Forence

The sun is shining, the air is cool, they are selling piles of cheap clothes in Piazza Santa Spirito and the tourists are sitting on the steps of the church as usual.

I bought some vegetables to make a salad (something I haven't had for three and a half months) from the contadina in the piazza, who assures me that everything she sells is absolutely exquisite. I just hope she doesn't used pesticides.

The train journey from Roma to Florence was a reminder of just how beautiful the Italian countryside is, even when the trees are bare, at the end of the winter. Gentle wooded hills, rolling green fields, olive groves and cypress trees, ancient hill top towns all passed by the windows of the train, as the sun went down and the clouds turned pink.

Bhimbetka

Ancient cave paintings at Bhimbetka

Passport nightmare

When I arrived at the government hotel on the road to Bimbetka, I discovered that my passport was still in the guest house at Sanchi. I realised that the guest house keeper had taken it to photocopy it, although I protested that I would forget it, and he had not given it back to me. I panicked, and said that I would have to return to Sanchi immediately to retrieve it, though I was not at all sure how I would get there, since it was already dark and it had taken me five hours to get from Sanchi to Bimbetka. The hotel manager said “Don’t worry, we will try to get your passport back,” and phoned to the government hotel in Sanchi, asking them to go to the guest house where I had stayed the night before and see whether they had my passport. Then he phoned the guest house and demanded that they bring my passport to Bimbetka, but they made lots of excuses about the darkness and the difficulty of driving a motorbike at night and the distance. “Do you want to go to the police station?” the manager asked. I did not hesitate. And so I sat on the back of a motor scooter, driven by Tiwari, one of the employees of the hotel, along the dark and dangerous road, oncoming traffic blinding us, lorries blaring their claxons and more than once driving us off the road, through clouds of thick dust, for six kilometres to the police station in Abdulla Ganj.

The local police seemed most disinterested in my plight, so my brave knight in shining armour demanded to speak to the chief of the police for the whole area. I don’t know what he said to him, but he spoke long and emphatically on his mobile phone, with the result that the police chief telephoned the police in Sanchi, who went to the guest house, retrieved my passport and promised to deliver it to the police station in Abdulla Ganj by the first train the next day.

On our return to the hotel in Bimbetka the hotel manager told me that he was on very good terms with the chief of the police, who was prepared to do this for him.

I’m paying £16 for this hotel room, way more than I usually pay, but the staff have been wonderful. Tiwari brought me my passport next day at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, his hair standing on end from the scooter ride to the police station. I gave him 200 rupees for his trouble. He brought me a complimentary drink and said I could stay in the room until five free of charge.

The name of the hotel is MPTDC Highway Treat

Bookings  www.mptourism.com

Bhimbetka

I was alone in a wild and barren landscape of black boulders and contorted, leafless trees as I walked along the road to the famous cave paintings. A few birds were timidly twittering and I could hear the distant rumble of incessant trains. The first paintings I came across had been defaced. I walked on another km or two. There was a barbed wire fence beside the road, presumably to protect the cave paintings. I saw a white number painted onto a rock, found a hole in the fence, went through and climbed through the tangled branches of the bushes and trees, over rocks to the numbered rock underhang, where I found four ochre streaks on the rock, presumably standing men, with no discernible arms or legs. Back on the road I walked another kilometre or so and came to a little hut, where the park guard lives. He gave me a map and pointed to a path leading to some high rock formations, towering behind the trees.

On top of the hill there is a chain of dissected vertical tors of sandstone of the Vindhyan super group, one of the oldest geological formations. Some of the tors, the eroded remnants of a continuous mass, are 20 metres high. There are 750 caves in the tors and 500 of them have paintings in them. The site was inhabited 100,000 years ago and the paintings date from the lower Palaeolithic, 40,000 years ago, until the mediaeval period. Archaeologists have found paintings of humans hunting, riding, dancing and fighting. They were painted with minerals of red, green, ochre and white. Bhimbetka, which rises 600m above sea level and 100m above the surrounding plain, is one of the earliest cradles of cognitive human evolution.

The path I followed leads to just 13 rock shelters, a few of which have paintings. The first paintings I came to along this path were in a high cave, where pigeons cooed and fluttered in and out of holes near the roof. The paintings were in red ochre. Many of the other rock paintings have been spoilt by water infiltration, including the famous painting of a boar which had been obliterated, leaving a red smudge on the rock. But one cave had superb paintings on it. This was the so-called zoo rock, which is covered with a profusion of animals, 252 in total, of many different species. There are ten layers of superimposed figures, mostly from the Chalcolithic and historic periods and in the lower part of the rock there is a royal procession, painted in red ochre, with horsemen and warriors with long hair and head dresses. I was struck by the teeming animal life shown in this rock painting, which contrasts so strongly with the lifeless landscape today, clumps of soft copper coloured dead grass between trees that look as if they cannot find the strength to put forth leaves until the rainy season, not an animal in sight and the few birds brave enough to endure this environment barely uttering a faint twitter.

Sanchi

Journey to  Sanchi

I caught the wonderful Shatabadi express train from Jansi to Bhopal. In the air conditioned carriages waiters serve lunch to all the passengers: tomato soup, followed by rice, dhal, chapattis and pickle. There was also curd, butter and ice cream, which I didn’t eat. The food is included in the price of the ticket (£4 in my case – for a three hour journey without stops. I think I travelled 400km.

The next part of the journey was in complete contrast. I got down into the hot station at Bhopal and went to see whether I could catch a train to Sanchi, 40 km from Bhopal. Yes I could, an official told me, and the booking office was this way. So I queued up and waited, only to be told by the ticket salesman “No ticket to Sanchi”. Luckily a man in the queue came to my rescue. He took me back to another railway official, who told him, in Hindi, that I had to stand in a different queue for tickets for local trains.

When the train stopped the crowd rushed the doors, completely blocking them for the passengers trying to get out. Eventually they left a tiny gap for alighting passengers to squeeze through, but when they had all managed to get off I was pushed, shoved, bruised and carried forward towards the door of the train. As I climbed up the steps with my backpack on my back people tried to squeeze past me on both sides. My back pack stuck in the door, blocked by the people trying  to squeeze past. I could not move. I screamed at the top of my voice until someone moved an inch and I was released, and landed in the train corridor, which was packed. More and more people squeezed in, the last two sitting on the steps leading up to the open doorway. The train started and now, suddenly, all those people, who would have killed me and each other to get in first, became most solicitous, letting me know that Sanchi was the first stop, that the platform was on the left hand side and offering me a seat on half of the Sadhu’s luggage, which was stuffed into the corner behind the toilet. “No thank you” I indicated “I prefer to be near the door, for a quick exit, before my way out is blocked by manic people trying to get in.” All conveyed by signs. At Sanchi they lifted my backpack over their heads to the exit, as I squeezed myself out onto the platform, and cheerily waved me goodbye.

I wanted to walk up the hill to the stupa that evening but my way was blocked by an officious little man, who let all the Indians through but demanded I buy a ticket. The ticket booth was shut. I walked up an alternative road, paved with enormous stones, until I came to a hole in the fence, where some villagers told me to go through. By the time I reached the top it was too dark to see the stupa, but it was peaceful looking down on the dusty plains, lights dotted about in the villages round the hill. I could hear a TV, presumably of the guardian of the stupa. Happy to have avoided staying in the big city of Bhopal  for one night, I went back to my guest house, very tired, and despite the continuous goods trains rushing through the station, blowing their piercing whistles all night, I slept.

Sanchi

The two thousand year old Buddhist stupa at Sanchi, on top of a rounded hill, was built by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who embraced Buddhism as a penance for his misdeeds. He built it in 262 BC to house some relics of the Buddha. In the first century BC four stone gateways were added, built out of beautiful soft golden sandstone. The gateways were carved from top to bottom on all four sides with scenes from the Buddha’s life, scenes from the Jataka tales and the tree of Manushi, which represents the Buddha. This sheds new light on ancient tree worship, which Buddhism incorporated into its earliest form. On one of the gates animals all look up to a Manushi tree, as if worshipping it. On another gate the Buddha  is represented by lotus flowers and on yet another by the wheel of life. Nowhere on these gates is Buddha depicted as human. It was not until seven centuries later that stone statues of Buddha were installed.

In 1818 Captain Johnson opened up the stupa from top to bottom on one side, seeking treasure. The western gateway and part of the enclosed balustrades collapsed. Other British treasure seekers excavated the second and third stupa and found caskets of relics within. They caused an immense amount of damage. Then in 1880 John Marshall, director General of Archeology in India, cleared the jungle that had grown up around the stupas and repaired them.

The day before 200 Sri Lankan pilgrims visited the stupa and completely filled the Sri Lankan Pilgrim Hostel, where I would have stayed if it had not been full. But on the day I visited it, it was peaceful and I had only a few Indian tourists and chirruping birds for company.

The stupa is impressive because it is so old, but the stone gateways, a thousand years older than the temples at Khajuraho, are so intricately and beautifully carved and so well preserved that I am left gazing at them in wonder.

I sit on each of the benches under the thick, shady trees, in turn, to marvel at the carved gateways. Behind the stupa are the ruins of a Buddhist monastery that looks down on the golden wheat fields, dotted with dark green trees, on the plains below, the hills in the distance showing vaguely through the dust. Did the monks enjoy the sweet perfume of the frangipani tree, like the one standing by the monastery wall today?

the internet connection here is so rubbish that it won't let me upload any more pictures!!!

Orchha

Train from Khajuraho to Orchha

I caught the express train to Jhansi, travelling in an almost empty air conditioned carriage, where I met an Indian tour guide, who took groups of Germans round Rajasthan, staying in palaces and five star hotels. “This is not a job you can do forever” he said. “Ten years is about the limit.” The train was not supposed to stop at Orchha station, but the signal was down, so we drifted slowly through the station, coming to a stop outside it. I grabbed my luggage and climbed down onto the sharp stones beside the track and walked under the beating sun, along the side of the track until I came to the road, where I jumped into a shared rickshaw, heading towards Orchha. I was so happy that I didn’t have to make my way back from Jhansi.

Orchha, enchanted town with its palaces and temples, its conical pointed towers pointing skywards, its clean streets and colourful markets lies, like Varanasi, on the banks of one side of the river Betwa. But unlike Varanasi, it is small, clean and relatively uncrowded. Founded in the sixteenth century by the Bundela Rajput chieftain, Rudra Pratap, subsequent Bundela leaders built its fabulous palaces and temples.  On the other side of the wide river, across an old stone bridge, is the entrance to one of India’s national parks, a dusty forest, from where you have a fabulous view of the spires of Orchha and the steep steps leading down to the river.

The Bundelas were Hindu local chieftains, serving under the great Mughal Muslim rule. The Mughals were inclined, at that time, to knock down the palaces and temples of the local chieftains, so the canny Bundelas built a palace within their fort to give as a gift to their Mughal ruler. He graciously came to stay for one night, never to return. But the Bundelas of Orchha were, from that day, left in peace and allowed to rule their little kingdom with complete autonomy. There was, however, one occasion when a Mughal ruler made an unreasonable demand. He sent for the paramour of Raja Indramani, the beautiful poetess and musician, Rai Praveen Mahal, just because he had seen her and desired her. She was taken to him, but so impressed him with the purity of her love for Indramani that he sent her back to him. Her palace is a small, two storied brick building, surrounded by a garden with trees and flowerbeds. It was looking a little the worse for wear when I looked down on it from the fort, the flower beds dried up and bare, half the trees no longer there and the fountains no longer flowing.

A road lined with brilliant fuchsia, golden and scarlet bougainvillea and shady trees leads to a group of cenotaphs, with their conical pointed spires, in a formal garden by the river. Another road leading out of town to the west leads to the Laxmani palace, now used as a temple. Beautiful paintings on the ceilings in natural colours show scenes from the Hindu scriptures and floral designs reminiscent of Mughal paintings.

Khadjuraho

                                                                                                           

The Chandelas rose to power in early tenth century and built 85 temples at Khajuraho, some of them round a lake. In the fifteenth century they were abandoned, many destroyed by the Muslims and of those that remained many of the sculptures were defaced. Trees grew up and soon all the temples were hidden under a thick blanket of vegetation, until the eighteenth century, when an English man, out hunting, discovered the ruins of the remaining temples. The jungle was cleared away and the temples restored painstakingly. Plain sandstone was used to replace carved sandstone, where it was missing and every inch of the outside of the old parts of the temples are now being scrubbed with toothbrushes.

The main temple complex is in a big park, in the small town, which seems to consist mainly of hotels, restaurants and internet places.  Between the temples are expanses of carefully watered lawns and big old trees. It is strictly forbidden to walk on the lawns. The rest of the temples are dotted around the countryside amongst villages of mud brick houses with tiled roofs, hump backed hills and rock forms, trees, buffaloes and wild boar that snuffle in the dust. Hoards of children and young men pester the tourists in the countryside but not in the park.

I met a delightful couple from Calcutta. He was a web designer and she an English teacher, well travelled, erudite and cultured, old school Indian middle class, quiet and decent, unlike the modern brash middle classes of today. We talked of Bengali film, poetry and literature and they told me that the golden age of Bengali culture was a little tarnished now.

Every inch of the tall, pointed sandstone temples was originally carved, with sculptures of leaves and vegetation, men and women, warriors, elephants, horses, acrobats, dancers, nymphs and, of course, the famous erotic sculptures. But there are erotic sculptures on temples all over India. I have photographed many of them in Karnataka, where no one took any notice of them at all. It seems that the tourist industry has chosen to focus on Khajuraho, where young Indian men like to sidle up to tourist women and point out the many ‘different positions.’

Khajuraho is very dusty. The roads are narrow and when two vehicles meet, each one has to put two wheels on the dirt track on either side of the paved road, stirring up clouds of dust. In the villages there are only beaten tracks and the fine, soft Indian dust is constantly lifted up by passing traffic taking the tourists to see the outlying temples.  

Varanasi

Ancient crumbling city of narrow, winding streets, covered with strata of cow dung, older dung dried out and squashed flat by passing traffic, fresh cow pats lying wetly, waiting for you to put your foot  in them. Piles of rubbish line the streets, piled into corners, sometimes heaped up in the middle of the street. Trees grow out of some of the old, abandoned houses, roots dangling down to the street.

There are two burning ghats by the river, one strictly for Hindus and one for anyone who can pay. A man standing near the burning ghat-for-anyone-who-can-pay tells me that I must move away because only men can attend the burning ceremony. This, he tells me is because women are emotionally weak and they cry, and it is important that the dead person should not be disturbed by crying, because this might interfere with their journey to Nirvana. The second reason why women are not allowed to attend the cremations is because if they did they might throw themselves on their husband’s burning pyre. The burning pyres didn’t look big enough to me for anyone to throw themselves onto and in any case the wood was carefully stacked in a neat pile and it would collapse if a woman threw herself on top of it. I asked how old the man was who died. “Old” he said “very old. About 60 or 70.”

Boats loaded with pilgrims, the women dressed in brightly coloured saris, pass by on their way up and down the river, some stopping opposite the burning ghat. The man talking to me told me that this was his family’s burning ghat and that when the burning was finished if any parts of the body had not been consumed by the fire they were thrown in the river for the fishes to eat, thus keeping  the circle of reincarnation intact. The ashes from each cremation were piled in a huge heap and early each morning he and his father sifted them to look for gold jewellery, which they sold. He said that they used this money to pay for the wood needed to cremate people who were too poor to pay for the wood themselves. He also pointed out the electric crematorium, where poor people could be cremated for a fraction of the cost of a proper cremation in the burning ghat. (so why would he need to finance a burning ghat cremation for poor people if he could just pay for them to go to the crematorium?) Anyway the crematorium had broken down. Sadhus, lepers and children are not cremated because they do not need to be purified by fire. They are pure enough already. So they are lashed to a large stone and dropped into the deepest part of the river.

After this introduction to how he was gaining good karma by helping the poor (sounded to me  as if his family were onto a winner owning a burning ghat) he told me that there was a silk factory near by, the profits of which went to help the poor pay (yes you've guessed it) for wood f or the poor to cremate their dead. He took me there and told me that I must buy presents for my daughter. I did buy some shawls, but only because they were made from banana tree fibre and I have never seen this before.

That was the first scam. Many more were to follow. Some people have a carefully prepared story, like this, others just poke you in the ribs and say 'give me money grandmother.' The most unnexpected was a boat  trip, together with an Indian pilgrim and his daughter. I thought the boat was going along the river and agreed to pay 50 rupees. But the boat just went to the other side of the river, where my fellow passengers climbed onto the backs of horses, took photos of each other, walked a little way, then caught the boat back to the other side of the river. The boat man took 50 rupees off me, but let the Indian pilgrims go scott free. I discovered that the fare was 20 rupees and I had paid for all three of us!

In the evening people gather at the biggest ghat, sitting in rows on the ground in front of a series of altars decked with flowers. Musicians sing and play a hypnotic chant. Boatloads of pilgrims glide back and forth along the black velvet river. Lit candles float on the water like glow worms. A constant procession of pilgrims, post card sellers, sadhus, beggars, candle and flower sellers stream past, while a skinny man preaches in English, although no one is listening to him. People begin to clap in time to the music. Slim young men dressed in white satin tunics and white satin trousers step out in front of the altars, facing the Ganges and blow a long note on conch shells. They ring bells and wave incense with synchronised movements. A man walks by with whitened face and garlands of marigolds round his neck. Smoke from the incense billows out in clouds, blowing downstream, following the flowing river. The young men now take flaming candelabra, lit like Christmas trees and raising them begin to swngi them round their heads in a circular motion. The bells continue to clang, the musicians to play, the incense to blow and the boats to glide up and down the river.

I am sitting next to a Danish photographer who has been commissioned to photograph beggars. We decide to take a rikshaw back to our hotels together, but the rikshaw drivers start to ask us for ridiculous amounts of money. He bargains with them. I pust decide to walk back and so I set off, along the ghats, which are well lit, past Western hippies playing music to a curious crowd of Indians, past a fat Hindu priest, naked from the waist up, performing a ceremony to a crackly sound track, turned up so loud that it is distorted, past the burning ghat, where five fires now glow red in the night and the pile of ash if a huge pyramid. I climb up the steep steps from the ghat to the narrow streets that should lead to my guest house, but it's dark and I don't recognise anything. I ask the way and people point. I arrive at a guest house which is not my guest house but has the same name. The doorman wants money from me to phone the other guest house. I persuade him to just tell me where it is and set off. I am mobbed by a gang of children, who all put their dirty hands on me, touching, poking, shrieking with laughter. I'm starting to get hysterical. Eventually some men chase the children away and I find my guest house.

Just as I am getting out of the shower, the Japanese man who travelled with me on the train knocks on my door. He tells me that he has had diahroea all night and all day and got lost and hasn't eaten anything since yesterday. I realise that he wants me to go out with him to get something to eat. He is 20 years old, travelling alone for the first time, in India and sick. He has been to the chemist and bought medicine. We go out to eat.

Next day I knock on his door. He doesn't answer. I am concerned. I tell the hotel receptionist that he is sick and I think he should go to hospital. The receptionist assures me that he will look after him. I leave.

Train to Delhi

I travelled in a slow train full of Sikh pilgrims, fresh from the golden temple, who didn't speak English. The train stopped at numerous stations, where vendors of food and other merchandise, beggars, tall lady boys in fancy saris and loads of make up, got on and got off. At one point some men loaded some huge packages onto the train, piled them into the toilet and left. Chai wallas (tea vendors), hot soup vendors, vendors of samosas, puris and dhal, biscuits, water, coffee, popcorn, oranges, spinning tops, locks and keys, plastic flowers and comics pushed through the crowded corridors shouting their wares. A group of young men got on, borrowed one of the large packages from the toilet, upended it in the corridor, blocking access to the wash basin and one of the exit doors and played a noisy game of cards, standing in the corridor.

I offer some dates to my fellow travellers. They give me an orange and some cake. I buy some samosas that taste as though they were cooked yesterday. Half way through the second one my fellow travellers indicate by gestures that I should throw it out of the window, so I do. At another point I buy an omlette and the vendor sells me a sandwich that I didn't want. My fellow passengers remonstrate with him and make him take back his sandwich and give me back my money. I feel warm and cared for.

In Delhi I tried to find a decent, cheap room but actually ended up in a room where the bottom of the bathroom door had been eaten away by rot and mould, there was no window and a large bucket in the toilet had been put so near to the toilet that I could only sit sideways on it (on the toilet, not on the bucket). 300 rupees seemed a bit overpriced but I was tired and not going to go any further.

In the morning I went to the wonderful Delhi international booking office and booked train tickets from Delhi to Varanasi, from Varanasi to Khjuraho, from Khajuraho to Jhansi, from Jhansi to Bhopal and from Bhopal to Delhi. Very extravagantly I booked berths in three tiered air conditioned carriages, spending a total of twenty pounds. So I leave tonight to Varanasi.

The golden temple, Amritsar

People stand for the sunset prayers. In the evening the golden temple seems to be lit from within, glowing with a golden light that is reflected in the shimmering lake. The singers are singing the Sikh scriptures, which appear, translated on a screen in a corner of the courtyard. The scriptures are beautifully poetic and many devotees know them by heart.

I met a young French man who is travelling the world with only enough money to pay for visas. He hitchhikes and accepts food that is offered to him. He sleeps in a tent, or is invited into people’s houses. In Turkey and Iran people invited him to stay wherever he went. He left France with 250 euros and he still has 100 euros. In India he can sleep and eat in Sikh temples and work in the kitchen as payment. He plans to boat hitch hike his way through Malaysia and Indonesia.

The temple inn is a three storey building with balconies, where the pilgrims hang their washing, round a square courtyard. All the rooms are dormitories, with beds lined up in rows, touching. They are covered by one long sheet that time doesn’t look as if it has been changed for a long time. At times like this I am glad of my sleeping bag.

In the evening they lay long felt mats in the courtyard of the inn for all the pilgrims who arrived too late for a place in a dormitory. They are provided with thick quilts to lie on and to cover themselves with. Soon the whole courtyard is a bumpy sea of quilt-covered bodies.

I visited the Sikh museum, which is full of gory paintings of Sikh martyrs, who died horribly, tortured to death by Muslims in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There is no mention of what the Sikhs did to the Muslims. Then there were the British massacres, which were not particularly directed against the Sikhs, but some Sikhs were caught up in them. And then there is a photo of the temple destroyed by Indira Ghandi, after which her Sikh bodyguards killed her. Terrible massacres of Sikhs occurred all over India after that. 

The Sikhs are a war-like people, who carry ceremonial daggers, swords and spears. They fought for the British during the two world wars.

I joined a queue of Sikh devotees and was pushed along towards the inside of the temple, where the singers and their tabla players sit together in a black turbaned group. The intricate gold leaf tracery of leaves and the marble walls with their semi-precious stone inlay of flowers all remind me of Mughal architecture and art. In all the battle scenes in the museum I could never make out who was Sikh and who was Muslim. They all wore turbans and brandished their swords fiercely. The wars between the Sikhs and Mughal Muslims went on for centuries in Punjab and Rajasthan and most for a long time the Mughals had the upper hand, but at one point the Sikhs managed to gain a fair sized piece of territory, where they built palaces and called themselves Maharajas. Today the Sikhs live on the border with Pakistan, presumably ready to protect it, should their age-old enemies the Muslims invade.

Journey to Amritsar

Two buses from McCloudGanj to Amritsar, about two hundred kilometres, took eight hours. The roads are terrible, potholed and tortuous and buses have to contend with truck loads of gravel and tractors carrying huge loads. The buses do their best, blaring their horns to try to push the slow traffic even further into the ditch, so that they can get past, but there are buses coming in the other direction, not to mention cars, rikshaws, trucks overtaking trucks and the odd cow. So it's a slow process.

We arrived in Amritsar too late to go to the Golden temple, so I took a thieving rikshaw to the railway station and tried to book a ticket to Delhi for the following day. Unlike the lovely ticket booking system in Delhi, in Amritsar there are queues, supposedly for senior citizens, disabled and ladies, but the so-called ladies push and push. When I remonstrated with them they started shouting at me. In the end the ticket salesman refused to sell me a ticket because I didn't know the number of the train and told me to speak Hindi.

I dragged by bag up and down several staircases and eventually found a cheapish hotel room, with no window, in a side street in the market and went to sleep. Next day I got up and went back to the station to book that train ticket. The early morning mist was compounded by sweepers stirring up the dust and burning the rubbish, including plastic, adding toxic fumes to the dust-laden atmosphere. After a lot of shouting and pushing I eventually got a ticket to Delhi. The train will arrive at 10.30pm, not a good time to arrive. I queued properly. It was everyone else who pushed and shouted at me. There are times when I feel that the Indians don't want foreignors here in India.

Back at the hotel the young man at the desk told me to take a rikshaw to the Golden Temple and when I told him that I'd rather walk the 2 km than have anything to do with those theiving rikshaw drivers, he said "There's a free bus that goes to the temple. It's yellow and it stops outside the station". So I went to look for the yellow bus, queued up and waited. When it arrived the queue began to move. The bus filled up. More people got in. "Go on" said the Sikh herding people into the bus," "It's full" I said "I'll wait for the next one". More and more people stuffed themselves into the bus. It was absolutely packed. I waited half an hour for the next one and got in with my luggage. People climbed over me, tried to sit on my luggage, pushed and shoved. I sat tight. The bus driver had a magnificent white beard and an indigo turban.

Once inside the Golden Temple complex you enter another world, of marble floors, carved marble pillars, cool collonades, enormous sleeping quarters where the beds are lined up in touching rows, enormous dining halls for thousands of pilgrims, sitting cross-legged in rows on the floor, as turbanned Sikhs come round with buckets of dahl which they slop out into the waiting pilgrims' metal plates, splashing drops onto the floor. The loudspeakers play a chant to tabla accompaniment throughout the whole complex.

The golden temple is surrounded by a huge pool of water and all round the pool shining white towers, domes and porticoes. And people, walking round, clockwise, endlessly. Some Sikh men immerse themselves in the pool. At a certain moment in the incantation, the people standing, sitting or walking all stop, kneel down and bow down and touch the floor with their foreheads. The golden temple shines in the sun.

Tibetan women’s national uprising day

It was a fine day for a march, bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine in the cool mountain air of McCloud Ganj. Hundreds of girls from the Tibetan Children’s Village School, in their royal blue trousers and checked blue and white shirts, marched down from the school to the temple in McCloud, stopping at the entrance to the temple courtyard to have their faces painted with slogans, such as: I love Tibet; China out; stop the burning.

In the temple courtyard Tibetan women gathered round the symbolic coffins of the five nuns who self immolated and died in Tibet. There were groups of red robed nuns, older women in Tibetan dress and striped aprons, even the odd Tibetan man. The symbolic coffins were draped with the Tibetan flag and photos of the smiling young nuns. More photos of the dead nuns decorated the walls of the temple courtyard. A group of musicians in traditional Tibetan dress tried to make a PA system work for several minutes, eventually giving up and starting their performance to a crackly sound.

A spokeswoman for the Tibetan women’s association spoke, first in Tibetan, then in English, about the courage and bravery of Tibetan women. This was followed by a speech by a representative of the Italian Tibetan Association, who said that the media had ignored the sufferings of the Tibetans for too long. He hoped that the sacrifice of the nuns and monks who self immolated would not be in vain and that finally world media would wake up and start to pay attention. More speeches followed, as the sun beat down on the courtyard and the women tried to protect themselves, holding their placards and flags over their heads.

Then the procession set off, waving their Tibetan flags and shouting slogans alternately in English and in Tibetan. The girls from the Tibetan Children’s Village were tireless, keeping up their loud high pitched cries all the way to Dharamsala, where a platform had been hired next to a petrol station, in a space full of parked cars and motorbikes and fruit stalls. Unperturbed, the protestors sat on the motorbikes, munched the fruit and listened to more speeches.

I decided to walk back, by the shortest, steepest route, through the trees. I climbed steep steps for what seemed like forever. It was probably about four kilometres, but already tired from the walk down, I thought I would never get to the top. I arrived back late in the afternoon, went to bed and slept for two hours.   

In the evening I went to watch "The Artist" in a makeshift movie theatre in a basement with a rather wrinkly screen. It was better than the old sheet they used to use in one of the 3 movie theatres in McCloud years ago. That used to blow about, distorting the image disconcertingly. The artist is a silent movie, so sound quality was not particularly important.

I was woken in the night by a tumultuous thunderstorm.

Jewellery shop

I spent the afternoon chatting to my Kashmiri friend  in his shop. We discussed the soaring prices of silver and gold, making business more and more of a challenge, the increasing numbers of middle class Indian tourists, who come into the shop, ask to see everything but seldom buy anything, sometimes driving away foreign customers, who do buy. The shop is a treasure trove of skilfully crafted pieces of silver jewellery with precious and semi precious stones, Tibetan singing bowls, hand painted Tankas, crystals of all shapes and sizes, witchy looking dousing crystals and crystal balls. And that is just the surface. Ask Sunni to show you something and out come drawers full of packets, that he unwraps, to display piles of rings, or bracelets, or whatever it is you are interested in. He is an everlasting fountain of information about his merchandise, even pulling out reference books to the healing qualities of the various different stones.

As I was sitting there an American buyer came in and proceeded to place an order for earrings and bracelets to be specially made to his specification. He was amazed thatmy friend had workshops here in Mc Cloud Ganj, where his jewellery was made, that he could email a design and Sunni could make it and mail it to him.

The road leading to Temple road is lined with Kashmiri shops, all selling superb quality jewellery, carpets, embroidered cloths, shawls, rugs and shoes. Their merchandise is expensive, but they know the quality can’t be matched.

Tibetan protest march

Yesterday the Tibetan community shut up their shops and restautants, dressed in their traditional clothes, gathered their Tibetan flags on sticks and marched in protest, yet again, at the Chinese occupation of Tibet. They marched through Mc Cloud Ganj to the Dalai Lama's temple, where he came out to greet them. Then they continued on down the steep mountain path, flags fluttering, drums beating, the occasional trumpet blasting, all the way to Dharamsala. Sympathetic westerners accompanied them. They came back in dribs and brabs, in jeeps, busses, taxis and rickshaws, too tired to walk back the four kilometres up the steep mountain track.

Later that afternoon Tibetans gathered round a table in the main square in Mc Cloud, together with a self immolation survivor, dressed in a long grey robe, sleeves covering his hands, a black scarf covering his eyes. This monk tried to burn himself to death in Delhi over a year ago, in protest against Chinese oppression of Tibetan monks in Tibet. He was rescued and taken to hospital, where he spent almost year recovering from severe burns. He walks with difficulty with the aid of a stick. He kept calling out in Tibetan and English "Every signature makes a difference. Sign our petition." Tibetans crowded round the table, signing sheet after sheet of the petition. Westerners signed on separate sheets.
Up to today 26 Tibetans have self immolated in Tibet. 18 of these burnt to death. No one knows whether the remaining 8 survived or not. When the whole of China was celebrating Chinese new year on 23rd January 2012 police indiscrimiately fired on peaceful Tibetan demonstrators in Drakgo, Serta and Zamthang, killing several people, injuring scores and arresting hundreds. Thousands of other Tibetans in Golog, Ngaba and Gyalyong have peacefully demonstrated in the last few days. Communications to all these areas have been cut off. Security in the whole of Tibet has been stepped up and massive military reinforcements have been reported, resulting in heightened tension.

The Chinese government's assimilation policy coupled with mass migration of Han Chinese into Tibet in the last 53 years has turned the Tibetans into a minority community in their own country.

The Chinese government's single window policy of development as the one and only means to resolve conflicts with no respect for local sentiments has not only contributed to flooding Tibet with Han Chinese, but has led to unscrupulous extraction of Tibet's mineral resources thereby affecting Tibet's fragile ecology.The benefits of the so called economic development have not percolated down to the Tibetans resulting in economic marginalization of the Tibetans. Control of Buddhist learning in the monasteries by strict and irrelevant laws prohibits religious freedom. Imposition of Mandarin language in schools and now even in monasteries strikes at the root of Tibetan identity.

Independent media, diplomats and even tourists have been barred from visiting all these areas.
These policies are aimed at destroying the identity of the Tibetan people and exploiting Tibet's rich natural resources.

Later in the evening there was yet another candel lit procession, chanting prayers for the victims of self immolation.

Since everywhere else was shut, I went to one of the Indian restaurants where a group of Tibetan monks were ordering chicken and huge piles of fluffy white nan. They tuned the TV to a movie channel and sat there watching 'The Transporter'.

sick in Mc Cloud

I think it must have been food poisoning: a night spent vomitting and having diahroea, followed by a feverish day with headache. I lay low until my need for water drove me to stagger out into town to refill my bottle. The following day was Holi, the Hindu paint throwing festival, which I wanted to avoid at all costs, and I did. Lots of tourists have hideous bright pink paint on their faces. The Tibetans stayed clean.

Candle lit processions

Every evening hundreds of Tibetans circle around McCloud Ganj with candles, chanting an endless prayer for the Tibetan martyrs who have so recently died from self-immolation. The procession heads down to the temple, where a Tibetan speaks to the people. On the evening when I joined the procession someone (not a  Tibetan) had lit a fire just outside the temple and the smoke filled the air where the Tibetans stood. They paid no attention to this. Twenty five Tibetans, most of them monks, have so far set light to themselves, in protest against the Chinese government's decision to force, not only the schools, but also the monasteries, to teach, pray and perform rituals in Chinese. 

In conversation with a young Tibetan refugee, I learned that some Tibetans in Tibet had already forgotten their Tibetan language because they had gone to school, where only Chinese is spoken and written. The aim of the Chinese is to eliminate Tibetan culture, religion, language: in short to eliminate the Tibetan nation. As long as the Dalai Lama is alive they can never succeed. Tibetans continue to protest in Tibet and to make the perilous journey across the Himalayas to see His Holiness, to learn Tibetan and English and to practice their religion. The young man I was talking to walked out of Tibet with a group of young men and a guide. They travelled by night and hid in caves or in the snow, huddled together for warmth by day, hoping that the Chinese would not discover them. It took them twenty six days to reach Nepal, where they were met by a Tibetan refugee reception committee, who provided them with food and somewhere to sleep, until they could arrange transport out of Nepal to India.  “I slept so well when I reached Nepal” he said. Although the journey out of Tibet is perilous, Tibetans continue to leave, but returning seems to be much more difficult. It would appear that the Chinese are happy to allow Tibetans to leave, though they do not make it easy for them, but they try much harder to stop them crossing the border back into Tibet.

Life in India is not easy for the Tibetans. As refugees they cannot apply for a passport, buy land or property and very few jobs are available to them.

Pilgrims from Ladakh

Tibetan prayer flags flutter over a roof top cafe in Mc Cloud Ganj


Hundreds of pilgrims from Ladakh arrived today; small, wizened people with weatherbeaten faces, huge packs, patched sacks and dusty bags on their backs, wearing traditional clothes, the women with long plaits down their backs or wrapped around their heads. They are probably carrying their food with them, as well as tents and blankets. A Tibetan took them to a school, where they can all sleep on the floor. They have been travelling by bus for several months, round all the ancient Buddhist sites.

This morning I joined a volunteer group, providing English conversation to Tibetan refugees. The woman I spoke to walked from Lhasa to Nepal, catching the occasional bus. It took her ten days. I asked her how she lives and she told me that her parents, who are very poor illiterate farmers, send her money to buy food and pay the rent. English lessons are provided for refugees but the adults make very slow progress. None of her family had been to school, because, she said, it costs too much. So she is learning to read and write for the first time - in English. She told me that the Chinese had cut off the telephone line, so she could no longer communicate with her parents.

Later I asked one of the organisers, a young Tibetan who went to the Tibetan Chilren's Village (a huge school for Tibetan children in McCloud Ganj), how the Tibetans send money to their relative refugees in India and he told me that there is a constant traffic of people across the border between Nepal and Tibet (China) and basically they smuggle money back and forth for Tibetans in India and Tibetans in Tibet. It seems that the system works, slowly, but you have to know the right people, who in turn know

A Walk in the mountains

I woke up to the sound of rain. Not a good day to climb up to the top of Triund, the local mountain, I thought. Later the rain stopped and I set off to Bagsu, a jumble of ugly hotels, building sites and rough, unpaved tracks. I headed out of Bagsu, uphill, into the rhododendron and pine forest, until I came to the Chai shop at the entrance to Tushita meditation centre. There I met an English man, and we continued up the track together, climbing past the village of Dharamcot clinging to the side of the mountain, the houses with their grey slate roofs and hay hanging in the trees. We passed women climbing up the tall rhododendron trees, to cut the leafy branches, which they carry in huge bundles on their backs to feed to their cows. We came to another chai shop, where I bought some biscuits which we sat and munched as we surveyed the misty valley below, pausing before the steepest part of the climb. It started to rain just as we were scrabbling up a steep, gravelly slope and we took refuge in another chai shop at the start of the track leading up to the top of Triund. When the rain stopped we headed downhill in a loop through thick pine forest. It rained several times in the afternoon, ending with a hailstorm, thunder and lightning. But I was back in my room by then.

Mc Cloud was a Scottish army officer, who built himself a house in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh at the end of the nineteenth century, when he retired. A small settlement grew up round him, as other British army families came to live in this cool mountain place, which came to be known as Mc Cloud Ganj. In 1904 there was a terrible earthquake and most of the houses collapsed, killing hundreds of people. They were buried in the British cemetery by the British church below Mc Cloud Ganj and the place was abandoned.

Later, when the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet, Pandit Nheru, the leader of India at the time, offered Mc Cloud Ganj to the Dalai Lama. His Holiness sent a messenger to find out about the place. He came back saying that it had the highest rainfall in India, but it was a nice place. So His Holiness and his retinue went to live there and set up the Tibetan government in exile. Many of the first wave of Tibetan refugees built themselves hotels, which rise up precipitously along the ridge, right along a major fault line. They believe that the presence of the Dalai Lama will prevent an earthquake from happening. Local Indians, Tibetans and Kashmiris live cheek by jowl in Mc Cloud and visitors come from all over the world to see the Dalai Lama. Several monasteries house hundreds of monks, who throng the streets in their red robes. Bands of Rajastani beggar women and children with matted hair and dirty clothes roam the streets, despite frequent notices advising people not to give money to beggars (unless they are the right kind of beggars: lepers or blind people.)

Mc Cloud Ganj

I am so happy to be here again, in the bright sunshine and cool air of the Himalayas.

Tibetans are gathering in the temple courtyard, women in their long skirts and striped aprons, red robed monks, wrapped up in red blankets, for first thing in the morning it is cold. White tented roofs have been raised above the courtyard to protect the people from the sun and rain. Old women tell their beads, muttering prayers in a whisper as they wait for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Monks in the temple begin a deep bass chant. A gong sounds. His Holiness approaches slowly, a huge smile on his face, stopping to chat to his Tibetan people on this side and that of the pathway leading through the courtyard to the temple. He is more bent and older looking than the last time I saw him, but someone told me yesterday that he has announced that he will live to 113. His bodyguards wait patiently. He goes upstairs and everyone follows. He enters an inner sanctum. The Tibetans fetch thin mats to sit on and spread them out on the floor. Then they begin to prostrate themselves towards His Holiness, over and over. The Dalai Lama begins to sing, in his deep, growly voice. The monks join in.

 Several Tibetan women have red sashes round their waists while others have plaited red laces into their hair. I saw at least one Tibetan man who had tied a long red sash to his plait and wound both plait and sash round his head. I had never been up into this part of the temple before, which is yellow painted concrete with a smooth concrete floor. I am surrounded by a sea of Tibetans, who take absolutely no notice of me. Monks come round with buckets of flat, round Tibetan bread rolls, which they distribute to everyone. Then monks come round with kettles of butter tea and paper cups.

His Holiness's voice trails off. Some of the Tibetns start to circmambulate this floor of the temple, while the Dalai Lama appears to be chanting quietly for his monks.

I left soon after this but later in the afternoon I heard Tibetan horns echoing over the town.

Flight to India

Market scene in Delhi

As we flew over Thailand and Burma the mountains were shrouded in smoke. I could just make out their tips. The dust cloud that covers India isn't as imprenetrable as the smoke covering Burma and Thailand. I could see through to a patchwork of fields and dry riverbeds winding across the country. We travelled along parallell to the Himalayas that rose out of the dust cloud in a long line along the horizon, white, with patches of grey, where the snow is melting. I was sure I could see Everest rising majestically above the rest, but also losing its snow.

The tension in Delhi started before we boarded the flight. After going through all the routine security checks we arrived at the boarding gate, where the airline was carrying out extra security checks, looking inside everyone's hand luggage and passing a metal detector over each passenger. It took a long time to board.

A brand new metro whisked us from the airport to the central station, where an atmosphere of total chaos and tension reigned. Maybe it was always like this and I only just noticed because I was coming from Thailand, where everyone is so easygoing, friendly, helpful and kind. I was suddenly struck by how aggressive everyone was.

I arrived at the back of the station and by the time I had found my way up and over to the front of this gigantic station, I was disorientated and couldn't find the staircase to the international ticket office (which I had been to lots of times before). People kept giving me conflicting directions. One bright spark tried telling me the ticket office had moved to Connaught Square (probably his  brother's tourist agency) but I wasn't falling for that one. Eventually a railway official sent me in the right direction and even told me about the lift.

The international ticket office has a wonderful system for dealing with the hordes of travellers that pass through it's portals. First passengers pick up a form to fill in, then if they have any queries they take the form to the old Indian lady who knows all the train numbers, times and stations they leave from. With the help of this information they fill in the form and join the queue in the middle of the room. The queue spirals outwards towards the edges of the room, which are lined with chairs and sofas, so passengers are obliged to play a game of musical chairs (without the music), jumping up from their seats to move along, making friends with the person next to them and exchanging information about trains and destinations as they move round. Eventually the queue ends up on the sofas waiting to be seen by a row of ticket salesmen behind a long desk. It takes about an hour to get round the room. Of course you might have to wait anything up to a week for a free seat to come available to the destination of your choice, but I was lucky and booked a berth in the night train for that very day.

View from Faith's balcony

Back in the street, in the heat and dust, I went to see Bunty, who phoned Faith for me. Faith has moved into a lovely room, overlooking the market and the graveyard, which is full of trees. In the evening thousands of birds come to roost in the trees, chirruping and chirping. I spent an hour with Faith, hearing about all the stresses and strains she has been through over the past few months.

I caught the night train from Old Delhi station to Pathankot, together with a French post graduate student who is going to Dehra Dun for an internship in an organic farm. We walked to the bus station and caught a rattley old bus to McCloud Ganj, where I checked in to the last single room in Om Hotel and she walked down the hill to try her luck in the Monastery.

last days in Bangkok

 Time to be leaving. It really is getting too hot here in Bangkok - 38 degrees . The whole northern part of Thailand is suffering from terrible smoke pollution, due to burning rice stubble and burning patches of forest. The newspapers report that government officials have told people to stay inside their houses unless they absolutely have to go out, but nothing is being done to stop the burning. Insane.

For the time being the wind is blowing from the south west, so Bangkok if smoke free.

I have discovered a vegetarian restaurant in a back stree in Bangkok, called Ethos. Low tables, cushions on the floor, hessian wall paper, beautiful old Thai wooden carvings and pretty paper lanterns create a relaxing, smoke-free atmosphere. The music is world fusion. The they have things to eat, like muesli with coconut milk, falafel, hummus and home baked brown bread. It is in a little street near to Kao San Rd.

Yesterday I took refuge in the Saigon Paragon cinema complex, which has arctic air conditioning, going to see The Ides of March, reading and drinking cold water. The canal boats that return from Siam square stop for a second at the landings, so if you don't jump on quickly, they leave you behind. I have seen passengers left behind, one after the other in the evening!

Bangkok Theatre Festival

Back in Bangkok I arrived just in time for the second weekend of a theatre festival, right in our local park in Banglamphoo. The park was built in the form of several Greek theatres, with tiers of semi-circular steps leading down to areas that can easily be converted into stages. Performances take place after dark and the floodlit tower of Phra Athit rises up behind the stages. There is a paved area with trees at the top of the steps and boats covered with coloured lights steam up and down the river beyond.

Much of the theatre was strictly for Thai speaking people, but a brilliant group from Taiwan, called Shinehouse Theatre, performed a stunning piece of physical theatre, a dystopia in which everything is organised and decreed by central government, when to study, when to marry, who to marry, how many children to have and even when to die. Subtitles in English and Thai were projected onto a screen to the side of the stage.

I spoke to one of the group afterwards and asked what their influences were. Pina Bausch, she said with reverence, and a French group I hadn't heard of. The show was about society's suppression of individuality. I said I felt it was a criticism of Chinese society. She said that was so, but it was also a criticism of Taiwanese society. Members of the group acted as a Greek chorous, speaking, moving and laughing in unison - a reflection of how society reacts unthinkingly enmasse. Interestingly the one male member of the group who rebelled against the demands of society was called Judah, and he chose to follow the Messiah. It was the persistent demands of society that drove him to betray the Messiah - an interesting angle on the Biblical story. He, in turn, was betrayed by the government.
The one female member of the group who rebelled was forced to marry by her companions. The treatment of the woman was far more violent than that of the man. The actors wore white masks, to express their clone like acceptance of government policy. They removed them when thinking individually.

Next year this group want to perform a piece all about the death penalty, which they oppose. Taiwan still has the death penalty.

Later I watched an excellent group of young Thai contemporary dancers and the last act was a popular Thai mime group called Baby Mime.

Prasat muang Tam

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A lot more money was spent on building Phanong rung tmeple than on Prasat Muang Tam (Murang Tam temple), whose towers were built out of brick, once covered with lime plaster, intricately carved, rather than stone, like in Phanong Rung. But like Phanong Rung, Muang Tam is a Hindu temple decicated to Shiva, also built in the 11th century. But Phanong Rung has four L-shaped ponds that almost constitute a moat.

Prasat Phanom Rung

The nearer you get to Cambodia, the more beautiful the temples become.

Prasat Phanom Rung (phanom Rung temple) was built between the 10th and 13th centuries on the top of an extinct volcano in Buriram Province. It's a Hindu Khmer temple devoted to Shiva, built out of huge blocks of rose tinted golden sandstone. The whole temple is covered in bas reliefs, carvings and statues depicting stories from the Mahabarata and other Hindu scriptures.

A very Khmer Shiva, the healer sits, surrounded by his bare breasted attendants, while other attendants lay their hands on a patient below. This bas relief is over the entrance.

Over the second entrance there is a dancing Shiva. His dance brings peace to earth.

This is Krishna

Sacred Banyan Tree Phimai

Tree worship is alive and well in Phimai, Thailand. The tree's branches extend hundreds of metres and from the branches arial roots have dropped down and taken root in the ground. People have placed wooden and concrete supports under the branches to keep them high off the ground and built brick pathways curving around under the branches. There are concrete tables and benches at frequent intervals.

The main trunk of the tree is festooned with garlands of plastic flowers, ribbons and sashes. People come to light incense, make offerings and pray to the tree.

From a distance it looks like a small forest. There's a temple in the tree with a statue of the queen on an altar, surrounded by monks on a lower level.

More Phimai

Sculpture on Phimai temple - Battle scene from ancient Hindu scripture

Decorative Sculpture from Phimai temple

Phimai

Phimai

I had to wait a whole day for a sleeper on the train back to Bangkok from Utaradit. Why Utaradit? Well I had gone to Sawankalot in order to see the ruins at Si Satchanalai, thinking that I could get a train from Sawankalot to Bangkok, but the only train travelled overnight without sleeping compartments. I spent an hour and a half in the station master’s office in Sawankalot, trying to make myself understood by pointing to dates on the calendar, pointing to times on the train timetable, drawing pictures of beds and bunks on trains and eventually managed to book a ticket on the sleeper from Utaradit to Bangkok a day later. So I caught a bus to Utaradit, after spending the morning replacing my computer charger. I arrived in Utaradit bus station and began asking for the train station, to be met with blank stares. No English. So I pointed to the rail track, marked on a map and someone understood and took me to the station. At the station I pointed at my luggage. People pointed to a stall selling biscuits and crisps. I went over. The woman pointed to the floor inside the stall. I took my luggage behind the stall, she gave me a ticket, I took money out of my purse and she took twenty baht off me.

I left the station in search of food. Markets in Thailand are either very early in the morning, after dark, or indoors. I found an indoor market and wandered about until I found a stall selling green papaya salad. The woman making the salad picked up a big, red chilli. I shook my head. She picked up two cloves of garlic. I shook my head. I nodded to all the other ingredients: peanuts, fish sauce, honey, lime, tomato and some other unrecognisable vegetables. She pounded it all in her pestle and mortar with the finely sliced green papaya.  Then she dipped a spoon in and passed it to me to taste. I nodded and passed her a plate.  I added dried miniature shrimps. She smiled as she watched me eat.

Deeper into the market I came across a woman selling banana cake. She may only have known two words in English, but those two words were Banana Cake. So I bought a piece and ate it there and then at her stall. She invited me to sit with her for a chat, despite the fact that I only know about two words in Thai. She and her neighbour stallholder were laughing about their “falang” (foreigner). They taught me ‘aloi’ – to like and fed me lychees. We exchanged gestures about getting fat eating cake. They laughed.

Later in the station someone stole the cover of my Kindle and the lead that connects it to my computer. Why? Exchanging stories with fellow travellers days later I discovered that people had had the most bizarre things stolen – e.g. swimming trunks!

The station master was careful to see that I waited in the right place for my train carriage and that I caught the right train. I climbed into my bunk, ate a tin of tuna that I’d been carrying around for a month, washed down with a can of beer and slept fitfully until the men who change the sheets came round at about five am, shouting to wake us up.

We arrived in Bangkok at six am and I bought a ticket to Nakon Ratchasima, which for some inexplicable reason is also called Korat. It was one of those trains with open windows that the smoke from the engine blows into. The ticket puncher/guard and I were wearing cotton masks. After three hours we went through some beautiful hills, covered in thick jungle. The pyromaniacs didn’t seem to have reached this part of Thailand yet. Everything was lush and green. The train laboured up through the hills, down the other side and then ran along beside them for some time. We went past a big lake. The ticket puncher/guard was keen to point it out to me. The teak trees were busting into leaf after their short leafless period (you can’t really call it winter). At 11.30 an army of lunch vendors invaded the train with all the usual pork and chicken offerings. Half an hour later they all left.

The slow train cost two pounds. The motorbike taxi from the train station to the bus station cost one pound. I caught a bus to Phimai, checked into the only guest house I could find, looked for lunch but didn’t find any, then retired to my dormitory bed to read until the sun went down a bit.

That evening I found a restaurant with a menu in English, down a little back street. I was soon joined by a Belgian man who told me about Phanom Rung, the next place I want to visit, which apparently is very difficult to get to. He said there was no public transport to get there, so he hired a motorbike. Well I’m not going to do that. We went back to the hotel and continued to chat on the terrace, where a group of very serious Germans were playing cards. I was glad to have someone to talk to after several days communicating with gestures.

I went to see Prasat Phimai (Phimai temple) in the soft, early morning light. There were about three of us there at that time. This is one of the biggest temple complexes in Thailand, built out of stone, like the Khmer temples in Cambodia. Many of the designs sculpted on the stonework depict ancient Hindu texts, like those on the walls of Angkor Wat. The whole complex reminds me of Angkor Wat, but predates it by at least a hundred years. The main Prasat (central building or tower) was built of huge blocks of white sandstone, carted from the mountains by elephants, or floated down rivers on rafts. Over the centuries black mould has discoloured this Prasat, but it remains beautifully carved. Other parts of the complex were built in red sandstone. Only a few structures are made of ugly black laterite.

Trees sprout out of huge piles of stones where parts of the temple complex have collapsed. Apparently reconstruction is taking place, but I didn’t see anyone working on it.

Four outer buildings point towards the central Prasat, their central corridors framed by a series of doors perfectly aligned and all focussed on the central space inside the main Prasat. The antechamber to the main Prasat has a stone roof, miraculously still intact, with carved nagas (river serpent gods) at the corners. Workers sweep and rake the grassy lawns that stretch between the different parts of the temple complex. Dappled light filters through the big old trees. This is a tranquil oasis in the middle of modern Phimai town. It was definitely worth coming all this way to see, I thought. So completely different from Ayuthaya and Si Satchanalai, so much more like Cambodian Khmer temples.

There is a holy water conduit that passes through the floor of the main Prasat to outside. It is my guess that a lingam stood at the centre of the Prasat, kept bathed in water. This would have been replaced by the Buddha statue that now sits in the central place.

Buddha statue with many-headed serpent protecting his head. A pigeon perches on the serpent

 

Several inscriptions in Cambodia refer to a town called Vimai or Vimayapura. This later became Phimai.  Vimai/Phimai was an important centre of the ancient Khmer Kingdom and was prosperous and glorious in the 12^th century. Several Khmer kings lived there, up until the Ayuthaya takeover, including King Jayavarman VII. In the 13^th century he built seventeen shelters and some hospitals along the routes from Angkor to Phimai, for travellers. He also transferred a Buddha image from here to Angkor.

The visitors’ centre at Phimai states that Prasat Phimai was built as a Buddhist temple. Clearly this is not true. It is covered in Hindu carvings, much like Angkor wat and it was built as a miniature universe on earth in the Hindu tradition. Hindus believe that there are deities in Heaven and people live on the earth, so they create temples to link the worlds of the gods and men. It is known that there was a lingam in one of the buildings, though no one will admit that there could have also been one at the centre of the main Prasat. All over the Khmer empire Hindu temples were converted to Buddhist ones and vice versa, as the different Khmer rulers tried to impose their different religions. Phimai was part of the Khmer empire so it stands to reason that it could have undergone a similar conversion. It probably became a Buddhist temple in the 13^th century, when King Jayavarman VII  installedthe bronze Buddha statue. The visitors’ centre also says that Prasat Phimai was the model for Angkor Watt but they have no evidence for this. There are some Buddhist sculptures on Prasat Phimai but there are also Khmer dancing girls and scenes from ancient Hindu texts.