It's mid-afternoon on our second day in Amritsar, the main city in the state of Punjab, and home of the Golden Temple, the most holy site for Sikhs (most people in the Punjab are Sikhs).
B and I have just left the Golden Temple, after our second visit there (K is enjoying a restful afternoon at our hotel). Sikhs are known for their entrepreneurial spirit, so it was no surprise to find that Amritsar generally is a busy city, with the streets immediately around the temple downright frenetic, especially for foreigners. So many people offering postcards, rickshaw rides, etc! We were glad to make our way up a stairway to this relatively peaceful Internet cafe (the street din is coming through the open windows loud and clear, though).

We first visited the temple yesterday, which was cool and overcast. Because it was a weekday, there were many fewer people inside the temple grounds than are there now (Saturday afternoon).

Entering the temple grounds, we did what everyone else did: leave our shoes with the shoe-minders (who are typical at holy sites in India), cover our heads, wash our feet, and then walk down a marble staircase to the enormous inner courtyard that surrounds a holy lake. The Golden Temple itself (which is covered with gold and shines marvelously in the sunlight) sits in the middle of the lake, with a marble walkway out to it for believers who wish to visit the temple itself. Anyone can quietly follow the beautiful wide marble courtyard around the lake, and we all did that. A full circumnavigation must be at least a quarter of a mile,. As you circumnavigate the lake, you see stunning views at every step. Beautiful marble buildings topped by airy marble towers surround the courtyard, and the temple and lake are lovely from each angle. I had seen photos, but this is one of those sites that exceeds expectations.

Most lovely, though, is the stream of believers of all ages (and visitors of other faiths or no faith; all are welcome to the temple grounds): from weary toddlers slung over their mothers' shoulders, to restless teenagers, to aged pilgrims supporting themselves with walking sticks as the make their way around the lake. I never got tired of just covertly watching families and groups of friends enjoying their day at the holy site. With my dupatta--a long, wide scarf traditionally worn by Indian women--covering my head and shading my face, it was easy to be covert. But because we were among the rare foreigners inside the temple grounds, many more people were watching us covertly than we them. Yesterday was a calmer day overall, with nearly everyone meditatively walking around the lake or bathing in its holy water. Today, being a sunny Saturday, had more of a weekend feel, and quite a few people came up to introduce themselves to us, ask where we are from ("America" always gets a surprised expression and especially delighted response--I think we have President Obama and his recent visit to thank for that), and ask for snaps (photos). At this point in our trip, we have posed for dozens of snapshots, usually surrounded by teenagers but sometimes by whole families.

Today, B and I lunched in the enormous dining hall inside the temple grounds--all are welcome and encouraged to have a meal there, in the Sikh spirit of including and honoring all other religions. The procedures for feeding the thousands of diners who arrive each day would inspire even the most active church back home. The meal is cooked in a kitchen filled with enormous steel cauldrons managed by a squadron of male cooks. You as a diner join a long line of other hungry people who shuffle towards the dining hall, being offered first a metal tray, then a spoon, and then a water cup. As soon as space allows, you're ushered into the hall where a Sikh elder points you to an empty space in one of the long rows of diners sitting cross-legged on coir mats on the concrete floor. Men come past at intervals with big pots, offering ladle-fulls of delicious soup, dal, and rice, along with chapatis and drinking water. Refills are offered from time to time throughout the meal. As soon as you leave, a new diner is ushered to your place as you make your way out the door, other volunteers take your used tray and utensils, and you pass by a hand-washing station before returning to the marble courtyard around the lake.

There is a station where you can make a donation to the feeding program, and we happily donated. As we travel in India, we are often asked for money by beggars. I've never felt that I've hit on the perfect response, I've often felt very uncomfortable and confused about what best to do, and we've encountered many warnings against donating to beggars. So I felt very grateful for the opportunity to give to people who seem especially able to help the hungry.

Yesterday before visiting the Temple grounds, we visited the Jallianwala Bagh memorial. At this site in 1919, hundreds of Amritsar residents had gathered to protest the recently passed Rowlett Act, which forbade political gatherings and public protests. An English officer marched his troops into the courtyard and ordered them to fire on the crowd. Many people were killed. This massacre was depicted chillingly in the movie Gandhi, and it became an inspiration to India's freedom movement.

You enter the memorial through the same narrow brick lane through which the officer led his troops, but nowadays you then enter a beautiful garden setting. An eternal flame burns on a platform surrounded by lawns, walkways, and gardens. As you make your way around the grounds, you encounter reminders of the massacre: bullet holes in the brick walls and a well into which many desperate people jumped and then drowned. There's an indoor area where you can view displays and learn more about the incident and its aftermath. But the overall effect is more heartening than sad, because along with these solemn reminders, you also see dozens of ordinary Indians--now citizens of their own country--enjoying the beautiful grounds and photographing each other in front of the eternal flame.

Tomorrow we return by train to New Delhi where we'll stay for two nights. After that, B and K fly home to Seattle and I head east by train to visit Sarnath, the location where the Buddha gave his first teachings after his enlightenment, and then Bodhgaya, the site of his enlightenment. I'll spend a few days in each place before heading northwestward towards Dharamasala, where I'll be volunteering as an English teacher for the three months after that.

I'm writing via a slow connection from Jaisalmer, a town in northwest Rajasthan with a famous hilltop fort. We arrived here two days ago and are staying in a lovely hotel, an remodeled haveli (mansion) owned by the former maharaja's family. This stay is a modest splurge we decided to make months ago when planning our trip back in Seattle, but I've been glad we made that decision. It's a cool, restful, beautiful place, filled with mementos of the family who lived in the rooms we're now staying in (they now live in a different wing).

I've been sick for the past few days with a tenacious flu I developed on the train to Jodhpur, our last stop. It began with sniffles that partially distracted me from a fine, wide-ranging conversation between B, an engineering professor from a nearby university, and me. I soon became so sick that I spent our entire time in Jodhpur trying to recover, and largely missed February 19, an especially auspicious day for marriages to take place, according to ancient astrological principles. But even I didn't entirely miss it: I was able to go to the window to watch a marriage procession pass along the street just below me. This was a traditional procession, with the groom riding a white horse to claim his bride, accompanied by a band and happy street-dancing friends and family. B and K were able to watch from a higher and better vantage point in a rooftop restaurant, where they could see fireworks and colored light displays in the many places in the city where weddings were taking place that night.

Last night, on our rooftop in Jaisalmer, we were able to watch another marriage procession in the street below us--another groom, another white horse, and so much music and happy dancing that it inspired most of us on the rooftop to sway along, and people down on the street to run to join the parade.

In the past week or so, we've happened to encounter three examples of arranged marriages that could give even the most dedicated opponent of the practice pause (I myself have been open-minded about the practice since my Peace Corps years in Senegal, where it is ubiqutous). First was a newlywed couple who shared a train compartment with K and me. They were so open-heartedly in love that they seemed to beam love out to the world, including us. She plied us with traditional sweets freshly made by her mother, and he insisted on giving us his mobile number so we can come visit soon. Next was a guide who took us on a countryside tour from the town of Bundi. As we rested in a simple lakeside temple to Ganesh, he explained that his recent marriage had been arranged by the families. Again, he seemed to beam open-hearted contentment as he described his experience, and he noted that research indicates that arranged marriages tend to be more successful than "love marriages" (to use the Indian term). Third was a highly-educated couple who shared our train compartment while on their way to Bangalore, where both were to take up IT engineering positions in leading firms. They, too, were obviously deeply happy with each other.

As with any country, India has its ills, and some, especially deep poverty, are very troubling to encounter. But I am also finding what I always discover when I leave my own country's boundaries: ways of living and of seeing things that are often very different from my own but that remind me that my own culture's ways aren't necessarily the best.

Tomorrow, we leave, again via train, to Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism. Later, we return to Delhi, from where B and K will return home, and I'll head out on my own further adventures.

I've been in an internet desert for quite a few days, but finally find myself this evening in a pleasant Internet cafe with a fast connection, so I'll catch you up on the time since I last posted.

I'd been heavy hearted and worried during much of that time because of the hospitalization of my nephew O. But I got good news this morning when I was finally able to talk with my brother R for a few minutes using the phone in this same Internet cafe, in the town of Bundi, Rajasthan. Amazing how the dark clouds can part and vanish in an instant, once a few words have been said!

Actually, I could hear only a few of R's words, because this Internet cafe is open to the street and, as I sit at this computer, I'm only about 5 feet away from that street and from the constantly honking horns of motorcycles and autorickshaws. Indian drivers use their horns extensively to let each other know of their positions and speed. They rocket and weave around each other, cows, camels, water buffaloes, sleeping dogs, small children, street vendors, and other obstacles at speeds that astonished me when I first arrived in New Delhi, but which now seem normal, and they drive with great skill. I've come to love rocketing around India's streets in autorickshaws.

Today is Mohammed's birthday, a national holiday in India, so the street outside this cafe has been extra busy. As I talked with R this morning, a procession in honor of the occasion, complete with loudspeakers, was passing in front of this cafe. "What?," I kept repeating to R during our conversation. I heard the big news from him, though little else came through clearly. Later today, we learned that today is a special day for two other reasons: it's a celebration for working men, and it's a special day for worshiping Shiva, the great Hindu god.

Since I last wrote from Aurangabad, we have visited the Ajanta caves near that city, the site of many Buddhist monasteries centuries ago. Those monasteries were eventually abandoned as Buddhism died out in India (even as it was spreading elsewhere in the world), but left behind are beautiful sculptures and paintings.

We went on to Bharatpur, where we spent a day exploring a national park full of bird life, deer, antelope, and one tiger (we saw a pugmark in the dust of the road). We made that exploration in cycle rickshaws, and our drivers were excellent at pointing out birds and animals and identifying species for us.

We then spent two days at Ranthambore National Park, where we took jeep safaris into four different zones of the park in order to observe wildlife. The park is lovely, filled with rolling hills, steep cliffbands, forests and savannas, and lakes. Ranthambore is known as a good place to see tigers in the wild, and we saw two. The first one stalked gracefully alongside the road past our jeep, about 10 feet away from us at her closest (I was on the side nearest her, where those 10 feet seemed an extremely short distance). She then headed away through grassy savanna towards a nearby small herd of deer. We watched this drama with eyes figuratively as big as saucers. At the same time, langurs, small apes which normally bound acrobatically through the trees, took up viewing spots high in trees, where they watched the unfolding drama silently. The tiger rushed a deer, but soon abandoned her chase.

Now we're in the lovely town of Bundi, where a huge, old maharaja's palace overhangs our hotel. It's lighted in the evening, and K and I are enjoying the beautiful scene out our window. We spent today visiting a nearby village, learning about the lives of the villagers, and, in my case, practicing my halting Hindi. I'll try to write more about that adventure and more about Bundi generally, tomorrow. It's now getting dark outside and very lively as the celebrations rachet up--so it's time for K and me to head back up the winding streets to our hotel.

It's the late afternoon of our second day in Aurangabad. Yesterday, we visited several of the local sites in and around Aurangabad itself.

Two sites visited yesterday especially interested me. Panchakki (meaning "water wheel") is a pleasant site that includes water channels and pools overhung by a huge banyan tree, an ancient water-driven grain-grinding mill (it reminded me of a very similar water-driven Roman flour mill in the northern Galilee, which I visited in 1977) and a shrine, grave, and adjacent memorial garden for a local Sufi saint, Baba Shah Muzaffar. As we explored the shrine area and garden, local Muslims came and went, offering prayers to the saint. Approaching the shrine myself, I felt deep peacefulness and instant stilling of my "monkey mind." I can't explain the effect of such a place, though I've been reflecting on how to describe it, but it's profoundly palpable, at least for me (K reported it had the same effect on her).

The shrine is one of two places I've visited in India that make me think of the Hindu term tirtha: a crossing place where the veil between the ordinary and the divine is so thin that the divine can be sensed. This term also came to mind when we visited the main Jain temple in Fort Cochi, a deeply peaceful place where all life, including the local pigeons, is honored.

Yesterday, we also visited the Aurangabad caves, a system of caves carved out of a ridge above town in the 6th or 7th centuries A.D. They were inhabited by Buddhist monks, who created carved images of the Buddha and major Boddhisatvas in the rocks in the caves, and then lived and worshipped there for many years. We also could see the small rock cells where the monks lived. These caves, like the much larger and more ornate caves at Ellora that we visited today, were abandoned by the monks centuries ago as Buddhism gradually died out in India during a major Hindu revival (at the same time it died out in India, the country of its birth, it continued to spread into east Asia and Tibet).

Today, we visited the Ellora caves, which were sculpted from a basalt hillside over many years by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. These caves are far more extensive and intricately carved than the Aurangabad caves, but I'm glad we saw both. At Ellora, I paid the most attention to the Buddhist caves, which included monastic quarters as well as a huge, high-ceilinged worship hall. Our guide, who is a local Buddhist, chanted the Refuge Vows in Pali ("I take refuge in the Buddha...the Dharma...and the Sangha [community of Buddhists]")--the same vows I'd chanted back in Seattle just last month--near the center of the hall, and her clear voice projected beautifully throughout the hall. A little later, in another of the Buddhist caves, a group of Tibetan woman entered. One by one, as they filed by a sculpture of the seated Buddha, each bowed and placed her hands and forehead on the Buddha's knee for a few moments--love and gratitude evident in the gentle movements of her hands and her bowed head--before filing on. Teachers turn up everywhere!, I thought.

Visiting both the Aurangabad and Ellora caves made me feel grateful for the countless people over the many centuries since the Buddha's time who have kept his teachings alive. Generally, I've felt this appreciation in a conceptual, abstract way, especially when reminded by a teacher. But at the caves, it's so much easier to imagine these early Buddhists and realize how few creature comforts were available to them. Wandering through the caves, one can feel and see their small, rock quarters; the hot, dry landscape that surrounded them; and the chisel-marks and carvings they left behind.

I wrote the following entry two days ago but haven't been able to post it because of very intermittent Internet connection available here :

We've just arrived in the city of Aurangabad after taking an early-morning train from Mumbai's main train station. From here, we'll spend the next three days visiting local historic sites, especially the World Heritage sites of Ellora and Ajanta caves, which are filled with ancient Buddhist and Hindu carvings and paintings.

Mumbai, which we left early this morning, is enormous--the world's third-largest city--and so bustling and energized that one feels caffeinated just being there. We'd been daunted at the prospect of navigating through it, but in the end we enjoyed our day there. We walked from our hotel near the train station down to the Colaba district of the city where many of the famous sites are located, and eventually back after taking in the sights. We stopped in the ornate, luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel, which was bombed in the 2008 terrorist attacks but has been repaired since. I was glad to see the tight security at the hotel and in the general area. We also enjoyed seeing the Gateway to India, a huge stone edifice at the waterfront built by the British to commemorate a royal visit--but only a few decades later, after India attained its independence, the British marched out through the same Gateway as they left the new country.

Walking along the roadways of Indian cities can be challenging because pedestrians are at the bottom of the traffic pecking order here (there are few sidewalks, and pedestrians are expected to make way for vehicles), and because it's hard to travel more than a few feet without being offered a chance to buy something, or being asked to make a donation to someone.

Nevertheless, most of the time I enjoy walking along the roadways of Indian towns and cities, because so much of life is lived along roadsides that one encounters a zillion little vignettes of life on each block. In Mumbai, one encounters the full range of life circumstances, from the obviously wealthy hurrying about their business to the sidewalk dwellers rolled up in thin blankets whom one must step around.

The challenge is that one is completely uninsulated from whatever presents. K and I have been comparing notes about how best to respond to beggars and the very poor. We've encountered lots of advice about not offering money, but feel uncomfortable not acknowledging people at all. Yesterday, I tried handing out crackers. That allowed me to acknowledge the people requesting a handout rather than ignoring them, but I sensed disappointment on their part. There is no perfect solution or way to feel at ease, I suspect.

Before traveling to Mumbai, we had taken the train from Alleppey in Kerala state up the coast to the state of Goa, which has long been a mecca for Western tourists. We spent one night in a rustic resort composed of beach shacks and a modest open-air restaurant, so close to the beach that we needed to walk along a track through deep sand to get from the taxi drop-off point to the resort. B and I enjoyed a long, late afternoon walk up the beach and back, taking in both the many Western tourists (a few badly needing medicinal doses of sunscreen) and Indian families, all enjoying the beach in their own ways. K enjoyed her first swim in the Arabian Sea (I waded and splashed).

It was fun to spend a day on the Arabian Sea, which none of us had seen, and the beach is scenic. But only Westerners were staying at the little resort and nearby resorts, and I felt a bit ghettoized. I was happy to be back among mainly Indian people the following day when we caught the morning train up the coast to Mumbai. The compartments on Indian trains naturally encourage conversation, and we enjoyed a long conversation, touching on many subjects, with a businessman from Calcutta who also loves to travel and has visited many places in his own country. He and I enjoyed using B's good maps to trace out some possible future trips to Ladakh, Assam, and Sikkim, all places I'd also like to see, and he had some good advice and perspective on Bodh Gaya, Varanasi, and other destinations I plan to visit once B and K return home.