Hurry, Krishna

Parts 1 and 2

Vrindavan was intense sometimes. Bloody intense.

Temple crowds were feisty, pointy, rushed, and unforgiving. People would push each other aside to get a better spot to pray to their precious Krishna deity, or to squeeze through the hole in the temple gateway.

Screeching thieving monkeys were literally everywhere in the old town. There didn't seem to be any benign cute ones. We had to keep our phones and sunnies hidden at all times.

I discovered the worst job in the world. Selling bananas in monkey-infested Vrindavan. The stallholders there seemed to spend more time shooing monkeys away with sticks than shifting produce. Way more yelling than selling. And you can never relax, because they're super quick, super smart and super stubborn.

Phil and I arrived in Krishna's childhood haunt on a freezing cold mid morning, only to discover that our particular rickshaw couldn't take us all that close to where we needed to go. The roads were blocked to certain traffic. So we needed to switch to another type of rickshaw.

And then the road was eventually blocked to all vehicular traffic whatsoever. So that was that, we were on our feet.

And to make it even more difficult, our homestay happened to be right smack bang in the thick of the area closest to the busiest temple in the whole place, so it wasn't easily accessible when the temple was open. Due to the huge crowds it was pretty much impossible to get through without being shepherded into the temple itself.

Also, you couldn't wear shoes in the laneways near the temple, so, in the freezing cold, we had to traipse through the dirty wet laneways in bare feet, struggling to squeeze through swarms of devotees with our packs on our backs, and day packs in our hands.

It wasn't pretty.

But after getting lost a few times, we finally made it to our homestay, to discover that our room was really nice, but was so cold that it was actually warmer outside in the big fridge than inside in the freezer.

Them's the breaks.

On the train from Khajuraho to Agra, Cantt.

Good old Indian English. It's still stuck in the 1940s. They use terms like "Cantonment," "Officers' Enclave," "Leper Colony," and "Fancy Store," and still use all those beautiful old words like "hanker" and "madam" and "backside." It's so cute.

The green banks of the Chambel River

We'd planned to go straight through to Vrindavan the same day, but our train was delayed, (nah, really?), and we'd missed the last connecting bus, so we stayed in Agra for the night, in the seedy side of town. No Taj Mahal tourists within cooee of us, mate.

Phil had curd.

I had carrot halwa.

Phil's was healthier.

Mine was yummier.

I win.

Sneaker sale

Heading to the local bus stand in the morning

Crowds of clothes buyers getting excited. The clothes wallah didn't stop talking, and threw clothes in the air to build up the buying hype. Clever guy, it seemed to work.

More local bus action

We passed Agra Fort. It's quite magnificent. The Taj Mahal is magnificent too. But we didn't stop. We've both been there, done that.

Starting to negotiate the busy Vrindavan laneways

Cute Krishna and gopi statues. Or dolls. Whatever they are.

I think they're dolls, because you can buy dresses to dress them up. They're all shiny and beautiful.

It was cold and foggy in Vrindavan.

ISKCON

One morning we visited a beautiful temple, the huge Sri Sri Radhe Balawan Mandir. Don't ask me why there's a double Sri. The temple happens to be inside one of the major ISKCON centres in India.

ISKCON stands for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which administers hundreds of Hare Krishna centres and temples around the world.

How ISKCON came about and grew is actually a pretty amazing story.

The founder of the modern Hare Krishna movement, Swami Prabhupada, began to follow the teachings of his guru, Bakhtisiddhanta Sarasvati, as a young man.

He was a family man at the time, he had a wife and kids, but once the kids grew up he decided to embrace the teachings more fully, and in 1959 became a sanyasi, taking vows to live a life of renunciation and service.

Swami Prabhupada founded a magazine in India, and became a prime spokesperson for the Vaishnava teachings of a previous guru, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Vaishnavites believe Vishnu (or his avatars) are the supreme beings, and the sect is the largest Hindu sect in India. In the 1950s the Swami moved to Vrindavan to write and publish books on the teachings.

The teachings of the Hare Krishna movement are derived from ancient Hindu scriptures. Devotees believe that Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu) is the Supreme Lord, and that humans are eternal spiritual beings trapped in an endless cycle of reincarnation. Heard that before?

The nature of the cycle is determined by karma, the law of the consequences of past actions, and it's this which returns beings to physical existence, over and over again.

According to the movement’s doctrine, it's possible to change this karma by practicing extreme forms of yoga. But Krishna, in all his gorgeous benevolence, has provided a much easier method to get there - simply chant the holy names of Krishna and Rama.

What a party!

Swami Prabhupada's guru had, for many years, directed the Swami to spread the important Krishna teachings all around the world. And as an old man he finally did the deed in a big way.

In 1966, at 70 years of age, and with 40 rupees in his pocket, Prabupadha flew to New York to spread the word. It was a tough time. He had little support there, and, despite appealing to every organisation he knew in India, no money came. He met unemployed hippies on the street, and through them managed to find an unused bookshop to sleep in.

Every day Prabupadha would chant his Hare Krishna chants in the ground floor ex-bookshop, cook the most delicious healthy Indian feasts, and give teachings to the young hippies around the place. He allowed them to stay there, as long as they renounced their drug habits and contributed to their new little community. The hippies couldn't speak highly enough of him, and his influence grew.

Through connections he made there he was flown to San Francisco, and organised a big procession through the streets, with his head-shaven followers clanging their little cymbals and playing their drums and chanting Hare Krishna all over the place. It was a hit for the hippies.

The Swami and the festival made newspaper headlines in the city, and that's when things really started to happen. The Beatles were discovering Hindu spirituality at the time. George Harrison was really impressed with a Hare Krishna band, The Hare Krsna Temple, and did an album with them. Then George put out "My Sweet Lord," during which he chants Hare Krishna, Hare Rama etc, and then Krishna consciousness was suddenly well and truly on the global stage.

A-listers and many other wealthy Westerners were transformed by the practices, and donated huge sums to start spreading it around the world. Book sales made lots of money for the organisation, and they opened restaurants all over the place, often called "Food For Life,"or "Govindas." Swami Prabupadha began to travel around the world, establishing and consecrating new Krishna temples and centres, and motivating the troops.

He worked tirelessly till his death in 1997, and his efforts for the cause have totally paid off, if you're into that kind of thing. Today there are over 800 Hare Krishna Centres around the world.

Not a bad job mate, especially at his age.

The ISKCON centre in Vrindavan is one of the biggest and most important in India. While the ISKCON headquarters is actually at Mayapur near Kolkata, Vrindavan is second in importance, as it's the birthplace and childhood home of Krishna himself, bless his little cotton frocks.

The temple itself is magnificent, but, as usual, no cameras are allowed. This is what it looks like.

There was Krishna chanting going on inside when we were there, as usual. We sat and chanted, on the male side of the chant leaders. It was beautiful. But there were very few women chanting, and, surprise surprise, none of the women led any chants.

ISKCON is a modern organisation, but it's quite conservative in some of its beliefs. Swami Prabupadha said some pretty outrageously racist and sexist things while he was alive. He may have been awake, but he definitely wasn't woke.

ISKCON's attitude to women still leaves a lot to be desired.

Of course that's the rule, rather than the exception, for almost all organised religions worldwide, unfortunately.

Because many religious practices and teachings are so ancient, churches and other religious organisations' wider social attitudes seem to be cemented in the past. Change, if it happens at all, seems to occur at an excruciatingly slow pace.

And even when reformers attempt to introduce small changes, the old male leaders always put up a fight, the buggers.

One of the displays in the museum

Phil and I spent time exploring the backblocks of Vrindavan, particularly when Phil was leading, as he seems to have a penchant for exploration, and for getting lost in impossibly skinny and smelly laneways, whilst continuing to ignore the tried and trusted logical route to getting anywhere.

But it's much more fun his way, and we always saw interesting things.

The temple next to our homestay, Thakur Sri Banki Bihari Ji Mandir, was a cracker. It was open in the morning and late arvo/evening, and it was absolutely chockablock the whole of that time, inside and out. Inside there was always a mass of writhing humans, people jostling to get a spot to leave their offerings, and to get a glimpse of their passionately adored Krishna deity.

I'd missed Phil's 50th a couple of months back, and he'd missed my 60th even further back. So I bought him a 50th dinner in Vrindavan, and he did a 60th version for me in Delhi.

Radha Kund

Our friend Isa lived in Vrindavan for three years, many years ago. She told Phil some spots to go, one of which was this beautiful small temple town, Radha Kund.

On the electric bus. Yes! An electric bus, smooth and efficient, albeit pretty slow. The vehicle would've felt quite un-self-conscious in any modern European city.

Great to get outa town for a change.

We wandered through the streets, on our way to the sacred kund, which is the little lake that is often near temples, and is used for bathing and other rituals.

Quiet laneways. A welcome cruisey change from Vrindavan.

Phil has incredibly short legs, and a disproportionately huge torso. He has so much trouble finding pants, I used to give him my kids throwaway pants when they were toddlers. He also has to take about fifteen steps to my one, so is always getting tired. And I won't even mention the toileting challenges.

Barber box.

The beautiful, peaceful and sacred kund.

Phil and I did a ritual puja for Isa (and for all of you, and us), lighting a lamp, throwing flowers into the water, and chanting. We were blessed by a local, and repeated his chants as well.

A very relaxed and spiritually charged Phil, just before he did a triple backflip dive with a half twist. In pike position of course.

Local mandir (temple)

As it was getting late we took a rickshaw to Govardhan Hill, rather than walk around it. There's an important parikrama there, a walking or prostrating ritual path circumambulating a sacred place, that devotees carry out as part of their spiritual practice. In this case the sacred place is the top of the hill, it's sacred because Krishna himself told his devotees that it was.

Temple en route

Krishna and Radhe being admired by a young believer

These chained monkeys nearly jumped me as I left the temple. The thing to do is to give the monkeys a donation, and they hand it over to their pimp. No thanks, I'll pass on that one. Poor guys, they could be running free on Vrindavan rooftops, trees and power lines instead, hassling everyone, including us.

Prostrating woman

This guy was cheating, walking with his mat instead of using it.

Waiting for the bus back to town

Phil being the life of the party

Prem Mandir

On the way to Radha Kund we noticed a massive temple, and got out there on the way back.

Prem Mandir means The Temple of Divine Love, and the place is a perfectly manicured magnificent Hollywood love machine. Everything's so perfect there that you can't help but feel warm and fuzzy, no matter where you look.

The temple is only 12 years old, and is dedicated to both Krishna and Rama.

The view from the bus

Dioramas all over the shop. And a million selfies were had too, many of which Phil and I starred in.

These flowers were actually real

Once upon a time, when there was huge torrential rain washing everything away, Krishna turned up and picked up Govardhan Hill and used it as a huge umbrella, to protect everyone. All whilst still doing some great renditions of beautiful sacred flute songs. What a multitasker.

Phil being a little cheeky. I noticed frowns from some of the locals when he did the pointy finger thing. But I didn't tell him, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

The whole place was lit up like a Christmas tree.

No photos inside though.

One good thing about this place was that there were some amazing female singers leading the chanting, which was projected on a massive screen outside. The footage was from a huge recent gathering in the big round hall.

Notice the men and women are all mixed up in this diorama.

Delhi Belly

Phil and I have been getting closer travelling together, even to the point where we now both have bouts of diarrhoea at the same time. It's like when women have their periods together after hanging out in close quarters for a long time.

Phil's Delhi-belly, a term which also applies outside Delhi, was worse than mine, and he ended up suffering over the bowl much more than I did. He still wasn't right when he left India on his way to Europe, poor bugger.

It was a pretty convoluted trip from Vrindavan, having got our wires crossed with a succession of rickshaw drivers (Translation: they kept trying to rip us off). But we were finally dropped at a random spot in the middle of nowhere and an old clunker bus actually turned up and delivered us right to the outskirts of Delhi.

It was crowded, and dirty, and there was hardly anywhere to be. There was actually human shit on the back seat apparently, and Phil wasn't what you would call happy about it. He was about as far from happy as Donald Trump is from being an empathetic rational human.

I was at the front of the bus, and thankfully Phil was warned by his fellow passengers not to sit right at the back. Just so you know, this is not usual. I've never seen shit on an Indian bus, besides the cowshit that's on everyone's shoes.

But we soldiered on, our driver was rather of the skilled and tenacious sort, and, despite the geriatric nature of our bus, he spirited us into Delhi at pace.

We needed a ricky for the last few clicks, this briver bid the beed for us. A squinting Count Drocula in the mirror.

We stayed in Paharganj, close to the main New Delhi Railway station, but it's really not the travellers' enclave it used to be. There's not that many travellers around these days, compared to locals.

First stop, big Tibetan breakfast - thukpa and fried veg momos. Bloody amazing.

Then it started to rain. When it rains in Delhi the place gets filthy-slushy. The usual dust on the streets turns to mud, and you just carry it around with you, on your shoes, on the bottoms of your long pants, and invariably eventually into your socks. Especially when you've got bad shoes like me, or when a vehicle goes past at speed and splashes it on you.

The view of Chhe Tooti Chowk from our guest house, Hotel Shelton. It was really a good place to stay, for Delhi, albeit a bit pricey. But Phil was shouting, lucky me, I enjoyed it. And this time it was warmer inside than outside.

Sorry you can't read this easily, but it's a burger place called Burger Singh. I really should move to India, with all the really bad names, I'd find a job easily.

Phil at my 60th birthday dinner at the Madras Coffee House. It was a great spot, in Connaught Place. South Indian food again.

Phil had some organising to do, including buying and sending some clothes to a friend in Germany. I helped. Getting just one medium sized box of clothes packed and posted at the GPO took at least an hour. It actually finally happened, but the procedure was excruciatingly slow.

Beautiful Sikh gurudwara. We didn't go in.

I instinctively grabbed this mop when I noticed it leaning against a wall. I so miss doing domestic duties, like cleaning bathrooms and toilets, and mopping floors and doing endless dishes.

More Indian old school English

Feeding the pigeons

Regal eagle

Good luck with that

Amazing old cinema

Eventually it was time to leave the capital. Phil had booked us a place near the airport, which turned out to be nearly impossible to find, as it had the same name as two other hotels, and the actual map link they sent was incorrect.

But we found it, I went out for food, Phil slept, and he flew out to Vienna in the middle of the night. I did the same the next morning, to Bangkok.

It was a such beautiful time alone with Phil, we haven't spent that much time together forever. It's really a precious thing, to be able to spend time with a good friend, to have conversations until they're well and truly finished, with no time limit. Nowhere particular to be, nowhere to go. Getting to know each other more, in a process which never ends.

And then, suddenly, I was alone again.

Jay Jay Mā India

It was finally time to leave the Motherland, to leave what I have to say is one of the trippiest and most unique countries in the world. There just ain't nothin' like India.

I was here awhile. First I explored Rishikesh and Dharamsala, and then spent about a month in Rajasthan, before eventually making my way to Nepal.

I then returned to India, and the second part of my odyssey encompassed Odisha, Kerala, Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and then a whole bunch of sacred places in Uttar Pradesh - Varanasi, Khajuraho and Vrindavan.

My route for the second part of my India adventure.

Zoomed in.

But I'll be honest and say I was sorta ready to leave.

Well, I was ready to leave the crazy chaotic places I'd  been to in the north over the past few weeks or so. Some places in India can grind you down.

North Indian food, as delicious as it is, is very rich and oily. I love it, but after eating it for weeks and weeks on end I noticed I'd always go for other types of food when they were available (which often they weren't).

I'd go for South Indian food over North Indian any time I could. It's lighter, generally fresher, and healthier, and is normally available in the larger cities of the north, somewhere.

India's changing. One of the biggest changes you really feel is population growth. The country is just so bloody crowded these days, in many places. It's relentless.

When I first visited India the population was around 900 million. Now it's 1.4 billion. That's a massive increase - 500 million more people, a rise of over 66%, in only about thirty years.

Some places that used to be quiet and cruisey are now crawling with locals and tourists. And that has a huge impact on the vibe of the place, and, of course, massively increases the levels of rubbish and pollution.

Middle class Indians travel now. The  tourist industry in the country has exploded with growth, and every major historical site, pilgrimage site, or recognised nature spot is now crawling with visitors. Hotels, restaurants, tour bus companies, and all sorts of other spin-off businesses have now sprung up all over the place.

I mean, I'm a tourist too, no judgment. It's just changed the whole place.

But having said all that, India is still bloody amazing. It's incredible. I could stay for a long time, but I'd be picky about where. There's stunningly beautiful quiet places that are still the same as they always were. Lots of them.

But I'm leaving now, and I feel a huge sense of excitement.

Soon I'll be back in the tropics, sitting on the saddle of my bike, killing my unfit cycle legs as I head north into the wild hills of northern Laos.

Yes, the next chapter of my long long journey is almost ready to begin.

And it'll include delicious fresh food, iced fruit shakes, and huge lung-healing breaths of cool clear mountain air❤️

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