I had quite the trouble getting settled back into the Park Hotel in New Delhi upon return to the capital Ultimately I reunited with Paramjeet and we had a lovely last day in Delhi, going to the last residence of Gandhi, the Railroad Museum, and a Sikh Temple for the Guru Govind Singh Jayanti Festival. Thank you Paramjeet and India for an amazing time… can’t wait to return!!
The time has finally come… to tell you about the marriage of Vinayak and Aurora… the wedding of the decade… VINRORA!
Aspects of the wedding:
Dec 28: evening meet and greet of all those who traveled from outside of India to attend, with a couple of natives thrown in. Lots of representation from all over the country and all aspects of the bride and groom’s life
Dec 29, 11 am - 5 pm: Mehndi: ceremonial painting of henna designs on the hands of female guests and massive decoration on the hands and feet of the bride. The groom’s mother, friends, and relatives sang and had a blast at this ceremony. It was pretty dang similar to the Mehndi scene in Monsoon Wedding . It was this day I picked out my fabric and style of my custom outfit for the formal wedding ceremony at Ethnic Textiles
Dec 29, 7 pm - late: Sangeet: everyone dances in special groups and some do solos. Indeed I danced in one of the groups but tensions were running high with a demanding choreographer on the loose. I appreciated her professionalism! Everyone really had a blast. Unfortunately the banquet hall was very loud and very hot and I was forced to escape to the lobby and upstairs bar a couple times.
Dec 30, Mid-day: Haldi: ceremony blessing the bride and groom with a special turmeric paste. Each guest blesses either the bride or groom depending on their side by take two sprigs of thyme, dipping it in an oil and herbal mixture, and tapping the feet, knees, elbows, and head in alternating crossing fashion, then dips into a vat of turmeric mixture and wipes it in varying degrees on the bride or groom. The bride or groom can retaliate depending on closeness and jokeness. The brother of the groom, for example, had a face covered in turmeric paste by the end. I got a polite little dot in my bindi.
Dec 30: The final wedding ceremony! Which starts with the baraat, in where the groom traditionally makes the trek from his home, sometimes several villages away, to the home of the bride. In our case, the groom came from his home at Lord’s Plaza Hotel down an alley way to Hotel Diggi Palace where the wedding was taking place. The band did a good job of playing the role of the family preventing the groom from leaving them and going to the bride, surrounding everyone, making them dance hard by blowing loud trumpets and banging drums, and collecting mad cash before proceeding. It felt like it took forever to get down the alley! Once at Hotel Diggi Palace, the bride’s family meets the groom and the bride and her family travel to a platform under a marigold encrusted shawl. There is an exchanging of garlands then the couple is taken to an area with a fire and a priest where many elaborate aspects of the ceremony are performed. IT WAS FREAKING COLD OUTSIDE and most of us milled around the fires and ate appetizers and didn’t pay attention. I guess it’s common for folks not to care about this. Many of the Indian guests just went to banquet hall and started eating dinner. After the ceremony was officially over, we chowed down on Indian buffet and basically did a million photo ops with the professional photography crew and the stage in the banquet hall. I guess I went back to my room to call it a night around 11:30, although peeps kept partying on the terrace of the hotel until late in the night.
Dec 31, New Year’s eve: Sightseeing day (reunited with Pramod!) at Amer Fort and Jantar Mantar (observatory). Amazing!! Then we had a fun NYE party in the VINRORA wedding suite in Hotel Diggi Palace which included a dance part in the bathroom… how many people can you fit into a dark bathroom in India? Just don’t trust the sink from falling down off the wall if you’re dancing on it. Happy New Year 2020 from Jaipur India!!!
Last I left off, I was just about to leave Dharamshala. As I write this, I am not only back in the US, I am sitting at Momentum Chevrolet in San Jose waiting for my car to be serviced. Talk about a change of scenery and a harsh return to reality. I will do my best to communicate the leg of my trip that followed Dharamshala: the group journey from Delhi to Agra for two days of sightseeing then the journey to Jaipur for the wedding of my friends Aurora and Vinayak.
December 24, 2019
The flight out of the the Kangra/Dharamshala airport went off without a hitch, although it was delayed a bit and so I hung around the tiny airport with a handful of other travelers longer than expected. I was sad to leave Dharamshala as my Buddhist nun friend had implanted ideas in my mind about the possibility of living there as an expat: apparently you can have a very high quality of life for about $500 USD per month. That info made me feel disillusioned by the high cost of living in San Francisco, and in California in general.
Once I arrived in the Delhi airport, I was amused by the Merry Christmas signage since it is not a popular holiday in India and indicates a catering to western tourists and commercialism. Nonetheless I snapped pictures of the signs and tweeted them out: it was Christmas eve and I was about to meet up with my peeps!
After some harsh Delhi traffic (what’s new), I made it to The Park Hotel accompanied by Kawaljeet as usual. I appreciated his chaperoning tendencies so much, and his services coupled with those of my guides and drivers relieved any loneliness I might have felt, and ultimately made my solo parts of the trip the most enjoyable. After a quick freshening up, I headed downstairs to meet Vinayak, the energetic groom who had helped so many of us make the India dream come true! He was accompanied by a cousin of Aurora’s, Paul. After greetings we set out to meet the ladies of the group who were doing some hardcore shopping at Fab India: Aurora—the bride herself—her mother Scotia, an old friend of her mother’s, Kati, and Aurora’s best friend, Emily. Paul’s mother Heidi stayed in that night so I didn’t meet her until the next day. The ladies seemed wilted by the warm store and the overwhelming nature of shopping for cloths in an unfamiliar style. This was a sort of foreshadowing, as shopping for appropriate wedding clothes tended to dominate many of our days and emotions until the actual wedding was over.
The hotel and the shops are all in or around Connaught Place, a shopping and business complex built by the English and renovated in the last 20 years. There were tons of people out, for some reason maybe because of it being Christmas Eve, and all of a sudden I was not only out and about at night (which I hadn’t done at all per Kawaljeet’s instructions on safety), I was with a group of westerners. This was another foreshadowing: the change in being a solo traveler discovering myself and a new country to being one of a group required more emotional labor. This new situation called negotiating other people’s hopes, dreams, and fears, and these people were still very jet-lagged. Meanwhile I had nearly completed adjusted. And I had experienced much less culture shock than they appeared to be experiencing. I felt exhilarated trying to cross a street amongst tuk-tuks, bicycles, cars, taxies, and vans, while some in the group fought wildly against the uncivilized rules of the road in downtown New Delhi.
After stopping at another chain store to briefly survey clothing options, we went to a restaurant called Farzi Café which provided much novelty but I can’t really recommend it. It was deafeningly loud, turned into a discotech at some point, and a few of us waited for our food for a very long time. Thankfully the food was delicious which minimized the irritation of the long wait. We beat a hasty retreat to protect our hearing, jumped into a couple tuk-tuks to expedite the jaunt back to the hotel. We split up and turned in for the night, knowing we had an early morning: the bus to Agra was scheduled to leave at 8:30 am.
December 25: Christmas Day
Oh what a day! To make a long story short, after breakfast at the hotel and getting everyone into the van, we hit the road for Agra with Aurora, Vinayak, and myself occupying the back row of the bus, the party row. It was great to catch up with them (find out what they were doing professionally, etc., as I hadn’t seen them in over 3 years!) and fill them in on my trip so far. I also started to get to know Emily and Paul. At this point I met our amazing tour guide Pramod, who had already been with their group for a couple days, and who would continue to accompany us to Agra and then Jaipur, his hometown.
The drive was straightforward and we stopped at a roadside stop that wasn’t much different from those along US highways.
We arrived at the Radisson Blu hotel in Agra around 1:45 pm. This hotel was probably my favorite of all the traditional hotels I stayed in. We had a quick lunch in the hotel restaurant and since the fog had cleared, we set out… for… the Taj Mahal! I was so excited.
I highly recommend doing the Taj Mahal with a tour guide. I can’t image negotiating the parking lot, electric trams, line for tickets, walk to security, multiple security checks and all the jostling and shoving from the other tourists that this entails without the guidance of a professional. Once we got through all that, there were still multiple labyrinth-like-corridors and courtyards away from the grand jewel. Finally we rounded the bend in the outer gardens that leads to the main gate entrance. The area knotted up with tourists waving their cameras around. The build up was almost excruciating, then as I passed through the double arches, the looming, white, sunlit Taj Mahal appeared from out of the darkness. The excitement of the crowd only added to my beholding the majesty of this global architectural icon.
After entering into the main gardens, I mentioned wanting a group picture, and Pramod offered the option of getting a professional photographer, which turned out to be awesome! He got someone he was evidently familiar with, and the photographer took a group shot and then did brief individual photoshoots with several of us. After my photoshoot, he did one with Vinayak and Aurora, who were wearing Christmas-themed outfits. In the golden afternoon sunlight with the beautiful Taj Mahal raising up in the background, I couldn’t help exclaiming over and over, “It’s officially Christmas!” Aurora and Vinayak looked awesomely kitsch, and this was a Christmas I would never forget.
After the photoshoot, Pramod took us around and gave us the history of the place; in short, it is a paradise mausoleum for Shah Jahan’s beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal who died after Shah Jahan was king for only four years. She gave him 14 children. Then we made our way up to the monument itself, where we put on booties over our shoes and queued up to enter the inner area with the sarcophagus is located. Walking on the marble, closely inspecting the floral patterns of inlaid marble work, and marveling at the Arabic text inlaid on the front of the monument was breath-taking. Talk about class: no decoration was overdone, yet it was endlessly impressive. It took laborers 20 years to complete this monument, and part of that chain involved bringing the marble from other parts of India to Agra. Indeed there was supposed to be an identical structure in black marble opposite the Taj Mahal, that was to be the final resting place of Shah Jahan, but Shah Jahan’s son Aurangzeb usurped the power and put Shah Jahan under house arrest at the Agra Fort, within viewing distance of the Taj Mahal, and Shah Jahan was never to return. We were wondering about this for a while, but then Pramod clarified: the laborers were paid, and as such, the king was draining the empire of its financial resources. The son usurped the power and protected the riches of the empire by putting the kibosh on the matching monument.
Although extremely impressive, it was also extremely exhausting to visit the Taj Mahal due to the crowds, queues, pushing, and attention we received as whities, especially after a long day of driving from Delhi.
Pramod took us to an artisan shop afterwards that demonstrates how the stones and gems are fit to be inlaid in the same traditional style as the marble of the Taj Mahal. There we saw some masterpieces of the art form, and I ended up buying a couple of souvenirs which are simple stunning in their artistry.
Once back at the hotel, we all met up as a group for the buffet dinner and did a little toast to Christmas. I can’t imagine ever doing a normal Christmas after this. Best Christmas ever!
December 26
Today we bid adeiu, if only temporarily, to Vinayak and Aurora as they set out to collect a couple friends from the train station after we did some intense shopping for pashmina scarves. Our group, minus them, continued with sightseeing at Agra Fort. I was extremely impressed by this monument as it had palaces upon palaces built on as additions, each of which reflected the architectural styles and materials used by the moghuls of the era. At Agra Fort the traces of three generations of Muslim Emperors is evident in first red standstone, then white marble adorned with gold, and finally the beautiful palace cum prison called Khas Mahal that kept Shah Jahan under house arrest. This palace displays the same style of floral inlaid marble as the Taj Mahal. Describing it this way is only the tip of the iceberg—you have to visit to take in all the beautiful gardens, arches, and small rooms, and then imagine carpets lining the marble floors and carpets hanging from each arch, with the moghuls living their native way.
Agra Fort
When we left Agra fort a huge pack of monkeys made a b-line from a lawn off in the distance straight toward us at the entrance, and one pissed all over the baulistrade as it headed toward us.
I should mention here that the aggressive selling of cheap souvenirs and begging outside the monuments of Agra was kind of intense for some people. It was similar to what I experienced in some parts of Italy and perhaps also Egypt, so I just ignored it, but in general the desperation and poverty of Agra was more apparent than it had been for me previously on the trip. Furthermore, the dry and dusty environment of Agra added to the feelings of desolation kicked up by the place. I have to admit it was soothing to stay in such a nice hotel here. Since Agra is such a major tourist destination in India, the government actually shut down 3G internet while we were there. This was done, apparently, in response to the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act because Muslims come to Agra for Friday prayers and authorities did not want to endanger tourists in a potential action. It was interesting but also inconveniencing to not have access to the internet on our phones, for text messages to not go through or not be delayed, and to have trouble getting cash out of ATMs due to their internet connection being unstable.
Anyway, after touring Agra Fort, we had worked up quite the appetite and cheers began issuing from the van: Piz-za HUT, Piz-za HUT, Piz-za HUT… Vinayak had recommended it, so our driver took us there, where Vinayak and Aurora met us. We chowed down on pizza done India style and I finally tried Indian beer: Kingfisher Ultra and Bira, the former being a smooth lager and the latter being a floral ale that was a little too full bodied for me. We also got a pitcher of “masala Pepsi” to try which was… pretty weird and disgusting. Why is there an Indian version of everything that is “masala ____” yet whatever defines “masala” is not consistent?? For example, the spices and flavor profile of masala chai, masala pepsi, masala liver, and masala oats have nothing in common! Putting “masala” in front of any noun just signals that it is an India version of something…
After lunch, we went to the famous Kohinoor Jewelers showroom in Agra to see Padmashri Shams’s 3-D embroidery artworks, where photography was not allowed to my relief—I was getting photographer’s fatigue, feeling pressured to take a picture of everything I saw. Although we didn’t buy anything, they gave us complimentary chai and let Aurora try on the most beautiful Indian emerald and diamond necklace.
Back at the hotel and before the evening show, I sat out on a brief afternoon interlude of crossing a busy street to go to the “K-Mart of India,” which was a harrowing adventure and of course anyplace that is the K-Mart of India is bound to be depressing. Around 6:15 I went to an evening showing of a play about the building of the Taj Mahal called Kalakriti. The play had a lot of musical interludes and reminded me of Bollywood movies—lots of looks, but not that much substance. While performed in Hindi, there were headphones viewers could wear that offered several languages to translate the dialog. I am not sure it was totally worth 4,000 rupees but it was a chill way to spend the evening. I opted out of the group dinner, choosing instead to get room service and focus on packing up and taking it easy before our upcoming travel day.
December 27
A long day of driving to Jaipur, with a stop outside of Agra to visit Fatehpur Sikri Palace, an immense city-compound built by Akbar the Great (one of several, he moved around a lot) for his Christian, Muslim, and Hindu wives, close to the Sufi Salim Chesti who was supposedly blessing the wives to conceive a male bebé. Whoopty, one did conceive: the Hindu wife gave Akbar the Great a son, so she got the biggest palace.
Fatehpur Sikri Palace
It was very cold this day, continuing the record breaking chills that came over this region during our touring. I felt the doldrums of being surrounded by stone in the complex and a grey sky above. In retrospect I think I was experiencing the premonition of the migraine that would begin striking me the next day. Finally toward the end of the tour we peeped a grassy garden and the sun began shining and I felt it immediately perk me up.
We had an Indian buffet lunch al fresco then hit the road for many hours, only getting into Hotel Diggi Palace that evening after sunset. We gathered for dinner in the dining room of the hotel and started meeting the many guests… the convergence begins! After all the the travel, sightseeing, and shopping with the group, and looking ahead to all the new people to meet and wedding events to partake in, I saw I was poised between one exhausting long-haul and another.
Next post will focus on the wedding of my friends Aurora and Vinayak, the whole reason for the season, so stay tuned!
Dharamshala was a highlight of my itinerary because I was pining for a visit to the Library of Tibetan Works and Archive. Additionally, being up in the mountains so close to the Himalayas seemed really cool, especially because the Dali Lama lives here in the suburb of Mcleod Ganj. As do a bunch of Tibetans. I sort of wanted to maximize my cultural and ethnic exposure on my trip.
First of all, leaving Rishikesh went smoothly and when I got delivered to my hotel in New Delhi’s Aerocity from the train station by Masan (my driver every time in Delhi so far) and Kawaljeet (who met me at the train station), I was on cloud 9: the Lemon Tree Hotel is a four star hotel and seemed like a luxurious palace after staying in the yoga school for 5 days. There were slippers by the door! There was a nice, fully stocked bathroom with a completely enclosed shower! There was a TV and a little sitting area, room service, laundry service, etc. and in the morning someone delivered an iron to my room! While I self reproach for being “bougie,” Vinayak assures me “there is nothing wrong with wanting to be comfortable.” Before my trip I agonized over what type of India experience to have: ashram, five star hotel, home stay, AirBnB, etc. I guess I have discovered I like me a four or five star hotel just because I can’t afford those types of places outside of India so the splurge has a novelty, but otherwise a nice homestay like the Colonel’s Retreat meets all my needs.
Friday, December 20, 2019
I got prepped for my flight to Dharamshala after a delicious breakfast buffet, made it to the airport and to my gate fairly smoothly, and waited, and waited, and waited… around the time the flight was supposed to take off, it was announced that it was canceled. I didn’t quite realize what was going on, so I identified the two other white people that had been at the gate that were quickly striding off and ran after them like, “Excuse me! What just happened?” They informed me of what was up and we basically stuck together for the next couple hours as we negotiated getting let out from the gate, going to arrivals, and getting our bags back. Apparently the reason was weather—we assumed weather in Dharamshala—it can get quite foggy between the mountains—but lots of people I spoke with assumed because of the protests in Delhi or the low fog and pollution in Delhi. Who knows! But reason 1,999 to book through Maavalan Travels: Kawaljeet took care of everything for me, including rescheduling my flight for the next day, booking me a hotel, and giving me advice on how to get a prepaid taxi to the said hotel. He rocks and I have never felt so at ease with a canceled flight before!
Unfortunately the IBIS hotel I stayed in was a step below the Lemon Tree (which was unfortunately booked up that night), but it had a warm bed, good wifi, and a hot shower. After a little jaunt around the bewildering Worldmark Complex for some “fast food,” I headed back to the hotel where I binged the last four episodes of season 3 of Spiral. Although peeps at breakfast irritated me and the layout of the dining room, staff attentiveness, and buffet offerings were a notch below Lemon Tree, ultimately I have no complaints…
The flight to Dharamshala on Friday went through, but India Air moved the flight up 1 hour! I have never heard of an airline having a flight go earlier. I feel like it had something to do with the weather and just making sure we went, but man I ran through the airport and cut so many people in line (with the blessing of the officials) and I made it! I briefly passed out on the plane, jerked awake about 10 seconds before we landed, and watched the ground meet the prop jets gracefully.
I stepped off the plane and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. It was pretty clear, sunny, warm, and the Dhauladhar range of the Himalayas loomed behind the tiny airport, which itself was surrounded by green pastures and open woodlands. A small rose garden greeted us as we entered the airport to claim our luggage.
The driver sent from the hotel brought me up steep roads with hair-pin curves and the view got increasingly incredible as we climbed to the peak. Upon arrival at Chonor House, I was greeted with a cozy room called the Amdo Room with murals of Tibetan scenes painted on all four walls. (More on the significance of the word Amdo later.) After getting settled, I ventured out to the town were open air market stalls line Temple Road—a narrow one-way road where motorists, scooters, pedestrians, beggars, dogs, and the occasional cow battle it out for footing) and on every street there are tons of shawl vendors, cafes, head shops, alcohol stores, and more. At every step there was a new breathtaking view to take in, on either side of the precipice of the little suburb of Mcleod Ganj. I finished out my little jaunt around town with a mint tea, carrot ginger soup, and chicken roll at Moonpeak Cafe, all of which was delicious.
Saturday, December 21, 2019
My second day, Saturday, was the big day: I was finally visiting the Tibetan Library! My visit began with an attempt to walk to the Library of Tibetan Works and Archive, but I couldn’t find the cut-through path (I went back and forth between where Google Maps said it should be several times, assumed it had gotten over grown, and retreated to the orthodox route on the main road, which was good because I found out later people will hide on the bushes near the path, jump out, punch you in the face, and steal your bag when you pass). In the process I ended up doing half of the walk around the Dala Lama’s Temple, a beautiful walk lined with Tibetan Prayer Flags, spinning prayer wheels, stupas, shrines, and tablets impressed with the script of prayer and painted gold, blue, yellow, and green. It’s also a walk lined with monkeys, cows, and dogs.
Once I back-tracked and went down the regular road, I finally found the small road short-cut that leads into the little Tibetan complex… and found the library… and met the manuscripts librarian! He courteously showed me the stacks and some manuscripts, showed me how the paper is made, how the room is organized, etc.! SO AWESOME. More on this coming in another post.
After that, I wandered around the complex some more, enjoying the sunshine and relative peacefulness compared to the narrow, busy road outside. There I also visit a working ATM! And exchange big bills for small bills at the clerk’s counter—a simple service not always available in India, and that I often take for granted in San Francisco. On top of it all, when I checked my bank balance online later, I found that I got a great exchange rate: 10,000 rupees for $144.00 ($1 = 69.45 rupees).
Due to sheet stubbornness and refusal to barter/get ripped off for a taxi, I trekked back up the hill… which nearly killed me in the thin air, exhaust and hazard from scooters, motorcycles, taxis, and trucks. Half way to the Illiterati cafe, I took a much needed pitstop at a small roadside cafe where I gulped down nearly a whole liter of water. I know how important it is to drink lots of water at an altitude of 6,500 feet! Just a little further I made it to the Illiterati cafe, a very hip, cute coffee and food joint with stuffed bookshelves lining the walls and a small balcony that overlooks the valley and mountain range. I have to admit someone with a saw mill doing construction down the hill harshed my mellow of sitting in the balcony table, and I got cold sitting there after sweating walking up the hill, so I left sooner than I would have liked. The rest of my walk up the hill back to Chonor House nearly killed me all over again, but I did it! Once I was around the corner from my place, I bought two 2 liter bottles of water for my room, went back, and hung around the common areas reading the newspaper. Dinner was a quiet affair in my room, a bowl of thenthuk soup, “a favorite dish of Tibet,” which is a vegetable soup with noodles in broth with vegetables, tofu, and mushrooms (the noodles are more like dumplings, squat little hearty things). I find Tibetan food to be so hearty and homey!
I have been reading a book I got from the Chonor House Library since I came here, a book called Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald. It’s set in Delhi/Northern India and is the story of an Aussie girl moving here to be with her boyfriend cum husband and it is very informative about places, cultural happenings, etc. Admittedly its focus is on the author’s dabbling of all the different religions and philosophies that coexist in India. Paired with Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India by Miranda Kennedy, one can learn a lot about what’s up with India from a female expat perspective. Turns out I really like learning about a place from a memoir of an expat moving there. I remember I read Bad Times in Buenos Aires by Miranda France before I left for Argentina in 2012…
That evening I also listened to part 1 of an apt episode of Snap Judgement (radio program/podcast) called The Search for No Name Aporva, about an American woman getting caught up in a scandal when she tried to adopt a baby from India. I listened to part 2 the following evening. These episodes paired with the book have been good fodder for enhancing my experience of being in India, because they have helped me understand cultural practices better!
Sunday, December 22, 2019 (Winter Solstice)
I made a friend at breakfast on Sunday! A Buddhist nun from the San Francisco Bay Area. We chatted away at breakfast for quite some time, and then did the complete walk around the Dali Lama’s Temple. It was a gorgeous, sunny day with almost totally clear skies. It was very warm in the sun, but if you break a sweat then step into the shade for a while, you get a nasty chill. I was planning on going to the Tibetan Museum inside the Temple complex to watch the 11 am documentary after our jaunt, but they informed me the showing was canceled because they were having electricity issues (a common occurrence in all parts of India). I met back up with her, went around the market a bit together, then we parted ways since she had some work to do—she is doing an online masters program in Buddhist Philosophy through a University in the U.K.
I arranged for a car at the hotel to take me to the Dharamshala Tea Garden to appreciate the weather, but after some discussion between the hotel lady and the driver, I found out he would take me wherever I wanted, and offered some suggestions. I ended up doing the two things I had really wanted to do: visiting Kangra Fort and the Monolithic Temple at Masroor! At the Fort I got an audio tour and it was the first time doing a big tourist attraction like that without a guide. I felt a little exposed because it was all Indian families and Indian youngsters snapping selfies, and all of them couldn’t help but look at me curiously as I passed. Ultimately only two teenage girls asked for pictures. I really enjoyed the history, architecture, and views from the fort. It is a photographer’s paradise for sure. I got pretty clever setting up selfies of myself because I wasn’t really in the mood to ask ask anyone to take my picture. The temple of the fort had the remnants of blocks of carved stones built up, and a quote from the audio tour stuck with me: it took artisans 10 years to carve the stones, and it only took a few minutes for it all to be destroyed in the 1905 earthquake. The audio tour told story after story of sieges on the fort, and ended the tour summarily by saying, “He who holds the fort rules the hills.”
Afterwards I thought my driver was going to squeeze in as many sites as possible on the way back to Mcleod Ganj, but once we saw how much I liked the Fort, he suggest Masroor temple. It was 20 km further, all on winding roads, and it was already 3:30 pm and the sun was lowering itself. However we did have enough time so we set out! He drove a bit fast in order to give me as much time as possible, which he apologized for later, but we arrived about 4:30 and since the temple is at the peak of the hill, the sun had not yet set. I raced up to the overlook of the monument and took it all in. A young woman saw me trying to take selfies and took my camera and insisted on posing me. She put me in multiple poses in multiple locations and really seemed to be having fun photographing me. I was so thankful to her to get some good shots and again felt so much affection for Indians.
A little after that, what turned out to be “family photo album time” commenced. It seemed like everyone who was at the monument was emboldened by the setting sun and started requesting pictures with me. I must have posed with four different groups of families in multiple shots with different groups of from each family. The last one was a little tiring, I admit, but in general it is such a fun way to meet people and exchange some good energy. As the sun set, the snow on the mountains turned pink, and it was a beautiful, peaceful, and exotic end to a stimulating day. I was happy to head home after that, after a quick little roadside chai for 10 rupees! The drive was twisty, cold, and dark, but my I felt very comfortable with my driver and we talked a little about his two sons, his joint family living situation (he lives with his brothers’ families as well, but has his own kitchen so he and his wife can make the children’s lunch early in the morning before they go to school).
I had a simple Tibetan dinner in the hotel cafe, took a nice hot shower and washed my hair, and then cozied up in bed with the hot water bottle the hotel staff places in guests beds every night around 5:30 pm.
Monday, December 23, 2019
Breakfast at the hotel as usual, then a trip to Norbulingka with my new friend! I did feel bad because I had made plans with my driver for the day, but my friend insisted on using her driver probably because he would give us a better price. While waiting for her at the bottom of the hill (sitting in the vegetable market booth because the owner saw me awkwardly standing for 10 minutes in the midst of the hustle and bustle and insist I sit), I hear “Hello, Ji,” and turn to see my driver! I profusely apologized to him for standing him up but he seemed cool about it. Later I discussed how much he had charged me the day before and my friend informed me that was way more than the local price, so I stopped feeling bad for standing him up.
At Norbulingka, which means “precious garden” in Tibetan, I was enchanted by the peaceful grounds, paths, and all around design of the complex and grounds. It was founded in 1994 as an institute to preserve Tibetan arts and crafts since they can no longer be practiced in Tibet due to China’s occupation. Norbulingka is also the name of the Dali Lama’s summer home. The six acre grounds gradually lead past workshops and other buildings through prayer wheels, fountains, streams of water, and prayer stones to the main temple with a large golden Buddha presiding over a wealth of colorful and intricate Tibetan handicrafts. The Buddha is filled with scriptures and texts.
My friend spent her time in the cafe working on her assignment while I explored the grounds and took in the Laso Doll Museum. It was here that I learned Amdo, the name of the room I’m staying in, is a region in Tibet and the people from this region are renown for their literary skills and hard work. Also it was display number 13 and I felt all this was karma for me, because those traits describe me!
I returned to the cafe to enjoy the buffet lunch with my friend. I really like Tibetan food. It’s like a cross between Indian food and Chinese food without the strong, overpowering flavors and spices, and it is more homey and comforting somehow.
I rushed to the entrance to start my free tour with a group of older Sikh men. Our guide took us through each workshop where we learned about the different arts and crafts: woodwork, wood painting, thangka appliqué, metal sculpture, and thangka painting. We then took a brief tour through the Laso Doll museum where the guide answered some of the questions I had and then we ended in the temple with a group photo!
I did some shopping in the gift shop, had some ginger tea with my friend, then we headed back up the hill to our respective homes, where I sit now typing this. I look forward to one last Tibetan dinner in the Hummingbird Cafe at Chonor House, and of course the complimentary breakfast in the morning. Hopefully I will have time to do another walk around the temple with my new friend before taking off for the airport.
Tomorrow I blast off for Delhi again, and meet up with the wedding peeps, at which point the reason for the trip—#Vinrora—will officially begin!
It rained all night in Delhi from Thursday, Dec 12 to the next morning, Friday the 13th—thunder and lightning all night long. Even Paramjeet called to make sure I was ready for the change of weather and my journey to Rishikesh the next day. Friday the 13th started off with an early morning train ride out of Delhi (6:45 am) to Haridwar, where I was picked up by a driver and chauffeured to the yoga retreat in Rishikesh. Upon arrival I had the shared lunch with the students who are doing their yoga teacher training certificates—the school offers both 200 hour and 300 hour teacher training. As I have gotten to know this group of people, it turns out there a good amount of Europeans, Indians, and Americans participating, and many are under 30 I would say—I do feel weird knowing that I stick out being older than most of them, but I think I pass for younger so it doesn’t matter. I will save my criticisms about the type of people who do these yoga training courses for another time, although I have been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with my friend Dave about these type of people 3 years ago in Taos…
I didn’t do any of the yoga activities for the rest of the day on Friday, and while I was just trying to adjust at the prospect of bathing out of a bucket and sleeping without a sheet in pretty cold conditions, I guess you could say the accommodations were a shock coming after the nice stay I had at Colonel’s Retreat in New Delhi. Three days later, I feel like a bougie bitch because I have one of the few single rooms apparently, and I am getting special treatment since all my excursions are squeezed into 5 days while the students string out their excursions over 4-7 weeks.
Saturday Dec. 14: I managed to by-pass the “cleansing” activity of vomiting and showed up for Hatha Yoga at 7:30 and followed the normal course up until lunch. The 300 hour course includes the following:
Mantra – 6:15 – 6:45
Pranayama – 6:45 – 7:30
Hatha Yoga – 7:30 – 9
Breakfast: 9 am
Yoga therapy – 9:45 – 10:45
Yoga Philosophy – 11 – 12 noon
Adjustment & Alignment – 12:30 – 1:10
Lunch – 1:15
Anatomy 3:30 – 4:30
Ashtanga Viniyasa Yoga 4:30 – 6 pm
Meditation 6:15 – 7:15 pm
Dinner 7:15 pm
From what I can tell, it’s pretty relaxed and some students do some classes and skip others depending on how they feel… After lunch, I met up with Vinayak’s best friend from High School, Vaibhav, who took me around town on a nice walk over Laxman Jhula, the iconic bridge of Rishikesh, although Vaibhav informed me that the bridge was deemed unsafe and closed recently, but you can’t stop tourists so it is now open for foot traffic but motor vehicles are barred. He also informed me that where I am staying and where the bridge is located is not really Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a town further town the river. We walked over the bridge, sat on the steps on the river bank for a while, had some snacks at Budha Café including an avocado shake and actually very good nachos (hey, everyone needs a break from Indian food sometimes), and then walked past Ram Jhula (the other bridge—Ram and Laxman are brothers in the mythological story) to the scene of one of the Ganga Aarti ceremonies, Parmarth. The ceremony was just ending but there was a lot of excitement and people were everywhere. We had a pretty deep conversation about Hinduism and whether or not it is a religion or an ethnic identity, philosophy, and system of stories creating a mythology, and he told me some of the Hindu tales, especially the ones having to do with the different heavens the gods inhabit (the heavens aren’t for people, they are for the gods). At the end of the night we got some more refreshment at the “German Bakery” just at the end of Laxman Jhula. By that point I was sore! The yoga and the walking were catching up with me.
Sunday, December 15: Sundays are free days for the students in the training course, which meant sunrise trip to Devi Kunjapuri Temple! We were supposed to assemble at 5:20 am, but we ran a bit behind… by the time the group made it down to the jeeps waiting for us, it was close to 5:45 or 6. The drive there was very long up a winding road, and once we got to the top, day was starting to break. Up we went 300 steps to the temple where light was showing from behind the scattered clouds. I was astounded to find out we had ascended a considerable altitude, and were now at over 5,000 feet – a mile high! The views were absolutely stunning at the sun continued to rise and break through the layers of clouds. In addition to the drumming and chanting taking place at the temple, there were screeching monkeys fighting over bananas and many other tourist groups milling about and taking selfies and group shots. After maybe a couple hours we came back down, in which process I was a bit selfish and clung to riding shotgun in the car, considering there were 4 squished in the backseat, and 4 more in the very back sitting over the tire wells. I guess I was in a strange mood at that point…
The sun was shining brightly when we returned and it felt good to sit out in a tank top on the terrace of the ashram. Then it was time for my massage! Which is part of the package of the yoga retreat. I have not really had many massages in my life so I didn’t really know what to expect. This guy really worked over my body, front and back, and thankfully he used my jojoba oil instead of his sesame oil that had some slight essential oils in it. Considering how tight and sore my hamstrings, calves, shoulders, back, biceps, and triceps were from the yoga and walking, he really worked them out hard. He made a comment about it actually, and gave me advice to take a nap afterwards to give my body time to heal but to continue on with the yoga tomorrow. When he massaged my knees it tickled so much and I burst out laughing!
I took his advice and napped for about an hour, got up and had a glorious shower and washed my hair. The shower doesn’t get very hot and I guess the main idea is to fill up a bucket, wash out of that, then use a smaller bucket with a handle to rinse off. I half way did it with the bucket. And since the water wasn’t getting very hot, and we have intermittent power outages due to all the construction going on here, I timed it so that I could boil three kettle-fulls of water to pour in the bucket, which helped a lot. After much preening prepping, I ventured out to the Beatles Café which I discovered has a great terrace that overlooks the Ganga and the sun was setting in a beautiful scene. I drank a turmeric latte that had big chunks of cinnamon bark in it and wrote in my journal. I must admit at this point I was not feeling so hot—not sick or ill, just physically very exhausted and tired and therefore emotionally vulnerable. It ended up being a good mindset for journaling, and the turmeric latte with the cinnamon really helped me feel better. After sitting for some time, I ventured back to the ashram. I had been informed I was the only one who would be eating in because the students have to eat outside on free days. It turned out Jai, one of the boys who works at the school, took me out to the most famous Indian restaurant in Rishikesh called Rajasthani, and I had the most amazing Indian food I have ever eaten, including a warm dessert made out of carrots (and the carrots here are red!). Then we took a short tour around the market and the Triveni Ghat, which is another location of the sunset ceremonies. I had a great ending to the day which really helped because I was feeling kinda down before going to dinner!
Monday, December 16, 2019: Today I followed a similar routine as I did on Saturday: Hatha Yoga 7:30 – 9, breakfast at 9, Yoga Therapy 10 – 11, Yoga Philosophy 11-12, Adjustment & Alignment 12 – 1 pm, and lunch at 1 pm. After lunch I got some dirty clothes together to take to a launderer nearby because I’d rather have them fresh pressed and ironed (especially the Indian kurtas I bought in Delhi) than wash them here at the yoga school and hang them out to dry. Good thing I gave myself 2 days lead time before I leave Rishikesh because the place I wanted to go to, that supposedly takes 24 hours, was closed (it opened later when I passed by after my walk—doh!) so I went to another place that said 2 days and 660 rupees which is more than the homestay in Delhi charged! Oh well, it’s still only $9.50 which is a good price considering I’d spend that much at a laundromat in San Francisco, and waste 3 hours of my life. Anyway, then I took a little stroll around town, had a latte and a blueberry tart at Café Divine on recommendation from Vaibhav (both delicious), and took some pictures. A strange fog has rolled in, completely transforming the way Rishikesh looks. I often wonder what tourists’ impressions are of San Francisco’s mercurial weather changes (fog, sunshine, wind, etc.) so I recognized myself in the flip-flopped position. I wrapped up my walk by trying a second ATM that was also out of cash. That’s ok—I have some money—apparently ATMs in India are notorious for running out of cash—and it was so delightful to return home to the yoga school after a 2 hour jaunt around town alone.
For all intents and purposes I am now regarding where I stay as a yoga school than an ashram and I have some pretty developed ideas about advice to others looking to do a yoga retreat here. Now that I know what I do, coming from my perspective as a “beginner” and a “tourist,” not a student wanting to be a yoga instructor (strange strange of young humans tbqh—everyone here except for maybe one person is younger than me, most being in their 20s), everything makes more sense. I am thankful for the help the travel agent gave me setting this up, but I plan to write a separate blog post later dispensing advice for anyone who wants to do similar, and isn’t hardcore. ALTHOUGH, I am happy to report today’s yoga session went much better than Saturday’s, and after about 25 minutes I was feeling it! Yes sore now, but still feeling capable in my body and feeling determined to follow through my New Year’s resolution to take up yoga again. Screw the rowing gym! It will be cheaper and better for me to spend money and energy on doing yoga 2-3 times a week. I have other New Year’s resolutions as well, all of which I listed and ruminated on at the Beatles Café yesterday, but I will keep those to myself for now.
Dinner is up in a couple minutes, and I am planning with the main yogi, Harmindra Ji, to do my sightseeing tomorrow after my morning of practice: the Ganga Aarti ceremony at Triveni Ghat. Wednesday my train leaves to go back to Delhi at 6:10 pm, and my driver is picking me up around 3:30. My laundry will be ready at 3:20 (talk about cutting it close! Hope it all works out but I am sure it will, even if I have to take wet/dirty clothes back with me). I will have time in the morning to do Hatha Yoga, shower, pack up, and checkout. Good thing I think I have just enough clothes to get me through till then.
Thursday my flight for Dharamshala leaves at 1:30 pm, and I should be at the airport at 11:30 am. Probably I will leave the hotel for the airport around 10 or 10:30. Namaste!
Shorter day today and thankfully I only spent money on lunch and some tips/donations (no huge shopping extravaganza!). My guide and I became buddies and I have to admit, I am having an excellent time. I really like India and this is maybe one of my most favorite trips I have ever taken! Crazy to think of all the ups and downs that preceded getting here. So far every person I have met is so friendly and I feel very well taken care of. Indian people are good people… and now I’m partial to Sikh people because my guide taught me so much about the religion. It’s not like I’m a VIP irl but I feel like one!
Today I visited…
Qutub Minar… large complex of monuments and ruins with the most amazing Arabic script carved into the facades… and the iron pillar, which has been there since the 4th century BC and has Sanskrit inscribed on it! I’m sorry, this place was more interesting to me than Pompeii in Italy or Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It will be cool to compare it to the ancient ruins in Greece someday.
The Lotus Temple – shout out to my boss’s boss, who is Bahá’í
Lunch at a very nice Indian and Chinese restaurant where I had a very unlikely meal of liver masala (I’m a freak for eating liver I know)
Then I sat with a snake charmer!!
Rashtrapati Bhavan, Raj Path, and surrounding government buildings (I guess the equivalent of the Washington D.C. mall and the White House, although the Rashtrapati Bhavan is bigger than the white house and Buckingham Palace)
Lastly a short metro ride… literally just as good as the tube in London, if not better, and almost exactly the same, down to the “mind the gap” recording. They dispense a token as your ticket with a rfid chip it. Tag it to get in, and deposit it to get out
My guide said he would miss me tomorrow when I go to Rishikesh, and actually I am going to miss him too!
Thank you to everyone who has made Delhi amazing, including Kawaljeet from Maavalan Travels, all the peeps at Colonel’s Retreat (my home stay accommodations, they are so awesome), my guide Paramjeet, and my driver Madan!
No pics today, hopefully I can add them later. Check out my Instagram for pics!
Let the record show! A humble list of places and proper names I visited today with my great tour guide Paramjeet Singhj!
Jama Masjid of Delhi (the third largest mosque in the world) (first location of locals taking photos with me)
Bicycle rickshaw tour of Old Delhim (that kid WORKED to move my fat ass and my tour guide’s, narrowly missing all make of moving objects in tiny winding streets with many a pothole)
Spice Market at Khari Baoli (chili spice so strong your throat burns)
Drove past the Red Fort several times and India Gate
Raj Ghat (memorial of Mahatma Gandhi) (2nd location of locals taking pictures with me)
Sri Bangla Sahib Gurudwara (largest Sikh temple in Delhi) (I made chapati in donation of the thousands of people they feed for free, and then ate free lunch with thousands; somehow my guide thought there was something about me that would be accepting of eating a simple meal of holy food)
Humayun’s Tomb & Isa Khan’s Tomb (where I met some very nice school children)
Shopping at Mughal Jewelry and Craft Emporium!! (there are no words for how much stuff I bought… and am so excited about!)
Came home to Facetime with my dad and his wife, discussed next parts of journey with my travel agent (so excited!), and had a nice dinner on the rooftop!!
Each time I step out in a foreign country by myself reaffirms the kernel of self-reliance I carry with me. If I can cross this busy-ass road in New Delhi,[1] I can teach this new daunting class at work. If I can attempt to get a sim card from Airtel after crossing the busy-ass road, I can handle my parents’ next health crisis.[2] If I can travel alone in India for more than two weeks, I can probably make it through the next five years of my life successfully—successfully meaning tending to my career, attempting a healthy lifestyle, continually maturing by being open to change and new people.
Travel isn’t about seeing something new as it is contrasting yourself to something new. The you that gets reflected back from the strange outer world is not the person reflected back in daily life at home. Necessarily.
Who needs such constant violent reminders of their capabilities? I don’t consciously. Not as strong as Belgium being purely an escape from family like it was for Jeremiah,[3] my urge to travel remains a built-in wanderlust that functions as a mild rejection from whence I came. All those years ago sitting in the high school gym as a freshman listening to some students tell their Belgian exchange stories, I conceived of Belgium as the most extreme option, the best option provided by my Christian high school to differentiate myself, and it would differentiate me more than going to punk shows, dressing in vintage clothes, dying my hair black, and accepting the freaks into my friend group. International travel appeared as a rejection of the social status quo. Yet in rejecting one’s origins, one subjects oneself to the violence of alienation. What can you live with? What can you live without? The more I have pushed myself to prove to myself I can do something that tests my limits,[4] the more I deprive myself from the known quantity and from stability. What a high! Delivering myself from the deprivation of comfort becomes a proxy for the biohacking substance abuse indulges in.[5]
Last time was cheating, except for Tenerife[6] (you have to fly off the coast of Africa to reach Spain in that case): London, Belgium, the Netherlands: the easy places with the familiar train stations and communicable languages. The time before that: Prague with a group of library school students: still cheating. The familiarity of western Europe demurs the violence of thrashing away the chaff from my self-reliance kernel. The violent absence of a mirror: I have nothing to reflect myself back, yet the other day looking at the western section of the Richmond District reflected in my mom’s cabinet glass door, I recognized Anders’s up-high Instagram panoramas. The same view from his apartment a block away. Only through a backward reflection did I recognize my own San Francisco neighborhood.
It’s 2:15 AM back home in California and everyone I’d want to talk to is asleep. Jet lag is catching up and I’m fighting my drowsiness by snacking and blinking and warming myself by the sun’s rays through the window. Early winter, Northern Indian. Light made golden through pollution and smoke falls lazily on the stone floor. The sun seems to be going down in the same direction it came up and I’m listening to the new Black Marble album which is like translating Amsterdam in fall of 2012 into the present moment in New Delhi because I listened to their first album over and over that fall in the lofted front room of Willem’s government-subsidized flat in Amsterdam’s Eastern Docklands. Another depressing time without lack of self-inflicted violence as a litmus test of stock: my constitution wasn’t strong enough and I returned. Yes the coroner confirmed those bones on the cliff were Jeremiah’s and I went back for the memorial service, which occurred to me as a cogent excuse to leave at the time, but it wasn’t inherently true. The truth only came when my surprise footsteps up the stairs of our apartment in San Francisco caused my mother such joy she cried. The best part of travel is coming home.
[1] https://twitter.com/bibliobebe/status/1204295827876990976
[2] My purpose in life seems to be carrying the cosmic weight of my parents’ wellbeing, because I am both an only child and an adult child of an alcoholic whose nobility is communicated through the female virtue of care giving, which I use here as a euphemism for codependence.
[3] Jeremiah, my high school lover who apparently died on a cliff in Big Tujunga Canyon sometime between 2010 and 2012, was part of our Belgian exchange program, class of 2001 group. He told me the only reason he went on the trip was to get away from his family for as long as possible. He listened to the same cassette tape of the Steve Miller Band on a Walkman every bus ride, and by some bad miracle was placed with a Belgian girl whose boyfriend supplied joints everyday.
[4] The most extreme example being flying to Argentina from New York City to hitch a ride across the Atlantic on an Italian cargo ship.
[5] Drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, doing drugs: all of it manipulates the body’s natural functions to deliver some feeling not easily attained otherwise (if at all). Yoga’s purpose is to be comfortable enough in the body to transcend the limitations physicality places on spiritual pursuits. Aging gracefully is reconciling the rivalry between mind and body.
[6] Not sleeping all night laying on Charlotte and Lizzie’s tiny studio floor in Shoreditch; hustling through rush hour in London on the tube to Gatwick; switching airplane seats with a British woman taking her tween daughter on vacation to the Canary Islands; the sweet paranoia and simultaneous dulling and heightening of senses when the edible comes on in the shower of the hotel room; eating a whole dark chocolate bar for dinner on my 35th birthday.
Drive through some forests and windy-ass roads wooded with Redwoods, park on the side of a road precariously close to a drainage ditch, watch Marin hippie chicks park vintage Mercedes coupes in the bushes. Chill through Hand Habits and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott just in time for the food truck to close and for the sun to go down and the wind pick up.
Good thing Cass played some oldies!! And good thing he played some newbies??
I didn’t catch who was on drums (a guy with long dark hair), but Noga Shefi continued from the European tour dates on bass, and Frank LoCrasto faithfully served on keyboards (I regretted to miss his opening set in support of his new solo album, Lost Dispatch!).
It was interesting to see the set-list tailored to the audience (there was definitely more of a deadhead vibe), and the set-list was a clear departure from the Tip of the Sphere supporting dates earlier this year. I think Cass knew there was going to be some old fans and some old idols in audience, and he gave us what we wanted.
Set-list
Rounder
Bum bum bum
Angel blood
I followed the river south to what
My master (yes!!!)
Laughter is the best Medicine
Prayer for another day (but sounds like it is mixed with something else, older, or dream girl?)
Unknown song (w female accompaniment) (one step forward two steps back) (second clip below)
Home on the range (more deadheaded out)
Burning of the temple
Big wheel
Unknown song - New song? (third clip below)
Sleeping Volcanoes
Encore:
County line
Bury Mary!!!!
Help me identify these songs!
This post was originally written on April 20 and 21, 2019
It’s an overcast morning in North Hollywood, which affords us an extra couple hours in which to sleep in, despite the active gardeners around the house in this neighborhood. Some work men also seem to be preparing the street for re-pavement, which sets off Greg’s worry that he will not be able to pull out of the drive way. It’s all going to work out despite my hosts’ preoccupation with the day’s to-do list, which admittedly is jam-packed with strenuous tasks, like a full day’s work in a temporary management position at Griffith Observatory, personal assistant work, and the chores of grounds maintenance that home owners have to look forward to.
They always tell me I don’t understand: I’m on vacation. It’s true, even though it feels like a normal weekend. When I visit Los Angeles—or, more specifically, NELA/NE San Fernando Valley—it is a vacation despite the chores of family. Visiting family imbues an extra layer to being in a place away from one’s permanent home. But even on the topic of permanent home, I am a little off-balance. Do I dare regard San Francisco as permanent home when I have spent little time there in the past few months?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
24 hours later and it’s an overcast Easter morning in Highland Park. Christie and the gang—myself included—have seemed to weather a massive Deadhead festival in Echo Park, even though few of us are actual Deadhead fans. Christie and I only went because we were bemused by the VIP “Horne Section” tickets that afforded us a brief meeting with bassist Dan Horne and some other goodies. I told Christie it’s an anthropological experiment. And honestly, the LA Deadhead scene is cool in people and vibe—a straight-up throw back to the 70s—and a bit more racially diverse than the Bay Area scene—but I came to realize through the course of the evening that I am not a fan of the music of the Grateful Dead, I am not a fan of the jam style delivered by Circles Around the Sun, and the worst part of it all is seeing so many people rock out and not feeling it—while, on the other hand, at all the Cass McCombs concerts, I rocked out like that, and hardly anyone else rocked out.
We’re sitting in the back dining room discussing the pitfalls of cats eating house plants and tripping on them. Christie bought this house from the grandparents of a girl we went to High School with, and it’s an atmospheric morning with the back sliding door open, ushering in the cool, moist morning. Birds are chirping—this whole weekend everywhere in LA the birds are chirping gayly—and it’s so clearly SPRING.
