Birthday on the Ganga

We had such fun in Varanasi. We were floating on the Ganges (called Ganga) at dawn on my birthday, Nov 27, and we were at the ghats in the evening for puja. People were very moved at seeing the Indian people worship by swimming and bathing in this river goddess. And they also witnessed the burning crematoriums even though at the time we were there, no bodies were being burned.

What a place to celebrate my birthday - in this holiest of Hindu cities.

We even shopped on the Ganga as boat merchants pulled up alongside us. I swear we were the "shoppingest" group I ever saw. At some points on the river trip, Delwood and Randall took over for our oarsman. I'm sure that has never happened to him before.

Basically we shopped till we dropped onto massage tables for various treatments in Varanasi.

We visited a huge Shiva temple and the famous Hanuman Monkey temple. People went for a short trip to Saranath where Buddha gave his first speech after enlightenment, but I did not go since I began feeling ill on my special day.

Despite my stomach starting to do flips and being stuffed up hardly able to breathe, we had a fabulous birthday celebration and I felt completely honored by people's love. We drank champagne and wine. We ate a beautiful "chocolate" birthday cake first before having dinner - that's how they do it in India - just like the Gate Dinner in the Ecstasy workshop. And we did a wonderful exercise over dinner with the Goddess Mandalas.

That I night when I went to bed, I had to put tissue up my nose so I could get some sleep without my runny nose waking me up all night.

And in the morning I vomited 5 times. On our way to the airport, I felt numb, like I had left my body. I could feel nothing. I must have been in deep survival mode. Of course there was a big drama too because we had to leave for the airport earlier than expected. Our flight had been rescheduled to leave earlier than our tickets stated. And Randall and Marie were out shopping! It was one of those wild rides praying all the way that they would get back to the hotel in time to just hop into a taxi and meet up with us. Surely that is what did happen, but it was tense there for about 1/2 hour.

Then in the airport, while I was standing in the line with my ticket, I started getting sick again. Oh my god! I was embarrassed as hell, but what could I do? The restrooms were worse than where I was standing and I just could not help it by getting myself to them in time. So, there I was bent over in a corner being sicker than I can ever remember. Then I sat down in a wheel chair to wait for the group and tried to come back to my senses. The nicest man started to push me through the lines. So, I stayed in the chair and and began to enjoy myself despite it all. Surrender? Ya think?

I sat next to Andrea and Catherine and went to sleep on the 40 minute plane ride to Khajuraho. I felt so out of it and then, we had what you might call a crash landing. Yes, it seemed our pilot dropped us right out of the sky onto the tarmac. Since I was in such a deep sleep, I actually thought we either had died or were going to die shortly and I hoped it would be quick invoking very little pain. Andrea started to laugh at me when I told her. She assured me we were alive.

Okay then. Off we stepped to meet Seepu and find our way to the crescendo of the tour. Stay tuned.

Namaste,
Laurie