In Fashion

Saturday 1st May 2010
7.45am
Outdoor dining table, the Korean monastery
Lumbini, Nepal

I think two weeks here at the monastery will be too long. 

7 or 8 days will be enough. 

The desire to see as much as India as I can before I leave, has to some degree, resurfaced in me. 

Today I'll use the internet to try and bring forward the dates of my train tickets. I think I'll be able to do all the reading I want to do at the library here by the end of next week, while also make a lot more progress with my own books. Vanity Fair is waiting.

Sometimes I wonder if it is right to be here, or more precisely to be travelling here when I know deep down I feel that my friends and family and myself would benefit if I was at home. I feel to some degree I've neglected them. Financially I can go some way to expressing my feelings for them and make up for lost time in that sense, but I am here in India. It's an interesting scenario. 

Sometimes Indians stare at me and other travellers so much, as if they are saying 'What they hell are you doing here!? In this poor, dirty and chaotic place! You could go anywhere but you're here!' Sometimes I see their point. 

However nothing in life needs satisfying more than a man curiosity, and I am no different. There are many curious things in India. Cities, temples, people, lakes, shrines, palaces, foods and other things. 

So when I leave the monastery I want to see the things I had planned to see in the Autumn and early Winter, after I had taught. 

These places include the Golden Temple in Amritsar, to stay there too; Dehdra Dun and the Molling Monastery, which has the world's tallest stupa; Rishikesh the world's home of Yoga and nearby Hardiwar, a sacred religious site for Hindus; Mussoorie which is a popular and apparently scenic colonial hill town; Dharamsala home of the Dalai Lama, where I had hoped to teach; finally if there is time the Red Fort in Delhi and the Taj Mahal and its environs. 

There are many places in Southern India to see but it's hot enough in the north. Time may beat me but I'll see what I can, without rushing myself or stressing myself out too much. 

I fly 7th June. Yesterday I spent the afternoon reading in the library, walked into Lumbini town and back to buy a bottle of cola and some biscuits, ate dinner - less rice more veg- and read in bed until the schedule power cut. 

The only other thing is that I met a nice German guy who is staying here. I gave him my now unnecessary altitude sickness tablets. 

We talked about all things Indian. 

Between now and lunch I'll continue to sit here in the shade, drink tea, and read. 

Right now I am reading The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple and Buddhist Ethics by Damien Keown 

...10.15am...I'm up to page 84 in the former book

...it's a good 5km round trip walk to the shops here 

...the road trip from Lumbini to Kathmandu takes you from the plains at sea level to mountain roads and bumpy gravel tracks at 1500m