In Imphal on the morning of the 5th I watched the first game of the NBA finals in my hotel room and then, at 11, left on a van bound for Dimapur in Nagaland, via Imphal and then west into the lowlands near the Assam border. The van got a slow start, picking up other passengers in Imphal. A misty rain fell at first, then the sun came out, but soon the sky was cloudy. The day was hot but temperatures cooled as we ascended into the green hills to a little over 6000 feet before reaching Kohima, at about 5000 feet, about 3. The mountaintops near Kohima were all clouded up.
From Kohima the van headed west down to Dimapur, the last part of the descent through a beautiful narrow green valley just before the hot and humid plains. My altimeter gave Dimapur's altitude as 700 feet. We arrived just before dark and I searched for a hotel in the dark. I thought I had found a good one and checked in. The front desk clerk sang "Yes, Jesus Loves Me" to himself as he checked me in. I had a miserable night there, with little sleep. While the room looked good, the fan had no force at all and mosquitos swarmed in through the open, unscreened windows. The next morning I had maybe a hundred mosquito bites.
I was up at 6:30 the next morning and couldn't find any day buses to Guwahati, so I bought an unreserved ticket on the train to Guwahati leaving at 7:30. It cost all of 90 rupees, about $1.40, for the six hour journey west to Guwahati. To my surprise the unreserved carriage at the front of the train had plenty of room. A shy little boy and his family sat in front of me. A friendly old man dressed all in white and with a cane sat next to me. He read a religious book and kept trying to speak Hindi to me. The carriage never got too crowded.
Under cloudy skies the train passed through green countryside, hilly in places. Some rain fell. I saw cattle, buffalo, and some large birds, painted storks I think. I saw rice being planted in one spot. The sky brightened a bit as we neared Guwahati through a very pretty hilly area. I had a view of the Brahmaputra, looking flooded. The train arrived in Guwahati, the capital of Assam with more than 800,000 people, about 1:30 and I found a hotel near the train station.
About 3 I walked to the banks of the Brahmaputra, less than a mile north of the train station. The river was very high and fast-moving, with wooded islands midstream. I walked along it, passing two mansions with green lawns in front, now inhabited by the Chief Justice and an Associate Justice of the Guwahati High Court, the highest court not only in Assam, but also Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Mizoram. The colonial era domed High Court Building itself is nearby, fronting a large tank ringed by a park with statues. I ate dinner in a new modern outdoor and indoor dining facility in another little park which seemed to be frequented by Guwahati's middle classes. The night was warm and humid.
The next morning I walked under a sunny sky to the Assam State Museum, getting there as it opened at 10. The day was hot and I spent a good deal of it at the air conditioned museum, leaving after 4. The museum was pretty good, with an excellent statuary collection and interesting tribal cultures displays. One room, sponsored by an NGO, had newspaper articles, books, and films on women in northeast India, focusing in part on rape. Leaving the museum, I walked around town a bit and to the river at sunset. Not a breeze blew, even on the river, on a hot night.
The next morning I watched the second game of the NBA finals in my room from 5:30 to 8:30, had breakfast, and then caught a bus west through the city and along the Brahmaputra for about four miles, where I got off and took a van about two miles up a wooded hill to the Kamakhya temple near the top. I arrived about 10:30 This temple is located at another one of the 51 spots where Sati's body parts fell to earth as Shiva did his dance of destruction. I have been to several other of these spots, in Calcutta, in Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, and recently in Mizoram, plus probably some others. Here it was her yoni, or vulva, that fell to earth, and so this temple is important for the sensual tantric worship of female spiritual power, or so I've read. It certainly is an interesting place and I spent most of the rest of the day there.
At the center is a long low temple building with a typical Assamese beehive shaped shikhara (tower) at one end, over the inner sanctum. Interesting statues and bas reliefs adorn the temple and lots of colorful people, including sadhus, milled around. Many of the people stood or sat in an enclosed walkway, like a long cage, waiting patiently in line to get to the inner sanctum. Sacrificial baby goats, some with ribbons tied around the neck, were tied up near the back of the temple. One white one was sprinkled with red powder. As I wandered around the temple complex, I didn't see any sacrifices, though I did hear bleating and see one headless goat with its tail still flopping. Its body was then hung up, skinned, and cut up. I noticed that the number of goats slowly diminished over the morning and afternoon.
I wandered all around and sat and watched here and there. People and priests were friendly. I think I may have seen one other foreign tourist. I entered the dark rooms of the temple west of the inner sanctum, where some worshippers and their priests were conducting pujas. In a tank off to the side of the temple some of the worshippers bathed. The inner sanctuary was closed from 1 to 3, but people were still in the caged queue waiting for it to reopen. About 2 I sat off to the side and ate a lunch of cookies and water.
At 3 I paid 101 rupees, a little over a dollar and a half, to get into a faster queue to see the inner sanctum. It still took 45 minutes and was slow and humid, though there were some fans. I walked along with a friendly family from Bombay. Finally, we walked down a narrow stairway into the dark inner sanctum. The yoni, or rather the representation of it (there are lots of yonis in temples, as there are lots of lingams), was wet and covered with flowers. I was told to touch it, which I did, as did everyone, and I was told to drink the water in little pools on it, which I declined, though it seemed everyone else did.
Outside again, I wandered around a bit more. I noticed several white pigeons colored pink on the exterior of the temple below the shikhara and near the statues and bas reliefs. I also noticed several big, odd looking goats resting on the pavement near the temple. They didn't seem destined for sacrifice, at least not yet.
Sometime after 4 I walked up the road to the top of the hill, at about 1000 feet elevation, according to my altimeter, 800 feet higher than downtown Guwahati. A shabby temple sat on the top, but the views of the Brahmaputra flowing just below the hill and to the east and west were great. The hilltop also has great views of Guwahati just upriver and a big bridge over the Brahmaputra just downriver. Mosquitoes were thick up on the hilltop. I noticed them all over my feet. I enjoyed the views and then walked back to the temple, where I caught a van and then a bus back to Guwahati.
From Kohima the van headed west down to Dimapur, the last part of the descent through a beautiful narrow green valley just before the hot and humid plains. My altimeter gave Dimapur's altitude as 700 feet. We arrived just before dark and I searched for a hotel in the dark. I thought I had found a good one and checked in. The front desk clerk sang "Yes, Jesus Loves Me" to himself as he checked me in. I had a miserable night there, with little sleep. While the room looked good, the fan had no force at all and mosquitos swarmed in through the open, unscreened windows. The next morning I had maybe a hundred mosquito bites.
I was up at 6:30 the next morning and couldn't find any day buses to Guwahati, so I bought an unreserved ticket on the train to Guwahati leaving at 7:30. It cost all of 90 rupees, about $1.40, for the six hour journey west to Guwahati. To my surprise the unreserved carriage at the front of the train had plenty of room. A shy little boy and his family sat in front of me. A friendly old man dressed all in white and with a cane sat next to me. He read a religious book and kept trying to speak Hindi to me. The carriage never got too crowded.
Under cloudy skies the train passed through green countryside, hilly in places. Some rain fell. I saw cattle, buffalo, and some large birds, painted storks I think. I saw rice being planted in one spot. The sky brightened a bit as we neared Guwahati through a very pretty hilly area. I had a view of the Brahmaputra, looking flooded. The train arrived in Guwahati, the capital of Assam with more than 800,000 people, about 1:30 and I found a hotel near the train station.
About 3 I walked to the banks of the Brahmaputra, less than a mile north of the train station. The river was very high and fast-moving, with wooded islands midstream. I walked along it, passing two mansions with green lawns in front, now inhabited by the Chief Justice and an Associate Justice of the Guwahati High Court, the highest court not only in Assam, but also Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Mizoram. The colonial era domed High Court Building itself is nearby, fronting a large tank ringed by a park with statues. I ate dinner in a new modern outdoor and indoor dining facility in another little park which seemed to be frequented by Guwahati's middle classes. The night was warm and humid.
The next morning I walked under a sunny sky to the Assam State Museum, getting there as it opened at 10. The day was hot and I spent a good deal of it at the air conditioned museum, leaving after 4. The museum was pretty good, with an excellent statuary collection and interesting tribal cultures displays. One room, sponsored by an NGO, had newspaper articles, books, and films on women in northeast India, focusing in part on rape. Leaving the museum, I walked around town a bit and to the river at sunset. Not a breeze blew, even on the river, on a hot night.
The next morning I watched the second game of the NBA finals in my room from 5:30 to 8:30, had breakfast, and then caught a bus west through the city and along the Brahmaputra for about four miles, where I got off and took a van about two miles up a wooded hill to the Kamakhya temple near the top. I arrived about 10:30 This temple is located at another one of the 51 spots where Sati's body parts fell to earth as Shiva did his dance of destruction. I have been to several other of these spots, in Calcutta, in Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, and recently in Mizoram, plus probably some others. Here it was her yoni, or vulva, that fell to earth, and so this temple is important for the sensual tantric worship of female spiritual power, or so I've read. It certainly is an interesting place and I spent most of the rest of the day there.
At the center is a long low temple building with a typical Assamese beehive shaped shikhara (tower) at one end, over the inner sanctum. Interesting statues and bas reliefs adorn the temple and lots of colorful people, including sadhus, milled around. Many of the people stood or sat in an enclosed walkway, like a long cage, waiting patiently in line to get to the inner sanctum. Sacrificial baby goats, some with ribbons tied around the neck, were tied up near the back of the temple. One white one was sprinkled with red powder. As I wandered around the temple complex, I didn't see any sacrifices, though I did hear bleating and see one headless goat with its tail still flopping. Its body was then hung up, skinned, and cut up. I noticed that the number of goats slowly diminished over the morning and afternoon.
I wandered all around and sat and watched here and there. People and priests were friendly. I think I may have seen one other foreign tourist. I entered the dark rooms of the temple west of the inner sanctum, where some worshippers and their priests were conducting pujas. In a tank off to the side of the temple some of the worshippers bathed. The inner sanctuary was closed from 1 to 3, but people were still in the caged queue waiting for it to reopen. About 2 I sat off to the side and ate a lunch of cookies and water.
At 3 I paid 101 rupees, a little over a dollar and a half, to get into a faster queue to see the inner sanctum. It still took 45 minutes and was slow and humid, though there were some fans. I walked along with a friendly family from Bombay. Finally, we walked down a narrow stairway into the dark inner sanctum. The yoni, or rather the representation of it (there are lots of yonis in temples, as there are lots of lingams), was wet and covered with flowers. I was told to touch it, which I did, as did everyone, and I was told to drink the water in little pools on it, which I declined, though it seemed everyone else did.
Outside again, I wandered around a bit more. I noticed several white pigeons colored pink on the exterior of the temple below the shikhara and near the statues and bas reliefs. I also noticed several big, odd looking goats resting on the pavement near the temple. They didn't seem destined for sacrifice, at least not yet.
Sometime after 4 I walked up the road to the top of the hill, at about 1000 feet elevation, according to my altimeter, 800 feet higher than downtown Guwahati. A shabby temple sat on the top, but the views of the Brahmaputra flowing just below the hill and to the east and west were great. The hilltop also has great views of Guwahati just upriver and a big bridge over the Brahmaputra just downriver. Mosquitoes were thick up on the hilltop. I noticed them all over my feet. I enjoyed the views and then walked back to the temple, where I caught a van and then a bus back to Guwahati.
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