Kurukshetra
27 Sept. / I am heading for the lowlands
When I came down from the mountain roads from Neruda Jee Lake and drove toward the flat landscape to the city Kurukshetra. In the more straight lines, I could go faster, which was a liberation.
Kurukshetra was divided into large sections of the blocks with equal and airy boulevards between. A smaller copy of the city Chandigarh, created by the architect Le Corbusier.
I chose to take a day off here in Kurukshetra. because I don’t looked forward to come back to the heat and traffic chaos in Delhi. I went out to the edge of the city where there was created an artificial lake about the size of four football fields. All the way around, there was a sort of staircase tribunes. So I actually first thought that it was a sort of sports arena. But instead it was a sacred arena. Its size and monumental architecture reminded me visually about the fascist 'religious' architecture.
Holy Station / Kurukshetra
Outside, along one side of the religious arena, there were really many pilgrims / holy men with their round tin bowls. They stood in line to get food. I stopped and took some photos.
They came immediately against me with hands promotion. But compared to others, they just smile at one. If you give money to one, you have the whole group around him.
Dining Holy men / Kurukshetra
I visited a beautiful new Sikh temple. Everything was very aesthetic and clean. Here I should enter into a small source of water before I could enter further into the temple area. A Sikh led me up to the temple where there was a sort of altar with its beautiful curved swords and other relics lying. He led me around and showed me the rituals I had to implement. I had first bought a bowl with a kind of porridge / very sweet. I ought to give this to the supreme sacred at the altar. He gave me back a little of the sweetened porridge, which I then had to eat. I totally forgot to ask why there inside the temple hanged so many clocks.
One big clock had date, months, years and seconds.
After this ceremony the young Sikhs invited a me at lunch. I was led into one of the many adjacent halls where people sat an eat on two stripes mats on the floor.
Some Sikh act very aristocratic in their beautiful costumes, with their beautiful curved knives and swords. See attached photo of the three older aristocratic gentleman.
Kurukshetra
28 Sept. Towards the ultimate goal, New Delhi
I was lucky that it was a public holiday when I left Kuruksherta and drove toward my ultimate goal Delhi. There would not be so massive traffic jams.
My speed all the way to Delhi was 90 km. an incredibly fast speed because there was no curves and turns. I had been used so many weeks to drive maximum 60 km. between two turns.
But 90 km. was still fast when you constantly had to look for unexpected potholes, slow moving tucktucker which sometimes was a little too far out on the road. Many of the slow-moving trucks drove permanently in the outer lane because there was often less holes there. So you constantly was forced to zigzag. Nobody seems to want to keep their roadway. You would also be very aware of people or cars that suddenly crossed the highway. There where some that directly drove the opposite direction in the wrong side.
The Enfield didn’t really like to drive more than 100 km. in hours. When it only drove 60 km. the engine sound was really good nice sharp sound. On my journey to the Middle East my cruising speed was about 100-140 km. So there was a little difference in the average speed.
First time I stayed in a hotel located in a sort of working-class neighborhood, with lots of small industry, so there was noise both practical and visually. Traffic was incredibly pushy, but not inhuman aggressive. The human relationships in the middle of the witch boiler, worked at a leisurely manner compared to other cities. In the middle of rush, they had time to be human.
Now coming back to Delhi, I will find a less visually and noisy neighborhood with too many noisy roads up to the hotel. I'll try a hotel in Old Delhi.
After an hour's drive in the Old Delhi neighborhood to find a hotel, in the rear of the afternoon sun and crowds, bicycle taxis, bicycles, oxen, MC'er, tucktuck taxis, I had to acknowledge that I am and civilized esthetician European,there not can manage to live one night in this inferno. It was like a melting pot. The district was like a scrap heap, filled with poor people. Some were in equally poor condition as most of the loose dogs.
It was also too much for the Enfield I had to drive very slowly. This requires that the clutch is extremely tense, as you constantly have to keep the engine running but can’t really drive. The clutch was getting lax and therefore it could not hold the Enfield. I had again to find a MC.workshop.
What I thought would be a quick and much less strenuous day, because of the high average speed I could run ended in this slow-motion through Old Delhi looking for hotels.
I could bear to live in this noisy dirty inferno. I was completely finished when I finally found a really good hotel on the edge of Old Delhi and close to New Delhi station. I had again been underway for six hours. Before I reached the hotel, I had also crossed a street only filled with horse trailers on the one hand, and the horses on the other, where they lived in a kind of canvas tents.
This City also had an incredible number of the white giant oxen to pull their different cart.
Along with the Indians, who pulled and pushed the truck filled with construction material, it was them who kept the pace down to a very meditative level. Those who sat on the cart allowed themselves no discomfort from the noise from various horns. This chaotic form of communication functioned effectively, bicycle taxis slid slightly to the side when I pressed strongly on my horn, so I just could slip by.
New Delhi
Meditation
On this journey I found my Mala, and did some meditation, just as I did for a long period when I was young. In Rishikesh where I lived in a kind Ashram / hotel combination. I did some Hatha Yoga ,hey had currently no meditation. I learned some variation to my own program, which consists of the nine large and important positions and a couple other positions there maximum press the organs and muscles throughout the body. I have chosen to repeat the same program, so the mind and body more easily goes into a kind of meditation.
I have during my stay in India, got a little more meditative process in my own daily yoga session. I have also switched back to do longer breathing exercises in between the positions, because I know how vital a function of breathing is. The body must use oxygen to clean and renew the blood to build the body's cells and to incinerate all waste products. It can only exist a couple of minutes. without breathing.
We civilized people have forgotten the art of breathing properly. We breathe careless and superficial, and most use only one tenth of our lung capacity. At a superficial breathing organism is under-supplied with oxygen, whereby energy is depleted and at a shallow exhalation will waste substances not be separated and provide good ground for diseases.
We humans are not more self-regulating, like the animals that naturally exploits lungs full capacity. We must work consciously with the breath, to achieve this.
After these two holy places I visited in the beginning of my journey where I did some meditation it slowly stopped.
The reason probably that I had so many obligations on my Journey. Meeting Indians, document via camera, write reports and organize the next day's journey. Internet cafe visits, packing the MC. Enfield. The time at MC. workshops. Find the right hotel.
I had expected that I naturally would meditate a little more after this 25 years break. But without really thinking about it, I have unconsciously chosen not to start again which I actually thought I would.
I was usually very exhausted after a full day at MC.Enfield. So the evening went to eat as many places were in the hotel room. So I downloaded the day's photos to the computer and sorted them. Studied further route and read any. on the spot. Only a few evenings, I sat and zappede between their ca.60 channels. There was not much I could stand and watch.
About the morning after yoga, my head was clear, so it was the best time to record thoughts on the computer.
MC.India Journey
My choice to do this MC.journey in India was, as I mentioned in my first report, to be confronted with the Indians way to practice the yoga philosophy and the ideas through a long life has influenced my way of thinking and living .
I think I met the Indians and their culture in a positive way. MC. Enfield did at least, that I came into contact with many workshops and people. Maybe it also created many problems for me and my psyche.
MC.India 2008 / 1.800 km / 14 Driving Days/
Delhi/Mardiwar/Rishikesh/Mussoorie/Yamunanager/
Chandigarn/Shilma/Bhunter/Manali/Ner Chowk/
Karsog/Shimla/Renuka/Kurukshetra/Delhi/
Delhi/Mardiwar/Rishikesh/Mussoorie/Yamunanager/
Chandigarn/Shilma/Bhunter/Manali/Ner Chowk/
Karsog/Shimla/Renuka/Kurukshetra/Delhi/
As you can see on my final route sketch, I have introduced as a sort of loop with three circles. In Hatha Yoga you do each position three times. The first time / intellect adjustable / The physical body. The second time / body adjustable / The psychiatic body / The mind. The third time / Depth effect / The causal body / Soul.
It was not just a physical MC. journey that was the goal. But finding a balance between body and mind. Meeting Indians and their culture in a different and somewhat more demanding physical way, as it is to carry himself on an Enfield, who is also the Indians pride. I think I found a harmony and rhythm on the ride. Journey was not too fast or slow in relation to the type I am, who likes to be in motion.
I was very lucky in terms of weather. There were only a few days when it was a little cold and then some days when it was very hot.
I could have spent half months more, so I had come a little more round and down into my own inner depths. It had also given me a better sense of having visited a continent.
Indians and their meditative approach to everyday life
Religion means a lot of Indians working day, the holy oxen, all the temples, pilgrims are directed to get financial support to pursue their spiritual path, make them aware of their religion and their membership all the time. Most ordinary. Inner support these pilgrims, as their work is to cultivate the spiritual life and their is to work for the physical. Therefore they support the pilgrims as they use their energy and time to pray for them and everyone in the universe. Thats create a good karma.
The contradictions are immense in India. The gap between rich and poor, between religion and economic rational system. There are those with education and all those without. Hindu caste system is also helping to maintain this class system. It is as if in Delhi, still live in both medieval and space age at the same time.
It is the political social system that needs to change if India should come forward. This is true for Indians to find a better balance between the religious and the secular world. First and foremost is the free education for all.
As long as the majority of Indians, let it be up to Brahman which position they can achieve in this life, the evolution will be very slow.
The Indians walk in the same side and direction that the cars. They turn their backs to the danger and think it is up to Brahman if they have to survive. That is also why the drive cars so wild and take so many chances it is up to Brahman.
I mentioned that to a young man, you have as an individual a responsibility for your own actions. For it is primarily up to the driver in the cars whether there is an accident. If you have family you have to drive carefully because they are dependent on you. We have a responsibility for our own actions / karma to think and act wisely, show respect for life.
Similarly, you yourself accountable to your moral / dharma. It is not only up to Brahman.
Schoolchildren / Shimla
Indians come in a meeting at an open positive way, but they do not like in the Middle East, where I next each time was stopped and invited in thai. I think the Indians feel more evident as they grew up with a caste system that probably has created both visible and invisible boundaries between different groups of thousands, and this of course affects their relationship to the stranger. But when you then had proved its openness, they were also very open to one.
The Hindu philosophy of karma and dharma, affects their everyday lives where their morals tell them that they have to help where they can, it is their duty. This means that they do thing they loose time, when they help me half hour to fix my Enfield. They expect of course that I will do the same if they come in an emergency.
Great Mosques
On this, my last day in Delhi and India, I had decided that I was going out for to see the great Mosques and cultural treasures they have here in town. I had not seen anything since I was in town at the beginning of my Journey. Same day as I had rented Enfield, I tried to find Lal Quila-Red Fort.
I felt really 'Lost in translation' when I asked for directions, because I was sent in many different directions and then all the traffic.
There is a problem reading a map on MC. if you do not have a bag that fits to be strapped to the tank. You are otherwise forced to stop all the time and get the map from your bag, then you first can look at it.
I had bought a really good map of the city of Delhi. But it is difficult when there are no names on the streets, and the people you ask can not read a map and may not understand your english or know the name of the mosques.
Before I came out of the bustling Old Delhi area, went Enfield standstill. I could not kick start it.
Looked in the small electric box. It was OK, but there was still no power at MC. I prefer the well along the way, for someone who like the others, has a small workshop where they switch wheels on MC. etc. He looks at it and try to kick start it. Suddenly work flow again. 50 Rs. to him for the kick of my MC.
I got to the fort, which has an extent of 1000 x 1000 meters in circumference. I had trouble finding the entrance to this fort. Before I managed to find the entrance, the MC standstill again in the middle of a giant cross.
In the middle of traffic jams I try to kick start it while the cars honking and trying to pass me
Failed to get it started, so I got over to the side of the great boulevard. A young Inner helps me try to start it. Then I found out that it has no power again. I'm looking at the small electrical fuse, which this time is fractured.
I change the fuse, but still the electrical system does not work. There is a new person ther help, trying to look at both the battery and spark plugs. I give him a new spark plug that I got with the reserve components. It appears that they have give a me a spark plug that do not fit into the thread for this Enfield.
I have luckily avoided punctures on the trip, there may well be a bit dangerous on a MC. I have been up and down of so many holes. Only a few times, I've unexpectedly hit some really deep and edge in terms of dramatic holes where I have flown half feet into the air from the saddle.
There are more people who just stand and look at this session. A young guy keeps telling me in English that the person who currently helps me, do not know anything about a MC. and just out to cheat me. There is an MC workshop no more than 5 min. away and they can fix it.
Too many helpful people
When I can see that they are going nowhere, I screw all the parts firmly and pushes MC. A few follow and shows the way, going to MC workshop. It was directly towards the road, so it was an uphill struggle to get it rolled into the workshop. Here there were some young people who looked at it. Again there was a sudden power, but when they started it went quickly out again.
The youth tried to explain to me that there had to be replaced a part. I did not really know what it was. But they would have a decent amount to fix it. I tried to tell the young people that I had rented this MC. and had to give it back today. I was not interested in any kind of major repair. After these two stops this morning, I certainly do not need to run on it more today.
I called up the owner of Mukesh Motors on his mobile. I asked him to take action. He asked me to let them fix it. They tried in the meantime, pushing it going to get it to run. Now it sounded like a racing MC.
They thought that I could drive it back without any problems. I had the feeling that Mukesh had talked them away from the first high amount for arranging Enfield. I gave them what I thought was reasonable for their troubles, but they wanted more.
Idling was put enormous high, so it was excruciating to drive on, through the various traffic jams. I was also nervous that it again would stall. I had one last message from Enfield, when I burned myself on the inside of right knees on the red-hot engine. I quickly got a decent blister. I had not burned me since the beginning, where I emphatically was aware of. where the exhaust pipe was located. When you have leather pants on, you do not really notice that sometimes you get too close to the exhaust pipe and engine. I managed miraculously to approach the area where I have rented the Enfield.
Muskesh Motors was closed. Monday was the day off for all the sellers in this area. I called again up to Muskesh and he told me he had thought that I first would come with the Enfield tomorrow. But he has to come now because I had to fly to night.
He showed up 45 min. later. All his workshop people also appeared, and they pulled the bikes out on the road. He accepted some of my expenses for repairs and I got my deposi back. I tried not to talk about how many little things that had been wrong with his Enfield, because he would just think it was a part of it, going on a trip Enfield.
I did not say a proper goodbye to my partner Royal Enfield Bullet. I had not taken any picture where we both posed as partner. I forgot to look at km. counter, but I think this MC.India Journey was 2.060 km. in total.
HumayunsTomb / Delhi
I got him to get a taxi not a tucktuck which I could then pay to drive me out to the Mosques and buildings, I had planned to watch that lay scattered across the city by 6-8 km. distance. It was already 2:00 pm. I started at 10 am. I ordered a taxi for the entire 6 hours of tourist traffic in the city without thinking of that most places are already closed at. 17.
The driver could very little English and he could not look at a map. He know where the most tmajor Mosques stood. But some of them I wanted, he was not familiar with. Again we sat stuck in traffic jams and even though it was not me who drove it, it affected my nervous system. He seemed like all the other thousands of local very relaxed in the middle of the heat, noise and congestion.
When I had seen 3-4 of monuments and were on our way to see India's largest mosque, Jama Masjid, we were again stuck in one of the many traffic jam. This stretch of road, I knew pretty well from the day before and this morning, that it would take over 1 / 2 hour to get through. So I got out of the car in the middle of traffic jam. Paid him and walked back to my hotel, which was not so far away.
I could not cope with several obstacles. It was unbearable to sit in the hot car, without air conditioning. I will recommend that you book an air conditioned car and a driver who can speak English through your hotel, if you want by car to see these incredibly beautiful old mosques and other buildings.
In the taxi to the airport, I had to close my eyes to relax. The driver drove in a completely different way,- were very close to the other cars. I like to have a little braking distance. He did not run badly.
In the taxi to the airport, I had to close our eyes to relax. The driver drove in a completely different way one myself, were very close to the front. I like to have a little braking distance. He did not run badly, but it has something best when you are sitting at corrected.
The end of my MC.journey
In the taxi to the airport, I had to close my eyes to relax. The driver drove in a completely different way, very close to the other cars. I like to have a little braking distance. He did not drive badly, but I really wanted to be the one in control.
I was in Helsinki 6 hours later and enjoyed the amazing visual harmonic in the airport. From Helsinki to Copenhagen I had a window seat and looked down upon these cultivated gardens, harmonious, quality houses and roadmap seen here from the air.
Which substantive difference in this world. Here I am flying back to a world full of material goods. I really hope that I have taken some of the deeper peace and spiritual depth with me from this Journey.
My Journey ended with the MC. in Delhi and I finished it 100% with this my last final report. Now I can also mentally leave India.
Thanks to all you there have followed me on this incredibly exciting Journey.
AUM
Bjarne v.H.H.Solberg
Artist
&
Scenographer
BvHHS@email.DK
www.BvHHS.com
+45 30230036
Artist
&
Scenographer
BvHHS@email.DK
www.BvHHS.com
+45 30230036
Oeresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden
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