It’s all starting to make perfect sense to me now. Meditation is the only antidote to the noise and chaos that is everyday life here. Without it, even a reasonable person might find the only other way out of this constant assault on the senses, is death… but then again if you believe you will simply be reborn back into this place…
We started today with a flood in the hall outside our room. Waking at 7am to the sound of straw brushes swishing water around haphazardly and other guests yelling to each other about it - right outside our not-so-sound-proof door. Then the water in our bathroom shut off (predictably) and it was shortly followed by the toilet backing up and over-flowing. Sadly, this was almost predictable too!!! The real question was, how long could I hold it and could we find an even half-clean public bathroom in the next few hours? Unlikely. Luckily, I have a remarkable bladder and easily managed to down a soupy breakfast and plenty of chai before first checking email, then finding a relatively clean public facility.
Next stop, travel agent. We purchased some outrageously priced “emergency” rail tickets last night after discovering all trains out of Gaya were booked for days to come and we needed to pick them up from him today. The man was a crook! We discovered this morning that although we asked for a train that left on the 20th from Gaya, he actually booked us on the train that left Calcutta on the 20th and stopped to pick us up on the 21st!!! Non-refundable. And he we go again for another night in Bodhgaya! I could have strangled him. He knew it too and I watched as his eyes pleaded with Osman to control his wife. No such luck, I let him have the full (loud) wrath of my anger and stormed off. His voice calling “madam, madam… madam!…” in the background. In truth, if I had thought he made a genuine mistake I would have gone easier on him, but last night he made a big show of taking cell phone calls and trying to sound important as we sat in front of him. He interrupted us and yelled past us to one of the young boys working there to bring him chai. What an ass! Negligent and incompetent, but still with his large ego intact.
Last chore for the day… find a new hotel. An UPGRADED one. We found one a good deal cleaner, quieter and sporting a 1980’s style TV too. Hello BBC!
There was just enough time left in the day to visit the meditation garden, watch a beautiful blue kingfisher in action and let go of all of the days annoyances. The yelling I had done had given me a sore throat anyway.
We started today with a flood in the hall outside our room. Waking at 7am to the sound of straw brushes swishing water around haphazardly and other guests yelling to each other about it - right outside our not-so-sound-proof door. Then the water in our bathroom shut off (predictably) and it was shortly followed by the toilet backing up and over-flowing. Sadly, this was almost predictable too!!! The real question was, how long could I hold it and could we find an even half-clean public bathroom in the next few hours? Unlikely. Luckily, I have a remarkable bladder and easily managed to down a soupy breakfast and plenty of chai before first checking email, then finding a relatively clean public facility.
Next stop, travel agent. We purchased some outrageously priced “emergency” rail tickets last night after discovering all trains out of Gaya were booked for days to come and we needed to pick them up from him today. The man was a crook! We discovered this morning that although we asked for a train that left on the 20th from Gaya, he actually booked us on the train that left Calcutta on the 20th and stopped to pick us up on the 21st!!! Non-refundable. And he we go again for another night in Bodhgaya! I could have strangled him. He knew it too and I watched as his eyes pleaded with Osman to control his wife. No such luck, I let him have the full (loud) wrath of my anger and stormed off. His voice calling “madam, madam… madam!…” in the background. In truth, if I had thought he made a genuine mistake I would have gone easier on him, but last night he made a big show of taking cell phone calls and trying to sound important as we sat in front of him. He interrupted us and yelled past us to one of the young boys working there to bring him chai. What an ass! Negligent and incompetent, but still with his large ego intact.
Last chore for the day… find a new hotel. An UPGRADED one. We found one a good deal cleaner, quieter and sporting a 1980’s style TV too. Hello BBC!
There was just enough time left in the day to visit the meditation garden, watch a beautiful blue kingfisher in action and let go of all of the days annoyances. The yelling I had done had given me a sore throat anyway.
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