Penukonda, India

Last night I arrived in Penukonda, India with Gonga and Tara. Their favorite driver Sheru drove us from the Lakshimi Hotel in central Bangalore in about 3 hours. It is north of Bangalore near the central highway of India, which is under major reconstruction from a two-lane country road to a six lane divided highway.

I spent the night here at the Ashram. It is very beautiful and the foliage is very lush. A true oasis in the middle of an arid desert area in south central India. It is nestled at the base of a rocky mountain.

Bangalore (AKA Bengaluru on Indian maps) had many adventures and interesting experiences with Gonga and Tara acting as my tour guides to the city. When I have time, I'll recount some of them.

Yesterday I was able to convey Julian's hard drive to a firm called Stellar Information Systems that will attempt to recover the precious data and have it ready for me by Sunday when I leave India. It turned out that Stellar's main office and clean room is in Delhi, actually Gurgaon near the airport. Unfortunately I didn't know that before I flew to Bangalore. Today I learned from another person at the ashram that there is a firm in Bangalore called Disk Doctor who has a clean room in Bangalore. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If they are successful, I'll have to pay RS.23,000, which is about $575 USD. Hopefully they will be successful since there are the only copies of photos on that hard drive from the first half of the pilgrimage from Khenpo's camera, my camera and at least one other pilgrim's camera. Anyone who is able to contribute to this expense would earn some good merit I'm sure. I could use some sponsorship.