Welcome to Nepal

The easiest way to go to Kathmandu from Delhi is to fly! 

We didn't know that there are cheap flights even if you buy 2 days before you leave. After all those long bus trips in India, we were in a plane to fly just for one and a half hour. When we arrived to Kathmandu we noticed 3 things : The drivers were not horning in every second, the weather was cooler and the dogs were happier ! So it was a good start to Nepal. After we met our host Namit, we went to see a documentary called Urbanized that would be shown by SATTYA project. Sattya Media Arts Collective is a resource centre for artists, filmmakers, photographers, activists etc. in Nepal. They encourage people TO DO WHAT THEY LOVE.We really liked them !

  

When we arrived to our new house we started to dance because of the happiness to have a 5 star bed room. Our host Namit has been moved to Kathmandu just 2 months ago and he was living in a very fancy side of the city. It was hard to leave the house so we spent our next day watching Woody Allen's movies and listening to nice chill out music's by Namit's choice.

In our third day, Namit had more guests and it was a good day to discover Monkey Temple all together. The monkeys were the most interesting part of the this Katmandu's Temple. They were everywhere ! They were nice to you until they take your coconut from you.After that they were going to somewhere to eat it and if you are a little bit close to them they were doing their best movement to scare you.

Next day we discovered Boudhanath by ourselves. This giant stupa is in the middle of a lovely neighbourhood with full of shops and cafes. Ales left a good memory to the people when he was juggling with his orange balls front of Boudhanath. In the evening we had our first supermarket shopping since we started to travel. That night,we ate our first chinese food in Nepal cooked by our Chinese friends. Time had been passed quickly with new friends,a great host and good rest in Kathmandu.

Again it was the time to leave for another place,to Chitwan. 

 So in next post the weather will be hotter ! :)

Knowing new religions. From sikh golden temple to baha’i lotus temple

We said bye bye to our kashmiri family and we thought that it was the moment to try another India transport: we were ready for India's trains or we thought that...

From Srinagar to Jammu was a normal share taxi journey where we met another special driver. Definitely they are a special human group...

Eight hours later we arrived to Jammu's train station and there it started the adventure. We asked to twenty different people where we could find the tickets to Amritsar and we got 15 different answers. We decided to follow our instinct and I went to a long line to wait for my chance.
I will never forget my experience about this line. 35 degrees, men pulling each others from side to side, no electricity and no English speaker in the line. After one and a half hour I arrived to the window and I tried to explain myself where and when I wanted to go.I think that the small man behind the window only knew one English word. NEXT! After 3 minutes of non sense conversation he gave me a kind of unreadable ticket and screamed... next!!!!!

I was afraid how it would be our train because I only paid 150 rupies for two people.We asked a young woman for our seats. When she saw our ticket her face changed, she pointed us a place and she screamed: general ticket! You have to fight for your seats!!!

Jugaadus eco hostel in Amritsar

We run with our backpack to the first part of the train and we reached a kind of cell full of people looking at us . For the first moment they thought we were wrong but someone checked our ticket and he told to the rest of the people something in Hindi related to us. Suddenly many questions came to us in a very strange english: wach ir my nei ( what is your name) your cantri? ( where are you from?) Yu where go?( where are you going?).. Somehow we understood each other and we spent an interesting 5 hours journey. Our train compartment was completely full. We were so lucky because we found a seat but other people were seating on the floor or in the suitcase place. Very interesting journey...

We arrived to Amritsar and we directly went to our couchsurfer guest house. There we found a paradise in the middle of the jungle. Sanjay owned this amazing eco hostel full of nice people, nice feelings and nice purpose.

We met with sikh people who introduced us to the sikh religion. Some points of this religion are very interesting. We could understand how much they practice giving. 

Every day in the golden temple are served thousands of meals for free and every day there are hundreds of volunteers helping in the temple. We were so lucky to meet one of the most popular Sikh in the city ( he appeared in some national geographic documentary) who showed us some Sikh music.


For more information about sikh religion you can check this link

http://www.sikhs.org/

After Amritsar we went back to New Delhi where our friend Oscar and Pema were waiting for us in Old Delhi railway station. We went together to the lotus temple and we could learn something of a new religion for us. The Baha'i

Inside of the lotus temple there is no Gods, no pictures, no holy statues. There is only silence and many places to seat and meditate as long as you want. They have other temples in all around the world.

To learn more you can check this link:

http://www.bahai.org/

After that we noticed that our India experience it had finished because the day after we would travel to Nepal.

We have lived in India many different situations. For sure something inside us has change after India. We realised that this is a country that you have to experience by yourself to take your own conclusions.

Bye bye India, hello Nepal!!

Golden temple

holy water

hinduist temple in Amritsar

indian soldiers

Pakistan border

Too hot for my poor bra

bad boy bad girl

momos chefs

great artist made in India

Lotus temple 

northest region of India. Between the Buddhist and muslim India

Hi ahimsa followers! We have survived to Himalaya's mountains and we are back!

We have been two weeks without a suitable internet connexion but now we are able to write our last two weeks trip in the northest state of India: Jammu and Kashmir.

After 2 relaxing days in Manali we took a minibus to Ladakh. We knew it would be a hard journey because of the road but we didn't know it would be than much difficult... If our bottom could explain how much pain they suffered during those 19 hours, it would be a long post. You can check in the video some part of our funny jumping trip. But not everything was suffering. In this route Manali- Leh we saw amazing view and we discovered how many hours one Indian driver can drive without any rest through the worst road in India. After this trip we become more believers... For sure something holy protected us to survive during this extreme road.

Once we arrived to Leh our ladaki family was waiting for us with a big smile and one hundred momos to feed our hungry and scared stomachs. They were hosting us during kalachakra ritual and they made us feel like in our own house. We can say we have a new family in the roof of the world.

During these two weeks we felt and lived many different experiences, emotions and sensations with our bodies and minds. Kalachakra is the most powerful and deep initiation of the Tibetan Buddhism but we couldn't understand everything they were doing due to our amateur level, so we tried to take at least the blessings that his holiness Dalai lama was giving during those two weeks. For us it was like a intensive course of Tibetan Buddhist and we could realised how much ladaki people respect dalai lama and how much they try to put in practice Buddhist values such a compassion, patient and respect for every creature. We also had the lucky chance to celebrate dalai lama's 79 birthday. We had a special party full of blessings and good wishes for a inner peace and world peace.

If we had to choose one sentence to define Dalai lama's teachings could be the following:

The best religion is kindness.

We really enjoy speaking and hanging out with local people, monks and Tibetan whom attempted this special Buddhist initiation. After our Ladakh experience we understand why this part of India is also known like a little Tibet.

Once we visited the Kalachakra sand mandala we realised that our time is Ladakh it was close to be over. What did it mean? We had to take another crazy vehicle to get out of the highest mountains in the world. Our button started to become nervous again..

This time our destination was Srinagar, the summer capital city of the Jammu and Kashmir region. Luckily our share taxi's driver was a non risky man and we could enjoy in a very calm mode the amazing sightseen of our journey. Dalai lama's blessing was starting to make effect...

Once we arrived to Srinagar we supposed to sleep and rest our tired bodies in a nice houseboat but the reality was quiet different... It was 11 pm and the owner of the houseboats that we had to sleep in, showed us a dark, scary room where we had to try to sleep for the next hours. This underground place was where we used for first time our mosquitera to protect ourselves from the insects, humidity and other strange beings which that night would share our lovely room ...

In the very early morning we woke up and we run to a couchsurfer house where we would live during the following days. Here we spend two great days living with a traditional Kashmir family and we realised how exciting life takes place in Dal lake every moment of the day. The father of our new family owned a sikara ( traditional boat) which we could enjoy a tour around this amazing lake looking the floating market, the fisherman houses, the huge variety of birds and the floating ecological orchards full of shining vegetables.

After we discovered buddhist India in Ladakh and Muslim India in Kashmir we were ready to discover Sikh India in Amritsar. But this will be in the next post.

Thanks to share with us these experiences.

Peace, love and compassion