Buddhist Astrology Site

South India February 4, 1999 Last February 1999 the Buddhist Association hosted a tour of South India with 12
people in attendance. The day prior to departure several people were almost trapped on
Vancouver Island as the BC Ferry Corporation shut the sailing down due to stormy
conditions. Luckily everyone got off the Island on the last sailing at noon. The weather
was horrible, but an excellent send off when the destination’s weather was to be in the
90’s and constantly sunny.
   The arrival in Madras was uneventful and Lobsang, our tour guide from the
pervious year’s tour, with a nice AC bus, picked us up. The New Victoria Hotel was on a
slightly dirty lane but the hotel itself was quite fine. Each morning we had the choice of
several styles of South Indian iddis and samba, or the standard fare of eggs on toast.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the new taste treats and wonderfully hot weather. During the 3
days we were in the Madras area we spent one day travelling to Mahabalipurnam and
several colourful temples in the area. Mahabalipurnam, south of Madras, is a city of old
temples and statues. The temples and cave temples were interesting and the statue makers
are still there plying their trade. We saw incredible statues of standing Buddhas and a
Dancing Ganesh being carved that were over 6 feet tall. The craftsmanship was excellent.
   On the 4th morning we all entered an AC train coach and travelled to Mysore City.
The train took only 8 hours to arrive there and we had time to see some of the smaller
sights the city has to offer. The following day we went to a huge palace that was built in
the 1900’s. It was opulent beyond belief. Rooms were decorated in silver inlay or
precious stones. All the ceilings had frescos and it covered acres. The only shame is one
was not allowed to take pictures. The mental images left are still fresh in our minds
though. We also visited a hill temple for Tsamundi (Durga) and a huge stone statue of
Nandi, the bull vehicle of Lord Shiva. In the afternoon we drove to the Dzongkar Chode
Monastery, about 2 hours away.
   The next 5 days was a mixture of just relaxing in the heat or viewing the spectacles
of the surrounding monasteries. Gyudme Tantric College was within a short walk of our
residence and the two local town sites (although very small) were full of Tibetan refugees
who had successfully resettled in the South. We were hosted with front row seats for the
traditional Lama Dances on New Years Day. These started at dawn and continued until
mid afternoon. A huge pavilion was erected over the outside dance area and about 500
local Tibetans arrived to enjoy the dancing. The dances comprised of identifying the evil
influences of the last year, seeing what damage they had done and then bringing them
under control. At the end all the demons were controlled and the negativity taken out to a
field where it was ceremonially burned in a huge fire, thus clearing the way for a
successful new year. As the dances carried on all day there were several smaller dances
for comic relief. We saw the dance of the Snow Lions and several other things. The
colour and costumes of the dances was unbelievable.
   One of the days after the dances we also had the opportunity to go to Rajiv Gandhi
Wildlife Reserve. Although you had to stay inside the bus that drove us around the park
we saw over 50 wild elephants and several species of deer and buffaloes. This reserve has
the largest population of tigers in India, but we did not have a chance to see any. We did
hear from a couple that had been there for several weeks that they had seen three tigers
from the lookout towers.   This required staying overnight in the towers and catching sight
of the tigers when they came to drink at the water holes.
   From there the tour departed for Trivandrum and the Kovalum Beach area in
Kerala State. The tour concluded after three days on the beach with lots of swimming in
the warm Indian Ocean and tanning under sunny skies. Most people departed at that time
to travel either up to Dharmsala to attend His Holiness’s teachings or to trek in Nepal.
Several of us remained in Kovalum for another week and enjoyed the annual Nisgandhi
Dance Festival. Each evening for 7 nights in a row different dancers or dance troupe from
all over India performed to live musical accompaniment. Maria and Jhampa continued on
in the south for another 4 weeks and finally returned to Canada on March 20th.    The
other ten people stayed for varying lengths of time, some up to three months.

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