Kathmandu!

Namaste!

Arrived here yesterday afternoon and the place is great! People nice and food great. I book a 4-day kayaking course - Nepal is THE place to be for that!

Now, I'm waiting for my friends to come...I'm bad at making compromises these. I want to do things my way, which includes often only little shopping or wasting time. I know I should try to be more tolerant and I hope I'm developing. Sometimes I behave really badly, what comes to different preferences. On the other hand, I like doing thigs alone, too.

So, tomorrow morning early we take a bus to Pokhara to west and the others do trekking and I do kayaking for the next four days. Now, we're about to experience the old Kathmandu on Durbar (palace) Square and surrounding. Tomorrow morning we already saw a nice Hindu-festival celebrating Vishnu's awakening from his long slumber!

So, I'm doing great and having good adventurous time. The mobile doesn't work yet, but if it will, it would be the Finnish one (+358-40-7707956)

Namaste and enjoy your weekend!

Pusipusi,

Jussi

To Nepal!

Tomorrow, or actually today, we take the Indian Airlines flight to Kathmandu, Nepal! A quite spontaneous trip (from my side) but which I'm really looking forward to! Culture, adventure sports and maybe meditation will be on program.

But now, back to reality and my project work. Have made some good development today, and some of this text may even some day end up in my long-awaited Master's thesis!

After returning, it's only two weeks left. Time's flying and some am I!

Day 70: Effectiviness but no human values

Today morning effective working with the project and also some laundry in nice sunshine. But then...

...crash, as I lost my temper with the professor in Rural Development & Social Change. Nayak covered my slip, and later explained that NEVER lose it with the prof and ALWAYS be polite. I was still polite, but I argued a lot. (Yes, Kaisa, I know it's irritating...)

So, I have to go make it up and involve him in the project anyway. Hope it works out fine!

Varanasi 4.-8.11

The priests,
originally uploaded by Jussi Nummelin.

Great long weekend trip to Varanasi, that is considered to be one of the holiest cities and pilgrimage sites for Hindus.
We went there with Robert and Alexandra on the night train (14 hours). The main attraction in Varanasi is the Ganges-riverside with all the bathing places, ghats. People come to wash away their sins and to pray. Another big thing is dying and burning of the bodies. According to Hindu-belief, dying in Varanasi lets one reach Nirvana and brake free from the unending chain of reincarnation.
Therefore, cremation of the bodies is a big thing in Varanasi. There are two ghats doing this. The young men (below 50) are burned in white clothe, old men in gold, unmarried women in red and married women in gold. It takes up to 3 hours for the entire body to burn; men's chest and women's hips being the most difficult parts.
The atmosphere in the burning place was surprisingly peaceful; it is not allowed to cry, because the soul could be harmed. Burning is also big business and takes a lot of wood. Wood vendors were everywhere accompanied with providers of everything else needed by the families of the passed ones.
Varanasi was a lovely place and most "Indian" I've experienced so far. The extremely narrow lanes of the old city were charmy and life was vibrating everywhere.
I started also my Indian music education with three lessons (one each day) of Sitar!! The last day I was able to play my first simple raga (a melody by certain strict rules). Unfortunately I couldn't (yet) afford buying a sitar, so it will take some time before I'll master this interesting and fascinating instrument.

On Monday I touristed the vast Buddhist area in Sarnath with Eloise, an Australian girl we met on Sunday with Robert and Alex. Sarnath is a nice place around the Dhamekh Stupa which commemorates Buddha's first preaching after he had reached enlightenment in Bodhgaya. On this area all the Buddhist nations in the world have established their own temples, which allows one a great opportunity to compare different Buddhist temple architectures! Tibetan is still my favourite with it's bright but natural colours and wooden furnishing.

A fascinating city and I found that I could've spent much more time learning my sitar and just experiencing the atmosphere!