The Faerie-Pirate Party..

For months now Little Feather has been reminding us that she's going to have her birthday in her new home in Pai. She picked this up from one seemingly innocuous dinnertime conversation from long ago but as with many random things for kids her age it just managed to sink in and scarcely a week has gone by since where she hasn't reminded us of this fact. So the day after landing in Pai she began hounding us as to the specifics of the impending birthday; What presents will I get? What flavour cake will we have? What kind of party can we have? The list goes on.. We opened up most of these questions to her and the answer's came back as 'A new bike,' 'Strawberry,' and most obviously 'a Faerie-Pirate party.'

So then there's me, having been in the country for scarcely little more than a week and still bumbling along with the simplest of things (it took me 3 trips and 4 hours searching just to track down a bath plug!) wondering how in the world we're going to organise a stinking Faerie-Pirate party!! When in steps Wild Flower, aka; Wonder Woman! In the course of ONE DAY she single handedly whips up a strawberry treasure cake, pirate ship watermelon, swashbuckling bananas, eye patches, pirate hats, hooks and a variety of facial hair (both pirate and faerie) and knocked this party outta the park! To give that even more context you have to understand that we don't even have an oven! (Look, you'll have to forgive me but I really can't pass up this moment to brag about how incredible my wife is! Seriously.. she is I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E!!) 

The thing I found the most disconcerting about the whole experience however, was just how easy it was to throw together a pretty decent pirate outfit from the clothes in my cupboard.. I might have to reassess somethings in my life or otherwise I might wake up at 50 and realise I'm walking around wearing a puffy shirt! And I don't wanna be a Pirate!

So if you weren't able to make it (don't worry, we get that it's a long drive from Australia & India & the rest of the world) then here's a little taste of what you missed out on. And even though you can't yet read this yourself, Happy Birthday my sweetest, dearest, strongest, kindest and most incredible daughter! I love you to the moon and back!!

 

My Faerie-Pirate Birthday Princess..

India Just Doesn't Love You..

 

“India just doesn’t love you man. And that’s why it hurts so much cause you love India, but no matter what you do you can’t change the fact that India just doesn’t love you. Thailand on the other hand, Thailand doesn’t care who you are, Thailand just wants to give you a hug.”

This was it. This right here was the quote of the night, the perfect summation of how I was feelings, the nugget of truth which seemed to make everything else clear. You see I was spitballing with a good friend who has also spent a number of years living in India but now lives in Thailand and it was becoming abundantly clear that he too was privy to India's dirty little secret. You see India (and Banaras especially) has this nasty little habit of not letting you go quietly, instead, it drives the boot in deep and kicks you out. I don't know why, perhaps she's upset you're leaving and so lashes out like a child who doesn't quite yet understand the depths of her own emotions or how to control them, or perhaps she wants you to carry a scar with you throughout the rest of your days so as to always remember her by. But you can ask any number of the folks who’ve gone before me and sure enough they'll have their story of woe to tell from the time they finally decided to pack up stumps and leave India. With this knowledge in mind I went into our final month with my eyes wide open and heart braced for impact. I did my best to be prepared and so I emailed friends and asked their advice on what best to do and what to avoid, I made plans with Wild Flower that allowed plenty of time to accommodate for unforeseen set backs, I even had 3 Aussie friends who came along with us just to help us with the pack up and move. But somewhere in amongst all the busyness and preparations I allowed a tiny crack in my armour to appear from which the belief that I might just get out unscathed began to leak in. Needless to say..

I was wrong.

The new Termite mound in the bedroom cupboard & the Caveman giving it hell..

When we first walked into our home that had laid empty for six months while we were back in Australia we were hit with an immediate sense of dread. We had paid someone to come in and do a some cleaning from time to time but as with many things in Banaras it turned out to not be money well spent. The place looked like it hadn't been lived in in centuries. Mold, dirt and an inch of dust lay across the surface of everything, and I do mean everything. And then there was the termites, oooooh the termites! I went to unpack some clothes and put them away in my draw but as soon as I began to pull on the handle I knew something was amiss. Usually the wooden draws would slide out somewhat gracefully on their metal runners, but this time it didn't budge, not even a little. I tried tugging again; nothing. I tired putting my back into it; nothing. I put one foot on either side of the draw and reefed back on it with all my might; nothing. My good friend the Caveman and I ended up going at it with saws, hammers, chisels & screwdrivers for almost an hour before we got it open and then roughly another hour per draw before finally having unfettered access to our wardrobe and clothes draws (9 draws in total!!). The swelling of the wood during the monsoon coupled with the colossal infestation of termites (check out the football sized mound that was in our cupboard in the above image) had made the draws harder to get into than Fort Knox and set us way back in our packing. There it was - Kapow; right in the nuts. I figured this was it, this was Banaras' goodbye..

I was wrong.

Little Feather Deliveries..

I've been riding motorbikes in Varanasi for a number of years now and rarely, if ever, do I encourage other people to do it. My old man's been riding bikes most of his life and skill wise he may very well be a superior rider, but when he was visiting us here last year I asked him not to ride, not because I doubt his skill, but because I know he didn't understand the Indian road mentality. And if you haven't paid your dues and spent sufficient time on the roads here then how could you?

I equate the roads here to the ultimate game of Tetris except instead of the pieces only coming one at a time and only from the top - they come from every direction all at once and move in every direction with regular changes and with no notice; sounds challenging right? And in my last week of living in Banaras as I was peacefully riding through a roundabout a young kid on a bike pulled across in front of me and stopped dead in his tracks and I found myself coming off my bike for the first time. I managed to avoid the kid altogether - at the expense of hammering the brakes and fish tailing into a heap on the ground – but the kid rode away alive and I rode away with a grazed leg, bruised ego and busted rib. Surely this was it! My first and only accident! Just enough to make me grimace in pain every time I lifted anything heavy - and considering the amount of heavy lifting I was about to undertake while moving most of our worldly possession from Banaras and Pai that amounted to quite a bit of grimacing! Kapow; right in the nuts. Surely this was it, this must have been Banaras' goodbye..

Again, I was wrong.

Can always rely on Wild Flower to capture me at my best..

Within days of being back in town the first indicators of sickness were becoming apparent throughout my whole tribe. Wild flower was complaining of a nasty throat pain, little feather and wild foot both began to have a constant stream of fun pouring out of their noses and my asthma was going haywire. By the end of our first week the entire family was struck down with the flu. Needless to say, with only a short amount of time to pack up and sell the majority of our worldly possessions coupled with getting in decent time with all our friends, we had no time to lay about in bed and ride it out, there was work to be done and we had no choice but to push through it. But on our very last night in Banaras things jumped up a notch. The kids were in bed asleep and I went for one last walk along the ghats to pray for this great city and drink in the atmosphere one last time. I came across one of my favourite spots and sat upon the stairs that used to frequent and I began to experience a terrible pain in my sinus. For days the pain had been growing in intensity but as long a I didn't exert myself to hard or throw my head around to fast the pain was minimal, but tonight I was in agony! I tried to push the pain out of my mind, knowing that this was my last chance to enjoy the ghats, but a fter an hour it became unbearable...and I was forced to retreat home. I spent my final night in Banaras not with my friends, not at my favourite spot, but with my head between a towel and a pot of steaming water whilst regular blasts of pain rocketed throughout my cranium. In terms of ways to spend your final night in Banaras, this one was not on my list. Exhausted, in pain, still with plenty to do, finally this was it, this must have been Banaras' goodbye.. But as by now I'm sure you're learning, again...

I was wrong.

 

Almost everything we own in nine bags..

It was midday when we arrived at the airport with tear stains down our cheeks, mountains of baggage loaded on our trolleys and heavy hearts. I was feeling pretty wired considering the previous night and the three flights and three days of transit that lay a head (not to mention that our taxi driver had fallen asleep at the wheel half way to the airport!! Aye aye aye!!). But we were there, we had made it over our first hurdle, our flight was in a little less than 3 hours and that would give us plenty of time to process and get any last farewells out of our system. But why then was the guy at the check in counter being so evasive with me? Why was he telling me I had to go to the Spice Jet office in the back of the airport? Why wouldn't he give me any boarding passes or any straight answers?

Wild Flower stayed with the kids and our friends while I walked into the Spice Jet office and handed over my ticket. The first guy looked at it and told me to go to the guy at the desk, the guy at the desk looked at it and told me to go to the guy I'd just spoken to, the first guy then told me to go to the check in counter.. I stared at him and demanded to know what was up. And that's when it happened. That's when I felt the warm embrace of Banaras' bootstraps as they plowed straight into the family jewels.

"I'm sorry sir. Your flight is cancelled."

Kapow.

 

The waiting game..

The adrenaline burst was instant, my mind catching up with everything that was going on might have taken just a tad longer. "When's your next flight?" I asked. "None today," was the reply, which of course is of no use to me when I have another flight out of a different city tomorrow morning. "When was it cancelled?" I sputtered. "Three days ago," came the reply. "Then why wasn't I told?!?!?" Turns out that because I had booked our flights months in advance (while we were still in Australia) they had therefore sent a text to my number in Australian to notify me that my flight from Varanasi to New Delhi had been axed.. gee, thanks! And part of booking so far in advance was so I could get this great deal they had going on excess baggage (which of course we had lots) which was now redundant. 

I burst out of the office and let Wild Flower know what had just happened. I then snuck in through the back door of the Indigo airlines office and began showing photos of my daughter to the guy at the desk (listen, if you have white daughter with blondish hair and you're traveling in Asia then do yourself a favour and have her photos handy as they can and do move mountains!!). This managed to get him to stop serving the line of about 20 people waiting in front of him and thankfully secured us some seats for a flight later that night, however it did nothing to bring down the monstrously high excess baggage fees which might mean that we'll now be eating Ramen noodles three times a day for the next five to ten years! But thankfully forty-five minutes and a whole lot of sweating bullets later I returned to my little tribe with boarding passes in hand and together we began our painfully long wait.

The waaaaaaiting game..

Two flights and twenty-four hours later and we dump our bags on the hotel floor in Bangkok. It has been a long, looooong day and the kids pass out immediately in their beds yet Wild Flower and I are still wired, still on India time and still starving. She disappears into the night looking for food for us and returns 30minutes later with a two white plastic bags and a startled expression on her face and tells me I need to sit down because "I'm not going to believe this." I sit down on the bed and feel the familiar wave of anxiety wash over me as I cover my crotch and brace myself for what I anticipate to be India's final swing. What will it be? Did we loose a bag in India? Did I leave my wallet on the plane? Has our credit card have been hacked (again!)? Wild Flower's eyes go wide in amazement and she begins saying;

"We found a little roadside place that had noodles but the people there didn't understand a word of English. We were trying to get some without any pork in it but literally nothing was getting through. Then this Thai guy who was probably in his 40's just walks in out of nowhere, starts talking to us in decent English and helps us order our food! Then we had a nice little chat with him while they were making our dinner and I told him that we were moving here from India and then when our food comes out we asked him how much it costs and get this! He says 'Don't worry about it, I've already paid for your food. Consider this a welcome to Thailand gift from me to you and your family.' Then he just turned and walked away!

Finally enjoying our back porch with friends..

So if it didn't hit home the first time let me close by repeating it again;

“Thailand doesn’t care who you are, Thailand just wants to give you a hug.”

Chhath Puja..

We've been back in ole Banaras for a little over two weeks now and it feels like our last days living in this city are all too quickly racing away. We've been insanely busy packing up our home and selling off most of the possessions we've amassed over the years, trying to schedule in enough time do decent goodbyes with friends (which I feel we're failing at), trying to not wear out the kids with all the running around (which I feel we're failing dismally at) - and of course, trying to manage all of the above with a family who have all had the flu since arriving back in town.. It's been an exhausting couple of weeks!

But none-the-less, I'm trying to make the most of our last days here and thus trying to get the camera out as often as possible. And whilst those who know me know that mornings are not my most favourable time of the day I decided to get my sorry butt out of bed get and down to the Ghats before sunrise last week to witness Chhath Puja. 

Chhath Puja is a an ancient Hindu festival that centers around Surya (the sun god) in which participants offer puja and gifts to thank the Sun for sustaining life and to grant their wishes. Prosperity, healing, babies and other various wishes are all considered up for grabs over this four day festival in which devotional acts such as abstaining from drinking water, offering prayers at the rising and setting of the sun and prolonged standing in bodies of water are all part of package. Whilst men and women both participate in Chhat Puja, it does seem to be more of a Women's festival and with the noticeable increase of women outside of their homes it actually creates quite a different (and wonderful) atmosphere in and around this overwhelmingly man's world which is Banaras.

I hope you'll enjoy this little morsel from the feast of colour which is the Varanasi Ghats during Chaat Puja!

(And because I can't help myself I have to point out that the compression that occured when uploading these images has done some weird things with some of the colours and really brought out the vignettes. You'll have to be patient and forgive me this time round till I work out how to fix it.)

Fishing In The Post Apocalypse Mall..

The Mall On The Other Side Of The Apocalypse..

On one late Autumn night in March 2014, I was huddled up on a couch in Australia and killing time on my computer when I happen to stumble across a comment on a Facebook thread that would immediately crawl in under my skin and make itself at home. Someone had heard a rumor about an abandoned shopping mall somewhere in Asia that had flooded and subsequently become home to a large population of Koi and this person was looking to find clues to it's existence and possible whereabouts. I eagerly followed the thread hoping to learn more but found that as the comments slowly dried up I was left hanging with no concrete information, no photographic evidence, no first hand accounts.. nothing but an explosion in my mind at the thought of the possibilities and burning desire to find out if this place really existed. Cue the inevitable sleepless night that followed filled with the pounding of various word combinations into Google until finally I happened across a grainy, pixelated, low-res yet outstandingly exciting image and the name that accompanied it; New World Mall, Bangkok, Thailand.

As I poured through various websites and my eyes grew wider with excitement at the various images a thought suddenly hit me like a steam train and for a moment I held my breathe as the sound of my heart beating in my chest began resounding in my ears. As many of you know, after many years living in India we're relocating the beautiful mountains of Northern Thailand and so between mid-October and mid-November we doing some traveling, a lot of traveling, including journeying from Australia to Thailand, Thailand to India, India to Thailand (and then in December Thailand to Laos to Thailand.. don't ask!) and that during this time we will be passing through Bangkok on at least two different occasions. I furiously opened up my travel itinerary and there it was, a 17 hour stopover in Bangkok between connecting flights on our way to India! If I could track this place down and organise our timing just right, I might actually be able to step foot inside it for myself!! The thought immediately caused my heart rate to double.

New World Mall, Bangkok..

 
Seven months later and the thick, heavy, humid air was filling my lungs as I hurriedly pushed my way through the masses along the sidewalks of Bangkok. After much research I had managed to track down an old address online and so booked our accommodation close by, and with the help of Google Maps in my pocket I was feeling confident that I was where I was meant to be and that I was on my way to something special. Suffice to say that after 25 minutes of walking with a growing feeling of confusion a helpful police officer was able to enlighten me that I'd been walking in the complete wrong direction since my first step out of the guest house.. niiiiiiice.

Fast forward through the long walk back and I soon found myself on the street which I knew the Mall was just off. I walked the length of it three times but any indication of a giant abandoned mall filled with fish was nowhere to be seen. Most things I'd read online about the mall were now a couple of years old and one mentioned how it was highly likely to demolished and developed at any time as it was in a area of growth and gentrification; a growing sense of foreboding and impending letdown was upon me. 

... B&W Three Shot Panoramic ...

From what I could gather online, it seems that some years back a brand-spanking-new eleven story Mall was being built in downtown Bangkok which would go by the name of the New World Mall. The unforeseen Global Financial Crisis in 2007-8 meant that the funds to finish the project dried up and soon after the doors closed on a half finished Mall. But the story doesn't end there, oh no, the eleven story mall was being built in an area where the zoning regulations prohibit construction above the seventh floor and so when the council came in and knocked it back down to it's seventh floor they opted to not bother with putting a roof on. This one act of a leaving a completely exposed and roofless mall meant that when the monsoon rains arrived they fell into a perfect reservoir and over time came to completely fill the bottom floors. With Malaria and other Mosquito borne diseases being a problem throughout Thailand, the story goes that a local man released a handful of fish into the waters to eat the Mosquito larvae and as this was an artificial watercourse which therefore had no natural predators in it, the fish thrived and began to multiply.

But this is where I come back into the story. You see I was standing on the corner of a small and completely nondescript alleyway that was filled with plastic tables and chairs and one or two of street food vendours, the same alleyway I had already walked across the mouth of 3 times, when I I saw the Krungthai Bank logo, the landmark I was searching for, and realised I was precicely where I was suppose to be.

 
I began walking down the alley and could see that less than 20 meters a head of me the alley ran into a wall and became a dead end. Two-thirds of the way down on the right however I could see a large wire fence covered in green shade cloth running parallel to the wall, the type of fence you put up around the outside of construction sites when you want to keep people out, and smack bang in the middle of this was a gate with a handwritten Thai sign which even as a foreigner I could tell said 'Do Not Enter!' My heart began pounding harder and harder as I stepped closer but I wasn't able to even get within a couple of meters of the gate before an elderly Thai man grabbed my arm and regaled me with the universal hand gestures for 'You can't go in there.'

I asked as politely as I could (currently being a non-Thai speaker this wasn't quite so easy) if I could just pop my head in quickly but he kept waving me away. I know the Thai word for 'Fish' and so I pointed to the gate and said "Plā" and the old man and his friend nodded vigorously yet with even more vigor they waved me away. He picked up a rather large piece of concrete from the floor and gestured that it had fallen from the roof, he then repeatedly tapped the top of his head - now after three years in India I've gotten pretty flippin good at charades (you should see me trying to ask my neighbors if they've seen my wife's bra after it's blown off the clothes line on our roof) and so I knew he was telling me that it wasn't safe for me to go in because  the roof/walls/giant pieces of concrete were liable to fall on my head. I appreciated his concern but yet found myself standing at the crossroads in which one direction meant to walk away and miss out on potentially seeing something amazing whilst the other was to stay and try and change the minds of these immovable objects/gentlemen without having any grasp on the language at all. I opted for the latter.

I began by using the few Thai phrases I knew; "Hello, my name is...," "I am .... years old," "I come from ...." etc. etc. etc. But it had little effect. I dug deeper into my memory bank and came back with "I like Thai Food," then I smiled real big. Both gentleman smiled politely and waved me away. I had pretty much exhausted my repertoire of Thai sentences and so was force to reverted to single words. "Fish. Buffalo. Monk. Temple. Bottle Water. Airport. Left. Man. Traditional Hats." That slightly sideways quizzical look began taking over the old mans face so I continued; "Child. Right. Little. Novice Monk. Elephant. Symbols. Snake... Pad Thai!!" The corner of the old man's mouth began to tremor and slowly raised into a smile. Success!!
  

First Floor; Women's Hosiery..

He began chuckling and so I kept on repeating my random assortment of Thai words and he turned slowly and led me up and through the gate. From the street side of the gate the opaque green cloth obscured all vision of what was on the other side but within one step through the gate the attached photos were all I could see. It was astounding. There was no long walk, no scrambling through tunnels, just one step through a wire gate and I was standing in the place that had been dominating my mind for months on end. What's more, literally millions upon millions of people would pass within a handful of meters of this place each year and yet the vast majority would never know it existed. To be so fortunate was rather humbling.
 
I'm not sure of what breed of fish they were (fairly sure they weren't Koi - at least not a breed that I'm aware of) but goodness me they were huge and numerous! Hundreds and thousands of amazing dark Blackish-Blues and Albinos splashing around in this cavernous underground wonderland. And when the old man began hitting a metal pipe that protruded from the water with a stone the fish turned and almost uniformly began swimming towards us whereby he reached into a bag and threw a mass of pellets to them which they swarmed over and devoured in an instant. I whipped out my camera and began shooting in what was a massively tricky lighting situation, and though deep down I'd love to go back and improve on these images, I'm happy enough to have come away with a handful of keepers. The old man began pointing at the roof above me and I could see where large slabs of concrete had become dislodged and fallen all over the floor, within 2 or 3 minutes since first entering he again he grabbed my arm and this time I knew it was the right time for me to leave.

All in all it was one of the more exciting and surreal moments of my life. When I burst back into the guesthouse and couldn't stop my lips from pouring forth the longer (and exceptionally more boring) account to Wild Flower (but she's a great woman and an even better wife so has learned how to put up with my ramblings) and I was riding the high for days. So if you ever find yourself in Bangkok and want to hunt down one of the most amazing places on earth make sure to get yourself to Banglumphu Junction on Samsen Road (walking distance from the main backpacker district of Khao San & Ram Buttri Road), find the Krungthai Bank (big blue sign with a white eaglish-hawkish-birdish logo) then keep your eyes pealed for the small and easily missable Soi Kraisi, turn right into it and look for the green netting a stones throw away on your right. The only other advice; just make sure to have your list of completely random and completely unrelated Thai words at the ready.


* Dedicated to my ole boy Ragnar - It's not Kolmanskop, but it's getting close!

Home Is Any.. Where?

iPhone's panoramic photo mode holding it's own..

For a while now I've been a tad worried. Everyone we know in our soon-to-be hometown has been telling us that unless we're really quick about it we're simply not going to find a place to live. The unofficial real estate guy we'd been emailing while we were in Australia was really putting the pressure on us to say yes to renting one of his places and I was hoping he was just trying to pressure us so he could make a sale, but as we were soon to find out, he was being legit.

The flights to Thailand were fine; long, tiring with the little ones, hard work moving around with most of our worldly possessions packed into one suitcase per person, but ultimately fine. The subsequent 3 hour minibus ride up the mountain and through the now famous 762 twists and turns that lay along the road to Pai were nauseating, but also relatively fine. Yet when it came time to get into the house hunting, that's when I really started to feel the ugly feeling of stress rising up from the inner most parts of my being.

We rented a motorbike and spent a couple of days riding all around the countryside trying to find anything that would be suitable for our family but kept coming back with empty hands. We checked out a couple of places that proved to be way too small for our family of four, one that could have worked out well in terms of living space but ultimately was so far out of town and in the middle of nowhere that it would have left Wild Flower stranded most of her life as she doesn't drive or ride a motorbike (yet) and so wouldn't be able to get anywhere, and the second last place we checked out was literally just two separate and small bedrooms on a second story with an empty space underneath. Whilst these rooms shared a wall, that wall didn’t provide a door or any other access between them and so you had to walk out the door on the left side of the building, down the stairs, underneath the building, up the stairs on the other side and into the second room via the right side of the building! Oh, and the stairs were completely exposed with no railings, perfect for my 18 month old and my threenager. Gah! After walking out of that pad the unofficial real estate fella looked me in the eye and said "listen, I really don't mean to pressure you, but this is all the houses I know of, if you don't take it, and soon, I can almost guarantee you that by this time next week there won't be a single place left."

That night I lay in bed trying to not to let my mind wander into what life would like look if we had to live in that place. In previous years we could have made it work, if Wild Foot wasn't such an energy packed danger-loving little guy then sure, in those circumstances we could make it work, if we were absolutely desperate and simply had no other options then *sigh,* what else could we do? We'd have to make it work. But our family is still pretty frazzled (14 months with a baby that didn't sleep coupled with unexpectedly having to move countries at pretty short notice will do that to a person) and our desire to put down roots and have somewhere to really call "home," a place where the kids can play and I can plant gardens and we have enough space to actually have more than 4 people in a room at any one time is an emotion that's burning white hot within my whole tribe.

So it was in that head space that we hoped aboard our motorbike the next morning and set off to check out what was literally the last place on the list. We crossed the bridge at the edge of town and turned onto a small road that I'd never paid any attention to before and proceeded to follow it around the corner and behind a row of trees. The road narrowed down into a raised dirt path that snaked along between the gloriously green rice fields, only weeks away from the harvest, and within a minute I turned to Wild Flower and confessed that I feared we'd taken the wrong road. There was nothing further along that road to be seen; nothing but open spaces, spectacular views of the mountains and a myriad of green. As the path was too narrow to swing the bike around easily I started easing off the throttle and began to simply enjoy the moment; I was in Thailand, my gorgeous children were sandwiching me on the bike, my ridiculously beautiful wife was hugging my back, the warm sun was shining on my face and the clean mountain air was filling my lungs (a real rarity for us these past years!). I completely forgot about all my housing woes and simply breathed in the moment and thanked God for this incredible part of his creations.. It was about then that Wild Flower saw it.

That's right! We saw the sign for The Pork Healing Center! But what's even better than that I hear you ask? Well the only thing that could possibly outdo that would be the house that was behind the sign, the one in the top image; the free standing, two bedroom, fully furnished, fireplace wielding, semi-outdoor bathroom with bathtub brandishing, giant second story veranda with uninterrupted views of the mountains offering, local farmers market neighbouring, massive back/side/front yards with pet Ducks grazing, house that as of yesterday morning we can start calling HOME!!

We're still in transit mode.. next week we'll be heading back to India to pack up our previous yet also current "home" (it's odd I know) and so won't actually move in here for another month and are therefore still feeling far off from being settled, but today we're reveling in just how incredibly blessed we feel! The last 12 months have been hard, really hard, easily the hardest of my little life, but looking into the future I'm excited and positive and really learning to trust in my Creator for His guidance as I take each new and ultimately wild step. So Sawat-dii Khrap and Welcome friends, to the next chapter in the (hopefully) soon to be more settled story of me!

Public Enemy #1..

..The One & Only Govinda Baba..

Like most kids growing up in the West, at some point during my childhood I desperately wanted a pet monkey. From cartoons to movies, advertisements to the much loathed Totally Wild, they all seem to present a single unified message; ‘Monkeys = Fun!’ So it’s no surprise that when you first start travelling in Asia and end up in a place like Banaras where monkeys are as ubiquitous as birds, it all feels a little bit magical!

They’re in the trees, clambering along the power lines, jumping from building to building and yes, occasionally you will be squatting in the bathroom only to look up and see them watching you through the window as you go about your ‘business.’

Illusions Of Bathroom Privacy

But there comes a time when the honeymoon period comes crashing to an end and you begin to realise that they are less like the bunch of smiling, fun loving, scat singing (King Louie style) creatures in the tv dreams you’d been sold in your youth, but in fact are much closer to a pack of savage wild dogs that are brazen enough to invade your home (as we discovered one day when we foolishly left the door unlocked), become highly territorial when in heat and most terrifyingly have the advantage of being able to climb - thus giving them the high ground advantage from which to attack you from. In hindsight, perhaps seeing the Wicked Witch of the West shriek “Fly my pretties, Fly!” should have tempered my childhood illusions with something much closer to the horrifying truth!

No better example of this can I think of than the day I was leading the first group Meditations of the 2012-13 season at the River Ashram. It was monsoon and still extremely hot and humid but most of our long term community members were back in town. We’d shut down the Ashram during the hot season and most of us had taken off to the foot hills of the Himalayas to escape the brutal daily temperature highs of between 45-49°C/113-120°F… it’s worse than it sounds.. and so the Ashram had been unoccupied for almost 4 months, or so we thought.

Being the first meditation for the season we expected only a small turnout and so by the time we reached 10 or so people I got the ball rolling and we began the session. I was leading an Aggredior Divina meditation (translated from Latin as ‘Approach (the) Divine’) in which we usually spend the first 10 or so minutes in silent contemplation on our surroundings - which on this morning proved particularly poignant as it wasn’t long into our silence that I began feeling the uneasy sensation of being watched.

I opened one eye and quietly scanned the courtyard. Nothing. Just our circle of sweet hairy travellers from the far reaches of the globe, now blissing out in the early morning heat. I closed my eye and continued to focus on the meditation.

Minutes later I again felt the sensation of being watched, but this time I could also hear its source; a sound I’d come to know all too well, Bundar (Hindi for ‘monkey’). I opened one eye and looked up where sure enough, in those braches high above our heads sat two juvenile Bundar, quizzically watching the goings on down below. As they were only young and so high up I closed my eye, tried to refocus myself and offered the next instruction to the group.

Minutes later I heard them again but this time the sound felt close, too close. I quickly opened my eyes and was startled to see that they had descended from the tree and were now perched directly above us in the shade cloth which hung only a meter or so above our heads. Not only that, but they had managed to pull the seams apart and were poking their heads through the mesh to get a better look at these hairy foreigners who were quietly sitting below. Being only youngsters I figured that they posed little threat to our group and so was happy to continue to the meditation, hoping that at the very least they would keep their distance and do so quietly – yet as with most things in Banaras, it wasn’t long before I realised I was wrong.

What would have proved helpful to know at that time was that in the previous months while the ashram grounds were vacated a wandering family of Bundar had stumbled into the perfect sanctuary to set up shop and raise their young. In the eyes of these newly acquired tenants, we had basically walked into their house, put our feet up on their coffee table and made ourselves at home. Cue the inevitable turf war.

A loud metallic twang rang out through the courtyard and this time I opened both eyes and there he was; the Alpha Male, standing tall and strong on top of the metal staircase, his scar covered face jousting towards us with fierce jolts whilst baring his teeth in a display of unbridled aggression. Worse than this, he’d brought backup. Along the wall behind him stood another 5 or so Bundar which began to follow his lead, and as I turned my head to check the surroundings I discovered a further 5 or so perched atop the wall behind me. We were the victims in a textbook pincer manoeuvre, and seconds later they began to descend.

I looked around our group and immediately noticed that every person who had lived in Banaras for more than a couple of years had their eyes open and was fully aware of the encroaching madness, yet every short term traveler (obviously still in the honeymoon phase) was still silent, still with closed eyes and crossed legs and blissfully unaware of what was about to transpire. I breathed deeply and spoke loud and clear “as I count backwards from 5, slowly open your eyes and feel your awareness returning to the circle.”

“5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … NOW RUN!!”

In the shock and confusion of the following moments we scrambled to collect our possessions and retreat inside, yet the doorway closest to our group also happened to stand dangerously close to the striking range of the Alpha Male. Immediately Govinda Baba, our dearly loved 65 year old Canadian Sadhu, sprang into action. He grabbed the beautifully decorated talking stick from the centre of the circle, charged at the spiral staircase and like a crazed medieval knight wielding a broad sword swung wildly at the Alpha Male who dodged each blow with ever increasing hostility.

The Alpha Male growled at Govinda. Govinda growled back.

The Alpha Male lunged towards Govinda. Govinda thrust him back.

The Alpha Male tried again to advance. Govinda stood his ground.

As I shepherded the last traveller through the doorway and into safety I turned back to witness the sight of our white bearded, orange robed, tough as guts friend going full combat with an Alpha Male Bundar so that the rest of us dirty hippies could have safe passage. Having held back the encroaching tide of Bundar just long enough for us to clamber to safety he turned on he heals and hot footed it indoors with the rest of us – the pack of Bundar not far behind. We slammed the door shut, breathed in our safety, and burst into laughter. 

The sight of those blissfully unaware hippies, the throngs of invading Bundar descending from on high and dear ole Govinda Baba going toe to toe for twelve rounds with the Alpha Male will forever remain one of my most joyful, awe inspiring and lets face it, utterly ridiculous memories which to this day still causes me laugh out loud whenever it enters my mind.

So if you’re planning on travelling Asia any time soon and find yourself reading this and thinking “But monkeys aren’t really all that bad,” I’ll simply leave you with the advice that my ole boy Oody gave me when I was still fresh off the boat in Banaras;

“Just wait till you have your first bad experience with them… Just. You. Wait!”