Krishna’s Hometown

A 2-hr taxi ride to Vrindavan through floods on the road that you can see in the photos.  A traffic jam of cars, donkeys, pulling carts, rickshaws all fighting to go through the flood waters one by one while the kids are playing in it!! That just makes you want to go ewwwww!!!   Filthy dirty sewer water.

While in Vrindavan, we stayed at the MVT Ashram which happens to be located just behind the town’s massive ISKCON temple. The temple of the Hare Krishna’s.  It was sooo nice and surprisingly cheap with hotel rooms on one side of the complex (the room itself was clean, comfortable, and included a kitchenette) and apartments on the other side for long-term residents. Unusual for India, it also had gardens with green, manicured lawns and lush landscaping as you will see in the photos.   It was sequestered off the main road, so that you couldn’t hear the street noise or even have to look at the gutters filled with free-flowing sewage just a few steps outside the door. It was a little oasis at which you could really forget that you were in India.  Considering that the majority of people staying at MVT were Westerners (mostly Americans and eastern Europeans).  The Hare Krishna’s are on a strict vegetarian diet and I was sooo excited to eat some of my kind of food that I ate there every meal.  We just assumed it was safe because of all the foreigners.  Well just being around all the Hare Krishna’s took me back in time to when we use to fend them off in the airports and on the streets.   But they are the original Krishna devotees spreading their Guru’s teachings around the world. So I got a big surprise after eating breakfast. lunch & dinner there.   My first bout of Indian tourista sickness, hanging out with the porcelain god all night.  Who would of thunk!!  We told the manager of the restaurant the next day & of course he didn’t believe that their restaurant was the only place that we had eaten???  Oh well  you have to get initiated at some point.  After we had spoken with a few of the guests, they told us to not eat there, that they have a bad reputation.  Great-just when you think you are safe with a familiar 70’s old friend!!! LOL   So we explored and Sanjay took me to one of his Guru’s ashrams where I had a wonderfully divine experience.  Connecting to the Divine Energy of his Guru and HanaMan.

A lil’ price of bliss as you can see our radiant faces in the photos after our third eye red dot smudges.   There were Ashrams everywhere and monkeys walking down the streets like dogs.  I also saw my first Indian Camel pulling an old cart.  I got quite excited!!!

We only stayed there a few days and then had to return to Delhi to receive the computer back in the mail.  So back to Delhi by taxi again and a birds eye view of the countryside.   Fields of sugar cane, women working in the fields in their sari’s in the humid heat.  The sari’s are made of nylon, silk & polyester and do not breath.  It made me sweat Just thinking of it!!  Strong women.  Huts made out of straw along the way and lots of abandoned large buildings and factories???   Sanjay said Money problems and hard times economically.  When they run out of money, things just stop.  So back to Delhi. 

This Large statue was along the roadside.  Impressive. So many temples, statues & ashrams in this small town.