Pune - Modern and ancient masala - December 28 - January 2
We wake on the bus as it is approaching the stop in Pune. The usual accosting by rickshaw drivers and our mistake not asking how much it will cost to get to the guesthouse lead to an altercation. He says 200 Rupees, and even has a fake rate card made up to show it. We know this is exorbitant and refuse to pay. We ask the guesthouse manager how much it should be. He says 60-70. We give him 70, knowing even this is too much, but that's India.
The guesthouse we wanted to stay at is full, as are the others we look at in the area. We walk about 20 minutes to the area around the train station and find a nice room at the National for 450 Rupees (about $15 oz, which is their holiday season rate (would normally be 250-300). We go exploring. It is obviuos Pune is the most developed city we have been in, even though it is not the largest, which is probably because of how close it is to Bombay, India's largest city. We can tell from the lack of cows that this is a more modern city (the shopping centres and metered taxis and autorickshaws give it away too). We spend some time on the web and watch King Kong at the cinema, our first in India, walk back to the hotel and call it a night.
We plan a sightseeing day and start at a hill temple. A family ask to have their photo taken with us (not unusual if you've been keeping track), and within 30 seconds, we aresurrounded by several dozen school and college students who want their photo taken with us and ask for signatures. There are an energetic elderly Indian man and younger woman observing us who then begin a conversation and offer to guide us around the city.
We go to the Kelkar museum, a collection of 20,000 curios collected by 1 man. Joe (known as "Uncle" is 81, energetic and strong minded. Semina is a 21 year old physiotherapy university student. They keep us company on and off over the next 4 days in Pune. After the museum, we head back to our room to shower and change (first hot shower in a number of days). At 8, we meet up with Uncle and Semina for dinner and they then take us back to the cinema we were at where there is a talent show (karaoke, dancing, etc). Semina and I take turns torturing the audience with our singing and we all agree to come back for the finals the next night.
The next day we go to the Osho Meditation Resort to book tickets for a tour the next day. I will go more into it later, when describing the tour, but if you want more info, go to http://www.osho.com/Main.cfm?Area=MedResort&Language=English We then visit the Agha Khan Palace, where Mahatma Ghandi, his wife, personal assistant and other memebers of the Free India movement were imprisoned during their struggle to free India from the British. Ghandi's wife and assistant died while imprisoned here. The building, rooms and gardens are now a Ghandi museum, where a little of the task and vision of the man is felt. We return to our hotel and I call and visit a number of others to book something special for New Year's Eve the next night, which will also be our last night together for 2 months as Beck goes to Nepal to volunteer with the Tibetan refugees, and then back to India for a month's yoga and meditation course, whilst I travel through Laos and Cambodia and meet up with Jett to travel through Vietnam before meeting up with Beck again in March. We also check out some bars in the city having New Year's Eve parties, however, India's restrictive morality means a party is having music playing whilst you eat dinner.
We head back to the talent quest at the cinema (another example of India's mindset. This event is popular with Indians of all ages, with teenagers supporting their favourites and families watching the couples jive. It feels very much like what it must have been like in the 50's, and I'm sure John Howard is envious that he hasn't been able to revert Australia back to this innocent but restrictive state (sorry, was that too political?) It is a fun evening ended with sweets at a cafe (we have been overdoing it with sweets in India, but if you've had them, you'll understand). As we say farewell to Uncle and Semina, we are surrounded by beggars and cripples with their hands out, pulling at us. This is the greatest challenge we have been facing on our trip. We are travelling, in part, to understand how we can make a difference in the world we live in. Whilst we contribute individually (giving money occassionaly, food more often), there is so much needed, we wonder what difference we can make. It is something that we will continue to ponder.
The next morning, the last of 2005, we take the tour of the Osho Resort. It feels like a meditation equivalent of the kind of 5 star health resort wealthy people go to to get their bodies in shape, where here it is about getting their minds in shape. It is difficult to describe the opulent settings. It is not called a resort for nothing. However, when you consider that lifetime membership costs about $45 oz, and a daily pass which lets you participate in over a dozen events from 6am through til after midnight costs about $12 oz, then service at this level feels incredibly cheap. I did wonder though how much of the original Osho (the founder who dies in 1990) philosophy was being lived at the resort, as much of the grounds and facilities were built after his death. It would be a decadent, opulent experience but I question if that gets in the ay of the stillness of mind that meditation is about acquiring. It's a 5 star resort, no doubt, but is it 5 star, or even 2 star Osho. (Do a web search if you want to find out moe about his philiosphy. He was a controvesial character to say the least).
We check out of the National and into the Samrat, a nice hotel directly behind the guesthouse we were staying in. Soft bed, really hot water that lasts more than 10 minutes, A TV!!! - heaven. We do some administrative things - Beck needs to change her flight to Bangkok in March, we confirm our flights for the 2nd, etc. We go to the supermarket, get snacks and spend New Year's Eve together for the last time for some time watching Pretty Woman, Around the World in 80 Days and I Robot on the movie channel, havinf long hot showers, going out to a local restaurant for dinner and watching the fireworks from our window. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! WE MISS YOU!!!
New Year's Day begins with breakfast at the hotel, packing and checking out at 2. Uncle and Semina have come to escort us to the train station and say farewell. We catch the 3.30 to Mumbai which arrives at 7. The railways ticket office split us up in different cabins, so Beck tracks down the conductor who gives us 2 seats together. The time is spent reading for our next countries, and talking with each other and the others in the cabin. At Mumbai, we check our bags into the cloakroom and walk for 40 minuted through imposing, monumental 18th century British architecture. We get to India Gate and the Taj Palace Hotel, a massive 5 star hotel which it is a guilty pleasure just to walk through the lobby of. On the way back to the stattion, we stop for dinner at an Indian BBQ version of Harry's Cafe de Wheels in Sydney. A van constatntly producing a range of delicious meat and veg BBQ dishes and roti. We stuff ourselves, walk back to the station, get our bags and catch the suburban train to near the domestic terminal. Beck flies domestic to Delhi, then international to Kathmandu. I fly from the international terminal to Bangkok. We sit in the terminal, keeping each other company until it is time for me to leave for the international terminal, with too few hugs and kisses to keep me through the next day, let alone the next 2 months.
And so our Indian adventure ends, more than we could have prepared ourselves for. For me, the greatest experience was finding a fellow travel and adventure companion in Beck. Can't wait to see her again.
posted by flamethrower77 at 11:43 PM
|
0 comments
