How to Climb a 12' Horozontal Roof Crack

BIG thanks to the Kiwi Craig for the spot and Day for the photography. Cheers!

Money

We've spent $1759.00 since December 10.

That's $22.00 per day, or $11.00 per person per day.

Our budget is 1000 INR (Indian Rupees) per day, total...or around $25.00 CDN. Sometimes, especially on transit days, we go over. Sometimes we come in well under. India can be incredibly cheap if you watch it.

Here's a sample of our spending for a few random days. To do the math, one CDN dollar = about 40 INR.


1. Marayoor (small mountain town)

Chai (x3): 15.00 INR
Hotel: 300
Bus Tickets: 35
Early Lunch: 175
Small Dinner: 82
Snack: 36
TOTAL: 643.00 INR

Varkala (overpriced tourist beach)

Beadies (I used to smoke): 10 INR
Bkfst: 120
Hotel: 400
Dinner (fresh seafood splurge) 550
TOTAL: 1080.00 INR

Mysore (mid-sized city)

Hotel: 350 INR
Bkfst: 65
Bus: 220
Temple Donation: 20
Snacks: 100
Dinner: 206
Fruit: 22
Bar of Soap: 10
TOTAL: 993.00 INR

Jainism

The 6th to 5th Centuries BC were a time of religious, political and social unrest in the Gangetic Basin. Wealth from agrarian development had led to increased population densities, and therefore new state formations. A general dissatisfaction with strict varna (caste) segregation and brahminical authority soon followed. Simply put, the newly monied merchant class was pissed at having to constantly pay for the endless and increasingly extravagant ritual services of arrogant brahmin priests.

A motley assortment of seers, prophets, holy and mad men wandered from town to town competing for converts. The Buddha was one of them. Another, Mahavira the "Great Hero", preached an extreme code of conduct focused on nonviolence and the sanctity of all life. Both shared a distrust for Vedic and Brahminical ritual, and both abbhorred the caste system. Mahavira's Jainism and the teaching of Buddha would define the new challenge to old-school Vedic religious hegemony for the next several centuries.

Jainism started as a puritanical backlash and, unlike Buddhism, was unable to shed its extreme roots. Jain faithful were required to go naked to prevent one's clothes from inadvertently crushing an insect. Similarly, mouth-coverings were (and still occasionally are) worn to prevent the slaughter of flying insects. The Jains met and influenced a few of Alexander the Great's men, giving rise to the notion of 'gymnosophists' or 'naked philosophers'.

Jain territory reached its furthest extent in South-Central India. There, on a hilltop, is the world's largest monolithic statue, sixty feet tall and carved from a single piece of stunning white granite. Fortunately for us, the Arab invasions never reached this far South, or the statue may have been destroyed like so many other temples and idols of the 'infidels'. The monolith is of the Jain saint Gomateshwara. Carved in the round, it is housed in a small and unremarkable temple that is totally outscaled by the statue itself. It's impossible to glimpse the entire figure until one enters the inner courtyard. Usually statues of this size are overbearing and dull; this one glowed, and were it not for the carved vines growing around the motionless saint's legs, could have hovered, weightless and perfect, like the idea of peace.

Bylakkupe: Chillaxin' with the Buddhists

Bylakkupe is a Tibetan refugee settlement located in the arid plains of central Karnataka. The Karnataka government donated a few thousand acres to set up several refugee communities following the crises in Tibet. Undoubtedly a generous offer, but possibly also a slight jab in Beijing's side...the two countries did fight a war or two.

The contrast between the settlements and their Indian surrounds is stark. Access is free and open to everyone. The communities are calm, silent, clean and garbage-free. No-one stared at Dayna's tits, and a woman was even spotted driving a motorcyle with the guy sitting on back (gasp!).

The central Buddhist temple houses a sixty foot high gold-plated Buddha. The monolith is hollow; inside are various sacred writings, ancestral remains, sacred objects, and talismans. A smaller temple contains stunning and incredibly intricate Buddhist murals. Check out the detailed Heronymous Bosch-like torture scene at the bottom of the seventh photo. That'll teach ya to stray from the Middle Path, eh?

We were fortunate to sit in with a group of young monks during their afternoon chanting class. The rythmic drums and chanting echoed through the small space, releasing the built up stress and tension that can accumulate after a few too many days on the road.

Night Market

The evening rush in India runs quite late: from around seven PM until ten or so. These photos were taken in Hassan, a typical anonymous mid-sized industry and transport hub.

Hampi:Some Photos

Gokarna: Half-Moon Beach

Folks who know me know I'm not much of a beach guy: after a few lazy days restlessness and boredom set in and I turn to my #1 diversion: pestering Day. Half-Moon Beach was different; we spent 15 lovely days there (ten more than planned) with not a twitch.

Half-Moon is a six kilometer beach-walk from the nearest mid-sized town. There are no utilities or electricity, and water is drawn up every morning from a well. A small banana and coconut grove lines the beach and shades the mud and thatch huts we glady called home.

The place we stayed is still a functioning rural Indian farm. The ancient matriarch, Makileh, spoke only Karnada and a mad grunting-screech called farmspeak. A tiny woman, she was simply the most hardworking person I've ever encountered; every hour of a lifetime of twenty-hour days toiled across her face, and her skin stretched like time over bone and cabled muscle. Her fashion sense predated 'civilised' Hindu conservatism: we were treated to nightly oil-lamp lit National Geographic moments as she sat half naked, cackling and snorting, grinding fresh sprouts into dough in a huge old granite mortar and pestle.

Her and Day seemed to share some kind of mysterious feminine affinity, perhaps a knowledge strong, hardworking women everywhere share: they would laugh and chuckle together over nothing. Makileh enjoyed this almost as much as she loved scaring the shit out of me during my evening piss: blundering out of the hut in the three AM moonlight I would look over to see her bedded on the ground a few paces away. Silently she would turn to me and stab a wickedly hooked razor scythe in my direction, then burst into a crazy fucking laugh, roll over and fall asleep. I knew she bedded there to guard our hut and was showing me the knife as a way of saying: "See, useless, you're safe.", but the uncompromising violence of the gesture is still with me.

The lack of utilites, combined with Makileh's scythe, meant that Half-Moon was graciously saved from becoming yet another trance/rave party hangout in the long line of blown-out and wasted beaches that stretches from North Goa down the Konkan Coast. Just one beach over (but centuries away) a ten day rave was polluting everything in sight, and occasionally a group of young and incredibly high partgoers would stagger past. The kids these days have moved on from smoking chillums and waxing poetic about prana: we're talking three to four day ketamine binges that leave semi-permanent psychotic dissassociation. One especially obnoxious dude named 'Brocolli' (no shit) had the charming habit of standing at the head of the beach, stripping and screaming lunatic hell with his eyes rolled back in his head. Thankfully, he vanished, and his guitar case washed up on the beach a day or so later.

Israeli travellers seem to have corned the market on this kind of shit. Forced into a mandatory three-year military stint and raised in a nation surrounded by hostile neighbours, India is the destination of choice for Israeli youth to let it hang for the first time. And hang it they do, to the point that the Israeli and Indian government changed visa requirements to make it tougher to renew. The Indian westcoast has TWO Israeli-funded mental hospitals set up specifically to help young Israelis who indulged a little much. And -dig it- there's even a mental hospital in Tel Aviv set up to LOOK like the beaches of Goa.

All this, of course, played a role in our selection of beach destination. The most unwanted list ran like this, from worst to best: beach resort; raver beach; hippie beach; quiet beach.

Half-Moon was ideal.