April 16th: Tarija in Southern Bolivia

On April 16th 1976 I was in Tarija in Southern Bolivia.  It was Good Friday.

Tarija felt quite remote, a deep valley behind mountains.  I suppose there were buses, but I came in and left on trucks and the roads were all gravel or dirt.  Coming from Bermejo, on the Argentina border, we had begun in jungle and had a steep rise to real cold puna, with few people around, before descending after dark to the city at 6000 feet.  The truck had been friendly and quite full by the end, though many passengers didn't speak Castellano.   Leaving on Easter Monday and heading for Potosi, we climbed slowly out of the green valley up to the Cruz at Kilometre 40 and onto roads I'd been on before on the trip to Villazon.

This day was Good Friday and I was interested to see what there would be in the way of Easter festivities.  The day before in the late morning I caught a parade which included Hugo Banzer, the president, and the bishop, coming from the church and going round the square; then the parade of the townspeople began.  There had been another parade in the evening but these parades had seemed largely secular.  The Good Friday parade came about 5.30 in the evening, a Christ statue in a brown robe, Mary in black vestment and coffin, then two bands and the army, many people joining in the walk around.  It seemed pleasant and happy, informal.  Later as I was finishing eating in a street market, there was a second procession from the church on the hill, even less formal. A glass coffin lit by a car battery, hung with marigolds, and statue of Mary, many people, more ordinary people this time, some prayers and a little singing.  I sat in a cafe and the procession passed me.

On the Saturday with a friend I took a truck ride to San Lorenzo, a tiny colonial town nearby, to see if we could find more of the bags and other handicrafts I had seen in the market in Tarija.  The truck was very crowded so I could see little, but the Indian ladies were fun to watch in their flat cream or grey hats with a complicated flat grey bow.  San Lorenzo was actually very quiet and I didn't find the bags.  There was a pleasant bridge over a stream where we had lunch, then we walked through simple  rocky streets , with some attractive balconies and courtyards around the adobe.  Back in Tarija in the evening, everyone was drinking chicha, the Indian maize beer, straight from the gourd.  The town was busy until late.

Finally on Easter Sunday, I saw, from a distance, another small religious procession. By the evening the celebrations were secular again, with a big boxing match in the stadium, and a band and crowds of people in the plaza.

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April 12th: Amritsar

On April 12th 1973, or thereabouts, I was in Amritsar. 

We drove up the Grand Trunk Road from Delhi, which was not as difficult a drive as it had been in the less developed areas to the east where we had tried to avoid it, as we had other main roads.  We had a puncture and I remembered a friendly man on a small motorbike stopping to see if he could help us.   Amritsar was our first stopover on the journey back to Europe, we had been there before in November 1972 and we were looking forward to visiting the city again.

As we approached, it gradually became clear that there was unusual traffic heading for the city.  Thousands upon thousands of people were arriving from every direction.  We could see all sorts of vehicles joining from every side road, mostly trucks and pickups.  The people were mainly country Sikh men with loose white clothes, long beards and straggly turbans.  In the city it looked as if they were heading for the Golden Temple.  When we finally got to visit the temple there were long queues of these people waiting to get in, while others were leaving, carrying pieces of mud in any sort of container.  We were ushered into the temple which felt quite  different from the previous visit.  The water had all been drained out of the tanks and worship was largely suspended.  Meanwhile the visitors were all taking amorphous piles of mud from the lake and carrying it away.  The lake was being cleaned.

This process is called Kar Sewa and does not happen often.  The previous one had been fifty years before in 1923.  The lake was cleaned twice in the Eighties after army operations, to clear weapons and the bodies of victims.  There was one more Kar Sewa in 2004 and some resources are available on this, pictures and words.

I would return to Amritsar in October 1978.

April 11th: Kathmandu

On April 11th 1979 I was in Kathmandu.  In the six years since my previous visit Kathmandu had grown up considerably.  There was traffic in many areas, though Durbar Square in the heart of the city was still quiet.  Freak Street had lost its hash shops but gained more freaks and pie shops.  Pig Alley was still there behind Durbar Square with its shrines and lingams, and pigs ferreting around in piles of filth and running sewage.  It did, however, feel like a real city now and I most enjoyed getting out and visiting the temples and other places around the outskirts.

On this day I walked up to the temple of Swayambhu on top of a hill to the west.  It is primarily a Buddhist site though it is revered by nearly everyone, and the devotion to its goddess is thought to protect against smallpox.  I left my shoes at the bottom of the staircase and climbed up as with one puff.  At the top I walked around the stupa and fended off small boys and a well-dressed "I am poor man, I am beggar-boy" youth.  I sat in the courtyard of the library, surrounded by filth and flies and ducks, and recorded this:

Swaymabhu 2009:  Picture by Ingmar Zahovsky, CC

The site here so colourful, dirty, smelly, mediaeval.  I'm sitting on the edge of the ground floor meeting place on the library side, there are pillars and bells and a little stupa between me and the great eyes and the gold steeple of 13 discs rising to the sky and decked with flags of five colours.  A lot of country women in bright red were going round and lighting the lamps when I was there, scarlet dresses and black hair.  Dogs lie about in the sun, monkeys steal food and pigeons peck in the piles of rubbish.  A group of beggar children cluster round me.  Grains or seeds in white, brown and red lie in front of some Buddha statues to collect the sunlight.  Little girls in rags with snotty-nosed baby sisters on their backs, eyes streaming.  A boy monk plays with a green ball.  To my left is the gold temple with the silver door - I imagine it is to the goddess of smallpox, it's so ornate, two-storey pagodas, flags and bells hanging, and a gold version of the flag of Nepal on either side of the doorway.  A black goat with a little bell looks for food and Westerners take photos.

The Square at Bodnath:  Picture by Richdrogpa, CC

Another time with a friend I took a late afternoon bus out to Bodnath, the main Buddhist site.  The stupa at first seemed a little hostile, too touristy; there were beggars as you walked around and Tibetans selling things, but it seemed better in the evening light as the Tibetans came out to pay their reverence.  We climbed up on top and looked at the square and the stupa from a grandstand point.  Then we drank chang in a very pleasant shop, a little pub atmosphere, rose-garden and good chang, and only 4 rupees to get us a bit tipsy, a Westerners' place, a group of Americans and English who talked in loud voices.  The whole square at Bodnath is surrounded by fine high buildings which could be from a mediaeval European city; the front rooms of the chang shop were made of stone with wooden benches and tables.

Best of all was Pashupatinath, the principal Shiva temple on a bend of the river.  I went with friends on rented bicycles and found the temple relaxed and not crowded.  I wrote this up in my journal that day:

Pashupatinath, 2005:  Picture by Xitus, CC

Pashupatinath very beautiful.  We sat on the other side of the river among the shrines, sometimes among the tourists and the beggars and the hustlers.  We watched a crazy young sadhu in red fine clothes, shouting "Bom" and casting his stick at various dogs and monkeys, a real exhibitionist, hurling himself frontwards and backwards in the thin stream of the river, a group of boys to watch; another quiet sadhu was a bit bemused, we were laughing out loud.  And then up the hill to the peaceful sanctuary there, a group of shrines with houses, sanctuaries for sadhus, mad women and a guy with bad elephantiasis.  Such a beautiful spot.  Then we walked over the hills, getting too close to an army camp. 

Otherwise Durbar Square, the heart of Kathmandu was always worth a visit.  I could sit high up on one of the temples, admiring the carvings, lions perhaps, and the carved windows which no one seemed to notice.  Below I could watch the movie, of freaks and tourists, and various shades of Nepalis, ordinary men in tight white trousers and colourful hats, barefoot women carrying heavy loads, whether in local dress or wearing colourful saris.  Finally I made a visit, again by bicycle, to Patan, another city but almost a suburb of Kathmandu.  It had its own Durbar Square, and with its dirty streets, high narrow town-houses and wooden pagodas, and it was not unlike Kathmandu.  

Patrimonium Mundi has many panoramas of Kathmandu.  These include Durbar Square, Pashupatinath, Bodnath, Swaymabhu and Patan. 

Kathmandu, Durbar Square, 2009:  Picture by Shoestring, CC

April 10th: Resistencia in Northern Argentina

On 10th April 1976 I was in Resistencia in northern Argentina, being held in a police station.  I had decided to try to get from Iguassu up into the Andes in Bolivia for Easter, seeing Asuncion in Paraguay on the way.  It would have been too slow and difficult to go directly across the Chaco, but there was obviously a risk involved in going back into Argentina in the wake of the coup at the end of March.

I took a bus from Asuncion to the River Paraguay, got the ferry across into Argentina and a bus to Formosa through flat watery countryside.  In Formosa I changed buses and pulled into Resistencia in the late afternoon.  I checked into a hotel at the bus station and went back downstairs and immediately got arrested.  I was stopped by a man carrying one of those trays hanging from his neck selling lottery tickets or chewing gum, things of that sort.  They were rounding up people who seemed to be not local, but one of those they rounded up was a popular local coach driver.  The officer in charge appeared drunk.  I was taken to the police station and held in a room with others.  At first this included a young New Zealand couple I had met before; the woman was fairly distressed and I think they were soon allowed to go to a room on their own and I heard later that they had been released quickly.  I was taken upstairs for questioning but I had nothing to hide.  I was lucky that I had a book to read in my bag and I managed to get some sleep on the floor when I was given my turn of one of the communal sheets. 

In the morning, a Sunday morning, we were taken across the plaza for finger-printing; we spent much of this time standing or sitting in a small alley but the atmosphere was not threatening.  This was when I felt confident that nothing serious was afoot; the coach driver had waved at lots of his friends as were taken around town in our line and he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed and we all felt better.  We were driven back to the police station on the back of a Willys after midday.  In the afternoon I felt confident enough to write in my notebook: 

Been with the police now for 22 hours.  I'm writing with everyone around watching, making me slightly afraid that the self-styled bastard guarding us will take this book away and tear it up.  But I have something of a need to write.  There's about thirty people here, maybe half are around twenty and a couple are older and very responsive to any orders, "yes sir", certainly sir."  Radio playing, football match earlier, now English music, maybe Rod Stewart.

The bastard is smallish, well dressed like many of the cops, smart trousers and blazer jacket, key chain of course, aged 32 he said, carries his list of names and worries that we are all present here.  Moves between attempted jocularity and barking orders, he keeps us sweeping the floor, feet off the beds, he stood one guy in the corner for reading a discarded police paper, and two of the kids for looking at a photograph.  The girls herded upstairs were made to wash the six or so sheets we have.  The window from this room looks at the stairs, so when the girls come down everyone looks up their skirts, "Rico" they say.  Two guys seem to live here.  I don't know their exact status, cops surely, but they lie on the beds all the time.  I've been suspicious of informers.  It looks like we're heading for the second day, and my chances of making it somewhere interesting by Easter are receding.  The people here are decent by and large, poor for the most part, most had their documents in order as far as I know.

I was let out after almost exactly twenty-four hours and I suspect that was the maximum I could be held for.  I went back to the hotel and explained things to the landlady who had been concerned at my absence but was probably used to such goings on.  I went out into town and had a large gin and tonic, sitting outside with relief, not wanting to be in any sort of room. 

The next day I had to hang around waiting for a night bus across to Salta in the west, rather than trying to take a train from Corrientes across the river, which I thought might be more risky.  In fact I got stopped three more times by the police before I left; one policeman recognised me and tried to shake my hand in some sort of apology.  I spent much of the time in the huge square, reading and jotting this in my notebook, to make a contrast from the police station:

I'm in the town still, and in the great big plaza, where you can't see across to the other side, but can wander almost lost, without direction, amongst the palms and pea-trees and flowering bottle-brush trees.  It's a well-planned park and it is taken care of, a bit, but much of the grass has given way to dusty chaos.  I'm waiting for a student who said he'd like to talk but it looks like he won't show.

Plaza in Resistencia, 2006:  Picture by Fernando Pacullo, CC

It's definitely Argentina this town.  There's a flashy street called Tucuman but not too much of it, the style doesn't overwhelm.  The streets around the plaza are not for much, offices, little usual cafes, shuttered shops.  An old Mercedes bus drives around, and groups of old men sit in the dust, opposite rows of American taxis and beige buildings.  There are gypsies in the square, in their colourful clothes and platform shoes and scarlet kerchiefs, whistling and shouting, half-begging.  Shoeshine kids.  A pair of young lovers, tight clothes almost bursting as they snatch a furtive kiss.  But mostly just people, tired and grey, walking slowly, not doing much. 

In the end I got off the bus before Salta at Guemes, where I went north via Oran to the border crossing into Bolivia at Bermejo.  I thought it better to stick to the smaller towns and less travelled roads until I finally got out of Argentina.

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April 7th: Rajgir in Bihar, India

On April 7th 1982 I was in Rajgir in Northern India.  I remember the few days I stayed there as some of the hottest I have experienced. 

Rajgir is a little Bihar town partially surrounded by a number of hills.  The old end of town is historical, mostly ruins and it is one of India's most ancient settlements.  It contains the "Vulture's Peak" where Buddha is said to have preached.  There are Jain temples and Mahavira too passed many years there.  There also is a Hindu bathing place with hot springs.  All in all it is a pilgrimage place for many different religions.   On the hills were even more ancient walls and a new Nichiren stupa.  The modern town extends into the plain but seemed very unmodernised except for a collection of decaying hotels which were empty in that season; it was too hot. 

I stayed at a Nature Cure ashram, where they followed a Gandhian style; there was a Krishna feel with mantras recited by individuals and also played over loudspeakers.  They did a good meal at lunch which I tried to attend, but apart from that I stayed in my room during the heat of the day.  I tried to explore early in the morning while it was not overbearingly hot. The electricity in the town kept failing and that led to water failures, which made the hot springs attractive.

This day it was cloudy, there was thunder, and it even rained a little on a few occasions which kept the day a very little bit cooler.  In the morning after a dawn hot bath I walked up to the Nichiren Shanti Stupa (Peace Pagoda).  I looked at all the various ancient monuments and walked through some pleasant forest on the old road.  I sat up at the top among all the ancient walls and on the way down I looked into Vulture's Peak, where Buddha preached, atmospheric but shadeless in the emerging sun.  At the top I wrote in my notebook:

Rajgir, 2007:  Picture by Chandan, CC

I'm at the top of Chhatha Hill, sitting on a rocky pinnacle looking out over the plain to the east.  The plain is dull green or brown, a few scattered houses, you have to go some distance to find a proper village.  A big thunderstorm has moved off in that direction away to my right, the wind still swirls around me and the sun tries to come through.  I hear the beating of the drum in the temple and the endless chanting of the mantra like a moan.  I'm not tempted to join in, though the monk had a sweet smile.  Excited voices of Indian tourists going round the stupa.  The stupa is most impressive in its nobility and concept.  These hills wooded, good trees, some look autumnal with yellow leaves falling away, while new shoots appear on others.  At my feet a tree is in flower, a beautiful yellow flower with a golden centre and a bright green leaf.  What I take to be a euphorbia beside it, and then one of those prehistoric looking trees with bare red bark, no leaves and bunches of flowers at the tips.  Bulbuls and warblers all around.

The pinnacle I am on may be part of these old walls which roam all across these hills, at least 6th Century BC.  Certainly other nearby stones are part of the walls but this big one might naturally sit here.  This is one of the finest features of Rajgir, and supposed to be the oldest piece of architecture in India outside the Indus Civilisation.

Nalanda Temple:  My picture

The day before I had been to the baths and then on an excursion to the ancient Buddhist university at Nalanda.   I staggered up at 5 to walk to the hot spring in the dawning light.  The bath was good and it was interesting to watch the people at such close quarters doing their washing pujas, bowing to four quarters, tossing water at the images.  No one took much notice of me, and if they did it was friendly.  My only scruples lay in an insignificant sign "Non-Hindus not allowed" which probably referred to the baths keeping untouchables out. They seemed to make an exception for foreigners here, but didn't allow in those dark skinned miserables who occupied the mud houses near the road outside.  After a puri breakfast I got on a bus to Nalanda, a good excursion.  At first in the ruins I felt the sun, but the initial impression was very good, for instance the big temple with the Gupta stuccoes, and sitting under the shade of a big tree in the pretty grounds.  Around the site temple 2 and Monastery 1 - really big - were the most impressive, but the museum was disappointing: I think I had seen all the best stuff in Delhi.  Afterwards I walked into the nearby village of Baragaon to look at the Surya temple there, giving me an excuse to see the village.  I saw another little temple first, which had marble fittings, and then an old man showed me round the Surya temple which had a good atmosphere, and fine images including an Avalokitesvara and a Parvati, presumably Pala.  It was situated in a picturesque little back street, with harmonium music coming from next door. 

The Saptaparni Caves, 2007:  Picture by BPG, CC

Before I left I walked over the Vaibara Hill, seeing the old Jain temple and the Mahadevi Shiva temple, and got caught by a pujari at the Jain temple.  I sat awhile looking over the town at the Saptaparni caves, where the first Buddhist Council was held after Buddha's death.  Finally I ascended to the highest Jain temple.  There I found perfect peace, above even the woodcutters and with beautiful views in the hot sun, just the birds, a few butterflies and me.  On my way down there was the  surprising sight of people being taken up in litters, little wooden and rope affairs with 2 porters each, maybe 10 altogether and one or two quite young women amongst the passengers.

Nalanda Monastery:  My picture

April 6th: Khartoum

On April 6th 1981 I was In Khartoum, making final preparations for returning home.

Khartoum at Sunset:  My picture

Mary and I spent only a little over a week in Khartoum.  Getting my papers right turned out to be quite easy: I suppose I had put in all the hard work in Juba.  We toyed with coming back via Egypt but decided against it for one reason or another.  We stayed in the Grand Hotel as it cost only a little more than the dump we started out in.  The Grand was the turn of the century hotel built for Thomas Cook's early Nile Cruises.  It still had its lovely lines but was getting a little seedy; everything was there but nothing worked quite right.  One attraction was the swimming pool, one of the few in Khartoum, but they started emptying it within an hour of our checking in and it never got refilled.  Still the river views were good.  I carried on with the process of trying to fatten up; this included the giant, everything imported from France, eat all you like buffet at the Meridien Hotel; fine for me but Mary wasn't getting filled on the salads which passed as the vegetarian options.

I made a quick farewell trip over to Tuti Island and enjoyed once again the country in the middle of the city.  We did a trip over into Omdurman and walked around the souk, but my heart was not in it.  I was ready to go home.

I ran into many old friends as the teachers started to come back after the teaching was over.  The teachers in the north seemed more satisfied than those in the south and there was plenty of talk of coming back.  My friend Richard had done a great trek with a horse called Huxley out near the Chad border.  Some people from the far north had been starting camel journeys.  Indeed I'd heard of one teacher who had been doing real desert journeys: Michael Asher's book "In Search of the Forty Days Road" would be published in 1984, providing great evidence that Sudan was at that time one place in the world where ways of life remained which were unconnected to the modern world.  He may have made some of the last great journeys that remained to be made by Europeans.

Omdurman Souk:  My Picture

April 4th: Lake Naivasha in Kenya

On April 4th 1980 I was at Lake Naivasha in Kenya.

Hell's Gate:  My picture

Hell's Gate was a small valley formed out of some dried up prehistoric Rift Valley river.  It lay just over the hill behind the SULMAC flower farm, which has always been controversial internationally, but attracted workers from all over Kenya and gave its name to the village on the west side of the lake.  I had been to the mouth of the valley a couple of days before with a larger party and a Pokot guard from the flower farm.

This time I went to see what birds we could record with one of my friends and a more experienced Danish birdwatcher - (in 2 days around Naivasha we recorded 125 species.)  After passing the flower farm, we found a way to walk over the hillside and through a little pass.  Here we disturbed an eland which tried to come down a steep path the way we were going up.  It was exciting to be so close to such a large antelope, and no doubt dangerous as well.  We sat up on the cliffs for much of the middle of the day looking down on the valley which forms the gate.  At this height we were level with the lammergeyers when they were settling or taking off on their long sorties for prey.  Sometimes animals like giraffe and zebra would come by.  More typical and more interesting were the small antelope and hyrax which lived around the rocks.  To be out on foot in what was to all intents and purposes wild Africa was wonderful; we saw no other humans during those hours, but the wildlife was all around us.

The next day we went out again, this time by the lakeside down by the Safariland Hotel where there was a good range of water and garden birds.  This was a much more humanised environment.  As I came out of the hotel grounds I got swept away by the excitement of the Safari Rally which was passing at that time.  I took a matatu back to the Sulmac village and we were overtaken by a couple of the faster cars which seemed exciting.

I returned to Hell's Gate at the end of 1984 and it had become a National Park. You could still walk about but there were already more people around.  Maasai were driving their cattle through the valley and the lammergeyers were not to be seen.

Safari Rally at Naivasha:  My picture

Sulmac Village at Naivasha:  My picture

Garden of Safariland Hotel.  My picture from 1984

Hell's Gate in 1984:  My picture

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