbing into the couch. He got to go home to his rubbish pit. I deserved the floor, like the lowest caste on the train, dirty and disfigured, but I was taken by the hand to the gentlemens room to freshen up. I desperately wanted an Indian man to know why I am crying so wretchedly. That I finally get how it is for them. But they don't like to see a man like this. They offer me medicine. I decline.

After wetting my face and shoulders, I suddenly become an icicle. My body went in to shock. I was both hot and cold and shivering uncontrollably. Nothing was under my command that day. I felt it best to cry, to grieve and to distract myself from my physical condition, but I held it together for the sake of society. Lauren and I watched half of Spiderman 2 in 3D in Hindi, whilst giving our all to mediatation, energy channelling and basic distraction methods to control my shivering. I even employed laughter yoga techniques at inappropriate intervals. Suddenly, the film stopped, I laughed, and we left the room for intermission and some sunlight streaming from the window.

Upon commencement of part 2, I announced to my wonderful wife that I needed to go to the bathroom, and that perhaps I might need the toilet paper. She understandably pointed out that we were in the wealthiest facility that we had visited, and that they would have a supply. She was wrong. After this investigation, I decided that I would relieve my bladder at the urinal before doing recon for paper supplies. Whilst urinating, I noticed two things. The first thing was that my urine was still extremely dark. The second thing that I noticed was a curious warm feeling around the back of my thighs which indicated to me that I was not just pissing, I was also shitting uncontrollably. OH NO! NO, NO, NO! After a sub-standard cleaning attempt, I deposited my underwear and a handkerhief in the tiny waste bin under the vanity. Margaret Croft always told Gavin to carry two handkerchiefs with him at all times. I'm glad I took this on. Upon exiting the facility, I found Lauren and said "We've got to go". I loudly, and proudly exclaimed to any listening ears that "I SHAT MY PANTS". We laughed. We could do no other.

We quickly contacted our host who drove me to the best hospital in Jaipur, where I checked in to the Executive Premium Deluxe Suite and was administered a lovely IV drip, antibiotics and all the things that I have polarised against. It was an extremely humbling experience, for which I am grateful, but I hope it never happens to you, or to me again.

Lauren: wow. What a day. It was horrendously hot and humid and extra polluted day. When Daniel lost his shit, metaphorically initially, I wasn't surprised. But it was so extreme! He literally sobbed for about half an hour on the way to the cinema, and every bump in the road that the tuktuk bounced off only seemed to shake some me new heartache and accompanying tears into Daniel. He couldn't speak, not coherently anyway, and seemed to be in pain and could barely drink water. If I hadn't felt so nautious myself I probably could have offered more sympathy but as it was I managed to get the driver to go slowly over all the bumps and just hoped that some cool air would help Daniel settle. Instead, he got too cold, started shivering and sobbing more and freaked out a bunch of rich Indians who didn't know what to do with the hysterical, sick, upset white guy.  Spider man already didn't have much going for it but in Hindi, with no subtitles, in 3D, in a freezing cinema it was to much for Daniel's bowels. I was just starting to get into the film when it was paused for intermission and Daniel went to the toilet. When he walked out of the men's room he fist pumped the air like the star of a John Hughes 80s romance and exclaimed "I shat my pants" at the top of his lungs. Wow. What an announcement. I didn't know if I more disappointed at realising I would not be finding out whether Spidey would conquer the crazy electro guy, or that I was not going to get the other 2 hours of air con we had paid for. 

The hospital was amazing. Our host was amazing. And three days staying in beautiful air conditioning with room service was pretty fantastic too. I even had my own bed! 

The lesson for me - and all of you - this is the face of a man about to shit his pants. 

on India and Indians...

Hi Buddies. Daniel signing in for a post.

Its strange that we have been away for a month. Time has past both quickly and slowly. It seems forever ago that we were in Rishakesh rising before the sun, lying in the yoga hall listening to the howling wind coming off of the Himalayas while pigeons fought for their rightful position on the roof and we waited for our teacher to lead us into the class with a sleepy yet resounding Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti - we break our silence and our day begins. Later we would be sipping mint lemonades and planning businesses in amazing cafes overlooking the beautiful blue River Ganga while other seekers shared ideas or read Eckhart Tolle over their chai masala and cigarette. 

Since then we have been hot and hateful in the Himalayas and Varanasi. It has been an extremely testing time. It is easier to be loving, forgiving, to see the divine in the other brother, when I have rest, a shower, air conditioning, reliable electricity and WiFi. I have struggled to choose India and Nepal for exactly what it is and everything that it isn't. We have been extremely short with beggars, merchants, children and particularly guides and drivers, who want to rip you off most of the time. My rackets about these people, I hold on to tightly. I hope that in time I will remember in my heart all of the kindness that we received, because right now I am for the first time, feeling justifyably racist.

We have met many great travelers who will host us across Europe and Canada. I will tell you about some great Indian people.

In Rishakesh we met Happy, who used to work for the Indian Mafia, but he couldn't honour his parents and God in this work. He exposed the Dehli scam to us. He is a Siek but he has a Hindu goddess in his massage parlour. He explains that she is the Mother God, that God is One but has many faces and he likes that face. He says we pray to the Father but we must honour the Mother which to me means Earth. If all people thought this way, the cows here wouldn't be eating garbage and the river would flow cleanly even to Varanasi, where suewage and burnt corpses now dominate the Ganga. Things would be better in Australia too.

In Kathmandu we met a man named Milan, who is building a guesthouse in a small village for homestay purposes. He connected us with Deve and we stayed with this farmer whose future looks like president of the jungle conservation board and his village, a successful organic farmer, educator and community developer. His past was civil war, seeing his friend killed by the Maoists for doing social work, being forced to earn money so he could be taxed, working for a dollar a day in tourism restaurants and having his wife and daughter move to India because money is better there. His present is a simple room, one light bulb, a wonderful view if the fire ever stops and monsoon comes, climbing mountains, building his pig and goat farm and learning what your meant to do with these strange coffee trees that the Germans brought. He needs $150 for a male pig so he can breed pigs. He doesn't need a male goat. One takes ones goat herd to the jungle to get the job done. Its economical.

We stayed with another Deve in Varanasi, a Couch Surfing fanatic. When he arrived in Varanasi, he began to observe the silk and textile market that Varanasi is famous for. He watched tourists being taken advantage of by guides, who would take westerners to their friends' shops. We would pay 10x the market price for fake pashminas etc and the guide would get a nice commission. This would happen on boats, rickshaws, hotels, everything. He wanted to save tourists, and he found couch surfing. He took us to all of the must see spots in one day, had a saree made for Lauren and trousers and shirt tailored for me by an honest, passionate Muslim man for a wedding that were fortunate enough to be esteemed guests at. He has found all of the honest traders in town so his guests will not be exploited. I have seen that life is cheaper in the villages than it is in the cities, which is cheaper than Australia. The weavers in the villages receive a little, but all of Devs contacts are connected and have their needs met. Now, having hosted over 200 couch surfers, he has contacts all over the world. Soon he will begin to export silk, pashmina, textiles etc to his friends. Now he has Australian contacts too. You can check out his website. We would love to know which items you like (market research).www.facebook.com/zuranutancollections

Deve says that the love that Lauren and I have for each other inspired him to reunite with his Ukrainian girlfriend Zoryana. I think it's that we called him on his romantic bullshit and encouraged him to take action and communicate.

We left Varanasi to see the Taj Mahal. We chose an unairconditioned sleeper train overnight, having learnt our lesson in taking second class, where children of lower castes are made to sit on your feet with their mum and fat moustachioed men push you from all sides as your sweat coats your sweat again and again. Its brutal.


[I'd like to mention here that during said lesson, whilst being crushed by the weight of anti-birth control beliefs and the exploding Indian poplulation (not to mention the over population of the luggage hook in our faces), Lauren and I managed to have a romantic moment - sharing headphones, listening to I Can't Stand it by Wilco from their Summer Teeth Album, looking each other in the eyes and stealing a kiss, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all]

The trains stop for no reason, sometimes for hours. In the middle of the night on sleeper class, I woke up to realise that the train had a lot more Indians on it compared to when we first boarded and consequently it smelt like shit. Lauren was on a lower bunk, a mistake - she has to fight off the Indian boys who want to sit on a western girls bed because they think it will become a porno. At least that's what we've been told.

This train arrived 5 hours late, a grand total of 18 hours travel and waiting time (which is used for men to try desperately to be bumped up, buy and spit tobacco while their teeth rot, and vendors to pimp their rubbish or maybe some yummy pakora or chai).

If it was 1982 and I was writting a letter by hand it may be in a different colour from here, as a few days have past since my first entry. I tell you this as much has happened and there may be a detectable change of mood and style.

Upon arrival at Agra Fort station (a train station built in to an old fort, but entirely uninteresting) we were confronted with the usual onslaught - an entourage of Tuk Tuk drivers all vieing to overcharge us for our services. Any western country with a monument as grand as the Taj Mahal would have official services (albeit overpriced) to connect the tourist to the destination. I've explained commission previously. We have become very distrustful of random dudes offering assistance. It's never free and rarely what you want. After much mucking around, we ended up at the Taj in 40 degree heat and Lauren was quite distressed. We were again met by guides who told us that we wanted them to pay them money to help us skip the queue. We had already paid 45X as much as the Indian vistors for a ticket ($14 each) and we weren't really interested. But we went with a man anyway. When in Rome...

At the gate, police men and women with big guns searched our bag and found *gasp* - condoms and a notebook! You can take a phone, camera, etc to the Taj but not a notebook. As for condoms... they call it the Monument of Love, right? I had to leave my medicine bag in an allegedly goverment authorised shop where I was asked what was in the bag. I loudly said Condoms, to the extreme pleasure of the 30 immature men standing around in the store. This is the second time in my life that I've had trouble getting condoms through security. Feel free to ask about the other time.

Meanwhile, Lauren was losing her shit in the most non-literal sense. This is an important clarification when traveling in India. She had burst in to tears because it was all too much, people were shouting, it really was too much. Indian men are really uncomfortable when someone cries. They want to make it stop. They let her keep the notebook but I'm sure you get that the notebook is of minor significance to her. 

Lauren:  on that afternoon the fight against the Indian rail system - 18 hour train ride, the fight against the weather - 45 degree heat, the fight against lack of sleep, the fight to find clean, safe water - probably dehydrated, not being able to remember my last shower, the fight against extortion - paying a stupid amount to see something because of the colour of our skin (it's cheaper if you just look Indian, you don't even have to be Indian), the fight against the constant seedy glares of sexually frustrated Indian boys and having to fight off every 'tour guide' in Agra were simmering away with a lid on, but when combined with the ridiculous request to abandon my notebook (which I still don't understand), after 6 pretty patient, tolerant, accepting weeks (I didn't develop the same racism as Daniel, although if I never eat Dahl or rice again I'll live), they refused to remain suppressed and I totally lost it. Seriously. I was sobbing! Freely, dramatically, crazily. For at least 2 minutes. It felt great.

To make a short story long, our guide settled down and as he is an unpaid Christian preacher, he managed to segway into asking us about faith. He was very excited to hear that my father is a pastor and Lauren is a worship leader. He enthusiastically invited us to his house for lunch/dinner/our first full meal for 24 hours. We ended up eating delicious chicken (which may have provided an entry to our next adventure), singing Give Me Oil in my Lamp and This is The Day until they offered us their only bed, a wooden board clad in upholstery, while the family slept on the floor. They wouldn't take no for an answer and Edwin, our guide come host, found it very difficult to accept money even for the tour.

The rest of our time in India deserves a dedicated expression, which will likely take form on our blog www.roamingstrelans.blogspot.in

Keep an eye out for a post titled I Shat My Pants - for my telltale confession of my darkest hour.

Much Love & Gratitude

Namaste

Daniel

our first few days in India

April 2 - 4

Rishikesh is a beautiful town. Even now, writing this from an internet cafe somewhere on a dark back alley in downtown Kathmandu, just thinking about Rishikesh I almost feel like we are still there.

(April 2) The morning after our first, and unnecessarily eventful, night in India we slept until almost midday to catch up. I'm sure as we walked down the street from our new home at Green Hills Cottages for the first time that afternoon we took the form of disoriented zombies but the day soon warmed us back to life.

We walked around for the day - all the way down to Ram Jhula, the further bridge. There are two foot bridges (the closer one is Laxman Jhula). Being only about 1.5m wide you would think that it is really only intended for people walking single file in both directions. What an absurd idea that would be. In addition to a constant stream of people travelling over and back plenty of motorcyclists (who take up almost the full width of the bridge) cross as well, beeping the whole time as though it is the pedestrians who are out of place. The real (and irritatingly frequent) problem is when a motorcycle coming from each direction meet and beep at each other until someone gives up performs some crazy manoeuvre to pass. It is extra fun when a cow is in the middle of the scenario, just sitting and enjoying the view, blissfully oblivious to the mayhem it is causing. (If in doubt, just assume that there is always a cow on the scene. There are at least as many cows here as dogs, if not more, and they own this city - they are the only beings anyone respects enough to leave alone!).

Below the hustle of the bridge, the river Ganga was vibrant emerald in the sun. Some locals washed themselves/their children/their clothes by the shore. Down on the wide sandy banks a group of foreigners practice acro-yoga. On a large rock overhanging the river a European woman is weaving a dream catcher. Some young Indian men, probably tourists from Delhi, are playing about in the shallow water like giddy children, splashing each other and laughing hysterically. And of course, at the other side of the river bank, away from the river, a group of cows sits and ponders the variety of human activity, taking it all in. We took our shoes off and cooled our feet in the freezing water. So fresh! In the late afternoon light the super-fine sand glistened silver. We found two Israeli's with a disc and threw some backhands with them on this magical fairy-dust frisbee field.

Gorgeous afternoon.

(April 3) Dan woke up with the sun, well before me, on Thursday morning and was gone when I finally pulled myself out of bed. He had locked me in the room for security (just a padlock, don't worry Mum) so I went out and sat on our little balcony. The sun pierced through the branches of the palm trees in the courtyard garden from over the far hills in the north east. Our hotel was on the main road of Rishikesh so there was always lots of activity. Donkeys carried sacks of cement mix, colourfully decorated trucks blasted melodic horns as they passed each other, mum and dad motorcyclists drove kids in immaculate uniforms to school, mobile fruit vendors pushed their bicycles laden with trays of pineapple, mango, grapes, pomegranates and cucumbers along with oranges escaping onto the street as the wheels bounced over rocks, dogs darted across in the gaps where they could and every now and then everyone would stop for a cow. Over the morning as the traffic picks up the unsealed, unfinished road turns to dust and some of the commuters are lost in filthy clouds.

Between me and the busy street, the hotel garden below is peaceful. An Indian spin on an English country garden, it has a perfectly trimmed lawn in four even parts with little brick borders holding long sections of small hedges, shaped trees and flowers to divide it. One of the teenage boys who helped carry our bags in yesterday walks around with a dustpan and brush, scrupulously collecting all the leaves that have fallen from the trees onto the lawn overnight. (It's an onerous job. Overnight and into the morning the wind howls down the valley from the mountains in the north; a big bad wolf huffing and puffing with such ferocity that I need to remind myself that like the little brick house, this marble one will not be blown down!) When the kid is finished there is nothing out of place - even the dirt between the trees is leaf free. It is a stark contrast to the busy street only metres away.

But that's India.

Daniel came back after a while from a walk to the Ganga and an early morning swim. He was revived and alive!

We bought some sleeping bags and tried our hand at haggling for the first time (Dan is better at it than me for sure). We asked around and found out about a good drop-in yoga class to go to in the afternoon (we wanted to do at least one before we moved into the ashram full time the next day). The class was at a place called Anand Prakash Yoga Asham and we fell in love immediately. At the end of that class we went straight to the ashram office and asked if we could move in the next day!

After class Dan had a massage at a place owned by a guy named Happy (same Happy who explained the Delhi scam to us). It was really nice to sit and talk with him for a while. When we paid for the massage I noticed Happy kissed the money and held it up to a small goddess figure on the wall behind him before putting it away. I asked him what this meant - who was this goddess? Happy told me 'this is god'. He said 'I am a Sikh but I think that all god is one. One divine.' He said 'all gods are the faces of God. This is the face of the mother-god, I like this one best because I think it is important to honour the mother. But you can choose the face of God you wish to worship, maybe the father, maybe something else.'

The father and son and spirit are familiar faces of God for me. Three faces for one God. I wonder how different it really is - the approach of the faith tradition that I grew up with, and Happy's perspective? One thing I am sure of is that we all have much more in common than we often see.