Adele - Someone Like You

I really like this artist. Very clear-cut, etched text.

Pushkar (Rajasthan)

Nice little town built by Brahma - according to legend, that is - around a lake, it hosts one of the largest cattle fair in India. It is also one of the oldest cities in the country (dates unknown) and its nickname 'Tirth Raj' - the King of the Dhams (pilgrimage sites) - many devout hindus come here and perform rituals both in and out of the lake's sacred waters.

The atmosphere during the fair is pleasant and very relaxed. There's a great many camels, horses, cows and the like spread all over the arid, deserted plain that outstretches beyond Pushkar. I think there were more camels than any other cattle at the time I was there, and a lot of them were 'decorated' for lack of a better word. Multicoloured leash and harness and whatnots. Quite interesting.

There is also a couple of temples on top of the two hills overlooking the lake. I'm sorry I didn't get the names but one is definitely higher than the other and the view of the valley from the summit is stunning.

Near the end of the pictures, you'll see a magnificent, spotless white, blue-eyed horse. It was on offer for $150,000, but I could've gotten less I think. I need to do some research, but I'm quite sure those horses are endemic, i.e. you can't find them anywhere else in the world. I might be wrong and I am by no means a specialist of the equine world, but their build, ears and colours are really different from any other horse I have seen so far. if someone can light my lantern, I'll gladly welcome him or her.

Now for the pictures of Pushkar!

Editor's note: I really wish people would notice I refrained myself from any pun on the name of this charming little town where very few...mmmh...automobiles are to be seen.

Diwali fireworks in Amritsar

A écouter à fond ! Listen to it full blast!

Jodhpur (Rajasthan)

The blue city is here.

No jodhpurs to be seen - 'too expensive to make and out of fashion' was what I was told by a tailor.

The most beautiful and best preserved fort I have seen in India.

The indigo blue used in the whitewash was first used by the Brahmins (the highest caste) to differentiate their house and subsequent area where they lived from the rest. It also apparently served the purpose of keeping the mosquitoes at bay, of keeping the house cool and few other things. I think it's just beautiful and now everybody uses it - or so it seems to me.

Very old city where time has stopped, especially early in the morning. I had the impression of being catapulted back to the Middle-ages. Also, it's a really nice city to get lost in. Nice markets, nice people, nice skies, nice nights.

In a word, I loved Jodhpur.

Diwali in Amritsar

Celebrating Diwali, more or less the equivalent of Christmas and New Year's eve in one night, in Amritsar, the capital city of the state of Punjab, was a real treat. My friend Luv invited me in his family house and I tagged along at the different venues his family was going to. A thousand thanks to them!

Here are the pics.

Where the hell is Matt?

Do you remember this guy? Created quite a buzz a couple of years back - or was it more - must definitely be more. Anyhow, I happened to stumble on the video.

This guy is a happiness generator. It mightn't be the dancing the people notice first, it might be the energy this man is radiating - which they mistake for -well- dancing.

Read Matt's bio, it takes about a minute and a half, not thereby implying there's nothing in it, but that you must necessarily have time to read it. The video is really worth it, in fact it made my day. Enjoy!

Pokhara (Nepal)

Where is my mind?

J'ai complètement oublié de mettre les photos de cette jolie et paisible bourgade en ligne...bref, je répare le tort.

Je n'ai pu passer qu'une journée et demi là-bas, mais elle fut intense et calme à la fois. La promenade le long du lac est de toute beauté. Je n'y ai que marché, mais on peut y louer des bateaux à la journée ou tout simplement pour traverser et grimper la colline au sommet de laquelle se trouve un très beau stupa (japonais me semble-t-il).

En outre, la ville est d'une propreté épatante - sauf pas mal d'endroits du lac (voir la photo), mais le reste est pas mal du tout si l'on considère les standards népalais et il est agréable d'y flâner.

J'y ai rencontré beaucoup de monde de Katmandou, notamment mon amie Natsuko. J'y ai nouvellement rencontré Rintsin (dont le prénom signifie "joyau"), la trentaine, tibétaine en exil qui vend des bijoux et autres sur le bord du lac, lorsqu'on laisse le centre-ville sur sa droite. Nous avons sympathisé, et le lendemain après-midi, elle m'a emmené dans son village. Je n'écrirai rien dessus. Je dirai simplement que ces exilés n'ont plus de carte d'identité, n'ont donc pas de droits et peu d'espoir de sortie. Voilà.

J'ai partagé un très bon moment avec Rintsin et sa famille. Ses soeurs et sa mère m'ont appris à cuisiner les "momos", des raviolis fourrés et cuits à la vapeur (voir les photos). Nous avons bien ri - surtout au vu de l'absence de dextérité dont j'ai fait preuve lors du pliage du momo - bu du thé tibétain pendant la cuisson, offert le premier momo au Dalai-Lama, mangé et ri encore. J'ai repris la route tôt le matin, un peu triste de devoir quitter cette famille simple et majestueuse à la fois, cette joie de vivre et de s'en sortir malgré tout.

Pokhara, c'est là.

McLeod Ganj...

...is where the Dalai-Lama actually resides, not in nearby Dharamsala. My guess is that it's only because the town is slightly bigger than McLeod Ganj that people retain the name, which means 'guest house' or something similar. Perhaps also because the name 'McLeod' was already taken by another divinity.

I haven't taken a lot of pictures of McLeod Ganj, and these are not very uplifting. This is too bad because it is a nice and quiet mountain village and the atmosphere very early in the morning, especially in the market on the main square (which is so small) is pleasant and soothing. No one is trying to sell you stuff, the food is very good, especially the Tibetan momos, and there are very nice walks around. I was so taken up by the teachings of the Dalai-Lama that I forgot to take my camera and when I did my mind was elsewhere. Sorry!

I'll do better next time. Enjoy anyway!

Tim Hetherington

Disappeared too soon like many, honoured like few, he was keen to portray man in extremity like no other.

This is a short video of Tim Hetherington on BBC.

I would remove the quotation marks, for he was undoubtedly a genius.

Kathmandu 08/10/11 evening

Missing out on love
Tonight, at the rebuke of darkness
Raised over an eyebrowlike mountain
 

Trek to Gomukh: At the Source of the great Gange

For those who are wondering and whom I can see frowning, a full two weeks had elapsed between the two treks. Plus Gomukh is in the Indian part of the Himalayas, not in Nepal which I had left two days before ending up in Gangotri. The town takes its name from the river which darts through it, with quite an impressive waterfall. 'Tri' might mean something like 'source' or 'spring', as I noticed a place called Yamunotri, which marks the location of the source of that other great Indian river, the Yamuna.

But I digress.

In order to see the actual site of the source, one needs to walk up to the glacier, near Gomukh, at a height nearing 4,000 meters and a distance of some 18 kilometers. The trek in itself isn't difficult at all and the path, though not clearly indicated, is easily recognisable, which must make the glacier one of the easiest accessible in the world.

I started out at the dot of 4 in the morning, making my way by moonlight (hence the very first pictures in the series, which I tried to make as clear as possible, but as I still don't own a tripod, they tend to be a little fuzzy). Some spots are a little adventurous, as rivers are to be crossed on fell tree-trunks and some bends bring you quite close to the edge. But overall it is very safe and immensely enjoyable. It took me a few hours to reach the glacier, and I spent a long time there, taking my lunch under the shade of the glacier (I noticed only upon leaving that a huge chunk of it was cracked - cf pictures - and could fall and crush anything under it anytime). I came back to Gangotri at around 2 in the afternoon - all in all a ten-hour trek, which isn't bad.

I really hope you will enjoy the pictures as much as I did taking them. I also had an amazing time gazing at the clouds up there, they were really beautiful. The silence was a real treat. Add a pinch of wild animals here and there and the fact that I came across four people on the way...you'll get a pretty good picture of how it went.

That's about it concerning this amazing trek, but because you're a bunch of nice people, I'm throwing a video of the mountains in the bargain! Enjoy.

(Shortened) Trek to Langtang - Nepal

Only one thing prevented me from climbing any further up the Langtang trail: a flat stone devilishly poised on the equally treacherous tip of a stone buried underground, much like an iceberg does underwater. The aforementioned flat stone was seemingly laying flatly on the ground, therefore on it I stepped. The instant my foot touched the surface, it tilted to the right. My right ankle could bear a decent enough straining angle, but not to be plied like an origami, as it appeared it did. The snap I heard wasn't my bones breaking, but rather them being strained and dislodging themselves to come back into position soon after.

Anyhow, the two days I spent up there were fantastic. Wonderful scenery, demanding trail but not so difficult, great people and an unequalled feeling of freedom.

I also have taken what is probably one of my best sunset pictures so far. Let's hope you don't forget that I am no professional!

Ultimately, I know I'll go back to Nepal and finish what I started during this trek (and wear hiking boots that cover the ankles!).

Enjoy the pictures!

Kathmandu (Nepal), Part Two

Again, nothing but Kathmandu.
Enjoy!

Kathmandu (Nepal), Part One

Simply Kathmandu, and nothing else.

Varanasi / Bénarès (Uttar Pradesh)

Il n'y a pas qu'une raison pour laquelle Varanasi est considérée comme LA ville sainte en Inde. Il y en a mille. L'une d'elles réside dans le fait que c'est une des villes les plus vieilles d'Inde (même si la plupart des habitants clament haut et fort que c'est la plus vieille ville du monde, j'en suis fort désolé, mais leur superbe cité n'a "que" 6000 ans tout au plus - Damas est assise au même endroit depuis 11 000 ans), et on le sent lorsqu'on atteint Godaulia, le coeur de la ville. Ruelles étroites et labyrinthiques, petites échoppes à l'arrière des venelles, cette impression que rien n'a changé depuis des lustres. Mark Twain l'a parfaitement résumé : "Older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." (Plus vieille que l'histoire, plus vieille que les traditions, plus vieille même que les légendes, elle a l'air deux fois plus vieille que toutes celles-ci mises ensemble.)

Surnommée la "ville lumière", la "ville des temples" ou encore la "ville sainte d'Inde", fondée selon la légende par Shiva, Varanasi est considérée comme un tirtha, un passage vers l'autre monde, libéré du cycle de naissance et de mort. Le Gange, qui la borde, y est pour quelque chose : se baigner dans ses eaux est censé purifier le corps autant que l'âme. Je ne rentrerai pas dans la polémique, mais il faut savoir que le fleuve reste pollué par autre chose que les carcasses d'animaux, les déchets ménagers, les déjections humaines et les restes calcinés des incinérés.

Car oui, on vient de partout en Inde, et certains de plus loin encore, pour mourir à Varanasi. Le touriste y vient pour la soie, les brocards, les saris, les tapisseries, le bronze, l'argent, les pierres précieuses. L'hindou vient y expirer et y faire brûler sa dépouille. Toujours cette histoire de tirtha. J'ai refusé, contrairement à la plupart des touristes, de prendre des photos des deux ghats spécialisés dans la crémation (comme Manikarnika). Des centaines de corps y sont brûlés quotidiennement, et des dizaines de tonnes de bois servent de combustible.

Bien qu'il y ait près d'une centaine de ghats, ou escaliers / marches menant à un point d'eau, il y a toujours foule pour s'y laver, faire ses ablutions, laver son linge, entre autres choses et dès le lever du soleil, bien en face de la ville.

Ce que j'ai beaucoup apprécié également, c'est cette mixité religieuse : hindouisme, bouddhisme, sikhisme, jaïnisme, catholicisme, judaïsme. C'est ici que Siddhârtha Gautama Bouddha a délivré son premier sermon. Rien que ça !

J'ai découvert beaucoup d'aspects de la ville grâce à un sâdhu (un saint homme, un ermite) que j'ai rencontré le premier jour et avec qui j'ai sympathisé : Uday Singh était (est) son nom. Vous le verrez apparaître sur plusieurs photos, car le brave homme aimait bien l'objectif (et encore, je n'ai pas tout mis). Nous avons beaucoup discuté, abordé des thèmes aussi variés qu'incongrus (en gros, de la théologie au croissants français en passant par Alexandre le Grand et ses gymnosophes) et marché, déambulé, flâné. Il connaît beaucoup de monde à Varanasi et m'a présenté à diverses communautés, notamment à celle attachée à un temple sikh. Je le remercie encore - c'est un sâdhu un peu particulier qui a une adresse internet.

Pour clore le chapitre et vous laisser regarder les photos, Varanasi est une ville où il faut se laisser perdre pour mieux l'apprécier, pour en retirer tout ce qu'elle a offrir. La plupart des touristes que j'y ai rencontré y était déjà venus, certains en faisaient un lieu de pèlerinage. J'admets : la ville reste un lieu incontournable, embrumée de mystères et empreintes d'une sainteté palpable, prégnante, sensible à la lumière particulière que le Gange fait miroiter ou, parfois, semble absorber dans ses eaux mordorées.

Puri & Bubaneshwar (Orissa)

 

Située à quelques kilomètres de Konark se trouve la ville de Puri. J'ai longé le front de mer frondé de plages de sable blanc, dans un bus bondé, pour accéder à cette bourgade qui ne peut avoir d'autre prétention que de posséder un énorme complexe de temples, malheureusement interdit aux non-hindous. Les photos se font du toit d'une des deux ou trois antiques bibliothèques (accès payant, ça va de soi) du centre-ville.

La ville de Bubaneshwar, quant à elle, est la capitale de l'état d'Orissa. Aussi vaste que pauvre, où les pollutions sonore, de l'air et de l'eau font rage, sale jusqu'à l'écoeurement, bref : la ville indienne lambda. Il faut fouiller un peu, mais on y découvre de beaux temples, de belles bâtisses, des gens sympas, des marchés intéressants et de la bonne bouffe. Pour information, les photos de la ville commence à celle dépeignant la devanture de Moustache Jeans. Sans commentaire. Vraiment, non, je ne commenterai pas.

Pour visionner l'album, c'est par ici.

 

Konark, aka the Sun Temple (-18) (Orissa)

I believe a picture can speak a thousand words. This one is a good example (well, not technically a thousand words, but enough words to get the picture).

No one could have put it better. Cheers. I have an addendum, though. When they write "sensuous modelling, pulsating with human emotions", they should have written "downright erotic".

Now for the pictures, so that you can figure out for yourself what I mean by erotic. There are many examples disseminated throughout India. I was on my way to one (Khajuraho, in Madhya Pradesh) when I had my accident. Have fun!

A short example of the Indian traffic...

...which is running smoothly in this video. The actual traffic is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy worse than this. Imagine ten times more tuk-tuks (the three-wheeled taxis), buses, motorbikes, bicycles and people, plus you should level up the honking so that it reaches decibels yet unheard of by any Westerner's ears. Enjoy the silence (really, I mean it).

By the way, near the end of the video, there's a man selling fruits on a cart, just spot him and bear in mind where this chap's making business.

12 seconds of kitsch

First Indian Pictures!

You can find them there.

The place is Nellore, North of Chennai. There I met with Dalits, or Untouchables, in the middle of nowhere. They were angry because another group of Dalits were beating them up over a sombre issue of land. That's why they drew this big figure on the road, some magical entity meant to scare them off. They were very nice to me though. They showed me around. They wanted to share their meal with me.

Next I went downtown, by and under the railway bridge at first, then to the covered market. I soon became a local attraction. Apparently not so many tourists wander off in these parts.

Nellore appears like a large village made up from a cluster of villages huddled together. I have been told that the population is nearing a million. Still, it looks like a village to me.

Butterfly

 I was woken up by the faintest sound, like a fluttering of wings. It was about noon. I was taking my preprandial nap. It was a butterfly. I was astonished. I said so. “My, there's a butterfly stuck in the room.” That's what I said, word for word. Out of the few days or weeks this butterfly had to live in this physical world, he was doomed to spend a few hours here with me, banging and crashing on the windowpanes, circling the wooden beam in the middle of the room. I did open the doors. Wide open. A full-grown baby elephant could have manoeuvred in there without but brushing past a hinge. The lepidoptera didn't find the way out, though. I couldn't leave the door open too long – it was getting cold, you see. November can be cold after a cool summer. So it remained in the room – I still wonder how it entered it in the first place – until I saw it not. It was perhaps laying flat in some nook or cranny amid the junk and miscellany stored in here, waiting for something we can't understand the value of. I wish I had been a butterfly, or I wish I could be one, as much as metempsychosis would allow me, so that I could understand what it meant by that.

I understood then that much of men's behaviour could find an equivalent in the animals' behaviour. I was a butterfly. Some were snakes. Some were bulls or sheep or fish or worms. Some were giraffes and others elephants. The desert mole rat's behaviour might mirror that of Indians'. Europe is full of black-backed jackals. Some species are sedentary, some are nomadic. People who live on their own are a bloody pain. They never know what they want, pass it by without blinking and, being offered something else, discard it with a cantankerous wave of the hand. Perhaps a snicker. And then I knew the butterfly in me was dying. It was one of those nights when you could almost see the links between the stars, drawing the constellations for the naked eye. I decided to leave.

I took the first ship out of the continent, then learnt to ride a horse, learnt the rules of the desert and became aware of thirst and hunger. I rode and rode. I went to Samarkand. Mingled with the merchants for seasons unaccounted. On being attacked by a swarm of bandits, I left the caravan and joined the thieves. We roamed the deserts of Persia, assailed, plundered, haggled the stolen goods, caroused, slept with the glossy, tenebrious dome over our heads and bought whores and drank tea.

One night I stole the captain's horse and rode for ten days and ten nights. The stallion died and I pursued on foot. I arrived at dawn, dusty and tired, in Merv, in Turkmenistan. There I hid in the suburbs, stole fruits and vegetables from the back of stalls, washed downstream in the river, bidding my time. One day, I spotted the palanquin of a prince. I knew of him through legends and hearsays. He would ride in his palanquin, all curtains drawn. No one had ever seen his face for he constantly concealed it under a shawl. He was all mystery. I sneaked in his palace under the cover of darkness and hid under his bed for two full weeks, stealing occasionally from the various fruit bowls laying here and there. There I eavesdropped his every habit. He was a man of few words. He received no visitors. One night, I stabbed him in his sleep, pierced his heart with my dagger and unveiled his visage. Amidst tormented flesh and disfiguring scars were set a pair of pale green eyes.

This is how I became the Mysterious Prince of Turkmenistan. I found the name myself. I spent lavishly in parties I didn't attend at first. I offered exquisite jewels to splendiferous princesses. I donated money to the city council, erected orphanages and schools. I made love to princes and princesses alike, always making a point not to reveal my figure. Never. Not to anyone, under no circumstances. I was served in gold dishes, I shat in gold buckets. A slave wiped my buttocks clean. My scam could have gone on for ever were it not for the sudden appearance of the real prince's brother who, hearing on the coming out of the prince, thought his brother had recovered from whatever demons assaulted him and was finally blending with his peer. He was too sharp and suspicious a fellow not to die at my dagger's tip. I fled at once, only with the gold and jewels I could carry on my person.

I travelled on horseback without stopping to sleep or feed, took shelter in caves, slipped into caravans and ships. However cautious I was not to leave traces of my passage, I was chased after. I had to kill to live. I had to steal food to live, I was forced to pinch horses and mules and carts. On occasions I couldn't but ransack, despoil, embezzle and burn to the ground to save my skin. I was hunted again and again, relentlessly. I remembered the Erinyes in times long gone. Reward posters were pasted in every city I reached, forcing me to seek refuge in deserted areas. I was probably the most wanted man in the whole silk road, perhaps in the entire Ariana. I fed on roots and drank dew. Rats were my only companions and meals in the last ship I took.

I ultimately attained Sevilla. There I set up a shop as an alchemist cum banker cum general goods store. The knowledge I had acquired and the little gold and jewels I could save allowed me only this. But business was good, for I was not known. I experimented on various metals, obtained gold after much fumbling, tried my hand at dissecting living things, subjecting them to the absorption of the various gases I was using and multitudes of plants and medicinal herbs. Fire gave good results too. I compiled all my results in books with titles such as: “The Black Boke of Magick Spelles”, “The Boke of Torture and Various Methodes of Inflickting Pain”, “Anatomie of Man” and such like. They sold so many copies and people asked for so many more that I had to hire scribes.

I soon met my future wife because she kept on coming to my shop under various pretexts, started to help me, doing menial tasks at first, then entrusted herself to seeking out herbs on her own and gradually made herself invaluable. We were married a week later. She became heavy with child almost at once.

We now live in a comfortable house in the new part of town. Notables and princes from Spain, Morocco and such countries come to seek my advice or my potions. I count a handsome number of kings and queens as my clients. My chest is filled with gold and jewels and precious stones. My children receive a good education for I insist on the tutors to come every day. I trade silk and spices, carpets and saffron from the very cities that vowed to put me to death. A young gentleman whom I befriended recently wants to write a book on my adventures. He comes every evening after dinner, and I exchange wine and dates against an hour or two of conversation, a handful of words he conscientiously pens on dirty pieces of parchment. He is not the only one to revere me, I usually marvel at my being here, alive, in one piece and sane enough not to put my eggs in the same basket.

All of this happened because a butterfly was stuck in my room, and wouldn't come out. Funny.

From McLeodGanj, 24/10/2011, early morning

I

Closed palms counting what the open hands contain

Phalanges figuring heads by the dozen

When pointing fingers can only tell ten

II

As I lay floating above the treetops

Tawny eagles swooshing underneath my feet

- This morning's chai tastes really sweet!