Sunday, August 26, 2007

Los Angeles to Vancouver

Over 600 photos of the festival tour are now on Flickr.com. Click on this link to go there...


August 4, Saturday, Los Angeles. Gurukula Reunion and Harinama in Santa Monica.


The annual Gurukula Reunion at Culver City Park starts at 11:00 a.m. "It's not really a reunion for me," says Jahnavi. "I don't know anyone here. It's more like a gathering of youth who have grown up around the Hare Krishna movement." Gradually more and more people trickle into the park and begin to cluster around their friends. A frisbee takes flight over here. A football is tossed over there. I search for gurukulis from my generation. There's Chaits, Bahu, Sri Shyam, Dayanidhi, Shivajvara, Ramachandra, Kirtan Rasa, Giri, Vibhu... The "reunion" seems to attract mostly younger people these days. Several teenage skateboarders from Watseka Avenue and their siblings. I feel like a dying breed. At 35, I'm twice as old as the average attendee, old enough to be their father.


I strike up a conversation with Dayanidhi, whom I haven't seen in years. He is living with his wife and two children in Badger, California, growing a garden, living in nature, the simple life. Chaits is researching the history of the L.A. reunions. We spend a few minutes remembering those involved in organizing the early reunions. Bahu says he wants to revive AS IT IS magazine. I give him my thumbs up and share my interest in recording audio and video interviews with the older generation of gurukulis, to tell their stories, and to rekindle communication.

Here are some photos taken by Chaits. Click on this link to view them.

The reunion feast arrives, late, but worth the wait. Krsna Gauranga Prabhu has prepared lasagna, salad, nectar drink and mango cheese cake. We reminisce that Krsna Gauranga has been cooking the reunion feasts ever since we can remember. After everyone has had their fill, there's leftover cheesecake. I grab a tray and walk around the park, serving extra cheesecake to anyone who will eat it. "Have seconds! Have thirds! A cheesecake eating competition!"

By 4:40 p.m. it's time to head back to the temple to get ready for harinama.

3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica. Harinama Sankirtana.

Harinama literally means the holy name of Hari, or Krishna. Sankirtana means to glorify or chant with lots of people in congregation. What we have come to refer to as "harinama sankirtana", or harinama for short, means going out in public and chanting the holy names of Krishna loudly, in procession, accompanied by mridanga drums, kartal cymbals, and enthusiastic dancing. This has been a part of our Krishna culture going back to the time of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who held harinama sankirtana with thousands of people in the streets of West Bengal, India, 500 years ago.

3rd Street Promenade is a pedestrian shopping street in Santa Monica, a trendy ocean-front suburb of Los Angeles. Brand name stores line the streets here, from fashion to jewelry to cosmetics to Apple computers. Once a year, Hare Krishna devotees engulf this place in an ecstatic wave of Krishna kirtana, joyfully chanting the holy names of Krishna, blissfully dancing in the streets. Some 200 to 300 devotees who have come for the Ratha-yatra festival participate. And the locals have come to expect it.

I follow behind the harinama party with a video camera, filming audience reactions. I study the faces of the onlookers, of those curiously gazing at the devotees chanting and dancing in apparent abandon. I ask a couple of gentlemen, "What do you think of all of this?" They respond, "It's beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you so much for coming out here."

This was not the reply I had expected. I had expected people to be annoyed with us. For three hours I continue to follow the harinama party, filming audience reactions. Some people stay for half an hour at a time, watching us, soaking in the exotic visuals and music. I see smiles on faces. Some shake their head from side to side, as if to notion, "I don't understand... what is this?" But they can't stop looking. A Korean father trails behind us, his young son on his shoulders. They follow the harinama party intently, as if to figure out its meaning.

The bus tour girls are now dancing in choreographed unison at the front of the procession. Jahnavi from England is leading the Maha-mantra kirtana. We've taken over the center of the shopping street. A curious couple stops to look. The man is watching our girls dance, saris swirling. I note some discomfort in the facial expression of his girlfriend. Soon she begins to tug at her man, urging him to move along.

It's now half past nine in the evening. The pedestrian zone is illuminated by multicolored signs above shop windows. Most of the shops are closed but people are still gathered in the streets, watching the harinama commotion. Acyuta from New York begins to lead. Normally you'd be completely exhausted by now. Instead, the youth and older devotees swell up with a new burst of enthusiasm and dance like they haven't danced before, sing like they haven't sung before, and the kirtana soars to another level of transcendence. You finally abandon all thought of material comfort--you're hot, thirsty, sweating. You stop worrying about what other people think of you--your tilak and kajal is running all over your face, your dhoti and sari are no longer neatly pleated. You just close your eyes and get caught up in the waves of kirtana... Hare Krishna... Hare Krishna... Krishna Krishna... Hare Hare... Hare Rama... Hare Rama... Rama Rama... Hare Hare! There's nothing but you and the holy names in the three worlds. Everything else loses significance.


August 5, Sunday, Los Angeles Ratha-yatra Festival of Chariots.

Early this morning a team including Premanjana, Haridas, Priya, Krsnapriya, Datta, and Jaya Radhe meet with senior North American leaders about the feasibility of the youth taking over ISKCON St. Louis as a youth temple project. The youth express concern about whether or not they will be given actual responsibility to manage. The senior devotees express concern about the spiritual strength of the youth. Will they be able to maintain Srila Prabhupada's spiritual standards? Both sides are hopeful and positively enthused by the end of the meeting.

By mid morning, Lord Jagannatha, Lady Subhadra, and Lord Baladeva are taken via luxury limousines to the Ratha-yatra parade start, where their four-story tall chariots await them. Jagannatha Ratha-yatra, or the Lord of the Universe's Chariot Festival, is, according to our tradition, the world's oldest continuously observed festival. It has been held annually in the holy city of Puri on the eastern coast of India for the past 5000 years. Puranic histories ascribe the beginning of this festival to the time of King Indradyumna, who purportedly lived in a previous age, tens of thousands of years ago. He desired to see the Lord face to face, which led to the manifestation of the Lord in the deity forms of Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra. During the Ratha-yatra chariot festival, the Lord of the Universe comes out of the temple to bestow His blessings upon the people of the world. On the request of our founder Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, members of the Hare Krishna movement have been holding Lord Jagannatha's Ratha-yatra festival in major cities around the world for the past 40 years. Los Angeles Ratha-yatra is one of the largest, and has been observed annually in this city for 32 years.

The parade begins to move. The Lord's three large chariots are being pulled with long yellow ropes by hundreds of participants along Main Street in downtown Santa Monica. Three kirtana parties glorify the Lord's holy names, one in front of each chariot. The festival tour youth lead one of the kirtanas. The parade passes the bustling farmer's market. We turn right, then left, onto Ocean Front Walk. We're now entering the city of Venice, and Lord Jagannatha is strolling along Venice Beach. This is tourist mecca. Hundreds of curious visitors walk past the chariot procession and kirtana parties. We pass roadside vendors selling incense, temporary tattoos, air-brushed t-shirts, sunglasses... A handful of fundamentalist Christian preachers have come out to protest in front of our procession. They yell derogatory statements over their megaphones. They inform us that we're all going to hell. They march in front of our parade, as if they're a part of it, with their banners raised high proclaiming Jesus as the only way. I wish they would utilize their energies to hold similar processions glorifying the Lord's holy names, rather than fight over designations.

"Krishna surya sama," the Sanskrit saying goes. Krishna is like the sun. As the sun is known by many names around the world, similarly, God is known by many names. God is one. He cannot be two. He has many names according to time, place, culture. In our millennia-old tradition, God, the Creator, the Lord of Lords, is known as Krishna, or Vishnu (another name for Krishna.) By meditating on Him and His names we come to realize that we are all children of the same Father, and thus develop goodwill and peace towards our brothers and sisters of different creed and color.

Eventually, the Ratha-yatra procession reaches the festival site on Venice Beach. Our tent village is filled with people from all walks of life. Old people, young people, Asian, Caucasian, African American, Latino... a melting pot of designations absorbed in the dazzling cultural display that is Lord Jagannatha's Ratha-yatra Festival. Coming to think of it, Lord Jagannatha is black, His brother Baladeva is white, and Their sister Subhadra is yellow. If that isn't a sign to unify as brothers and sisters regardless of our external designations and skin color, I don't know what is.

Some of our youth take turns serving the free feast. Hibiscus iced tea, pasta salad, peanut butter sweets, potato fritters, peanuts and raisins. More than 10,000 plates of free vegetarian food will be distributed to festival goers today.

The "Changing Bodies" diorama exhibit about reincarnation is popular as ever. Absorbed, people sit on the grass in front of the main stage where Viji Prakash and her dance academy are performing intricately choreographed Bharata-natyam dances. The music stage is well attended. Nirantara and Titiksava Karunika Prabhus entertain with devotional rock music.

At 3:15 p.m. our festival tour youth go on stage to perform DEVOTION. I notice the audience has a hard time sitting attentively in the hot sun. I wish there was a way to provide shade for them. Madhuha Prabhu and I discuss options for a large canopy or parachute hanging over the area in front of the main stage to throw some shade... Maybe next year, if we get a donation for this.

After our performance, Karnamrita leads a kirtana that evolves from blissful to nectarean to ecstatic, as more and more devotees join her, inspiring the audience to get up and dance. Soon the entire crowd of people in front of the main stage is dancing. People are plucking flowers off Lord Jagannatha's chariot, tearing them apart and throwing petals over each other's heads.


Sunset signals time for take-down. For us festival tour youth this means changing into work pants and getting ready to take down the tents, exhibits, and stages. We begin by handing out trash bags and encouraging people to pick up the flower petals that have been strewn all over the lawn in front of the chariots and main stage. Teams begin untying the ropes that secure the tents to concrete blocks. Others carry exhibit panels back to the festival trailer. Soon the tents are empty and ready to be disassembled. It takes four people to carry the smaller ten-foot by ten-foot tents. One person per pole. We lift the tent and start walking towards the trailer where all the festival gear is stored. There, we pull out the poles that serve as legs for the tent, lower the canopy to the ground, unstrap it, fold it and roll it up, and then take apart the poles that form the frame that supports the canopy. The poles are stored in color-coded slots in the trailer. Just as it is described in the scriptures that, at the end of the cosmic cycle all universes enter into the body of Maha-vishnu, so at the end of the festival, all tents, exhibits, and stage pieces disappear into the Festival of India trailer.

It's dark. The wind is blowing chilly spells from the ocean. I put on an extra sweatshirt, flip the hoodie over my head and secure it with a scarf. Using flashlights we search the festival site for remaining Festival of India gear. Once all of our stuff is put away, it's time to start helping the L.A. crew put away their festival gear. It's basically like helping with two take-downs in a row. Ratnabhusana Prabhu has his own set of tents, exhibits, poles, canopies, and stage pieces which we don't want to mix up with our gear. So we take down Madhuha Prabhu's Festival of India equipment first, and Ratnabhusana Prabhu's L.A. festival gear second. After a five-hour marathon, we're finally done. Refreshments await. Leftovers from the various food booths. Strawberry milkshake. Mango milkshake. Curd steaks in tomato sauce. Oatmeal and raisin cookies. Nothing like a midnight snack after a long festival day and extra long take-down. We are just hallucinating about warm Caribbean beaches, palm trees, pinacoladas, when the call comes to use the bathrooms, brush our teeth, and head to bed. The buses will be leaving shortly. Time to get back on the road again. If Jack Kerouac reincarnated as a Hare Krishna, he's probably on the festival bus tour right now.


August 6, Monday, Kings Canyon Sequoia National Park.

His Holiness Radhanatha Swami accompanies us to Kings Canyon this morning. He's riding in the back of the men's bus, on the deck area. About 15 of our young men are gathered around him, on all sides. Maharaja is leading Guruvastakam prayers. The deck is a raised platform at the back of the bus, surrounded on three sides by bunk beds. Some are lying down on bunk beds and others are sitting on the deck... wherever they can fit into this tight space. Radhanatha Swami recalls the time he lived in a cave in the Himalayas, before he joined the Hare Krishna movement. He says this situation reminds him of that time. A modern cave on wheels. He tells stories of the sages he met, and how later, some years ago, he went back to find those same ascetics, to see what had happened to them. He tells the story of one particular yogi, Tatwalla Baba, who wore only burlap loin cloth and would sit in meditation for twenty hours at a time. He was his cave mate.

We arrive at Kings Canyon Sequioa National Park late morning. I notice a signpost for Grant Grove, an area of giant sequioa trees, and ask the bus driver to pull over. Radhanatha Swami mentions that he has never been to this part of the country before, never seen such large trees. We get off the bus and stroll down the circular path that leads to some of the named and more famous trees. The Tennesee Tree. The Robert E. Lee Tree. The General Grant Tree, apparently the third largest tree in the world by volume. Maharaja stares incredulously at these giant trees that have stood here for 2000-plus years. He asks us to consider what these trees would say to us if they could speak. What would their message be, having witnessed hundreds of generations come and go, entire civilizations rise and fall? Maharaja reminds us that Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu requested us to be more tolerant than a tree. He asks us to consider the kind of tolerance the Lord is speaking about. These giant sequoia trees have withstood long cold winters, rain storms, forest fires, strong winds, people and animals picking away at their limbs and bark... For hundreds, even thousands of years. How tolerant the Lord wants us to be.

Breakfast calls. We board our bus and catch up with the ladies' bus that has already arrived at our Dorst Creek group campsite. Breakfast is granola, milk and fruit. One of our older youth and bus tour counselors, Dattatreya Prabhu's grandfather passed away yesterday. Datta found out this morning and has been quite sober and teary eyed. Radhanatha Swami tries to console him and suggests that we hold a kirtana in honor of Dattatreya's grandfather. We spread out a large green tarp under a canopy of red pine trees and place the bus tour Gaura Nitai deities on a table at one end. Maharaja begins the kirtana. Gradually the tarp fills with youth. Observing the deities, we respond to the Maha-mantra kirtana.



Later, we take the ladies to Sherman Grove, another patch of giant trees. Maharaja and I accompany them. We approach the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world by volume, touted as "the largest living thing." Again Maharaja pauses and asks the ladies to ponder the message this tree would impart to us, could he speak. He asks the ladies to share their thoughts on what this tree might tell us. "Stop fighting with one another," says one girl. "Go back to Godhead," says another. "Don't become a tree like me," Varshana says jokingly. We take group photos against the trunk of the world's largest tree, who is estimated to be between 2300 - 2700 years old. On the way out of the grove we see twin sequoia trees, merged at their base. "They must have liked each other in a previous life," someone whispers. "I wonder what kind of karma they've had to spend thousands of years together as trees," another adds.

Radhanatha Swami has an appointment in San Diego and Balarama Chandra Prabhu is here to give him a ride. Sadly, we part. It is always a blessing to have the association of sadhus on the bus tour. To my surprise, Radhanatha Swami gets behind the wheel of the SUV, smiles and waves goodbye as he drives off. Apparently he doesn't often get to drive--people are always chauffeuring him--so he enjoys this opportunity away from formalities where he can drive a car through the rugged countryside of Kings Canyon Sequoia National Park.

Satvata Prabhu, our cook, has prepared a dinner of rice and beans. We spend the evening around the campfire, holding evening arati for the Gaura Nitai deities, telling stories, and playing Krishna conscious charades.


August 7, Tuesday, Kings Canyon Sequoia National Park.

Amal slept next to the campfire last night. He points to where flying embers hit and burnt holes into his sleeping bag. One by one, people wake up and gather around the fire. We've thrown more wood on it early this morning to ward off the chill that happens just as the sun rises and evaporates the dew, cooling the surface of the earth. Some of us get out our bead bags and begin our japa for the day.

I notice leftover beans and rice in the pots from yesterday. I glance at the cozy campfire and wonder if we didn't bring with us an iron skillet and some butter. Jaya Radhe, my wife, rummages through the kitchen at the back of the bus, and a skillet manifests. And it so happens there's some butter left in one of the coolers. With choice ingredients in hand, I simmer butter, beans and rice in a skillet over the glowing embers. "Hot campfire baked beans and rice, anyone?"

"Mmmmh!," the first of the taste testers mumbles. Govi and Jaggi agree. "Mmmh! - Mmmmh!" they echo. Soon, the entire stash of leftover beans and rice has been devoured by the early risers. "Anyone ready for this morning's actual breakfast?" Apparently Jaya Radhe and Mohini have made pancakes in the kitchen at the back of the bus. Aunt Jemima's table syrup and all.

Today's activity is supposed to be a hike to Mist Falls, at the bottom of Kings Canyon. I start the yellow bus (Garuda 2) and am surprised when, a minute later, the engine dies on me. I take a look... there's no fuel in the fuel filter. The fuel gauge reads the tank is just under half full. The bus is parked at an angle. Maybe the gauge is jammed or broken? I try again... no fuel. The bus won't start.

"We have to try and siphon some diesel fuel out of the tank and fill the fuel filter, so the engine will start," I suggest to the gathering of blank stares. Right. Siphon. Yup. People disperse. Not me. Not me either. Nobody wants to get diesel fuel in their mouth. And besides, what hose are we going to sacrifice for this adventure? The only hose we have? The one used to fill water into the bus water tanks? Yup.

I cut the hose and stuff it deep into fuel tank. I suck on the open end but get diesel fumes in my head and have second thoughts. I pause. I look around. Lots of incredulous stares from the peanut gallery. Then a flash of genius hits me. I dip the hose deep into the fuel tank, stick my index finger into the open end of the hose to plug it, and pull it out halfway and try to drain the fuel, to create a siphon. It works! Only one little problem. There doesn't seem to be much fuel in the tank. We are getting droplets and dribbles. Not the gallon of fuel I had hoped for to refill the fuel filter. Maybe the hose is too short. I cut another length of hose, longer this time. Again I feed one end of the hose deep into the fuel tank and apply the stuff-your-finger-in-open-end-of-hose siphon technique. Droplets. Dirty diesel fuel. Maybe the tank is really empty. The fuel gauge must be broken. How else would the fuel filter have run completely dry?

Onto plan B. Forget the drive to Mist Falls. Ain't happening. We look at the Kings Canyon Sequoia National Park map to find an alternative day-trip location. There seems to be a stream with swimming holes a few miles south of our campsite. We could take the boys' school bus and shuttle people there in two trips. Or squeeze all 50 of us into that smaller bus for a short 20-minute drive to this alternate location. Sounds like a plan.


We all mount the 35-foot short boys' school bus, which is outfitted with permanent bunk beds and doesn't comfortably fit more than 20 people. "Girls on the deck in the back, boys on the bunk beds in the middle and front of the bus!" People squeeze in as best they can. We drive to the creek, let everyone off, and then turn the bus around and drive about 30 miles to the only gas station that sells diesel fuel, just outside the park. It's $3.59 per gallon. I don't care. We're filling buckets, coolers, empty 5-gallon water containers, anything we can get our hands on, with diesel fuel to bring back to the big yellow bus stranded at our campsite.

Back at the site, Sacinandana, Dravinaksa and I have rigged a funnel into a hose into the fuel tank, and are transferring half-buckets at a time from coolers into the funnel, straining the diesel fuel as we go. It's a slow process. The sun is high in the sky by now, burning down on us. Beads of sweat run down my forehead. We're covered in fuel. We laugh at our predicament, trying to keep our sanity. The diesel fuel is bright neon yellow. We joke about it being Gatorade. "Anyone thirsty?" Dravinaksa sets aside a few gallons to refill the fuel filter at the back of the engine. We're now 4 hours into this project of trying to resuscitate the big yellow bus. Drav doesn't have the right tools he needs to undo the fuel filter. He tries with several wrenches. Getting it off is one thing. Getting it back on is another. Somehow or other, by Krishna's mercy, 5 hours later, in the mid-afternoon heat, we are ready to try to start that bus again.

I switch on the main power switches inside the battery compartment. I turn the red battery conditioning switches. I walk to the front of the bus and hit the ignition switch. A rumble. The whining of belts and the engine turning over. Then silence. The engine is dry and not burning fuel. We're hesitant to play this game too often, because the batteries can get drained quickly and we're miles away from civilization. Dravinaksa is confident. He says the fuel filter is looking good. He can see the fuel level through it's transparent looking glass, and it's only a matter of time before the engine will suck it up and start. I press the ignition switch again.... the engine turns over and runs dry for about a minute. I can hear it slowing down as the battery drains and drains. There's air in the fuel lines, for sure, that has to be eliminated. I hear a stutter. And another. I pray at this point that the battery will last to keep cranking the engine until the fuel arrives. Another stutter. Now two in a row. Sounds promising. There! A cloud of black smoke from the exhaust! More frequent stutters. More smoke. At last... the engine turns over on its own. "Jaya! -- Haribol!" Sacinandana exclaims, visibly exhausted but happy to see the end result... Dravinaksa smiles. We look at each other contently and begin to clean up the mess. With the engine running on high idle in the background, we wipe diesel fuel off our arms using paper towels, carry the funnel, coolers and buckets over to the campsite water spigot, douse them with laundry soap and scrub away.

We drive the big yellow bus to the gas station, fill the tank to the top with diesel fuel, and pick up the youth by 5:15 p.m. at the swimming hole. We're running 15 minutes late (we told them to be ready for us at 5:00). One of the boys complains that he had to wait for 15 minutes. I swallow a humble pill and choose not to react. I smile and wave him in. "All aboard!"

That evening the day's stresses melt away as my mind gets a chance to bathe in the sounds of sweet bhajans. The occasional crackling of moist wood in the campfire blends with melodious beats from Amal's mridanga, Nani's kartalas, and Kumari's singing Maha-mantra melodies. We're surrounded by old-growth red pine forest, and it's as if these grandfather trees are standing there, participating, in their own quiet way. Unpretentious bhajans like these inspire me on the tour. Nobody is trying to show off. We're just winding down the day, meditating on the holy names, focusing on Krishna.


August 8, Wednesday, Hume Lake. Ekadasi.

It's early morning. Several guys roam out into the surrounding pine forest to collect firewood. Others are busy tucking potatoes into aluminum foil. Dasa and Premanjana build a large campfire to create mounds of glowing red embers. When the fire dies down, Dasa whacks away at the embers to break them up and spread them evenly across the pit. We toss foil-wrapped potatoes onto the embers, followed by dry twigs and branches. The potatoes are being cooked from two sides, by the embers below, and by the resuming fire above. 45 minutes later, we try to retrieve them with chapati tongs and sticks. Mohini inspects one. She unravels the tin foil and breaks apart the potato inside. Soft, thoroughly cooked. She prepares it with butter, salt and sour cream, and offers it to the murti of Srila Prabhupada. Now we're ready for a nice Ekadasi prasadam breakfast.

Time to clean up and load the buses. Nani (Ananda Gopal from Hawaii) is inspired to do service this morning and washes pots for about an hour at the water spigot. After that we're off to man-made Hume Lake in the Sequoia National Forest.

Our goal for today is to fit drama rehearsals into the schedule, to train new actors who are replacing Sundari and Rasikananda. Between them they played Hanuman / Lord Nityananda and Sukadeva Goswami / Yudhisthira / Ananta the carpenter. It will take four less experienced volunteers to replace these two gifted prabhus. Sundari is going back to school, which starts early in Hawaii. Rasikananda needs to make money and has been offered a design job in Los Angeles.

At our pre-trip inspection of the buses, Sacinandana Prabhu notices that the water pump belt on the school bus is cracked and looks like it needs replacement. Upon closer inspection, some of the other belts look worn and are starting to fray. We decide to send the boys' school bus to Fresno, to a truck repair place, to have the belts replaced. We split the youth into two groups, one who prefers to spend the day shopping in Fresno, the other swimming and rehearsing the drama at Hume Lake.

I stay with the group that spends the day at Hume Lake. I help Satvata Prabhu prepare lunch. At the swimming beach, Jaya Radhe, Deva, Jaya, Ani, Dasa, Laksmi, Krsnapriya, and Basab have an involved discussion about the merits of astrology. Is it that if you believe in astrology you don't really have faith in Krishna, that Krishna will take care of you? The arguments go back and forth.

In the evening we drive to Fresno, where we shop for groceries and serve a dinner of mashed potato and vegetable subji in the parking lot of a Target supermarket. By 10:00 p.m. the lights go out in the parking lot. We take it as a sign to board the buses and hit the road again, hauling north along Route 99, then I-5, towards Oregon state.


August 9, Thursday, Crater Lake National Park.

The Klamath River Rest and Recreation Area on the state line between California and Oregon serves as our breakfast stop. We have a bit of a drive ahead of us so it's a short stop. We continue on Interstate 5 northbound. The ladies' bus is blissed out on bhajans... they radio the men's bus over the walkie-talkie, showing off the bhajans they're having, including singing the Brahma Samhita Prayers, Siksastakam Prayers, and Anapayini's rendition of Markine Bhagavata Dharma. The landscape changes gradually from arid scrub to forested to lush and green. There's more rainfall in Oregon than in California. After several hours we arrive at Crater Lake National Park.

This is the only park that gave us an educational fee waiver, which we put in a request for at all the parks we had planned to visit this summer. "To educate our students about the beauty of God's creation." So we present the fee waiver at the park entrance, and are waived through by the rangers.

The winding road climbs up and over the rim of an extinct volcano's crater. As we cross over the top of the rim to the other side, we can see why the rangers gave us the fee waiver. The cobalt blue, almost fluorescent deep blue waters of crater lake are a mysterious beauty of God's creation that have little comparison anywhere else on the planet. 1,900 feet deep, the water has a clarity of 100 feet visibility, and contains almost no dissolved solids due to the absence of any incoming water source like a river. The lake is fed by rain and snow melt, which equals the rate of evaporation. The hard volcanic rim around the crater seeps little sediment into the cold water, preserving its clear, deep blue, mesmerizing color.



I ponder another aspect of the majesty of Krishna's creation, as I try to imagine the peak of this volcano before it blew off and created this huge 6-miles-in-diameter caldera which is now filled with water. I try to imagine the eruption, the sheer force of it, which must have been visible from hundreds of miles away. There's something uneasy about standing inside the caldera of a volcano, even if the geologists say it is extinct. From this vantage point, I can see other, active volcanoes in the distance, to the north and south. We're in the midst of the Cascade Range, a long string of volcanoes, some active, some dormant, some extinct.

There's a path that leads down to the waterline inside the caldera. Most of the youth don their swim suits and climb on down. I stay back, along with a core team of people, to prepare lunch. From the photos they bring back on their digital cameras, it seems like it was definitely worth the hike down the caldera. It seems that some brave people actually jumped into the cold water and swam for a few seconds.

After everyone returns, by about 4:30 p.m., and we do a head count to make sure we're not missing anyone, we serve a late lunch and take group photos with Crater Lake in the background. Then it's time to get back on the buses. We're expected in Seattle tomorrow.

The familiar rumble of the bus engine feels like home away from home. The only constant in a constantly changing landscape.



August 10, Friday, Seattle.

The buses are parked at a rest area south of Tacoma early this Friday morning. We decide to stay until people get up, so they have sufficient sinks and rest rooms to attend to their morning routines. We serve breakfast here. My wife, Jaya Radhe, is getting off the tour today. She's a teacher and needs to fly home to begin teacher's meetings a week before school starts. As it turns out, we have family in Seattle. Jaya Radhe's grandma, aunt, uncle and several cousins.

We drop Jaya Radhe off at the Wild Waves water park exit, where her aunt is waiting to pick her up. Jaya Radhe will spend the day with relatives and fly out late this evening. It's a teary eyed goodbye. Both I and the rest of the crew will miss her. She adds so much life to the bus tour with her good natured, personable approach to the daily challenges. I'm generally introverted. Jaya Radhe is the opposite. She thrives on socializing with people on the tour, being everyone's friend and well-wisher. It's sad to see her leave. After several rounds of hugs and goodbyes, we part.

Today is laundry day. Time to wash a week's worth of dirty clothes that have been piling up on and under our bunk beds, and in our bags. Finding a laundromat is sometimes easier said than done. I finally call 411 directory information, and ask for the Chamber of Commerce for Bellevue, the suburb we're driving through on the way to the temple in Redmond.

"Yeah, hi. I'm with a church youth group from Florida, traveling through Seattle today. We're looking for a laundromat in the Bellevue area where we can have our youth wash their laundry? Would you have any ideas or suggestions for us?"

"Uh, hmmm... let me see. Laundromat? You mean a self-service coin laundry, not one of those dry cleaners, right?"

"Yes, coin laundry."

"Okay, I'm googling "coin laundry" in the Bellevue area right now and... Google is showing me a Kwik 'n Cleaner Laundry and Dry Cleaning on 156th Avenue Northeast."

"Great! How do we get there from the 520 freeway?"

"Let me see. Google says to take the Redmond way exit, then right on 24th Avenue North..."

I am amazed that the Chamber of Commerce help desk person is so helpful, and even more amazed that he's using Google to find all of his information. Makes me think twice about bringing along one of those Internet data cards the cell phone companies are offering... we did it last year but didn't use it that much... it ended up costing us more than $650. The call to 411 directory assistance and to the chamber of commerce is costing me only a $1.

By 5:00 p.m. we've washed and dried our laundry, more or less (some items are still a bit wet), and Satvata Prabhu has cooked a late pasta lunch slash early dinner for us. We eat linner (lunch/dinner) in the parking lot next to the laundromat. Then we head out to find the temporary Seattle temple. They've relocated the deities to an office building in Redmond while they're building the new temple in the Seattle suburb of Sammamish.

Arriving at an office park in Redmond we see a hand-painted sign, "Vedic Cultural Center", pointing towards the back of one of the buildings. We follow the sign. Next we see a giant hand-painted "108" glued to one of the office building windows. There's an open garage door with some devotees cooking on an outdoor burner, camped out in this unusual location. This must be it. I approach them. They show me to the entrance around the corner. ... Lo and behold, a temple room temporarily manifests in the middle of a warehouse building. The deity curtain is open for darshan. I see four sets of large deities, Gaura Nitai, Radha-Krishna, Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra, and Sita-Ram Lakshman Hanuman, on altars raised above the warehouse floor, humbly awaiting their new Vedic Cultural Center to be built. I pay my respects, offering prostrated dandavats.

The devotees and congregation are expecting us to perform here tonight. It was supposed to be a hall program but somehow the promotions didn't work out in time. (The devotees were busy with another festival that happened the week before our arrival.) So Anapayini and I scope out the available space in the temple room and decide on what corner of the room to use as the "stage." Then we put down mats on the floor where the audience will sit, and find an empty room for the performers to change and get ready.

By evening arati, I notice that there are only about 20 guests in the temple room. I search for the performers and give them a little pep talk. "This is going to be a small, intimate performance. There are just a handful of people in the audience tonight. But these few people are the most important people in the Seattle congregation. They are the committed ones. They are building a 4 million dollar Vedic Cultural Center. If you give them your best performance tonight, hopefully they will be so impressed that next year they'll rent a hall for us." The performers agree to give it their best, despite the low turnout.

I sit up against the wall of the temporary temple room to watch the performance. I must have seen it two dozen times by now, but every time there's a new nuance I can appreciate. As I watch each scene, I can see that the performers are really trying their best to stay focused. (Thank you!) It's not easy to tour the country and perform with volunteers, amateur actors, some of whom have never acted before coming on this tour. It's entirely up to their inspiration and devotion if the performance will be good or not.

During the Karna and Kunti scene, I can't hold back my tears. They're just streaming down my cheek. I don't bother to wipe them away. I decide that I am not going to care about people looking at me. If they are watching the play, they're probably crying too.

Within five minutes after the performance is over I'm approached by Harivilas Prabhu and two of the local festival organizers about renting a hall next year. They insist that they will rent a really nice theater they've used in the past, with a capacity of 450 people, and that we should let them know four months in advance so they have enough time to prepare and promote.

The Seattle devotees serve a nice prasadam dinner for the guests and performers. At around 10:30 p.m., we're packing up and loading the buses again, heading ever further north to the Canadian border.


August 11, Saturday, Vancouver Ratha-yatra, Day One.

I wake up due to people getting on and off the bus, making the bus bounce slightly as they step on or off it. We're at the Vancouver temple parking lot once again. Don't ask me why we drove from Vancouver all the way to Mexico and back again. It's a long story. Let's just say that it would save Festival of India and the bus tour tens of thousands of dollars if certain Ratha-yatra festival coordinators could agree to coordinate their dates with one another so we didn't have to drive up and down the Pacific coast twice in one festival season. Grrr. Arrgh.

By Krishna's arrangement, we are at Vancouver temple parking lot once again. The men are helping to set up the festival, on location at Stanley Park, near the ocean. The ladies are helping to pick marigolds in the field behind the Vancouver temple and string garlands to decorate the Ratha-yatra chariots. They're also helping to shuck (de-husk) corn on the cob for one of the festival food booths. Today is the first of a two-day weekend Ratha-yatra festival.

Around 1:30 p.m. we all meet at the festival site. The tent village is set up in historic Stanley Park, on English Bay, right on the shore front, facing the Pacific Ocean. We've set up a children's tent, several food booths, a free feast tent in the center, the main stage with large tents above where the audience sits (for shade), a music stage for bands to perform, questions and answers, mantra meditation, vegetarianism, reincarnation, a deity tent for Lord Jagannatha... now we just need people to show up.

It's 3:00 p.m. We've been scheduled to perform. There are seven people in the audience. Two of whom are devotees. The festival site is empty. It's an overcast day, a little on the cold side out here in the park next to ocean. The logic is that if we perform, then the non-moving living entities will applaud and gradually the moving living entities will find their way into the tent because they see something is going on at the festival site.

Hmmm. Aha. Right. Hmmmm again. Okay. We will perform. Come on, it will be fun. After all, this is our devotional service. Nobody is paying us to do this. Think of it as a dress rehearsal run-through. Performance number 21. We need the practice. So we do it. We get ready (it takes about 45 minutes if we rush it). We perform for one hour and 15 minutes.

Anapayini's father has come to see the performance. He drove up all the way from Seattle to see us perform this afternoon. Overall, the site remains rather empty. The youth are somewhat disappointed. I don't blame them. This is supposed to be Vancouver Ratha-yatra? We could have spent this Saturday in a more productive way, from an outreach perspective. Saturday evenings are a great time for hall performances.

I ask some of the local devotees about the reason for the low turnout. It turns out they did not promote Saturday as being part of the festival. In the press releases, newspaper advertisements, and posters they focused on tomorrow, Sunday, the actual day of the Ratha-yatra chariot procession. They didn't promote Saturday because they thought fewer people would come, and if the press came today, they'd be disappointed.


August 12, Sunday, Vancouver Ratha-yatra. Chariot Parade.

All good things come to those who wait. Lots of people have come out today for the Sunday chariot procession down Beach Street. Devotees and congregation members are getting ready to pull the ropes of the chariots. The television cameras are here. Just as the three chariots begin to move, it begins to rain. People rush to take shelter under the overhangs in front of store windows. It pours for a good fifteen minutes. Then the rain stops, the sun emerges from behind the clouds, and Lord Jagannatha's smiling face blesses all who look upon Him as he rides into Stanley Park.


I dance the entire parade route, in front of Lord Jagannatha's chariot. Several youth dance in front of and behind me, and I try to keep up. Jahnavi, Lalita, Narayani, Prtha, Saci, Govinda, Vrajesh and others. I must say I now have a newfound appreciation for those people who can dance like this all of the time. It really requires some stamina of the leg muscles.

Here are some photos that one of the passers-by took, and posted on Flickr.com.


At the festival site, I play mridanga with the kirtana party that accompanies Lord Jagannatha, Lady Subhadra, and Lord Baladeva. Gradually Their Lordships descend from Their chariots and are carried to Their festival tent, where They will spend the afternoon accepting visitors who offer fruits, and who get some maha prasadam fruit in return.

I look around and observe the crowds. The free feast tent is busy. People on bicycles who have been riding through the park have pulled into the feast line and are waiting patiently to get a plate. The Questions and Answers tent is well attended.

Once again it's time for our festival tour youth to get on stage and perform DEVOTION. This time the tent is packed with people. I'm glad that so many have shown up and are now watching the performance intently. DEVOTION is a dance drama with live music that features many of the devotional talents these youth have acquired while growing up in the Hare Krishna movement. Musical skills on traditional instruments, singing kirtana, acting, and dancing. The performance gives them a sense of pride in their upbringing, seeing so many people appreciate their skills, talents and abilities. After the performance, the youth mingle with the audience and get to hear their positive feedback.

Sunset signals time for take-down. For the last time this season, we change into our work clothes, put on yellow Festival of India gloves and aprons, and begin to disassemble the exhibits, tents, and stages. Three hours later, the whole place is restored back to its pre-festival ocean-front park-like state. The festival equipment is once again tucked into the belly of the large yellow Festival of India trailer. And we're headed to the temple for a delicious prasadam feast! Set-up, chanting, dancing, feasting, and take-down. Ten times at ten Ratha-yatra festivals across the continent. Plus a dozen hall programs, adventures at national parks... What more can you hope to do with your summer? Join the festival tour.

Stay tuned for details of the final week of adventures. We've yet to perform in Boise, Idaho, Denver, Colorado, and Miami, Florida. And we're snorkeling on the coral reef in Key Largo, Florida.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

3rd Installment - Rocky Mountains to Los Angeles

July 23, Monday - Golden, British Columbia - Whitewater Rafting

We approach the town of Golden, British Columbia, around 6:30 a.m. and park at the Husky truck stop just outside of town. The tall peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains surround us. The rising sun casts a golden glow on the snow-capped peaks and the green pine forests below. I notice wide swathes of tracks cut through the pine forests, the damage done by the skiing industry.

We refuel the buses, dump the contents of our septic and greywater tanks, and refill the freshwater tanks. The youth begin to wake up. We drive down to the Golden public swimming pool and utilize their showering facilities on this cold Monday morning at 7,000 feet elevation. Golden is on the Continental Divide, high up in the mountains.

By ten o'clock we've completed our spiritual morning program and prasadam breakfast at the swimming pool parking lot. We drive up the hills to the location of our outfitters, Alpine Rafting, who will take the 53 of us out on the Kicking Horse river for their "Ultimate Whitewater Adventure."

After filling out some paperwork and liability release waivers we head into the school bus provided by the rafting outfitters that will take us to the put-in point. Our lead guide for the day is Eirick from Norway. He has no idea what he is in for. He explains to us the potential dangers of whitewater rafting. He points out the window to the rapids below, asking us to notice the six-foot waves. The youth gasp. We spontaneously break out into loud Namaste Narasimhaya prayers. We chant at the top of our lungs, and some of us begin to beat our hands against the ceiling of the school bus, using it as a mridanga. Eirick bobs his head back and forth. When we start chanting Hare Krishna he says, "Eh, I know that one! Is that the Krishna Das melody? I have the Krishna Das album where he chants that song." Cool. Eirick asks about the significance of the songs we are chanting. It turns out his parents are buddhists, and he's traveled to Nepal before, and has even been to our ISKCON Ratha-yatra festival in Vancouver.

Once we get to our put-in location, we are given wet suits, booties, life jackets and helmets. The guides instruct us in safety procedures to observe on the river. We break up into teams of six and are assigned one guide per raft. The rafts are large, inflatable, nylon, self-bailing, with steering oars for the guide who sits at the back, and one paddle each for the rafting youth. Each team carries their raft to the river side, puts in, mounts, and pushes off. The first few minutes on this opaque white glacier melt-water river are smooth and calm. We practice "right forward - left backward" commands. Then come the rapids. Billowing waves crash all around.


Our guide yells at the youth at the front of our raft to go "high side," that is to jump onto the front of the raft to give it more weight and prevent the waves from tipping us over. We fall flat onto their stomachs at the front of the raft, one on top of the other. Waves crash over our heads. We reappear on the other side, to be greeted by more waves coming at us from all sides. We have water in our eyes. The commands fly past our ears. "All forward!" - "Left back, right forward!" - "Backward paddle!"

After about a minute of intense rapids, we come to calmer sections of the river. Then to more rapids. Then to calm waters again. At one point the guide allows some of us jump in for a dip and swim alongside the rafts. I stay safely in the raft and try to film some video of the rafters behind us, who are still braving the rapids we have just come through. I manage to catch a few good shots. The video camera gets splashed and I quickly return it into the water-proof case. Our guide points to more rapids ahead.



By the end of the afternoon we arrive at the take-out point. I am soaked. I have water in my boots up too my heels. I unzip the straps and peel the wet boots off my feet. My skin is water-logged like a swollen raisin. "That was soooooo much fun!" I hear one of the youth call out from behind me. Fun, yes. And now I'm tired.

We board the outfitter's school bus that will take us back to the rafting headquarters. Our lead guide Eirick from Norway is with us again. This time he's brought along his guide buddy, Jimmy, who is from New Zealand. A few minutes into the bus ride he asks if we're going to sing again. Jimmy says that he's come along because Eirick told him about our cool chanting earlier today, and that he had to hear it for himself. We can't refuse their invitation. Amal, Kumari and Kalindi lead several Hare Krishna Maha-mantra melodies on the way back down the mountain.

Jimmy is impressed. He wants to know more about what we do and who we are. He says he understands the benefits of giving up meat eating. He rarely eats red meat. He says he enjoys being a rafting guide because he gets to meet so many different people and find out about their cultures.


July 24, Tuesday - Sharanagati Farm Community, Ashcroft, British Columbia

Sharanagati is a farm community of Krishna devotees in the Canadian province of British Columbia, just south of the town of Ashcroft. The Trans Canada Highway (TCH) winds its way across the landscape next to the farm, following the Thompson River.

We arrive at 3:00 a.m. The stars are shining brightly. There are no city lights here, no smog to obscure our view of the sparkling night sky. I turn off the bus engine. There's silence. Intense silence. I can hear myself breathe. We're not used to this. It feels eery. Not a sound anywhere. Usually we park at truck stops or on busy city streets or parking lots overnight. It's very calm and peaceful here. We park along the dirt road next to Kulashekar Prabhu's house, which he has transformed into the official ISKCON temple of Sharanagati farm.

The temple building has two stories. The ground floor houses the sleeping quarters for men, and is surrounded by a large, glass-enclosed porch that lends warmth to the building during the winter months. The top floor features a spacious temple room, along with a kitchen, showers, and guest rooms, which are being used by the ladies today. The entire house seems like it is constructed from locally milled wood from the dead pine trees in the area. Water comes from a trickle of a stream flowing from the hill behind the house. Electricity is provided by the sun, which shines onto solar panels to charge battery banks that power the 12-volt electric lights illuminating the temple room.

We hold kirtana for Kulashekara Prabhu's large, neem Gaura-Nitai deities. A set of Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra deities are also visiting the temple, on loan from Kuvalesaya Prabhu.

After breakfast, Kartamasa and Radhakunda Prabhus have arranged for us to split up into smaller groups of ten to visit devotee homes in the Sharanagati community on a rotating system. They have prepared a questionnaire for the youth to use in interviewing the local devotees.

We start out with a jeep ride to Kartamasa's trailer, where we board mountain bikes and ride down the winding dirt road to the home of Ghosh Thakur and Mother Girija. Their daughters Kalindi and Gopal own several horses which they make available for rides. While some of our group ride the horses, others meet with Mother Girija inside her cozy log-cabin home. She has beautiful deities with hand-sewn outfits, backdrops and gorgeous decorations all around the altar. She explains that during the long winter months her and her family spend time making outfits, sewing for the deities, to keep themselves engaged. When asked what advice she has to pass on to our generation, she shares that devotee association is very important. She hopes that we will always remain in the association of Krishna's devotees.

Next we walk along a pasture to the house of Yadubara and Vishakha Prabhus, and their daughter, Hari Priya. Mother Vishakha greets us with a treat of "goji" berries that she grows in her garden. They are supposed to be very nutritious. We sit down in their living room for a short discussion with these two senior disciples of Srila Prabhupada. Invariably, we ask about Yadubara Prabhu's service of filming Srila Prabhupada. He shows us video footage from his new DVD series, Following Srila Prabhupada. It consists of digital transfers from the original film reels of the footage that Yadubara Prabhu filmed when he followed Srila Prabhupada around the world from 1972 - 1977, with voice-overs by the various devotees that were present in each scene, remembering the incidents and telling the background story behind each event.

We climb the rutted forest road up a hillside and down again, to the Sri Sri Radha Banabihari ashram cottage cared for by Mothers Yamuna and Dinatarine. This straw-bale house is covered with layers of tan-colored clay, with rounded walls and corners, and is surrounded by beautifully landscaped flower beds and gardens. It looks like a quaint hobbit cottage out of the epic "Lord of the Rings," only a lot more luxurious, fit for a royal couple. The masters of this house are Sri Sri Radha Banabihari, the gorgeous Radha-Krishna deities that are ashta-dhatu replicas of the Radha Raman deities in Vrindavan. Their altar is ornately decorated with fruits, flowers, and golden trim. Mother Yamuna's advice for us is that we should do what we love for Krishna, and love what we do for Krishna.




After that, we ride in the back of an old pickup truck to Kalakantha and Jitamitra Prabhu's house, where we are treated to a wonderful prasadam lunch and cake in honor of their daughter Laksmi's birthday. After lunch, we are taken by pickup truck once again deep into the forest, to the start of the challenge course.

The challenge course was set up by Kartamasa and the Sharanagati youth for the Camp Govardhan summer camps they hold here. To warm up, we hop through tires arranged strategically on the forest floor. We scale several horizontal tree trunks that have been raised about three feet off the ground. The goal is to get from one end to the other without falling off and without touching any branches or supporting trees.

Then we have to lift our entire team through an open hole in a vertical mesh of fake leaves, about four feet off the ground, without touching the mesh. The youth have to strategize and carry their team mates in creative ways. "Stay stiff like a stick, Jaya!", one youth yells. "Don't move or you'll touch the mesh!" yells another. Somehow we get everyone through to the other side. The last person runs toward the hole and dives forward into the arms of the others who are standing by to catch her.

A ten-foot wall awaits us as the next obstacle. We have to scale the wall and climb over to the other side, assisting our team mates. Then there are some ropes courses... where ropes have been strung between trees and we have to maneuver from one end of the rope to the other without falling off. It's quite a challenge and I guess that's why they call this a challenge course. We have to work cooperatively in teams to overcome each challenge.

We end the day with a pizza party organized by the Sharanagati devotees at the festival site next to a small lake. At dusk, just as the mosquitoes emerge in full force, we board the bus and head back to our sleeping quarters for the night, at Kulashekar Prabhu's house, the ISKCON temple.


July 25, Wednesday, Sharanagati Farm Community

Today is our second day at Sharanagati. It's Ekadasi, a holy day where we fast from grains and beans. Some of us attend part of the morning program at Mother Yamuna's house. I drive the second bus load of youth to her house. As I enter, the devotees are engaged in a lively discussion about what inspires each of them in Krishna consciousness. People are taking turns going around the room in round-robin fashion, sharing their realizations. One lady remembers something she has recently read in Chaitanya Bhagavata, about how we can perceive difficult times in our lives as Krishna's mercy. She quotes an example of the Phalgu river in India that has a dry river bed, but if you put your hand beneath the surface, there is water flowing. The difficult times we endure in this material world are compared to the dry river bed. And Krishna's mercy is compared to the water flowing just beneath the surface. His mercy is there, in the midst of our suffering, helping us get closer to Him.




Breakfast is in Bala Krishna Prabhu's raspberry patch. He runs the organic Bhumi Farms on the property, and today we're helping him pick the ripe raspberries that are weighing down several rows of bushes. Bala Krishna Prabhu explains that we can eat one, and put one in the bucket. Eat one, put one in the bucket. We offer the raspberry patch and begin our Ekadasi breakfast / raspberry picking adventure. With 50 of us split up into teams of two, we are allocated to strategic positions in the raspberry patch and systematically pick the ripe raspberries from one end of the patch to the other. Halfway through the morning we stop for a water break, and Bala Krishna Prabhu brings out home-made raspberry ice cream. Yum!

We have lunch here, a pot-luck prepared by various families. Mother Yamuna made the quinoa, with opulent morsels of cheese throughout. In the middle of the afternoon we depart for the town of Ashcroft, which is about 45 minutes away.

We're performing at the Ashcroft Opera House this evening. The name sounds imposing. Ashcroft is a town of 2000 residents and the opera house is an old historic building which has been restored by a devotee named Mahatseva Prabhu. He runs the place as a vegetarian restaurant with live music and entertainment on stage in the evenings and on weekends. Tonight we're booked as the feature presentation: DEVOTION. We park our buses next to the opera house and unload all the costumes, drama props, sound system and lights. Time to set up the show. Haridasa and Nitai configure the microphones. Markendeya sets up the lights. The dancers get ready in one room, the actors in another. Gundica, Gita and Varshana are busy applying make-up onto the performers.

"Ladies and gentlemen... Welcome to Devotion!" Anapayini, our director, starts the show. The dancers open with Pushpanjali and an invocation piece. Maharaja Pariksit and Shukadeva Goswami set the scene. Hiranyakashipu plays a mean demon. Queen Kunti enchants. The dancers and actors put on another stellar performance. By the end of the performance, Mother Yamuna is crying, hugging us, wishing us all the best in our Krishna consciousness. Other devotees are crying too. I again try to make my way to the exit doors to get some testimonials from the non-devotee audience as they leave the opera house. "How did you like the show?" "What did you think about the content?" Etc. One of the responses I get tonight from a young man is that he is impressed with the devotion our performers expressed on stage. "They really have a love for what they do and it shows." Appropriately, our show is named Devotion.

We mingle with the audience, eat prasadam (sanctified vegetarian food) with them, and later pack up, clean up, board the buses, and are on the road again by 10:30 p.m. The youth take rest on their bus bunk beds. The drivers drive through the starry night.


July 26, Thursday, Vancouver, British Columbia

I wake up and look outside. We're parked in the ISKCON Vancouver Temple parking lot. I get up and see that it's already 6:30 a.m. I scope out the bathroom situation, then wake up the counselors, who wake up the other youth and get them to their respective bathrooms. I shower and get ready and make it to a portion of the deity kirtana after gurupuja.




Sri Sri Radha Madan-Mohan are especially beautiful today. The plan is to spend a day of rest and relaxation at the Vancouver temple, since we usually don't get to relax here whenever we visit during Ratha-yatra festival time. This will give the youth time to do bhajans in the temple room, sort out their laundry, etc.

The counselors decide that we should do laundry today, since we will be driving most of tomorrow on a long haul from Canada all the way to the southwestern United States, making our way to Baja California, Mexico. The laundromat does not have enough washing machines for all 53 of us. So we first drop off the girls at the laundromat on Royal Oak street, about seven blocks from the temple. Then the bus drivers take the buses to truck repair shops around Vancouver, looking for someone who can fix the air conditioning on the boys' bus, and repair the engine "Jake" brakes on the girls' bus.

Meanwhile, the boys play soccer on the lawn behind the temple property. I mingle and play goalie for a while. The ball is kicked out of bounds several times into the boggy ditch next to the temple lawn. (Vancouver temple rests atop the boggy peat moss of the Fraser River delta. The river runs about a mile behind the temple.) Ganga and Markendeya jump into the ditch to rescue the ball. Both come back scratching their legs and complaining about the stinging nettles.

At 1:00 p.m. I ask Aniruddha, son of the vice president, to give me a ride to the laundromat to pick up the girls' laundry. I had promised I would come back to pick them up with the bus -- but the buses have not yet returned from the repair place. So Aniruddha gives me a ride in his Toyota hybrid gas / electric car. The girls are a little disappointed that they'll have to walk down the hill back to the temple, but happy they won't have to carry their laundry.

Bhadra Nitai and his wife Kala Rupini Prabhus have cooked a stunning 12-course prasadam feast for lunch, just for the youth. They are truly amazing cooks. Their kitchen is spotlessly clean. Everything is organized meticulously in tupperware containers, labeled, and there is not a speck of grease or spills anywhere in the kitchen. Everything is cooked in ghee. Between the two of them, they cook the offerings for Sri Sri Radha Madan-Mohan and the prasadam for all the devotees, day in, day out, year after year, at the Vancouver temple. Today they have outdone themselves. I cannot thank them enough for the outstanding prasadam they've cooked for the youth.

Finally the boys' bus returns, unsuccessful in its mission. None of the mechanics in Vancouver were able to repair the air conditioning in one day. They wanted us to schedule time a week in advance. One mechanic thought it was an electrical problem. Another thought the compressors were bad. The parts would have to be ordered. So we decide to call it quits on this issue. The boys have endured the no-air conditioning situation for a whole month already, and they have 22 windows they can open on that school bus.

By 9:30 p.m. I still haven't heard from the girls' bus. I am getting worried. We were supposed to leave Vancouver by now and be on the road. We have a 26-hour drive from here to Southern California.

I get a phone call from Dravinaksa Prabhu, our senior bus driver. He is at Detroit Diesel, an affiliate of the company that builds our bus engine. The mechanics have removed the engine cover. They're three hours into the job. Apparently the Jake brakes (engine retarders that slow down the engine on steep downhills) are not functioning properly because of a leak in the intake manifold gasket. To replace that gasket would take several hours. They would have to remove half the engine to get to it... and the mechanic is saying that if they run into any other troubles it could take days. So he wants to keep the bus in the shop over the weekend and work on it some more. We cannot afford that time, nor can we afford the mechanic's rates of $106 per hour to try to fix the Jake brakes.

I have to make a decision. I tell Dravinaksa to have them put it all back together again and that we'll have no choice but to fix this when we get back to Florida at the end of the tour. We cannot afford that kind of down time. We need to keep on going.

By midnight the girls' bus finally makes it back to the Vancouver temple parking lot. The boys are sound asleep on the bunk beds of their school bus. The girls are sleeping on the mats in the temple room, an emergency situation. We wake the girls, load their bus, and proceed to drive towards the Canada-US border at Pacific Crossing. We get to the border by 2:00 a.m. and amuse the border patrol officers with our ragged appearance. Everyone is in their pajamas, or shorts and t-shirts, whatever they've been sleeping in. We're red-eyed with disheveled hair, some of the youth are barefoot, too lazy to find their shoes in the dark... A ragged, tired bunch. Normally we would not get off the bus like this, but both I and the other counselors are too tired to care.

"Where have you been in Canada?" - "How long are you planning to stay in the US?" ... the questions the officers asks each one of us as we file through the turnstiles are repetitive and expected. Luckily the officers have a sense of humor. They wish us all the best and send us back onto our buses. We're now back in the US of A, crusing down Interstate 5 towards Seattle...


July 27, Friday, Drive to Southern California

The goal for today is to get as much driving done as possible. We stop only to refuel the buses, and to stretch our legs and rest for a while around breakfast, lunch and dinner. We cook each meal in the on-board bus kitchen, located at the back of the girls' bus (the larger of the two buses.)

We make good time. By late afternoon we are at the state line between Oregon and California, at the Klamath River Rest and Recreation Area. Some of us jump into the river to refresh ourselves. Others hold bhajans on the lawn in front of the rest area bathrooms.

The youth are waiting for dinner to be cooked. Jaya Radhe is preparing vegetable pasta with a white sauce. I make lemonade, with water, lemon juice and sugar. By about 7:30 p.m. we're ready to serve. The youth line up behind the buckets, on the lawn, next to the rest area parking lot. Everyone has their own bowl and spoon in hand (we've discontinued using disposable plates, cups and spoons two years ago...) I serve the lemonade halfway through the line so that those who don't have separate cups can drink and rehydrate themselves, before filling their bowls with pasta.

I place a call to Tukarama Prabhu, the Laguna Beach (California) temple president. It looks like we're making good time and will be able to stop in Laguna Beach tomorrow. So I make arrangements with Tukarama to expect the youth sometime in the late afternoon tomorrow, for kirtan and prasad, and he promises to cook dinner for us.

We get back on the road by about 9:30 p.m., after everyone has had a chance to wash their dishes, use the restrooms, brush their teeth, etc. The bus drivers take turns driving through the night, while we sleep on our respective bunk beds.


July 28, Saturday, Crossing the Grape Vine, and Laguna Beach

It's 6:45 a.m. south of Bakersfield on I-5. The sun is rising. I am well aware of the perils that lie ahead. We are an hour away from crossing the infamous "Grape Vine," a mountain pass that climbs up and up and up and up in the middle of the California desert. Attempting this climb through the southern Sierra Nevada mountains in the middle of the day with the hot sun shining down on the black tarmac would be voluntary suicide. (We've overheated and ruined a bus engine on this climb back in 1996, on our then third bus tour.) So I try to instill a sense of urgency in our drivers to climb the Grape Vine before the sun gets to high in the sky.

At about 7:30 a.m. I get behind the steering wheel. We're now approaching the base of the ascending highway. The landscape around us is barren wasteland. It looks like it hasn't rained here in years. The sun is rising. We can start to feel the heat. The hills in front of us are tan brown. I carefully scan the highway snaking up the side of the mountain in the distance, traffic slowly climbing up along it.

The sounds of a kirtana surprise me, coming from the back of the bus. Some of the youth have risen by now, showered using the on-board bus showers, and are starting a late morning program.

I keep my eye on the dashboard temperature gauge. The engine water temperature is rising. We're slowing down to about 35 miles per hour on the uphill climb. Just when I think that I'm almost at the top, I see another, higher hill in front of me. The temperature is rising from 190 degress to 210 to 230.... at this point I switch off the air conditioning. The indoor air temperature rises quickly from the comfortable 76 degrees to a sweltering 89 degrees. Someone yells from the back, "Can you please switch on the A/C?"

The bus radiator water temperature stays at 230 degrees and doesn't appear to cool off. We are on a steady climb. The top of the mountain pass is nowhere near. It's time to switch on the heat. Literally. I turn on the bus heating system, which uses the hot engine water to distribute heat throughout the bus. If the youth were not complaining earlier, they are now. It's getting to be a cozy 96 degrees in the passenger cabin. I ask people to open the roof hatches (you can't open the windows on an MCI tour bus while driving.) Finally the elevation sign approaches, letting us know that we're crossing the mountain pass' highest point. Whew! And this is early in the morning. Imagine if we had tried this in the middle of the day.

We are now on a steady descent. Our somewhat not-working Jake brake (engine retarder) is put, put, put-ting away... doing very little, but something, to retard the engine and keep it in the third gear on this long downhill grade. On the way up you're worrying about overheating, on the way down about burning out the brakes. We're only able to push the brakes for about 3 seconds every minute or so, barely enough to just slow us down below 2500 RPM in third gear, in order not to burn out the brakes. Our bus is heavy. Finally, by about 9:30 a.m., we're on the other side of the Grape Vine, approaching Los Angeles.

Laguna Beach

By noon we arrive in Laguna Beach, California. This is a beach town. The whole place is organized around the town center, which is the lifeguard house on the main beach. We let the youth off the buses near the beach. They're excited to see the Pacific Ocean. They proceed to the beach for swimming and volleyball, while I drive Garuda 2 (the big yellow bus) back to the outskirts of town, where there's bus parking.



I cook lunch on the bus kitchen, then deliver lunch to the beach. Later, I park the bus near the Laguna Beach temple, at around 5:00 p.m. By this time the youth have walked to the temple (about ten blocks from the beach) and are getting changed into devotional clothing for the evening arati kirtana in the temple room. The deities here are beautiful life-size Sri Sri Pancha-Tattva, that is Their Lordships Chaitanya, Nityananda, Gadadhara, Adwaita, and Srivasa Thakur.



After evening arati, the devotees serve us a delicious dinner, consisting of pasta, salad, ice cream and sodas. We're back on the road by 10:30 p.m.


July 29, Sunday, ISKCON San Diego

We wake up on Cass street, next to the Pacific Beach library. I am a bit disoriented as I get out of my bunk bed, trying to figure out in which direction the San Diego ISKCON temple is located. Apparently we're only two blocks away. I scope out the situation and find my way to the temple. I see that there is parking across the street from the temple, in front of the tire repair place, so I walk back to the bus, power up the engine, and drive the bus around the block.

It's 6:15 a.m. and I'm waking up the bus tour counselors and other youth, and directing them to the bathrooms. The boys are using the brahmacari ashram bathrooms at the back of the temple, upper level. The girls are using the upstairs bathrooms adjacent to the prasadam room in the front of the temple building. Most us us make it in time for greeting of the deities and gurupuja.



Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Giridhari have always had a special place in my heart. We used to visit this temple frequently during our early bus tours, from 1995 through 1998, after which Jaya Radhe and I moved away from the West Coast and we've only been back to San Diego sporadically since.

Dravida Prabhu gives the morning lecture. He tries to make it intersting and relevant for the youth. Towards the end of his lecture, he reads about the pastimes of Sanatan Goswami, whose disappearance day we are celebrating today. He also sings a poetic English rendition of the bhajan, "Bhaja Hu-Re Mana."

After breakfast, we meet with the boys and girls separately and have a couple of hours of review of the bus tour... How have things been going so far? Are there any ideas for improvement? How are people doing on the personal goals they set for themselves at the beginning of the tour? Are there any other goals they'd like to set for themselves and meet by the end of the tour?

The youth have the afternoon off for personal time, rest, relaxation. Some of them need to go shopping, and walk to the stores along Garnet Avenue one block behind the temple. In the late afternoon we round everyone up again to get ready for our evening performance.

It takes about an hour for all of us to get ready for the performance. The dancers get changed first. Then those actors who have the most elaborate costumes get ready and wait in line for make-up. Gundica is our make-up artist par excellence. She begins the make-up on Hiranyakashipu, and then Hanuman.

The temple room begins to fill up with guests. The San Diego temple has advertised this performance on their email lists, and they've posted DEVOTION posters on the trees along Grand Avenue in front of the temple. At 6:00 p.m. evening arati kirtana begins. At 6:30 we start the performance. I'm sitting in the little room behind the temple office, writing the the bus tour diary while the play performance is going on. Usually I am there to support the performers, but today I'm in a hurry to get the diary uploaded since we'll be away from Internet access for a few days.

From where I'm sitting, I can hear the audience cheering and clapping in between the scenes. The dancers later tell me that they knew it was going to be a good performance when they heard the people in the audience sighing "Aahhhh" as the dancers threw the flower petals in the air during Pushpanjali. They said it was a very responsive audience. They laughed at the right moments, and cried during the emotional scenes. I'm glad first of all that so many people showed up to see the performance at this temple, and secondly that they were so responsive.

Afterwards, mothers Kripamayi and Kanti came up to me and expressed their admiration for the talent and sincerity of these youth. They wondered how Jaya Radhe and I are able to take care of 50 of them all summer long. I express my concern that I would like to see more parents travel with us. We need some mothers on the girls' bus, for instance, to give emotional and physical support to 33 girls. We've always struggled to find parents who want to spend two months traveling on a bus in tight quarters with so many teenagers and young adults. We're always open to suggestions. Please contact us at bustour2007@krishna.com.


July 30, Monday - Alisitos KM58 Surf Camp, Baja California, Mexico

We pull into our campsite at around 1:00 a.m. The border crossing went smoothly. The Mexican customs officer at the Tijuana border asked us where we were camping, shone his flashlight into our luggage bays and then wove us through. Apparently they're more lenient if you stay within a 75-mile radius of the US border. Our campsite is south of Rosarito, about 45 minutes north of Ensenada. It's an old surf camp. There is an overhanging cliff where we park our buses, which provides us with a panoramic view of the beach below.

We wake everyone around 6:30 a.m. and send them to the outdoor showers. Kalindi unpacks her Gaura Nitai deities whom she has picked up in Sharanagati. They are her childhood deities. She spends a good hour dressing and decorating them. We start the morning program kirtana, sitting in a semi circle around the deities, facing the Pacific Ocean.



The waves crash in a pulsating rhythm below our overhang. As the youth take turns singing the Guruvastakam prayers, my mind wanders. I observe first seagulls, then pelicans, then dolphins chasing schools of fish for breakfast. I notice that dolphins never swim alone. They always stay in small groups, keeping each other company. Perhaps out of social need, perhaps to keep strength in numbers. I am reminded how, similarly, as aspiring devotees we seek each other's association to maintain our Krishna consciousness. Life's challenges are more easily overcome in good association.




During the day, the youth swim in the ocean. The surf is up. Omkara and Deva rent surf boards from a local establishment. Various youth take turns trying to ride the waves. Radhanatha leads a team of people who help set up the tents in between the buses, which are strategically positioned in a "V" shape, facing the ocean.

After lunch, we are joined by His Holiness Romapada Swami, who has just arrived from the San Diego airport. He has arranged his busy schedule to spend three days with us here on the beach, in Baja California, Mexico. Romapada Swami has been serving as Executive Chairman of the North American Governing Body Commission of ISKCON for the past nine years. He is also a member of the "Succession of Leadership" committee. He is here to spend some time with the youth, and to encourage them to get more involved in ISKCON leadership.

Throughout the afternoon, Romapada Swami meets with several of us in one of the tents, to get a sense of our interest in and commitment to becoming more involved in the missionary work of ISKCON.

As the sun begins to set over the ocean, we begin a spiritual evening program with Kalindi's and our bus tour Gaura Nitai deities. The two sets of deities glisten in the setting sun. Kalindi's are white marble-looking resin. The bus tour Gaura Nitai are polished brass. Romapada Swami leads an initial discussion about the importance of our generation of youth taking on responsibiliy in the preaching mission of ISKCON. He explains that he himself has maybe ten years left to give, after which he'll be looking to retire. He laments that there are so few young people at the Temple Presidents' and GBC meetings. He states his desire to dedicate himself to succession planning to see that ISKCON has a bright future. He would like to see the youth take over ISKCON.


July 31, Tuesday, Campo Alisitos, Baja California, Mexico.

We hold a relaxed morning program with H.H. Romapada Swami. This morning's discussion is focused on obstacles that prevent youth from getting more involved in ISKCON. Dedication. Time. Money. School. Job Security. Feeling inadequate. Requiring specific leadership training. The list grows as Priya writes the headings on poster board paper and hangs the full sheets onto the side of our yellow bus. Premanjana manages the list of people who have their hands raised, who are eager to contribute to the discussion. "First Hari, then Uddhi, then Deva, then Lakshmi..." We take turns contributing to the list of obstacles that prevent us from getting more involved in ISKCON leadership and in the preaching mission.



During the day, the youth again surf the waves, swim, and relax after four weeks of non-stop traveling. These three days on the beach in Mexico serve as a short retreat to rejuvenate our bodies, to catch up on some rest and relaxation. There's work to be done, nontheless. Breakfast prep crew. Breakfast clean-up crew. Lunch prep. Lunch clean-up. Dinner prep. Dinner clean-up. Six teams are needed throughout the day to manage the essentials. The boys cook lunch. It's Mexican burritos with beans, salsa and hibiscus "tang" drink.



Dinner is campfire baked potatoes. We end the evening with a game of Krishna conscious charades.


August 1, Wednesday, Campo Alisitos, Baja California, Mexico.

After the morning program kirtana, we continue our succession of leadership discussion. Today we're tackling solutions to the obstacles we listed yesterday. What would it take to get us more committed, to dedicate some time, to get training so we would feel more qualified to take on the challenge of the missionary work of ISKCON? The youth offer suggestions. We split up into small groups and tackle three or four of the "obstacles" each. We re-convene after half an hour and present our solutions to the whole group.

We even have a "loyal opposition" who have gotten together and decided that this whole discussion is a bad idea. That what the youth really need is help with education, college grants, and business loans to become successful materially... so that they can contribute financially to the temples and maybe later on in life, when they have life experience, they can consider getting involved in ISKCON management and leadership. Fair enough. We value their constructive input.

Overall, more than three quarters of the group are enthusiastic to at least pursue the theory of getting more involved in ISKCON's missionary work. That short-term commitments of six months, one year, or two years are more realistic goals to strive for. That ISKCON should set up systems like the Mormons have, where you contribute two years of missionary work when you're 18, and then the Mormon church pays for your college education, you are guaranteed employment in any Mormon business, and other benefits.

Premanjana, Haridas, and Priya have assembled a team of inspired youth who are considering taking on the challenge of managing the St. Louis ISKCON temple, turning it into a youth-run preaching mission. Romapada Swami is the GBC for that temple, and the current temple president, Pancha-Tattva Prabhu, is welcoming the youth to get involved in a serious way. I am inspired to see the flame of enthusiasm lit within these youth, to see them so inspired to take on the challenge of running the St. Louis temple.

The rest of the day continues much like the previous two. Swimming. Surfing. Lunch and dinner prep and clean-up. With the exception, perhaps, that pockets of youth are talking about what they thought of the leadership discussions so far. Premanjana, Hari and Priya are meeting in one of the tents, strategizing. Who, from among the youth who are serious to try and get more involved, should they pick to help them run the St. Louis temple?

Dinner is Mexican quesadillas, flour tortillas (chapatis) folded in half with grated cheese baked in the middle, with a dip of freshly made guacamole (avocados, spices and sour cream). Sarasvati from Chicago and other youth spend a good two hours pan-frying the quesadillas. Radhanatha and Premanjana keep the campfire well stocked with wood. Kalindi and Kumari lead blissful Hare Krishna mantra melodies during the evening bhajans around the campfire.


August 2, Thursday, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

Today we wrap up the succession planning discussion with a straw vote of hands of who might be interested to get more seriously involved in ISKCON's missionary work within the next two years. About three quarters of the group's hands go up. We write down the names. Then we switch gears to a general discussion about how leadership works in ISKCON. What is the role of the GBC? What are their meetings like? Did everyone know that there are Spiritual Strategic Planning Team meetings twice a year in North America, where devotees meet to improve ISKCON in strategic ways? "Welcome Mat" where we address how to welcome guests to a temple. "Youth Programs" for all ages. "Financial Solvency" to help temples maintain a positive cashflow. There are 50 "A" list priority initiatives, another 50 on the B list, and many more on the C list. That we need youth to get involved on the grass-roots level to improve ISKCON in all of these initiatives.

Several youth get excited about the possibilties they see to contribute positively towards the growth and improvement of ISKCON via the SSPT initiative process. I pledge that I will try to find funding to get those youth to attend the upcoming SSPT initiative meetings, to facilitate their becoming more involved.

After breakfast, we take down camp. The tents are cleaned, unpegged, disassembled, and rolled up. The buses are cleaned. "Maha clean-up" as we call it. (Maha means "big" in Sanskrit.) Romapada Swami leaves us at this time, to return to Los Angeles for succession of leadership meetings with senior devotees, to report back his findings.

We serve lunch at the campsite, and then head south to the tourist town of Ensenada. We plan to do a Harinama and let the youth go shopping, for gifts and souvenirs from Mexico. By the time we actually get to Ensenada, it is already 4:30 p.m. and the shops will be closing soon. So we let the youth go shopping in devotee clothes and forego the Harinama. That night we head north and cross the border back into the United States.


August 3, Friday, Los Angeles ISKCON temple.

The buses pull into parking spaces along Venice Boulevard at around 3:00 a.m. A handful of us get up and go to the ashram showers at our Los Angeles ISKCON temple here on Watseka Avenue. Today is "gurukuli day" - the one day of the year set aside for the youth to lead the entire morning program. I get to the temple room with wet tilak just as the altar doors are opening, at 4:30 a.m.



"Jaya Sri Sri Gaura Nitai!" - "Jaya Sri Sri Rukmini Dvarakadhisha!" - "Jaya Sri Sri Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra!"

Madan Mohan, Prithu Prabhu's son, leads mangala arati. Kuva leads Narasimhadeva prayers. Dakshina leads Tulasi arati. Amal (from our bus tour) leads guru puja. Shraddha leads Jagannathastakam. I don't stay for class as I take the bus tour boys with me, in the boys' bus, to Venice Beach, to help Madhuha Prabhu finish the set-up for the Ratha-yatra "Festival of Chariots." About half of the girls join us, as they've never done "set-up" before and are willing to try.

A team of about 15 girls stay at the L.A. temple and help string garlands of marigolds to decorate the chariots, while the rest of us drive to Venice Beach, park the buses on the festival site, and get ready to help finish the set-up of this mega massive festival. Los Angeles Ratha-yatra requires the largest set-up of tents of any Ratha-yatra in North America. We use all of Madhuha Prabhu's "Festival of India" tents and exhibits, plus about 30 more of Los Angeles ISKCON's (Ratnabhusana Prabhu's) tents and exhibits. L.A. have their own large main stage with tall tent over the top, and dozens of food booths serving smoothies, curd steaks, pizza, watermelon, a gift shop, a children's tent with its own stage, a music stage for bands to perform, etc. etc. etc. We finish set-up by about 1:45 p.m., and wait for the temple to deliver lunch to the site. It is getting quite hot out here on Venice Beach, an ocean-front suburb of Los Angeles, and host to the Ratha-yatra Festival of Chariots for the past 35 years. We take shelter in the shade under one of the tents.

Finally, lunch arrives. The cooks at the Los Angeles ISKCON temple have outdone themselves. It's a ten-course feast. Two subjis, lasagna, rice, dahl, salad, fruit salad, banana bread, lemonade... we eagerly devour the feast. Everyone is hungry and thirsty after a long morning of physical labor, setting up the festival. I look around the festival site and feel a sense of accomplishment, that we helped set up this festival so thousands of people this weekend can have a good time in Krishna consciousness.

After lunch, we drive the buses back to the L.A. temple and the youth proceed to wash their laundry at the laundromat behind the temple. We don't have much time. Three hours before the evening program starts at the temple, and we are supposed to perform DEVOTION in the L.A. temple room, right after evening arati. We rush to get our laundry washed and dried, and then get ready for the performance.

Temple room performances have their challenges. There is no stage. Any action that happens low to the ground is hidden from the view of people sitting on the floor behind the first row, basically anyone from the third row onwards. The Laksmi-Narayana dance scene, where Narayana reclines on the floor against Sesha naga, causes people to rise to their knees to see the action. Everyone is trying to poke their heads over everyone else's shoulders to see what is going on. The speakers of the temple sound system are positioned in the four corners of the temple room, causing echo and feedback problems for performers. Halfway through, we decide to switch to our own bus tour Yamaha three-way speakers. Haridas brings in the speakers and we switch seamlessly in between scene changes. Ahhhh... much better. We can hear the voices of the performers clearly now. The $4,000 in wireless microphones we invested in at the beginning of the tour is once again saving our performance (By the way, I still need your help to sponsor these microphones. They were not in our original budget for the tour and are still sitting on my credit card bill. Any help is kindly appreciated. You can make your donations out to youth@krishna.com via PayPal, or send check or money order in US funds to ISKCON Youth Ministry, PO Box 283, Alachua, FL 32616, USA.)



Overall, the show goes well. The Los Angeles devotees (about 300 of them crowd the temple room between the ground floor and balcony) applaud with a standing ovation. Naikatma Prabhu, who serves as temple president for ISKCON Denver, watched the performance and pleads with us to visit Denver and perform there when the bus tour passes through, after Vancouver Ratha-yatra. He asks if we can come for Janmashtami, but we explain that the youth are back in school by that time and that the bus tour is over the day before school (college) starts.

We end the day by driving the buses to the quiet surroundings of Venice Beach, parking on the festival site to spend the night. The youth fall asleep on their respective bus bunk beds. We prop open the windows of the buses to let the cool ocean breeze blow through.