Date: Sat Jan 18, 2003
Subject: Safely home

Hi folks,

Well I'm safely back in Kyoto after 23 days of travelling and doing the Varanasi thing. It was a great trip although the return journey was a bit difficult at times.

In Varanasi, I had 18 days of lessons during which I studied Dhamar, an old 14 beat taal which I'll now have to find someone else to play with. I learnt some very useful things which I can apply in all taals and developed my technique and confidence a little. I also got to practise with some great musicians - Govinda Goswami on sitar and the singer Devashish Dey. They were both very complimentary which was great for my confidence. I realised that I'd developed quite a lot living in Kyoto, playing with such excellent musicians here and concentrating on Indian classical music. It was also good to see some of my old friends from around the world and of course to see my beloved Guru-ji, who seemed to be the same as ever. He will be 86 in March!

My return journey however, was a bit stressful. Due to the record cold snap in North India, there have been very heavy fogs which have thrown the train system into disarray. My train was due to leave at 5am and arrive in Kolkata at 5pm, which would allow me to stay the night with a Japanese sitar-player friend there and then go to the airport in good time to catch my 10am flight. However, after getting up before 4am and heading to the train station, I learnt that the train was 4 hours late. No problem, I thought. Then a couple of hours later it was going to be 8 hours late, at which point I decided to head back into town and get some more sleep and good food. After lunch, I rang the station and found that the train was going to be 11 hours late. Now I was starting to get worried - if it was further delayed overnight, there was a chance I'd miss my plane, in which case I'd miss my connecting flight from Bangkok and not make it back for work (today). I visited a travel agent who advised me to try to change my flight dates, but the next 2 days were booked out so I paid him his 100 rupee commission and headed to the station intending to catch the next train to Kolkata and pray to arrive on time. In the end, my train left at 5.20pm (more than 12 hours late) and arrived at 8am the next morning (15 hours late!). I made it to the airport and managed to check in and go through all the procedures in time to wait about 20 minutes before boarding. Phew! I then had 8 hours in Bangkok and another overnight trip via Seoul to Osaka. After 3 nights of very little sleep I was exhausted and despite 12 hours of sleep last night I was pretty tired at work today. Now I'm getting back into my old 5 days a week routine... The plan now is to save for the next 5 months and then head to India for about 2 years, during which time I should develop pretty well.

Love to all,
Shen
Aum Mani Padme Hum