SIKKIM IS A FASCINATING COMBINATION OF CULTURES, AND IT’S A LONG WAY AWAY….

It has only been two days since I left  Maplewood, NJ, but what a two days this has been! Never mind the five plus hours to London, the layover at Heathrow, the ten hours to Delhi and the two hours to Bagdogra. Try adding another five hours driving to Gangtok over winding mountain roads that resembled dried river beds,  being held up  for one hour by a traffic jam (the only stretch of road being resurfaced, so far as I could see) and twenty minutes  to let two trains go by, and you can imagine the condition my body was in upon arrival.  But I’m not complaining. After only one day of roaming around this hilly town, visiting the Do-Drul Chorten Monastery, and poking around side streets and a main bazaar lining a modern pedestrian mall, my daughters, Cary and Martha, and I were once again immersed in the contradictions of modern India. You could see new buildings going up in rudimentary fashion next to shacks soon to be destroyed. Garbage and debris flowed in the gutters as you looked down several stories between buildings. Music blared, people swarmed in happy crowds, and children in crisp uniforms scampered to school. It is amazing how the cars careen over the hills with no guardrails, no policemen, and no traffic lights, and somehow manage not to run us down or take the sides off their cars.

We also visited the Sikkim Renewable Energy Development Association and learned of their work in solar energy and biogas production and will be visiting a rural biogas digester on our way to the Rumtek Monastery tomorrow.

It’s now Friday night and there’s a band playing down in the street. I won’t tell you it’s in tune, but it sounds as if they’re having fun! They then had a parade with people with placards demonstrating on behalf of the rights of the disabled. That’s the first time I’ve seen this in India. I’ve always felt that the sign of a progressive country is how it treats its people…all of them.

Time to go eat at A Taste of Tibet, and walk up the mountain to our hotel. And go to work on my jet lag. I want to be in good shape for the climb1

It’s great to get back to Asia. There are so many things here that remind me of Myanmar and Ladakh everywhere I look. I feel right at home….

AM I CRAZY, OR WOT?

SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS….

 

IS A LOT EASIER THAN THIS….

…BUT THERE’S NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTES.

 

As most of you know, I’m off, tomorrow, for 3½ months in India, starting with a three-week trek in Sikkim with my two daughters, Cary and Martha. Sikkim is way up north and will be my taste of winter for this year. Am I blessed or am I blessed? This time I shall be looking at Mt. Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, from the Indian side instead of from Nepal, where I trekked for a month to its base camp in 1996. It was a wondrous sight and I’m sure will be just as wondrous from Sikkim.

Martha will leave on Dec. 10^th and Cary and I will spend the rest of the month in Dharamsala, visiting our Tibetan friends, the TCV (Tibetan Children’s Village) schools in Dharamsala and Bir, and the lovely mountain village of Tso Pema.

In January I’ll be on my own, but have enough alternatives to choke one of the many elephants  (and tigers) I hope to see in the wild animal parks that abound in central and southern Indian. I plan to meet up in Tiruvannamalai with Lee Compton, from Whidbey Island, with whom I spent some time in Myanmar in 2007, and three weeks later on the beaches of Gokarna near Goa with Gullvi Eriksson, with whom I trekked in Norway and Sweden in 2005. Some of the places I have my eye on are Khajuraho enroute to Bandhavgarh National Park; Mangalore; Mysore; Hyderabad; Bangalore: Kerala; Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Cardoman Hills; and the Ellora and Ajanta caves. India is one big country and the guidebook, alone, takes up a good hunk of my daypack. I’ll probably be traveling by train, but who knows? Things have changed since I spent time in India twenty years ago and wrote about it in Madam. Those were the days when just making a call home was an all-day adventure. It’s a whole new world out there! So keep an eye on my blog posts. I’ll try to be brief, but hope to hit the high spots.

I’m overjoyed that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate, has finally been freed by the military dictatorship in Myanmar, after spending fourteen of the last twenty years under house arrest. I urge you to check the web and follow the events as they unfold. I had planned to visit for a month in February, but changed plans at the last minute. It was just too difficult, logistically.  But I shall return soon.  Suu Kyi, whose father was assassinated in 1947, was duly elected in 1990, and immediately imprisoned by the military junta. She heads the National League for Democracy (NLD), and is still wildly popular and a symbol of hope for the Burmese people. I think the military has greatly underestimated her support among the people and somehow thinks that because an election was held, which has been condemned by most countries as a sham, she would be sidelined. As she says, there is much to be done and she intends to continue the fight for democracy in Myanmar. This is a struggle worth watching and supporting.

My blog would not be complete without mentioning at least one outstanding play. This month it is The Pitman Painters on Broadway, brought to us from England and written by Lee Hall, who also wrote Billy Elliot the Musical. Don’t miss it. We also had a concert of Mahler’s 1^st Symphony at the Plainfield Symphony. This is the year of Mahler and we started it with a bang (and the crash of cymbals!).

In conclusion, let me share with you the waning days of autumn as seen through my bedroom window. This gorgeous maple tree is so intense in the early morning sun that its reflection imbues my room with a rosy glow, filling my heart with warmth and happiness as only nature’s perfection can.

And down the street, not to be undone, we have a blaze of yellow that dominates the entire hill.

 

COME ONE, COME ALL! AND THEY DID…TO THE RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY AND/OR FEAR IN WASHINGTON, DC, ON OCTOBER 30th

The words of Edward R. Murrow symbolize to me the collegiality and warmth of this marvelous rally: We will not be driven by fear into unreason.

I can’t begin to tell you what a delightful day this was for me and for the tens of thousands of Americans of all ages, who flocked into the capitol to show solidarity for the return to rational, humane discourse in this country. There was not a bit of rowdiness or irritation, though everyone was packed in like sardines, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. And I’m sure the organizers never expected so many people or there would have been more monitors and loud speakers. But nobody seemed to care. We were there on a glorious autumn day to show our support. We couldn’t get close, so after awhile we sat on the grass with other families, watching the children play and listening to the music.

As Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, said in his opening remarks, and I urge you to hear the whole introduction on YouTube: “Don’t divide us…we’re all Americans.” Here are a few sentences out of context that really resonated with me. “It takes an exhaustive effort to hate.” His was a plea for unity and civility. “We can have animus, but not be enemies.” “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” “We live in hard times. Not end times.” “And every day, despite our many problems, we work together to get things done.”

There were lots of homemade signs. Here are a few of them:

Moderate to the Extreme

Real Americans Don’t Use the Term ‘Real Americans’

Nobody but Hitler was Hitler

God Hates Nags

God Hates Figs (you know the parody, of course)

Clown to the Left of Me, Joker to the Right. Here I am, stuck in the Middle with YOU!

Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion

And here are a few photographs. If only I could have been up in one of the trees so you could see the vast crowds, but the internet will show you that. Martha, my daughter, and I tried like mad to climb onto the verandas of several museums, but it was forbidden. Such is life. It was a grand day. We saw the sun rise and the sun set as we roared in our Maplewood bus along the highway. On the way down the roads were so crowded that we had to go north in Delaware and go off the beaten track to avoid the traffic. All in all, it was beautiful!

Getting there was half the fun

Look up to the right and see who has the best view!

My sentiments exactly

Ladies at rest. Everywhere we went we made friends…

A wide demographic. You name it, they were there!

And they WERE there

One fleeting view of the stage

The wave

Picnics and a breather away from the crowded Mall

It's over

...and the Capitol is still standing

But not Martha, who was grooving in the sun

Matha, Cally, and MP...three generations getting ready to board the bus and head home