jesse is traveling in southern india right now. i can’t resist sharing his words. i’m just borrowing the links that google offers me, the links are not jesse’s suggestions and i can not vouch for their accurate relation to his words.
“we have been exploring the inland portion of India’s southern tip, a few days in Kottakal with the large Ayurvedic university and it’s excellent botanical gardens with thousands of species and smiling helpful staff, and it’s hospital who’s wards we got to peruse as they happily showed off some of their success stories -paralized people who can now walk after a few months of treatment were their favorites.
Then off to Silent Valley which is a 100 sq kilometer forest preserve that took us 4 hours to get to but we only expected it to be close day trip and weren’t prepared so we only got an hour and a half inside one of the very few places in india where there hasen’t been widespread human shaping of the land. And did we ever drink it up!! omygosh it was beautiful and invigorating to swim in some clean water and walk and botanize in a jungle a place to come back to for a while, after the neccesary govt. hoops to jump through. They are very worried about biopiracy by westerners, I can’t blame them for example there are over thirty patents on neem preparations – none of them held by indians, I just need to come up with some credentials to do research.
Then further on up into the western ghats (mountains) we went- to Udhagamandalam or Ooty for short which at 6600 ft in elevation was cool enough to have many of the temperate plants that I am so familiar with – mahonias and rhodidendrons, monterrey cypress and dandilions. It also had all of my favorite “invasive plants” like scotch broom,
english ivy and blackberries that were so kind as to help finance this very trip. The land around there smacks of “old worldness” as all of the steep hillsides have been terraced into crop cultivation the forests have been removed and eucalyptus has been planted.
The first morning there, I was aroused by the loud opening notes of “Sweet child of mine” and the college students on break down the hall from us continued to crank most of Appitite. As many of you can expect, this brought me to my feet and out the door to investigate who these sonical saints were to bring the gospel of Guns-n-roses to this far away land. We rocked out all morning and then our core group went out to try and track down a local rootsy essential oil distiller, which eventually we found after two hours, three kilometers of walking and many bad directions. Inside a little smoky stick and tarp hut was a little old man who was busting out gallons of raw eucalyptus oil and poured us off a few pints it was a very easy contraption to make in a smaller scale. After grazing on nettles and chickweed in their garden his niece invited us into their 10x20ft home that they share with their two spouses and made us tea and showed us pictures of the other forigners that they have met, aahhh indian hospitality.
The afternoon brought us to the city’s botanical garden which was more of a city park and with thousands of indian tourists to boot, most of them wanted to take thier picture with me. That evening shahar and i played guitar for the college guys, we couldn’t replicate slash but we hit a chord in Hotel California- one of the more amazing things in life; to belt out the eagles with ten indians who know all the words, better than we did! It was great to hang out with these guys and talk with the focus not being about how much money you can make in amerika or buying something from them or religion, as the majority of our interactions with locals ammount to.
The next day frank and i went to a much more organized essential oil operation, which was put together as an effort to employ displaced forest workers and produces a growing list of very nice certified organic essential oils and spices, you find these little pockets of tuned in beings in this madness that is india. Then on to Mysore and its abundant markets incense makers and silk weavers, we went to the govt. sandalwood oil distillery for a tour but were met with the Lorax dillema: the place was not operating because practically all the trees had been cut down, bummer… So then we traveled here to Banglore, the major tech city and it’s crossroads to new locales.
I am reminded that I might have been painting too idealic a picture for you all who haven’t been here yet: India is a challenging place, most of these journeys have been made on bumpy,jerky, overcrowded buses that we were standing up on for half the time. Walking down the street breathing a constantly changing atmosphere of diesel fumes, urine, vomit, rotting produce scraps and occationally oxygen, hopping over cow pies and open sewers, being constantly accosted by people wanting to sell you things, or just wanting to shake your hand because you are a westerner and what a story that’ll make for the wife and kids. But most of them wont have a chance to meet you cuz barefoot and pregnant is the status quo, most hindu females are married off by 21, moslems by 15, and married or not its the women doing most of the work here and they are kept behind closed doors. Personal space is in very short supply here, there are throngs of people everywhere even towns that look small on the map are coated with people it’s a good look at what modern medicine and the green revolution have brought us in massive unchecked population growth and what the rest of the world will look like soon enough. India is an amazing place, don’t get me wrong, but there is a very fine line between “wow this is cool and exotic” and “this place is gross, why am I here?” keeping your health in equilibrium is key to that, once that tilts, the line is crossed. I have been pretty lucky so far, considering how unhygenetic the food is here, but not naieve to the dangers, constantly nibbleing herbs, espetially amalaki has helped a great deal.”
AMAZING… thank you jesse for sharing.
