Follow us on our journey of volunteering and self discovery somewhere between the chilly mountain wall of the Himalayas and the steamy jungles of the Terrai.
Stick with us and discover snow peaks and Sherpas, monasteries and monks, ashrams and prophets, temples, tigers, rhinos, deer, monkeys, elephants, leopards, sloth bears, wild boar, yaks and yetis, magic and mystery.
Over a week ago now, the boys and I decided it was finally time to head down to the steamy plains of Chitwan. There were a variety of ways we could have taken to get there, plane, bus or car. We chose to white water raft down the Trisuli River and camp over night at Charaudi and continue to raft as far as possible the following day. Then bus where needed. We were pumped!
The first day we cruised, no problem. We had only just taken off on the second day when the accident occurred. Apparently, it had never happened before.
We are all fine.
However, we passed 5 bus accidents on our way into Chitwan. We were pretty exhausted and shaken up by the time we got there.
x Lisa
Having a rest during white water rafting to Chitwan
Ram Chandra is the modern day prophet who had the vision for the Sri Aurobindo Yoga Mandir Ashram. Regardless whether you believe in his teachings and ideals, there is no doubt he is amazing and we were awestruck when we met him. He had such an amazing presence.
As we were leaving the ashram, we were lucky enough to meet him. He came onto the ashram bus as we were about to depart. A crowd of people just wanting to be near him had gathered.
I knew immediately who he was and stood up to greet him. I'd seen his photos. He took my hands in his and kissed me with warmth and love on both cheeks. He knew me by name (probably not hard, I was the only blonde, blue eyed woman on the ashram at the time). He said something to me that still has me smiling today.
He spoke to both boys individually. As we basked in his gloriousness he started down the steps of the bus to exit. Just before he stepped off the last step he turned, I immediately focussed on him, what other words of wisdom did he have for us?
"You've got my email, right? Keep in touch." Well, I did say he was a modern day prophet.
I'm not sure that any of us reached any great heights of enlightenment during our stay, but we had a great time trying. Chapattis? Well, some lessons in life just never stop. I'll keep practising. I have to, I promised my guru.
We have all enjoyed the simplicity of life on the ashram and learned so much about being self sufficient. As Taiga asked, 'Why does life have to be so complicated?' We all realise now, it doesn't. It can be as complicated or as simple as we choose.
I have really liked being at the ashram. I particularly enjoyed using the foot pedal sewing machines. I made myself a wallet, even though it was difficult. I discovered that I really love eating fresh curd. I quite like yoga, but I don't like getting up so early. I like that every time we eat, we give thanks. I think it is because everyone works so hard to make the food.I really liked making incense.
I got to meet a real prophet. Ram Chandra was very nice to me, he asked me if I enjoyed my time on the ashram and said I could come back anytime.
From Taiga
We used tree resin and fine saw dust to make the incense. They take 2-3 days to dry.
I've had a very fun time at the ashram. I used a grass cutter to make cow food for the cows and I helped mill the rice for our dinner. I tried meditating, but I don't have enough time to meditate. I made a money belt on the sewing machines, it was very difficult to make. All of the food here is very nice and fresh.
I met Ram Chandra, he is a very nice man. I told him I had an awesome time at the ashram.
Like all professions there are always new theories on how best to perform. There are always new concepts and fresh ideas on how to revamp the old ones. All the schools we have come across here in Nepal teach in what I would deem quite an old fashioned way. Children are not taught concepts, but only to memorize huge chunks of texts. No relationship is given to the outside world.
So naturally when we were invited to spend the day in the ashram school I was expecting the same style. Whilst they did spend the first part of their morning memorizing maths concepts, the class was quickly moved outside. I had seen them do it here before, but had never been privy to the purpose. We were going into the jungle. Cool!
Should we go back to our apartment and put on our trekking shoes? No. Shall I bring water? No. What about food? No. I figured we couldn't be going for long.
We were gone for the best part of the school day. We learned to find jungle fruit and berries. What was safe to eat and what was not. I quickly acquired the taste of the various sour fruits, and like the children I filled my pockets with our lunch. We drank from the running river and beat our way through a previously unmarked path. It really was an awesome experience.
It was only as the jungle closed its doors behind us that the terror began. We were ambushed.
Leeches! I have never in my life seen so many. Our feet and hands were covered in the black blood suckers. There was blood, so much blood! I'm sure I pulled at least 50 off myself, other kids' estimate 100. This was in the space of about 50 metres. The screaming was horrendous, none more than mine and the girl behind me. Oh, did I say girl? I meant one of my sons. We were all laughing at each others reaction and at the same time trying in vain to save ourselves.
Just as I'd muttered the words,' This isn't fun anymore', I looked ahead at the other son and a couple of the kids who'd gone ahead, standing. No leeches!?
The other lesson for the day was our introduction to 'Timoor' (Nepali name) tree and its leaves. Once you rub the leaves on, it repels the leeches. It really did. Once you rub the berries on, it stops the bleeding. It was amazing; we walked back through the leech ambush zone and nothing! It was as if it didn't happen. This tree was amazing.
After our day of learning to follow the river to civilization and safety, eating wild fruits and berries, leeches and the power of the super repellent trees, how do you wrap up such an inspiring lesson? With a water fight of course!
Yesterday we went with the ashram class into the jungle. We left the ashram by following the water. Someone's slippers fell off and got washed away. Mine fell off as well, but someone saved them.
We played frisbee and soccer along the way.
Then we went deep into the jungle. There were a lot of leeches! I think I got about 159 leeches on me! Da Da Da Da.
Then the kids started rubbing leaves on themselves that they got from a tree, called 'Timoor' (Nepali name). They also rubbed the berries from the same plant on us to stop the bleeding. It was cool!
On our way back we found a really big rock that we all climbed on.
Then we went to the public washing area to clean ourselves up and ended up having a huge water fight.
Mum was worried about tigers, but ended up worried about leeches.
Yesterday at the ashram we went with the class on a walk into the jungle. We went up the river, so we wouldn't get lost.
On the way we played frisbee and soccer. We ate wild fruit. One was called 'Nepalese Hog Plum'. It is very sour.
Then we kept walking into the jungle. There were so many leeches! I got about 80 leeches on me. I screamed like a girl! And I hardly ever scream like a girl. It was horrible!
We stopped at the 'Timoor' tree and rubbed its leaves on us to stop the leeches. We walked back and no leeches bit us, it was so amazing!
On our way back we all climbed a gigantic rock. Then we walked down further and played a game called 'Dog and Bone'.
We finally got back to clean ourselves and rest, but we had a water fight. It was fun.
I really love being here at the ashram. I really like their potatoes, but Nonna, you should tell them your chips recipe.
From Cody
Following the water up into the jungle.
Resting and eating the rest of our fruit after the jungle
My new friend Durga invited me to meditation yesterday evening, however as I explained to her, both boys had gone in the back of the gravel truck with about 15 other boys to get more gravel. I just couldn't relax without knowing they were back safe and sound. She waited with me.
Today, due to the fact one of my sons was sick, I stayed in our apartment for the day. Durga suggested I use my time wisely and meditate.
I sat on the lounge room floor beside my sleeping son. The other was given freedom with boundaries to stay around our building for the day. He sewed and caught kittens with the some of the kids.
I have meditated before, so it is not completely new, however it has been many years and I had no responsibilities then.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the running river beside our building, cutting out all other noises, such as people talking, kids laughing, etc.
The door opened, it was Ganesh, come to see how the patient was doing. I got up. He was the second of 12 people that visited during the course of the morning. Most brought tea and came for a chat.
I persevered. Focus on the river. Squawking kitten, that means the other son is near by. Focus on the river. Bell ringing, must be lunchtime. Focus on the river. Srisana at the door leaving a lump of ginger for the patient. Focus on the river. Someone making a prayer and offering flowers outside our door. Focus on the river. Someone leaving lunch outside the door. FOCUS ON THE RIVER. Someone else leaving dessert outside the door. FOCUS ON THE RIVER!!!. Got to go to the toilet!
I feel the cold, I'm not sure why, but I do. So when I bought my sleeping bag for this trip, I put months of research into finding the right one for me. I can honestly say I love my sleeping bag. It's warm, it packs down small, it has essential hidden pockets, and a bit that rolls and makes a cool padded neck support, a great hood and it is a beautiful snowdrift blue colour. It is flash!
However, like all great loves, it is not perfect. It does have one flaw. The zip is on the left hand side and I am right handed. And like all great loves the little imperfections can only be overlooked for so long. This morning my loves little imperfection turned into a major inconvenience.
Our alarm went off at 5am as usual, for us to rise and greet the day with an hour of morning yoga. I couldn't wake one son and the other complained of not feeling well.
The hours are long and days are full here at the ashram, so I figured it couldn't hurt to let sleeping grumps lie, just for one morning.
So I zipped myself snugly back up into my sleeping bag between my two tired boys with whom I share a double bed. Yes, it's cosy, but we're not complaining.
I felt it before I heard it coming. A fountain of fruit salad, (which we had not eaten and yet strangely here it was), projected up from my queasy son. I fumbled for my zip. The technicolour yawn came pouring down into the hood of my lovely new sleeping bag and all over my face and hair. Frantically searching for the zip, I sat up. Like that was going to help! It ran down, over my cool padded neck rest, through my essential hidden pockets into my sleeping bag of which I was still entombed. By that stage it was all too late, but I was standing up, still trying desperately to unzip from a side that is just not natural!
Conveniently, the vomiting son managed to miss his sleeping bag entirely!
I like being at the ashram. I really like playing with the calves and the kittens. One calf always tries to eat my clothes. One calf sucks on Mums fingers. They are really cute.
I am learning to milk the cows. I think it is easy; I was able to get milk the first time I tried.
We have to do services. I have helped set up for yoga in the mornings. I've helped in the kitchen making chapattis. I've helped move gravel for the new construction and I got to ride in the back of the truck. It was awesome!
If you break a bone or have pain, Srisana, the doctor gives you slugs to eat. It is part of ayuvedic medicine, and even though we are not allowed to kill any living being, they have permission because it is for medicine. They say a prayer before they kill it. They even say a prayer before they pick any flowers. Mum's got a sore shoulder, but she told Srisana it wasn't too bad, in case she makes her eat slugs.
I think it is really interesting that the dining hall and the kitchen all have mud floors and we all have our own plates and cups to look after, so we don't spread sickness. Also we wash our plates with ash from the fire, not soap. Mum secretly rewashes ours back in our apartment with dishwashing soap.
It is a bit funny that I was sniffing my incense and burnt the end of my nose, but it really hurt!
I like being at the ashram. There is a litter of kittens that Taiga and I have spent time catching and playing with. The food here is much better than what they have at the orphanages.
There are lots of dairy cows. I have tried to milk them, but I haven't been successful in milking them. It's really hard. The milk tastes heaps different to the milk we buy from the shops in Australia. We have to drink the milk hot, because it is not pasteurized or homogenised.
I have to do services, so far I have done, chopping soya protein for dinner, setting up for yoga, I rolled chapattis and made the balls for chapattis.
I've tried to sew on the sewing machines. They are not run by power. You have to generate the power with your feet.
Daily jobs or services as they are called are essential to you being able to stay on the ashram. Everybody is expected to perform a service. There is sweeping, sewing, weaving, working in the mill, planting and sewing the crops, sorting the grains, various kitchen duties, shovelling gravel, mucking out the cow shed, feeding and milking the cows, making incense and the list goes on. The jobs are generally manual, exhaustive, repetitive and meditative in nature.
Kitchen service for us involves chopping vegetables and making chapattis. Sweet! I thought, this was going to be a breeze, I know how to chop veges. How hard can it be to make a chapatti?! Let me tell you it is so seriously hard!
Chapattis are made from flour and water and are traditionally a circular shape. I could not, try as I might, get mine to be round. I made square ones, heart shaped ones, ones with ears, ones of shapes that still have not been invented. I was told to make them thinner, thicker, smaller, larger and rounder. Oh for goodness sake, does it really matter! Yes, apparently it did.
After two hours of sheer frustration, I suggested that maybe I would be better suited to another kitchen service. Rice, perhaps? No, I'm a chapatti person.
Cody was deemed a lost cause and was given the envious job of ball boy. Meaning he got to roll the dough, that I then had to flatten and make round. Taiga obviously showed some potential as he was encouraged to keep making.
I tried meditating whilst making them to stop my overwhelming desire to throw my oddly shaped lump of dough at the Indian woman instructing me. I tried to cut out all the surrounding sounds, which was not easy. I tried to breath in some fresh air from the smoke filled room. I thought circle thoughts, I focussed so hard on that dough, I made it with love, I rolled it, I turned it, I floured it, circle, circle, circle and it was still not good enough.
After four hours of constant rolling, a few did eventually pass muster, and because I am a chapatti person, I will continue to do my service in the role I have been given. I will go with a smile on my face, calmness in my mind and continue my focus of making the perfect chapatti.
The Sri Aurobindo Yoga Mandir Ashram is situated in rural Thankot. It has been running for 18 years and currently homes roughly 100 people plus extras, with visitors coming and going as they search for and reach their various goals. It is completely self sufficient. It also makes money selling pashminas that they weave themselves, incense that they make, sewing, compost that is made and any excess grains, vegetables and milk products.
80ish of the current full time residents are children, all being schooled here. They are orphans.
We rise at 5am, however some start at 4.30am if they are milking cows or praying to the gurus of the ashram. Yoga is daily from 5.30am – 6.30am. Service is offered for an hour. The middle of the day can be used to do other jobs, reading, or meditation; whatever needs to be done. Service is again offered in the afternoons. The evenings are full as well with meditation four evenings a week and singing/chanting 3 evenings a week. The day ends at 9.30pm.
"Maintain silence please. Beware of tigers, particularly at night. Don't kill anything. Not even the bugs; we don't believe in killing any living beings," Susma quickly added as one of my sons lined up a spider with his home made slingshot. "Please only walk," her voice trailing off as both boys shot off in the direction of our room.
Susma a lovely Nepalese girl, who has lived on the Sri Aurobindo Yoga Mandir Ashram for 17 years, greeted us upon our arrival and explained the nature and vision of the Ashram, how it started, and its plans for the future.
We are expected to contribute daily to the community by helping with an allocated job. Susma suggested that we help out with sweeping and in the kitchen. I breathed a sigh of relief as I eyed off a group of women on a roof top in the hot midday sun sorting grains and a mix of people helping with construction of the new dining and meditation hall.
As children do, the boys adapted to their new 'home' instantly.
They had a wonderful first afternoon, chasing a litter of kittens, emerging with scratches from thorny bushes and from kittens resisting a cuddle. Memories of my own childhood came flooding back, having spent days at my grandparents house chasing kittens for the exact same reason. The openness of a community with no fences, just fence lines and children laughing and seeing no boundaries becoming very apparent as neighbours open their doors to allow the chase to continue.
It really is like turning back the hands of time. Farming the land by hand and milking the cows by hand. The food is plentiful, fresh, well cooked Nepali food, which is 'metosa!' (delicious). All of the dairy products are made fresh from the recently milked cows. There is no television, limited power; thankfully we have warm water and a bed. It is simply simple and beautiful.
As we near the end of our first day, I reflect on what my reasons are for being here. What are my goals for us? Obviously we'd like to learn yoga and meditation. To be completely honest, a bit of inner and/or outer peace won't go astray.
However, questions do present themselves:
Are the boys able to experience freedom as well as exercise caution in order to avoid wild tigers? I really hope so.
Are they able to demonstrate compassion and stop killing bugs? Yes I believe that is doable.
Are they able to learn self control and stop running? Anything is possible.
Can they learn responsibility and complete their daily jobs they have been allocated without being reminded. I'll say, maybe.
Can they demonstrate consideration for others and 'maintain silence please'? I still laugh out loud every time I think of it. I've probably got more chance of getting them to eat dahl bhaht. But hey, I'm optimistic (or insane). Here's hoping they surprise me!
Boudhanath is a UNESCO world heritage site and is one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Kathmandu. The ancient Stupa is also one of the largest in the world. It was on an ancient trade route from Tibet which entered through the Kathmandu Valley. Tibetan merchants have rested and offered prayer here for many centuries. The Stupa is also said to entomb the remains of a Kasyapa sage venerable both to Buddhist and Hindus.
What better place to have Cody blessed by a Buddhist monk! Granted it was the equivalent of the express lane in a supermarket, however, he has finally been blessed and now may call himself a Buddhist should he so wish.
Yesterday I was blessed by a Buddhist monk, so now I am a Buddhist like Mum and Taiga. It doesn't feel much different, but I do feel quite good inside. I really liked looking at the huge Stupa's eyes and ringing the bells and moving the prayer wheels.
Yesterday a Monk blessed me and said a prayer and gave me a prayer to wear around my neck. Mum says I got a top up of blessings, since I am already Buddhist. I want to become Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim (everything) as well, but Mum said I have to be born Hindu. I liked ringing the prayer bells and moving the prayer wheels. Stupa's eyes were awesome.
Pashupatinath, a UNESCO designated world heritage site, is the centre of faith and religious piety for the Hindus and Buddhists of Nepal. It is a place of prayer and meditation. The first dated inscription, Shaka Samvat 381, which corresponds to 459 A.D., is found in this area. It also happens to be the area where the Hindus cremate their dead. The boys' thoughts about our day are as follows:
We went to Pashupati today. I saw dead people burning. I saw them cut out a lady's eyes before they burnt her. Then they put rocks on her chest, so she wouldn't sit up during the burning. They put a lit candle in her mouth, then hay on her, so she could light her own fire.
There were wild monkeys everywhere. I saw one with no hands and one with no tail. I also saw one steal a ladies handbag.
We climbed all the stairs and saw the entire area. It was quite dirty. There was a heap of rubbish in the river.
We saw lots of Sadu Babas. Mum met one who was 110 years old and Cody took a photo of them.
Today we went to Pashupati and we saw someone's wife get burnt. It wasn't private like it is in Australia. We saw people take her eyes out.
We saw lots of monkeys.
We also watched a man being burnt. All the men in his family had to shave their heads. So we guessed it was someone's father and brother. It took five hours for the body to burn. Then they collected one bone and wrapped it in white cloth and then put it in the river. Then the men put white cloth on themselves hoping their father and brother would go to heaven.
From Cody.
A cute monkey we liked.
The boys wrapping their dad's bone to throw in the river
