I lingered in Nepal far longer than I had originally thought to and thereby bit into my time for India. Oh dear India - only four months to see you! Coming off my meditation experience in Lumbini, birthplace of the Buddha, I headed down into India's most backwards and despereately poor region (the area where Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states touch) to visit the other three major pilrimage sites associated with the life of Siddartha Gautama Buddha.

My first stop was Kushinagar where I saw the place of the Buddha's bodily death (called "pari-nirvana"), there is a monment there surrounded by gardens, the area studded with up and coming Buddhist temples from all the major Buddhist countries (Thailand, Korea, Sri Lanka etc). I stayed in the Daramshala (pilgrims rest house) of the Indian Buddhists (a demographic made up mostly of "untouchables" who have converted to escape the caste system) and walking around the still hot streets at night got caught up in a group of men and women singing to the god Shiva with drums and cymbals, all sharing bits of sugar afterwards - my first intro to the Hindu religious music called "Bajan."

I moved on to Varanasi where I spent two weeks in the brutal 135 degree F humid heat enjoying the thrumming spiritual devotion of this most holy of holy ancient cities - the pilgrims bathing in the Ganga, the burning ghats, the clanging bells and sweet deep singing of devotion and rebirth at sunrise and sunset.

From there I made several-day sided trips to Sarnath, site of the Buddha's first sermon at the deer park, and spent four days living with Thai monks in a forest retreat adjacent to the Peepul or Bo tree at Bodh Gaya, site of Buddha's enlightnment.

In one mad dash I escaped on the night train west to New Delhi, set up residence in the shadow of the Jama Mesjid, largest mosque in the subcontinent and built Moghuls, and lived old Delhi. It turned out to be just as hot and dusty as Varanasi had been - curiousity about "the real India" of the South and the desire for bodily comforts (cooler weather, beaches etc) drove me to take a train way down to the Karnataka coast. My 27 hour train ride from New Delhi to Ankola, Karnataka was on the Radjhani Express, a newish line of all air-con, fully catered sleeping cars that felt like heaven and within the context of India was very costly ($50 USD when I could live in South India for $2 USD a day).

I spent my time down South in Gokarna, Om Beach, Margao in Goa staying for a week with an English aristocrat expat and son in their old restored mansion, was in heaven climbing in the Joshua Tree Rocks meets ancient Hindu ruins wonderland of Hampi where I met the very wise grumpy guru, then experienced Auroville, the largest intentional community founded by Baby boomers in the late sixties and currently home to some 1500 bright eyed and busy tailed Aurovillians from around the world.

My Indian visa was running out and after an aborted attempt to sidetrip to Sri Lanka to get one (Tamil Tigers attacked the airport making this impossible) I rode ultra budget (no seat even) 24 hours accross India to Bombay, saw what I could of Parsi (ancient Iranian Zoroastrain transplants) culture, met Indian Jews, got my Iran visa and went to Rajasthan.

Found out that Rajasthan is worth the hype, met real modern warrior and toured the finest palaces ever, lived in the blue Brahmin home in Jodpur's 1001 nights walled city, toured funiture factories for my sister, and finally spent the day in the Golden Temple of Amritsar, Sikh Mecca before seeing the sparks fly at the border and entering Pakistan.

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