Unique experience while traveling - satvik, safe and cheapt

[tks]

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Being that we have members here from many parts of the world who have traveled to many other parts of the world it will be interesting to share our *unique* experience in our quest to travel satvik, safe and cheap.

I came back from about a month long 'backpacking' travel through some countries of South America. I will share some of my unique experience in the next set of posts that includes traveling in India and other places some years ago.

The point is not to repeat what is easily found in tourist books. Useful reference from your experience is always welcome.

To be more concrete let me explain the choice of certain words

Tourist vs traveler
===========

Some well known quotes will get the difference I am trying to communicate.

1. The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

2. Many times when you're a tourist you can just stay on the surface and not really experience the place you're visiting, which will probably leave you disappointed. Everywhere has something interesting; it's just about being curious enough to find it and scratch where you have to scratch and stay longer and walk further.
Diego Luna

3. The tourist transports his own values and demands to his destinations and implants them like an infectious disease, decimating whatever values existed before.Arthur Erickson


Unique experience
===========

This is about describing your own experience or those of others that you know very closely. In addition the narration of experience is more interesting if one can describe the anecdote thereby providing insights about the place, and people (natives or other travelers)

Traveling vs pilgrimage
==============

Traveling can be happening everyday in one's own backyard also.
Pilgrimage is an attitude. If the intent is not to just collect 'Punyam' as the primary purpose during pilgrimage (and therefore reduced to tourism) then it is hard to 'see' what may be interesting. Sharing your pilgrimage experience from a visitor's eye is most welcome.

Traveling satvik, safe and cheap
====================

Satvik lifestyle during travel includes not getting into trouble, being able to find and eat vegetarian food and observe others with respect. Traveling as a vegetarian within India may be easier but not so if one has to travel in certain parts of the world.

By the word cheap I mean, traveling without spending extravagant amount of money.

If people participate and share their unique experience it will be fun for all to read.

 

[prasad1]

I am a tourist, I try to be satvik, safe and cheap in every land I travel.

 

[mskmoorthy]

I am at best an arm chair traveler. My appetite is quenched by reading others travelogues. Here is a piece by Mr. Pico Iyer (whom I admire greatly) 'Why We Travel' - Pico Iyer - great travelogue Happily Handmade: 'Why We Travel' - Pico Iyer - great travelogue

The last two paragraphs of the above blog
And even as the world seems to grow more exhausted, our travels do not, and some of the finest travel books in recent years have been those that undertake a parallel journey, matching the physical steps of a pilgrimage with the metaphysical steps of a questioning (as in Peter Matthiessen’s great “The Snow Leopard”), or chronicling a trip to the farthest reaches of human strangeness (as in Oliver Sack’s “Island of the Color-Blind,” which features a journey not just to a remote atoll in the Pacific, but to a realm where people actually see light differently). The most distant shores, we are constantly reminded, lie within the person asleep at our side.

So travel, at heart, is just a quick way to keeping our minds mobile and awake. As Santayana, the heir to Emerson and Thoreau with whom I began, wrote, “There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.” Romantic poets inaugurated an era of travel because they were the great apostles of open eyes. Buddhist monks are often vagabonds, in part because they believe in wakefulness. And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.

 

[tks]

Sri mskmoorthy - the blog you quoted is delightful to read!


While the interpretation of the words Tourism and Travel is somewhat arbitrary, here is a link that provides a quiz to determine what kind you are

Are You a Traveler or a Tourist? Take the Quiz to Find Out! | Adventure Collection
========================

I am personally not for travel and not against it. In recent years (perhaps decade) I have not sought to go anywhere for vacation or planned any pilgrimage trips. I ended up traveling mainly because of others or for work related reasons.

As a graduate student in America in mid to late 70s, I had an opportunity to travel parts of Europe backpacking. I went with some friends then and our group consisted of 3 women and two men (including me). I was on Visa then and others were American 'kids'. I was always a vegetarian and never had interest or fascination with drinking or smoking or drugs ever. However at this forum I will not describe experiences from that trip from my immature student days (like they say "what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas").

Fast forward over 3 decades later, my children in 20s wanted to go backpacking through countries of South America. I offered to go with them and in some ways it is vastly a different experience. We did go to some tourist type places as well.

One of the great accomplishments - if I can even call that - was climbing the Machu Pichu mountain. They only allow 400 people in a given day to climb the mountain though the visitors to the Inca ruins include well over 3000 people a day.

People in good health and spirits mostly in their 20s and 30s climb the mountain . There are two mountains in the area, one of which is shorter and much more treacherous. Machu Pichu mountain itself is much taller but with time one can easily climb it.

I did not see anyone in my age group during the climb which made me reflect on the scolding of my wife (who did not come on this trip and was critical of me running around like I am in my 20s)

I had done my homework about getting proper hiking shoes and we carried a bit too many things (water, umbrella, rain poncho, some food etc) in an unevenly balanced manner. I did not take any pictures in the trip since I do not particularly care to take images (of past). My children did take many and were carrying camera as well.

I have read about how hard it is to breath when one is at heights but experienced that first time. We were over 10000 feet over sea level which made us get really tired quickly climbing even a little. The mountain is steep and steps are formed by rocks whose width sometimes is less than half the length of our feet. There are obviously no railing to hold onto except the mountain dirt on one side and steep drop on the other. In some areas people have to go one at a time due to the width of space available.

I saw the people around the world (not any Indian people) mostly youngsters just climbing rapidly or climbing down rapidly.

There were places I was kneeling and climbed one step at a time. I did not want to slow down others but did not want to take undue risks.

I found that if one were to focus on the total height to be climbed it would be hard. The thing that worked for me was to focus on one step at a time. I was reciting "Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya" - it is actually 8 syllables and I used to go 8 steps and take a break

It started raining very heavily and we put on our rain ponchos and continued the climb.

The scene from the top was super where I spent time meditating. The climb down turned out to be much harder because of rain and the need to not slip while placing the foot down.

At the top we chatted with young people from many countries.
(தொடரும்)

 

[sadasivam.sridharan]

Being a vegetarian and expecting a pure vegetarian food while travelling in countries like China and Japan is just next to impossible.Either you have to carry your own prepared food or wrap a wet cloth around your tummy.

 

[tks]

Being a vegetarian and expecting a pure vegetarian food while travelling in countries like China and Japan is just next to impossible.Either you have to carry your own prepared food or wrap a wet cloth around your tummy.

I found that with prior preparation it is possible to get vegetarian food even in these places though one should not questions for which one does not want answers. For example I do not want to know if they are using separate utensils to prepare vegetarian dish

In this post I did share my experience with seeking vegetarian food during one of my longer visits to Japan.

 

[tks]

Let me jump back from South America to South India and go back in time about a decade or more earlier.

It was one of those years when were were visiting Chennai when my children were teenagers. I made point that my children spent their summer in India which helped with their fluency in Tamil and created affinity to their Indian heritage.

Before coming for this summer vacation, during the academic year they had undertaken a study in a classroom setting of study of B.Gita as applicable to conflicts that arise in their teenage years.

They were also questioning anything I was doing at that age (they do that even now )

We went to the tank area near Kapaleeswarar temple and got somewhat ripped off by the auto-rickshaw fellow while getting there. I was a bit perturbed for having been taken for a ride.

My son said - "after all the poor rickshaw-wallah is working all day and he needs to do his own Dharma which includes making money off of gullible people". I told him that concept of Dharma does not work like that. Then he said - "perhaps Isvara wanted you to be cheated by the auto fellow, so just accept it". I told him to keep quiet.

We wanted to buy some fruits and there was a old lady toiling in the summer heat pushing a cart of fruits.

My children said that perhaps the Rickshaw driver was a cheat but they thought an old lady working all day could not be a cheat. They asked me not to negotiate down the price she quotes and see what happens.

In any case I am not a good negotiator in such instances. So I readily agreed to the price of the first item. Then for the next item of another fruit I again agreed to her quoted price. We purchased 3 kinds of fruits and I was ready to pay.

This old lady went back into my bag and replaced some of the fruits on her own saying why the replaced ones are better. Then she added two more fruits. I asked her why she is giving away some fruits for nothing. She said I overcharged you by mistake and hence provided these additions.

We were completely moved by her gesture. I told my kids that if conditions are right the concept of Dharma is deeply ingrained in the psyche of ordinary people.

 

[tks]

Back to few more episodes from my recent trip to South America

In our backpacking trip we were in a small town in Peru. There is a way to use Google Maps such that it works (in our 'smart phone') even when there is no data or phone connection. We had also customized the maps with locations of a few vegetarian and vegan restaurants.

We went to one such place. They have this idea of 'menu' which means they have pre-selected items for a fixed price which was about 3 dollars or so only. The meal included a salad, a quinoa and vegetable soup, a vegan entree made in Peru style, tea and some desert.

They seat those opting for this fixed menu in large round table. Because we were at very high altitude, we were suffering from low pressure and low oxygen affecting our sleep and also creating headaches. The owner of the restaurant advised us to gently keep coca leaves in our mouth and also enjoy hot coca tea! Actually their remedy worked and everyone in Peru, Bolivia, Chile etc seemed to enjoy these leaves. Later we discovered that these leaves are illegal in USA and that Cocaine is made from these leaves


Because we were seated together with strangers I had nice conversation with all of them. One woman from Lebanon was about my daughter's age in her mid 20s. She was not a Muslim or Christian but followed a different religion that I have not heard of. She was on a tour for 6 months to discover south america ! I could not imagine anyone taking time off like that to go visit places. I asked her name and she said that she has a Indian teacher who gave her the name Maya. It seems she has taken to Veganism and was into Yoga. She actually showed me poses done by Iyengar in her smart phone and it was part of her collection.

Then she told me that she has been given a special Mantra to recite by her Indian teacher. I was curious to know what it was. So she pulled out her notebook and showed me what she is trying to recite.

It was "Om Tryambakam, Yajamahe ..."

I asked if she knew the meaning and she gave a very superficial meaning. I started explaining why it is special and profound. At her request I told her that I will email her the full meaning which I did recently.

The nice thing is that before we undertook to climb the Machu Pichu mountain we did not know where to leave most of our stuff. She readily volunteered since she was going to stay for a week or so in that town. It was a nice gesture on her part and we had just met this stranger! We went back to our hotel which we did not trust and brought our backpack and dumped it in her hostel.

In the table we met a fellow who seemed to be a native Inca person. We met a couple from New Zealand who were on a tour for 18 months through many countries. I told them about Sri vivekananda which they listened with rapt attention.

I found that people who had chosen a vegetarian or vegan life style to be mostly satvik in their outlook.

I cannot obviously say all vegetarians are satvik


I have many more such stories as we traveled in our back packing tour. Not sure how many of our readers here are interested. If anyone is let me know and I will post a few more anecdotes.

If anyone is interested in reading my email to Maya explaining the meaning of OM and the 'Tryambakam' stotram I am happy to share it here as well..

Otherwise let me close my input to this thread here for now!