Manny Muros:

It is 4:30 am and I am at the Bangalore airport, tired, red-eyed, and feeling both completed and exhausted…. My heart is full of gratitude…. I had spent the previous night in a sleeper bus (12 hours) traveling from Goa to Bangalore….. I can feel my breath slow and calm, deep in my belly. There is very little energy/tension in my being.

There is a European woman sitting next to me holding a book from Sri Baba avatar. Her eyes remain close for quite some time as she listened to a CD. When she opened her eyes and made contact with me I asked her if she had been at Sri Baba’s ashram. She answered that she had just completed 13 days there and then asked, Who are you? …. She went on to tell me that as I walked over to sit down next to her, she felt my vibration engulf the room and she saw a vision of Shiva dancing as her eyes closed in contemplation… and then she asked again, Who are you?… What a gift to be acknowledged in such an unexpected manner!!!

I return from such a short time away, what might have been a short time away, to find that the leaves have all flown, and the slate skies of winter have taken their places at the edges of each branch and twig. This morning the wind rose up in the north, like a great wave coming ashore, and its voice spoke louder and louder in the woodlot behind the house. It’s word was cold.

What word to use to describe travel in India…? Imprecise? Is it a process of approximation?

No, any word that scorns this travel is missing the heart of the matter, it is missing the syncopation that is dictated not by a metronome but by an emotional pulse that arrives precisely when it is supposed to, it is missing the winding currents made by the separate strings of the sitar, which may approximate the logic of Bach’s stolid instrumentals, but hits the movement of blood in the veins most accurately.

I guess if a circle doesn’t close, it is incomplete…? Does it lose strength? Does it deflate, or allow bad winds to invade its beautiful core?

Still, you run a finger in the sand, tracing the outline of the sun, or the outline of the moon, you begin with a point at the tip of your finger, then a short arc, a longer arc, a half-moon, three-quarters of the sun, and finally drag the fingertip back, back to where it approaches, touches, and completes the line; and you have made something that the eye can follow around and around without end.

Having finished my early yoga, I come from the room and enter the hotel courtyard, and the senses, which have fed me quietly throughout the night, fill with the picture of a Goan morning: crickets still sing in the cool temperatures, while a wide variety of birds welcome the day in conversation… saying what? All that chatter can’t be for nothing: Aaaah, it’s good to stretch my wings!, or Clouds overhead, maybe it will be cooler today…? and What’s for breakfast? Cricket?… at which point several crickets quickly silence their instruments and scurry deeper into the grasses which line the stone wall. 

Yesterday’s motorcycle tour of the closest beaches was such a success, I decided to hold onto the bike one more day, and take a morning trip further north, toward the ruins of the old Portuguese fort at Cabo-de-Rama, up past Agonda Beach. Manny had promised a phone call home at nine AM this morning, and as both traffic and the heat of the sun intensify as the day wakes up, we decided to split our paths today, to catch up later. I left Manny in the middle of morning yoga, and headed out into my map of the land, already extended by experience.

Today we took to the roads of Goa; perhaps a risk to lives and limbs, except we promised ourselves to stick to the smaller roads. On “Main Street” – I had tongue-in-cheekily named it that after our first stroll among its multitude of vendors and restaurants, only to find that it is, in fact, called just that – we were able to rent a motorcycle for the day, starting at 200 rupees (about US$4.50) for something akin to a Vespa Scooter (49.9cc engine) and moving up as size and quality increases. I had decided that the extra power was worth a few rupees more, so we settled on a 150cc Beater Deluxe (not its true name), only to return it after wobbly riding one block out and somehow successfully navigating one block back on its damaged frame and under-inflated tires.

Some of the things we thought would work well actually did… and others we learned on the way. Here are a few thoughts we’d like to remember next time around. If any are useful to you, bravo! There’s some wisdom well won.

• Nail scissors Useful for trimming all kinds of things besides your nails…
• Flip-top toothpaste Small plastic jar fits neatly into most travel kits, no spill, no mess.
• Leg-zip poly hiking pants Wash quickly, dry quickly, work as swim trunks, good for cool or hot weather… best buy all round.
• Hand towel Works as a bath towel, packs light and small, and dries more quickly.
• Yoga mat Yeah, well if I hadn’t had it, I wouldn’t have had a 30-day yoga retreat this trip. Feeling great.
• BIC lighter(s) Local lighters suck. Incense or other combustibles. We did not buy other combustibles, but you might.
• Pack umbrella When the monsoon hits, it is vital. Sturdy is better.
• Useful Bags Bags are light, and a few different sizes to carry food or keep dirty-clothes are great.
• Nylon/poly rope A few yards to use a clothesline in those frequent places without one.
• Duffel bag Max is carry-on size (or tied-down to same). Folded in you backpack, use it to bring purchases home.
• Qt. Nalgene Nice to be able to carry/mix drinks, like Vita-C drinks, etc.
• Expandable Backpack Great to allow the backpack to grow as your belongings grow – or shrink when you swap stuff out to a duffel for travel home. If you can hide the shoulder straps, it makes it easier to get into (and out of) public bus luggage racks.
• Skin Cream/Lotion or Stick Think sun protection, and skin repair… small bottle goes a long way. I’ve wanted sunblock a lot – it comes in a convenient stick applicator these days, too – and had to buy a cheaper brand for more money. Skin lotion I have wanted to use a few times, but didn’t buy any…
• Lip Balm Great for the same reason, and I did bring that, gratefully.
• Antifungal If you are susceptible… heat+sweat+reduced hygiene can bring a rash, and untreated those can get aggressive in the tropics. Better safe than walking funny (which is not at all funny).
• Disposable Razor Two per month, depending on orneriness of your body hair…
• Kleenex Pocket Packs I haven’t used mine, but could have a few times, when the Hand Method could have been supplemented by the Tissue Method. Some people suggest antiseptic Wipes as a better solution… but they are wet and heavy.
• Bandana For light head cover, cleaning up, etc. Could take the place of a washcloth.
• Pack umbrella If it is cool at home or on the airplane, a fleece has real value. Had we stopped in the mountains, I would have used it. Fleece can double as a pillow, too – useful and comfy, when wrapped in a cotton shirt or sari
• Account numbers You can scramble them with a code… but have them along, so you can easily gain access to your accounts when you need to over the internet.
• Small day-bag I had a sailor-duffle style bag, with a drawstring that cinches down, and a shoulder strap which pulls the opening together. Very handy, and I felt safer with it than with a plain bag – nothing a razor wouldn’t get into, of course, but it easily and comfortably slung under the arm and forward for good control.
• Spiral notebook 5x8" is a good size, fits in a day bag easily, and a pen clips into the spiral for convenience. Names and addresses, notes… all want a good, collected place in which to follow you home.
• Personal/Business Cards A friends gave me cards from the Odonata community – terribly handy, what? It made it easy to leave and take contact information.
• USB cruzer This new USB technology allows you to load all of your favorite programs onto a handy memory stick. The size of a baby’s finger, these things give you 2Gb of memory – enough for all your work and to contain a huge number of pictures, which you can download from your camera and carry home with you (what I will do, when I leave my camera with Manny). I run a browser and email clients from this stick – meaning my personal information is never written to the local computers. Too cool. they only work well in the newer machines – but there is always a good Internet Cafe around with better equipment… and that is the only kind of place you want to use, anyway.

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Just before dawn only a few roosters have roused themselves – or never went to bed – and with most humans still in bed, I can hear the falling of the surf away here inland. Yoga is sweet and quiet, Manny still in bed; then a quiet seat in the restaurant gazebo and time to write. Sometimes day dawns with all the same elements as the day before, still something undefinable has changed, and today is feels as though loops of effort that were binding me to some way of being have dropped away. I walk to the beach, where the waves roll in at their same slow pace, one breaking every ten seconds, just about the length of a person’s deep breath. Almost no one is on the sand, the beach chairs empty, so I take up a seat and settle in for the morning meditation.

A few thoughts on what has been less effective – in the practical sense – on this extended study tour to tropical climes, and which I would gladly let go on any return visit. While mostly personal preference, a little reality check for future travelers to India…

• Water Filter/Iodine Bottled water is available almost everywhere, even in the nether reaches of the Tibetan Settlements, arguably the most remote space we were in this trip. If you are going to trek in the mountains, that might be another story… but I would think twice before carrying the weight.
• Diarrhea pills Ok, you have to go prepared. But better preparation was to play it safe with foods, either who is selling or what you are eating. We stayed away from watered-down drinks and ices, and kept with good establishments and well-cooked meals. No problems yet… another prescription purchased but not employed.
• Guide to India (complete) Lonely Planet makes guides for South India – I saw one, but not when I was buying, unfortunately – which is a third the size of the Tome of Tomes.
• Bank of America All right, what the hell?? The single largest bank in America does not support Cirrus or other banking networks. Nice, good they are so important unto themselves that they don’t need anyone else (suond familiar, countryfolk?)… and I have been unable to withdraw funds from my account since Bangalore – where there was TWO banks (Citibank and HSBC) who would give me money. Ridiculous.
• Solo travel on sleeper buses Who knows who I will have to sleep next to on my way back to Bangalore!
• Skype headset Every Internet cafe with bandwidth enough for voice-over-IP telephony already has a better headset than what you are willing to buy and bring along. I wasted $10 at radio shack for something I haven’t and won’t use.

To be continued as our list grows.