The vehicular transportation blog post....

The vehicles are always extremely interesting, not just how they look but also how they use them at times. They absolutely use them to their maximum and then some.

 

 

This is the modern version of the old Royal Enfield you still see being ridden around. In the same way they are still making the Morris Oxford-styled Ambassador, they are still making this old classic, just with sharper styling. The men ride these around as if the were Harleys

 

The over-loading of various vehicles never fails to amuse.

 For the John Deere fans among you....

 

You can't really see, and I wasn't going to get too close, but a policeman had this truck driver bailed up and was giving him a good slapping round as he clearly wasn't paying his fair share of Baksheesh. Baksheesh is not necessarily a bribe, not necessarily a tip either, more of an "encouragement towards better working relationships from what I understand ! The driver was handing over some notes but the policeman was getting angrier by the moment

They load these sugar cane trucks up like you wouldn't believe. This one is quite light compared to some. Will try to get a photo of a seriously overloaded one.

OK so these bullock carts have an interesting history going back well over 2000 years and apart from the wheels and tyres little else has changed in that time. I find the drivers are very nice men and take tremendous pride in their work. They are well respected on the road.

Another day, yet another remarkable event at Arunachala

Here’s a story and this is a remarkable one. I had seen this elderly gentleman several times around the hotel and we exchanged greetings a few times. I had also noticed that he had tremendous difficulty walking, was stooped over and using a walking stick,on which he put considerable weight. I had at one point asked him what was making his walking so difficult, he informed me very briefly that he had undergone disc surgery one year prior but was now suffering with a very weak back. Those of you who know something of my spinal history will know my attention was already peaking but he was clearly not interested in dwelling on the matter at all.

This is Tom

 

This morning at the pool he came up to me and we got talking more openly about the matter. Told him of my experiences over a lot of years, that I too have been crippled by the injury and had a simple sequence of exercises that made a real difference. He asked me what I could show him between now and tomorrow to which I replied “not much”.

Anyway, that’s not so interesting so far really and in a way has little to do with the real story at hand. He was telling me his daughter lives here along with her young daughter, they run a school for very young children (as you do !) He then informed me that as it happens he has another daughter living at the “top of the bottom island” in NZ, couldn’t remember the name of the place off hand but she was married to a May-ourie man, “does climbing” he said. I said “Nelson ?”, he said “yes, that’s it”. I said “ her names not Hannah is it ?” he said “yes” !

Well you could have slapped me on the belly with a cold wet fish straight out of the badly polluted waterways on a hot afternoon and I probably wouldn’t have noticed at that very moment because I was absolutely gob-smacked, whatever gob-smacked is.

So Hannah is one of the yoga students from nelson, still comes to class whenever she is down and I had even spent some time with here in Chch not long before coming to India. Her dad Tom, who lives between the UK and France, just happened to be visiting Arunachala at the same time I was….what are the chances ?

This is Tom with his daughter (Hannah's sister) and grand daughter at the pool today 

 Tom managed o get up the hill a bit and looked quite straight considering

I have had a whole heap of pretty amazing experiences since arriving here but that one really takes the cake.  Talking to people visiting Arunachala, but especially those who have chosen to live here, will tell you that this sort of thing happens here all the time, that nothing at all comes as a surprise, such is the nature of the place.  There is one really interesting comment Tom made when we first started talking and before I found out what I did. He said something along the lines of “we have a lot more in common that we could even realize” which I found to be a very interesting statement to make, even aside from what transpired after that.

I have said it before, I’ll say it again, there is something quite awesome about this place, mysterious and seemingly magical at times. From NZ before I came here I had heard these things but dismissed them as being the overly excited imaginations of the various fruit-loops that would inevitably visit this kind of place, unlike me who is way more grounded ! There are many other stories I could tell, experiences I have had, but for the most part I keep them to myself as they are very personal. This story was worth mentioning, hopefully Hannah and Tom won’t mind.

Mango Tree Cave & Virupaksha Cave

Mango Tree Cave is on the lower slopes of Arunachala. A young Ramana Maharshi lived in this cave for some time before going a little further up the hill to Virupaksha Cave. 

Of course from the front view it could be just another little shrine or temple but most of 

these "caves" have been built out to include entrance and sitting areas for visitors.

 Then you go further inside until you see this small opening which you crawl through into the actual cave area. Immediately I know some of you are wincing at the thought of going into such an enclosed space, probably with good reason.

 

....because inside that small entrance is this very small space under the rock (painted a nice bright green !) where the yogi would often spend many years in complete silence.  For those of us who have no problem entering these spaces it is a truly amazing and peaceful experience and no wonder they sought out caves to sit in (you had to be there !)

 

This is a little shrine by the Cave

 

So a little further up the hill you come to Virupaksha Cave

 

As you can see Ramana spent a lot of years here. Was unable to photograph inside the Ashram unfortunately but it is another amazing cave to sit in.