More photos

Parikram. This was actually a big festival where we all carried little baskets of food to a site and offered it, then we carried the food back to the temple and feasted. I'll take better pictures of the crowd later.



















On Parikram we walk for hours and hours, stopping at different sites to hear lectures about the pastimes that were performed there. These pictures really don't get at the magnitude of the crowd, but trust me, when you're inching through tiny doorways and hallways, you feel it.














FOOD!!! The three of us at the end of a feast. On days where prominent Vaishnavas left their bodies (their Disappearance day), we hear stories about them and have an enormous celebratory lunch. sooo delicious.

More pictures in store....

Photos!

Hari bol! I'm not good at computers.
This is a section of Loi Bazaar. I went here pretty much every day while we stayed in Vrindavan. It was a very short walk from the Temple we stayed in. The first few days I would have easily gotten lost in its labarynthian form, but by the end I navigated it like, well, someone who has walked through it about 10 times.... I bought clothes, soap, fruit, stainless steel dishware, a radio....pretty much anything a girl needs in India.










This is a picture of a monkey playing on the power lines. This monkey obviously did not see any PSA's about playing near power lines. Jessica and Natalie can be seen walking towards Loi Bazaar.












Little cow hangin' out in the market. That pretty much covers all the photos I took in Vrindavan. I forgot to take a picture of Shit Alley, which was the pathway from the Ashram we stayed in to the main Temple. It was always full of many varieties of poop, including that of small children. Maybe when we go back we will play a game I've titled Species Feces in which you attempt to guess which pile of poop belongs to which animal. Advanced players can also guess ages.

Goverdan!

Hari bol! We are in Goverdan. There is internet, who-woulda-thunk?

The monkeys are far less naughty, but I was bucked by a bull! The nerve!

Goverdan is a bit smaller than Vrindavan and the store fronts in the markets that sell sweets are much much bigger. Perhaps a photo will be in order at a later date.

We spend many many hours in the day walking around the town. I think we walk between 10 and 15 kilometers a day - sometimes without shoes. Do not tell the health inspectors. Like our friend Avhi said one of the first few days as he walked barefoot around a temple "cow dung. no problem." Did I already mention that?

Speaking of Avhi, now that we've been here a few weeks there are a lot of friendly faces I've acquainted myself with. Some of them were on the look out for Jessica, Natalie and me since our friend Pankaj told them about us. Others were asked to help us in some way or another. Still others just came out of regular old meet-and-greet type exchanges. After the first bus day I went on I was left with a very "camp" like feeling. Everyone loading in to buses, some people know what's going on, some people don't, some people feel right at home, others are less accustomed, etc etc. Especially since there are far fewer westerners and we eat in a separate area during lunch and dinner (they think we can't handle the Bengalis), you see the same faces all day long, but only know a handful of them.

Pretty much everyone is impressed with our story (only hearing of Gurudeva within the past few months and already coming to India) and tell us again and again that we must have good karma and reminding us that Krishna is so merciful and works in the most amazing ways. These tidbits would make much more sense in the context of the spiritual make-up of the journey, which I probably won't get too much in to, at least right now.

Time for a shower and then lecture.

love,
Kayleigh

A Few Images

SIIIKKKEEE!

I tried to put up pictures, but it was taking entirely too long and I have to go. You were going to get to see some monkeys picking through the trash on the street, monkeys playing on power lines, cows walking through the market, and another market shot of the bustle and hustle complete with rickshaws. They will come another day....

This is majorly cutting in to my nap time, but tomorrow we are all loading our things on the buses and relocating to Govardan. It's a much smaller town, so I'm not sure that we'll have access to internet. We'll be there until Nov 2nd and then I believe we'll come back to Vrindavan, but you never really can predict the future, so we'll see.

No major sickness to speak of yet. Food is still good. Did I ever mention that we eat it all with our hands? I will never go back to utensils. NEVER!

love,
Kayleigh

Jessica was attacked by a gaggle of monkeys!

Really it was the bag of fruit she was holding that was attacked and it wasn't so much a gaggle of monkeys as just one monkey. Still, it was terrifying. I've heard that the monkeys here in Vrindavan are particularly bad, or "naughty" as one woman described them. Everyone knows not to carry around plastic bags because the monkeys will take them and you have to be very careful with your glasses. They've figured out that glasses are very important to people so they steal them and if you're lucky will give them back if you have something to trade them. Naughty, naughty monkeys.

Other than this monkey incident, things have been going pretty smoothly. Like I said before, Jessica, Natalie and I are staying in a room near the temple where most of the activities occur. I might not have mentioned this, but from Oct 4-Nov 2 there is a pilgrimage that takes place in Vrindavan and Govardhan. As the website explains (http://www.purebhakti.com/parikrama.html) we "wind our way through these transcendental places," singing songs and hearing stories related to Krishna and Radha (his beloved).

My general schedule is as follows:
5:00 wake up
5:45 walk to the Temple for singing
6:00 Lectures from Guru Narayana (Gurudeva) and other high monks
7:00 breakfast in the Temple - the closest description would be rice mixed with soupy yellow lentils, some squash and spices
7:30 Parikram - Hundreds of people filling the streets, walking through the city to visit various temples and sites where Krishna performed pastimes. We all try to fit into small spaces to hear the monks describe the stories.
11:30 break
12:30 Lunch in the Temple- an amazing assortment of Indian delights. Rice, daal (lentils), sabji (a delicious conglomeration of various vegetables and spices), saag (spinach deliciousness), and sometimes sweets like rice pudding.
1:00 break
4:30 more singing. Quite delightful I must say. Hindi rolls off the tongue in a very special way.
5:30 more lectures from Gurudeva and other sannyasis (monks)
7:00 boisturous singing and dancing, which I have yet to particpate in
8:00 dinner, which I'll probably stop eating because it's so late by this time....
9:00 bed!

Two days ago was the first bus day where we load into 19 huge buses to drive to sites further outside of the city. We board the bus at 5am and get back around 5 or 6pm. It's a long day needless to say. I'm not sure exactly how many people are here, somewhere near a thousand I think. There are people from all over- China and Russia have a pretty significant presence. There are alot of people from the UK, the US, latin america. Apparently in the past few years more and more Bengali people have started to come during this month. I've heard from a lot of people that the pilgrimage used to be a bit more intimate. Now it's hard not to get a little steamed when dozens of Bengali men and women are shoving their way through tiny doorways in the hot heat. They are known for being quite pushy. When I'm not getting pushed and shoved, I enjoy the extra energy. Feeding this many people is a sight to be seen - I'll try to post some pictures in the coming days.

Of course there is much more to speak of the goings-on, but that's it for now. Hopefully the next post will have some visual aids.

Hare Krishna!

-Kayleigh

Hari bol!

Greetings! Thanks to the Air India pilot strike our journey took an extra 13 hours. We detoured in Copenhagen and Halsinki and arrived in India at the early but not yet bright hour of 4am. We stayed with an Indian friend's family for the first day as we began our recooperation. In many ways Delhi reminded me of various cities in Central America. Cars drive on the roads like a racetrack. Pungent smells float through the air. Poverty has no hiding place. The family was a bit reserved but wonderfully hospitable. The food is AMAZING of course. We spent most of the time sleeping, fighting off sleep, and fighting off the heat (a near impossibility).

The next day we left for Vrindavan, a very holy city in India as it was the place that Krishna (God) was raised. This is where we will stay for most of the next month, which is a pilgrimage/festival celebrating many of Krishna's pastimes. I think I'll have more time later to better describe what it's like and what we're doing. I'm here with two other friends from Louisville - we have a room to ourselves in an ashram.

We've got our Indian garb on. Saris are preeeetty damn comfortable, let me tell you. Try walking around the house in a sheet, and you'll know what I mean. I haven't seen anyone get hit with a rickshaw yet, but if it happens I won't be in the least surprised.

love and miss you all,
Kayleigh