Rob and Anna's travel adventure

We are not Hindu, we do not believe in organized religion or cults, and nevertheless, we decided to visit the places that hard core pilgrims follow. How could we not? This is a part and parcel of Indian life, culture and tradition, and it certainly offers a cultural exploration for us.

You may have heard about Tirumala. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims visit this sacred place every day, flocking here from all parts of India; some are walking 17 km up the hill, then stand for hours or even days in line to enter the special temple, where they have only a couple of minutes to say their wish, and then they shave their hair off as a sign of offering and rejecting their ego. We did not shave our heads, but we certainly joined the pilgrims for the traditional lunch provided absolutely for free to keep some nourishment for pilgrims in their respectful endeavors of reaching that special wish granting place in the temple. Needless to say, we were the only foreigners in the pilgrimage land. Some people were staring at us, probably wondering what on earth brought us non-Hindus here, some were smiling at us as if welcoming us to try something different, and some at our table just talked to us and told us that it was an honor for them to meet the foreigners. Yes - we should learn such gesture of hospitality from Indians. When was the last time you spoke to a foreign tourist in your town and told them you were honored to meet them? Probably not in a while... Anyway, the lunch was served on a banana leaf, and it was done very efficiently. We saw hundreds of tables served at the same time, all for free. Rob and I walked around Tirumala - we saw lots of families camping out right in front of the temple, sleeping on the ground, some already were able to enter the temple, some had their heads clean shaven, including the kids. I asked one lady how her baby took the shaving process, and she told me the child hated it and screamed non stop. But, it had to be done for the wish to fulfil, so they went on with the procedure. Also, before leaving Tirumala, I needed to use the ladies room. To my surprise, when I entered the washroom I saw a bunch of ladies standing in peculiar positions with their exposed lower parts of the bodies and washing vigorously their private areas - they looked at me casually and proceeded with their business. I thought OK, business as usual today. When I went to use the bathroom, a lady wanted to help me out - she brought two containers with water, which were former fuel canisters, and told me to help myself. I wasn't planning to wash myself, but I thanked her, closed my bathroom door, and thought to myself "oh boy, it sure is nice to be a foreigner sometimes, preferential treatment even in bathroom".

Speaking about the bathroom... Rob had his entry early on when we got started in India about his Delhi-belly... Well, it was my turn to experience the inevitable. When staying in Tirupathi, I ate or drank something (I suspect it was chai prepared with bad water, I seem to remember one stinky cup of tea) that made my stomach, seemingly robust by now, misbehave. Fourteen runs to the bathroom in 24 hours, I stopped counting after 14 actually. In addition, our hotel room bathroom had a squat toilet, which represents an additional challenge for the exploding process. It was not fun, my friends... Actually, I am surprised that I did not have more of those bad days while in India. Rob and I eat pretty much everything, and we just found out that our water filter has not been working for a while, so we had plenty of reasons to have rebelling tummies. Anyway, it is all part of experience.

Back to the pilgrimage route. We rested up for a few days in an ashram in Puttaparthi which was recommended to us by a few Russian travelers we met during our travels here in India. This ashram is very famous in India, and lots of celebrities are contributing to this "faith and idol". The ashram's leader (some crazy, but nice dude who believes he is the reincarnation of some Indian saint Sai Baba who died in 1900's) is the main drawing here, he is known worldwide for his teachings and yoga (though Rob and I have no idea about him). We thought it would contribute to our cultural exploration to visit this friendly cult - so, we settled in the self contained village - had our private room (only $3), very inexpensive meals in three offered restaurants on premises, peaceful gardens, security provided, etc., the whole nine yards. The funny part was that the majority of guests in this ashram were Russians, so the dominant language of guests here was Russian. Sometimes someone would start addressing Rob in Russian assuming he was fluent, so it was amusing for me to watch that. We had a few restful days here. We didn't care about the cult or the leader, but it was peaceful here, and sometimes it is exactly what we need. India is one crazy place, and we love it, but once in a while it is nice to have a piece of serenity, so we appreciated the opened doors of the ashram community.