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.