I Leave India
My final entry of my trip to India and Nepal.
I spent pretty much the last 24 hours of my time in India after returning home from Nepal with Melissa. Monday I didn’t have a cell phone, but Melissa and I planned to meet at Metro Gate 1 of Connaught Place, which is the 1930s British center of the city. I was worried I wouldn’t find Melissa. So it was just my luck that a man came up and started talking to me (I know he wants my body when an Indian man runs up to me on the street and begins a sentence with “So where you from madam?”–happens 100 times a day). I used the situation to my advantage and borrowed his phone to call Melissa and then painstakingly answered his questions, which all led up to a party/bar invitation that I graciously declined.
After Melissa popped out of the metro, we ditched the disappointed man and ventured to the nearest Cafe Coffee Day (the Starbucks of India) where we spent an hour or two drinking cappuccinos, talking about her time in India and my time in India, and catching up before our six month separation. We decided to leave and walked around aimlessly. At one point we were waiting five or ten minutes to cross a street and then realized that “TII” (This Is India) and cars don’t ever stop for pedestrians. So we started walking across the street, hoping cars would stop if we were there, and, seriously, we almost were killed 6 times within 15 seconds. Cars were screeching and swerving and coming within inches of us without stopping. We made it across alive and cheered. After a long trek around Connaught Place, we ended up at another Cafe Coffee Day and ordered strawberry sodas, and then one of the most bizarre events of my trip occurred.
A white, oldish, blonde British lady wearing a white monkish robe and a big wooden rosary cross necklace was wandering around Cafe Coffee Day, talking to herself and to a person who wasn’t there and stealing leftovers when people left. Melissa and I were extremely intrigued, because Indian poor and homeless and incapacitated are ubiquitous, but the only white people in India are travelers and tourists–people sure to have more than satisfactory living circumstances. It was strange to see a homeless white person, much less a blatant Christian. We waved at her and she came and sat across from us and began to ramble and at this point I have two possible diagnoses for her: she was either severely schizophrenic or she was a meth addict. The woman said she was born in India and was Indian and then gestured to her hair and said that “the government” had died it blonde and made her eyes blue and that originally both were black. She said that the “government” had murdered all the doctors in India, and this was why she couldn’t get help for her burned fingers which were wrapped in blue plastic (either they were actually burned, or this was where she injected meth). She said that a little animal that crawls beneath the skin of rhinos in South America (I know, right) had also crawled beneath the skin of her injured fingers and poisoned her body and she called a medical help line overseas to know what medicine to get from a pharmacy (since all the doctors of India are murdered). Every so often, she would break in the middle of a long sentence to turn her face upward and away and start talking to someone who she referred to as “the voices.” When we asked her what voices she heard, she said she didn’t hear the voices, everyone else heard the voices. She said she didn’t hear voices, but sometimes heard the “intelligence.” She claimed to be a mahatma and spent thirty minutes scribbling down random things about methane oil and churches and organizations and religions in my notebook that she wanted us to check out. She claimed to be 23, and said that the “government” had made her look as old as she did (because she looked about 50). The weird thing was that the way she spoke, you wouldn’t think she was crazy. She had a beautiful vocabulary, a soft calm voice, and clear blue eyes and seemed perfectly sincere in each crazy response she gave us to our questions. Bizarre.
We left Connaught Place and went to Khan Market, where we decided to eat dinner at the real Amurrican restaurant: Route 04. I ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and hookah to share and Melissa got a salad. A cute little note typed on our menu said “Americans spend $1 billion eating out every day.” The soundtrack was top pop hits of my eighth grade year and songs like Sweet Home Alabama. So Amurrican.
Melissa and I took the metro back to her apartment, and had a series of really funny “TII” moments. When we were buying our metro token an Indian man tried to cut in front of me in line (Indians don’t know how to wait in lines). So I slapped his hand, which was reaching across me to snatch a token, and told him “Queue! Queue!” Queue is Hindi/British for get in line. He was really amused and subsequently waited behind us. Next, Melissa and I boarded the metro, which was filled (to the brim) with men (hardly any women ride the metro). There is a whole row of seats on each car of the metro that says “For Ladies Only” in both English and Hindi. I asked Melissa the Hindi word for “girls” and turned to the men who were filling up the women seats and just staring at us. Melissa and I were the only women and they were sitting in our seats. I gave them a hard look for a while and when they didn’t get the point, told them “Girls, girls!” in Hindi and gestured for them to get the hell up (good-naturedly). They were also really amused by that, and bowing slightly gave Melissa and I the metro seats. Finally, on the way back to my neighborhood from Melissa’s apartment, my metro token wasn’t working and the guards were ignoring me. So I jumped the metro gate and started walking briskly down the stairs and was chased down and spent a good twenty minutes fighting with the metro workers/guards and shaking my fist that held the broken token. It was really frustrating, but was a good “TII” moment to laugh about. Melissa spent the night and I spent most of today with her as well, running errands and eating food.
On the way to the airport tonight, I was feeling a little nostalgic of my time in India and a little sad about leaving. Bethany and I rode with Deepak, and all our luggage, while Jim and Kelly rode in a taxi. My last time on Delhi roads. We turned on the Slumdog soundtrack and Bollywood’s greatest hits and passed our last rickshaws, our last beggars, our last cars driving the wrong direction, our last Indian cat calls, and our last dust and gas clouds.
Surprisingly in the car, I found that the chaos of India had begun to feel a little bit like home to me. I reflected on the different people I had met, and the starkly different culture I had been immersed in, and the alien feeling of being the only blonde, white person amongst a sea of brown people for three weeks. I think all of the above have truly made me appreciate my American-ness and the qualities of life it brings me, but also made me appreciate other cultures and peoples and what they can teach me.
A few hours before we left for the airport today, Jim and Kelly called Deepak and Priya and baby Mionk down to the apartment to break some bad news for them: in a month they will no longer have a job or an apartment because Jim resigned and he and Kelly are moving to Saudi Arabia where Jim will direct different hospital systems. Priya started crying, and began telling Jim and Kelly how much she depended on them and what good bosses they had been and how she was scared. And then Priya gave me a farewell gift–a beautiful black and diamond (diamond-looking) Indian jewelry set that matches my sari (she loved how I always wore Indian clothes). Earlier today she wanted me to take a picture with her and her sister and Mionk because she wanted to remember me, and before I left, Priya grabbed my hands and told me to come visit her. I was really touched by her genuine care for me, whom she has only known for just a while.
My nostalgia ended when I hit the Delhi airport where I was sweaty, hot, and tired, and extremely pissed off at the lack of efficiency and idiotic organizational systems that are common in India. I spent an hour and a half just trying to get my ticket and get through security, and was sent to three different counters to pay a stupid airport tax and chased down the hall to have my bag checked, after having already sent it through the x-ray and having my body frisked. Then I had to poop out the dirt and bacteria and spices I have been ingesting for three weeks and there was no toilet paper.
And this is where I end the stories of my travels.
Nepal: Everest, Back-packers, Wee Hours, Temples July 20, 2009
Saturday morning Kelly, Bethany, Jim and I took a short flight from the domestic airport in Delhi, India to Kathmandu, Nepal. We were greeted at the airport by a driver from our hotel, The Courtyard, and on the way to the hotel took in the sites and smells and sounds of Kathmandu. My first impressions of the city were more like comparisons of the city to Delhi.
Delhi is horrendously polluted and dusty, but Kathmandu tops Delhi in terms of pollution. Delhi has banned diesel and Kathmandu has not. Almost one out of three or four people I saw on the streets of Kathmandu wears a mask (similar to what doctors wear) over their face so that they don’t have to constantly breathe in diesely pollution. It’s unfortunate that Kathmandu is so polluted, because it is such a beautiful place in such a beautiful surrounding. Kathmandu is nestled amongst the Himalayas in a little valley. Buildings are colorful and decrepit and falling apart, like in India, except there is a distinct difference in architecture: brick. The brick buildings, combined with the Asian-esque architecture, give Kathmandu a distinctly northern-Asian vibe whereas all the buildings of Delhi are made of concrete and plaster. Or tarps.
The people were slightly different in appearance as well. Women still wore saris and loose suits and the men mostly wore normal western clothes, and these funny little hats. Then I couldn’t spot any turbans because there were few Sikhs–in India, turban-wearing Sikhs are all around but I guess there is a small Sikh population in Nepal. Buddhism and Hinduism are the most prominent religions, but there isn’t a really concrete way to physically identify people of these religions. The Nepalese people have physical appearances that could be described as a cross between traditional Indian and Chinese, in terms of facial structure and skin color. They were very beautiful. And far more people in Nepal than in India wear the giant red rice-dye-goo spots on their foreheads. I am still confused as to the purpose or symbolism of this.
There is a special quality about Nepal that is very unique to the country, and especially to Kathmandu: it is the trekker/adventurer/backpacker capital of the world. Half of the tourist shops were selling questionable mountain gear and North Face packs and clothing, and almost all of the tourists I think were trekkers stopping through. We didn’t have time to go on one of the many treks you can do in Nepal, like canyoning or white water rafting or mountain trekking or climbing Everest (ha!) but Nepal is a country I want to return to. I like adventure.
We spent the afternoon relaxing at our oasis of a hotel–it ended up having more of the atmosphere of a bed-and-breakfast than a hotel. The owners of the hotel make sure they know the names of all their guests, engage people in conversation, take everyone staying at the hotel out together every night for long dinners and drinks, and were generally really enjoyable people (if not a little nuts). Around 8:30, about 15 guests and our hosts walked through the tiny, windy streets of Kathmandu to a rooftop restaurant where we spent several hours drinking wine and eating food and having wonderful conversation.
I usually make an effort to meet local people when I travel, because that tends to be more interesting, but I came to this realization last night: the harder a place is to travel to, the more interesting the travellers who go there. I met some really incredible and really interesting people this weekend at our little hotel (which didn’t feel like a hotel, but like a mansion full of guests for a weekend). After dinner, we returned to The Courtyard and sat outside and talked and drank. Then the monsoons came. It rained and thundered all night, and I danced in it, and I kissed Alex, a philosophy major who is Canadian/Milwaukeean, on the roof of The Courtyard looking over Kathmandu in the monsoon rain. It was surreal.
I went to bed at 4 a.m. and slept for an hour, because we had to wake up at 5 a.m. to head to the airport to take a mini-plane over the Himalayas. I saw Mount Everest. And a lot of other really tall, really beautiful mountains. It was a rough morning after the night before, but well worth it. After our mountain-plane ride, Kelly, Bethany, Jim and I returned to The Courtyard for breakfast and then set out with the owner’s driver to explore the sites of Kathmandu and the surrounding countryside of Nepal.
As we drove out of the city and into the countryside, I felt like I was on the Travel Channel or in National Geographic. The landscape was vibrant shades of green: mountains and trees and rice, with terraced rice fields nestled at the foot of the hills. There were shabby little houses with a lot of character around every twisty bend in the road, with shabby little brown people with a lot of character inside of them. We drove all the way up an enormous hill, and at the very peak was situated an ancient Hindu temple with a little religious community surrounding it. We walked down the path toward the temple and dodged chickens and ducks and dogs and cows and pigs and other domestic creatures, passed small little cavern-shops in the wall with religious and ethnic music floating out, and passed several Buddhist painting schools that had painters inside painting mandalas and the Buddha to sell.
The temple itself was a playground. It was a giant compound, with little shrines to different gods placed here and there and a big structure in the center. It had this building surrounding it on the outside that had absolutely nothing in it but dirt and stairs and winding passageways and windows of light. I explored it and got a little scared of spiders and rats and other creatures.
After the Hindu temple, we drove to the main Buddhist temple in Kathmandu (the name starts with a G–like Ghouda or something). It was distinctly different from the Hindu temple, but equally beautiful and appealing. To get to the temple, which was also more like a compound, we walked down a little road that opened up into a giant circular square. The middle of the square was completely made up of a giant human-usable mandala, with the center of the mandala towering high above all the surrounding buildings as a white dome with prayer flags and fabrics waving around it in the wind. We walked around inside of the mandala, and there was a little area where Buddhists rang bells and spinned prayer wheels. A quirky dwarf Buddhist monk beckoned me into a dark room where giant (when I say giant, I mean giant) prayer wheels could be spun. I followed him around the wheels as he muttured things in Nepali to me.
We then went inside the actual temple, where we were required to take off our shoes. The giant doors to the temple opened and rays of light poured on the golden Buddha-altar. The monks followed us around, and then had us kneel one at a time at the floor-altar in order to bless us. My monk poured water on my hands, and then told me to drink it from my hands. Then I folded my hands in the “Namaste” way and bowed my head as he wrapped a white silk fabric around my neck and tied a knot. I scooted over to the next monk and he blessed me too and told me the fabric would now bring me good karma.
Shortly after, we returned to The Courtyard to rest for a few hours before going out with everyone for dinner at a traditional Nepalese restaurant. I have to describe what this meal-process was like because it was unique to all of the meals I’ve had. We sat on pillows on the ground at a low table. First, our host Pujan (the crazy guy, who I think is actually a very wealthy man who holds a lot of strings in Kathmandu, and whose uncle owns the restaurant) motioned the waiters to bring each person a tiny clay bowl (equivalent in volume to a shot glass). Then the waiter came around to every person and poured rice wine into our clay bowls. Then Pujan poured some of the rice wine (saki, except more lethal) on his hand and then lit it on fire to show the pureness and quality of the alcohol. This is proven if the fire burns blue. Then he made a toast and we all drank the shot of saki. Everyone’s made gruesome faces around the table and there were a lot of groans, because the saki was so strong. It was only in my system for 1 minute, because the next minute I was throwing it up in the bathroom. Never again.
For the next hour, waiters came around to serve us different foods on our plate, but I felt sick the rest of the night and the next morning from the saki and didn’t eat much. After the meal, it is the custom to break the clay saki bowl on the table, but I never got to that because Kelly, Bethany, Jim and I walked home in the rain. We had had a long day and couldn’t keep up with the rowdiness of the rest of the group.
Around 3 a.m., some of our friends came knocking on our door and I went to their palatial room to hang out for a little while. Then I went back to sleep and this morning we flew back to Delhi.
Monsoon in India: Flooded Streets & Rain Dances
Though it has sadly been a drought in Delhi during this monsoon season, when we were in Jaipur the monsoons were raging. Yesterday, the first rains I’ve seen in India came while I was standing in the street waiting for Kelly and Bethany to come out from a traditional blue pottery shop. The sky suddenly turned quite dark, and I began to feel sporadic, big splats of water that slowly increased in frequency. Gusty winds swirled dust in my eyes and the leaves of the trees blew wildly. And then suddenly, it was as if the skies turned over. Refreshing, cool, torrents of rain came pouring out of the clouds and thoroughly drenched me.
Across the street, a pack of children spotted my white skin and ran laughing and yelling toward me, and pulling at my clothes and grabbing at my knees (not so seriously, because they were laughing as they did so) requested me for rupees. One little boy was adorable. He stuck out his tongue at me and made noises and jumped around in the rain, and I did the same to him. The older Indians standing under shop awnings around me were smiling at laughing at the scene. I did a little rain dance with the boy, and then we proceeded to puddle jump.
About twenty minutes later, we were driving through the city of Jaipur, and after just twenty minutes of rain, the streets were completely flooded in one or two feet of water, deeper in some places, and the water was moving like a river stream. Motorcycles were racing like jet skies in the water, children were swimming in the streets, and everyone was smiling and laughing and thoroughly enjoying the refreshing monsoon. Water was up to the doors of every shop. It was an incredible experience.
My Arranged Marriage Proposal July 15, 2009
Yesterday was another day of adventure! And of stereotypical Eastern culture. Kelly, Bethany and I left the house at 4:30 a.m. to catch an early flight to Jaipur, the Pink City. The flight was about forty-five minutes long, but the drive would have taken eight hours. The Cauc-a-zoids (short for Caucasian, this is the name Kelly has given to white people here, since they are uncommon) at the domestic airport in Delhi far outnumbered the Indians. It was interesting to see, particularly since it is rare to spot a fellow Cauc-a-zoid here in India.
All morning, I was under the attack of Delhi Belly. I had diarrhea and cramps (and my poop was green!). I had to take several Pepto Bismol tablets, some Tums, and Immodium. I still didn’t feel good.
After arriving in Jaipur, We headed to our hotel to eat breakfast and then drove to the famous Amber Fort. On the way, we couldn’t help but notice a vehicle on the road that wasn’t a rickshaw, or a motorcycle, or a car, or a truck: it was an elephant! It was the first elephant I’ve seen in India, and it was just walking down the road carrying some plants with a man riding it on top.
When we got to the Amber Fort, the first thing we noticed were the multitudes of elephants available for riding, but we decided to save it as our dessert after exploring the Fort. So we explored, and it was very beautiful, and as we left through the exit, two unique things struck our attention.
The first was two snake charmers. They were sitting in a little alley by the exit and one was playing a drum and the other was playing a flute. They were charming black cobras out of two baskets. I crawled on the ground about five feet from the cobras to get the perfect shot, and I did! We turned the corner for a few minutes and when we came back, the crowds had dissipated and the cobras and their charmers were alone. They wanted Bethany and I to touch the cobras. Not in India.
The second was a Cafe Coffee Day that was built amongst the ruins of the fort. Cafe Coffee Day is like the Starbucks of India. We went inside to order, and this is how ordering coffee works in India. You order what you want, but you don’t pay, and then they tell you to sit down. So you sit down and wait an obscene amount of time for your drink (only one person makes all the drinks, even though three people are working), because inefficiency is India’s middle name. Bethany wanted an iced latte, but she knew Cafe Coffee Day would say no if she ordered it since it wasn’t on the menu. So she ordered a hot latte, and tried to order a cup of ice, but they refused to give her a cup of ice, since it is not on the menu. If it is not on the menu, no matter how simple, you cannot get it. So after about a half hour in the coffee shop, we all finally had our drinks and we finished them in five minutes and then left. Later over dinner we were laughing about the inefficiency and the silliness of not being able to get ice when we realized we had left without paying. It had been such a long ordeal in the coffee shop that we forgot to pay!
After leaving Cafe Coffee Day, we set off for our dessert: elephant riding. I was stopped on the way because yet another Indian wanted my picture. This time I posed, movie-star style. Kelly told me I should start charging rupees for people to take my picture, since that’s what Indian beggars do at all of the tourist sites. As we arrived at the elephant stand, the elephant men were taking away the elephants and packing up. So we haggled a little bit and then they walked us down to town where we walked through the elephant garage and had an interesting (and preferable) alternative to riding elephants in the fort: we rode an elephant through town. Our elephant was named Champa and she was 22 years old. Her driver was named Papu. We walked through back streets of Jaipur on the elephant, screamed when we almost touched electrical wires, and said “Namaste” to half of the Jaipurian population. Papu sang songs in the Hindustani way, and it was a little surreal riding on top of Champa, through colorful, smelly, and chaotic Indian streets, listening to Hindustani warbling.
Papu really enjoyed my snippets of Hindi phrases. He enjoyed it so much that he offered us a lunch of chicken (for free!) at his house, and his son’s hand in marriage to me. Yes, I was proposed to in Jaipur, to marry the son of Papu the elephant driver. I said yes. I’ve always wanted an arranged marriage, especially when my dowry is a chicken lunch and an elephant ride that I had to pay 500 rupees for.
After our elephant ride, we went back to the hotel and were quite exhausted. I took a wonderfully long nap on a downy bed (most of the beds here are rock-hard) and then woke up at 5 to get a massage at the spa here at the hotel. Kelly, Bethany and I went to dinner at a restaurant that had good reviews in our guide book. I guess every other Cauc-a-zoid in Jaipur read the same guide book as us because every other Cauc-a-zoid in Jaipur was at the restaurant we were at. We hadn’t seen any Cauc-a-zoids during the day, so it was pretty funny.
On the way to the restaurant, we passed a train track. People were riding on top of the trains, Slumdog Millionaire style.
When we first arrived at the restaurant, there were seven people including us and about eleven waiters standing every few feet. Pretty much everywhere you go in India, this is what the ratio is like. There are always ten times more people working than customers, and the inefficiency of it all is ridiculous. Like when you go shopping, these are the job-descriptions of the employees at the store: security-guard/door-opener, the man who holds your bags while you shop, several “shopping assistants”, which is a nice word for people who stalk you and try and get you to buy things, a cashier-person, a person who carries your receipt and clothes to the folding stand, a folding person. Ridiculous!
Meh Amriqui Hun (I am American!) July 13, 2009
I went through a phase where I used to shun being American, because I was bombarded with stereotypes and negative perceptions of Americans that foreigners and even many Americans constantly hold. But the more I travel, the more patriotic I feel and the more I appreciate my American-ness, despite the stereotypes caused by an idiotic minority of Americans. I think Americans who dismiss their country or constantly point out its faults are sorely naiive of their blessings and privilege and quality of living. Having an American home and family to come to every evening is like having an oasis in the desert, after a day of rigorous and exhausting travel in a country like India that is so backwards and chaotic.
Sadly though, I’m afraid I’m becoming a hardened American in India, as opposed to the soft-hearted and wide-eyed observer I was two weeks ago. The poverty and beggars and chaos and dirt, once prone to draw me to tears, are now common to me, and the emotion that should be associated with the poverty has faded away. I am hardened. The little children I used to melt for, and the mutilated and handicapped, and the young mothers with children–the constant presence of each has caused me to feel annoyed, rather than sympathetic. It has been entirely overwhelming. And if I assist one person, I am descended upon by ten others. Literally. The solution is difficult to find.
I was reminded of the comforts of American-ness when I met with Melissa yesterday, who has already been here for a month. She is one of my closest friends, and is studying at a top-notch Indian school on a program through Brown here in Delhi until December. We gave her a nice dip of comfort last night-Kelly Bethany Melissa and I saw The Proposal at a Delhi movie theater and then came home and made macaroni and cheese. Melissa spent the night, utilized our internet for a few hours, and watched a movie and cuddled with me. It was wonderful.
This morning we walked to a coffee shop in my neighborhood and then I took Melissa home and headed to a posh place called Mocha for a nice two-hour lunch and hookah with Prerna. Prerna, at my request, told me more of young Indian culture and vowed to take Melissa and me out with her. After a hot shower, later in the evening I spent 45 minutes stuck in Delhi traffic in a taxi to go grab Melissa again and finally, around 9:30, we arrived at a market called Basant Lok where we had a really entertaining time at another completely barren posh Indian club. There was blaring techno and dance music, and cool lighting and seating, and then a group of 30 year old Indians who work at a call center in Delhi (cliche? I think so) forced themselves upon us and proceeded to convince us to play truth or dare. I laughed a lot (at them, shh). I am a very culturally sensitive and aware individual, but at some point you have to recognize the differences in backgrounds, cultures, and nationalities, and also recognize the humor when one culture is so absurdly different from another.
I wake up in 3 and 1/2 hours to fly to Jaipur! Elephants, here I come.
Sydney Goes To India 