smile!

smile!, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

this was taken the last night I spent in Dheli, in Saro's room, is is the 4th from the left, netx to the Bin Laden guy, who is an italian trade man, and me, I am the second on the right, netx to Monica, sweet 3 days friend first from the right
we had some great fun that night!

Saro and my last amazing week in India.

So, I was at the point when Nico left and I spent that night awake and smoking.

The day after I was quite down, a bit because of the sleepless night, a bit because of the smoking and a lot because I was sad.
But as usually happens in my life as soon as I am alone and sad somewhere there are some angels coming to give me a hand...So it was again.

I went on the terrace of the Hotel to contemplate my miserable lonely destiny when I started to have quite a funny conversation with an italian man, my neighbour, named Saro.

Well Saro turned up to be the best company I could have imagined for my last days in Dehli!! The turning point! The big destiny's chocolate egg surprise!
First thing that impressed me about him is how handsome he was, really astoning, and the second thing was the easiness with which I managed to comunicate with him. We immediately bounded, became good friends, of one of those fresh and instant friendships that are born like they have been there forever. Saro brought me around Dehli to show me the most interesting parts of it, helping me to orientate and giving me the very usefull informations about tha town and about India. Being a guest in India since 15 years he pretty much knew his way and tought me the very best attitude to keep in Dehli not to freak out; we had pretty much a good laugh, good food and he really helped me to overcome my sadness.
I spent 4 or 5 or more days with him, as he was doing his business (trading) I followed and looked, gave a hand now and then, expecially sharing opinions. The good thing about him was that he was also a very creative person, aways busy desining new forniture, his job, and keeping a creative diary very well updated. So one day, I think the day after we met, we decided to spend an afternoon painting! So we did and I started to paint and paint and develop a lot of new ideas, most of which I am making big paintings of.
At the door of his room a little russian girl materialized and she provided us with brushes and colours and talk and dance. So here I was, in a room of Dehli painting and listening to music while Pallina, the russian girl, was dancing for me and Saro.

In the room of my charming friend, which was couzy big and sunny and looked more like a living room then like a cold hotel room, a lot of people gathered; all his friends and collegues, many italians and a bunch of very interesting and funny people. In the last days I was in Dehli I heard amazing stories of India, I met traders, photographers, travellers and all of them pretty fond of each other, like a big family, (expecially the italians) and I felt really lucky I was to meet such people in a moment of such need.

So the last week in Dehli, that was supposed to be sad and tedious was bright and interesting and I gained a loyal friend like there are not many on the planet. Ole'.

So when I left for the airport Pallina and Saro where there to say goodbye, and I confess I really cried to leave them.

the Taj

the Taj, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

the way it appears just before getting on the most known paved garden

The freeky mess we got in

The risho driver told us there was still one hour time before the train left to Dehli, so we ask him if he got commissions from shops and because he did we thought to do him a favour and let him drive us to a shop.
I took us to a jewlery shop, where the stuff was sad and expencive, we had a look and we did not want to stay any longer while what we thought was the owner asked us to have a little talk.

Informed by us stupid cows that Nico was leaving the day after he asked us if we were interested in earning a little money by doing him a little favour.
The favour was the following: due to the rising tax prices in India he asked Nico if he wanted to export his stones to France and give them to his agent in Paris. All this by risking nothing as the stones would be sent from Agra to Paris at his home address, post expences paid by the shop, and he would be present to look at the sending of the package and the owner would make a contract in which he testified and declared this and that.

It all seemed shiny and bright, no risks included plus the money promised to Nico were quite a lot, he would have hearned 1500 E more or less just by borrowing his home address.
Well I know the way I write it makes it smell fishy already, but it was not so, truely not at all.

Well we agreed on the business and the guy started to pack the precious stones ( I was hypnotized, I went bananas) while an other older man gave Nico papers and papers to sign, did get his credit card, passed through the machine and paff everything was finished.
We got out of the shop thinking that we were very lucky to meet such people willing to enrich us so generously.

Unfortunately in the train we woke up. We did and it was 100 times better to wake up with a hang over rather that waking up from frode on the only late night train to Dehli, the day before Nico had to leave!

Shit shit doubble and tripple shit! He got us, he got ME I thought, damn I never got tricked like that in any of my trips! And yes they tried before but ho no not me never they never got me and now kaboum fallen full weight into a trap! Tears, remorse, fights, blaming, its your foult, no its yours yeah alright its mine aaaargh what we do and so, for the fact that we realized so late that the snaeky bastard had passed the card on the machine and we now recalled everything, Nico also remembered the amount of money taken. round 70,000 Rupies, the limit.
Voila les jeux sont faits! Rien va plus!

On the train we thought of blocking the card and that made us feel better untill , once in Dehli, we called the bank and we found out that the card can be blocked ONLY from the moment of the phone call. Operations before remain valid. Hey u guys out there... remember this!

So we spent the night thinking about what to do, making up a bluff, take the train to Agra, not possible, too late etc. We went to bed agreeing that the morning after we would try a last desperate bluff phone call to the fraudolent man, and well in case everything went wrong I could sell my car to pay at least half of the amount of money so skillfully robbed .
The night I cried and had nightmares (I love my car!), I was happy to wake up as my consciousness never left me even when sleeping I did not forget the tragedy I was in.

I stood up and left Nico in bed, went downstairs with a very suspicious determination and called the man. Well allowed me now to self celebrate my interpretation of the tough girl because if I was playing in a movie I would have won an Oscar! (thanx Miika if you are reading this, it's all thanx to our real life acts)
I called the bastard up and asked him the amount of money he had robbed us, he answered (!!!!) 70.000 Rupies! So very quitely I asked him to stop the operation, he sayed he could not. I asked him to find a solution between the phone call and the moment we would get to the police, and told him there was a taxi waiting to take us to Agra.
HE BOUGHT IT!!
He said he would find a solution and I told him we were getting there in only the time it takes to drive to him, about 3 and half hours.
Rushed in the room, woke Nico up, felt like a dragon, told him quikly what happened and we stepped outside the room, half skeptically, half hopefully.

The taxi did not come on time, so we went off to the taxi stand, we found a man, told him 'How much to Agra". In too long time and after too much mess of people (in no time we were sorrounded by 15 taxi wallas) we were in a taxi and the driver went to the gas station next to the taxi stand.
I found out he did not speak a word of English.

I stepped out of the taxi, determined in NOT going with that man, I sensed we needed more then a taxi driver, but also a little help and support, so I looked around and my eyes stopped on a Sik man who seemed to be the boss of the all story. I looked streight and meaningfull into his eyes and told him "You have to understand that we REALLY need a driver who speaks English, its VERY important we can talk to the driver!" The man must have sensed the urgency of my request, and just asked me to wait.
So this same man that before was rushing us into the non-english speaking taxi, saying "no problem no problem" now was riding the crowds of bewildered taxi drivers heading to the only quite man of the all lot. This was the very first man we had asked for a ride, ( 'How much to Agra") and he did speak English and it was on the path of our destiny that he had to take us to Agra.
So he did.
In the taxi I finally relaxed and cried of despair, stress and distress and I looked around the landscape and it looked really ugly. I disliked everything I saw and thought it was hell.
When we arrived to Agra there were 10 pretty faces in the shop of the frode man, the precence of the taxi driver waiting for us outside made me feel safer.

After quite of a discussion the old man of the papers, the side show man, (the real boss apparently) took us to the bank where they were trying to convince us that they were stopping the operation.
We looked around, we looked at each other and in an instant we realized we did NOT trust the bank. It was just too dodgy and everybody seemed to know what was going on.

So we decided to go for the cash, we went back to the shop and we miracolously managed to get the cash money, 70.000 rupies. In an exageration of my distrust I started to check the money to verify their authenticity, but I gave up after a while, too many notes and well, thinking about t, it was quite funny, I felt too much like in a movie and I guess I was loosing grip to reality ;o)

We got out of the shop with the cash and well with our hearths back at the right spot! Plus for me I can say with a lot of adrenalyne rushing in my body. Hehehehe...!
Finally we could relax and smile and... pay attention to the taxi driver... that turned out to be a real right man! He had very well understood the situation from the beginning and he did not say a word in the Dehli Agra trip, but now on the way back he did speak, and he spoke really good.

He told us about samanas and the way he looks at life, his religious point of view, all this while I was looking at the landscape, that this time seemd beautifull and sweet to my eyes. His words were soothing and sweet and when we stopped with him for a splif (!!) I had already felt all the joy of the world again, and could start being sad for the imminent departure of Nico.

Muckesh (the taxi driver) told us he had prayed in the morning for a little money to help his family and when we got into his taxi he thought his prayers were heard by a generous god, because he also took Nico to the airport that night for a price quite high and I bet Nico left him quite of a tip.

When we went back to the hotel we could rest a little, very little, as there was the bag to make and a plane to catch and all the rest and well....I dont know why, we started to fight and I was so upset I just went away for some time.
When I was back it was time to leave and it was quite a quick good bye, Muckesh waiting to leave and put the bags here and no put them there and good bye Nico take care you too, so he went.

I spent the night smoking.

Dheli and the Taji Mahal

We spent the night on the super night bus, me a little sleeping and a little dreaming, and a little sad as the indian adventure was going towards the end, and because that ment that Nico had to leave back to France.
I had a night of a lot of thoughts and alot of them were very very sweet, some melancholic, but mostly I felt very much in good company and happy.
The reason I say this is because everytime I am actually travelling from a place to another I have moments of deep insight, when I am on a bus, or on a train, or on a plane, I manage to detach myself from the current situation to see the whole of the story and thus I realize things.
So it happened on the road between Rishikesh and Dehli.

When we arrived in town it was 4 o'clock in the morning, an hour in which I really dont want to be left alone in the middle of Dehli. But of course I was not alone and Nico knew pretty good where we needed to go. So we checked in a Guest House where a boy welcomed us and changed the bed-sheets of our room. We slept all morning and went off for breakfast on the roof top of the next guest house, where I had the first vison of Dheli, from a roof top point of view.

As we promised to Jean Jacques we organized ourselves to go to Agra and see the Taji Mahal, both skeptical about the money we had to spend to see the grave.

The day after (but here my memory really dumps me, so it could be also 2 days after, in this case I have a blank space, please not to be filled in with with drugs and sex speculations, as I had been behaving -I would remember if not...;o) - so lets forget the blank space and get back to Agra) so the day after or the day after the day after we went to Agra.

Agra is known in India for the grave the maharaja made for his beloved wife, the Taji Mahal; and from indian people it is also known for the mental hospital that lies there. The biggest in India and now, after my visit I know why.
Got on the train very early in the morning, I was having a major headhache and could not enjoy the trip but we finally got there.
The Taj was immense big round and bloody white so white it was painfull to look at it. Quite impressive. I know I had been seing it on pictures since loooong time, but I was seduced by the proportions and the balance between the empy and the full and by its perfect presence.
I avoided to make the postcard picture of myself and the Taj on the background, u can find millions of them, but I chose a different perspective and took pictures of the side buildinds mostly ignored by photographers.
Well we had to take our shoes off and it was so hot on the bloody white marble outside the grave that I cooked my already afflicted heals.
When we got in- there was not much to see that was not on the outside too, the marvellous decorations for example and a number of semi precious stones fixed in the curved marble. A hell of a job.
Inside I had a very sweet picture in front of me: an old indian couple was holding hands!
I know it must sound poor compared to the emotion it gave me, but consider that for 3 months I had not seen a single couple, not one, of indian people actually dispensing love gestures. Indian love life stroke me instead for being dry and rigid, so repressed on the emotional and sexual level, that these two, old, indians hit me right away, and I was left dreamy. I pointed them to Nico who also took my hand, (thanx Nico, very sweet indeed) and so we got into what was nothing else then a humungus GRAVE.
Hemm...mmm...
I dont know why at this point the word 'marriage' is dancing in my head ... maybe because I said we got hand in hand into what was nothing else then a humungus grave?Yeah sounds pretty much like what people do when they marry no? Hemm..I am sorry but maybe because I am a daughter of divorced and unhappy parents I do not believe in such things, but well the paragone just jumped in my head so naturally that I had to record it. ..plus both head and hands are plugged in at the moment :o)
Ok sorry for the digression, to go back to the Taj, we went around the grave for 7 times concentrating on a vow we made, having something to do with love, of course, and art, of course.
For the curious we did not promise eachother eternal love or stuff like that, hold your hungry minds you wild dudes out there!
After we walked around the outside of the building one time (enough for our cooking feet) we left pretty fast, thinking, alright, a little relax and then back to Dehli.
Yeah.
Right.
What happend to us from that moment till the day after is beyond imbaraccement, its just ohh i cant find the words to describe.

bridge of Laxman Jula

simo 082, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

on the Ganga River

rocks

rocks, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

dont ant to be boring but....

Ram

Raaaaam, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

in one of his typical expressions

ganga view

ganga view, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

this is the view from the spot I spent the most of my time in Rishikesh
notmuch of a picture i know, but the rocks were amazing seen from real and the air was pure and the water fresh!

indian mistic business man

indian mistic business man, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

vishnu, hanuman disciple, singer and yoga business man at your service

Rishikesh

Well well after such a long but not useless break I think I can start the tale of a town called Rishikesh, and this time I wrote it right, as I looked it up on google.
Well this small town, as u can read on every travel guide about India, lies at the feet of the Hymalaias and gatheres a crowd of western tourists seeking enlightment. The town and the villages around are split in two by the pure waters of the Ganga that comes down freshly from the source, only one day away from Rishikesh.
After a troubled trip on the train, as Nico was slighly sick and I was in quite of a bad mood, both of us coming down fron the wild Varanasi days, the welcome commettee was a dodgy baba trying to sell us some dodgy dope, in a dodgy garden. Of course he fell on the wrong crowd as we smelled the trick and went on to Laxman Jula, buying nothing, where we found a room quite immediately and we rested some good hours.

The place was pretty and we a had a good view over the ganga which looked quite seducing and fresh.

Our room, as we found out the morning after, was right next to the yoga hall and the little window in the wall -separating us infidel from them enlightened- made possible to the sounds of meditation to travel right to our hears, delighting us with 'inhale/exhale' mantras sang in the very early morning with the sweetest of the voices, not only waking us up at 8.00 am with no need of allarm clocks, but also keeping the rithm of our biotime, as through the day there more yoga classes and we always managed to know what part of the day it was just by paying a little attention next door. The voice of the yoga teacher is the thing I will more hardly forget of my trip in india. The forced laughing of the yoga students is the thing I most hardly try to forget nowadays. By the way...

We spent the days in the wild nature, which was quite a big change from the wildlife of Varanasi, we avoided the tourist crowded places and purified our proved spirits on the shores of the holy river, where we talked and talked and planned and planned till anxiety, and we backed off from any moving thing which seemed human, white skinned and yoga orientated.

But things went more or less in this way: every day we moved out of the little town in search of a good isolated spot on the Ganga where we could talk and laugh and argue and and fight and dance and write and draw, and everyday there was a baba approaching us.
The good thing about this was that these babas were not the freshly shaved tourist orientated yoga teacher guru wanna-be of the planty guest house-ashrams of Laxman Jula, but more of Hindu monks doing their samanas in some kind of minuscule cave, just upway from our favourite spot on the Ganga.

The first who called us was this very serious baba, he gave a sign to come up to him while Nico was tring to update his diary (he never managed since I met him though, ;o) and I was tring to read. He gave us some mats to sit on his rock and saied just nothing. Poor Nico tried to introduce a conversation but he gave up a few minutes after some stone hard silence. I quite enjoyed it, I mean the silence. I am quite sure that a real master does not try to teach stuff or instruct anybody in this life, a wise one does not look for followers or disciples. I did not look for a guru either, and I was quite sure that if I had to meet a holy man I would have just enjoyed some silence with him, as I know that the precious enlightment a saint gains in his life cannot be trasmitted by words.
So I did enjoy this moment of silence with the baba, I felt good connected with him and the environment and apart from being confused by his seriousness I quite liked him. After we went Nico was quite wonderous why the man called us, or so it seemed to me, and by talking to him I kind of empatized a little with his disappointment. My slight disappointment was more about not having seen the baba's smiling side.

We went back to the spot almost everyday and we were very carefull not to disturb the samanas, but eventually they would call us one by one day by day. One of the babas even took my hand and licked passionately before I could wake from astonishment and take it back. Samana life is something I would understand better without this episode.
But alright no big deal.

The day after we arrived we met Ram, a sadu that Nico had met somewhere in Pushka. He took us to the ashram of Vishnu, his friend, who also expressed his joy of meeting us, and expecially me, by plunging his hands in some intimate places of my body, with him I had to back off pretty strongly trying to keep a smile on my face, but if my smile could talk he would tell me its opinion about being forced in front of such a person.
Well ok ok is not as bad as it might sound, but it is normally not pleasent to be checked everywhere by man we dont know, but when the man is supposed to be a purified spirit close to the soul of the universe et cetera believe me its quite a bitter experience.

But ok, actually before he performed his hand plunging number the man was quite a laugh, he had intellingent eyes and it constally seemed he was mocking the all world around him. And probably he was, as he seemed pretty well installed, he has a ashram in a central spot of Laxman Jula, a beautifull building with Ganga view and plenty of sadus and people that seemed at his quite service, and a Nokia mobile phone that rang regularly and very loud.
II for Incredible India.

Fortunatelly on our way there came more movie charachters. One was called Shivala. He was a naga sadu, one of those who go naked around and full with ashes, but he had orange clothing for he lived next to tourists and prefered hash to ashes. Infact he provided us generously of that, and of speech. I really enjoyed him. He seemed at begininnig quite a bubble, but then eventually I liked the way he could see through people. He got kind of fond of us, he read my hand and said that I am and will stay a traveller, he reckoned I had a black spot on the left foot, and actually I always had, was born with it, and he said that's the travellers spot! I got quite impressed. He by the way understood me with the first glance and well, I appreciate these kind of people.
To Nico he told a lot of stuff I will not spread on to the internet world, but Shivala kept hinting at us like two who after this little separation (Nico would leave to France in a few days) after this separation we will meet again, and that there is a strong link between us. That was settled before we met the sadu, but its cool to meet a man able to read souls.

We also happened to get into an other ashram, more for indian souls then for tourists. There the guru was called also Vishnu, but he was a Das, so Vishnu Das, that in the samana's world is at a higher level of enlightment. The man was quite young though and I did not speak to him very much. Nico did, and fell litteraly in love with him. Apparently he had quite a good conversation that taught him a hell of loads of usefull things. Good for him. Me I was left looking after Ram, who took us there, as nobody really talked to him as he is looked upon like the bubble sadu man, smoking dope and having a good fun and searching for friends rather then enlightment.

Well I quite agree with that, and he did not seem to me like a holy man, but a good hearthed one for sure, a little depending of others recognition, but who isn't? So while Nico talked to the guru (he found one!) about getting over there for a few years and do some samana, I was trying to overcome imbarassment between the 2 sadus and Ram. Unsuccesfully. One of the sadus talked a little to me, he had a sympathetic expression and when I met him the day I was leaveing Rishikesh I realized I just adored him!!! Not as a Guru but as a man, as a human being. His eyes were pure and his smile fresh like the smile of a child. Peace inside. Ole'.

The adventures of the day went on and on even after we were back to the room, a little because of the activities next door, a little beacuse of Raju.
Mr Raju is the guy who owns the restaurant at the place where we stayed, and he was just simply unbelivable. He drove me and Nico creazy for his will of covering us with uneeded attentions, screamed our names out on the stares of the guest house, never got anything right of what we ordered to eat and loved us of most deep love, at least at begininnig, when we showed up at his restourant where NOBODY ever goes.
This man was able with his attitude to awake the most perverted fantasies in the already perverted mind of Nico's...In the end he did not love us that much anymore, the mutual sympathy was entirely gone just the day we left. Luckly, or there would have been a murder in the San Sheva Ashram...whoever was to be murdered.

One last but not at all least of the most interesting people we met was Dr Demani.
Already the exotic name makes my mind wonder in the nowhere land, where people are called with fantasy names and live a rainbow life. Yes because Demani sounds like 'domani' which in italian means 'tomorrow', this is why I want to remember him: as DR Tomorrow.

Dr Tomorrow (what a great name for a novel character, anybody intersted?) so Dr Tomorrow stopped us on the doorstep of his room and invited us in to have a look at his goodies. His room was maybe 2 mt by 2 and it reminded of the room my father could live in, if he was living in India. But you dont know my father and this last comment would not interest anyone, I know.
He called himself something like holistic healer, so said the mini micro sign outside his mini micro door of his mini micro room, and sold ( to us and to anybody else) healing stones in necklaces or bracelets, magnet back supporters, magnet neck supporters and a series of items that in his hands seemed to get alive.

He was a laugh, I mean a laugh to think about him! He was answering patiently all our questions, and all the repeated questions Nico kept asking, he had a way with it, I did not know if Nico was asking always the same questions to test the exasperation point of the man or just because he was out of his head (after a couple of months e-mailing I realized the second option is the most probable, unless he spends his life testing the limit of patience of everybody, cha cha).
By the way Dr Tomorrow had quite an afflicted expression on his face everytime we were asking him anything, even if he would go for a chai with us! He seemed to be tortured by simply everything, like he was doomed to be sourrounded by crowds of hopeless wonderers, it was so amusing just to look at him and feel sorry for him that I keep thinking of him. He gave me some colour advice, he said that wearing green helps to be determined and to make choises, and brown colours are usefull for dreamers like to me get hooked to the ground.
I follow these advices and whear often green.

The day we left Rishikesh was a sunny day. We went to shower at the water fall where (I did not mention it but I am doing it now) the day before me and Nico had an intense visionary moment:

he had it while he was under the waterfall, me on the side of it. I dont like to speak about what I saw and what I thought, nor I will repeat what Nico told me him vision was, but they were related, some things were exactly the same and that is because we were very very good connected.
When the simpathetic sadu of Vishnudas came along with his child smile and his pure eyes we were not surprised at all. Surely people like him shower in places like this. At a certain point it was the three of us under the water and it was a great moment, of playfull moods and children's laughers.
The intense moment made us decide to end our days in the holy town with a shower the day after, the day of departure, in what we called the sacred waterfall.

So we did, we met again the happy sadu, we said goodbye to Shivala and we headed to the bus station where we took the night bus to Dehli.

Nico

N, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

wish on the ganga river

wish on the ganga river, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

a little flower with a little candle, at puja time at night the Ganga is full of floating little lights, a beautifull thing to look at, puja means preyer, but also wish. I had mine done the last day in Varanasi.

puja time in Varanasi

puja time in varanasi, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

By night

funeral on the small burning ghat

funeral, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

the picture I took the last night in Varanasi from the boat.

streets of varanasi

streets of varanasi, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

our blue room

our blue room, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

this room saw the most amazing stuff, heard the most intimate confessions and met me Nico and Cort in the most stoned high state of mind.

Varanasi the holy town on the ganga river

ganga view, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

this is how it appeared from the terrace of Vishnu GH where I was staying.

Blue Varanasi

We travelled 2 days on the train, 2 days and half almost 3.

We had a booked sleeper seat on the train to Bombay, but from there we had to hope to find a seat.
Because the train was packed and there was no room for anybody we had to pretend that I was pregnant and sick and that we were married and this way an officer made sure that we had a seat were I could rest. This embaracing idea came obviously from Nico who kept saying, -try to look sick please, look sick!-

The time I spent in the train with Nico we spent knowing eachother a little better and it was a little scary sometimes to see how many things we had in common. Normally I dont trust people who are too much like me (I wonder why...) but with Nico it was astonishing! Fortunately he made sure that I was cracking from laughing all the time, which made the time run really fast and forget the similarities.

In the train we were very little left alone, in a moment there were 6 people sitting on a 3 people seat just in front of us, which only stared and stared and stared and went on staring for hours, 'till Nico started his show-WE ARE ON TV!!!!!!!!- that made me laugh so shamelessy that I guess the indians felt too embaraced for me -tears coming from my eyes- to keep looking.

We arrived in Varanasi pretty late at night, checked in the first guest house available by the Hanuman Ghat and after a fat cream joint we went to bed.

The day after we had breakfast in the guest house (habit that I never had before but with Nico it became infact a habit) we moved to have a look at the ghats on the Ganga and there, in front of the holy river I heard so much about and read about when I was so little, in front of it I just could not stop crying. Well Varanasi has been this to me .
I felt so skinless I was so sensitive to any good and any bad- I felt that I was in the center of the world where all the bad and all the good gathers and co-exists.
The smells even were so contraddicting, you could smell shit and a second after a sweet incence parfume and flowers and food and then shit again all in the space of 30 seconds. there were people trying to sell u everything and beggars and babas and children with coloured pigments getting ready for HOLY, a real casba a fucking mess provoking the most opposite feelings.
We found by chance a very very beautifull place, Vishnu GH where we took a blue room on the high terrace with view on the Ganga.
After we cheched out with some troubles from the Hanuman Ghat we moved into our blue room that gave me a sense of joy from the very first glance.
On the terrace we could see hundreds of birds flying on the river, drowing fantastic geometries in the sky also very blue and plunging down till the edge of the water and up again- I spent long time observing them and trying to immagine if I was a bird...

Our days in Varanasi were more or less like this > after a breackfast on the terrace under the blue sky and the fanastic birds we would go explore the ghats, looking for stuff to smoke and try to get an idea of the town that seemed to be the the center of the universe.
The visit to the Burning Ghats was fast and intense, the smell of burnt flesh mixed with flowers and incense and the feeling was weird. I felt like in Varanasi I could take everything, the death and the life, the beauy and the horrors, in the burning ghats I felt petrified by the pain of the relatives of the deaths that was not really pain, everybody seemed to accept death as the naural thing that it is, so under the sky, so clear and exposed. Indeed very different from our culture that tends to bann the argument like a taboo. All this I found very confronting. Pain that was no pain really upset my mind, but it was a silent and quite way of upsetting it, it was like a silent and sweet inner explosion.
In this confusional state of mind and seduced by life at once, and by death too,we looked for all the possible things available to get fully stoned and we did find the most assorted choise of drugs.
In the afternoons we returned to our quite Ganga looking room to paint and rest and talk and dig dig dig as much as possible to make the intensiy of the experience even more intense, if possible, and at a certain point, a very high one I have to confess, Cort, the sax player of Hampy shows up!!!He wrote me he was in Varanasi and I just mailed him the name of my guest house.
Useless to say how happy I was to see him!

He moved in the same Guest house and spent his time toying with the stones he just grew interested in, he brought us stones, saxophone notes and to me memories.

On the terrace I could play my pois and the staff, which helped me to balance the most unbalancable feeling I was experiencing, I felt like I was surfing at the edge of the world, and like the experience with the cobra, I felt nothing bad could happen to me. The fact that I was drowing again made me feel even stronger and those uncountable days in Varanasi I will always take with me.

Those days my feelings towards Nico grew very strong and even though they lacked any future perspective I felt really thankfull for the moment I was living. If somebody would have asked me to make a wish I would have been unable to formulate one, because all I needed I had, and although with Nico we spoke much about the future I could not care less of it.

In those days we formulated the project of working together on a theme, once in Europe, and organize a exibition of our works somewhere.
The theme > Le Voyage et les rencontres.

The last night in Varanasi we took a boat trip on the Ganga at sunset and we did our pujas. It has been a very sweet goodbye to the town.

We left Varanasi- a bit weak from the experience but fully charged in spirit- to reach the holy town at the feet the Himalayas, Risickesh, where the Ganga is clear and fresh and people go to learn yoga.

from inside the meteorite

sign of god?, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

the meteorite consisted in a harrow like black rock that pierced the hearth and all around the valley it's possible to find 56 pieces of rocks like this, but of different sizes.
this one was the biggest one, quite like a rock montain and inside there was this cave from which I managed to take this picure.
This place is actually known among the indians not for the extraordinary piece of space rock but for the temple that was built just at the feet of it.
On the way to it we stopped in the jungle and I looked for cobras as the region is quite full with black big ones. The creazy thing is that as soon as we stopped the bike I heard the stalking noise of a snake and immediately knew where to look. A huge cobra was promenading in the dry leaves close to a water spot. the feeling that such an animal in the wild life can give you is something impossible to describe. I was petrified by wonder.
But more, when we where walking down to our bike a black big cobra crossed my way,- Nikil paniked- I was too atracted by the animal I walked straight forward him I was hypnotized by its beauty, I waited he crossed the way and while Nikil the poor lad was trying unsuccesfully to stop me I went to stand in front of the snake, he stopped, he turned his head and looked at me and that moment I will never forget. We were very close to each other and I knew nothing could happen to me, I had this weird certainty that the cobra would not attack me, I was not scared at all, fashinated, in a sort of trance but not scared.
Nikil did not live it in the same way. He got pretty pale and rushed to get out of the place, he did not like snakes at all and we saw another one crossing our street on the way home. I was hoping to see cobras all the time and this day I got compleately satisfied.

Jean Jacques and Nicolas and metorite interludes

When Alessio left Gokarna I was still in the room we shared, where I started finally to paint with water colours, after a few months of inactivity.

So what I did was to spend some time reading, reading a lot to be honest, and messing around a bit with my diary and drowings, quite shily have to say, bit scared too. But at least for the firs time I was using colours (loads) to make some figurative pictures.

One day I decided I had looked at the sea too long already from my balcony and that the time was arrived to overcome my waves fear.
So I took all my guts and walked straight to the beach, a very very windy and wavy one. I walked along the water line for a kilometer more or less and there I put my sarong on the sand and ran into the water! And ran away from it! And ran in the water again and again out and again in and in and out and my heart was between my ears - will have a heart attack I will I know-I kept doing this mad run in and out of the water till I was exausted and my blood pressure was at dangerous levels.
The people that might have looked at the creazy dance might have thought -ah there is another lost one coming...- yes because India is really fully packed with lunatics...So I went to rest on a amack in a cozy beach restaurant, where I nearly immediately started to talk with two french men.

Jean Jacques and Nicolas.

Jean Jeacques (JJ) was resting on a amack next to mine and we started to talk about travels, he had been travelled all his life -quite long considering he is 58- and he still was travelling. His job was tourist guide and expert of the silk roads, he could speak for hours about magic places like Sammarkanda and Kirkistan and all central Asia, it was just too much of a pleasure to listen to him, and also the feeling that he could understand all that a life in constant travel can give you made me feel very very confortable with him. The sound of his voice also made me cozy and when we shared the opinions we had about Vietnam and vietnamese people then well I was sure I finally found someone I could talk with. But obviously he has been much more than that as I have been learning so much from our conversations that I can't wait till I see him again. (at the moment he is in Kazacstan but soon he will return to France)

Nicolas was next to him, a younger friend of JJ, he is 36 now,he was smiling very charmingly at all alive creatures around him, he had gentle seducing ways and bright smart blue eyes, it was a pleasure to watch him.
I found out he was a painter and that he had been painting for 9 years, after that he had been writing theater since he was 8 (!!) and that he was very active since he was in Gokarna. Well with him and JJ I spent a few days and I developped a very deep affection for the both.
Nicolas proposed to go with him to Varanasi and voila I definely said yes yes yes I want to go with him as he was horribly amusing and he made me crack from laughing everytime he decided. So as JJ had to be in Dehli we decided to leave the 3 of us in the same train, leave JJ in Dehli and go on to Varanasi.
Unfortunately trains in india are not that easy to book, so it was impossible to travel with JJ who left suddently leaving a big hole between me and Nicolas.

We stayed in Gokarna a few more days , when I met Nikil again, an indian guy I met in Hampy, he came to see me with the only purpose of showing me a METEORITE not far from the town.
He travelled 2 days from his home on his motorbike just to see me, he said he wanted to show me this thing in style, but his bike broke on the way and he had to do half of the trip on a bus, the poor guy, but he managed to rent a bike to go see the site which now I know how much it was worth to see. I still keep some stones of the metorite, amazing stuff!!
Nikil has turned out to be a good friend and a very intellingent and sensitive lad, and not at all interested in anything else then the sharing of opinions, smokes, and obviously fat laughs!
Currently he is organizing a trip to Thailand and i will see him here in Bkk.

But to go back to Nicolas we cought a train together and we started another advenure.
Varanasi.

Ramanna

beautifull people, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

a little step back to hampy to have a look to Ramanna's smart look

kudli beach at sunset

voila!, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

the beach just next to gokarna

colours

colours, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

pigment shop in gokarna, just before the Shivaratri festival and not long before the holi festival, the colour party when everybody gets coloured water poured all over and people get drunk

daily life in gokarna

daily life in gokarna, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

shiva ratri festival, gokarna

shiva ratri festival, gokarna, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

trip to Gokarna and the 'Gokarna welcome commettee'

well about Gokarna there is a lot to say.
It marked the biginning of my second half of the trip through India, the most aware and exciting part.
First of all the way I got there was remarkable: I took a local bus from Hampy which was supposed to take me directly to the beach town, but the driver at my questions- will this bus arrive in Gokarna and when- after he looked a while in my eyes answered simply <> No to both questions, he just decided at glance that I was not going to Gokarna. He had just decided that that day he was not driving there, but indeed that WAS the bus to Gokarna. But well the moment I decided to make the local bus experience I took everything into account, even this. So without showing any sign of impatience -I was ready to everything the local bus adventure was investing me with- so without any sign of impatience and with the most polite and respectfull voice I had available (ha yes my voice came back after a week in Goa) I asked him in which way he could suggest me I was getting to destination.
Again after looking at me for a while, like he was mesuring the dimentions of my soul, and considering if I was worth to help it or not, he decide it was and suggested me to get the bus he was driving till a certain town and then catch another bus or a taxi or spend the night there as I preferred. Up to me.
I kindly thanked him and as the most normal thing had just happened to me I got on his bus.

Where I was a sensational event...a white tourist, all alone on the fully packed indian local bus, people keept looking and staring and giggling and so on, really amusing. I was on television.
after 8 hours of bumps and off roads and chais (indian tea) and men's look I reached the last town where the bus driver was willing to take me and I looked for the next way to get to Gokarna.

I did not even know why I was going to that town, I was much happier to be far from the sea and the town I was heading to was right on the sea, I just decided to go there out of the blue and I kept wondering what the hell I was going there for, but well, I found out after...

At the bus station they assured me every half hour that the bus was coming in 20 minutes but I waited there for 2 and half hours, that makes 5 halfhours and 11 and half 20 minutes but no bus showed up. So. So I was just loosing my hopes and looking around for a hotel or something (nothing at all!!!) when somebody tapped my shoulder and suggested me to go look out of the bus station for some kind of alternative ways, so I just cought a minibus that was about to leave and after 30 minutes of montain road I was was in Gokarna. State of Karnataka.
It was 20.30 and I felt so powerfull because I made it that well, I did not look for a room but walked straight to the beach looking for a reason to be there.

It was dark and I so no reasons no beach nothing at all.

So I looked for a room and all I found was a dump in the town that smelled like rats and had rats shit everywhere, it was moist and the latrine was just a hole from which the rats were supposingly coming out from. No door between the bedroom and the toilet. I left my bag there and went to a little restaurant I saw on the beach, the last concrete building ( yeah building) before the wild nature, to cry my desperation for the room and with no intentions of returning to sleep in there. I was hoping the retaurant was open all night....
While I was silently paniking about the night I saw a simpatic looking guy reading an italian book. In no time we were chatting animously and he got informed about my trip and my room situation and rather fast he proposed me to spend the night in his room, just upstears from the restaurant, he had a huge bed and bathroom, balcony with the view on the ocean. ;o)
I was saved by some guardian angel again!! In the meanwhile another couple of italians joined our table and they informed quickly of all the best and the worse of the place.
No need to say that I went back to my room only to get my backpak and that the simpatic looking guy-Alessio- became a great buddy and I shared his fantastik clean beach sunset view room with bathroom for something like 10 days or a week I dont remember and I felt like I was the most lucky fucker in the all India, or at least in the state of Karnataka , well Alessio shared the same opinion.

me in varanasi

me in varanasi, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

for all who longed to see me again...;o)

kumta marcket

kumta, originally uploaded by piccola ala.

south India, the strenght of the look of the woman on the left, I was struck by the pride coming from her eys...

I am still around Asia

well i know its been a while since I posted my last message but I have to confess that India left me speechless -for those who know me the best this will be difficult to believe...- and I found very difficult while I was there to describe my feelings and my impressions.
Now I am back in Bangkok and after a few days of digestion I can finally say about my Indian adventure
I landed in Bombay the 21 of January and in total I have stayed for 3 months which were a very short time compared to the dimension (both phisical AND metaphisical) of the country.
First reaction in Bombay was a huge laugh, I could not believe the taxi that was taking me to the train station, it was a old timer with a very very loud and cracking radio and the diriver kept changing channels, athough all sounded the same-with the ignition key, he took it off -while driving- and used it for the music purpose and then he put it back in the ignition all this while driving in a chaotic messy hellish highway where all laws of phisics where constantly challenged, and eventually defeated...
Appart from this hillarious beginning the impact with the Bombay railway station had been seriously shocking, just hords of people sitting on the floor and beggers and dirt and stinking stuff and NO SIGNS whatsoever, but the most funny thing was that I landed in India with no voice! I lost it the last night in BKK fot the goodbye celebrations and it was quite hard to ask for informations, not everybody in india had the patience to read labial...so in the most comic way and with the help of the only white man in the sourroundings I found the tourist quota booking office where I was informed that there was no way of leaving Bombay by train that day.
Well I was just too intimidated by the town to stay a day more, freshly arrived I would have been, I thought, easy prey of anybody who wanted to sell me the Gate of India or the Tajimahal, so I managed miraculously to find a bus station where I booked a place on the first bus to GOA!
Goa as everybody told me was supposed to be the easiest place of India, actually was the only state of India which did not match with anything else in the country, first of all they are christians and there are churches, after there is a very european architecture and its full packed with tourist who make it feel like Ibiza holiday for moneyless partygoers.
It was bad, but not so bad. First of all I arrived in the morning and managed to get to Arambol, where I took a room in a guest house where the owner reveald himself as a dirty voyer, he was sneaking in the room while I was sleeping and unfortunately for him I was not sleeping at all.
I left the place and got into another GH where the owner was a woman, I explained her what happened and she said the only man in the house was her son and I should let her know if he would do something like that , she would take care of it. Well, indian women seemed to me full power (full power-experssion very used in India) and very determined.
In Arambol, Goa I stayed for 2 weeks and there I met a guy who I knew from thailand about 2 and half year before, Tony, who just bought himself a motorbike, obviously a Royal Enfield, the one and only engine tiger that owns indian roads. Tony took me for a Horror Tour on his bike, he showed me all the places where never to go in Goa and I have to say I had a terrific time I will never forget.
For the rest it was alright, I had the time to get used to the invironment, to the smell, to the LOOK of the men that make u feel naked and so on. But well I departed with a great couriosity towards India (and Indian food, as in Arambol I could taste the best italian food I ever tasted outside Italy and absolutely no indian food) and I headed to Hampy with the most entertaining company>two musicians,Barth the diji and tabla player, France, and Cort the saxophone player, Germany. We jumped on a train and got to Hampy of which u can see some picture, the sadu on the top of the hill, the cobra and so on.
Well Hampy was nothing less then an amazing place. It was in a immense valley just made of rocks, humangus round and smooth rocks everywhere for kilometers and kilometers, an old ruins valley which once was a rich empire that traded in precious stones. What I did in Hampy the all day was

1)cooking-the heat was unbareble
2)getting on a bike and going to look around
3) meeting all kind of tourists
4)hanging around the lake.

The lake was a very incredible place as it is situated in a valley sorrounded by hills full of rocks (of course) and at first glance these hills seem deserted, but as u walk u start seeing chai sellers, cookies wallas, dealers and all kind of confort business u can have around there, goats and goats men and so on. these people just live among the rocks, they just turn around the rock they have chosen as the day passes so they can enjoy the shade.
The walk around there is not a mere walk, it is rather a climbing up and down and that makes everything pretty much unreal. I got well on with Ramana, the first Indian man that looked in my eyes while talking, a real good man I trusted at first sight, since I sat next to him we shared a number of fat laughs, it was like we knew each other forever. He lived under the most huge rock of the lake and he took me there in his basket boat, round weed boat with one pedal, the local way of getting around the rivers and the lake.
Infact in the middle of the lake, when u think ,ok this is it I am going to die here its too hot I am too thirsty to survive, hop- a little basket boat pops up out of nowhere and a guy in it provides you with fresh drinks and fresh hope. Thats it, I told Ramana, this is really the most unreal place I have ever been.
Well with Ramana I spent only three days as he had to leave to Goa but I keep an immense gratitude to his clean and not interested friendship, and to the notions of yoga he tried unsuccesfully to teach me. ;o)


After I went to Gokarna.