Maurice and I rode the train whilst able to see the slums form the window, transferred twice, and finally got off at the stop for the temple and were only barely able to see it in the distance through the smog. When we arrived we had to check out cameras, bags, guns, etc and then go through a metal detector that beeped like crazy yet they didn't do anything (turns out in India there are lots of metal detectors like at Parliament, all train stations, Museums, Palaces, Temples, etc. and they all sound the alarm when you walk through with all your metal and occasionally there's an uninterested looking person sitting in a folding chair next to it staring off into space. Occasionally there's no one nearby at all. I guess it's some kind of formality left over from a time when metal meant danger. Apparently a plastic water bottle was fine to bring in, but the man who frisked me didn't allow me to take in a book or my steel waterbottle.
We headed first to the temple cafeteria to get some lunch which was merely OK and then set about checking out the temple in all its gilded glory. Ashkardam is a fairly new temple with lots of ornate carvings and gardens and it is dedicated to (we found out while watching the IMAX movie about him) some mystical kid named Neelkant who left home at age10 in like 1700 something and walked the border of India being all present and people flocked to him and worshipped him, but he was all, chill brah, I'm just being chill and you don't need to get on your knees or anything. So there's this...you know, you can just read the Wikipedia page on this biz. Anyhow, after circumambulating the insides of the temple we went over to the epcot center part of the temple where we skipped the animatronic storytelling of something relating to the Swamis or Neelkant and went straight to the IMAX part (that wasn't that IMAXy at all) and then skipped the, I shit you not, 12 minute boat ride through a celebration of the history and culture of India. There's also a musical fountain that we did not see do anything musical. Sounds a lot like Disneyland, no?
We got our fill of weird 2K era Hindu bizness and headed back to the metro. Locals insisted that one of us take the empty seat but we were all, no, you guys take it, but they were very insistent and I sat down. The sun was setting as we rode home and the nice thing about India, I found out, is that the air pollution is SO BAD that when the sun sets you can look straight at it and then it disappears well before hitting the horizon behind a billion autorickshaw's exhaust. Far fuckin' out indeed.
We decided to get some dinner upon our return and wandered down a nightmarket street that had all kinds of crazy crap and such and I got my first of many prolonged doses of deafening by moto horn blast. We found one restaurant that was on the second floor of a building and when we got to the top of the stairs saw that there was no one in it and there were 5 eager waiters and the prices were high. We looked at each other and left, looking for something a little more plebeian and found a place called Wah Ji Wah that was quite reasonable and tasty. I paid $2.50 and was full. And not freaked out.
Put that in your ascetic SkullBong and smoke it
We headed first to the temple cafeteria to get some lunch which was merely OK and then set about checking out the temple in all its gilded glory. Ashkardam is a fairly new temple with lots of ornate carvings and gardens and it is dedicated to (we found out while watching the IMAX movie about him) some mystical kid named Neelkant who left home at age10 in like 1700 something and walked the border of India being all present and people flocked to him and worshipped him, but he was all, chill brah, I'm just being chill and you don't need to get on your knees or anything. So there's this...you know, you can just read the Wikipedia page on this biz. Anyhow, after circumambulating the insides of the temple we went over to the epcot center part of the temple where we skipped the animatronic storytelling of something relating to the Swamis or Neelkant and went straight to the IMAX part (that wasn't that IMAXy at all) and then skipped the, I shit you not, 12 minute boat ride through a celebration of the history and culture of India. There's also a musical fountain that we did not see do anything musical. Sounds a lot like Disneyland, no?
We got our fill of weird 2K era Hindu bizness and headed back to the metro. Locals insisted that one of us take the empty seat but we were all, no, you guys take it, but they were very insistent and I sat down. The sun was setting as we rode home and the nice thing about India, I found out, is that the air pollution is SO BAD that when the sun sets you can look straight at it and then it disappears well before hitting the horizon behind a billion autorickshaw's exhaust. Far fuckin' out indeed.
We decided to get some dinner upon our return and wandered down a nightmarket street that had all kinds of crazy crap and such and I got my first of many prolonged doses of deafening by moto horn blast. We found one restaurant that was on the second floor of a building and when we got to the top of the stairs saw that there was no one in it and there were 5 eager waiters and the prices were high. We looked at each other and left, looking for something a little more plebeian and found a place called Wah Ji Wah that was quite reasonable and tasty. I paid $2.50 and was full. And not freaked out.
Put that in your ascetic SkullBong and smoke it
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