With the heat and windy roady I landed in Gokarna at about 5pm! I did love the ride just hoped the sun was a bit mellow .

In Gokarna check out the Mahabali and Parvati temple and witnessed another awesome sunset! With a bit of backpacker touch to this holy town I’m loving an interesting western and eastern tourist mix!

Tomorrow its about 100km to Canacona or Mashen, Hopefully I’ll start birght and early and not bake in sun!

I helped Tullika and Rahul get on their 7pm train to Bangalore from Ernakulam and also made a friend at the railway station.

Since my train was at 11pm i decided to do a bit of more night riding and go check out Fort Cochin. It was awesome to see the spirit of Christmas and New year in this old part of Cochin. It was lighted and had a huge Chrismas tree!!

My train started at about 11:20 pm (on time) to go to Bhatkal. I had a 90km ride the next day!!

I got to Allepey at about 9:00pm with a 5:30am start and then started scouting houseboats. By 10:30am we had one and after a bit of discussion we settle on it and i got a bunch of beer for us!

Houseboating in Allepey
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This might require a post by itself, I’ll add pictures later but this was an amazing experience. Relaxing to the extent that I recovered from my soar throat which had been troubling me for last couple of days!

We had a captain, a navigator and a cook all to ourselves!! It was nice to sit and order food and look at the open water. We saw amazing sunset from the houseboat!

Next on our stop after 21 hours on the houseboat was Cochin aka Ernakulam!

We took the 10:30am ferry to Amritapuri and arrived at Amma’s Ashram at 2pm!

Amma’s Ashram

We ha a great welcome by helpful volunteers at the Ashram. We also got to see the dedication and devotion of a couple of western followers we had conversation with! Core to Amma’s teaching seems Love and Service, I liked the idea of service especially her initiative to clean India 2kms at a time! Anyways we didnt have luck getting a hug from her because we couldnt get the tokens neither had foreign passports .

A tad bit dissapointment was that the Ashram was not quiet and it didnt portray the theme of love and service that well.

After the day at Ashram we had another early day, this time to go to Allepey!

Ayurvedic Massage:
I’ll write more about the naunces but my massage was essentially being marinated in oil! It was alrite.

The rest day just flew and we were ready to hit Kollam for going to Amma’s Ashram in Amritapuri.

We got to Varkala at about 4pm and then synced with my friends and decided to stay in the same abode. We hit the beach and enjoyed awesome long dinner at Gamma.

After a bit discussion we decided to take the next day as a day off given it was Christmas eve and Varkala had great beach, good friends and hey we needed some well-deserved rest!

Cause: Education

• Teach For India – Raise $10,000 for Milind’s fellowship
• Asha For Education – Visit projects and fundraise.

Itinerary (more details coming soon):

Date	Destination	Distance (km)	Accommodation	Notes
Dec 12	Nasik
Dec 13	Chennai			Train from Nashik to Chennai and carry bike.
Dec 14	Mahabalipuram	60		Keeping this as safety, can also do it the day I arrive.
Dec 15	Auroville	105	Rishi’s parents	Cross Kaveri!
Dec 16	Cauverippattinam	123
Dec 17	Vedranyam	107
Dec 18 (Sat)	Kottaipattinam	115		1 more person joins here.
Dec 19	Rameshwaram	139		Advise from riders seems not to miss this ride, so canning Madurai for now
Dec 20	-			Holding this as safety, might stay in rameshwaram or ride to next town
Dec 21	Tuticorin	197
Dec 22	Kanyakumari	130		2 more people join here. Checkout the windmill farm.
Dec 23	Trivandrum	102		Other option is also Kovalam (15km before Trivandrum)
Dec 24	Varkala	45	Houseboat	Stay in the houseboat and enjoy Christmas eve
Dec 25 (Sat)	Alappuzha (Allepey)	121		Some ferry travel involved.
Dec 26	Kodungalloor	100
Dec 27	Kodungalloor – Thanalur (113)- Mahe (112)- Kumble (137)	362	Train	Take Kerala Express so that we can get to Goa in time .
Dec 28	Mangalore	40		See Mangalore
Dec 29	Bhatkal	146
Dec 30	Mashe	150
Dec 31	Panji !	86		Celebration new year in Panji
Jan 1  (Sat)
Jan 2	Panji – Nashik		Train

So why ask for forgiveness?
Well, today is the "Shyamapana festival". Shyamapana is a festival of forgiveness; its popular among folks of Jain faith. This day is a culmination of a weeklong fest of repentance called "Paryushan". To quote an article :

“For 357 days of the year we carry out our responsibilities to our business, our family and our career. We live a very busy, worldly life. In the process, we accumulate a lot of mental and emotional clutter. We gather unnecessary baggage of pride, fear, animosity, greed, ego and delusions in our thoughts and feelings. So Paryushan is the time to clear that clutter and make a bonfire to burn that junk, that rubbish which is corrupting our minds, our lives and our relationships. The Jains have designed the special eight days of Paryushan as a time of reflection, purification and renewal.”

regards,
Vaibhav
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~~My Jain Influences~~
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Support my bike ride through southern India
Support my Mt. Rainier Climb

 
Fig 1. Jain temple in Milpitas on Samvatsari day.

The point of this post is our art project – Resurrection Altar!

What is Resurrection Altar?
Resurrection altar is a communal art project with a tad bit of environmental and geek consciousness. Over the span of seven days we will decorate the Altar with different Rangoli design, which folks are welcome to participate in making! At the Altar you can make your resurrection wish and tie a piece of plastic to the AltarCross! At the end of the burningman we will burn the AltarCross and make a plastic monster out of the Resurrection plastic bands. This monster will live until you resurrect, right?

Time for pictures. These are all the making of, pictures!

Fig 1. A 20x30inch Poster – our camp sign during the day!

Fig  2. Altar camp sign – This sign will illuminate at Night

Fig 3. Rangoli Design – The Jain Map of Universe. We will make a stencil out of this.

Fig 4. Rangoli Design – we will make a stencil out of this.

Fig 5. The AltarCross.

More pictures coming! Come help out with the preparations!!

On Aug 21-22, I’ll attempt to climb Mt. Rainier with Team Asha. Through the season the Team has really prepared hard to make this a successful and enjoyable climb! All the familiar faces and a very familiar cause! Please support the climbers and the cause!

The Cause?

I have climbed Rainier in 2006, 2009 with a different causes – ranging from personal to helping Mayaboli school.  I’m continuing the same causes this time but also helping a tiny bit in making other climbers succeed in their personal and benevolent goals!

I’m looking forward to amazing weather, a great team and fun times! I get to use my climber’s pass again this season!

Support