Into Indo and the insides of my mind

Jolly Raka

Having arrived in Bali and ventured to its spiritual centre in Ubud, I spent a few blissfully relaxing  days in a beautiful little traditional  homestay with a gregarious and warm old, little Balinese man named Raka and his family. Sunrise strolls through lush green rice paddies with a backdrop of magnificently lustrous heaping tropical cumulus framed the decadent days, and I ate luxurious four course feasts of local dishes in solitary candle light by night. The prefect prelude to my first Vipassana which was set to begin on April 23rd ......

At the airport I was quickly cornered by another ataraxia aspirant, Peter. An airy fairy character of spacey countenance, Peter attempted to educate me awkwardly on a barrage of astrological and astronomical misinformation providing an stereotypical spiritual splurge to the entrance to my first hench medatitive experience. I found myself glazing over and staring vacantly out the window,  quietly reproaching myself for the conspicuous tan marks on several of my fingers from my long endentured ring wearing having removed them the day before for the onset of austerity. Not exactly the look of inherrent unadornement I would have preferred to have exume whilst undergoing 2,500 year old teaching on non-attachment passed down from the time fo the Buddha. On the two hour journey from the airport to the centre I suffered a slight headache. Prescient turmoil at the 10 days of potential suffering I was possibly about to endure, or resultant health implications the stack of sweet breads and muffins I'd eaten in anticipation of the scarily small sattvic diet I was soon to encounter. Who knows. But the niggling pain did, nonetheless, help me drown out Peter.

Guess who's who...

We'd picked up four other meditation students at the bus stop, and the six of us wound our way through the Javan countryside climbing high into the surrounding hills. Our space cadet astrobiologist fronted the taxi, the proximity having little effect on his bizarre and domineering musings, and an eccentric French woman with a floppy hat sat in the middle, besides a beautiful and calm French girl named Juliette who was sat seperating Peter from the slightly belligerent and short fused Brazillian to her right. I was compacted neatly in the very back besides the luggage, and was pleased to get out as we arrived at the rather uninteresting looking centre just south of Bogor. Signing in and relinquishing all our earthly possessions we chatted nervously, as the first of many electrical storms raged clamorously overhead, and waited for the bell to toll 8o'clock signifying the start of our imminent metanoia. Ten days without speech began. As the sun set that evening, it shattered the sky into a truly breathtaking spectrum of colour over the glorious layers of cirrus and altocumulus, dramatically marking the beginning of a beautiful, solitary journey.

Home for next 120 hours...

Days one, two and three dissolved away like the dissapating clouds. Bizarrely, I was excited to wake up at 4am and confront two hours of twilight meditation before breakfast at 6:30am. And although these soporific sessions weren't always my most progressive, a serene sense of calm came to me quickly as I began to settle into the technique. Regarding the method, so specific as it is, I don't think I could be more wrong in describing its facets here, as the unveiling of its content rolls on in perfect unison with the day by day structure of the course. However, overall it is an endeavour I would readily and enthusiastically recommend to anyone and everyone, friends and foes and family and beyond. To have known of its convention and developments before my own experience would have been a definitely robbed me of the reverence and revelation that comes naturally with its features. It was not as I expected, or could have expected, but I quickly developed a voracious appetite for its practice and a steady sense of serenity during the twelve hours of diurnal meditation sessions.

The fourth day was more difficult, with the novelty and intrigue wearing out and the pain and cramping of sitting cross legged for such long periods of time setting bitterly in. My knees were burning and my spine was beleagured by relentless shooting pains, leaving me weepy eyed during the first of three hour long daily sessions of discouraged movement that had just been introduced. All other meditators were shrouded in an ambience of ambiguity as we were drawn deeper into the noble silence from the evening of our arrival, and we conducted ourselves throughout the ten days in solitary confinement avoiding even an exchange of gaze which may disrupt our ongoing internal investigations. This however, excluded the exclamations of frequent and clamorous bowel movements from a flatulent Balinese woman who seemed unable to prevent a barrage of burps from spilling out disgustingly during our time in the communal hall. The accoustics so positioned to magnify their sound. Still, a good practice of neutrality and non-attachment I guess.

Day 5, despite being my lucky number took a dip in success and it was on the 6th that I gave myself the necessary gift of an accidental snooze at 5am being physically unable to keep my tired mind on the morning task of meditating. The food was uttterly fantastic, collected in breakfast and lunch portions before we fasted from midday. Toast with jams and even chocolate spread, fruit, tir frys, modest curries and rice were offered plentifully twice a day, all vegetarian of course. During break sessions which thankfully fractured the 12 hours of meditation I retreated to a small, tiled vestibule facing a distance of sweeping hills where I meticulously investigated a wealth of Indonesia's most interesting insects from magnificent moths, stag beetles and stick insects. I'd trace the busy lines of giant ants whilst conducting an hour of stretching after breakfast, and observe an ongoing myriad of spiny visitors whilst I waited for the evening discourse from the founder of new age Vipassana, a practice resurrected by a formideable yet fairly normal Indian man names Goenka, 50 years ago. Unfortaunately passing in September 2013, practicing under his guidance was now impossible, but the video supplements were a constant revelation and taught me more than I had expected to learn.

As the sun began to dip over the edges of the surrounding hills, our nightly vigil was accompanied by the relentless hum of a symphony of circada, the singing of birds and the flap of awakening bats. OVerhead, equatorial clouds billowed into deafening activity with nightly displays of spectacular lightening storms bringing cracks of thunder seemingly into the roof directly above our heads. One such tumultuous clap stirred me to deep and immediate terror, with a look on my face that must've been so inescapably funny that the girl sat on the far side of the room who had caught my look laughed aloud, challenging the noble silence. However, admittedly, some encroachments by hideously large coackroachs had left me and an American darting for cover and briefly exchanging a plan for ridding it within the confinements of our room.

Silent no more

As the final days drew to a close, each of the ten passing remarkably quickly despite the 120 of meditation and little else contained in them, I began feeling incredibly positive. Having read of turbulent emotional upheavals accompanied by physical illness stirred by the intensity of the meditation, I was pleased to have experienced a quite and constant succession of successes. A simple contemplative association with many thoughts, ideas and issues and a deepening of understanding left me feeling remarkably stable and aware of my unique state of mind. Completion of the course itself was a huge achievement, as well as the incredible progression of my previous uneducated and unrefined meditation practice. When the volunteer staff finally announced the end of our effors, it took a few moments before a tidal wave of discussion crashed upon us. We stayed up until 2:30am, despite being vaguely mortified we would still have to wake up at 4am for a final group meditation. Even the numinous network of other meditatiors so close which had previously empowered us for hours on end lacked some of its initial impact as we were now in communication and exchanging excited and congratulatory glances. The noble silence was truly an apt and powerful convention of the course, and I am so happy to have completed it. 

The clouds clear on our final day

North through 'Nam

Arriving at Mu Nei in the devillishly early hours of the morning partially concealed its deplorable nature, although I noticed through bleary eyes that we had careered past a multitdue of meretricous signs glowing garishly out into the night. I dropped my bag at a drunken European's homestay run by himself and his unimpressed Vietnemese wife, before we strolled to a nearby beachside trance rave where I was unfortunately quickly accosted by some inhebriated egotistical travellers and embroiled in some uninteresting gap yar chat before I surrupticiously slipped away beneath the palm trees to snooze on a sunbed outside a beautiful swanky resort. Having organised a taxi when i arrived, I met a Land Rover on the road at 4am ready to head to the huge rolling sandunes for a solitary, enchanting sunrise. How mistaken I was. What I found instead were small undulating waves of multi-nationals ignoring the disgracefully lustrous sunrise to the East in favour of hurtling giant gas-guzzling obstroerous dune buggies down westward hills to a maddening din which deystroyed the day's dreamy beginning somewhat. After several more stops on this bizarre and progressively random whistle-stop tour I'd become unwillingly complicit in, that included an uncomfotable 15 minute gawk a local fishing village, I decided to abscond inland to the coffee plantations of Da Lat.

The slightly chilier climate at an elevation of 1,500 metres proved bracing as I ventured out in the evening to be confronted by the buzz of an enormous bizarre along the central streets of Da Lat. Friendly gossiping Vietnemese women bobbed about behind mountainous mounds of sweet potatoes, strawberries and giant avacados whilst others sorted rigrorously through precipitous piles of endless eccentric homemade woolly garments. Thrift rails extended as far as the eye could see harbouring an intoxicatingly

exciting stockpile of retro Adidas numbers and anoracks fit for even the trendiest in East London at costs which made Primark look extortionate. Sweetcorn had become a fervent favourite of mine, and I scrupulously sniffed out the dish, which was presented in a variety of persistently delicious formats, in each country. So I busied myself sampling a disquieting abundance of street food before staggering, utterly turgid and uncomfortable, back to my room. I rented a motorcycle and cruised gleefully around the glorious hills of

the surrounding and memerising countryside, beckoned in to visit waterfalls and architectural gems managed consisely and compassionately by Vietnam's careful tourist attendants. The city had a beautifully warm feeling to it as, besides the unaltering amiability of its animated residents, the gorgeous rolling hills were carpeted with imaginative, colourful homes neatly organised in rambunctious order which were vaguely reminiscent of little alpine chalets nestled in the Alps. I loved my time there, particularly the

repeat evenings sat on 4 inch high plastic stools beside the most jocular sweetcorn lady I'd encountered, who developed the decadence of my evening dish with each of my increasingly enthusiastic visits.

I headed off to hug the coast North on my way to Hanoi for a flight to Indonesia. The next stop was the beaches of Nha Trang. Once again, rubbing the sleepy dust out of my drooping eyelids after a formideable sleeper coach journey, squeezed like a giant caucasian sardine into a space built for the Vietnemese minnow. I was unimpressed with my destination. The heavy footprint of tourism besmirched the crystal clear waters and expansive curve of white sandy shores with soulless towering hotels and impenetrable rows of sunbeds hosting progressively pinking Russians. I enjoyed a day of devouring

books on the beach, dipping lesiurely in the sea, and the day was saved by bumping utterly numinously into some lovely friendly Californians I'd chanced across and enjoyed a raucuous 5 minutes of hilarious interactions in Da Lat only the day before. During the brief encounter, we shared beers, pizza, details and promises of future rendez vous before I walked for my bus relishing the ability to enjoy such fleeting yet affable connections when in the blissful remit of itinerant wanderings. After approximately 6 oppressive hours in Nha Trang, I was bound overnight for Hoi An, about half way up Vietnam's eastern coast.

It was then that a sudden paniced prescience struck me as I teetered on the edge of slumber. I checked my flight ticket at which time I was confonted by the full ignominious glare of my latest flight mistake. I'd been labouring casually under the illusion I was flying in 4 days. In fact, that was the date I had left India on my previous voyage amonth before, and I was leaving from Hanoi, over 600km North in 48 hours. After a brief and torrid bout of silent self reproach I quickly slipped into fatalistic acceptance, planned a wistful days wandering around the gorgeous historical streets of Hoi An sampling a gut-busting barrage of street treats before an early morning strom to Hue, followed 6 hours later by an onward overnight whip to Hanoi, which should all get me in 4 hours before my flight if all went to plan.....

Arriving in Hue I was devestated at the thought of missing the chance to walk the infamous Demilitarized Zone, a barren border identified by the Geneva Conference in 1954 which ran the width of the country and spanned around 100km along the Ben Hai river, divided the fueding North and South. I had buried myself deep in the history when reading Kim Phuc's words which detailed her ordeal in the Vietnam war as a youth when she was excruciatingly scolded by napalm, an event which was captured as one of the most prominent photogrqphs of the war. And so, arriving at my appointed travel agents to pick up my ticketo Hanoi, I hatched a plan to travel North by bike to immerse myself briefly in the

inclement ambience of the place. What transpired was a daring and foolish plan to make flight 100km north with a hasty guide to visit various significant historical points before, due to time constrictions, intersecting the bus travelling north to Hanoi which would have been pre-loaded with my backpack by the agents hours before. My faith was entirely in the hopefully honest hands of the Vietnemese people.... Despite a gut wrenching delay of 45 minutes at a seemingly deserted food hall on the side of a darkening highway, the bus eventually arrived with my bag (in tact, everything accounted for) and the reputation of the wonderful Vietnemese shone as brightly as their unfaultering smiles. I had got to walk the demilitarized divide before climbing through the dank, frighteningly dark Cong tunnels of night with the company of a most gregarious young guide or more accurately: random citizen with a bike, as he turned out to know next to nothing about the Vietnam war, other than its name, and actually seemed very interested and recptive to all I had to tell him about it. Still, I had fulfilled my goal, made the most of the drastic alterations to my hashed travel plans, and was en route to make my flight from Hanoi.

Unfortunately, and unbelievably, tempers quickly rose on my final bus journey to Hanoi as the ireverently irascible driving duo became a dominatingly volitile presence throughout the journey. From the outset theyd violently whalloped me with a slipper as I bought a few flecks of dusk in on the sole of my foot and inexplicably trangressed into spitting fury in the blink of a terrifying eye for the duration of the journey. Any sound that emitted from my small, uncomfortable bed/seat at the front of the bus resulted in furious reproach with the driver systematically beating his fist against his head, however they were nonetheless bizarrely impervious to the incessant beeping coming from the dash board which went unnoticed for the entire 8 hours. The amoebic assistant smoked throught his shift in the early hours undercover of night thinking we were all asleep, but hastily struck a little 19 year old English girl, patiently holding an unignited cigarette in her hand, with the full fury of a subsequent slipper after which I had no choice but to launch a swift leg extension right into his chest in defence, sending him tumbling backwards onto the lap of the driver. Such a bizzare and bellicose contrast to the delightful people I'd met in this country. However the whole fiasco provided a pretty hilarious story which was met with uncontrolled teary hysteria when I told my sister of the events...

The oppressive and insane men reminded me of a solemn incident I'd come breifly across in Hoi An. A lovely gregarious woman who, despite her perhaps alterior motive to embroil me in some sort of tailoring serivce at her mother's shop several minutes away which unfortunately for her did not culminate in a sale, showed herself to be a most warm and friendly soul on the walk, yet revealled a dark shred of her past in the form of a lengthy scar on her face. A heavy handed husband was to blame and she'd escaped worse injury to live alone. Such a shame that during my final few hours in Vietnam several derranged individuals set about deconstructing my faith in the people, and questioned the wholesome expansive family values I'd noticed first hand with a harrowing shadow of brutal patriarchy. Given all that the country has been through, I can only hope that that widespread peacefulness I almost always observed is the progressively prevalent ideology. Having said this, had I too had a plastic slipper on the bus, I may have used it liberally.

Upwards then onwards to Indonesia!

Venturing toward Vietnam

We absquatulated from the cultural traipsing to enjoy some well earned relaxation on the South coast of Cambodia, revelling in our exotic global conference in an appropriately luxurious setting. We stopped off in Sihnaoukville which is the surrupticious gateway to Koh Rong, a little known backpacker island jaunt off the coast, and coinsided this pitstop perfectly with a well timed rain and thunderstorm as we wallowed in the shallows off the beach. A rickety old boat took us and some beers two hours South into the seas, and we arrived on a tiny paradisiacal white sand beach. Cambodia had been somewhat shockingly expensive so far, when compared with the furious frugality of India, especially as everything is dealt with by the dollar, and our $35/night beach hut was no exception. However, the ten metre proximity with the sonorous gentle lapping of the sea really made it a steal...

Rising for yoga at dawn was a celestial breeze, and sunrises on the deserted early morning beach were beyond radiant. We ate exquisitely well, hula hooped on the beach and sipped beers in charming little sylvan shacks. The steadily increasing amorous (I think) raillery reached new heights in our solitary trio and Josh and I were bickering benevolently like borderline violent siblings. From the all too frequent assertions, I think people may have began to think my name was actually 'sket...'.

Two more nights in Sinaoukville at the quaint wooded labyrinth hostel Footprints concluded our time in Cambodia. We boarded an ill-fated bus bound for Viet Nam which proceeded to break down in the darkness aside a dusty deserted old road. The ill-tempered drivers suited the scenario impeccably. When our sweaty worn out forms crested the busy skyline of Ho Chi Min City, previously known under French jurisdiction as Sai Gon, the other three members of our caravan sought out a beastly Burger King before we headed for our hostel. Having checked in, we headed for the botanical gardens having been utterly fleeced by an insidious quadret of cyclo riders. However, the ride was devillishly fun and we laughed gaily as we careered in convoy through the rushing traffic. The botanical gardens turned out to be linked to a city centre zoo which we sensibly opted to avoid, instead venturing into a bizzare museum which seemed to be loosely trying to chronicle the anthropological history of South Viet Nam. The day was capped off by langourously relaxing in the humidity with beers at a swanky streetside bar whilst being gently massaged by a passing hawker for the equivalent of three pounds. I didn't even feel bad.

I woke early next morming for a solitary trip to the nearby Cu Chi tunnels. During the Viet Nam war, the communist North and its guerilla Viet Cong army stealithily snuck soldiers and supplies down the forested Ho Chi Min trail which at the height of combat snaked 10,000km down the Western coast of Viet Nam occasionally dipping into Laos and Cambodia unfortunately sealing their fate in the crossfire of the conflict. The Cong became infamous and deeply feared for their subversive tactics utilising all of nature's offerings in their weaponary from traps to tree trips wires. The Cu Chi tunnels were dug over 25 years to house 16,000 Viet Cong in their subterranean holes. The dizzying matrix included homes, schools, meeting rooms, supply stores, rudimentary hospitals and functioned as robust underground lodgings for the left opposition to battle the Southern armies and their mercinary Americans with Russian rifles running around using Chinese torches. The brief and somwhat passé picture we were required to watch initially, alongside our overzealous guide, were in no way reserved with their rigorous reproach for the evil American imperialists who 'like a crazy batch of bats' attacked Viet Nam's people, making me all of a sudden deeply greatful for my irrefutable Bristish accent which having come recently from India was a refreshing change. This time I was free of the imperial interference implicit of Western inclusion in recent Eastern history.

Discussing tactics

No more than 40cm in width, the tunnels were wide enough for surrupticious Vietnamese soldiers to slip through, and anything but a possiblity for many of the turgid Western men in our cohort. The Cong utilised a myriad of clever adaptations to attempt to make life underground as comfortable and safe as possible. Disguised airholes provided ventillation, particularly whilst cooking which was done only at dawn when mist and fog concealed the smoke. The relentless bombing overhead caused frequent casualties but also served to strengthen the clay rich soil fortifying the Cong's strong hold inadvertently and providing smooth tracks for the down pours of rain to sweep quickly through and out preventing flooding. Exploded shells were recycled into rudimentary but devestating bombs to use in ironic retaliation against the ememy. I took the oppourtunity to gingerly lower myself into one of the tiny holes, shutting the small clandestine wooden lid over my head, which would have been scattered with leaves to prevent detection, and was submerged in a damp and disquieting quiet environment for but a few dark moments, imgaining darting off in combat, before I happily reemerged into normality. It was a staggering trip which offered a stark perspective on the sacrifices and hardships endured by the Cong, and the terrifyingly grisly yet resourceful guerilla prowess encounteres by the enemy.

 

I really loved Ho Chi Min City and the amiable buzz from its warm and helpful inhabitats. Refusing the offer of a taxi was a simple yes no affair with no fear of unrelenting repatition and bombardment. The abundance of motorbikes, perhaps 6 million for the 9 million people that populate the city were a maddening din which provided endless fun dodging the oncoming throng to simply cross a road. On my final evening, our caravansary cohort caught an eccentric little endemic water puppet show expertly organised by Mia (the trip that is, not the show itself). An elderly 6 man band serenaded us with strident stringed instruments and played the voices of many towns folk as wooden idols threw themselves crazily around the little watery stage alongside cryptic Vietnemese narration. An excellent adventure, slightly improved by the sneaky beers we'd smuggled in and some adlib narration of our own. I left Mia and Josh to begin my journey North, and regrettably I was going to miss Josh's acerbic vitriol and malicious disdain, and Mia's friendship during my travels which included the inevitable ascertion she would always hold my tickets for me having organised our group travel. With a final goodbye embrace with Mia and a reluctant perfuntory hug from Josh I hopped onto the bus laden with lassis, cakes, crisps and other fancies to accompany some reclined book reading en route to Mui Ne. The buses in Viet Nam were a vast improvement on, well, anywhere I'd been so far and a drastic leap from transport in India, the steady improvement of which closely resembles the evolution of mankind from its early lumbering ape antiquity to the more sophisticated sauntering creature of today.