Kathmandu

I was brushing my teeth this morning and, out of the blue, found myself in Kathmandu.

Many years ago I went on an adventure to the northern parts of the Indian sub-continent. I travelled by car, train and plane in a higgledy-piggledy way across Northern India and up into Nepal, from Delhi to Varanasi to Kathmandu and back to Delhi. I had a wonderful time and saw some amazing sights that will stay with me forever, such as opening the curtains in my hotel room and having that 'wow' moment as I looked out over the red roofs of Kathmandu and into the foothills of the Himalayas as the sun glinted on the snow-covered peaks. I saw 8" tall marigolds in Kathmandu. Honest.

I floated a candle as an offering to Mother Ganga at dawn as I was rowed up the Ganges at Varansi past the burning ghats as the Ganges turned orange as the first rays of the sun hit it. I was blessed by a Jain monk in a wave of incense smoke. I was surrounded by mutilated beggars outside the Palace of the Winds at Jaipur until a coach tour arrived and the picking were better elsewhere. I met Kali in an ancient temple and she was daubed in blood. I drove through endless fields with women picking the crops while wearing the most colourful saris imaginable. I drove through a desert and stopped at a country club with the greenest lawns I've ever seen. The majesty of the Taj Mahal at Agra. Oh, the memories...

I'm not sure why brushing my teeth made me think of Kathmandu but it did. I also thought of last Thursday when I saw two Buddhist monks in orange robes - one in Tooting Broadway station and one in the Cabinet War Rooms. My mind is telling me something. I need to go East.

I have yearnings in me.