Thousands of Buddhist pilgrims flock their way to Bodhgaya during January and February each year. The atmosphere is all smiles, if you ignore the intense Bihari poverty at the margins of everything. Monks and nuns from all Buddhist communities around the world and many lay folk like myself and Laura, walk circles around the Mahabodhi temple and the Bodhi tree, the site of Big B’s enlightenment. It wasn’t hard to conclude that this was easily the highest concentration of happy people we’ve ever met. You just have to make eye contact with the people here to get them laughing. The highest form of entertainment came from sitting on one of the ledges next to the Bodhi tree and watch as young novice monks stood with keen attention on the leaves that would fall from the tree. With good reflex, they would dash en masse to a leaf freshly fallen, knocking over people meditating in the process. Occassionaly, an old monk would come around the corner and yell at them and they would take off laughing. If you weren’t succesful in scoring a leaf from the tree, you could always buy one from one of the vendors outside the temple complex. With few noticeable exceptions, no economic niche goes unfilled here in India.

In my last writings, Jake, Laura and I were in Bangalore I believe. The highlight was Maaya, the grand illusion it’s referred to as. We decided to jump on the www.couchsurfing.com bandwagon, a community of residents and travellers that facilitates free home stays and connections for people travelling. We hooked up with a number of couchsurfer (CS) folks in Bangalore over dinner one night and one traveller suggested that we find Maaya, an experiment in community, philosophy and living spaces. Eric, a young man from New York, had visited Maaya a night earlier and described it as one of the most interesting living spaces he’s even seen. You could come and go as you please, any time of day or night, no rules but funky architecture, a sizeable library on spirituality and philosophy and a non-sketchy atmosphere. He knew roughly where it was on a map of Bangalore and had a scant description on what the place looked like from the outside.

Jake and I hopped in a rickshaw at 11PM and were dropped off on the other side of the city. Working from a rough map I had drawn, a police vehicle pulled up to us on the side of the road and offered to bring us along for a ride to find Maaya. They were miffed at how little we knew about where we were going, but didn’t seem particularly worked up about anything as they said the night was slow going. They let us off close to where we thought we needed to be and we searched the quiet residential side streets calling out ‘Manju’, the name of the man who ‘ran’ the place.

We were unsuccessful with our search, as the first two videos on my FaceBook page show. Determined with the force of Lord Krishna on our side (see Bhagavad Gita), we returned two days later during the day time to try and find Manju. Within twenty minutes we had succeeded and realized how close we were during the first attempt. Gaaya, as parts 3 and 4 show in the videos, was indeed a fascinating place and all three of us enjoyed some chai with Manju and his wife discussing how the space came about and it’s future.

We were happy to leave Bangalore’s pollution. Our lungs were burning from all the diesel smoke. The reprieve was limited as Hyderabad was not much better. The saving grace was the famous Paradise Biriyani. This restaurant is the king of restaurants. 600 staff and seating for 1200 people. Their special is the 425 Rs chicken mutton biriyani dish, which we made a dent in, but concluded that it fulfilled any future need to eat this rice dish.

An overnight train to Bangalore, some expensive coffee in Mumbai Airport, and a flight later brought us to Varanasi, the holiest Hindu site in India. If you can die as a Hindu and be burned on the ghats overlooking the Ganges river, you get a free ticket to paradise. Instant salvation from Shiva. Except if you’re pregnant, a child, a sadhu, died from a snake bite, or an animal. In that case, you are not cremated and you have a stone tied around your body and you are dropped in the middle of the river. Shiva will take you as you are.

It is impossible to give any justice to what Varanasi is like in a few words here, but it’s impossible to deny how intense this place is. The burning ghats, the maze of narrow streets in the old city (3000 years old!), the gangs of dogs, and the stench of cow poop, and barely moving Ganga river do nothing to diminish the filth but, as Jake said, when you’re this close to the end of your life, it doesn’t really matter does it.

Jake left us in Varanasi as he heads off to work as a logistician for Medicin Sans Frontiers (MSF, doctors without borders) in Eastern Congo. I ask that you send you love, thoughts, prayers and so on towards Jake and all the people living in one of the most war-torn places on the planet.

From Varanasi we headed into Bodhgaya, Bihar, the most impoverished state in India. Over half of the population lives in absolute poverty, meaning that they lack even the basics for survival but are somehow still surviving. 60% of the population is under 25 and this seemed consistent with many of the men we met who were gunning for as many eleven children (all boys, they hoped). Things are apparently improving here with literacy, health programmes, infrastructure, and promising economic development, but the violence, apathy towards Bihar, and corrupt governance keeps the indominable spirit of the people we met here from obtaining even the basics.

The remaining days of our trip will be spent enjoying the warm weather of Delhi, buying as much inexpensive goods from the markets as we can, seeing Slumdog Millionaire, hanging with our friends Abhi, Meem and Mia and preparing for the big transition.

Thank you to all of you for joining me and Laura on this trip from a far. Your letters, especially during the Delhi and Mumbai blasts, were a source of strength. I hope I’ve been able to capture even a slice of this trip for all of you, knowing of course that only so much can be said in so many words. I hope this has excited you about travelling, about coming to India, about challenging your perspectives and comfort zones. Perhaps it’s done the opposite – there are some things about coming here and living out of a backpack that would be a worst nightmare for some people. If anything, I hope some of these words have helped you fan your imagination and produce a little tingle down your back.

Be well, much love

sean