CON GAMES 24/7: No-Bull Travel, Seperate But Equal

May 22nd, 2008 at 08:16pm Michael Conniff 2

The Con Man gets a visit from Chuck Thompson, the "Con Games" truth-in-travel expert, and then segues into a discussion of John McCain's appearance on the "Ellen" show to talk about gay marriage--and the latest outrage from Reverend John Hagee.

Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday May 22, 2008.

Entry Filed under: Colorado, Con Games, Travel, United Post

2 Comments Add your own

1. Hugh520 | May 23rd, 2008 at 5:38 am

Regarding Disney, I think the best way to communicate Disney rejection is to say I'm a Warner Brothers man, or we're a Warner Brothers family. My brother and sister-in- law have raised a Disney-free teenager.

I traveled to India in 2000. I was there for about 21 days with a small group of twelve most of whom were Buddhists. Our trip had a distinct purpose which brought us to one of India's least traveled and at times lawless states known as Bihar in northeastern India. I don't think I closed my eyes for three weeks -- so enthralling is India's strange -- to western eyes -- compelling beauty.

The purpose of the trip was to travel in the footsteps of the Buddha. During his lifetime the Buddha traveled a great deal, but he purposely stuck to the same places at different times of the year. This rather circular route allowed people to find him who might wish to hear his teaching.

So we traveled to The Deere Park where The Buddha delivered his first sermon, to Uruvela where he nearly died while practicing the ascetic way.

Uruvela was the most amazing place to me, more so even than the Taj Mahal. The Buddha lived outside the town in a cave there for quite some time -- a cave I might add that my travel companions practically had to drag me out of.

It's caretaker, a monk, keeps hundreds of votive candles burning and provides carpets for meditation. He never uttered a word while I was there. He just allowed me to meditate in my own hapless way for what might have been a half hour. It was by far my most sublime moment in India -- apart from being allowed to enter a cricket game as batsman. I've always been a freee swinging power hitter and I think I took my generous Indian friends by surprise. I pulled a few and then crushed one, leaving them wide-eyed and cheering. They surrounded me, shaking my hands and pointing to the soaring trajectory of my swat. I felt like The Babe.

The village, incidentally is just as it was in Buddha's time, and is a sacred place because it is where the Buddha nearly dead from self-asceticism, climbed down from his hilltop cave, waded across a shallow pre-monsoon river an literally fell on the opposite bank. A child brought him some sweetened rice, and it was here that he decided that you can't find enlightenment if your faculties are dulled by starvation.

From Uruvela we traveled to Bodh Gaya and sat under the sprawling Bodhi tree grown from a sapling from the one under which the Buddha had his "Great awaking."

I should tell you that the man who took us around India was the man who took at the great Vietnamese mystic Thich Nhat Hanh to these same places late in Nhat Hanh's life. So the insight into "village India" was invaluable.

There are of course mendicants everywhere in India, and lepers, and legless pitiable human beings. But in the smaller villages most are well taken care of, but that didn't stop a young legless child from dragging himself a full 1/2 mile by my side with his hand outstretched every other stride tearing at my heart for a few Rupees.

I gave to many people in India and though I had been forewarned, I gave him something to. This wasn't a mistake per se, but it neglected the fact that I'd been told the child was probably well cared for and made begging a bit more attractive to him. Within moments, the whole of Uruvela was upon us, and our tour leader, knew someone had broken the general guideline -- I confessed. Lesson learned.

India is a feast for the eyes. There is hardly a patch of ground in India that is not for the most part under cultivation and hand tilled. Food is growing everywhere -- the bare patches are for cricket which is played everywhere to.

Ironically, Buddhism is a minor religion in India. Why was I so interested? My intuitive feeling, given the fact that Buddhism predates Christianity by 500 years and that both Jesus and Buddha were essentially reformers, is that Jesus was exposed to Buddhist thought during his lifetime. There was a Buddhist Monastery as near as Syria in his time, and If he was laboring in as some surmise in the rising Roman city of Cepharus -- a major crossroads -- it's not a stretch to think that he would have been exposed to Buddhist ideas in that teeming marketplace.

So I guess you could say I went to India for the utter strangeness and beauty I found there. I went to India to find the the Buddha and to feel closer perhaps to his awakened brother the Christ.

The Taj Mahal was an unimaginable sight, the saris of every color, worn even while farming by hand breathtaking. The poverty of the larger cities like Verinasi, where leprosy and beggars abound wasn't quite the shock to this New Yorker as it might be to some, but alas it abounds and tugs at your heartstrings constantly.

One last anecdote: While staying in Old Delhi which was in effect our staging ground, two of our wealthier group members decided to stay in some 4 star hotel not far away in New Delhi. We had agreed to have a last meal together before scattering to the various places we came from.

While standing at the gilded front desk, I heard what I realized to my astonishment was the first expression of anger I'd heard in fully three weeks. Mind you, I'd been in epic traffic jams, sweaty inhumanly crowded train and plane terminals, and all manner of the kind of human log jams a billion souls can create. Yes I heard a million horns blaring on India's roads, but there was never a hint of anger in the drivers face. Now however, standing in front of me was a red faced Briton raising his voice just shy of a yell at three white gloved Indians behind the desk who where astonishingly attentive yet thoroughly unmoved to any anger of their own.

Perhaps this is the legacy of a culture which does not prize the self so much as we do in the west. It was a sight to see. And why you may ask was our British friend so unnerved? He wanted a discounted rate.
2. Star Eagle | May 26th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Bingo!