There and Back Again

Hey everyone. Well it's been very crazy couple of days. Last weekend was Loi Krathong which is where they pay respects to the river and they but these boats made out of banana leaves in with little candles. That day I went out with Bea, a friend who I met in Bodh Gaya and now is here in Bangkok, yeah it's a small world, to a concert at cool little section of one of the shopping malls. The guy was half American and half Thai and a DJ and a acuoustic musician. He started by playing the guitar and sang songs from Death Cab for Cutie and tons of other American band which was really surreal. There is are so many American things here. Not only are 7/11 at every cornor but all sorts of American chains. The new Celine Dion song plays at all the bus stops and most theaters show more Hollywood movies then Thai. It's kind of sad. However it is Bangkok and once you get out of the city it is a little better. Well the guy at the concert was good and we got a signed CD and now I have some funky Thai music. His Cd is a mix of his two passions which is every bit as wonderously strange as it sounds. Anyway afterwards we got some cheese and crackers and we were just going to have picnic when we stumbled upon a beauty pagent. The ushered us in because we were Western and we were treated to feed food and drinks while we watched the most bizarre beauty pagent I have ever seen. It was intresting though. After that it was getting late so we went to a interesting resturaunt in our area and then to bed. I woke up nice and early to go back to Ven. Dhammanada's monestary which was very nice. I got to have some good discussions with her and with the other bikkhunis, samerinis, and maechi. I only spent one day though because I stopped there enroute to Petchaburi this province to the south of Bangkok known for it's temples. I arrived there late and met a German girl who was also looking for a room. So we spent a couple days there and I did see a lot of people there but translators were hard to come by and I only met 2 monks who spoke English. If I do decide to come back and do research in Thailand I am most certainly learning Thai. I feel so awkward not knowing the language. Anyway it was fun, I met some other travellers and it was a nice little vacation from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. It was not a good couple of days for my project but I'm ahead of schedule anyway. So it's one of the people I'm travelling with's birthday today so I think I will go out and celebrate with him and then tommorow I will get back into the project. Actually I'm really excited for Sunday because I'm going to go on alms rounds with the nuns at Ven. Dhammanada's monestary which should be a very intresting experience. Intrestingly enough even though I spent the last months surrounded by monastics I haven't actually seen any go on alms round so that should be very interesting. Well that's it, sorry I had to be a little short and sweet, I'm trying to finish up my paper by Tuesday so I can spend the King's Birthday without worrying so I want to get a little typing in today.

Adventures and Misadventures

Hey all welcome to the contining saga... so I arrived safely at the monastary where I was greeted by barking dogs. I stood for a moment stunned as the dog surronded me and I thought "Okay this is it, I'm going to get bitten by these dogs and spend the rest of my stay in a hospital." There was no one around until out of the cornor of my eye I see a women in white who motioned to me. I walked slowly while the dogs continued to bark towards her and she told me "Make friend! Make friend!" So I do my best to buddy up to the dogs but they pretty much just hate me but I survive the journey to the doggy gate surronding the dining area and office. I get in and find a samerini (a bikkhuni in training) who informs me the Ven. Dhammanada, the women I have came to Songdhamma Kalyani to see, will arrive later that night from Cambodia. So I hang around and chat a little with Dhammamitta another Bhikkuni there. I went to meditation and afterwards the samerini called me over to give insence to the devas so I could have a good night sleep. Well I stumbled over it and somehow managed to upset them and then did more things to appease them but all and all it was fine. The next morning I met Dhammanda who was very nice and I had another awful adventure home. I'm back though and it's great. We did some site seeeing the next day and then Thanksgiving. I googled and found a Mexican Resturant in Bangkok for lunch which was great. Then we went out to the Hard Rock and really drank more then we ate. Well we only had one round at the Hard Rock because it's way expensive and then we went to a small little bar by our hotel. It was fun. Today I went shopping for a new yellow polo and I started writing my paper. Tommorow, hopefully I will be on my way back to the monestary though I might stay in Bangkok one more day. We shall see. I really love this place even if it is breaking my wallet.

One Night in Bangkok...

Hey everyone I'm in Bangkok and it has been a pretty interesting first few days. Well we first had to get to Kolkata. So our train was supposed to leave at 11:30 so we get there at 10:30 just in case. However a different train to Kolkata comes at 11:30. All of my travel mates think this is the one while me and one other person assure that's it not. Then some panic about it being on another platform and so I have to calm down the masses while me and my travel buddy Rob go to find out whats up. Well first we wait a bit but after a hour the train hasn't showed so Rob goes to check but the man refers him to the "Inquiry Office" which he can't find. More waiting then I go with him to find the office. No luck. More waiting then we go again and find it is actually outside the train station but Westerners can actually go in the back door to inquire which requires stepping over the sleeping masses. We find out our train is delayed until 2:30. So we wait. I try to sleep book ended by two Indian men but it's way to creepy so I stay up. Gaya station is shifty during the day. It's not somewhere you want to be at night. Motto creepy. Anyway 2:30 roles around and once again a different train shows up. Back to the inquiry office. Turns out it's the next train which they were unbeleivably right about and we get on and off we got. I slept all right on the train but I woke up early to make sure we got off at the right stop. We did which was great and we had the Taxi take us to Flurries a fancy restuaraunt. Flurries is Pink and a recipient of the MTV Style Awards. They play 80s and 90s pop and apparently who ever chooses the music is a big fan of the Backstreet Boys. The food was yummy, well much like home. Had I gone to a American Resturant I would say my grilled chesse sandwhich and french fries were subpar but I was in India and it was great. Plus they had cheesecake! So it was yummy but really expensive. Okay so I paid less then $10 for my meal but in India that is fancy. I then went to a bar with the boys while the girls went to a internet cafe where we played poker until we met back up with the girls and left for the airport. After finally finding our room we settled in then went on a misguided quest for a Dominos we saw on the way that ended up leading us to a swanky rooftop bar called O2 where we treated ourselve to another fine dining expereince where we celebrated leaving for Thailand (and being out of a monestary) with a bottle of Champagne. We got back slept and woke up at 4am to go to the plane. More waiting, "Wait, is that us?", "No", Run! that you usually expereince when you travel in India but we were on our plane in on the way to Bangkok. The flight was undersold which meant I had a row of 3 seats to myself which I took advantage of to fall into a deep sleep. The stewardess apparently couldn't even rouse me for breakfast. Once we touched down we spent hours in customs then to our destination! Our hotel is nice and surrounded by 3 MALLS! We wideeyed went around and realized we are not in India anymore! Woah, it's like being at home. Only we're in Asia. We also went to the weekend market which I think has gone upscale since my Dad has been there. Actually I think Bangkok in general has changed a ton. Like I remember him saying how shady KFC's were and how you couldn't eat the meat. Well many resturants in Bangkok are cleaner then home and KFC's are nice places and EVERYWHERE. One of the malls by us has 3 MacDonalds, 2 KFCs and 1 Pizzza Hut all in the same mall So we went to the market and looked around in vain for a Santi Asoke Resturaunt which like most of our project inquires turned to be a fruitless effort. So then we retired. I woke up early to go to the monestary where the women my project is based on live. Getting to the town was simple but once there NO ONE knew where this monestary was. That is no one except the motorcycle taxis which I have been warned are death traps knew where it was but I broke down seeing it as my only means of transport to the place and I hopped on one which sending the driver metta and chanting in Pali until I arrived safe and not dead. I'm out of internet time so this story will have to be TBC.

I Still Have Three Fingers Left From Last Diwali

Hey all! This is going to be a short post because I am pretty much exhausted from this week. Finals in India is grueling because nothing is simple. Oh well. I leave for Kolkata (Calcutta) at 9:30 tonight. Well I leave for Gaya at 9:30 then we get to wait around at a shifty train station and board the train at 11:30 and get to Kolkata six hours later, if the train isn't late. Which it could be and we end up waiting until 2 in the morning. Sound like...fun. Anyway it should be all good. We have a day in Kolkata and then we fly out to Bangkok bright and early Sunday morning. I'll proably update once I'm there. I'm doing fine though. India is great. I'm great just really really tired. Pujas have been keeping me up all night including Diwali which is celebrated by giving a bunch of young boys gunpowder with a fuse in it and seeing what happens. It's like fourth of July if you were in a Redneck town with lots of fireworks, no laws, and no manufacturing codes. Yeah...that's India for you.

I Love The Smell Of Burning Trash in the Morning, it Smells like...India

Well I officially can not speak, I've completly lost my voice, go me. This week is going to be crazy. Well especially these next two weeks because I pretty much have to pack up my room, finsih my preliminary research, take finals, finish other corse work, back and prepare for Thailand, and everything else that pops up all in the next two weeks. It is not a time to get sick for six days straight now. Anyway life is going really great in spite of all of this and it is kind of nice to be silent for a day. Being sick has forced me to rest, not as much as I should but some. Tibetan practice is going better with a new teacher. I must and that as awful as my last post made Chokyi Nyima sound he really was a cute guy and he did say some valuable things it's just complicated... I don't know I suppose I'll have to wait until I'm home before I can accuratly describe it. Ah, I totally don't want to think about home now. My hair is growing back and making weird shapes. It naturaly makes a faux-hawk and no I'm not kidding. I debating shaving it my birthday but we'll see how I feel when the time comes. Tommorow I am going over to this big festival at the Thai temple across the river where I am friends with the abbot. There are supposingly 200 Thai pilgrims arriving which will be crazy! Anyway it should be fun, I can't wait. I need to interview some of them for my final project for Anthropology so hopefully I will be able to talk! Anway I don't think I mentioned that at the Chod ceremony a couple of days ago where 1500 Bhutanese came. They had these horns they used made of real human femurs! It's awesome! Anyway I hate to cut this short but I mean you guys got a good long post a few days ago so I'm off.

So They Dress Up Like Animals and Dance Around Like Crazy People?

Well the internet has been down for a week. It just got back up and running yesterday and it went down last Saturday. Yeah that was fun... As a result the Post Office and Bank have been closed for most of the week, yeah that was fun too... So communication was shot. It was fine though and I survived. Let me tell you though that was the only weird and slightly crappy thing that happened this week. First Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was here this week along with 24 followers, all Western. We all watched almost with our jaws dropped when jeeps pulled up and 24 white people moved in the Burmese Vihar. I am usually surrounded by white people but they are the 33 students of my program. Usually when I walk out in town and I see a white person I either know them personally or have seen then before. Plus the 33 people I live with have all just spent the past two months living here in India so we are kind of a different breed then the new 24 who dropped in. We called them the entorage. They were people just here to listen to Rinpoche speak. My friend Chris described these followers best when he said "It looks like they drank the Kool-aid". Nice people really but they were so enamored of this man it was a little creepy. A Rinpoche is usually a toku which is a reincarnated lama. Chokyi Nyima is from a family where all his brothers are rinpoches and one of his brother's children is a rinpoche analyze that as you will. I didn't really make a connection. I usually one who likes to veer away from hype. Plus my expereinces with Tibetan Buddhism isn't that great. Well okay really I love Tibetans but it's the Westerners who follow who I have a problem with. Not all of them some of them are loyal practioners but there are some who I feel chose the religon because it went with the color of their new shoes. These are the people, like the women I saw today who come into the Mahabodhi temple in clothes that I wouldn't wear back at home and expecially not to a holy site and never ever in India and absolutly possitivly never where to a holy site in India where there are monks. They come with their cute little mats to do prostrations but they have absolutly no idea about their religion. It's worse back at home. I don't know why, maybe it's because of the popularity of the Dalai Lama but these people always seem to choose Tibetan Buddhism. So a combination with this view and the shock of the entorage I was either expecting something really profound from this rinpoche or I was done. Well many people might argue with me but my first impression of Chokyi Nyima was not profound. He is a intellgent man but there is nothing more mystical about him then any of our other teachers. I have to say that I was doing the sound system so I sat in the back for most of his lectures so I didn't have a really good oppertunity to make a conection but I think he was the teacher I had the worst connection with. This is resulting from a combination of things: 1) The hype and perceptions that I got before I met him 2) We just left Zen and our Sensei really hit a bone with me. I loved the man and I really think I will go to Australlia sometime soon to study with him. The man bought 5 kilos of cheese from Australlia to make grilled cheese for all of us on his birthday. Is that not a man after my own heart? So I was really sad to see him go and I realized that I was constantly making comparisons between the two which is bad because they are both trying to different things and in different situations. 3) I couldn't make a connection and I constantly felt distant from him resulting partially because I always ended up sitting physically distant from him. 4) I only had a week to get to know him which was difficult because there was no time to give up my first perceptions and foster a grass roots relationship. 5) I got very sick which is my next topic of discussion. So over half of us got sick. It started on Wednesday when we made a impromtu trip to Rajgir, which I will talk about in a second. Several people got sick the night before then several more were sick on the trip and several more were sick the next two days. I got scik the day after the trip. The night we got back I threw up three times from midnight to 2am. The next day it became a game show: What can Robyn eat that she won't throw up in one to three hours. The answer was dittly squat. I am serious. I at a orange for breakfast and it came up, I had to leave Anthropology class. I threw up and went right back to learning. The thing is I didn't feel really exhausted I just was hurling all the time. At night I ate two saltine crackers and just that was enough to wake me at night to commune with the toilet. The next day though I kept down breakfast and I was fine the rest of the day. The day before a bunch of people took Bodhisattva vows and commitments to Rinpoche as a teacher. I usally jump right into expereinces like this but I really didn't feel anything for Rinpoche or the tradition so I didn't sign up which means I didn't get a TIbetan name but it also means I don't have to stick around until all sentient beings are enlightened. I was going to go to the ceremony but I threw up lunch right before I went so I stayed behind. Like I said I was fine the next day then Saturday, the day after I woke up and my lymph nodes had swollen to twice the size. It hurt to swallow and I was not feeling to hot. It was the day of our Halloween party so I got up and ready and was active anyway. I took my tempture because I felt a little warm and I realized that I had a fever of a 100.8 degrees. Didn't stop me though took two paracetamols and was fine and went off to partyh that night. Before I get into that on Wednesday Rinpoche took us out to Rajgir and Nalanda. We were told about it literally less then 24 hours before we went. Tuesday morning they told us in our meditation lecture, "We're going on a field trip tommorow we leave a 5am wake up is at 4:30. We are moving classes back so you'll have class on Saturday." No I'm not kidding I had class on Saturday. So it was fine but once again I'm going to make a comparison with Sensei and Rinpoche. So I talked earlier about going to the mountains, well Sensei was there and he was just along for the ride. We had ask him to lead us in meditation. He was one of us. With Rinpoche it was like "Okay, let's go to Vulture's Peak okay you have five minutes to explore then lets listen to RInpoche recite the Heart Sutra which we've heard litterally fifty times before during Zen (we chanted it in CHinese every night) and then talk for a hour. Okay that's finished no more time to look at this cool mountain let's go." Nalanda was the same way which was more of a pity because it is the ruins of this beautiful university and it was amazing. Yet we had ten minutes to explore, well really just follow Rinpoche while he explored then we sat down and listened to a Theravadan monk talk about the ruins then here Rinpoche ask him questions then listen to another hour long talk. I mean it was very nice but I really wish, since we spent two hours in a jeep there and back battling car sickness that we had more time to see the sites and less time hearing a dharma talk that could have been given when we were back at home. One cool thing, well strange thing is at Vulture's peak they had like chairs where two men carried you up the mountain. We walked but we saw a bunch of Thai pilgrims do it. Oh! About my sickness and everyone else getting sick. People said (and in this context by people I mean the Kool-aid drinkers) said that people often get sick around Rinpoche and that it is because you are cleansing you body and getting rid of negative karma. Let me say this, if I man gets people sick just by being around I don't really see that as a good thing. The more likely scenerio that someone suggested is that the entroage all coming from Chokyi Nyima's temple in Nepal brought down some crazy illness. Or we just all got sick. It's fucking India it breeds illness like rabbits! Anyway, we had our Halloween party and it was so much fun. I dressed up like a Moghul Princess and everyone else had crazy costumes. We had dinner and then hours upon hours of sober dancing that was just down right fun. It was seriously the best Halloween party I have ever attended. The second to last song was "I Beleive In A Thing Called Love" and I squealed with delight hereing the first guitar riffs and everyone laughed. It was amazing. Man! I'll have to continue this later because I have to get going but I love you all. Two weeks until Thailand!