Existence. Aaaauuuuuuuummmmmmm.

As I read back through my writings from solo traveling, I find clues of the parts missing from my current lifestyle. Research on time, space, being is still here of course, but not as unavoidable as in, say, Vietnam. Of late, there have been no Hungs randomly buying me cups of xeo and squid jerky. There have been no solo adventures into the Himalaya well past dark. No search parties have been sent of late - primarily because there are so damn many people in this country, so someone knows where I am at all times; but that's not the point. There is not a religion to get deeper and deeper into in India, only a philosophy that encompasses every other philosophy on the planet. Only a system of belief designed to encapsulate every system of belief. That is to say, every time we reach a new destination we find not new aspects of one religion, but an entirely new religion bearing the same name.

This is a decent metaphor for this country - Bharat. India. 22 some odd different languages yet 2 official languages (one of them English). 4 castes historically wearing straightjackets of societal roles. Kali worshippers killing goats. Krishna worshippers loving life. Allah worshippers eating cows. And yet one simple thing unites them in their nationhood - their nation-statehood. India. Bharat. Gandhi, largely, convinced them all that they are the same. That people are the same. That religions are all fallacious on some levels, and based on pure truth on some level; and that all of them must unite as one whole truth. That India should exist.

Thus, while Laos and Thailand are quick to point out the minute differences in their dialects; and while Vietnam and Cambodia bicker about whose communism is best, Gujaratis and Bengalis both pride themselves as Indians. (For the moment please ignore the partition of India and the Pakistani wars. Also the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan. Thank you.)

But back to the point - India boggles the mind at every corner, challenges ideas of existence at every corner, but does not provide the constant feeling of enrichment as prior experiences have. Or, perhaps, my mind has simply chosen the benefits of the past to highlight while suppressing freezing cold miserableness in, say, Dalat that provided the buffer between revelries. Which is to say that now there is very little discomfort - the bus rides are still long, the train rides obnoxious; but there is always one person with which to share the inteminable, thus making them far less interminable. Even when we are at each other's throats, at least we're there together.

Somebody whose name or essence I cannot remember said that the traveler's job is to have a miserable time, for if one emerges from journeys with only flowers and sunshine and rainbows and the occasional leprechaun, what fun is there? What challenge? So yes, on some level I am saying that I miss the utter discomfort, the genuine terribleness of traveling alone through Pyay, Burma.

Then again, this isn't all peaches... Walking through Bharat is to walk with one foot in cow dung and the other in Italian leather freshly polished by the shoe wallah prowling the train station. We left Gujarat with a pure mindset of bliss. A recuperated sense of peace. An existence ready to take on the next existence with a new level of acceptance and calm.

Delhi sucks. Delhi absolutely sucks. I didn't quite realize just how many people 14 million is until I sat on the steps at the Jama Masjid and watched thousands pour through the narrow alleyways of the old city. I didn't realize how quickly delicious Chicken Korma (and BEEF in the muslim quarter) could move from the best thing in the universe to something requiring way too much work to get. Dodging the rickshaws to duck into the absurdly tiny restaurants and eating the sometimes cold food, however delicious, lost its novelty quickly. Maybe I've just been in Asia too long, but the discomfort this time was unwelcome; no matter how nostalgic I occasionally get about past endeavors.

So after a journey across the city in autorickshaws in an attempt to get to the Museum of Toilets (uh huh), we gave up and just rode another stupid rickshaw until we somehow stumbled back into Connaught Place - the usually grassy center of town that is now brown and covered in construction equipment for the next phase of subway construction...that is, when it's visible through the smog that the government claims is fog. We jumped on the subway to end our day.

Our hotel refused to hold our bags until our train left, so we walked around the old city to find another hotel that would. Finally, we are free to go to the largest Mosque in India, where Jenny's shoes are promptly stolen (no shoes in holy places). She gets flip flops while I hang out with a Kashmiri who reignites some of my faith in humanity. We head to the Rajghat, where Gandhi was cremated. Finding it as disappointingly uninspiring as his Ashram in Ahmedabad, we sit on the first grass we've seen since Calcutta before heading to Rishikesh for New Years.

Rishikesh is a pilgrimage site on the banks of the Ganges. Being holy, all food is vegetarian and alcohol is prohibited. Bars don't exist. Restaurants close around nine. A Delhi-ite we met here yesterday put it well: "We came here to celebrate New Years. Now we are thinking maybe stupid." We played some short-lived drinking games with Coca Cola in our room before the cold got to us and we just went to sleep. Apparently it turned to 2006 without us, anyway.

Today . After catching up with a couple that I met in the bus station in Bangkok, we headed to the Yoga Ashram recommended to me by the Israelis I met in Myanmar for the second day of Yoga practice. Finally we got a little insight into the purpose of the whole body-twisting business that Westerners have slutted out in the name of fitness: step three in the path to Nirvana. However, I still have trouble with every position other than "headstand." Any enlightenment I achieve may be some time off as yet.

We're excited enough to postpone (or cancel) a trip to the Dalai Lama's crib to discover what we can here. More to come....