Soviet Helicopters and Monasteries Above the Clouds

As always, new photos (from my journeys to Ziro and the Tawang valley in Arunachal Pradesh) at left.

First off I hereby retract every previous reference I made to "mountains" on this blog or really anywhere else in my life.

A week and a half ago my traveling companion Namrata and I flew in a giant 1970's Soviet built helicopter from Itanagar into the Tawang valley deep in the Himalayan mountains. We flew first over the plains of Assam - and then into Bhutan as the mountains rose higher and higher. In Bhutan we said huge river gorgeous, deep evergreen forests, and rice fields and small villages terraced high up the mountains. When we reached the Tawang valley, a nook of India lodged between Bhutan and Tibet, the mountains had reached an incredible scale - remaining snow capped even in the Indian version of summer. It felt as if we had landed on top of the world.

The Tawang valley is overwhelmingly Tibetan Buddhist. This was the place the Dalai Lama fled to after the failed 1959 uprising against the Chinese occupation before moving on to set up the government in exile in Dharamsala. There are an number of monasteries still operating in the valley - include the Tawang monastery in a hilltop above the town. Five hundred monks live there - including a number of kids. The place is gorgeous. On rainy days we would be in or above the clouds - and incredible feeling.

In the sanctuary of the 330 year old monastery there were deeply colored painted walls, and hanging cloth banners and statues everywhere. We attended prayers frequently - which are a mix of deep religious reverence and hilarity. The monks chant for hours on end in an incredibly deep base voice - words that sound like they almost come from somewhere below the human voice box. This chanting is accented by occasional drums and wind instruments that make for a dirge like effect. The prayers are lead by the senior monks - the child monks have to attend three times a day - 4am, 8am, & 3pm - and their attention span cannot possibly match this regime. They talk and play constantly with each other in the sanctuary during prayers. I saw various spit ball wars transpire. I also saw a 10 year old monk run into the sanctuary and leap, body-slam-style, onto one of his friends who was already sitting on the cushions. A choice which earned him a reprimand and a solid thwack on the back from the leather belt of a senior monk with Dalai Lama style glasses. During the prayers they also made repeated offerings - tea or oranges and even some Coca-Cola.

During this leg of the journey Namrata continued exploring local perceptions of the fact that China claims this land as their own and occupied it during the 1962 Sino-India war. I got to join in a conversation with a monk who acted as a spokesperson for the monastery on the issue - and as we waited the day before we joined some senior monks around a fire in their dining room as they plied us with repeated cups of butter tea.

On my final day in Tawang I walked on a trial that had approximately 2000 steps down the valley to another monastery which was the birthplace of the 6th Dalai Lama. When I visited this monastery a celebration was underway with a hundred or so locals sitting on steps outside watching a ritual that I believe marked the end of Losar or the Tibetan Buddhist New Year. A senior monk sat on a throne in the entry way in an elaborate cap and robes while monks in the sanctuary chanted and played music directed out the front doors. A giant bonfire burned in front of this senior monk, and teenage monks came occasionally with objects that he would bless and that would then be tossed into the fire. On a windy cold day that threatened rain the monks gave me and the other onlookers some ginger tea.

Completing the religious character of this trip I "participated" in the celebration of the holiday of Holi which took place while I was in Tawang. While Tawang historically was 100% Tibetan Buddhist new settlers have moved in with Hindu backgrounds. During Holi Hindus rove in groups around town with bags full of colored powder that they cover you with from head to foot. When I saw the first gang so armed I thought about running but the leader starting chanting "USA! USA!" so what could I do but submit. They poured green and pink and red powder all over my face and jacket. It turns out being covered in pink powder is a good conversation starter as everyone I ran into that day chatted with me and frequently had me pose for pictures with them on their cell phones.

After Namrata and I flew out to Assam I journeyed south again to stay with Matthew and Father Lumlang in the Meghalaya capital of Shillong before flying back to the brick oven that is Tamil Nadu during the Indian summer. In Tamil Nadu I spent a couple of days in Chennai before heading on to Garden of Peace school near Kaniyambadi village on Saturday. On Thursday I spent a day with my friend Sheikh and his brother and his friends and later Diku - that we described as the most relaxing day of our entire lives. Our accomplishments for the day were: going to the tea shop three times, eating, taking four naps, and watching an eight hour World Cup cricket match against Australia that India scored an unbelievable comeback to win (and to set up a semi-final on Wednesday against Pakistan that will stop all work in south Asia). The next day I journeyed to the University of Madras to visit friends there including Ramu and attend a conference on Human Rights in Asia with a focus that day on Burma and Tibet.

My plan is to chill at the Garden of Peace School/Ghandi-King-Mandela Farm for a couple of days - Mirza has joined me here - before returning to Chennai to see friends on Wednesday - leave early Thursday for NYC - and then back to Minnesota on Sunday.

Ryan

Jungle Clad Mountains & the Wild West

When you think of the phrase "car ferry", what images come to mind? Perhaps the ferry on Lake Champlain for Burlington to the Adirondacks in New York? Maybe the Seattle ferry system or the boat to Madeline Island in the summer off northern Wisconsin? Either way I'm guessing that you made two assumptions: 1) the ferry is big & 2) it's made of metal. Neither criteria was in effect when we took a car ferry across the Brahmaputra river in northern Assam as we made our way into Arunachal Pradesh.

The Brahmaputra is enormous but ebbs and flows substantially with the monsoons. So there is no ferry landing so to speak - you just drive the river bank until you find the river - and eventually stumble upon a ferry. Which is the equivelant of four wood canoes strung together with a couple of 2 x 4's on top to drive your car onto. We floated down the river for hours watching canoes and fisherman repairing their traps in the middle of the water.

When we finally entered Arunachal Pradesh it felt like we entered a different world. Since the state was invaded by China in the 1962 war the government has required anyone including other Indians to get a permit to enter the state. At the border crossing the power was out so the soldier checked our papers with a single candle. A thief took advantage of the situation to slip into our car and relieve one of my traveling companions Namrata of her camera. A gutsy move with guys standing around with machine guns.

When we reached the town of Pasigaht, the second largest in the state, we were told the power had been out for four days. This would be a constant theme of the trip - the power is mostly out and comes on in fits and starts. Since India has one time zone it gets light here before 5am and dark around 5pm - the towns are dead still at night - nothing moves.

My traveling companions on this trip, Jabin and Namrata in addition to Mizra, are researching conflict issues involving local perceptions of the Chinese claim that this is their territority, and the movement against 162 giant dams that are planned for the state in the next 30 years. In Pasighat we met with activists who said they believed that the building of the dams and the associated population explosion would lead to cultural annihalation for one of the most linguistically diverse places on the planet. We made a bonfire on the banks of the Siang river (an activty they said we could not do with the dams because of unexpected water releases)and they gave us delicious homemade rice wine out of old plastic bottles. The next day we met with the 80 year old former head beaucrat for the area. He said he used to have to walk 50 days in the mountains to visit the villages in his district. During the 1962 war he smuggled documents and orders around the Chinese occupied territory. He also plied us with rice wine even though it was barely noon. Then he did spot on imitations of British and American cowboy accents. This gentleman was pro-dam. He knew there would be a cost of moving people from their homes on their floadplains - but believed that people needed power to have a normal life.

Arunachal Pradesh is one of the most extreme places I have seen in India.The scenary is gorgeous - green jungle clad mountains and deep river cut valleys. This accounts for it's diversity. In reality there is no place of Arunachal Pradesh - it is entirely a political creation of the Indian state. Before the last century the tribes in these valleys developed languages and traditions independent of each other due to the stark geography.

This state has an edge I have not felt in other parts of India. The villages are gorgeous and transquil - with houses on stilts made of wood and bamboo with thatched roofs. But the towns feel like the wild west. In the town of Aloo I counted 7 steel gated dingy liquor stores within two blocks of our hotel. The men frequently have long knives they carry on their waists - and the occassional rifle strapped to their backs. There is a clear tension between the local tribal members and outsiders, Indian military and shopowners from "mainland" India that have come within the last 30 years to settle here.

The roads are one lane tracks that wind terrifyingly around the mountains - half blocked by the occasional landslide. The driver pleasantly honks at hair pin turns to notify oncoming cars of our presence. Bizarrely this is the first place I have seen elephants in India outside the Chennai zoo. Loggers use them as to transport trees in the mountains. Most of the land is onspoiled but occassionally you'll see swaths of forest clear cut and burnt out on the hill sides.

In Aloo I also got to have my first chat with the local police. I have gone along with my traveling companions when they meet with civil society groups - but when they meet with government or army officials I'm on my own. Walking around Aloo I met a British traveler. While walking together the police stopped him and told him by name that he had to come to the station house with them. When I started innocently walking away they made it clear that I was "invited" as well.

We we arrived at the police station it became clear that the cops had figured out that the English guys "inner-line" entry documents to get into Arunachal Pradesh were not in order. Successive ranks of officers entered the room, ascertained this, and told us we were getting expelled. At this point the Brit helpfully said to me "I'm not sure why you are here". Indeed. Each captain who would enter would tell both of us that we would have to go - with me insisting each time that I had nothing to do with this guy and all of my documents were in order. Finally I talked to the police chief, clarified, and walked out to freedom.

On Sunday I celebrated my birthday in India. Jabin, Namrata, Mizra and I obtained Indian ghee sweets as our cake. Magically the power was on for a couple of hours so we watched the movie The Omen on TV in the hotel.

Now I am writing in the town of Ziro which is surrounded by green rice fields in a valley that is much wider than most that I have seen in this state. From here we hope to make our way to the Tawang Valley - one of the most remote places in the state - to see an 800 person Buddhist Monestary - the very place the Dali Lama fled to when China invaded Tibet in the 1950's.

After that I'll go back to the Garden of Peace school in Tamil Nadu. I'm excited to see the kids and sleep in a bamboo tree house again.

Trains and Bamboo Forests

New pictures posted at right. Click on 'em for captions.

Last Tuesday Phrangsngi, Ronald, Moselaus (the Khasi speaking bamboo workers) Mirza and I left the Garden of Peace school at 4am after a night of the first rain I have experienced in India (complete with lightening and thunder) and boarded a train in Tamil Nadu in the south of India to visit the northeast. Indian trains are an amazing experience. You're packed liked sardines into compartments where one foldout bed is stacked on top of another. There is a constant din of dozens of languages, the slow rocking motion of the train, and the Indian countryside rolling by as you go from town to town on what ended up being a 51 hour journey.

As we left Tamil Nadu we journeyed into Andhara Pradesh, one of the most developed Indian states replete with power plants and factories and incredibly green fields that make it India's breadbasket. Ten hours later we entered into Orissa, a much more impoverished state with brown fields, limited dirt roads, and soldiers with machine guns at the train stations. As I slept overnight I had some of the most bizarre dreams of my life inspired by the different languages gurgling around me, the bright lights of each station, the motion of the train, and the negotiations to purchase cell phones, rubix cubes, and Casio keyboards that occurred loudly at the foot of my cot in the middle of the night.

When we awoke the next morning we had moved into West Bengal with water everywhere. A gorgeous place but I think it would be a terror in the monsoon season. From there we entered into Kolkata - the largest city in India - with tenaments and shacks taking every piece of dry land above the tracks. From West Bengal the second night we entered into Assam - in the morning crossing the Brahmaputra river - the widest in Asia - more of a sea than a river really. When we alighted in Guwati, the capitol of Assam, we took a Sumo (sort of a cross between a Hummer and a Land Rover but downscale if you can imagine that - they serve as the primary public transportation in the region) into the East Khasi hills region of Meghalaya. As soon as you leave Assam the terrain changes into green hills with severe drops and houses built in every nook and valley. The landscape is not unlike West Virgina - including the non-stop march of coal trucks chugging at 10 miles per hour on the winding and climbing roads. When we reached the capital Shillong we found a city completely built on hills with narrow streets and winding staircases as the primary way to get around. We stayed in the basement of a church journeying out at night  to the old market which exists along stair cases in the center of the city. At night with the stands of odd fruits and vegetables as well as every imaginable craft and electronic ware the surroundings felt like a scene out of Blade Runner.

The next day we had breakfast at Matthew's house (he had originally journeyed with Father Lumlang to escort Phrangsni, Ronald and Moselaus to Tamil Nadu since they had not left their home region before but he had earlier traveled with Father back to Meghalaya). The accomplish the journey east from Shillong to the Khasis home village of Mawlynnong we traveled on the main east/west highway in Meghalaya (at points a narrow two lane paved road - at points a one land rock road - always a construction project) through a region of rocks and dry mountains - a hard land straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel where I could imagine a circle of drug runners trucks with kc lights and bodies picked away by carrion - not at all the green paradise the Khasis had described. But after three hours driving we drove down into a ravine into a green bamboo forest with jackfruit and betel nut trees. The land did indeed turn gorgeous before we hit the literal end of the road - the 90 house village of Mawlynnong where Phrangsni, Ronald, Moselaus and Father Lumlang live.

To call Mawlynnong paradise feels too easy - and yet it is damn close. The environment is amazing: green hills with waterfalls and rocky rivers. (Note to Lisa/Debra, Molly/Adam, Peggy/Tim, Katherine/Corrie and anyone else getting married soon - I have found your ideal honeymoon location: Mawlynnong!) The people were incredible - practically everyone is related and over my six days there we spent half the time walking in the forest and half going from house to house drinking tea, chewing betel nuts and eating amazing food (you can always just have the veg options - but Meghalaya is a much more meat based diet than the south - sorry Sita!). While the village is not wealthy by any imagination it is an amazing well organized community. Every house has flowers and gardens - in contrast with the burning piles of trash in Kaniyambadi there are bamboo wastebaskets tied to polls and absolutely no litter. After the village was connected to a road six years ago - Phrangsni led the building of a bamboo tree guest house. He also constructed a bamboo tower which we climbed and overlooked the last five kilometers of the Khasi hills as they descended and abruptly ended into the Bangladeshi plain. In Mawlynnong I stayed for a couple of days in the guest house when there were no other occupants - and then the last couple of days I stayed with Father Lumlang and Phrangsni's family.

The feeling of community in this village is really amazing. There are so many collective projects. They built the church at the center of the village 10 years ago together almost entirely with materials found in the forests. Ronald built his house (# 90) on the outskirts of the village for his wife and young children almost entirely out of bamboo and local trees he cut down. A couple of days the villagers came up to help set it up. That ethic reached back generations. Phrangsni and his friend, an elementary teacher named Rishot, took me down a path from one village to another that leads through a river that used to be impassable during the six month long rainy season. Three hundred years ago the locals began directing the roots of two trees across the river ravine towards each other. They estimate it took 50-100 years for the roots to connect and to form a perfect bridge for people to pass from one side of the river to another. The people who began the project of directing the roots had no chance of seeing their bridge completed - only later their grand-children or great-grandchildren would benefit from their work.

During the days we would travel around with Phrangsni and Rishot and their friends Shempur and Moselaus's brother Makhelot stuffed six or seven into a small Maruti/Suzuki (Owatonnans should picture the orange Rabbit I purchased off of Smedsted in high school before I drove it into the side of a pickup truck). As we drove the Khasis blasted everything from Bollywood music to Boyz to Men to Guns 'N Roses to Khasi love songs. After a while I heard a familiar voice singing and rapping. Sort of raspy and yet sort of syrupy at the same time - really quite Wheezy after another listen. Ah Lil' Wayne. From Hollygrove in New Orleans to the East Khasi hills - even you don't know how far you've come.

Yesterday I look a bus to meet Mirza in his home city in Jorhat in the tea garden area of upper Assam. From here we will travel to the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh on the Chinese boarder. Hope all is well in America.

Ryan